That’s because when he’s on the stump in front of a screaming crowd, he is not hampered by that annoying little detail: TRUTH. He can say whatever he wants and promise whatever will keep the crowd screaming.
The biggest “intractable issue” is simple, physical REALITY. He does his best to keep kicking the can down the road with lawsuits, firings, distraction (Epstein), but eventually the can stops here. But by that time, he has fired a few people, shut down a few government departments, and changed the subject a bazillion times.
Reality is a bitch.
Reminds me of this apocryphal story:
Following is a transcript of a radio conversation between a U.S. naval ship and Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland.
Canadians: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision.
Americans: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the north to avoid a collision.
Canadians: Negative. You will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision.
Americans: This is the captain of a U.S. naval ship. I say again, divert your course.
Canadians: No. I say again, you divert your course.
Americans: This is the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln, the second largest ship in the United States Atlantic fleet. We are accompanied by three destroyers, three cruisers, and numerous support vessels. I say again, that’s one-five degrees north, or countermeasures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship.
So true. It WILL come back and bite you in the ass.
But Trump has somehow outrun reality. For now. Anyone of the the good people on the SDMB would be in prison if we had done 1/10 of the crap ‘the Donald’ has done.
What’s baffling is how a moron can avoid reality for so, so long.
Rich right-wing white male privilege. Trump is the Platonic Ideal of the sort of person our society is built to protect and promote. A white male, a sexual predator, a bigot, cruel, ignorant, stupid, right wing, rich; he ticks all the boxes. He’s been so successful in life because all obstacles are automatically cleared out of his way, and all consequences headed off from striking him.
He doesn’t need to be smart, or even put into effort; he just needed to sleepwalk through life. In fact I expect that’s a major reason why he’s stupid; 70+ years of not having to actually think, just indulge whatever whim strikes him at the moment. The brain needs exercise or its functions degrade, just like the rest of the body.
What’s really baffling is how many Democratic politicians AREN’T calling him out on his lies, cruelty, and crimes. ISTM that only Pritzker and Newsome are giving him a hard time loudly and publicly at the national level. I’d like to see every Democratic Senator, Congressman, and Governor reaming out trumps ass every day in every media outlet. But it’s mostly crickets. I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why. <scratches head>
Both my wife and I have challenging jobs. But we’ve taken to playing chess and card games as a way to pass the time after work. You can almost feel your brain working. It’s interesting, I’m better at spatial games like chess (I’m a GIS programmer), my wife is better at number games like cribbage (she’s an appraiser). It makes perfect sense.
Of course we have plenty of ‘down’ time. Walk the dogs, watch TV, cook, whatever. But I’m very, very thankful that my wife asked me to teach her how to play chess. We play ~10 games a week.
@ThelmaLou It’s nuts. I love that Pritzker has shown spine. He’s governor I know. I was born and lived in Chicago. You don’t mess with people in Chicago. Many of us here have sort of a tie to Chicago because of the SDMB.
The city with the broad shoulders does know how to fight. I don’t know about the rest of the state of Illinois but Chicago will not like being pushed around.
I just saw something on FaceBook (so I can’t attest to it’s authenticity) the the Chicago police will have orders to stop any ICE vehicles and demand to see ID for all the occupants, requiring them to remove their masks to verify their ID, and otherwise harass them as much as possible. I’ve known a few Chicago cops and I can see them doing this.
Apparently Trump is planning to send the Texas National Guard to Chicago. Guess that gets around the Illinois Governor not activating the Illinois National Guard. Also possibly defeats the meme that the National Guard would be reluctant to fire on their friends, neighbors, and families - to the Texas Guard might not apply so much to people in Chicago. Unless they see them as fellow Americans but these days who knows?
Is Trump still making the National Guard sleep in the lobbies of office buildings or was that last term?
Sure, the park lands extending from the north end of Millennium park through the the “museum campus” areas are extensive enough to do that. Please don’t give the MAGAs any ideas.
We know how Trump plans. Those folks would have no tents or toilets. Food will likely have to be scavenged. It will be Taco trucks to the rescue. I’m not kidding.
This. Trump may have been told to fear the consequences of using nukes, but his desire to be seen as Tough and Strong would override such fears (I think).
As for mortality and whether narcissists believe it applies to them: apparently Putin and Xi believe they’re going to live forever—via organ transplants. And being dictators, they can harvest as many young people’s bodies as they like:
The authoritarian leaders Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping mused on how organ transplants might lead to immortality during a brief exchange of small talk caught on a hot mic on Wednesday. The Russian president was in Beijing as a guest at a huge military parade marking the 80th anniversary of the end of the second world war.
Ah, the definition of hell: to be immortal and increasingly elderly, infirm and miserable. Too bad they also have the power to inflict said misery on the rest of us.
I’m reminded of the great Meryl Streep/Goldie Hawn film, Death Becomes Her:
No, but I’ve read Larry Niven including the Gil the ARM stories. Sometimes I think that setting was more ridiculous than the rest of Known Space. Continuous organ transplants to extend life? Come on.
Anyone proposing “continuous organ transplants” is not familiar with the after-effects of such major surgery or the side effects of the required anti-rejection medications.
Unless these guys are thinking of creating genetic clones of themselves to harvest organs from (which still leaves the “major surgery” issues) - hey, they can use them as body doubles until their organs are needed! (Accounting for the “younger and younger” part of that hot mic quote I guess). I don’t think we’re quite there yet.
Also, does nothing for a deteriorating brain, but then these guys would probably never accept that their brains are anything but perfect.
(There was a Gil Hamilton story by Larry Niven involving a Very Bad Man who attempted to escape both a criminal history and terrible health by replacing the brain of a young, healthy, wealthy man with his own brain, so… maybe? Except for reconnecting the brain stem to the top of a severed spinal cord. Details, details….)