He's always said whatever comes into his head and, as he gets more confused, the message gets weirder. His supporters clearly are either not listening, or just don't care. Donald Trump is very confused https://t.co/j4RTzDqbRA — Prof. Peter Doherty (@ProfPCDoherty) January 24, 2024 An excellent essay, which deserves wider circulation, from Dana Milbank at the …
Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: <em>‘Donald Trump is very confused’</em>Post + Comments (120)
It’s perhaps easy to lose all this in the grotesque carnival that is a Trump rally…
There are the gratuitous, extravagant lies. There were but 4,500 souls in the arena, which has a maximum capacity of 12,000, but Trump told them they “set every record” for attendance. Turnout in the Iowa Republican caucuses was only 15 percent, the lowest in years, but one lawmaker Trump called onstage announced that Iowa just voted in “record numbers.” Trump falsely complained that the state’s anti-Trump Republican governor, Chris Sununu, “allows Democrats to vote in the Republican primary” to help Haley; state law has long allowed independents (not Democrats) to vote in either primary.
There are the barely veiled appeals to white nationalism. A video played on the big screen before Trump takes the stage had the tagline: “Make America Great For Us Again.” Of his political opponents, Trump told the crowd: “This nation does not belong to them. This nation belongs to you. This is your home. This is your heritage.”
Above all there was his apocalyptic description of America, now recited over orchestral music. Trump told his followers: “We are a failing nation. We are a nation that has the highest inflation in 50 years, where banks are collapsing. … We are a Third World nation. … Fake news is all you get, and they are indeed the enemy of the people. … We are a nation that, in many ways has become a joke. … We are a nation whose economy is collapsing into a cesspool of ruin, whose supply chain is broken, whose stores are not stocked.”…
And then Milbank has a snarky section on my favorite primary chewtoy, Dean Phillips. Followed by:
… Sununu, New Hampshire’s governor, has been going everywhere with Haley to drum up support. “This is great!” he screamed as he took the stage in Exeter, N.H., Sunday night, a few hours after DeSantis dropped out. “A little while ago there were 13 candidates in the race and now there are only two.” This, Sununu said, was because “Nikki Haley came along and wiped them all out.”
That’s one hypothesis. Another, with rather more evidence, is that Trump wiped them all out and Haley is the last one still holding on, by a thread…
If I squinted my eyes just right in the Exeter auditorium, I could almost see it working for Haley. There was a bank of 20 TV and video cameras on tripods, 20 more still cameras in front of the stage and a loud, passionate group of Haley supporters. But it wasn’t clear that many of them were Republicans.
When Judge Judy, introducing Haley, made a disapproving reference to Trump, a guy in the crowd shouted: “Put Trump in prison!” When Haley made her usual comment about Biden’s declining faculties, the crowd reacted with a displeased “oooh.” When she said that it’s not reasonable to have only electric cars by 2033, somebody shouted: “Why not?” Her usual line that “we won’t survive” four more years of Trump’s chaos brought huge applause.
Haley, reading the room, skipped her usual complaint about trans athletes…
Worth reading the whole article!