I mean, come November I’d love to see the Orange Menace and his few remaining supporters hole up in Trump Tower, military helicopters strafing the building with miniguns and SWAT teams raiding the complex, but it’s not gonna happen. Sad.
Sorry. US cultural reference. But with a deliberate double *entendre *there as you inferred.
The Curse of the Billy Goat - Wikipedia is a longstanding piece of American sports lore about how a maligned goat prevents the Chicago Cubs from ever winning the baseball World Series. A feat they are in some danger of accomplishing on Sunday although the curse has run unbroken for 71 years. They’d already not won for 36 years when the curse was applied, so arguably it’s been in effect for the last 107 years.
The curse was widely believed to be an unbreakable everlasting feature of the US baseball landscape. Until earlier this year when questioners started to be taken seriously. It’s now a nail-biting last few days before we know for sure. Just as with Trump.
Well, I would agree with you, but a Facebook friend took me to task for this one today. She told me that millions of Americans tuned in to The Apprentice and Celebrity Apprentice to witness Trump’s business acumen.
Seriously. This friend, a fellow teacher and musician, justified her unwavering support of Mr. Trump on the basis of his “reality” TV show. She even said that business professors at major universities required their students to watch the show because it was like Business 101. She went on to say that the TV shows also showed America what fine people the Trump progeny are. The proceeds from the various projects on the show went to charities and the Trump children eagerly stepped in to mentor the contestants and to make sure that the charities received the best donations possible.
I would rather vote for Wayne Brady of Let’s Make a Deal. At least he can actually make a deal. I was stunned that my friend claimed the “good businessman” justification and then cited a GAME SHOW as evidence of his skills.
This friend is a retired middle school English teacher. I wonder how many thousands of minds have been warped by this reasoning.
For some of them, ‘he’s a good businessman’ is a belief they hold consciously, despite copious evidence that the belief is wholly unjustified.
For others, though, ‘he’s a good businessman’ is merely a socially-acceptable “explanation”–excuse–that they can give for supporting Trump. Their real reasons are not socially acceptable.
These people either realize that Trump does not have a good record in business, or they haven’t really bothered to look at the question of his business record at all. They support Trump because they believe Trump holds disreputable views similar to theirs. And more importantly, they believe that Trump will enforce those beliefs (making “stop-and-frisk” the law of the land, etc.)
The human brain: it can justify and/or excuse anything.
I think many folks just see his wealth and assume it translates to good business acumen. They don’t bother looking at how much wealth he started with, or the pile of lawsuits in his wake, of the bankruptcies. They just see money and assume competence.
You might get that if I have my way. Anyone who wants to be a politician is assumed to be a sociopath and is automatically disqualified.
Instead, a think tank of my messageboard compatriots (don’t worry, you’re included) will determine who’d be best for the country. After which the hapless teacher/cellist/whatever will be bundled into a windowless 18-wheeler and will wake up in the Oval Office.
The man plays the part of good businessman to a tee though. You are simply not going to convince regular people that a person who owns entire skyscrappers is not a good businessman. Trump’s life is exactly what people think when they picture someone who is good at business, the only thing that would ever change that is if he falls enough to be living in a trailer park and driving a honda.
SteveMB posted in SRIotD, some blat from Melania,
*… previewed one of the causes that she hopes to focus on if she becomes first lady.
“I will focus on helping children and women, and also about social media. In this 21st century, what’s going on, it’s very hurtful to children. To some adults as well, but we need to take care of children.” … said children get hurt “by social media” and “we need to teach them how to use it, what is right to say, what is not right to say … because it’s very bad out there.”*
Which makes me a tad uneasy because that sort of thing can resonate with decent suburban folk. But,
"I’ve seen so many people hurt so badly,” Donald Trump said. “Not just children, I mean, just people are hurt so badly by new social media. And she feels very strongly about it. She understands it very well.”
this makes me downright queasy when imagining the possibilities that Trumpistan might beget.
He seems to be okay at brinksmanship; unfortunately, this seems to be his “go to” method in business dealings. This seems not so well suited for a world leader, but I’m sure he thinks otherwise. This is why he advertises his “unpredictability”.
In a similar vein, I’m sure that when he says things like, “I understand ISIS better than the generals”, he (deeply) believes that his media-savvy gives him unique insight.
I believe that his supporters mostly get behind some kind of Rorschach vision they have put together of him and his policies; but that they also think that he will successfully storm Washington and the world with brinksmanship and media-savvy alone.
"The GOP presidential nominee had just $16 million left in his campaign coffers on Oct. 19, compared to Hillary Clinton’s $62 million. When the cash reserves of their joint fundraising committees are included, Clinton’s war chest grew to $153 million, while Trump’s totaled $67.9 million.
The real estate billionaire is nowhere close to personally donating $100 million to his bid as he has repeatedly claimed, an assertion he repeated Thursday at a rally in Toledo. Even though Trump’s website and email appeals have been promising to double- or triple-match the donations of his supporters, Trump gave his campaign less than $31,000 in in-kind contributions in the first 19 days of October. That’s down from the $2 million in cash he had been contributing each month. Trump’s total personal donations to his campaign now total $56.1 million.
… … … …
As Trump’s campaign contributions fell this month, the campaign spent more than it raised, shelling out $49 million in the first 19 days of October. Of that, $19 million went to American Media & Advocacy Group to place television ads and $14 million for digital consulting and ads went to Giles-Parscale, the firm of his digital director Brad Parscale."