What's True Pussycat? - Trump Thread #134

[Spandauer]

Non-fake, stable genius thanks to @Crucible for the new thread title.

Seniors' special today.*
They’re eating the dogs!
They’re eating the cats!
They’re eating the pets!...
So do you want fries with that cat? (*Apologies to non-MAGA seniors)

In other news, the swing states continue to be too close to call and it looks like it's going to be a nail-biting, buttock-clenching, hand-wringing 50 days to the election. (or thereabouts)
Increase your anxiety with this handy countdown 😭
https://days.to/until/election-day-in-us

Previous thread here:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5134172-its-not-over-until-the-cat-lady-sings-trump-thread-133

Or if you prefer, The Donald will give you all the beautiful facts as they happen...

Donald Trump has said he is planning to provide live commentary during the vice-presidential debate, similar to his live commentary during Kamala Harris’s speech accepting the Democratic nomination in August.

Trump has been especially defensive about Walz’s branding of Republicans as “weird” and has insisted that it’s Walz who is the weird one.

Trump's Truth Social feed was absolutely bonkers during Harris's DNC speech. I think he got a French fry wedged under the Caps Lock key

"Donald Trump has said he is planning to provide live commentary during the vice-presidential debate"

So idiocy combined with histrionics. Lovely. And the Cult will treat it as stone tablets from Mt Sinai. Ignorance combined with gullibility.

A throwback to the happy days of 2005 when Trump was merely a bloke in a reality programme who couldn't sing...

have they seen the same thing?

Yes, but it's true, Vance is a good debater and was composed and well spoken. How you interpret the debate depends on either partisan leanings or the having gone in with the knowledge that beneath that veneer he's a lying sociopath who lied all the way through.

That's why I find Vance ultimately scarier than Trump. He's capable of putting a normal exterior of the psychotic bones of the project 2025 crew.

JV Last of the Bulwark's take

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/jd-vance-was-so-good-it-may-drive-trump-crazy-debate

That's why I find Vance ultimately scarier than Trump. He's capable of putting a normal exterior of the psychotic bones of the project 2025 crew.
Vance is so far Right that he makes Trump look moderate. It's why he's changed his stance on Trump - Vance and his ilk are using Trump's popularity as a way of getting their man into a powerful position. Trump is just a useful idiot to the extreme Right. Someone upthread suggested if Trump wins, the far Right will try to remove him to allow Vance to take over.

Personally, I don't think they'd remove Trump. The Maga base is too wedded to him, and they need that base, for now. I do believe they have far-ranging plans for him beyond Trump, though.

I think he plays down Project 2025 way too much, but this is an interesting and alarming listen on Vance

Trump has backed out of the traditional 60 Minutes Pre election interview. Or according to Stephen Cheung, never agreed to it in the first place...
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/01/media/trump-backs-out-60-minutes-interview-cbs/index.html

I saw that. What a coward. CBS really should devote the entire time to a public fact check of even just the last month of lies (but they won't).

I didn't watch the debate so only have the various (and many) MSM/SM opinions to read and evaluate.

Sounds like neither really messed up and that the debate was civil and "normal".

Walz was quite nervous, flubbed occasionally eg dates of being in China and Tianamen Square - so those few points will be seized on and repeated endlessly.

Vance kept himself in check and tried to present himself as a "Compassionate conservative" lying glossing over his previous statements about women, abortion and Project 2025 etc. Got rattled when challenged by moderator about Haitians in Springfield not being there illegally and complained that he wasn't supposed to be fact-checked on air...

It sounds doubtful that the debate will change the dial one way or the other.

Pretty shocked to read that Vance is only 40 yrs old - years of lies and hate clearly cause premature ageing

Trump has backed out of the traditional 60 Minutes Pre election interview. Or according to Stephen Cheung, never agreed to it in the first place...

That's interesting. I was wondering after reading about the VP debate and Vance's OK performance whether Trump would change his mind about debating KH again. Obviously not!

I watched some of it. In general I felt Vance was as slippery as a slippery thing and he unnerved me a lot the way he never moved from staring at Walz when Walz was speaking, never looking away, looking to camera etc
He comes across as a dangerous man

I have only seen the clips of Vance complaining about being fact checked and refusing to answer the did Trump lose the election question.

I haven't watched the debate nor read any commentary on it (events in the ME overshadow it for us as we have dear friends living in Beirut), but I'm still inclined to believe, as you wise ones have mentioned here before, that this election hinges on the relatively few remaining undecided or "floating" voters. MAGA and Democrats are indeed firmly entrenched and won't be moved, it is those of the GOP who can't face what MAGA has made the party who possibly hold this election in their hands. I also feel that the gerrymandering that has been happening in certain states under Trump's leadership will make this a tighter election than it need be and if he wins, it may well be that because of his machinations, Vice-President Harris may well have the right to say that he stole the elction from her. I wish it weren't so. But even my husband, with whom I usually agree on politics, is very derisory of Biden's presidency and consequently, of Harris. So if he, who is firmly anti-Trump, still wouldn't see voting for Harris as an obvious option (if we had the vote in the US!), I wonder how that translates to actual votes, if you see what I mean? (Not sure that made sense, sorry.)

I think the "good" news is that I doubt that the debate last night will have shifted the dial either way - especially not with the all-important swing voters.

Although I agree that the scary thing about Vance is how reasonable he sounds when you know what his real agenda and beliefs are

Hopefully, the fact that it is still so close will make sure that those who don't want Trump as #47 will get out and vote.

"Although I agree that the scary thing about Vance is how reasonable he sounds when you know what his real agenda and beliefs are "

Also particularly frightening is the fact that he has ADMITTED he fabricated the lies about Springfield (and other things, I believe?) and this is now apparently so normal that nobody bats an eyelid. This is the true horror of Trump and MAGA for me, that anyone can make up blatantly untruthful "facts", and not be called out on them or criticised for them, let alone lose votes because of it. I really abhor that aspect of Trump's malevolent influence.

Completely agree. Currently made the mistake of getting involved in the will WWIII happen thread. Idiocy is not confined to the American voting public.

Sorry - those were two separate points!

Sounds like Vance's main aim was to neutralise the "weird" perception

Can only hope people don't take to him like they have Trump.

Yes, I think that's right. I worry that his appearance of normalcy will soothe the swing voters who don't like Trump's craziness, but are looking for permission to vote for him anyway.

Trump is so unhinged right now, I'm very worried about what kind of psychotic reign of terror he'll unleash if he gets in.

I'm not American but can I ask Americans on here a question about Vance... Putting the policies and dadaist attitude to the truth aside, does anyone else find him irrationally horrifying? It's not political bias, because the only other American politician who gives me the same feeling is Governor Newsom and he's from the opposite side of the political spectrum, but there is something about the pair of them which just makes every irrational bit of my brain scream nooooooo. And that probably doesn't mean much since really people shouldn't be making political choices on poorly defined gut feelings alone. But Trumps whole game plan is to play on poorly defined gut feelings rather than facts. So I don't see how Vance doesn't harm that. Unless no-one else sees this and it's just me. Is it just me???

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/veep-reunion-table-read-trump-harris-b2621854.html

Of course this a great time for me, in the US election cycle, when I get to remember what a great word gubernatorial is. ☺️

Vance gives me the chills.
Newsom does too.
They are both viciously ambitious and practiced public speakers.

Trump will be livid that Vance has good reviews.
Livid Trump puts off all swing voters.

Its a shame that so so few actual polling booths will decide the result.