Dear Joe:
- Don’t go near a tank or a shotgun.
- If asked about the death penalty, say “It’s irrelevant, I’d strangle the guy with my bare hands.”
Sincerely,
Michael Dukakis
P.S. Covid Covid Covid
“Have you lost something? Can I help you?”
I’m pretty sure David Cay Johnston could take tornps return and find stuff not in other rich peoples returns that would make him in violation of the law, perjury statues probably. Foreign bank loans are a singular issue for dt.
Again, the main campaign benefit of mentioning the tax returns is that it’s a concrete promise Trump made that he then actively worked not to keep, and it’s only one of many such promises. The significance of the contents of a tax return is not easy to grasp for many, but “Person promised to do X and then refused to do X, therefore you can’t trust any promises he’s making now” is something everyone can grasp.
Part of me also wants Biden to patronize Trump. If Trump stalks Biden during Biden’s time, I want Joe to say “Excuse me, Mr. President - your podium is over there. Would you like some help getting back to it? Careful with the step!”. If Biden is talking about something Trump did or didn’t do and Trump does his usual “Wrong!” pronouncement, I want Joe to say “Don’t worry, Mr. President - I’ll explain it to you later.” I want Biden to mock Trump for bragging about being able to identify the symbol of his own party.
I suppose it could backfire but it would rankle the hell out of Trump.
I don’t see trump stalking a man on stage like he did a woman. It’s totally not his brand. His base would get confused when Joe punched him in the mouth.
I’ve always been of the opinion that sudden motions w/out regard to surroundings, like totally oblivious backwards steps and stiff arms, without acknowledging tournip at all is the way to go. Just give me one shot at it. “Donald what the heck were you doing there in the first place? Come on what’s really eating you? Tell the people. I’m not the american flag dude and you cannot hump me OK?”
It might beneath the dignity of a potus candidate but you could just “dance” with donald in a non violent way, pointing out his strange pattern.
The evidence suggests that the best way to hammer Kumquat is to give him a hammer.
…here’s a thing for you to consider.
The news cycles aren’t driven by the campaigns. Consider this special investigation into Trump’s fathers complicated tax schemes. It was a huge expose, fueled in part (as we discovered later) from information from Mary Trump, that is a damming indictment into the character of the President of the United States of America.
It didn’t last half-a-day into the news cycle.
It popped up, then just disappeared. Nobody cared. Nobody cares. Those in Trump’s base were like “there is nothing illegal, why should we care?” and those who are not went “yes, Trump is corrupt, we know this, why should we care?”
The amount of scandals we could hang on Trump if we wanted to is near endless. The systematic internal destruction of the Federal government, the avoidance of congressional oversight by appointing “acting” heads of departments, the probable back-channels to Russia, the firing of the states attorneys, the handling of the pandemic. We could be here for hours. The tax scandal is a big-old-nothing. Because we have nothing. It will be a blip.
You need to understand how the Republicans and their enablers manipulate (and I do mean manipulate) the news cycles. They have think-tanks that create daily talking points that are distributed wide to both politicians and their spoxes. So every day when they face the media they are all talking from exactly the same page. Its why you often see different “right wing” people on the media on different channels saying exactly the same thing, even if that “same thing” is ridiculous and doesn’t make any sense: its a talking point. Devised around a table to be an easily digestible chunk of information that can be made to go viral.
And they just throw this shit out there. Multiple talking points a day to see what sticks. During the last election cycle two talking points stuck the landing: “her emails” and “the deplorables.” Both gained traction. Both were hugely damaging to the Clinton campaign. Once a talking point gains traction this is what happens next. (Video from Vox, by Carlos Maza and Madeline Marshall)
The Democrat propaganda machine is nowhere near as well oiled as the Republican one. And to be frank IMHO, this isn’t a bad thing. Without the sophisticated apparatus that the Republicans and their spoxes have set up a talking point like “Trumps taxes” is just never going to take off. And it isn’t just that “nobody cares.” Its just that without a mechanism in place to drive the “Trump taxes” talking point the talking point will just drop dead a couple of minutes after they try it on. That doesn’t mean they should use it against Trump during the campaign when they have the opportunity to do so. But it is unlikely to change much in the way of public opinion, so out of all the things to hedge the future of the campaign, this would be the one I would spend the least amount of time committing to.
…I forgot to post the link to the Trump’s dads tax link, it was from the New York Times and the link is here.
Nobody in the general public gives a shit about Trump’s tax returns except to see exactly how much he makes.
If there’s anything improper in there, it’ll just be like adding one more milk jug to garbage island.
Or just say at one point early on: "The more you talk, the higher my polls go. That’ll make trump wonder every time he opens his mouth if he’s costing himself votes. Which will really throw him off because it will fight his natural instinct to talk and talk.
No, he can stop talking about as easily as he can stop breathing.
(not going to say it …)
Since voting by mail and the problems Trump is trying to cause with that are a big issue, Biden needs to focus on that. I don’t mean big speeches or some legislative plan to fund the postal service. I mean a huge ground campaign getting people to vote as early as possible and not waiting until Election Day to mail in their ballots.
Trump hates mail-in voting but loves absentee voting, which in his mind are two different things. I think the Biden campaign (and all of the other Democrats, for that matter), need to start promoting “universal absentee voting”. We can then all sit back and watch the Trumpists degrade into a Star Trek-type program loop that causes smoke to emanate from their ears.
SingleMalt, I want to subscribe to your newsletter.
A meaningless act because the only thing Trump listens to is the voices in his own head. He wouldn’t listen to Biden trying to trick him any more than he listens to Republicans when they try to offer him good advice. Trump believes he knows better than everyone else so he only listens to himself.
Thank you! I will add your name to the list (that’s a total now of, let’s see… one). Don’t wait up for the first edition.
I’m very curious to see how this debate business works out in the end. Part of me has serious doubts they will actually take place. Will they be on a stage with moderators and with an audience? Or, more likely, will it be some sort of Zoom debate where no one is in the same room. Certainly there won’t be a live audience?
For those reasons alone I can’t imagine Trump agreeing to debate. He craves the adulation and applause of the crowd. There won’t be any of that unless they allow some type of seriously social distancing regarding the set up. The onstage stuff could be done fairly easily but the audience not so much. Plus, I think Trump is a big fat chicken and knows Biden will destroy him just by standing onstage looking Presidential and sane while DJT will be rambling like the loon he is.
ShitGibbon will most likely challenge Joe to an epic tweet-off.
“Joe the President”. That sounds kind of amusing. I wonder if he can fix my leaking pipes.
Perhaps they will add applause sounds (for Biden) and a laugh track (for Trump). In fact, I think the “fake news” networks should just do this without the candidates’ knowing or agreeing.
Complete with moderators telling the applause sounds and laugh tracks to knock it off.