RickJay
December 6, 2017, 9:18pm
14065
Quite honestly I think you’re giving Trump too much credit. You’re assuming he understands what a shitstorm this will be, and why. That isn’t consistent with what we know about Donald Trump.
What’s far likelier is that Trump is cutting a deal of some kind. To him, he’s Mister Deals. He’s the guy who wrote “The Art of the Deal.” He promised fantastic deals, believe me. And so he’d gotten some quid pro quo on this because to him, deals are Winning Bigly and not making deals are for Losers! Sad!
The nuances and long (or even short) term consequences aren’t of interest to him and are beyond his understanding.
Is he doing this to create a Reichstag Fire moment? I think it’s possible, but that relies on someone being able to convince him of what the bad consequences could be, and I am not entirely positive he’d get that.
It is of course also possible this isn’t his idea at all. It could be Steve Bannon’s idea.
Jack_Batty:
The capital recognition / embassy move is Trump’s version of the Reichstag fire. No President, not Trump, not Bush, not anyone, would directly attack Americans for the sake of fanning the flames of bigotry (alluding, as I am to the “9-11 was in inside job” bullshit), but … this is the perfect move for him.
“What? What did I do? I mean I just recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. I mean, why wouldn’t we move the embassy there? It just makes sense? And now all these darned Palestinians, who obviously hate our freedoms, are going crazy for no reason. See, I told you them Mooslems were bad guys.”
It plays right into Fox n Friend’s morning arc.
This is my thinking too. I posted this in another thread:
I’m woefully underinformed about the complex issues at play here, so excuse me if this is a dumb post.
I gather that almost no one thinks it’s a good idea for Trump to make this announcement, and there seems to be little benefit to the US in doing so at this time. Pretty much everyone AFAICT is saying this will just cause an uptick in conflict. I’m pretty sure this is the intent. My assumption is that Trump is trying to provoke an escalation that he can use as a reason to go to war and/or to further his anti-Muslim agenda in the US. “See? See? They’re terrorists, and we have to prevent all immigration from Muslim countries. And, by the way, we’re going to begin carpet bombing in five minutes.” GWB had some coherent, if disastrously wrongheaded and mendacious, reasons for invading Iraq. Trump seems to be motivated purely by anti-Muslim animus and a childish understanding of “strength” in leadership.
Maybe we can see both the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula go up in flames at the same time. As Trump might say, “I don’t know. We’ll see. I think you’ll see something happening very soon.”
The thought of Bannon being behind this also crossed my mind.
No doubt that drunken sod (Bannon) has his shit stained paws up the orange puppet’s ass on this. But I think Trump calls on him when he needs a distraction and Bannon is only too happy to sow chaos.
Anyone want to comment on Trump’s seriously slurred speech today? White House even had to issue a statement blaming his dry throat.
He’s on a sedative that shrinks his gums, giving his dentures a chance to flee.
Did you make that up because of your screen name?
“Trump’s unintentionally profound insight into American politics”
“I [Billy Bush] called him out for inflating his ratings” on The Apprentice, the future president replied, “People will just believe you. You just tell them and they believe you.”
At that moment, it might have seemed like the sentiment of an amoral sociopath, one who had learned from long experience that if you’re rich enough and brazen enough, you can get away with behavior that ordinary people feel qualms about. But it would also turn out to be a profound insight into contemporary politics, one that the Republican Party has now adopted as one of its fundamental principles.
Not that the GOP was afraid to lie before it raised Trump up as its champion. But they’ve decided that they really can say anything, no matter how ridiculous, obviously false, or morally repellent it might be. People — or at least some people — will just believe them, and even change their own beliefs to match those of their political leaders…
[Some examples follow]
What unites these episodes [Access Hollywood, Russia investigation, tax plan] is the belief that it really doesn’t matter what you say when you’re arguing for a candidate, a policy, or even a legal defense. There’s no point in even trying to make your argument persuasive, because persuading people who might not already be with you isn’t really the point. All you have to is signal to your partisans: This is what we’re saying now, and yes I know it’s ridiculous, but just say it…
It’s pretty clear that the Republicans have adopted this as policy. Say anything, lie at will, make shit up, and people will believe you. Who says the Pubs have no principles or direction?
JohnT
December 7, 2017, 12:06am
14072
The most likely thing is that DJT had loose lower dentures. Some claim (I have yet to view it) that you can see this in the video if you are looking for it.
No, but he’s got to be on something.
They keep trying to jump out of his mouth, he keeps sucking them back in. Not as bad as the sniffing, but pretty unstatesmanlike, even for him.
If people are gonna make historical comparisons they should at least be a bit cleverer than Hitler. Trump is Napoleon III.
Marx’s descriptions of Bonaparte sound like echoes of Donald Trump’s clownish media persona. Bonaparte is said to be “clumsily cunning, knavishly naive, doltishly sublime, a calculated superstition, a pathetic burlesque, a cleverly stupid anachronism, a world-historic piece of buffoonery and an indecipherable hieroglyphic for the understanding of the civilized–this symbol bore the unmistakable physiognomy of the class that represents barbarism within civilization.”
BUT CLASS struggle isn’t only suppressed by the right. Indeed, Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire is much more a self-criticism of the left’s retreat from class struggle than a straightforward exposé of reaction. Before Bonaparte became Napoleon III of the Second Empire, French liberals and middle class forces suppressed workers’ struggles in the bloody months leading up to the end of the Second Republic.
jsc1953
December 7, 2017, 1:34am
14075
RickJay:
Quite honestly I think you’re giving Trump too much credit. You’re assuming he understands what a shitstorm this will be, and why. That isn’t consistent with what we know about Donald Trump.
What’s far likelier is that Trump is cutting a deal of some kind. To him, he’s Mister Deals. He’s the guy who wrote “The Art of the Deal.” He promised fantastic deals, believe me. And so he’d gotten some quid pro quo on this because to him, deals are Winning Bigly and not making deals are for Losers! Sad!
The nuances and long (or even short) term consequences aren’t of interest to him and are beyond his understanding.
Is he doing this to create a Reichstag Fire moment? I think it’s possible, but that relies on someone being able to convince him of what the bad consequences could be, and I am not entirely positive he’d get that.
It is of course also possible this isn’t his idea at all. It could be Steve Bannon’s idea.
I think it virtually impossible that it was Trump’s idea. Somebody had to have whispered in his ear, to make this a campaign promise, virtually out of the blue. It’s not like “move the embassy to Jerusalem” was something just percolating in the zeitgeist, that everybody has an opinion on.
Strange. When I have a dry throat, it sounds like a dry throat. Not like I’m holding a roll of quarters in my mouth, or just came out of general anaesthesia, or… what the flaming hell was that?
VinylTurnip:
Strange. When I have a dry throat, it sounds like a dry throat. Not like I’m holding a roll of quarters in my mouth, or just came out of general anaesthesia, or… what the flaming hell was that?
Maybe Hope Hicks was in the lectern.
enipla
December 7, 2017, 1:57am
14078
VinylTurnip:
Strange. When I have a dry throat, it sounds like a dry throat. Not like I’m holding a roll of quarters in my mouth, or just came out of general anaesthesia, or… what the flaming hell was that?
Brain rattling around in skull. Needs more stuffing. Wet 100 Dollar bills works for that.
wonky
December 7, 2017, 2:14am
14079
I only watched it very briefly, but he made the same sorts of expressions as during the infamous water bottle speech.
Tangent:
or Steve Guttenberg
Too old (59) and he’s not blonde.
Yes, I got the reference.
[Oliver] North, who appears frequently on Trump’s favorite TV network, Fox News, was enlisted to help sell the effort to the administration. He was the “ideological leader” brought in to lend credibility, said the former senior intelligence official.
Credibility? North? Is this what Trump has led us to?
Goddamn, that was difficult to watch. You know, at some point, I think I’m actually going to start feel sorry for that poor sap.
During Donnie Junior’s interrogation before the House Intelligence Committee today, he tried to claim that his conversations with his father were covered by attorney-client privilege because there was an attorney in the room.