Top notch political science
No.
One, no, because Trump is evil, transparently evil, so no we’re not going to be extra special nice to the fans of an evil sadist 5 minutes after he lost the election. (Also ever.)
But two, no we do not feel the same. This isn’t just about losing and winning, this is about voting for an evil sadist and not doing that. The feelings on losing are not the same.
I don’t recall having a Trump voter empathize with me after I voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 after she lost. Quite the opposite, actually.
Reach out and empathize? Nah, point and laugh.
J.A.,
What are you talking about? “FUCK YOUR FEELINGS” counts as reaching out, doesn’t it?
Well, Trump supporters… Fuck Your Feelings!
Bremmer’s right. I feel better now.
How gracious do you suppose Trump supporters would be toward us if they had prevailed? Not very! Steve Bannon and his beheading fantasy comes to mind.
It’s just like, feminists are always told to make nice to men. Atheists are always supposed to make nice to the religious. G, L & B are expected to embrace T. I suppose that’s because the former are simply assumed to be nice.
No. We got rid of Trump despite his cutlish appeal to Americans’ worst impulses, and gerrymandering, voter suppression, and an unrelenting blizzard of lies. The lines have been drawn for a long time. They have to earn my trust and respect. They have a long way to go.
Sorry, but it’s
Four more years …
Four more years of Trump’s Nazi Rallies
Four more years of emboldened deplorables
Four more years of attacks on POC
Four more years of armed thugs playing war
The only way you can avoid this is by applying Rule 303.
I do like the idea of this in theory.
In practice, I tried doing this with a Trump supporter friend of mine, but only after I was done taunting him. Then I later thought of some new good taunts and couldn’t resist. Oh well.
Hey, everybody, we did it! Yay!
I don’t know. I think if this was done with just the right air of condescension and courtesy — a delicate balance of first grade teacher, Christian proselytizer, and group therapy leader (with perhaps a slight whiff of Hannibal Lector talking to Clarice) — it could be more effective than the more obvious but cruder methods of dealing properly with the vanquished Republican.
Congratulations, America!
I am not American, have lived in Japan for 48 years, and have never visited the US, but the relief I feel is immense.
Now for de Pfeffel.
I don’t know whether anyone seen’s this:
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=ced2d79d47&attid=0.1&permmsgid=msg-f:1682728826088583772&th=175a40f3ac51f25c&view=att&disp=safe
I have frequently seen 404 errors.
@Roj Blake #5
I worried about that, too, that DJT would spend the next 4 years continuously on campaign, that he would announce his candidacy for President as soon as he possibly could, and that the Biden first term would be effectively under siege the entire time, and that Biden would have his attention divided by a relentless media onslaught caused by DJT’s shit-stirring. However, I think that may not happen. DJT’s bank will call its loans, DJT has proven himself toxic even to reactionary zealots, and his finances will finally crumble for good. His properties are money losers. Even if he sells everything, it won’t be enough to pay what he owes, finance a campaign, pay all his legal fees, and support his greedy lifestyle for much longer. The Trump brand will have lost considerable value, if not become an actual liability. His chickens are going to come home to roost. He treats bankruptcy like a day at the park. But when he goes bankrupt for the 7th time, he will be well and truly bankrupt. His time is going to be spent defending multiple lawsuits, and scrambling for money.
Sastra – hahahaha good plan.
maddog @ 10 – I saw something the other day (I forget where so don’t know how reliable) that said Deutsche Bank is going to demand repayment and seize his properties if he can’t oblige. I’m looking forward to that.
This is only plausibly effective with a group that is capable of empathy. I prefer Screechy’s approach with most of them, and maaaayyyybe trying to reason with a small number of his more reluctant supporters, many of whom are the victim of a closed system of information.
Here’s a video of deluded fools I found yesterday, some of whom might be able to be reasoned with, if they can be led to actual information.
Speaking of empathy for them:
Holy do-as-we-say-not-as-we-do, Batman! And everybody needs to? Yeah, right-ho, Rick, I don’t think that you or any other Trump fan is in a position to tell anybody what they need to do.
On the other hand, I’d say that Mr. Sanatorium and every other Trump-enabling fuckwit need to take a good, long look at themselves, then take a longer look at the mess they’ve helped create and once they’ve processed exactly what they’ve done to the country they profess to love, they can give themselves a good, hard punch to the head. Finally, if they feel like atoning just a little for their fuckwittery they can start by thinking about how they can best help heal the nation.
Until that happens, they can shut the fuck up and stop playing the victims.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/trump-lose-election-2020-rick-santorum-b1647564.html
Rick “Frothy Mix” Santorum thinks people should tone down their rhetoric, does he? Let’s just remember that Dan Savage gave santorum its new definition in response to the then-senator comparing gay sex to bestiality.
But sure, let’s all be nice now.
My guess is that, post-Presidency, Trump pulls a Sarah Palin: spends a couple of years teasing a presidential run in order to make money that he needs to pay down his bills. My guess is that his creditors give him time to do it, though I’d love to be wrong.
But, surely, DT cannot just declare his candidacy after losing this election and go for it, can he? He would need the pretty well unqualified support of the Republican Party as an institution (i.e. not just supporters) to do this, wouldn’t he? I cannot see this happening. I should have thought that support for him in the Republican Party is pretty qualified now.
Tim,
He can declare whatever he likes. The Republican Party “as an institution” doesn’t get any say in it. Any more than they did in 2015-16. You don’t need permission from the RNC to declare yourself a candidate and especially not to just hint and tease at the possibility.
As to his support within the party, we’ll see. Most of the rats haven’t deserted the ship yet. But that’s in large part because many of them have hopes of getting Trump’s blessing for their own 2024 candidacy.
I was just listening to the crowd where Biden is going to be speaking – well, actually listening to the commentators – and I thought one of them was talking nonsense for sure (there were others talking some nonsense, but this one? Acting as if the Republicans are willing to compromise, and have compromised with presidents in the recent past – not for the past 30 years have I seen Republicans view compromise as anything other than “you give me what I want, and I won’t shut down the government). When I looked up to see who it was? Rick Santorum.
And someone – maybe Santorum, but I think it might have been Wolf Blitzer or Anderson Cooper – saying that the Dems finally had a president that wasn’t elite, “of the manor born”. The hell what? Bill Clinton – Hope, Arkansas – single mother, tough times, very tough. Barack Obama – average middle class, single mother, dad gone, raised by his grandmother. They were not “of the manor born”.
On the other hand, Donald J. Trump was very much “of the manor born”. He only sounds like a man of the people because he is so vulgar and because he perceives class as covering everything with gold (faux gold) plating. George W. Bush? Of the manor born. Prep school. Daddy kept him out of Vietnam. Daddy’s friends bailed him out whenever he got in a jam.
Yeah, the Dems are not putting up the elites, the Republicans are. The thing is, yes, Obama had an Ivy League education. So did Clinton. But they worked for that, they weren’t handed it on a silver spoon in spite of being a dullard. They were the dimwitted spawn of men rich enough to buy their kids a degree, to keep them out of combat, and to buy them businesses – at which they both failed, I might add.
I am so fucking sick of this goddamned “elite” because “can say words of four syllable” shit. Elite is born on third base and everybody stands back while you amble to home, not even daring to try to tag you out. And that is what the Republican party stands for these days – and the rank and file eat it up, and think they are one of them, because they are barely literate and have no complicated policies. Want oil? Go take it. Want land? Go take it. And so forth.
Fun fact. By talking about “of the manor born” CNN got the stock phrase wrong not in one way but in two. It’s actually “to the manner born.” It’s from Hamlet – “to my mind, though I am native here, and to the manner born, it is a custom more honoured in the breach than the observance.”
Thank you BKiSA for that LOL moment :D
There were hundreds of officially declared candidates for president in this election, as in “filed the appropriate paperwork and fees with the FEC”. The parties, the states, and the media don’t need to pay attention to any of them unless they gain sufficient support or notoriety.
Trump filed for re-election the day of his inauguration. I wouldn’t put it past him to file for 2024 within a few months. It doesn’t take much to do so.
The two main American political parties have very little say in who carries their banner in various elections; I have recently formed the opinion that this is a problem rather than a benefit. It’s particularly obvious in the presidential race, but it’s true lots of other races, too.
Ophelia, #19: I’m so pleased that somebody else knows that fact.
The title of the very English, late 1970s-early 1980s sit-com To The Manor Born was a play on Shakespeare’s words to give the premise of the show (a wealthy man dies leaving his widow to deal with his huge debts. She is forced to sell the manor house that her family had owned for centuries and in which she had indeed been born, moving herself into the small lodge on the estate while remaining ever-hopeful of regaining possession of the big house) and people have mis-used the expression ever since.
Lock him up!!! :D
@Sackbut #21
One of the many brain-frazzling parts of American politics to foreigners, that any dude can end up running for President, rather than the Leader of the Opposition, who has been engaged in politics for 20 years.
I think this audience will grasp this song. During the war, it was feared the public wouldn’t grasp the irony.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naiLTLH5lj8
AoS @ 22 – oh I think the manner/manor confusion long predates that show – I think the show title was playing on the confusion, not punning for the first time ever.
(OT: I liked that show a lot, by the way – especially watching Penelope Keith go from the wannabe-posh social climbing suburbanite Margo Ledbetter to the already-posh social descending wossername.)
While on the subject of idioms, I think people get born with a silver spoon in their mouth, and later on they get handed things on a silver platter. (The obvious difficulties in giving birth to a baby with a silver spoon in its mouth notwithstanding. The silver platter is easier to understand.)
I think it might be wise to hold off on the mirth-making and derision. In fact I think it best is the election wasn’t officially called until the last vote in the last state is counted, registered and the state makes the official declaration. This isn’t because I don’t think Biden won. He did and deserved to.
My point her is that there were seventy-five days, if I counted right, left in the Trump presidency on November third. If we wait for the last state, Tuesday, we are down to seventy.
I feel no need to wave a red flag for a cheap thrill now. I want Trump and company to remain calm for as many days as possible. Right up until after Biden is sworn in. Then … I show them my ass in the rudest manner possible.
I want the GOP to be able to entertain the illusion of civility right up to the last second. I want the condemned to think the pardon is coming as they wank him up the steps and put the rope on. I want to maintain that illusion until the trap door opens and he feels the rope cinch tight.
I want this to save wear and tear on the furniture. To limit violence. Remember that Trump, until January 20, is still POTUS and he has the full and completely unfettered use of the police, military, and nuclear weapons until then.
Far better to control our glee and keep out celebrations, and ridicule muted until January 20.
Art:
You really think that one off the wrist would be his last request? I mean, it’s not without the realms of possibility that he’d make the request, Trump being Trump and all, but I’m sure there are limits as to what may be granted.
Twas an innocent typing error I tell you. Honest.
It has to be the most hilarious typo I’ve ever seen.