I actually did get the allusion. But that still does not make a ranch a farm.
Little Donnie Fail-Fail.
Australianly, that is neither a farm nor a ranch, but a station.
Oh, I see you’ve played farmy ranchy before.
May I introduce today’s Susan Collins Profile In Courage award-winner: Jewish GOP Representative Max Miller who accurately identified JD Vance’s “Haitians eating pets” line as racist hatemongering by a Nazi wannabe…and then privately expressed his discomfort with Vance’s nomination while continuing to campaign for the ticket, and now, mere months after the election, has courageously ventured to express this discomfort in public by speaking on the record to the author of an upcoming book. I find it hard to express the depth of my admiration.
“Miller, whom Trump had appointed to serve on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, was privately infuriated. He was uncomfortable with where the campaign was heading, having privately lobbied Trump against picking Vance for VP. During a private discussion with a fellow Jewish Republican, he likened the attacks on Haitians to the ‘target[ing]’ of Jews.”
Miller’s worries are described in Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump’s Return to Power, which will be published next Tuesday. The Guardian obtained a copy.
It can’t happen here.
Until it does. Or in our case, has. The train is heading for the cliff while picking up speed and I expect there is now no possible braking force enough to prevent the full plunge.
The early accidental death of both trump & musk might alter where we leave the cliff, but not whether.
Like spit on a sidewalk?
This is my concern and fear as well. If this administration ended today and, somehow, Harris immediately became president, it would be almost impossible for her to undo the damage. And Trump’s enabling of all of the assholes in the US would mean that the perpetual, unthinking, mindless obstructionism from more than enough thugs (including some levels of violence and destruction) would have to be overcome as well.
First you have to turn off the RW propaganda. Which is not governed by, nor funded by, trump. Some unholy cabal of far right tycoons and authoritarian foreign governments run that whole operation. And it is a very profitable commercial operation. Unlike e.g. the D party which runs on donations.
They were beating the drums that raised a crowd that trump noticed and took advantage of. The relationship is highly synergistic, but IMO neither explicitly controls the other. If/when trump dies the RW propaganda for profit machine will be 100% intact. And will be seeking a new figurehead to back. And of course a large number of evil assholes are waiting in the wings to attempt to seize control of the narrative, followed by control of the country.
I have to wonder if he is smart enough to do that. Someone else was and used him as a very, very simple tool is what I think.
Trump is not smart. Trump is very stupid. But he has two superpowers that stand out from the stupidity. One is an absolute lack of shame or conscience: he can lie to your face, and if caught he immediately moves on without feeling any need for apology or atonement.
The other is a preternatural instinct for opportunity, specifically weak people to exploit. I have no doubt at all he sensed in his lizard brain that the GOP was cultivating a crop of angry and credulous morons, and he stepped in and hijacked them. Witness the early days of the 2016 campaign when the party panicked at his ascent and did everything they could to throw him off, and surrendered only when they had no other choice.
I believe in my bones that move was all him. But I further believe it succeeded beyond even his own expectations.
Trump has carnival-barker instincts and no understanding of policy. No contradiction there. So yes I think he’s smart enough to be a demagogue.
I think Fox News, which is propped mostly by people who subscribe to cable but don’t watch the show, is the key player. Lots of RW reporting is based on it. And lots of people see Fox News anchors in suits and don’t grasp that it’s not really a news show, insofar as news is defined as actual journalism.
Digression
And once again, I’m just reworking and regurgitating the thoughts of the great and now late Kevin Drum. RIP and as we used to say, props.
Part of history involves random effects (eg Trump meeting the eventual author of Art of the Deal) and part of it is actuarial. Rupert Murdoch will probably die of natural causes within the next 4 years. I would guess that Fox News will remain the same for 2 years after that. But then something will move its new owners to do… something. I’m not sure what.
I’ll agree w @Cervaise’s and @Measure_for_Measure’s good analyses just above.
I also agree that Murdoch senior and trump senior are two very key personalities holding the show together even if not in close coordination. Also agree their days are inherently numbered.
What comes next could be anything from canonizing them both a la NK’s Kims and their hereditary hermit kingdom, to a realization that, like most populist rebellions / movements, the only thing that does is make the comfortable become poor and the poor become poorer. But the poor did get to watch somebody better than them take it in the neck. Somebody then has to try to repair the damage while fighting against all the institutionalized corruption that was first actively seeded then actively bred under the populist regime.
And now he is just trying stay out of prison. If he would have just whistled past the grave yard, he would still be a rich man and the world would not be in this mess.
I agree - if he thought he could have taken over the Democratic Party, he would have. It didn’t matter who he exploited.
‘Mr. President, when will you be the first sitting U.S. President to travel into space? Imagine being The First, with a personal trip with Elon Musk himself? Or will you let another President win the fame and glory?’
I made this my ringtone!
Hi-jack… My wife’s ring tone is howler monkeys. It’s perfect, if a bit frightening. Luckily her phone does not throw shit at you. Yet.
…In a quiet voice he says, “If Air Force One, carrying trump and Musk, were struck by a missile and blown up to smithereens, by a terrorist, that would be a tragedy.”
“Fantastic,” exclaims trump, “that’s right. And can you tell me WHY that would be a TRAGEDY?”
“Well,” says the boy, “because it wouldn’t be an accident, and it certainly wouldn’t be a great loss.”