I disagree. Trump is very unintelligent, but he seems to be an accomplished salesman. Plus due to his narcissism he has a strong desire for praise and worship.
Plus I think his base likes how blatant he is with identity politics. He doesn’t promote tolerance like W Bush did, Trump openly shows disdain for blacks, muslims, latinos, immigrants, feminists, liberals, etc. which excites his base. Plus the GOP base has a strong authoritarian streak so Trumps disdain for democracy, rule of law and his cult of personality fine fertile grounds in the GOP.
I think Trump, if he wanted to, could take the GOP base away from the GOP.
Yep. The Establishment GOP pays enough lip service to American principles to equivocate a bit on its contempt for most of the American population. Trump doesn’t bother. Now that they’ve tasted red meat, the deplorables will turn up their noses at the Establishment’s pink slime.
I don’t believe that Trump will graciously retire fro the spotlight as most US Presidents do after leaving office. I think he will be even more dangerous once he’s out of the White House.
Big truth there. Dozens if not hundreds of smarter operatives are taking notes from his playbook right now (Tulsi Gabbard has an interesting centrist-oriented spin on it, and it would be unwise to ignore her).
[QUOTE=Hurricane Ditka]
Which recent speech(es) did you listen to? What did President Trump say that seemed “deranged” or “bizarre” to you?
[/quote]
Literally tonight on Twitter he said that he denied that he ordered asylees to be dumped on sanctuary cities, then about 2 hours later he ordered (if demands on Twitter are orders) asylees to be dumped on sanctuary cities. Even by his standards, that seems nuts. Either he’s an insane/brazen liar or the NYT has this bizarre apophatic power to make him do things by falsely reporting that he ordered them (which - if so, the NYT should recognize this and start using its power for good). But most likely he’s stopped connecting with truth and reality simply because his supporters and enablers really prefer that he doesn’t do that.
Speaking to the OP, will Trump go all Jim Jones? I dunno. I’ve gotten a lot wrong about Trump. Half due to failing to appreciate how wholly narcissistic a human can be, and the consequences it implies when such a person is president. Another part due to not appreciating how brazenly and cheerfully Republicans would trash all their stated principles to embrace the instrumentalist approach and lick his boots for strategic gains like tax cuts and court politicization. Another part due to overestimating how the rigors of the Presidency would intersect with age and a total disdain for exercise or healthy eating. One hopes the cholesterol is working its silent magic, but there’s no way to know for sure. He’s batshit on Twitter, but there’s no way to be certain whether his mind is going or this is just what happens to everyone on Twitter.
So with those corrections in mind, I don’t think he’d ever surrender or commit suicide. His narcissistic psyche won’t permit it, and his followers will keep encouraging him. My front-runners as to his end are currently (a) the cholesterol, and (b) an eventual overreach in the interest of nihilistic self-protection.
The latter is what worries me, because Trump knows the minute he stops being President, he and his shitty empire are finished. Just the in-flight federal investigations alone are enough to take him down if he can’t pardon himself. Which he absolutely will pardon himself, yet still this can’t touch the very serious in-flight state investigations. I think he absolutely would start a war to distract his opponents, rally his base, or starve the political organs of oversight of money and/or political capital. The only question is how big he’d go, and we all know he’s a fan of big gestures.
That was my first instinctive thought when I first read this thread: He dragged the overton window so far to the right it went off a cliff. We’d be naive to believe that his successors won’t run with this and make hay while the sun shines.
He’s popular because he’s a “superstimulus” for the Republican base; he’s everything they have been trained to desire in a leader turned up to pathological levels. He’s practically the modern Republican party incarnated into physical form; all of his flaws are things they’ve been trained for decades to regard as virtues.
When he’s gone they will demand somebody as bad or worse. And the party leadership will probably give it to them; out of fear if nothing else.
I agree, except for the “better at playing the game” part, as Trump clearly hits the sweet spot for a lot of people in a way that I’m not sure many would find it easy to emulate.
This would be a very interesting poll question to find out the answer to for Trump’s “base” supporters: who do you have greater confidence/trust in, Donald Trump or the GOP?
Yes, option (b) is clearly the worrying one, and from what we know of Trump and his personality, I think it’s certainly on the table as something that could potentially happen. I’m sure there are many things that Trump would do within his power as President, such as starting a war, for the sole purpose of distracting attention away from his own malfeasances, or to further some other agenda.
Thinking about what he might do without the power of presidency, probably the most alarming idea would be that he could incite his supporters to violence. If he were to unambiguously do so, he would probably only be able to rattle off one partial televised address or a few tweets before being shut down, either by the cutting of the live TV feed or the suspension of his Twitter account. Then he would effectively be silenced and have no way of communicating with his followers. If he was a bit more ambiguous - “who will RID me of this TROUBLESOME priest!” etc - then he might be able to muddy the water enough to get away with it a bit longer, and potentially even retain Republican support. He would probably not even have to ramp things up that much from his current “ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE” rhetoric. Trump’s hardcore base may number fifty million people or more, and it would only take a minute percentage of that number to cause problems, although I’m not sure if they could achieve much, other than cause chaos.
Republican political strategist Rick Wilson, author of the book Everything Trump Touches Dies (!), produces some good quotes and said this week that “the moral corruption of Donald Trump is his superpower”, in that he seems to have this ability to morally corrupt everyone in his orbit. I think this a pretty on-the-ball analysis, and an ominous one when thinks of the various prisms through which Trump can be viewed, such as wannabe-dictator, organized crime boss and cult leader.
In ancient times, it was common for servants and retainers to be sacrificed or forced to commit ritual suicide at royal tombs in order that they be able to continue to serve their king in the afterlife. Several cults in modern times, such as the Peoples Temple, Solar Temple, and Heaven’s Gate, ended in mass-suicides instigated by the cult leader. Narcissism has also been linked to mass shooters, and murderers often talk about the feeling of taking the power from those they take the lives of, which would seem to fit in with the same psychology. If there’s anyone in our current times that would be Pharoah, one day to rest for eternity in a gold-capped pyramid surrounded by skeletonized servants, it is surely Donald Trump.
Anyway, I don’t want anyone to feel I’m being alarmist in this thread. Since the Trump presidency navigates in unknown waters, there’s really a whole range of potential scenarios that could play out over coming months or years, from Trump leaving the office in a normal fashion like other presidents, to full-blown doomsday Armageddon. Just remember that Trump “going loco” Jim Jones-style is just one of several ways things could play out!
I’ll end with this tweet from the past week I found while googling:
While the phrase “drinking the Kool-Aid” has entered common parlance, meaning “a person who believes in a possibly doomed or dangerous idea because of perceived potential high rewards”, many people may not be aware of its origins, from what happened at Jonestown. U.S. Representative and House Intel member Jackie Speier will know better than most, since she was shot five times on Port Kaituma airstrip, along with U.S. Representative Leo Ryan, during the shootings there that immediately preceded the Jonestown massacre.
I find it hard to think of past Presidents who just faded away and never made public pronouncements to enhance their “legacy”, bash their successors etc. Trump of course is an excellent bet to do this in a more flamboyant and mendacious way than his predecessors.
The idea that Trump and his followers are going to go out in a blaze of murderous and suicidal glory a la Jim Jones is just another depressingly bizarre manifestation of Trump Derangement Syndrome.
C’mon, we can have more realistic fun speculating on who he’ll get to run the Trump Presidential Library. My money’s on Ted Nugent and Michele Bachmann (between them, they should be able to organize and shelve both books).
I don’t think he’ll lead people to another country, or order a round of suicides. But I could totally see him going Colonel Kurtz on us. I predict that Melania will get herself and Barron as far from him as possible once the Presidency is over. Surrounded by a pack of worshiping sycophants Trump would get worse and worse as reality ceased to intrude upon him. I think he is perfectly willing to let people destroy themselves in the name of pleasing him. We have already seen him commit " . . .rid me of this priest" type incitements* before adoring and amped-up crowds. It’s really a surprise that no murders have occurred yet.
Not yet, but here are some things that have happened recently…
A BBC cameraman in the press area was attacked by a MAGAhat-man at Trump’s El Paso rally a couple of months ago. Also in February was reported the Coast Guard guy’s plot to kill prominent Democrats and television news personalities. Last October, there was that Florida Trump supporter who sent 13 explosive devices to Democrats and CNN.
First off, I wouldn’t rule out lying without any reason. Pathological liars do that. I wouldn’t rule out an impetus to simply always deny knowledge of anything by default, unless he knows that’s a bad idea.
But, if he truly doesn’t remember, I think it’s possible it’s just the same issue he had this whole time. If it isn’t important to him right then, he forgets about it. It could just be the result of his narcissism, not thinking things not directly connected to him are important, so the fall out of his memory.
Either way, he’s done this so many times, saying he doesn’t remember something he should remember, yet he still passed cognitive function tests about memory. It would fit more ADHD or something that declining mental faculties.
None of that is to disagree with the OP about him being cultish in how he talks about things, and that his followers seem to make the same mental changes that happen in cults. I still can’t get past how much a 180 his followers take on things. I can’t get passed the nice old lady who became a bitter old woman spouting Trumpisms–despite no apparent senility. I can’t get past the conservative Christians who no longer care about their leader’s Christian goodness.
I don’t know if he’s gotten worse about these things, as I don’t listen to him anymore, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
If Trump is re-elected in 2020, which is entirely possible, he’ll leave office happily and triumphantly in January 2025.
If he is defeated in 2020, also entirely possible, he’ll throw a giant shit fit but he’ll still leave, and the likelihood he will use the office of President to do awful things either running up to an inevitable defeat or in the wake of defeat is pretty much 100 percent. But he will leave, and hire many lawyers to shield him from his crimes. Trump is not a courageous man, nor is he given to the fanatic faith of suicidal cult leaders (or any faith at all.) He’s not up to leading some sort of coup.
He’s not up to leading an organized coup, but he’s certainly up for making public calls for armed lunatics to do his will. It ought to be a fun day when he announces that he’s being oused by a Deep State coup’s illegal election and that all again-great americans should grab their guns and storm the white house.
