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You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Excellent Link: ‘Donald Trump Was Never Going to Change’

Excellent Link: ‘Donald Trump Was Never Going to Change’

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Alexandra Petri remains a national treasure. A Washington Post gift link:

… We were told to expect a unifying, chastened Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention. It seemed just barely possible, especially if you had just emerged from a coconut tree, unburdened by what has been. And for about 20 minutes Thursday night, accepting the Republican nomination (Is “Republican” the correct name still, after the total transformation the party has undergone in his image?), he delivered a very different speech than he ever does, recounting his assassination attempt in Butler, Pa.

Then for the next 70-odd minutes — making this the longest acceptance remarks on record, I believe — he gave the exact speech he always gives. It was as full as ever of hatred toward immigrants, contradictory pronouncements about the state of the economy, accusations of stealing the election, complaints about witch hunts, and misplaced nostalgia for an era I could have sworn was just four years ago and not a newly unearthed Golden Age of Mankind. It mentioned “the late, great Hannibal Lecter.” If this was indeed a new Trump, he was the same as the old Trump. It was like watching a New Year’s resolution unravel in real time.

Suppose for a moment that it really was going to be different. Sometimes after a particularly sobering moment, you can decide to become a new person. Change is possible. With effort, you can become someone else, with new thoughts and a new point of view.

But generally, if you decide to do that, the thing to do is to go somewhere no one knows you. If you are Donald Trump, say, and you want to become someone different — someone chastened and unifying — a bad place to start would be the Republican National Convention, amid all the people waving “MASS DEPORTATION NOW” signs.

The atmosphere is all wrong for it. Here are people wearing your face on their pants, who have dressed their babies like you, who have bandaged their ears in solidarity, who are hanging on your every word. You are being introduced by Hulk Hogan and Kid Rock. Everyone worships the water you walk on, and each evening begins with a video of a spotlight shooting your name into the night sky. Here, you aren’t just God’s chosen; you’re also Batman. Here, why would you want to be anyone other than Trump?

No, there was never a chance of anything different. But you would think we might stop believing there was.

Excellent Link: <em> 'Donald Trump Was Never Going to Change'</em>

Reader Interactions

205Comments

  4. 4.

    trollhattan

    You know who else gave long speeches.

    Go there? Fuck yeah, well, not going I’ve already arrived at the station to board my cattle car.

    These people have lost the thread on what it means to be human beings. I’ll “pivot to the center” after they agree oxygen is necessary for life.

  5. 5.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    Since I feel like Jaime Harrison’s Tweet is giving me permission to talk about this, I’ve been thinking today about Theodore Roosevelt.

    In 1912 Roosevelt won the majority of votes in primaries, nearly double those of incumbent President Taft.  The Republicans chose Taft anyway. We wound up with Woodrow Wilson and the Republicans haven’t been quite right since.

  6. 6.

    SiubhanDuinne

    David Frum (yeah, I know) in The (YEAH, I KNOW!) Atlantic. He captures perfectly TCFFG’s intonation, especially the “I was shot and almost died” bit.

    At the climax of the Republican National Convention last night, former President Donald Trump’s nomination-acceptance speech was a disheveled mess, endless and boring. He spoke for 93 minutes, the longest such speech on record. The runner-up was another Trump speech, in 2016, but that earlier effort had a certain sinister energy to it. This one limped from dull to duller.

    Somebody seems to have instructed Trump that he was supposed to have been spiritually transformed by the attempt on his life, so he delivered the opening segment of his address in a dreary monotone, the Trump version of pious solemnity. After that prologue, the speech meandered along bizarre byways to pointless destinations. A few minutes before midnight eastern time, Trump pronounced a heavy “to conclude”—and then kept going for another nine minutes. Perhaps it was the disorienting aftereffect of shock, perhaps the numbing side effect of painkillers.

  8. 8.

    E

    Don’t let the media bum you out. I canvassed 50 doors today and these are dem-leaning addresses but they were fired up! They really were, they had done their research and were ready to vote, across color and class lines. It was like they were all readers of this blog. Looking at the cnn.com framing of this story over the past few weeks has really been an eye opener for me, how malevolent an actor they are. We have to win decisively and fix this fucker before they get us all killed. But that kind of success is in reach if we would just have the sense to take it.

  9. 9.

    Ken

    @SiubhanDuinne:  he delivered the opening segment of his address in a dreary monotone, the Trump version of pious solemnity

    Also a sign that he really doesn’t want to say this, but someone is making him do it, and his oppositional defiance disorder is working overtime. The same thing happened when he had to announce that COVID was actually a problem.

  10. 10.

    opiejeanne

    I saw someone on Twitter trying to claim that there were only a couple of mass deportation signs and they were printed by rogue conventioneers.

    That bandage that Trump has taped to his head would have been more effective if there was just a little bit of blood on it, as if there was a really nasty wound under it.

  11. 11.

    Ksmiami

    Trump will literally bankrupt our nation. I was talking to another friend in finance and with the Chevron decision and Trump all in on crypto, I expect many Americans to be completely scammed and destitute.

    this is where Republican politics always ends up.

  12. 12.

    Eolirin

    @Ksmiami: Deporting 10 million brown people will *completely* collapse the entire economy

    Ten covids worth of reduction to the labor force.

  13. 13.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Ken:

    Or when he talks about abortion and intones “those beautiful precious little babies.” Funny, I didn’t hear that tone about the babies he separated from their parents.

  14. 14.

    Jay

    friday: united uniter unitingly calls for unity
    here’s a fun fact about political speeches: advance copies are handed out to the press, and a lot of lazy reporters write their stories based on the printed text, rather than the actual speech as it’s given. 99% of the time, that’s not a problem, as most politicians rarely divert from the prepared text.

    if the speaker is Donny Convict, however, all bets are off. any reporter foolish enough to file their story based on the advance text — instead of the actual, mostly-improvised incoherent shit-show that Donny gave — ended up looking like a stupid fucking idiot on Friday morning.

    Lots of receipts brought in the form of photo’s of all the FTMSM that fell for the” bait and switch”.

    https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/this-week-in-stupid-july-20-edition

  19. 19.

    Honus

    “I’m going to say this as clearly as I can… if you are a Democratic Party elected official, pundit, etc focus your time (especially TV time) talking about how disastrous Trump, Vance, your opponent (if you have one), and Trump’s Project 2025 will be to the nation. Full stop.“

    And maybe also talk about Biden achieving record low unemployment, massive infrastructure work, wage increases, a 40,000 DOW…

  22. 22.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Eolirin: They’re journalists. It isn’t their job to investigate, get a hold of firm facts, or provide appropriate context.

    It is their job to be invited to all the best Washington DC parties.

  25. 25.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Dr. Feelgood sez that TCFFG/PAB has a 2cm wound on his right ear.

    Consider the credibility of the source and down an entire container of Morton’s.

  29. 29.

    Honus

    @opiejeanne: so the mass deportation is just rogue conventioneers and Donald saying he will immediately do it is just rhetoric.  Actually he will enact sensible immigration policies as president despite what he says in every speech?

  31. 31.

    Anne Laurie

    @opiejeanne: That bandage that Trump has taped to his head would have been more effective if there was just a little bit of blood on it, as if there was a really nasty wound under it.

    Yeah, but TFG is grossed out by blood — I doubt he could even bear the idea of having fake blood on a bandage plastered next to his precious head-coif.

    (Probably just as well, since if he wasn’t so phobic, I can see him marketing bits of fake-blood-soaked gauze to his cultists, as if they were holy relics.)

  34. 34.

    Mike in NC

    Fat Bastard must qualify for the ‘Top Ten Worst People Who Ever Lived’ contest.

  36. 36.

    Eyeroller

    @Villago Delenda Est: He did a rally in Michigan with no bandage at all and a completely intact ear.

    I know there are commenters here who know a lot more about rifle bullets than I do, but if he’d had a direct hit he wouldn’t have an ear, and if he’d even been grazed the skin would have been shredded and his eardrum probably ruptured.

    Nobody is denying it was an assassination attempt, just that he’s hyping his injuries.  Some cops standing nearby were also hit by some kind of shrapnel.

  37. 37.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Mike in NC: Hmm…maybe. But I can think of a couple worse contemporaries so that’s a tough call.

    Putin, McConnell…

  38. 38.

    Eolirin

    @opiejeanne: Waiting for the breathless media questioning about what this says about his mental capabilities.

    …

    …

    What’s that? No one cares? Huh.

  40. 40.

    Honus

    @Eyeroller: if a 5.56 bullet at 3200 fps had gotten anywhere close to his ear, it would had shredded it and there’s no way he would have jumped up and shook his fist.  He would have been dazed, if not unconscious.

    He got hit by a splinter or shard of plastic from his teleprompter

  41. 41.

    Jay

    @Anne Laurie:

    Think how many cultists, and how much they would have paid for a certified “relic” from their Messiah’s assassination  presence at just another mass shooting event, with “real” blood.

    It would make the “spear that pierced” Jesus market in the Middle East collapse.

    And you know, because you are supposed to change the bandage regularly, there would be much more than just 1.

  42. 42.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Eyeroller: The whole thing about the 5.56mm round as fired from an AR-15 or its many variants (I trained on the M16A1, myself) is that upon hitting flesh, it’s supposed to tumble.  Which means ghastly wounds, ask any ER doctor.

  43. 43.

    UncleEbeneezer

    This would also work:

    I’m going to say this as clearly as I can… if you are a Democratic Party elected official, pundit, etc focus your time (especially TV time) talking about how disastrous Trump, Vance, your opponent (if you have one), and Trump’s Project 2025 will be to the nation. Full stop. If you are not then you definitely aren’t helping! #CourseCorrect

  45. 45.

    Chet Murthy

    @Honus: it is a symptom of how infrequently people see the aftermath of bullets from AR-15s hitting humans, that people don’t recognize the the evident truth of what you just wrote.  I’ve seen a couple of pictures of people hit in the head with bullets from AR-15s,  I’m never going to unsee them.  It was that horrific.

    It is precisely as you wrote: there’s no way he would have gotten off so easily if it had been a bullet.

  46. 46.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Jay:

    Most of the items Tiedrich featured in that Substack are clips I had seen sometime during the week. But there were 1-1/2 new-to-me things:

    The half a new thing was the side-by-side of Matt Gaetz. Of course I’d seen the strange Botox photo many times, but not the one taken only the day before. Utterly jawdropping.

    And I never thought I’d find myself feeling sorry for Tiffany Trump, but I almost kind of do a little bit after seeing her trying to greet her daddy with a smile and a kiss and he just stares right past her. Is no one in that accursed family able to love like a normal human person?

  47. 47.

    waspuppet

    It still really annoys me that the Post says Petri offers “a lighter take” on the news. Like, do you even read what she writes? Do you understand it at all?

  48. 48.

    opiejeanne

    Ya know, 2cm is about 3/4″, for people still using inches*.  That’s a pretty big cut and probably would have required stitches.

     

    *Like me some days, because a lot of sewing instructions come in inches.

  53. 53.

    Starfish

    @Honus: Despite his history of the Muslim travel ban stranding passengers midflght, making it harder for international students, etc.

    Despite his family separation policies ripping children out of the arms of their families and putting them up for adoption.

    It’s not like he has never been President before.

  55. 55.

    different-church-lady

    f you are a Democratic Party elected official, pundit, etc focus your time (especially TV time) talking about how disastrous Trump, Vance, your opponent (if you have one), and Trump’s Project 2025 will be to the nation.

    And the reason you do this is… (wait for it…) BECAUSE IT WILL HELP, WHETHER BIDEN OR SOME OTHER PERSON IS THE NOMINEE, AND IF YOU ARE ANYTHING BUT A FUCKING IDIOT YOU WILL FIGURE THIS OUT RIGHT QUICK.

  56. 56.

    Ishiyama

    I checked out the Rude Pundit. He says “suck it up”; Joe as the candidate is less than ideal (in his mind), but Joe & Kamala is the ticket to promote. Joe can’t be forced out without destroying the Party.

  58. 58.

    different-church-lady

    @Ishiyama: ​You promote Joe/Kamala right up until the moment it isn’t Joe/Kamala AND IF YOU ARE ANYTHING BUT A FUCKING IDIOT YOU WILL FIGURE THIS OUT RIGHT QUICK.

  64. 64.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @waspuppet: Humor, however dark, apparently makes the discussion light?

    Maybe the people in our news services are as stupid as they think we are.

  65. 65.

    Citizen Alan

    @zhena gogolia: Kurt jurgens’ Stromberg character would make a better president than trump, assuming he were an american citizen. He wanted to commit genocide, but at least he was motivated by environmental concerns. Jonathan price’s character as I recall was basically just rupert murdoch.

  67. 67.

    different-church-lady

    @SiubhanDuinne: If I’m J.D. Vance I’m looking at the room and I’m thinking, “Holy shit, these chowerfucks will believe anything we tell them to believe!”

  70. 70.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Eolirin:

    Any speculation, wherever it leads, ends up inevitably at the Great Gate of Don’t Ever Again Let This Man Within Fifty Miles of the White House.

  71. 71.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The gift link to the WaPo is tied to a mandatory subscription sign up that “you can cancel at any time.”

    Bezos, fuck off and die.

  79. 79.

    different-church-lady

    @Eyeroller:

    but if he’d had a direct hit he wouldn’t have an ear,

    The bullet could have gone in one ear and out the other without any damage whatsoever.

  81. 81.

    Ken

    @different-church-lady: If I’m J.D. Vance I’m looking at the room and I’m thinking, “Holy shit, these chowerfucks will believe anything we tell them to believe!”

    Was this him speaking to the Republican convention, or to a room full of political reporters —

    You know, never mind, it works either way.

  82. 82.

    different-church-lady

    @Ishiyama: No, on the contrary, amplifying: “…if ONE is anything but a fucking idiot…” let’s say. Sorry for any misunderstanding.

  83. 83.

    different-church-lady

    @Ken: ​I’m talking about DEMOCRATS.

    “Your candidate is senile!”

    [Biden struggles with a cold at the debate]

    “Holy shit, our candidate IS senile!”

  85. 85.

    Jackie

    @Anne Laurie:

    Probably just as well, since if he wasn’t so phobic, I can see him marketing bits of fake-blood-soaked gauze to his cultists, as if they were holy relics.

    He’s pushing a new version of his fake gold sneakers with “The Photo at the Rally” with bloodied ear/cheek for $299.

    Google it; I refuse to link.

  86. 86.

    Chet Murthy

    @different-church-lady: I haven’t read the Rude Pundit post to which Ishiyama alludes, but from thee ones I’ve read over the years, I’d bet he was pretty damn salty, and pretty committed to Joe/Kamala.  He’s not one for turning usually.

  87. 87.

    Ishiyama

    @different-church-lady: Okay. Anyway, this whole situation with trying to dump Joe reminds me of the beginning of Heinlein’s novel I Will Fear No Evil. His kids try to force him out of the business, but he has control of the stock. Joe has the votes in his pocket, for better or worse. They can howl as much as they like.

  88. 88.

    RevRick

    @trollhattan: Since my parents both were serving in the American Embassy in Berlin in January 1939, I would assume they were quite familiar with the speech. After all, my mom told me she heard things that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

  89. 89.

    Urza

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: The more history you know, the farther back Republican derangement goes.  Feel free to read up on the early years when Republicans formed out of remnants of the Know Nothings.  Lincoln was an aberration, and maybe not even that, the only thing he was known for was slavery and the Civil War.  Wasn’t much chance for him to show off any other policies.  Republicans have always been pro-business since inception and the crazy strains had roots going back a loooong time.

  94. 94.

    RevRick

    @Eolirin: Especially since they’re concentrated in harvesting crops, meat packing, and construction. (I can attest to the latter reality firsthand, because I saw today an all-Hispanic work crew rehabbing a building that had once housed a business, but had serious structural issues.)

  95. 95.

    Jackie

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    JD Vance is calling on Biden to resign.  Let that sink in…

    He wants MVP Harris to debate TCFG… Vance has already chickened out; he’d rather take his chances on an unknown.

    *Disclaimer: I’m Ridin’ With Biden!

  97. 97.

    SomeRandomGuy

    @Eyeroller: It’s true, but it’s true for a reason that is surprising to most people.

    An AR-15 round is moving so fast, when it hits water, that water is going to form a shock wave (not sure if that’s the correct *technical* term) because water doesn’t compress. Even the ancient Egyptians understood the science we now call “hydraulics.”

    Did you ever hear the story of the “chicken gun”, punchline, “thaw the chicken first”? At the speeds the chicken gun fires a chicken (to test windshields, etc.), thawed vs frozen has no effect. It’s basically a bowling ball, at that velocity. The hardening effect of ice is nothing compared to the incompressibility of water.

    The AR-15 fires a bullet so fast that when it hits something filled with water (like the human body), a lot of the water is going to move as if it was solid, and, that could give him a completely unearned cauliflower ear. His ear might be *there* but it would be a lot of torn, shattered, etc., cartilage, so it could never heal and look like a normal ear (unless reconstructed) – not unlike a cauliflower. Or, yes, it could tear the ear off.

    Which do you think Trump would have been more protective of, his shoe lifts, or his actual ear? Good high school debate question, take a side, and support it.

    I saw one person say that you can get a really nasty burn by a not-exactly-a-graze, but I don’t know the provenance. Still, a burn on the top of the ear would be full thickness, and no longer keep the blood in, but, there wouldn’t be enough heat to cauterize. Everything on the head bleeds a lot, but I recall hearing the ears are actually mini heat sinks, meaning a lot of blood flow, even for the head. I’ll buy that, if I have to, but, as I said, I don’t know if that was just speculation, or an actual expert.

  100. 100.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Urza: Republicans have had several opportunities to move in a constructive direction. Every time an owner class oriented power center shut them down.

    We’re having one of those moments in the Democratic Party.

  101. 101.

    Ohio Mom

    @Ishiyama: Thank you. I am glad to know Rude Pundit’s feet remain firmly on the ground. I’ll have to go visit his site as an antidote to all the nay-sayers.

    All day long it’s hit me again and again, Sherrod Brown said Biden should step down? Sherrod Brown?!!!

    I feel personally betrayed. I trusted him. I believed in him, I thought he was great. I was proud to have supported and voted for him.

    Like all betrayals, it’s deeply unsettling. Is my judgement so off? Who else is about to betray me? What’s the point of trusting anyone?

    Who could be surprised that the media is doing a variation of “Her emails”? But the Democratic leaders doing this, I’m gobsmacked.

  102. 102.

    Ishiyama

    More objective journalism from Teh Guardian:

    The vivid picture of a Covid-sick, abandoned and resentful veteran politician, sitting out the pressure in a Delaware beach house, comes as most senior Democrats, including the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and the current minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, are calling for Biden – at a minimum – to reconsider his position.

    The puke-funnel is in full operation.

  103. 103.

    Chet Murthy

    @Ohio Mom:

    Who could be surprised that the media is doing a variation of “Her emails”? But the Democratic leaders doing this, I’m gobsmacked.

    Well said, well said.  This is the part that has me most dismayed: if we fall apart then the bad guys will win in a walkover.

  105. 105.

    Urza

    @japa21: There’s aberrations in any political party, if 190 years of rarely broken principals holds its not the Lincoln or Teddy that should be used as the defining example.  Its the Hoover and Bush and Nixon.

  107. 107.

    Ohio Mom

    @Urza: Lincoln signed the law that created land grant colleges, that eventually became the states’ university systems. That was a
    big f*cking deal.

  108. 108.

    Urza

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: For the future, because it sure as hell isn’t gonna happen any time soon.  America or its successor needs to find a way to have a strong economy and wealth generation while explicitly denying the ability for wealth to accumulate into the hands of a few.  Not taxes after that fact, flat our prevention in multiple ways.  If the money reaches the few in large enough quantity they will find ways to use it to rewrite the rules, and this has been true for all of human history even before capitalism was a dominant force.

  110. 110.

    Jay

    @SomeRandomGuy:

    Hydrostatic shock is the term for the effect you are talking about and explaining well.

    .556/.223 rounds are designed to “trip” on contact, even minor contact, then rapidly tumble. People have been shot in the front of a leg, and the exit wound has been in the front of the upper  chest. as it travels through the body, of course it’s spinning like a blender blade.

    There is a good chance that if the bullet had even clipped the tip of the upper ear, given the trajectory, the bullet would have tripped, and tumbled into the upper neck or the back of the head.

  111. 111.

    Ohio Mom

    @japa21: Thanks for the memory jog. Lincoln and Karl Marx were very aware of one another; Marx wrote Lincoln a letter or two, he was a fan.

  112. 112.

    Urza

    @Ohio Mom: So was Teddy with national parks.  2 that were decent humans in 190 years of the party existing.  Exclude Eisenhower who could have gone to either party.  And then name a good Republican president without those 3 even before our lifetimes.
    Before FDR’s regulations there was economic crashes on regular cycles at least once a decade, often related to the stock market crashing and companies going under.  Regulation was impossible prior to the Great Depression because of all the money against it.

  113. 113.

    Urza

    @japa21: I don’t disagree entirely, just saying the roots of what came later were there in the 1850s at the formation if you read up on the history.

  114. 114.

    Martin

    @SomeRandomGuy: I’d note that none of this would apply to a bullet that hit the tip of the ear, finger, etc. If there’s not enough resistive mass to appreciably slow the projectile, it’s going to cut clean through.

    Maybe Trumps ear was cut by the teleprompter glass, but it’s equally plausible the bullet cut through it. Everything you say applies to hitting a mass substantial enough to affect the momentum of the bullet. The tip of the ear isn’t.

    Source: physicist.

    People need to not be so invested in the idea that Trump wasn’t shot. It doesn’t matter. Nobody is sympathetic toward him either way. Stop thinking about it.

  115. 115.

    dirge

    @Chet Murthy: …there’s no way he would have gotten off so easily if it had been a bullet.

    If it just nicked his ear, it wouldn’t matter that it tumbled after contact, and the direct damage might be quite modest.  But then there’s the 3200fps, and consequent hydrostatic shock.  Hard to see how that doesn’t result in, at bare minimum, extremely severe bruising to a large part of the ear, and likely worse.

    If reports are accurate that he’s been seen without a bandage, and without obvious injury, flying debris seems a better fit.  If reports are accurate that the people standing next to him were hit by debris, one might entertain the possibility that the only thing to hit trump was somebody else’s blood.

    That said, I’m not a forensics expert, specializing in terminal ballistics, and strongly suspect nobody else here is either.

  117. 117.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Martin: Nobody is sympathetic toward him either way. Stop thinking about it.

    This exactly, it wasn’t the assassin’s target was something sympathetic, like a sewer rat.

  118. 118.

    opiejeanne

    @dirge: In the video he reacts as if he’s been stung by a wasp, so something did hit his ear. The blood on his face shows up later.

  120. 120.

    w_seattle

    @Martin: No argument on the momentum, but even nicking an ear would likely introduce some instability in the bullet flight. I wonder if anyone has estimated the length scales in the NYT photo sequence to see if the thickness of the streak is consistent with the bullet width (i.e., no tumbling). It doesn’t matter much either way beyond curiosity since we already know he lies anytime about anything.

  122. 122.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Urza: If the money reaches the few in large enough quantity they will find ways to use it to rewrite the rules, and this has been true for all of human history even before capitalism was a dominant force.

    Capitalism, as an economic.model, carries forward one huge aspect of power from feudal monarchy and eons of power struggle before that. Land ownership.

    Someone here suggested I learned about Georgism, essentially where tax derives from the value of land itself, not necessarily property upon it. There are a few good explainers on YouTube to get started. This was a good one, especially for brevity before committing.

    Alaska uses some Georgist ideas, which led toward the oil-supplied dividend people get simply for living there. I’ve been looking for ideas what might be done in Massachusetts but I haven’t figured out where to start looking yet.

    It’s a little obscure to be a point of major activism and I’m not exactly familiar with the academic literature space.

    Some day I will find the right query.

  123. 123.

    Martin

    @dirge: Its hard to bruise an ear. It’s mostly cartilage with a few blood vessels. No tendons, muscle, etc. There’s a reason we punch holes through them in children and don’t consider it torture.

  125. 125.

    Jay

    @Another Scott:

    Bullets don’t “graze” the way you think. Even a glancing contact with human skin leaves a track of missing skin, if all 3 layers have been broken through, most will require stitches or a serious bandage. To show up at an event less than a week later, with no stitches, no bandage, no visible signs of even a minor cut,………..

    keyfabe or a scratch from something when they took him down.

  126. 126.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @opiejeanne: Nobody is sympathetic to him, not even most MAGAts.

    I noticed that in the poll about the shooting posted this morning. Only 13% think it Mushroom Dick’s opponents were responsible. Trump went threw the 27% floor on this one.

  127. 127.

    Jay

    @opiejeanne:

    a supersonic bullet passing even a few feet away from you, carries behind it a supersonic shockwave extending in a cone out about 3 feet, if it’s close enough, you can go deaf in that ear for a few hours just from the sudden change of air pressure.

  128. 128.

    Another Scott

    @Jay: He was wearing a flesh-colored bandage on his ear today.

    Google “trump ear michigan” (without the quotes) and look at the Images.

    HTH.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  130. 130.

    Martin

    @w_seattle: Sure, but you’re talking cosine effect. If the bullet is slowed by 5%, it’ll deflect around 5 degrees. Even if it deflected toward his head, it would likely still miss. You’d need to slow it down a fair bit to get the effect described (which absolutely happens).

    Again, I don’t see why it matters. He got injured in his ear either by bullet or debris. Even if it was debris, the bullet was close. It doesn’t matter in the end. Nobody actually cares because there was no political motive. Someone is shot and killed in the US every 13 minutes, and shot and injured much more frequently. Trump joined a very common club thanks to the GOP. Next time it’ll be some 8th grader. Welcome to America.

  132. 132.

    dirge

    @opiejeanne: something did hit his ear

    Clearly.  It’s just not entirely clear what.  In the footage I’ve seen, I don’t think that side of his face is visible until he gets back up, so hard to say with confidence on that basis.

    I’m not going to push hard on any theory.  I don’t think we can know with what we’ve got.  We’ve got some footage, which almost but doesn’t quite show the moment or a clear injury.  We’ve got Trump’s claim, which is worthless.  We’ve got contemporaneous reports that he was hit by debris, and separate reports that people next to him were.  We’ve got some armchair ballistics experts (myself included) who are having a hard time imagining the .223 impact that produces the effects we see, and only the effects we see.

    None of it is entirely persuasive, so I remain open to a variety of explanations.  Honestly, I think the main reason I remain unconvinced that he was hit by a bullet, is simply because he said so, and I don’t believe him.  Ever.  About anything.

  133. 133.

    w_seattle

    @Martin: I didn’t mean that there would be a deflection to hit a body part other than the ear; rather, I meant that the bullet orientation (stable rotation about its axis) would likely be disrupted by a grazing contact. The streak thickness in the publicized photo looks to be comparable to the bullet diameter (5.5 mm), but that’s obviously hard to estimate with high accuracy. Indeed, it doesn’t matter.

  134. 134.

    MinuteMan

    @E: ​

    But that kind of success is in reach if we would just have the sense to take it.

    I’m starting to thing the GQP is actually scared. The head Magat is pulling his “I know nuthink” act on Project 2025, coming up with an obtuse platform, mumbling about abortion and contraception. Even though politics is far from logical, the GQP program and behavior is odious to a lot of just plain folks. I think with a good campaign we could achieve a Blue Wave to wash the GQP into the ocean at all levels of government.

    The only thing the GQP has going for them right now is lockstep unity with political ruination and death threats for any GQP who breaks with the party’s message; Dem party leaders by and large can’t appear to even spell “unity”. When the campaign gets into high gear after the convention the GQP will start taking critical hits and decline towards collapse. We’ll know the tide has turned when the rats (e.g., Sen Cruz, etc.) start leaving the ship by changing course and putting distance between themselves and the main Magat.

    Whistling past the graveyard? Only time will tell but if the country votes the GQP back in knowing full well what they are then perhaps as a nation we are ready to enter the boneyard of empires.

  135. 135.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    They’re paid handsomely NOT to understand what Petri is writing.

    Maybe who Petri means by the “we” in the closing lines of her op-ed “No, there was never a chance of anything different. But you would think we might stop believing there was” are her bosses.

    Because this “we” was under no such years long delusion that Trump was anything but a cruel, sick fuck.

  136. 136.

    artem1s

    @SomeRandomGuy: ​ 

    Everything on the head bleeds a lot, but I recall hearing the ears are actually mini heat sinks, meaning a lot of blood flow, even for the head.

    I spent several years working as a bench jeweler. You cut and burn yourself a lot, especially on your fingers because you grab something a little too soon or a little too close to the end you were soldering a minute ago. Lots of friction burns from grabbing polishing brushes and Dremel tools too. I was taught, when your fingertips get toasty, to grab your earlobe to help dissipate the heat (Obviously you also head to the nearest sink so you can douse with water). It’s a weird thing but it really works.

  138. 138.

    Honus

    @Jay: exactly.  Even if the bullet never actually touched the ear, the turbulence from its flight would have shredded part of the ear.  That turbulence is what you see in the NYT photo, not the bullet itself.

  139. 139.

    Al

    I thought after the first little bit “The clever fox, now he’s going to wrap it up and leave everyone in tears over his transformation!” And 5 minutes later I realized just how stupid he was and how wrong I was. For punishment I made myself watch the entire thing. NO CHANGE!

  141. 141.

    Chris T.

    @MinuteMan:

    Dem party leaders by and large can’t appear to even spell “unity”.

    I ran “spell Party Unity” by several and got these:

    – try ya input
    – yup, try a tin
    – pin! ay, rutty!
    – ya, I try … punt

    so, yeah, we have a problem…

  142. 142.

    w_seattle

    @Honus: Yes, I hadn’t thought about the turbulence refracting light, but that makes sense. Any thoughts on how the photo would look different if it were the bullet?

  145. 145.

    rikyrah

     

    SlickRockWeb 🇺🇲🇺🇦 (@SlickRockWeb) posted at 9:36 AM on Sat, Jul 20, 2024:

     

    Why is Peter Thiel’s new hire, Nate Silver @NateSilver538 at Polymarket getting more and more desperate and screechy? Now he is ranting about invoking the 25th amendment on President Biden. That’s not partisan wishcasting at all. Its almost as if there are millions dollars riding on the outcome of Biden stepping down. Oh wait …Polymarket is a gambling site that allows you to bet on election outcomes? You don’t say!!

     

    https://t.co/pNGahSYbp0

    (https://x.com/SlickRockWeb/status/1814670687925145962?t=c2cO8cJI_JnMdTrLXQilow&s=03)

  147. 147.

    rikyrah

     

    🎗️🥁 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 Catherine Cat Lady 4 Biden-Harris (@CMargaronis) posted at 10:38 AM on Sat, Jul 20, 2024:

    . @SymoneDSanders said what so many of us are feeling this morning; it’s just treacherous and despicable what some congressional Dems are doing trying to proverbially bury President Biden alive; people he worked with for decades, and many he helped get elected. A whole sermon! https://t.co/eVBiN6d4Do

    (https://x.com/CMargaronis/status/1814686429869711573?t=c9fsBlPxe0zXi4U7DiHpkw&s=03)

  151. 151.

    rikyrah

     

    Fannie Lou Hamer’s America (@FLHAmerica) posted at 2:34 PM on Sat, Jul 20, 2024:

    When asked how she survived daily death threats in her fight for equality, Fannie Lou Hamer said: “I’ll tell you why. I keep a shotgun in every corner of my bedroom. And the first cracker even look like he wants to throw some dynamite on my porch, won’t write his mama again.” https://t.co/85vovCfM83

    (https://x.com/FLHAmerica/status/1814745812607369615?t=8tJMeFewmKNIbzxgYJJaLw&s=03)

  152. 152.

    RandomMonster

    @rikyrah: The more Trump tears down democracy, the safer the oligarchy becomes.

    “We can control Hitler” was actually a thing. JFC

  159. 159.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    I saw something here this AM that has left me wondering about some things. I really don’t know how to approach this but I feel I have to say something. A minority member of our community was called out by another member for using an expression/saying. The complaint was that they had never experienced being in the situation that the saying is about. This is absolutely ludicrous and I was shocked to see the member complaining about it as I thought they were better than that. The member being called out politely apologized for saying what they did and they promised to do better. At this point I was seeing red but I only posted one thing that was about me reconsidering my presence here.

    I watched as another minority member here spoke up for the person being attacked, and I do view what happened as an attack on the person. This was pretty much brushed aside by other commenters, which made me wonder how blind some people are in this community. The person being attacked thanked the person who spoke up for them and they have not posted since this morning. I too would like to thank the member SC for doing the right thing. I wish I could say that for others that were there.

    Personally I wouldn’t blame them for not returning. That’s it, I’m out and I’m not sure I’m returning.

  160. 160.

    rikyrah

     

    Ghost of Shamble Bangs (@Drea_got_banned) posted at 10:04 AM on Sat, Jul 20, 2024:

    The “Donorcrats” is the new faction of the Democratic party. they do not care if they lose. It’s all about rebuilding a party for THEIR billionaire interests. WITHOUT Black or brown people WITHOUT women WITHOUT the LGBT community WITHOUT the poor. FOR tax breaks only. That’s it

    (https://x.com/Drea_got_banned/status/1814677802785837381?t=wwvSGDdOSq2goCZTGpilZg&s=03)

  162. 162.

    ColoradoGuy

    The physics are kind of astonishing. 3200 fps is basically Mach 3 (speed of sound at sea level is 1125 fps). That’s faster than a Concorde, more like an SR-71 at cruise.

    That’s a tremendous amount of kinetic energy. Vaporization is the appropriate description for any organic matter at those speeds, with the shock wave doing the work. If any part of that bullet had struck him, he wouldn’t have an ear left, and would probably be permanently deaf from the shockwave alone.

  163. 163.

    Jay

    @Odie Hugh Manatee:

    @opiejeanne:

    Would either of you be willing to link to the initial comment.

    Since the double TBogg, I have been jumping posts after reading the first hundred comments to see which way the threads are going, so I missed that big time.

  164. 164.

    bjacques

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: I hope you stay also. I live in a very different time zone and have a lot going on in my life, so I mostly play catchup here. If one of those incidents was the “who do you trust in a foxhole” comment,  I saw that exchange as being in good faith between two commenters who then quickly moved on. I think I know the other incident you mention.

    Everyone here is on edge—again—in the face of enemy action, so I won’t blame you for wanting to clock out for awhile. I hope you stick around, though, because you haven’t lost your mind or saddled up a hobbyhorse, and we could use more stability around here.

  166. 166.

    sab

    @Jay: Opiejeanne did the last comment on that thread, carrying it over to 24 hours. Hurrah. Otherwise it was a nasty thread. Grateful to TaMara for keeping it open so it didn’t leach out to other threads.

  168. 168.

    sab

    @RinaX: I have loved that nym ever since I finally figured it out. Took years since I am not the brighest porpoise in the pod

    ETA My husband just used up all my manatee postage stamps! Paying bills!

  169. 169.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @bjacques:

    If you follow the flow in the foxhole comment you will see that it’s someone grousing about the foxhole post and they were not part of the conversation. Are we supposed to check a room first to see if anyone served and was in one before we can safely make the comment about who someone would want in a foxhole? No, and it was unreasonable to expect the same. Should Biden have apologized for the “mistake” of saying that they had to put the bullseye on TFG two days before he was shot? No, but he did as did the person who mentioned the foxhole saying. I’m also pretty sure Biden isn’t a marksman but hey…

    Why did they do that when there was no reason to apologize? Because they are polite people who try not to offend others. The response by the complainant to the apology wasn’t much better. Are military people who have been in a foxhole only allowed to use that saying? Does this apply to all other sayings?

    What happened was wrong and the only reason it was dropped so quickly is because one person was a lot bigger than the other one. The apology was unnecessary but that’s the kind of person they are.

    I’m not going to say any more about it but if you think about who these people are and where they are ‘coming from’, you might get why I found this very offensive.

    Jay, check the morning thread from Anne Laurie, comments in the 160’s range if I remember right. Just search for “foxhole”.

  172. 172.

    raven

    @Jay: Thin Black Dude made a comment about someone being in a foxhole and I said that few people here had ever been in one. He apologized and I said it wasn’t necessary.

  173. 173.

    raven

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: You know what? I’ve read your posts vilifying people who think Biden is toast, something I believe but have really not said much, and I haven’t said shit to you. If what I said bothers  you so much I don’t care if you leave or stay

     

    When he apologize I said

     

    @The Thin Black Duke: Nah, I get it. I’ve tried to stay out of this because I think Joe is shot but that’s just what I think, no amount of arguing is going to change it. I’ll vote for him if he runs, that’s the best I can do.

  174. 174.

    raven

    @raven: Maybe I wasn’t clear enough but “Nah, I get it” in reference to his apology meant “Nah, you don’t have anything to apologize about”.

  175. 175.

    Geminid

    @raven: That’s how I took your comment: as an observation. It got knocked around and over-analyzed as people do here.

    So are you still planning on fishing out of Murrel’s Inlet? I camp some at the nearby state park but I’ve only bought fish st Murrel’s Inlet, never caught any.

  177. 177.

    raven

    @Geminid: Yes, we rented a condo right by the Garden City Pier. I have mobility issues and the elevator appeals to me since most of the rental houses require steps. We have two trip scheduled on the Silver Tuna and it has a chair. I wanted to see if I was going to be able to fish standing up on my May Outer Banks trip but we didn’t even have a hit non a $3000  eleven hour trip.

  178. 178.

    Geminid

    @raven: The Outer Banks are really out there. I’m up near Charlottesville and Murrel’s Inlet as easy to get to as Hatteras because the Banks are so far east and the coastline runs southwest from there. It’s like two chords of the same circle.

  180. 180.

    Raven

    @Geminid: We did two day trips there and back. I went out of Hatteras on a small boat and limited on blues.Not the greatest eating (or freezing) but fun to catch.

  182. 182.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @rikyrah: Oh wait …Polymarket is a gambling site that allows you to bet on election outcomes? You don’t say!!

    ROFL

    And come to think of it, I can easily see the people who bet Biden was stepping down have already spent more on trying to force him out than they will get if they win their bets.

    More addict behavior.

  183. 183.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Looks obvious to me that there are six  parts to this

    1) Doom Porn addicts. Numerous examples of people here of people clutching their Teddy-bears of Despair and not letting go. Curiously, the RNC seems to have gotten them to let go.

    2) Harris Boosters. They saw this as their heroes moment of History, when it came out The Plan was also to forced Harris out too for having a less than pleasing laugh, looks like they dropped it.

    3) Dean Phillip Boosters. I just can’t even…. but Phillips is a billionaire and I am sure most of his friends are billionaires, so not only is this a billionaire circle jerk, they have a lot of money, and most likely the Donors  who’ve been threatening to stop donating.

    4) Republican Refugees. Mushroom Dick purged a lot of GoPers from that party. A lot of the purged are good at politics and the Dems is the only way they can keep doing that.

    5) Actual Republican and Russian ratfucking

    6) Gambling addicts who bet heavily that Joe was going to be forced out.

    And I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a lot of overlap between groups 3, 4 and 6.  All fit “dumb,  entitled, white and rich”

  184. 184.

    Geminid

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Another element would be Democrat-adjacent Lefties who hate the party in its present form and want it to lose. We’ve seen a few of them pop up here: Copperheads crying Crocodile Tears.

  185. 185.

    cmorenc

    @different-church-lady: fundamental principle of politics: “if you are explaining you are losing” – LBJ – about Biden’s performance being just due to a cold.  OTOH, our national press is  deflecting Trump from having to constantly explain himself about his gross mis-behavior and firehose stream of gish gallop lies.

    Biden should do what LBJ did: accuse Trump of having carnal sex with pigs – maybe a complete fabrication but point is pick an accusation that sticks like shit to a shoe.  Or is the problem that the repulsive accusations are true and Trump gets away with a defiant “so what?”

  187. 187.

    cmorenc

    @Raven: yeah, but LBJ had a point about how to effectively smear an opponent to pull out a win from a razor-thin election contest.

  189. 189.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Geminid: good call,  noted and added.

    I’ve seen that before here California with Jerry Brown, he was doing the very things the hard left wanted, and they responded by calling Brown a sell out.

    And, come to think of it, Democrat-adjacent Lefties fits  “dumb, entitled, white and rich”

  190. 190.

    Eyeroller

    @SomeRandomGuy: I did not see this last night and this is probably a very dead thread but anyway…  You have it backwards.  Shock waves only form in compressible fluids.  I have written hydro codes for compressible fluids and one of the standard tests is the “Sod” (a name) shock tube.  Gases are compressible but under normal atmospheric conditions not very much so. However, a rifle bullet travels at supersonic speeds (roughly Mach 3) so a shock follows them.  That’s what you see when you see the “path of the bullet” in a picture–highly compressed and heated gas refracts the light differently.  Also the “whine” of the bullet is basically the sonic boom and the bullet is well past if you hear it.

    What happens to the water in a human body when a bullet hits is that it is rapidly heated and displaced.  The extremely rapid deceleration of the bullet from supersonic to much slower speed dumps a huge amount of energy into a relatively small region. This causes swelling and rupturing of nearby tissues and a lot of bleeding.  Probably other physiological effects as well but I’m a physicist, not a physiologist.

  191. 191.

    SFAW

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: ​
     

    Putin, McConnell…

    Replace McConnell with Rupert Murdoch, I think. Murdoch has managed to destroy, or aid-and-abet the destruction of, functioning democracy in three countries (and counting) — Australia, UK, and here.

  192. 192.

    SFAW

    @cmorenc: ​
     

    Or is the problem that the repulsive accusations are true and Trump gets away with a defiant “so what?”

    No, the problem would be that the MSM reports either that “views differ on human males porking a pig” or “ho hum, we’ve seen accusations like this before with Trump, it’s not as if he murdered someone in front of 50,000 of his followers* ”

    *Of course, were he to do that, they’d ignore THAT as well.

  195. 195.

    Gvg

    @opiejeanne: I didn’t at least that I recognize. We have had a lot of repetitive arguments though so I have been skimming I guess?

    I did see where one of our most argumentative trolls complained of death wishes from others and another regular apologized and said that was never ok. I only noticed that because I toggled the regular, because I had the troll pied. It’s not ok is true, but I use the pie filter a lot. I just don’t see the point in wasting too much of my time and temper. And it does tend to drive off the worst.

    As for calling out others on a problematic phrase, I would not lead the way on that being white and mostly privileged. I find listening to others discussions on those nuances to be enlightening though. If I had seen that, I would have tried to tuck it away for the future but not have said anything.

  196. 196.

    BellyCat

    @Odie Hugh Manatee:  Given that I was adjacent to the issue you’re describing, this was a non-event, as noted above by others, and it was handled easily and well by Raven and TBD (both of whom I greatly respect — and neither are shrinking violets).

    Some may share my POV about your comments of late. Prior to the debate, your contributions here were enjoyable. However, post debate you have been demanding — actually policing would be more accurate — one narrative.

    Thoughtful discussion about the complexity of the forces involved is APPARENTLY to be shut down immediately. You have been utterly intolerant of any question, concern, idea or notion presented which does not rigidly comport with your own, viciously attacking those whom you deem insufficiently committed to beating Trump in the sole fashion you believe possible. Your relentless attacks, replete with name calling, are not helpful. They are divisive.

    FFS…. We all know this election will likely be decided by a small margin of people who STILL have no clue what’s at stake after 8 years of comparing, back to back, the worst President EVER and one of the best Presidents of the past century?!?! This is TERRIFYING and requires the exchange of creative and energetic insights from all about HOW BEST TO WIN.

    Job One for the Dem candidate until Roevember is to WIN. Lets hope Joe can do it. If not, let’s hope Joe gets behind Kamala so she can do it. (Personally, can’t envision success if neither). WE ARE ELECTING A PARTY NOT A PERSON. JOE BUILT A DAMN FINE MACHINE THAT NEEDS TO KEEP HUMMING ANOTHER 4 YEARS.

    I personally believe Joe can, with elan, serve another four years as President. Whether Joe can get *re-elected*? This is unclear.

    Look, we all need to row like hell, together, once the candidate is certified (which can’t happen soon enough). Whether it’s Joe, Kamala, or a ham sandwich, their identity doesn’t matter. What matters is that THEY WIN. The stakes have never been higher in our lives. Beating each other with oars is not rowing, and I hope to row with you.

  197. 197.

    Kathleen

    @Ohio Mom: I feel the same way you do. I spent all day yesterday being honest with myself about this whole situation in the Party but I’m feeling better today. I have some “deep thoughts” and more positive take (LOL) about Nancy Pelosi’s actions but I will not bore the collective.

  200. 200.

    Mo MacArbie

    We love our initialisms here, like “FTFNYT”. May I propose “FLBJ”? ;)

  201. 201.

    Kay

    Balloon Juice Enemies List is going to get a lot longer by the end of today:

    Colorado Governor Jared Polis tells
    @jaketapper
    that he believes President Joe Biden needs to show that he is the best option for the Democratic party.

  202. 202.

    Hamlet of Melnibone

    @Kay:

    The key going forward is to come out of this minimizing the intra-party schisms from it.  I think we are better off sticking with Biden, but I understand that there are good faith people who disagree.  If he is replaced on the ticket, I will think that is a mistake, but I will work very hard to elect the Democratic candidate whoever they are, because I understand the stakes.  Either way, I don’t think we are doomed.  This idea that we know how an election four months away is going to go is silly.

    I’m confident that the good faith people on the other side of this argument will do the same for Biden if he stays in the race.

    I understand that some of the sources for these articles are not acting in good faith, but I see no value in trying to separate those people out and make “enemies lists”.  Fighting with each other is not going to be productive.  In a week or two, we are going to know for sure who our candidate will be, and all people who want to continue living in a democracy will need to rally behind them.

    The bad faith people will be pretty easy to see at that point.  If they are people still sniping at Biden then, they are propagating bad faith arguments.  If they are sniping at the new candidate, they are propagating bad faith arguments.

    Until then, I’m going to ignore the circular firing squad and refrain from making judgements about other Democrats.

  204. 204.

    Captain C

    @raven: I think someone else was objecting strongly to the foxhole reference.  Definitely not you.

    But I’m not going back to search at this point.  Even this thread is probably not going anymore.

  205. 205.

    raven

    @Captain C: I keep coming back here to see if Odie and Jay have anything else to say. There were a couple folks who, unnecessarily, defended me  but don’t recall anyone specifically objecting to the comment. It was really no big deal and I’m surprised at these two guys jumping ugly about it since they have no trouble calling people that don’t agree with them. I swear I had even wrote a couple of posts calling them out and then didn’t. FIDO

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