My opinion, hunh? I think Trump is begging for help. He creates impasses, bizarre tweets and deadlines; yet somewhere deep in his reptilian brain he senses that he’s in Way Over his Head.
For whatever reason, he has sent Obamacare on a collision course to complete disaster. There is a slight chance that the GOP will end up taking the blame, but it is far more likely that the Right-Wing-Lie machine will go into overdrive and a majority of white men will decide it’s the Democrats fault for not compromising. Democrat Senators can thus be steered such that voting against an ACA restructuring would lead to anger against Democrats. Remember: The average American voter is not known for his smarts.
Among the vague synapses in Trump’s senescent frontal lobe is a desire to do the Smart Deal and Make ACA Great Again. Nancy and Chuck need to play the guy just right — he is silently begging for their help — and get him to sign on to ACA improvements; and stymie the GOP! He has reached out to Democrats before.
Wishful thinking? I guess so. @ Mods: please transfer this thread to BBQ Pit and change the title to Drat! Trump is even too stupid to know his reptilian brain is begging for help.
He has compulsion to undo or eliminate anything that is associated with Obama. My best guess is that this is to satisfy his ego in a way — i.e., the less that Obama can get credit for, the better Trump looks in comparison.
He always says that, if you hit him, he hits back disproportionately harder, right?
So what if his entire presidency is just him asking “hey, did I get Obama back good enough for that dinner, yet? No? Not yet? Keep going? Well, okay, I guess.”
(After all, what’s the counterargument: that he isn’t that petty?)
I think I understand your theory, and I would have been inclined to agree until I read this article on Politico. I think he is incapable of recognizing when he is in over his head.
I believe the reason is racism. This is a guy whose black casino employees were told to hide whenever he came on the floor so he wouldn’t have to gaze upon their unworthy faces. This is a guy who settled out of court for not renting to black tenants. It grinds him to the core that a black guy could have been elected president and he devotes every waking moment to trying to erase his legacy. After all, a bed that Obama slept on was, in Donald’s eyes, merely a place to pay Russian girls to pee on. Obama’s touch was so unclean that having received it, any object was not good only for toilet use.
Trump has been consistent in his attitude towards the ACA and the Democrats. One of the cornerstones of Trumps campaign was that the ACA was on hte verge of collapse. Now that he is in charge he is doing all he can to make sure that it does so he can say “see I told you so!” Another reason for his destruction of the ACA is to gain leverage. He realizes that, unlike him, the Democrats actually care whether people have healthcare, and so by holding it hostage he can gain leverage on them.
In their political battles against Trump and the Republcans, the Democrats suffer from the same weakness as Superman does in his battles against general Zod. Superman has to do his best to protect civilians caught in the crossfire which Zod can capitalze on this weakness by actively placing civilians in harms way.
Trump never begs for help. He never needs help. He just expects that people will give him the service which he is entitled to. And when they forget to do so, he reminds them.
I disagree. I think there is something Trump cares about: his image. He wants everyone else to think he’s as great as he thinks he is.
And I do think that at some level, he’s aware that he’s not a good President. The frequency of his denials support this.
My belief is that Trump wanted to become President so he would be remembered a hundred years from now. And he will be. But I think it’s slowly dawning on him that he won’t be remembered favorably. A hundred years from now, people will have forgotten whatever success Trump had as a businessman. But they’ll remember what a failure he was as a President.
Does he need help - yes, does he realize it - no. Can anyone actually tell him he needs help, no, and anyone who tries will be severally punished in life, but the message will not go though and the power Trump weird over that person will confirm in Trumps mind that he was right.
That is a mind-opening article. I now realize that my OP in this thread suffers itself from Trumpist pathology: Optimism where none is warranted. I’m a slow learner but it’s finally dawning on me that those with such a low opinion of Trump as to seem comically exaggerated were right all along. :mad:
Do they speak of Five Stages of Grief, or is it Seven Stages? More stages will need to be defined before our Trump-grief finally comes to an end. In any event, I too have moved past the amusement stage.
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Two years ago, we played a little game, “Predict the GOP nominee.” Those were happier, optimistic days. Dead Cat bid 8% as Trump’s chance and since he pled ignorance as a foreigner we allowed him to back down to 1%, which became the winning bid.
Maybe somebody needs to sit him down and explain that if there’s a nuclear war, there might not be anybody left who knows who Donald Trump is. The prospect of that might actually make him a little more cautious about risking a nuclear war.
