I have to wonder why this is being made into a deal. Trump is clueless on everything. Hillary Clinton doesn’t understand email. She basically has the technological knowledge of an average person her age, if that person was her age in 1996. I used to think she was cunningly evil, but it’s pretty obvious with the emails released that she’s just really dumb.
The way the question phrased was extremely awkward. The person sounds like one of these pundits that is so plugged in to the news cycle that they develop a shorthand way of speaking that would be fine for talk between colleagues, but unprofessional for air time (and pretentious and annoying). What do you do about a location? I guess they were talking about the chemical attack, but the facts are hardly settled on that.
I’m rather annoyed by the question; without context and not seeing it in writing I’d struggle for a moment to mentally reference “Aleppo” too. If the reporter wasn’t being such a douche the question would have mentioned “Syria” or “refugees” or some other additional context to indicate what exactly was being asked. So it’s a grossly overinflated non-issue based on a stupid “gotcha” question.
In a certain way I agree with what you’re saying. I think everyone knows that there are certain candidates who simply have no business at all thinking that they are suited to be president. They may be incompetent, they may be inexperienced, they may be idiots, etc. But it isn’t a good story to simply report that a certain person is clearly unsuitable for the presidency: it has to be boiled down to an event or statement that exemplifies the unsuitability.
For example, for Sarah Palin it was not knowing what newspapers she reads (notwithstanding that she was running for VP). Aleppo and that deer-in-the-headlights look was Johnson’s moment. Flubbing a question isn’t the sin, it is simply the evidence that will be used to beat people over the head with the clear fact that some people have no business getting anywhere near the Oval Office except on a tour.
Not really. Some may beat this drum, but most people aren’t news nerds. The fact that he forgot the name of a big city in the middle east will put off a miniscule number of people.
MfM’s clever comment is seriously meaningful here. It would matter if anyone considered him seriously as someone who might be in the White House. No one, including Johnson himself, seriously considers that to be a current possibility. His great fantasy is just to get qualified for Federal funding next cycle or maybe get to a point that he can be in the debates and get his message heard a bit more thus having an impact on the national conversation. Those who are saying they are going to vote for him are not thinking he can win; they are choosing that as a way to say none of the above.
The article in the paper today mentioned that back in June at some convention he was being directed to the Harriet Tubman room and he asked “who is that?”. Frankly, that’s more damaging imho because it’s American history and it was announced she’s going on the $20 bill only 2 months earlier.
His policy positions will always be the reason not to vote for him. The fact that he flubs trivia questions is the least of my concerns. If he had never heard of Syria or the conflict there, and had no policy about Syria, that’s more of a concern. Not immediately recognizing the name of a city which could plausibly sound like an acronym to someone who regularly hears hundreds of acronyms in a given month, I honestly struggle to understand how that’s important to people.
You’ve got a Republican presidential candidate who couldn’t name a city in Iraq outside of Baghdad and probably couldn’t even name one city in Afghanistan and we have troops there. That doesn’t bother anyone at all. And he has zero coherent policy positions whatsoever. That also bothers no one.
Kicking the third party candidate for a minor flub, just seems like recreational criticism to me. The fact that he immediately owned up to it, promised to do better, and offered an explanation rather than an excuse, probably not something you’ll ever see from Hillary or Trump.
I’ll never vote for the guy, assuming there’s a non-Republican alternative to vote for. But if Hillary died of a stroke tomorrow, I’d eagerly vote for an ineffective Johnson and a Democrat controlled Senate, because he doesn’t appear to be a crook and he doesn’t appear to be an outright liar and he doesn’t seem to have a problem with self-criticism.
I want almost none of his ideas put in practice, but my goodness. I’ve seen worse and they’re running for office and beating him handily.
I think that’s key. It plays to a pre-existing concern about big L libertarian politicians, that they are deliberately non-curious about the world because ‘the govt shouldn’t be meddling in that’. Which is just not workable in the real world starting from a position of a globally involved US with a mixed socialist/capitalist economy. Even if you want to move in a direction of relatively less global involvement and relatively more capitalism (I’m open to both ideas), you have to understand the starting point. It’s what distinguishes potentially realistic Lib’ism (as separate party or anti-Trumpist theme in the GOP) from the escapist joke big L often is.
Obviously Johnson has no chance this time, but I think this episode is actually illustrative of how Libs would have to change to have any chance.
Of course this doesn’t excuse Trumpism’s acceptance or glorification of the comprehensive ignorance of their leader, though that’s for a different reason, plain old anti-intellectualism.
His explanation about it afterward earned him some respect from me. Everyone has thinking failures from time to time; how they’re handled says a lot about the person’s character.
There is some proportion of Americans* that believe down to their bones that “knowing stuff” isn’t important. George W. Bush’s intellectual limitations were very well known in 2000, and some fraction of those who voted for him thought he’d be a great President. (Some of his voters were appalled by his ignorance and lack of curiosity but voted for him anyway to keep the Democrat out.)
The asterisk represents a surmise that this may be a human trait, worldwide, and not limited to Americans. Perhaps there’s a genetic component, but certainly being raised to think “character matters more than book larnin’” must have some effect. (Of course being able to overlook Trump’s character issues along with his woeful ignorance takes some impressive talent for self-delusion.)
Right, there are quite a lot of people who are highly bothered by this.
Among Democrats: I knew a lot of people who despised everything about Ronald Reagan, later on George W. Bush, disliked other GOP candidates at the presidential level. This year’s different–I see people who are *terrified *at the prospect of Trump becoming president.
Among people who aren’t Democrats: This year, for the first time in my political memory, there are a number of elected GOP officials who have said they will not vote for Trump, or are trying to walk a thin line in which they “support” Trump without “endorsing” him. Not to mention retired military officials, GOP-leaning commentators, and others.
One of the main reasons, in each case, does seem to be Trump’s lack of knowledge about the world, and his concomitant lack of interest in learning.
No, it’s not nearly as many people as I would like it to be, or that I think it should be. But it doesn’t seem plausible to say that no one, or close to no one, is bothered by it.
I do not trust these people, because, Kansas. Just two years ago, a large swath of the Republican establishment pulled the rug out from under Gov. Brownback. Do you know who the governor of Kansas is?