Only to the degree those haters haven’t been disenfranchised by dirty tricks by the RW election authorities and gun-toting poll monitors vigilantes.
But otherwise I think you’ve nailed it. As you often do.
Tulsi Gabbard for running mate? Just thinking out loud.
The National Review is hardly effusive.
The National Review is largely Old Guard in orientation - they’ve never been terribly effusive about Trump. They bow to popular pressure by not being full-on “never-Trump”, but I think for the most part they really wish he’d just go away.
You’re giving him an awful lot of credit by assuming he knows what “decade” means.
IS he though? Maybe you’re being sarcastic…? trump does have what I’ve heard described as an ‘almost feral’ instinct for attacking opponents and coming out on top of political battles, but otherwise, his political track record is awful. He got virtually nothing of significance done in the first two years of his term, when Rs held both branches of Congress. He directly or indirectly caused the R loss of the House int he 2018 midterms, the loss of the Senate in 2020 by poisoning the runoff election in GA, the loss of the Presidency in 2020 of course, and now the disappointing showing for the Rs in the 2022 midterms.
Who the hell knows? This is a guy who talked about how the Continental Army took over the airports from the British during the Revolutionary War.
These aren’t measures that matter to him. The important thing is that his name was and still is in every newspaper and media outlet every day since he announced he was going to run the first time. He is famous! He will go down in history! It doesn’t matter what for, and it really doesn’t matter if what he will be remembered for was to the benefit of anyone else.
I was responding to @Dr_Paprika’s seemingly non-sarcastic(?) comment that his political skills were sharp. Sure, his self-aggrandizing skills may be sharp, but a good politician, even one who is actually in it mostly for the ego, knows enough to at least try to create the appearance that they are doing it for the party and the people.
I think his rabid minority base likes him so much because he just says and does whatever the hell he wants and gets away with it (so far…). That doesn’t mean he’s politically sharp.
I suppose it really depends on what you consider “political skills”. Some political skills are quite easy, and those are the ones Trump is good at.
His big skill is getting people to vote for him, and he does that largely by just lying to them about who he is, and what he plans to do. Lying to get a vote is easy. “What do you want me to do? I’ll do that!” Very little skill, no analysis needed, no balancing of competing interests and all that gobbledygook. Just parrot whatever the person in front of you says. Trump excels at that.
But then there are the important political skills. The ones that actually involve getting things done. Like actually convincing an opponent that they should change their mind and support you. Like actual negotiation, in which you find a reasonable compromise between two parties, that each can support with a clear conscience. Like making even your opponents feel like you take your job seriously, even if they still disagree with your policies.
It’s those more important, more difficult skills that Trump utterly lacks.
I agree, maybe that wasn’t the right word. I think politicians should make their country a better place and I value tradition, debate, negotiation, deep knowledge and manners. But if political skills include getting elected, reading the room, getting people to do what you ask and cultivating influence, Trump has those in spades - to the detriment of his party and the many people who underestimated him. He still has those skills.
A lot of politicians lie to get votes. They don’t become President. In a way, Trump is notable for his consistency over decades, just not on any specific issue.
This is one I think Trump utterly lacks. When has he ever gotten someone to “do what he asks” when it didn’t involve just paying them, threatening them, or they already wanted to do it?
The big “do what he asked” moment was the 2020 election debacle. And a lot of actual election officials and judges who were asked to steal the election for Trump simply refused to do that. They followed their conscience, and no amount of Trump bloviating had any effect.
Show me any instance in which Trump advanced an agenda that was initially opposed by, and then supported by, a significant faction of people, that didn’t involve money or threats. I can’t think of any.
Yeah, he clearly has something going for him, to still be relevant enough to mount yet another campaign after all the terrible things he’s said and done. Part of it, I think, is that he is one of the greatest bullies in history. He divides and conquers by stirring up his rabid base with ugly rhetoric; and other politically active Repubs, who are secretly critical of him, are afraid to publicly go against him for fear of angering that base. Sometimes fearful politically, by losing votes, sometimes they literally fear for their lives.
he also knows how to wield fear to get votes, by scaring voters into thinking things like they will be overrun by hordes of vicious foreign gang killers if they don’t vote for him.
It probably involved those things. But if you don’t think it happened - ask his generals or prominent people in his Party. Who rationalized their cowardice by bending the knee after he insulted them and their families, waited for him to “act Presidential”, “letting Trump be Trump”, “being the adults in the room”, then “being in on the joke”.
I think he gets his way a lot just by being a big whiner who screams and cries and pressures and bullies others to get what he wants. He’s learned that being a big whiner and bully works much of the time for him. And he’s despicable and famous, so he appeals to despicable fame-worshippers.
He would never have gotten anywhere in 2016 if he hadn’t had that stupid TV show IMO. So I’m not sure if he’s got a talent per se unless self-aggrandizement is a talent.
These are not positive skills, but they are political skills.
There were actually quite a few times where the military people shut down his worst impulses, so I don’t think this counts. A lot of the “Let Trump be Trump” moments came about simply because he was president, and that gave him the legal authority to do things, even if others disagreed with him. A soldier following orders because that’s what they swore to do, and the orders aren’t technically illegal, is very different from a soldier following orders because you’ve convinced them that it’s actually a good idea.
For non-military people, how many people did he fire because they wouldn’t just go along with his schemes? It took him years to find the toadies who would do his bidding, and in those cases, that’s what those people already wanted to do. He didn’t need to convince them, he just needed to find them. And he didn’t even really need to “find” them, because a lot of the shitty people were clamoring for an opportunity to get a job that allowed them to be Officially Shitty.
A talking point for the Dems could be that there is no way he could find enough people with any integrity at all to fill his administration. Just look at the last bunch. Only the best.
Sure. But here we are, talking about him two years after his Presidency. He has still enough funding, support and voice to severely damage his party. He might win, certainly his chances exceed 10%. And if he does not get the nomination, he may try to run as an Independent which would do the same. In either case, there will be a further abasement of decency and democracy. We are better than that. Our values and integrity are better than that. The United States is better than that.
“The United States is better than that” has been argued (and will continued to be argued) pretty much to death with no conclusion in sight. But it’s becoming clear, at least to me, that the US Presidential election system is not. YMM, of course, V.
One of the few positives Trump has contributed to our culture is showing the weaknesses in the US Presidency and election of POTUSes.
Whether we’re willing or able to do anything about these exploitable weaknesses is another question.
Mainly, I’d say these weaknesses can be summed up by “No decent human would ever do THIS, so we don’t need to spell out what THIS is.” Now we obviously need to specify quite clearly various THISes.