Trump+Musk: Folie à Deux - Trump thread #137

[Spandauer]

The clock is already ticking and he's an old man. Mid-terms: November 3, 2026

Thanks to @AcrossThePond55 for the thread title.

Previous thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5206120-the-grown-ups-have-left-the-building-trump-thread-136

Yes I agree. I was coming to post this ☺️

Makes a lot of sense. Especially that bit about Trump not being adept at making himself agreeable to people. And it fits with his awkward flag kissing.

All the narcissists can breathe a sigh of relief; no longer need to be offended that they're being linked to Trump

That's straight out of the West Wing (War Crimes).

Oh, and War Crimes is the name of the episode. It was a Big Block of Cheese 🧀 thing for Sam.

I really need to get out more 🤦🏻‍♀️

I think he's very much like a child with no impulse control and sees the Executive Orders as the equivalent of 'if I had 3 wishes...' but the wishes are unlimited!

He's very much of the opinion that he can just sign one of those and do anything - I expect he believes that all it'll take is to sign an Executive Order and he'll 'own' Gaza - absolutely nuts.

It's almost as if he thinks they apply to the world, rather than just America. That's his intelligence level.

Yep!

The thing about Executive Orders is it doesn't have to go through the legislature, which would likely oppose it. Like king Louis and other ppl who sought to rule as king, it's actually a sign of his weakness

Ezra Klein

He is Icarus, flying too close to the sun.
It cannot last.
He thinks he's invincible.
He's not. Hubris writ extremely large.

This is basically what Nixon was up to in Watergate. Bypassing congress.

The difference then was congress got pissed off at having their power usurped, Now they can't give it away fast enough.

The US political system was predicated on congress - being drawn from "the people" locally being a check to the executive who is not. The idea (as far as I can see( being that a representative for (say) Mississippi is not going to allow bad things to happen to Mississippi just so a NYC president can funnel public money into NYC. That national/local tension being the bulwark against tyranny.

Modern media has broken that model. You now have a bunch of numbnuts comgressmen who are quite happy to sell their state down the river for the cult of MAGA. Safe in the knowledge that - unlike Nixon - their base will never turn on Trump. Indeed their base is more likely to turn on them if they aren't seen to be behind the Miracle Man.

What is fascinating is how easy it is to capture the US compared to the UK. Unlike the UK, US elections are set in stone. Which means it's nearly 2 years until there is any window to change the makeup of congress. And that is assuming that the midterms go ahead. By then the judiciary could be so shredded that the Executive Order to suspend elections just breezes through.

Trump's attorney general Pam Bondi did this on her first day in office:

Trump administration disbands taskforce targeting Russian oligarchs
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/06/trump-russia-oligarchs-task-force

Also, their use of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act will prioritize cartels rather than incorporated companies. This means companies which have previously been scrutinised, like Goldman Sachs, Glencore and Walmart, will be effectively off the hook.

The Trump administration has put out a great deal of noisy blather about increasing the war on drugs – eg the supposed tariffs on Canada followed by Canada re-announcing what it was already doing against drugs.

I wonder if some of that is intentional cover for the rolling back of enforcement against corporate America (political donors) and against Russian oligarchs.

Yes, and what a coincidence this is

https://bsky.app/profile/chadbourn.bsky.social/post/3lhvhbjc4o223

https://www.yahoo.com/news/zelensky-meet-jd-vance-munich-185303966.html

US President Donald Trump floated the idea that Ukraine "may be Russian someday", as his Vice President JD Vance gears up to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky later this week.

So the latest edict is banning the federal government from buying paper straws, with the eventual aim of banning their sale nationwide. Why does the federal government even buy drinking straws? Do they host children's birthday parties as a side gig like primary schools do here?

It's all about small government.

Getting the government out of interfering in people's lives.

Although the depth of Trump's knowledge about paper straws' performance, including with hot drinks, is mildly interesting.

It was noticed during his last term - so at least 4 years ago - that he was struggling with raising a water bottle to his lips and had to stoop his head to it.

It's a very familiar movement to me because I have a neurological condition.

It comes about because of lack of strength and motor control to raise the arm+hand+cup accurately to the lips. Keeping the upper arm braced against the torso improves stability, but then the cup won't reach the lips without stooping.

An obvious solution might be... drink everything through a straw. Even hot drinks. Even if the straw doesn't work well.

So I suspect this is the root of his anger towards straws.

Those straws are awful. Pre plastic straws we had waxed paper ones when I was a child.

They really are for children but disintegrate very quickly

Paper straws are not the best but it reduces the amount of plastic waste, just a small annoyance to deal with.

There's reusable metal straws. There's an aesthetic influencer I see on my social media who seems to use them for the tinkly clink sound they add. Increaes steel production!

Paper straws are a paradigm of why net zero will fail. They may as well have been called hair shirts.

No amount of gaslighting is going to batter a public with eyes, ears, and even half a brain cell into thinking they are anything other than what they are. And what they are is crap.

And not only are they crap, they're also - much like low flush toilets - probably responsible for more waste than the plastic straws they pretend to replace.

The reason - the only reason - that governments went anywhere near "green" issues wasn't because of a love of the green of the planet.

I have to admit that I really can see how some of Trumps pull (and Farages here in the UK) is because people in a hurry (and who isn't) don't stop to consider the deeper implications of backing them when they think it's merely about plastics straws, too many brown faces or "the EU". Mix that powder into the beaker of the media, and you have a potent poison.

Even now I have met regretful Leavers whose response to being hoodwinked by Farage is "how else was I supposed to vote ?". Implying that it's some elses fault that by supporting Farage they were directly supporting Stephen Yaxley Lennon and Andrew Tate.

Now it's not for me to suggest to anyone how they should vote. However by the same token, if I ever - ever - find myself in a position where I have to vote for a fascist to get "my" policy on the books, then I'd rather not have my policy on the books, thank you very much.

Having 2 parties also doesn't help the US.

Tangerine is saying that paper straws explode and they melt within seconds when you put them in something hot

That's because someone in his team saw Veep.

I am happy to be on the same page as Trump here since I have no vote. Paper straws are shite. They are the poster child for why people detest "greenies". And they are also symbolic of the disconnect between the "intelligentsia" and the person in the street. How in the name of all that is holy did the first plastic straw get through a consumer focus group ? I am betting that either it didn't. Or of it did it was a specially selected group with a questionnaire that was engineered to ensure it returned the result needed to justify the project.

Someone should develop a straw made from corn husks or bamboo or grass or something that is sturdy and ubiquitous but biodegradable. There must be a middle ground between shit but disposable paper straws and resource-intensive but reusable metal ones.

Sounds great eh ?

I CBA to dig, but I would guess someone did. However, the supply chains of the West are predicated upon the cheapest possible solution (and even then we are going to haggle).

So unless it is at the very least no more expensive than the previous iteration, you are already on a hiding to nothing.

That is before you factor in that if you provide the "original" and the "progressive" side-by-side (and zero extra cost to the supply chain remember) then you have to account for a future where - even with "nudges" the customer prefers the tried and tested and the new straw just fails.

And that is forgetting that the paper straws were absolute dog shit. No one in their right mind would have used one more than once. (Personally after a few sips I was ready to toss mine - so not even a full use).

So obviously the only way forwards (and now I start to wonder who had invested what into this that their return had to be underwritten by power of law ?) is to force the unpopular measure on a resistant public. Thus guaranteeing that the pushback against the next green initiative will be that much greater.

And don't get me started on how the whole climate change challenge was fucked over by the environmental lobby. They really are their own worst enemy.

I'm always puzzled by the straw angst because I can't stand drinking through any type of straw.