# The Trump Administration: A Clusterfuck in the Making Part Deux (Part 1) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 22, 2020, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making-part-deux-part-1/911083 "2020-06-22T03:36:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 76
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2020, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making-part-deux-part-1/911083/1509 "2020-07-29T13:09:30Z")
(By the way, anyone still thinking Old School: “This thread just hit 1500 posts, that’s _30_ pages of clusterfucks!”) ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2020, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making-part-deux-part-1/911083/1510 "2020-07-29T13:16:35Z")
Yep. I still do the math when looking at the thread post count. Particularly when the last two digits approach '49. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2020, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making-part-deux-part-1/911083/1511 "2020-07-29T13:19:21Z")
> [@digs](#): > > (By the way, anyone still thinking Old School: “This thread just hit 1500 posts, that’s _30_ pages of clusterfucks!”) That didn’t take long… A math whiz could figure out (and probably graph 🤓 ) the increasing **rate** of clusterfucking since the original thread began. ---
**Author:** ![tripthicket](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripthicket/32/297_2.png) [@tripthicket](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tripthicket)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2020, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making-part-deux-part-1/911083/1512 "2020-07-29T13:21:11Z")
Aw, futz! Nobody told me there’d be _math_ involved! I didn’t know I’d have to be some kinda _rocket surgeon_ to ride this train! ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2020, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making-part-deux-part-1/911083/1513 "2020-07-29T13:46:29Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Trump’s bragging about passing a mental competence test that Hodor could have passed. Depending on which five words he was given. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2020, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making-part-deux-part-1/911083/1514 "2020-07-29T13:53:02Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > Not nearly as well known as Madonna, but one of my Facebook friends has proclaimed that all this criticism of Dr. Stella Immanuel is just a bunch of haters going after a strong black woman who’s not afraid to speak her mind. 🙄 > > Truly, we are doomed. I’ve even now seen that this is a case of liberal racism against a black woman from a country with a different belief system. 😒 ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2020, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making-part-deux-part-1/911083/1515 "2020-07-29T13:55:34Z")
Speaking about the length of this thread, does anyone else have this issue? Every other thread, when I open it in the morning, drops me at the last post I viewed, but this one drops me at some random point in June. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2020, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making-part-deux-part-1/911083/1516 "2020-07-29T15:12:47Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > Not nearly as well known as Madonna, but one of my Facebook friends has proclaimed that all this criticism of Dr. Stella Immanuel is just a bunch of haters going after a strong black woman who’s not afraid to speak her mind. 🙄 > > Truly, we are doomed. What, a strong black woman doesn’t have an equal opportunity to be bat shit crazy? What kind of nutty reverse racism is _that_? ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2020, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making-part-deux-part-1/911083/1517 "2020-07-29T15:50:10Z")
> [@tripthicket](#): > > I didn’t know I’d have to be some kinda _rocket surgeon_ to ride this train! Haha, I thought I was the only one who used that term, or the phrase, “it’s not rocket surgery”. Or in trumpspeak: “rocket surgeon, very fine phrase. I invented that phrase, you know. Now everybody uses it”. ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2020, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making-part-deux-part-1/911083/1518 "2020-07-29T15:55:23Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > > > Trump’s bragging about passing a mental competence test that Hodor could have passed. > > Depending on which five words he was given. Clearly the words would have to be Hodor, Hodor, Hodor, Hodor, Hodor. He’d be fine. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2020, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making-part-deux-part-1/911083/1519 "2020-07-29T15:59:04Z")
> [@BippityBoppityBoo](#): > > Clearly the words would have to be Hodor, Hodor, Hodor, Hodor, Hodor. He’d be fine. Plus bonus points for saying them back in the right order! ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2020, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making-part-deux-part-1/911083/1520 "2020-07-29T17:00:36Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I’ve said before that Trump never needed to learn the social skills that most people need. He was born in a rich family and was always given what he wanted and never had to accept any consequences for doing something wrong. > > Most of us didn’t grow up in that kind of environment. We needed to learn skills to get what we wanted or to get out of trouble. We needed to learn things like how to persuade people, how to motivate people, how to charm people, how to manipulate people, and how to deceive people. > > This background explains why Trump is so bad at interpersonal skills. He never learned he should tell the truth because nobody ever taught him that. But he also never learned how to tell a convincing lie because he never had to face the consequences of telling a bad lie. > > It also explains why he’s so dull-witted. He’s never needed to use his intelligence and his brain is flabby from lack of exercise. This is an outstanding summary. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2020, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making-part-deux-part-1/911083/1521 "2020-07-29T17:27:40Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > Not nearly as well known as Madonna, but one of my Facebook friends has proclaimed that all this criticism of Dr. Stella Immanuel is just a bunch of haters going after a strong black woman who’s not afraid to speak her mind. It always amazes me when I see people think this way. It’s like they don’t even understand the concept of judgement. Their worldview is binary; in terms of authority this means that they divide the world up into people who you should always believe in everything and people who you should never believe in anything. And that can form a chain of misplaced trust; if one person who they have decided to always believe, like Donald Trump, tells them to believe what another person, like Stella Immanuel, is saying they will immediately pass their trust along. It’s all just blind faith without judgement. And these people get confused by the rest of us. They don’t understand how we can apply judgment and decide whether a person is trustworthy or not. And they even understand less how we can decide that what a person says one day is probably true and what he says another day is probably false. They don’t understand how we can make these decisions; it all looks random to them. Where is the element of blind unquestioning faith that they base their life around? ---
**Author:** ![tripthicket](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripthicket/32/297_2.png) [@tripthicket](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tripthicket)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2020, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making-part-deux-part-1/911083/1522 "2020-07-29T17:47:22Z")
Blind faith is something I believe I could never have; I question too much. I may take this or that information on ‘faith,’ depending on the subject, but sooner or later I’m gonna pull back and say ‘Oh really? Gonna need some kinda proof for that one, champ.’ It’s why I wasn’t able to stick with organized religion. While I believe in some kind of higher being, I’m not going to take the word of any man or man-made book. I got the wrong mindset to fit in, so…I don’t. Doesn’t make me superior, and someday I may find out just how wrong I’ve been, but for now, I do believe myself superior to those who live on blind faith. At least in the area where they’ve got that blind faith. Of course, then I question my feelings of superiority… ---
**Author:** ![aurora\_maire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aurora_maire/32/328_2.png) [@aurora\_maire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aurora_maire)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making-part-deux-part-1/911083/1523 "2020-07-30T00:53:14Z")
> [@digs](#): > > (By the way, anyone still thinking Old School: “This thread just hit 1500 posts, that’s _30_ pages of clusterfucks!”) Since the move to Discourse, I’ve been wondering if this thread is just moving faster or I never noticed how many posts were being made every day until I saw a number for them. The first time I come here each day there are double digit new posts, sometimes up to 40something. Granted, things are more of a clusterfuck than ever so it may be that there really are more posts these days. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making-part-deux-part-1/911083/1524 "2020-07-30T01:02:46Z")
Might also be because so many are home on lockdown/semi-lockdown or working from home. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making-part-deux-part-1/911083/1525 "2020-07-30T01:16:07Z")
A sorta schadenfraudey bit of good news to hear that total shithead Louis Gohmert has [tested positive for covid 19](https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/07/29/texas-louie-gohmert-positive-covid-19-raju-nr-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/). Yeah, masks _can_ come in handy, asshole. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making-part-deux-part-1/911083/1526 "2020-07-30T01:21:52Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Might also be because so many are home on lockdown/semi-lockdown or working from home. I once plumbed the early part of the original thread and found that there were a few day/multi-day gaps in the first couple months (it started in December of '16), but once you get past about April of '17 I suspect the gaps disappear for good. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making-part-deux-part-1/911083/1527 "2020-07-30T01:34:44Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > And these people get confused by the rest of us. They don’t understand how we can apply judgment and decide whether a person is trustworthy or not. And they even understand less how we can decide that what a person says one day is probably true and what he says another day is probably false. They don’t understand how we can make these decisions; it all looks random to them. Where is the element of blind unquestioning faith that they base their life around? And the amazing thing is, he’s cut from the same cloth. It’s a mobius strip of the blind faithful leading the blind faithful at this point. > [@tripthicket](#): > > Blind faith is something I believe I could never have; I question too much. I may take this or that information on ‘faith,’ depending on the subject, but sooner or later I’m gonna pull back and say ‘Oh really? Gonna need some kinda proof for that one, champ.’ It’s why I wasn’t able to stick with organized religion. While I believe in some kind of higher being, I’m not going to take the word of any man or man-made book. I got the wrong mindset to fit in, so…I don’t. Doesn’t make me superior, and someday I may find out just how wrong I’ve been, but for now, I do believe myself superior to those who live on blind faith. At least in the area where they’ve got that blind faith. Yeah, I’m of a similar mindset. I’m not proud of saying that I wet my pants until I was given a good reason not to (“They won’t let you go to preschool if you wet your pants”). After many years, I’ve realized I’m generally a complete pain in the ass when you to convince me to do some things that humans naturally do. I can listen to reason, but finding out how to push my buttons can be trying. I differ from you in that I decided long ago that there’s no supreme being until you give me a good reason the universe would need one. (And happy spirit journey formation anniversary, **tripthicket**!) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making-part-deux-part-1/911083/1528 "2020-07-30T01:39:48Z")
> [@scabpicker](#): > > And the amazing thing is, he’s cut from the same cloth. It’s a mobius strip of the blind faithful leading the blind faithful at this point. I feel there’s a difference though. When anyone else believes that something is true because Donald Trump says it’s true, it’s a sign of weak reasoning. When Donald Trump believes that something is true because Donald Trump says it’s true, it’s a sign of solipsistic narcissism with delusions of grandeur. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making-part-deux-part-1/911083.md?page=75) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making-part-deux-part-1/911083.md?page=77)