# The Trump Administration: The Clusterfuck Continues (Part 2) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [December 1, 2025, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-2/1025298 "2025-12-01T20:32:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 235
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2026, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-2/1025298/4681 "2026-04-17T13:51:25Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Remember when George HW Bush seemingly being mystified by the existence of barcode scanners was a career-ending gaffe? > > TRUMP, WHO SPENT 70 YEARS OF HIS LIFE IN NEW YORK CITY, DOESN’T KNOW WHAT A CORNER STORE IS. Isn’t “corner store” more of a UK term for what New Yorkers call a bodega? ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2026, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-2/1025298/4682 "2026-04-17T13:54:41Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Isn’t “corner store” more of a UK term for what New Yorkers call a bodega? It’s a pretty common US term, too, and I’d imagine that most Americans would know exactly what’s meant by it. But, yes, “bodega” is used a lot in NYC, AIUI. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2026, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-2/1025298/4683 "2026-04-17T13:55:03Z")
Corner store is going to be known and understood in North America, generally. Heck, Canada had a show called “Corner Gas” that was set not on the corner of a block in a big city but out in the boonies of Saskatchewan. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2026, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-2/1025298/4684 "2026-04-17T13:56:51Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > “bodega” is used a lot in NYC, AIUI. AFAIK, no one else _but_ NYC uses the term bodega. I grew up not even hearing the term. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2026, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-2/1025298/4685 "2026-04-17T13:57:42Z")
I used to take a drink or two out of my dad’s bottle of vermouth when I was in high school. His liquor cabinet only had the one thing. It was nasty but teenagers can’t be choosers. ---
**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:** [April 17, 2026, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-2/1025298/4686 "2026-04-17T14:00:22Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > Corner store is going to be known and understood in North America, generally. This. Absolutely. The thing is, there’s that problems with using a phrase like “generally known and understood” when referring to you-know-who. 🙄 Hell, even “North America.” Are we sure he knows what that is? > [@](#): > > Heck, Canada had a show called “Corner Gas” that was set not on the corner of a block in a big city but out in the boonies of Saskatchewan. Great show! I think we discussed it here a while back. _Spits._ ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2026, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-2/1025298/4687 "2026-04-17T14:05:37Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > > [@kenobi\_65](#): > > > > “bodega” is used a lot in NYC, AIUI. > > AFAIK, no one else _but_ NYC uses the term bodega. I grew up not even hearing the term. I hadn’t heard the term bodega until relatively recently myself. I _would_ actually use it, though, assuming there were any bodegas that I needed to talk about. To me, a bodega never sells gas, and the majority of small convenience stores in the suburbs sell gas. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2026, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-2/1025298/4688 "2026-04-17T14:10:49Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Isn’t “corner store” more of a UK term for what New Yorkers call a bodega? “Corner store” is the preferred and most common term in the Chicago area. In fact, I would guess a lot of people in this area have no clue what a “bodega” is. ---
**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:** [April 17, 2026, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-2/1025298/4689 "2026-04-17T14:13:51Z")
“No clue”? The term is used on a lot of TV shows set in New York. Especially _Law and Order_ where it’s is used constantly. Hold-ups, don’tcha know. In South Texas we sometimes say “Ice House” or “Ice Station” for a convenience store that sells gas, snacks, beer, sodas, and a few groceries. And, of course, _ice_. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2026, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-2/1025298/4690 "2026-04-17T14:20:08Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > I hadn’t heard the term bodega until relatively recently myself. Right. I had no idea what one was when I first started hearing the term probably less than five years ago. But it has become common since then. (Usually about bidega cats.) ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2026, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-2/1025298/4691 "2026-04-17T14:22:02Z")
IME, as recently as a decade ago, a fair number of New Yorkers called bodegas “delis.” (Not to be confused with old-school Jewish delis like Katz’s or Carnegie.) ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2026, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-2/1025298/4692 "2026-04-17T14:28:39Z")
> [@scudsucker](#): > > > [@Monty](#): > > > > He has zero sense of humor > > I object. He has a consumate bully’s sense of humour, he takes pleasure in beating people down. That’s not humor. It’s just glee, pure pleasure derived from his cruelty. > [@scudsucker](#): > > I, personally, hope he dies in a way not even the Monty Python team could imagine. If it involved a steam catapult on an aircraft carrier, all the better. Wouldn’t it be better if it involved the EMALS he hates so much? > [@solost](#): > > I don’t consider myself an alarmist type, but I’m beginning to wonder if ‘I don’t think I’m going to Heaven’ trump and ‘quoting fake bible verse that’s actually from Pulp Fiction’ kegsbreath are actually looking forward to an Apocalypse. Isn’t it an article of faith for War Criminal H. to do what he can to bring about the return of the Big Guy? > [@Odesio](#): > > You’re right that he doesn’t jest, but he does have a sense of humor when it comes to cruelty. Or at least it’s the closest he knows how to come to humor. See above. It’s not joking; it’s pleasure derived from cruelty. We (the generic we, the community here) have had discussions over the years on this board about a person who insists on asserting something incorrect which they do not know to be false even though the correct information is well-known and not a niche item. The big question is: are they actually lying? The felon is incredibly bad at damn near everything. One of the things he’s absolutely terrible at is reporting facts. Everything he asserts is false. He is, as should be obvious to even the most disinterested observer, too lazy to find out facts. So he opens his mouth and says what he wants to be the truth. He is such a simpleton, and such a lazy one at that, that he simply doesn’t know he’s spewing counterfactual assertions. The key thing here is the things he wants to be true are all based on his desire to satisfy, to unleash his cruelty. And that’s not humor; it’s just cruelty. When I say he’s satisfying his need for cruelty, I mean he’s using cruelty to dominate, to control, to have power over others. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2026, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-2/1025298/4693 "2026-04-17T14:35:54Z")
[quote=“Monty, post:4692, topic:1025298”] (sniip)… that he simply doesn’t know he’s spewing counterfactual assertions. [/quote] The man is a deliberate liar who knows he’s lying. I will not absolve him of responsibility for that. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2026, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-2/1025298/4694 "2026-04-17T14:50:02Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > > [@kenobi\_65](#): > > > > “bodega” is used a lot in NYC, AIUI. > > AFAIK, no one else _but_ NYC uses the term bodega. I grew up not even hearing the term. Bodega is Spanish and means wine cellar, often with a door to the street when it is open to the public, mostly cheap places for winos, but it can also be private and only accessible from within the house. ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2026, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-2/1025298/4695 "2026-04-17T15:00:59Z")
Of course, he doesn’t jest, he often says the quiet (keep it to himself) out loud, and if a row is made of it, he’ll say he was just kidding or meant something else. From New York, and I can’t think of any stores “on the corner” in any of the boroughs. Tom’s Diner, used extensively in “Seinfeld” for location cues, was referred to as “On the corner” in Suzanne Vega’s song “Tom’s Diner,” yet unless you lived on that block, you’d not say “Let’s go to the corner diner”. As for Seinfeld, that seemed to be the only diner they ever went to, and they’d probably just say, “Let’s go to the diner”. As for little convenience stores, “bodega” would have the widest use, though trump could have offered that up rather than say he couldn’t figure out what a “corner store” was and ranting about it. Bush Sr’s bafflement at the supermarket scanner was a mistake of his handlers. It would have been somewhat impressive if someone had quickly explained the tech of checkouts back then. I don’t thnk it hurt him as much as Dukakis riding in a tank did, yet it’s the job of the forward crew to explain stuff like how ridiculed you’ll be if you don’t know this or do that. I had never heard the term “bottled,” yet I’m not running for MP in the UK. I like Liverpool, though I guess I’d have to change that if I did run for MP outside Liverpool (never been). Anyways, I know Vance endorsed Arsenal (dunno if he visited them while in London) and they have a 6 point lead with 6 games to go and if one of the Manchester teams catch up, he’ll have one more FAIL to his name way before the midterms. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2026, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-2/1025298/4696 "2026-04-17T15:07:49Z")
IME almost all NYCitizens use “bodega” where people in other US cities use “corner store” (which differs from “convenience store” in that the latter is usually a national chain, and can be located anywhere, not just in urban areas. Every convenience store everywhere sells essentially the same items, where bodegas/corner stores reflect the ethnicity and socioeconomic status of their particular neighborhood). (Actually, in recent years NYC has embraced the term “convenience store” as a euphemism for “gray-market weed shop”) But it beggars imagination that anyone in NYC would never have _heard_ of the term “corner store”. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2026, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-2/1025298/4697 "2026-04-17T15:08:45Z")
> [@Coriolanus](#): > > Anyways, I know Vance endorsed Arsenal Well, one more good reason to be a Spurs fan, and God knows they’ve been in short supply lately. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2026, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-2/1025298/4698 "2026-04-17T15:10:38Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > Bodega is Spanish and means wine cella True (it’s from the Greek word that also gives us “apothecary”), but in NYC, it was filtered through Dominican Spanish, where it means…corner store. (In Mexico, it can mean any warehouse or storage room). ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2026, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-2/1025298/4699 "2026-04-17T15:35:55Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > I would say ordering it makes you look like a pretentious hipster if you’re under 70. I don’t drink it straight but have a bottle of sweet Italian vermouth on hand for a Manhattan-like cocktail I make. I don’t judge others on what they might drink.\* The Whisk(e)y Tribe’s motto is, _The best whiskey is the whiskey you like drunk the way you like it._ > [@Monty](#): > > Wouldn’t it be better if it involved the EMALS he hates so much? Like that MRI guy who wore a chain and padlock? “Here, sir, is the latest Noble prize. Yes, it is made of iron. Gold is for wimps and you’re an iron man. Now, stand right over this groove in the deck for a photo-op. Yes, she’s eighteen – that’s as young as you can be in the navy” \*Well, Mad Dog 20/20, perhaps, but other than that… ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2026, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-2/1025298/4700 "2026-04-17T15:38:37Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > > [@kenobi\_65](#): > > > > “bodega” is used a lot in NYC, AIUI. > > AFAIK, no one else _but_ NYC uses the term bodega. I grew up not even hearing the term. Until relatively recently, in Massachusetts they’d call it a “spa”. But nowadays a “spa” is plsce you go for mani-pedis and skin treatments, and the “convenience stores” that are still called “spas” are few and far between. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-2/1025298.md?page=234) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-2/1025298.md?page=236)