One thing that we have learned about Donald Trump, both from his last two years on the campaign trail and from the Trump of earlier decades, is that it takes a real Gullibilly to believe anything that comes out of his mouth.
Trump used to say all manner of mainly liberal things on issues such as women's rights and such. That was before he chose to infiltrate the GOP. Then he promised his faithful dupes all manner of radical initiatives including a 2,000 mile wall along the Mexican border, the deportation of 12-million Mexican and Central American illegal immigrants, stealing the oil of the Middle East, "bombing the shit out of" ISIS, prison for abortion, on and on and on. Oh yeah, and jailing Hillary.
Less than a week after losing the vote by a significant margin but nonetheless winning the election, Trump is reneging on all those promises that drew the horde of Gullibillies to his side. He is, we're told, going to kill off the TPP but, aside from that, most of the rest was a rich diet of horseshit he fed to the dupes.
Does that mean Trump has been self-neutralized? Has he cut off his own cojones? Much as I would like to believe that I can't. That's because he's a pathological liar, willing to say whatever suits his personal interests from one day to the next.
So don't be sucked in by the kinder, gentler Trump. This is one guy you can never take at his word.
.. try not to blow a fuse about these two losers.. but it points to what real journalists, bright minds and coherent folks are up against. It also points to what Gullabillies are consuming & voting. These two assholes better hope they don't bump into Henry Rollins..
ReplyDeletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/national/for-the-new-yellow-journalists-opportunity-comes-in-clicks-and-bucks/2016/11/20/d58d036c-adbf-11e6-8b45-f8e493f06fcd_story.html
It's incredible how self deluding people can be, Mound.
ReplyDeleteI worry that whenever Trump does something reasonably sane, the media are going to offer up accolades, thereby normalizing him. t
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing normal about him, Mound, and he is to be scrutinized every step of the way.
The real interesting part is what will happen when some of thr rubes ( probably not all ) realise they were taken by a snake oil salesman. The y will be mad but their viewpoint will not allow admission of a mistake. They will either blame Trump ( not likely ) or THE MEXICANS. God help us all.
ReplyDeleteYou've touched on one of my greatest fears, Rumley, that, if Trump's horde turns on him, his "get out of jail free" card could be to feed them a sacrificial scapegoat. He knows how easy it is to push their buttons - misogynist, racist, xenophobic, any form of bigotry - he can take his pick. This guy never admits failure nor shoulders responsibility when his ventures collapse. Losses are for losers - his naive investors, trusting trade creditors, governments. Not one of his five bankruptcies was his doing, supposedly.
ReplyDeleteI never imagined he would pull the rug out from under the Gullibillies so quickly but he certainly has given them a crash course in lowered expectations. There'll be no wall. Those offshored jobs aren't coming back, not without triggering a run on American sovereign debt. AmeriKa Uber Alles will yield to new regional powers and pacts.
America has been in a gradual decline going back at least as far as Bush/Cheney, some would say Reagan. Obama inherited the 2008 economic disaster and spent much of his time patching holes in the hull, keeping the ship from sinking but it remained listing. One thing America hasn't had for a good long time is freeboard enough for the weight of Trump's narcissism. He'll have to beach it quick or learn to swim and Donald Trump doesn't get wet for anyone.
Now let's have a show of hands of all those in favour of encouraging more qualified candidates for Trump's, or anyone else's, branded one-issue or no-issue halfwit brigade to get involved in the electoral process. We've only scratched the surface. Maybe the two guys in the story linked by salamander can let us know how they make out dollar-wise with the lefties.
ReplyDeleteI hope this comment doesn't come off as elitist.
Thanks for the link, Sal. I have long been convinced that the American public and, to a lesser extent, our own have been groomed, conditioned into a state of powerlessness. Fake news and the corporate media cartel have been instrumental in leaving Americans divided, confused and incapable of discerning their own best interests.
ReplyDeleteI cannot think of a society as riven as that of today's America. They are burdened with suspicion, anger and paranoia; divided along generational, political, ethnic, religious and economic lines among others. This has eroded their social cohesion, facilitating the theft of both their economic and political power. That step, in turn, has created the requisite conditions to permit first political capture and then regulatory capture. Lincoln warned of "a house divided." America's house today is all that and much, much more.
I have never known of a society remotely as politically illiterate as modern America's. They are truly Gullibillies, happily swallowing the diet of rich horseshit shovelled down their throats.
America has long since ceased being a democracy. The Gilens and Page study released by Princeton in 2014 chronicled that. Now that political and regulatory capture have taken hold, liberal democracy has been displaced by a form of illiberal democracy. This paves the way for the next step - the transition to outright oligarchy.
The American people will decide their fate. They will either rise up and cast out the money lenders in the temple, i.e. the neoliberals both Republican and Democrat, to permit a restoration of progressive democracy or they must submit to an era of economic and political feudalism, 21st century style, and acquiesce to the powerlessness of serfdom. Either way they'll be met by state violence.
ReplyDeleteLorne, I left a comment today on a CBC story claiming Trump was backing down on climate change, now promising to approach it with an open mind. I argued the futility of judging Trump by his words. He's a pathological liar. Nothing he says can be taken at face value. Instead he must be judged on his actions. As in yesterday's announcement that his administration will be shuttering NASA's Earth monitoring operations. They will be deliberately blinding the US and the world to the best remote monitoring apparatus there is and all the data that tracks the onset of climate change. That is not an open mind. It's an empty mind.