From what I hear out here in the midwest "just doing stuff" is why his supporters will never let go of the idea he is a president god. "He's getting things done!" is our rallying cry out here, apparently, who cares what they are.
This is why the Founders gave Congress the power of impeachment. Forget the 25th Amendment—it was designed for Presidents too debilitated to fight back.
Impeachment is and always has been the appropriate remedy for Donald Trump. It was meant to rid us of a corrupt president who abuses his office. Trump's not crazy; he's just uninhibited by a party that has given up on holding him remotely accountable. They signaled that the moment they approved his Bizarro Earth cabinet full of the kind of Fox News fever-dream candidates that sent John Boener into an early retirement.
Also, t's worth noting that this is the Cabinet you'd be relying upon to kick the 25th Amendment into gear. A Cabinet chock full of losers so incompetent and ill-suited to their positions that they owe everything to Donald Trump. And they know it. You expect them to axe their own meal ticket? Please.
I am also in the Midwest, and the degree of undeserved love from some people several years ago was unreal. Even for a good president, it would be embarrassing. (I didn't even have an Obama bumper sticker FWIW). The flags, the banners , talking like he's a personal friend. It was like watching a teenager love a great band or a college dude and a great film. It's actually weirdly touching, in it's way.
Except that the kind of uncritical love I had for Pearl Jam is arguably a lot less appealing coming from a 70 year old, directed at a dying wannabe authoritarian.
That's the thing that is genuinely the hardest thing to fathom for me. I do not think I can conceive of having the kind of reverence that they have for Trump for any human on earth. Even putting aside his gargantuan deficiencies as a leader and a person, and ignore how transparently little he could possibly give a shit about them in return, how do they do it? How can you put another person on that much higher of a pedestal than yourself?
I guess this is what authoritarians do: battering institutions that would check their power until they can't fight back, act on completely specious whims with no logic or purpose behind them, and exhaust the public so completely with a blizzard of insane mercurial behavior until they, too, are too tired to put up a fight. I hope we can survive this.
He has a strange fixation on ideas that have been passe for a century, like tariffs and overt imperialism. I want to see what he does with bimetallism next!
Oh come on man. Listen to Scott Bessent and Howard Lutnick, Marco Rubio, JD Vance. It also does not take much brain power to connect the dots with Trump policy combating Chinese communist hegemony. Go back over Trump's campaign promises. Go look at the Trump White House website. If you don't know the goals, it is likely willful ignorance.
I agree about tariffs but not Iran, where I think the state department does have a good coherent plan but Trump is only like 40% clues in on it at best. Given the quality of public discourse I don't think it'd be better to have more of a national discussion over it either way though.
Rate of loss, got it. So the losses flatlined when Trump took office, and have been reducing recently. Not growth, but what you would see before it goes from “shrinking” to “growing” (which may, of course, not happen - time, as they say, will tell).
From what I hear out here in the midwest "just doing stuff" is why his supporters will never let go of the idea he is a president god. "He's getting things done!" is our rallying cry out here, apparently, who cares what they are.
This is why the Founders gave Congress the power of impeachment. Forget the 25th Amendment—it was designed for Presidents too debilitated to fight back.
Impeachment is and always has been the appropriate remedy for Donald Trump. It was meant to rid us of a corrupt president who abuses his office. Trump's not crazy; he's just uninhibited by a party that has given up on holding him remotely accountable. They signaled that the moment they approved his Bizarro Earth cabinet full of the kind of Fox News fever-dream candidates that sent John Boener into an early retirement.
Also, t's worth noting that this is the Cabinet you'd be relying upon to kick the 25th Amendment into gear. A Cabinet chock full of losers so incompetent and ill-suited to their positions that they owe everything to Donald Trump. And they know it. You expect them to axe their own meal ticket? Please.
I never thought I'd miss John Boener but here we are!
He always seemed like a nice guy aside from his terrible political beliefs
It's unfortunately also the cabinet that forms the line of succession in the fantasy scenario of him getting impeached and removed from office.
I am also in the Midwest, and the degree of undeserved love from some people several years ago was unreal. Even for a good president, it would be embarrassing. (I didn't even have an Obama bumper sticker FWIW). The flags, the banners , talking like he's a personal friend. It was like watching a teenager love a great band or a college dude and a great film. It's actually weirdly touching, in it's way.
Except that the kind of uncritical love I had for Pearl Jam is arguably a lot less appealing coming from a 70 year old, directed at a dying wannabe authoritarian.
At least so says me.
I listen sometimes to the KOMO podcast b/c of the Kansas City Chiefs stadium grift and occasionally am exposed to the people who call in.
It's scary bad, the love worship they have for Trump. He can't do anything wrong in their eyes.
Citizens murdered in cold blood by ICE? "Gotta break some eggs to make an omelet LOL."
The other constant theme is
"(Blank) it's Democrats fault."
Insert any noun in the blank.
It's scary. It's like listening to
Pod people.....
Hey, hey, we'll have none of that! You lovers of wordplay think that you're so clever eh? Well it's not clever.
It's fucking P-unatural.
That's the thing that is genuinely the hardest thing to fathom for me. I do not think I can conceive of having the kind of reverence that they have for Trump for any human on earth. Even putting aside his gargantuan deficiencies as a leader and a person, and ignore how transparently little he could possibly give a shit about them in return, how do they do it? How can you put another person on that much higher of a pedestal than yourself?
That's what I liked about Clinton, whether you voted for him or not, we could all agree that he was basically a horny goofball.
I didn't vote for him, but mostly on account of being in the fifth grade at the time.
Nailed it! He just likes to see his name and face in the news. The press could do us all a favor by ignoring Trump for a week. His head would implode.
That would be awesome but then he will start WW3 with
Iran to make us pay attention.
Don't forget the greed. Example: he wants airports named after him AND for the airports to pay him royalties.
How can someone be so laughable AND scary at the same time.....
He will declare success and move on. Recall the birther model.
He can’t tell the difference between talking and lying, and it make it easy to guess how he pivots.
I guess this is what authoritarians do: battering institutions that would check their power until they can't fight back, act on completely specious whims with no logic or purpose behind them, and exhaust the public so completely with a blizzard of insane mercurial behavior until they, too, are too tired to put up a fight. I hope we can survive this.
But he is defending the Christians and doing God's work. You know, the God of the Old Testament type of work.
I was hoping you'd dunk on Bret Stephens for feeling compelled to make The Case when the regime can't even be bothered.
He has a strange fixation on ideas that have been passe for a century, like tariffs and overt imperialism. I want to see what he does with bimetallism next!
This was very good. Nihilistic as all hell but it was very good.
Trump is measuring his Presidential accomplishments by looking at his bank statements
Oh come on man. Listen to Scott Bessent and Howard Lutnick, Marco Rubio, JD Vance. It also does not take much brain power to connect the dots with Trump policy combating Chinese communist hegemony. Go back over Trump's campaign promises. Go look at the Trump White House website. If you don't know the goals, it is likely willful ignorance.
I agree about tariffs but not Iran, where I think the state department does have a good coherent plan but Trump is only like 40% clues in on it at best. Given the quality of public discourse I don't think it'd be better to have more of a national discussion over it either way though.
If you don't know what you want you won't want what you get.
“And results aren’t backing the theory that tariffs will bring back manufacturing:”
I dunno. That chart seems to show the decline stopped about when Trump took office, we flatlined for awhile, and then it started ticking up a little.
Look at the Y axis.
Rate of loss, got it. So the losses flatlined when Trump took office, and have been reducing recently. Not growth, but what you would see before it goes from “shrinking” to “growing” (which may, of course, not happen - time, as they say, will tell).