I think talking about the mental decline of FFOTUS is something we should be doing on a regular basis. Don’t make it political.
- I think the President is off his rocker.
- I don’t know what happened, but he’s just not making sense anymore.
- I’m kind of worried about the President’s mental health, seems like it’s going downhill.
- Did you see the President rambling the other day? It seemed like he didn’t even know where he was.
- I wonder if the strain of the office is getting to him, I heard the president say some crazy stuff yesterday.
Pick one, make up your own, but drop it everywhere you can.
It’s the new “It’s the economy, stupid!”
***
No, wait. It’s Epstein, Epstein, Epstein.
***
No, it’s healthcare, and they are killing people with their evil policies.
***
No, it the breathtaking lawlessness.
We don’t declare war, we just murder people. Like, you know, dead.
How do you decide what to do when you’re experiencing a flood, a hurricane, an earthquake, a tornado, and a tsunami all at once?
One thing we can do is come up with “hit and run” statements for all of the categories listed. Then we can have them at our fingertips to drop, whatever feels most relevant on any given day.
It can be our own little à la carte menu.
We Do More Than Wring Our Hands and Rage at the Madness
bbleh
I think you just run through a litany, but always with a worried expression, kneading your hands etc., because you’re just SO worried about him, and about America!
“I mean, I heard him rambling today, and why he sounds like my dad did when he was … well, almost at the end. And they’re taking away people’s healthcare and I don’t know whether he even knows! And he’s just killing people left and right, with all this bombing! I mean, I’m just very worried about him, and about where the country is going …”
WTFGhost
You prioritize your survival, keeping in mind all the various challenges, assuming you intend to survive. Me, I protect everyone else the best I can.
Any other silly questions?
rivers
Also – and if I cared about him at all, this would be even more heartfelt – where are his children? If one of my parents were talking and behaving in this way, I would be extremely concerned. It’s obvious that he needs help and there are cynical people surrounding him who are taking advantage of his diminished capacities.
Socolofi
Most people don’t care or will be in denial about most issues.
Epstein is the kryptonite.
mrmoshpotato
@rivers:
Busy being grifter shitbags just like their pile of shit rapist dad.
different-church-lady
Laugh.
WaterGirl
@Socolofi: So can you share some examples of “hit and run” lines that we could use about Epstein?
H.E.Wolf
@mrmoshpotato:
Yes! And that’s exactly what we want our listeners to think of.
Bore from within. I’m good at boring. :)
goodmatt
My summary is that this is the point where the parasites are killing the host.
TONYG
That’s a good analogy, but an imperfect one. When natural disasters (floods, hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes) strike you normally do not have half the population OPENLY SUPPORTING the natural disasters.
WaterGirl
@TONYG: I would argue that it’s 1/3 or less, but I take your point.
My point is that each of us who do not support what’s going on have a responsibility to do what we can.
Sowing seeds of doubt is an incredibly low-risk was to resist and influence what’s happening.
I’m suggesting we pool our thinking, which makes it even easier to do if we have a nice little menu of comments already in our virtual pockets.
scav
Ohhhh, I can now see why it was Republican policy to object to putting dementia patients in government housing: all they do is tear it down.
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl: Jeffrey Epstein did not kill himself. -Comedian Steve Hofstetter
Another Scott
I try to think about what’s necessary to do to make the day after better.
The monsters want us distracted. They want us feeling helpless. They want us to roll up in a ball and not use our power.
As OO pointed out a few days ago, people have the power (5:05).
Hang in there, everyone. Eyes on the prizes.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Kelly
Hey the tsunami put out the wildfire so, progress!
Ruckus
@rivers:
I’d bet his kids are just waiting.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
I’d say keep your head down – and laugh.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Apparently Trump is in a fight with Ronald Reagan’s corpse.
youtu.be/Z9OYF6d-7FQ?si=VbY98mKaXnyejqIU
MattF
There’s a concerted effort on the right to sanewash Trump’s random and erratic actions. But because Trump’s behavior really doesn’t make any sense as, e.g., action aimed at some actual goal in the real world— what you get, in fact, is a view of some right-wing propagandist’s preferred outcome, whatever that may be. So, it’s easy to get diverted.
Ruckus
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
That makes about as much sense as anything else going on in that flower pot on his neck.
Jeffg166
Scarlett O’Hara would think about it tomorrow.
rikyrah
New host and theme song for Reading Rainbow 🌈 😄 🌞
tiktok.com/t/ZP8D1r5M1/
Melancholy Jaques
One of our intractable problems is that the things that asshole does that are outrageous, crazy, or just plain stupid make him more popular. Not popular in the sense of well-liked, but in the sense of the star of the only show in town. We keep thinking and hoping that this or that act of madness will finally make a difference, but everybody who rejects him because of the bad things he does is already on our team.
Melancholy Jaques
@MattF:
Not just on the right. Unless we are finally ready to admit that the CNN, WaPo, and FTFNYT are on the right.
Baud
@Melancholy Jaques:
Agree. There’s political opposition to Trump, but there’s not really a cultural alternative to Trumpism.
rikyrah
@MattF:
Truth,but it’s not working
rikyrah
@Melancholy Jaques:
And those who don’t are awful people who would never come to our side anyway
Kyle Rayner
@TONYG: The analogy stands if you think about the people who snort and say it won’t be that bad, swear they can tough it out when it hits bc they’re the only ones who aren’t dainty scaredy cats, and remain to jealously guard their increasingly flooded property from looters. Which it then of course takes rescuers extra funds, time, and good brave people to go into the dangerous situation to pull them out before their stubbornness kills them, spreading their resources thin to help those who’d been trying to do everything right in the first place.
It’s worth saving everyone, but goddamn it would be easier if people took the threats seriously from the get-go instead of taking pride in how well they can thrive in the same conditions that devastate others, namely those they perceive as less determined, rugged, and worthy of living there.
iKropoclast
Come join me way back here in 2002.
Another Scott
Made me look…
Steve Almond at WBUR, from September, 2019:
Should is doing a lot of heavy lifting there, of course. :-(
AS.Cornell.edu (from October 2024):
Some day, the norms and sensible processes of our government and politics will return. We need to do what we can to hasten that day, by voting the monsters out.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
West of the Rockies
@mrmoshpotato:
This.
Kyle Rayner
WaterGirl, I really like where your head’s at even if it’s hard to think of anything right now. Having “insinuation, not accusation” rattle around in my head for a while will probably be useful.
The concern oozing from the articles Another Scott quoted certainly feels effective.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Another Scott: I fear we’ll have to rebuild norms and sensitivities from the ground up, in the same sense that we’ll have to rebuild the East Wing from the ground up, and for the same reason: Trump and the GOP razed them to the ground.
And that assumes that we survive as a nation, which is not really a given at this point.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Indeed.
There were comments about Trump sundowning during his first term. I was noticing Trump looked and talked like death warmed over in his own campaign commercials last October. Very strange so many people refuse to see that Trump’s brain is broken.
West of the Rockies
I think nationally we pound Republicans (and voters) with Epstein, inflation, health care costs, and the vague-ish country going in the wrong direction.
I think such specific things as ballot access and immigration matter to most voters less than they do to us. I’d hit those points, too, but not make them top priority. And stay the hell away from Trans rights and such. YES, those are important issues (I have a Trans kid), but we need to hit voters and Republicans with the issues that will sway voters. IOW, play offense, not defense. YMMV.
iKropoclast
Hard to admit when, not only is it not an obstacle for him communicating their preferred politics effectively, it seems to actually help
ETA: Perhaps a gentler touch focused on the unquestionably true over internet remote diagnostics might have a little more uptake
EATA: Am I the only one who noticed the two obscure elections last year, the D Presidential primary and the Presidential general election, where candidates tried to make the ultimately victorious candidate’s age an issue to no apparent effect?
Well, had an effect for me, tarnished the image I held of Obama, but certainly didn’t sway either election.
Butch
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I’ve read that Trump’s obsession with drug gangs, the Mexican Border sending assassins to kill drug cartel leaders is all from the movie Siccaro.
Except Siccaro, according the writer and director, is about how borders are these no man’s lands were the rules are confused, and in the movie several times character from US military and law enforcement outright state that the get tough, kill them all mentality doesn’t fix it and that the only solution is end the demand for drug. The movie ends, after they killed the Cartel Leader, with its just another day on the US-Mexican border so another drug related murder.
So Trump and his base just remember the shootout. Trump thinks with a broken TV.
chemiclord
Me, personally? I’m preparing my survival bunker as well as I can. I tried warning people who should have fucking known better that a flood, hurricane, earthquake, tornado, and a tsunami were coming. I showed them the weather patterns and images of the building tsunami. I showed them the rubble from when this same storm blew through five years ago.
Too many people said I was exaggerating. Others refused to believe the evidence of their eyes and ears. Others welcomed it gleefully. Still others refused to do anything because the previous weatherman should have done more to warn them or build up storm breakers.
So… fuck ’em. I’m done trying to save them from themselves. Let ’em drown.
Expletive Deleted
Epstein, Qatar, and the more egregious pardons/involvements (Andrew Tate f’rinstance) for the conspiracy-minded. Hit them in the deep state.
Cognitive decline with a sprinkle of “gosh, did you see how expensive insert random thing is now” for most of the rest.
No percentage on “he’s killing people” unless you really know the person you are talking to. For the vast majority I think its an offscreen passive eugenics they secretly approve of there.
jonas
I think his handlers have been encouraging the ballroom boondoggle because it allows an increasingly cognitively-challenged Trump to revert to an earlier, more manageable mental state: real estate huckstering. If you listen to him, his little press gaggles now are just him blabbing on as though he’s promoting the White House as a time share scheme. It’s really fucking weird.
Geminid
If I were targeting conservative Republicans, I would pound the deficit issue. When Congressional Republicans passed that stupid Big Crappy Bill, this was the biggest problem conservatives had with it. Their candidates had promised to reduce the national debt, but this bill increases it almost $2 trillion a year for ten years, and most of that* is due to the tax cuts. I think this could be an issue in Republican primaries next year, and Democrats can make it one in November.
* Democrats can imply that *all* of the deficit is due to the tax cuts and let Republicans explain, “Oh no, only $ l.2 trillion of this year’s deficits come from tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.” This issue might not make Republicans vote for a Democrat but it could make some of them stay home.
Heidi Mom
@Melancholy Jaques: After the swaying-to-music episode that someone has mentioned, there was that time when he mimed performing a blowjob on a microphone. I really thought that was the clincher, that surely that would inspire shock, then outrage. But no . . . .
West of the Rockies
@Butch:
Well said. 😃
West of the Rockies
As his mental health declines, yes, hit the media with that big time.
kalakal
I’m old enough to remember when the RNC convention had a National Debt Clock showing how much US debt increased during the convention. That was in 2012, I’m sure they’ll have one for 2028
Mart
I got fixated on his fixation on a giant water valve in Northern Cal that I first watched him talk about Spring 24. A valve bigger than this room, so big it takes four very large men 24 hours to open. Once opened it would turn central valley green, providing billions to farmers, and we love our farmers don’t we? And the smelly rich people in Beverly Hills would be able to take real showers, not drip, drip, drip showers. But Newscum wouldn’t let us open it because of a tiny little fish, etc. And after elected some idiot got the Army Corp to dump billions of gallons of water into a dry desert lake bed in the winter that was reserved for summer irrigation satisfying the demented fool. Anyway, he spouted all this fucking nonsense while the press was dedicated to explaining how old Biden is.
iKropoclast
I’m young enough to have never lived through a Republican Presidency where the deficit decreased or a Democratic Presidency where it increased.
All the rhetoric I hear, save for on Balloon Juice, suggests the opposite.
Ruviana
I recently fell down a rabbit hole about Wendy Williams who was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. I was struck by how similar her symptoms were to what Trump does. This condition doesn’t appear to have the same degree of memory loss as say Alzheimer’s Syndrome, but vertigo and balance issues are fairly common.
Matt McIrvin
@kalakal: Even then, they were just conveniently forgetting what Reagan had done to the debt.
iKropoclast
@Matt McIrvin: …and Bush, and Bush…
Geminid
@Ruviana: Trump does his press appearances sitting down now.
And his diplomacy. I just saw a picture of him sitting at a table on Air Force One with the Emir of Qatar. This was on a layover at El Udeid air base near Doha, on his way way to the ASEAN summit in Malaysia. Emir al-Thani was on one side and Prime Minister al-Thani was on the other. It’s pretty much an all al-Thani government over there.
Ruckus
@rivers:
It’s obvious that he needs help and there are cynical people surrounding him who are taking advantage of his diminished capacities.
His diminished capacities aren’t a lot worse than his “normal” capacities. Take away the bluster, which aging out can easily do, and there you are, square one. Now those around him, taking any advantage they can, are likely a lot of the issue.
rk
I love how morons have to be treated with kid gloves. Delicate feelings of men (mostly white) and white women. I don’t have it in me. I wish them all the worst. I have nothing to say to Trump supporters and if I met one in the wild, I’ll tell them they’re idiots if they think Trump is sane.
You’re a better person than I am.
brendancalling
For me, it is all about loudly muttering at the grocery store, which has led to fruitful conversations with strangers. With the price of beef going through the fucking roof, this is surprisingly easy.
”WTH? I thought he was bringing DOWN the cost of meat? $20 for 2 pounds of pot roast?”
”it blows my mind he’s giving like $20 billion to Argentina or wherever it is, when a half pound of baloney is a luxury, amirite?”
That kind of stuff. Always blaming Trump, tarrifs, and broken promises. “I thought he said…” is a great sentence starter.
zzcool
I actually thought of a new joke today.
What do you call a POTUS with undiagnosed dementia? A fascist (his current medical condition does not absolve the realities of his previous directives, policies and actions)
It might need a little more work.