Trump 101: How not to President (TrumpThread #101)

[TheNorthWestPawsage]

Two images. Same day.
161 days to November 3rd.

Thanks to BruceAnd Nosh for thread title.

Previous thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3877401-Trump-100-Thread-and-Were-Way-Down-the-Rabbit-Hole?pg=1

Another long but very interesting article from Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic:
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/07/trumps-collaborators/612250/ "Why have Republican leaders abandoned their principles in support of an immoral and dangerous president?"

Did anyone watch Obama's talk last night?

Apparently Snapchat have stopped promoting Trump's Snapchat account (!)

This reminds me that, although I don't follow Trump on Twitter I (used to) get notifications of his tweets.

Well said Jim Mattis
Blaming other people for the disastrous Bible stunt just makes it worse,
trump promotes himself as someone who has good instincts, good judgement....a person of good judgement would never agree something that was bound to turn out so disastrously

"Most over-rated General" is probably Patton, though Rommel is also among the front-runners. Caesar had an unfair advantage because he wrote the history of his campaigns; Napoleon, who didn't, was clearly a comprehensive failure on many levels.

And Trump, of course, is no sort of General at all, failed or otherwise; he's just a know-it-all ignoramus with a complete lack of historical perspective.

Another good one from Geo Conway's Lincoln Project.

You know, I never realized how much Scrotus looks like Jabba the Hut.

Yes. I've always thought so.

Sidekick.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/piers-morgan-rudi-giuliani-trump-twitter-good-morning-britain-itv-video-a9548076.html

From the long article by Anne Applebaum linked upthread:
"Mikhail Bakhtin, the Russian philosopher and literary critic, recognized the lure of the forbidden a century ago, writing about the deep appeal of the carnival, a space where everything banned is suddenly allowed, where eccentricity is permitted, where profanity defeats piety. The Trump administration is like that: Nothing means anything, rules don’t matter, and the president is the carnival king."

I'd use an older model. He is the Lord of Misrule.

Yes, Lord of Misrule. That's interesting.

The difference is, I suppose, that the Bakhtin model sees everything turned upside down for a temporary period only and this acts as a safety valve to ensure that, aside from for the duration of the Carnival, everything returns to the status quo.

The Trumpers think the carnival is here to stay and that it will change everything in their favour.

Extra fencing going up around the WH.

Oh lion, that fencing is just going up because he wants to inspect it doncha know.

I'm mean, it's not like he's a little cowardly titty-baby hiding under the bed in the Lincoln Bedroom telling Melania and Barron "You go first!!!".

Seriously, you know how sometimes you joke about 'danger' with your spouse and say "I only have to run faster than you" or whatever. With Scrotus, it wouldn't be a joke. He would throw anyone, including Melania or his kids, in front of himself to avoid danger. Well, maybe except Ivanka.

#BunkerBoybehindthefence

Well, maybe except Ivanka
he would seize the opportunity to finally have sex with her first

Thanks for the link to the Atlantic/Anne Applebaum article Jaichange.
Fascinating and horrifying in equal measures.
It makes me wonder why Pence, Pompeo and Barr wouldn't now want to engineer Trump's removal and install Pence as President now that Trump has (unknowingly?) done their dirty groundwork for them?

... a former member of the administration (one of the few who did decide to resign) told me that both Pence and Pompeo “have convinced themselves that they are in a biblical moment.” All of the things they care about—outlawing abortion and same-sex marriage, and (though this is never said out loud) maintaining a white majority in America—are under threat. Time is growing short. They believe that “we are approaching the Rapture, and this is a moment of deep religious significance.” Barr, in a speech at Notre Dame, has also described his belief that “militant secularists” are destroying America, that “irreligion and secular values are being forced on people of faith.” Whatever evil Trump does, whatever he damages or destroys, at least he enables Barr, Pence, and Pompeo to save America from a far worse fate. If you are convinced we are living in the End Times, then anything the president does can be forgiven.

He would throw anyone, including Melania or his kids, in front of himself to avoid danger

Oh yes. There are photos out there of Trump hogging the huge umbrella with windswept Melania and Barron trotting along behind open to the elements

I'll bet Melania is praying he's defeated in Nov so she can go back to living that separate life she had before.

Not that I feel one ounce of sympathy for her. As Super Chicken said to Fred: "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it".

@lionheart

Those Episcopalians though.

Epic burn though. 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

@B1rdbra1n

Well, maybe except Ivanka he would seize the opportunity to finally have sex with her first

🤮

Yes, they could try to usher Pence in as the upstanding Christian, stabilising force.

It would be Part 2 of an American horror story.

He'd never outrun a bear, would he?

the rapture
it is looking a bit like 'end times' for the US even if not in the way they mean:
www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/cia-veterans-who-monitored-crackdowns-abroad-see-troubling-parallels-in-trump-handling-of-protests/2020/06/02/7ab210b8-a4f6-11ea-bb20-ebf0921f3bbd_story.html
The scenes have been disturbingly familiar to CIA analysts accustomed to monitoring scenes of societal unraveling abroad — the massing of protesters, the ensuing crackdowns and the awkwardly staged displays of strength by a leader determined to project authority.
In interviews and posts on social media in recent days, current and former U.S. intelligence officials have expressed dismay at the similarity between events at home and the signs of decline or democratic regression they were trained to detect in other nations.
“I’ve seen this kind of violence,” said Gail Helt, a former CIA analyst responsible for tracking developments in China and Southeast Asia. “This is what autocrats do. This is what happens in countries before a collapse. It really does unnerve me.”
Helt, now a professor at King University in Tennessee, said the images of unrest in U.S. cities, combined with President Trump’s incendiary statements, echo clashes she covered over a dozen years at the CIA tracking developments in China, Malaysia and elsewhere.
Other former CIA and national security officials rendered similarly troubled verdicts.
Marc Polymeropoulos, who formerly ran CIA operations in Europe and Asia, was among several former agency officials who recoiled at images of Trump hoisting a Bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington after authorities fired rubber bullets and tear gas to clear the president’s path of protesters.
“It reminded me of what I reported on for years in the third world,” Polymeropoulos said on Twitter. Referring to the despotic leaders of Iraq, Syria and Libya, he said: “Saddam. Bashar. Qaddafi. They all did this.”

Well, maybe except Ivanka - he would seize the opportunity to finally have sex with her first

I laughed. I'm going to hell.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/william-barr-justice-department-protests-trump_n_5ed8330ec5b6513fdffca21a?ri18n=true

like a spurned lover trump is turning on the country as it rejects him

Trump's wall...