It's not over until the Cat Lady sings - Trump thread #133

[Spandauer]

Bigly Thanks to BruceAndNosh for the thread title.

Hopefully people can open this link OK.
https://x.com/amy_siskind/status/1818015701023735951?s=46&t=sQEeBsNjiTta_B_D1Qh6IQ

Previous thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/politics/5058103-trump-trial-time-banish-all-memories-of-mueller

As to the second bit, apart from quite a number of name changes I've made on here for various reasons, though they may not yet amount to a hundred, I am particularly fond of Leonard Cohen's version of "The Partisan", which includes the line: "J'ai changé cent fois de nom".

Ah, I recognised it straight away! That song brings back many memories for me.

I am always a little "meh" at amateur remote unco-opted diagnoses of complex psychological conditions. (although I do remember that expert that diagnosed Reagan years before it was even suspected from VT clips ...)

I knew someone who was a real piece of work (even by MN standards she stood out when I detailed her litany of batshitness). Everyone tried to excuse it as being a part of a mental decline, but after 15 years if it, it was clear she was sharp as a tack and had merely sold the lie to her family to allow her to continue her Abusive (note the capital "A" there) behaviour. Finally she slapped the wrong person who immediately called the police and the whole tissue disintegrated. That was over 10 years ago, and I hear she is still as sharp as ever.

I can only live by my own experience.

UK readers should really get the electoral college - it's how vote share doesn't match the outcome.

Much more interesting is the technicality that US citizens don't vote for their President (but they vote for someone that does).

I had been particularly confused by that aspect of the press conference yesterday, as I had difficulty hearing the questions, and obviously, I now realise, the answers too, as when I heard Trump talk about being a good friend of Willy Br-garbled, I had to check that the former Chancellor of West Germany was indeed long dead and couldn't possibly have had a close friendship with Trump. I had no idea who else it might be rather than Willy Brandt, though, so thank you for clearing up that mystery for me!

There is this weird back-to-the-past* vibe from all these right wingers, no matter where they are (i.e. we get it in the UK too).

And then they wonder why people under 40 won't vote for them ?

*"back-to-the-past": there must be a single German word for that 😀 ? If not, is it in our gift to nick one ?

well, there is'ostalgie'
looking back to german separation with rose tinted glasses

That sounds specifically German, not that we English wranglers worry too much about such nuances.

"Ostalgy"
(i) - a pernicious nostalgia whereby you ruin not only your own life but that of your friends and family by attempting to recreate a "golden age" that never was.

(ii) a gathering of people suffering from ostalgy which leads to vaguer and more incorrect memories until the assemblage has a collective special moment. Usually involves flags.

(iii) an insistence without any foundation that a course of action is correct merely because it is supported by other sufferers of ostalgy.

(iv) a perennial weed of the species N. faragensis that grows in the absence of intelligence and critical thinking.

(v) (colloq.) Anywhere in the former British Empire the speaker has never been.

Further to @PerkingFaintly, up thread: (But as discussed earlier on these threads, and by Rachel Maddow, he may be expecting to acquire the role by other means than by people voting for him.)
At last, somebody's on it, I hope they (and others) keep at it:
wapo.st/4dBDNla

I can totally believe someone would semble dotage to excuse behavior, but even looking back to 2016, Trumps speech pattern has changed. I think part of it was him trying to talk down to the lowest level of his base but someone did an analysis of his vocabulary and it has noticeably shrunk and not just in rallies.
He also does that thing that my dad did, where he starts off in the middle of the a conversation, and you have to mentally fill in what wasn't said to get the gist of it.

I can't remember the story now, but it was about a criminal who ended up indefinitely jailed. The last sentence was something like "were they mad, or did they go mad trying to fake it ?"

It may have been a lurid true crime story. I used to not be able to get enough in my youth.

https://www.rawstory.com/news/far-right-trump-pundits/

I saw that yesterday on the XTwitter thing, but apparently Joe Rogan and Tim Pool both said they had been joking and deliberately misleading Democrats. Who knows, in today's world?

Trump is doubling down on his imaginary helicopter ride with Willie Brown, despite Brown insisting he's never been in a helicopter with Trump.
Trump says he's got flight records that prove it but hasn't produced them...

Oh that's the same "I was just being ironic, just joking, just fooling you" they use after getting called out for saying something racist.

How interesting.

Those right-wing pundits are obviously pissed off with Trump (even if they express it as anger at his campaign).

And then, they've obviously felt blowback for saying so.

Dear me, trouble in paradise?

Is he just plain stupid? Willie Brown spoke out after the statement Trump made saying he has never been in a helicopter with Trump and said he had also never said awful things about Kamala Harris.

Scaramucci said that Trump literally lies about everything. He recalled when he was President and doing a press conference in the Rose Garden. His aides gave him a figure of 84% on something that he was going to brief on. Instead he said 96% (totally wrong figure). They asked him why he said that... "because it sounds better, I don't care if it's a lie"

Watching from afar, I repeat what I am seeing. Trump is narrowing his appeal to his own base (no doubt there is a psychologist on hand to explain it's a defence mechanism to resort to a comforting environment).

Meanwhile, incrementally, the opposition appears to be expanding theirs.

Put that on a graph and it tells it's own tale.

The most amusing thing is now seeing the Republicans - who having ousted Biden know the effect it can have on a campaign - having to face another 90 days of Trump. And know that by their own brutal code of honour, their failure to act to replace Trump will be what costs them this election.

In one way you can't draw too much from around the world - different systems etc etc. However people are the same over. And it's entirely possible that had our own Tory party been as ruthless as they have shown they can be and canned Rishi the moment he was fumbling, things could have been different.

That said, there is also a generation thing. What does Trump offer a 21 year old ? Apart from a carp pseudo TikTok video there isn't enough cringe in the known universe for ?

What does Trump offer a 21 year old#

His dancing is something else 😂🤣

I am truly sorry you had to see that.

I bet if it were actually seen by real life 21 year olds (a very slim chance) the ridicule and gifs and memes it would generate would prompt howls of "Fake News" from the man whose surname is a synonym for fart and an anagram of muppet.

In contrast there's some lovely film online of Kamala Harris dancing with a bunch of young people - don't know if it would be cool enough for 21 yr olds but everyone looks like they're having great fun and KH can dance!

She is really turning out to be such a wonderful breath of fresh air. Come on US! Elect Kamala! Defeat the old crazy guy! You KNOW it makes sense!

Whilst Trump has been doubling down on his claim he was in a near fatal helicopter emergency landing with Willie Brown, this report seems much more credible.
I think Nate Holden would know where he was and who he was with, plus actual confirmation of Holden's story from Barbara Res, Trump’s former executive vice president of construction and development who was also on board.

He tells so many pointless lies it feels like it's pointless pointing them out!

The other Black politician who says he was with Trump in that near-fatal chopper crash.
Former Los Angeles city councilman and state senator Nate Holden said in an exclusive interview late Friday that he remembers the near-death experience well.
www.politico.com/news/2024/08/09/trump-plane-crash-california-00173487

Given this is MN, maybe this could have it's own thread ?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/10/republicans-tampon-tim-walz

Positive news continues.

Vice President Kamala Harris has pulled ahead of former president Donald Trump in three pivotal swing states, according to new polls released Saturday by the New York Times and Siena College.


Harris leads Trump by four percentage points in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, the polls found. In each of the three states, she is preferred by 50 percent of likely voters, as opposed to the 46 percent who chose Trump.
The surveys were conducted Aug. 5-9. The margin of sampling error among registered voters is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points in Michigan, plus or minus 4 percentage points in Pennsylvania, and plus or minus 4.3 percentage points in Wisconsin.
 (WaPo)

Harris and Walz due at a rally in Nevada (Las Vegas) tonight - another swing state - so will be interesting to see if they continue to get the crowds and another boost in the polls.

DBIL who lives in Arizona didn't go to yesterday's rally in Glendale but he said the over 15k crowd was queuing in temperatures of 42C!

Meanwhile Trump was at a rally in safe red state Montana...
www.newsweek.com/kamala-harris-donald-trump-rally-size-1937390

Frankly if I advocated for free period products for young women in high schools I'd wear that moniker proudly.

The GOP treating it as an insult just goes to show how anti-female they are. The menz don't need free period products,do they? No? Then anyone who advocates for them must be an idiot.

Why any right thinking female would support such an archaic party is beyond me.

I just feel more and more optimistic that she will win. Roll on November!