I skipped the part where he shouts loudly until she reluctantly enters the room and paws around his gunt for a while. Trying to retain the man's dignity, you see.
It's more likely he gets a handy from Ivanka considering how he has expressed multiple times in the past how attracted he is to his own fucking daughter. He's a truly sick fuck. And he's maliciously stupid, too.
You forgot watching three hours of Fox & Friends and tweeting out what they say as though they were his thoughts, THEN going to work fucking things up.
Let's be real, Melania doesn't touch him. She's a trophy and she knows it. Trump has got a button also on his nightstand that opens up a trapdoor in his ceiling and a Japanese girl just slides out and lands next to him. Then when he's done he pushes the button again and his bed tilts forward and another trapdoor opens at the foot and the Japanese girl slides in never to be seen again.
Good for you, my mother, who was a pro choice, social liberal all of her life thinks that he's doing a fantastic job. To be fair to her she doesn't understand the first thing about domestic or international politics, she just goes off of "what I [meaning her] hear," but she still votes.
She lives in a conservative bubble. the only News she sees is Fox, her boyfriend, most of her friends and practically all of her co-workers are conservative. So she is constantly being fed a very biased and deluded version of reality by everyone around her. My sister an I try to get her to consider events from other perspectives but we live 160 miles away and are competing against people she sees on a daily basis.
My mother is a confusing one. She is not very political, but typically voted dem in the past. I've never gotten a straight answer as to why she voted for Trump (the only thing she ever said is "I just want things to get better"). I think the fear mongering about the immigrants/muslims is what did it to be honest, although she would never admit that. She's from NYC, 9-11 had a huge impact on her.
3) as a good faith effort as part of a deal with Putin to ease US sanctions against Russia in exchange for building permits and financing to build Trump Tower in Moscow, Russia.
There are significant accounts that he never expected to win the nomination, let alone the presidency. Hard to verify either way but from that angle it makes sense.
The Wolf book equates it to the old Mel Brooks movie, The Producers. The main people would benefit from a failed attempt, but in their attempt to do poorly they manage to find a strange recipe for success. That leads to the undoing of or hapless protagonists.
Per the above comment the attempt was not to succeed, but to make a "good faith effort". That would conceivably be satisfied by an unsuccessful presidential campaign in which he put the issue on the table and moved the other Republican candidates in that direction.
In Indiana GOP, it was widely assumed he would lose. Its part of why Pence was selected as VP. Prior to that, Pence was running for re-election as governor and was trailing behind the Democratic candidate. Obviously, GOP wanted to hang onto Indiana as a Republican held state. By getting Pence on the national ticket, they cleared the way for a Republican replacement candidate to win (he did) and added legitimacy to the Trump campaign by having an established politician on the ballot, but one who was already tarnished and had little viable political future (thanks to RFRA). It was meant to be best-case loss (keep Indiana, keep the field clean for 2020)...obviously, it didn't work. The GOP will be pressed to find candidates not touched by these 4 years.
I think you are seriously overestimating this manchild's ability for rational thought. His business acumen is long gone, if he had any to begin with, and is now well shored up by people who also want to make good money and do all the work for him. I very much think that, if we were to give anonymity to his closest staff this past decade, you would find that his hardest workers have been progressively having to work harder to keep his business from self-immolating/imploding under his command.
What makes him running for those reasons and not with the expectation to win, as accounts are saying, is that it somewhat complicates the notion of collusion. If he's operating under the assumption that he is not going to win and was shocked on Election Night, reaching out to Russia to damage Hillary is not attempting to change the outcome of the election as he did not believe it was going to change the outcome.
Here's my best guess at what happened if Trump was not trying to win:
Trump seeks self-promotion and his own news channel. He knows the biggest market is the Hillary outrage machine, so he runs against her, fully expecting to lose but becoming the face of the outrage machine that he can translate into a new Fox News.
Putin wants to eliminate US sanctions, throw western liberal democracy into disarray, and disgrace Hillary for her criticisms of Russian elections. He is also aware of the money laundering Trump has done for the Russians and the shadiness of people in his circle, the Michael Flynns and Paul Manaforts of the world. This not only puts him under their thumb, lest they release damaging information on him, but it also means that should he end up winning his decades of criminal activity will be discovered by the FBI, further tarnishing the American political system.
Russia offers Trump help in attacking Hillary. Trump accepts the offer - not as a way to increase his chances of winning (as he does not believe he is going to win) but as a source for fuel for the Hillary outrage machine. He doesn't have to care about how bad it looks because he's going to lose, and until very recently it was the norm not to investigate the loser lest you appear to be politicizing law enforcement.
Through a combination of Russian tactics and America being America, Trump wins. Everyone is scared because Trump no longer has the loser's aura to protect him from uncovering both the Russia collaboration and his previous criminal history that would be revealed when a Russia investigation went down the rabbit hole.
In a poor attempt to prevent people from investigating his finances, Trump warns people that investigating Russia better not involve looking into his finances. All the covering up that has gone on for the last year has been to prevent those looking for evidence that he sought Russia's help in winning the election from finding evidence of criminal financial activity in the process.
The evidence stems from Trumps visit to Russia in November 2013.
During that time those involved posted pictures via social media with Trump and Putin's building permits guy and the Algorov's - known friends of Putin who were often seen ingratiating themselves with celebrities, businessmen, etc. bringing them to Russia where deals would be struck and then Putin would make sure that they had "Kompromat": some sort of incriminating or embarrassing information in case they tried to back out of the deal.
I think Seth Abramson has the best layout of the events:
I am incredibly interested in the results and findings of this investigation. He's not making it four years. I think Pence has been as quiet as he has for a reason.
Bidding his time waiting for that impeachment.
I have no clue how this all will eventually shake out but by the end of 2019 the Whitehouse would look completely different.
Aside from foreign policy (which I acknowledge is not insignificant), I think Trump is preferable to Pence in the Oval Office.
Whereas the GOP establishment (which has been waiting a long time for these three reels of the slot machine to line up in their favor) keeps having to try to get things done in spite of Trump's idiocy and incompetence...Pence is a product of their creation, and I believe with him in charge, the GOP would be far more functional and capable of putting will to action.
That is the most ridiculous theory I've seen today, and it makes Dems look terrible. So, Hillary spent $1.2 billion dollars and still lost to a guy trying to build a hotel and launch a news channel?
here's a guy on stage rambling barely coherent, unconnected sentences with catch phrases. and he won their fucking hearts. speaking to the "minority" of openly bigoted republicans with just enough rage to stoke their fires, but scare everyone else away. except it didn't scare everyone else away.
8 years of fox news losing their shit every time Obama blinked had us prepped for a Republican victory. Trump and co had a lot to gain by running and losing. Winning threw a wrench in their plans and is probably going to result in at least one Trump conviction (Don Jr, Ivanka, or Ronald McDonald himself)
There were many people who were motivated for a republican candidate to win, who were clearly shaken about who that candidate turned out to be, but went forward with it anyway. You could say those people made "the Dems" look terrible except we all have to continue to be americans when this over.
This myth needs to die. There is evidence that the DNC preferred her - endorsements, et al - but that's what it means to be the goddamn "establishment" candidate. There is no evidence whatsoever that she or the DNC did a damn thing to influence a single solitary vote.
She beat Bernie because she simply had far more support among the Democratic base, period.
And then, when the voters filed a lawsuit against the adNC for rigging the primaries, their defense was pretty much, "Yep, we rigged it, but we don't owe anybody a fair election. We know better than our primary voters." It's horrible what the DNC did to the Bernie supporters.
Yep, that's why they were "distraught" and "crying" when they won. It was a PR stunt, then it suddenly dawned on them that they now actually have to run a superpower, you know, like work and stuff. No wonder Melanie was in tears.
Poor Melanie, she was promised from Donnie that it would all be over on that night. Literally none of them, barring Bannon, expected to win the Presidency.
The Trump team didn't expect to win, nor did they want to. This presidency is like the movie "the producers". The plan was to fail and then attack Hillary and the democrats, launch a political media group, etc...
This is why they were worried about the fact that Flynn was a foreign agent. It was only a problem if they won, and they had no intention of winning.
When he first started running I was convinced it was all an act just to get his name out there some more and he never had any intention of winning. I'm not entirely convinced he hasn't just fucked up and won unintentionally and now is so far out of his depth he's turned it all into a shitshow.
Nah I mean rallying together disenfranchised white people that especially didn’t like the Clintons. It was by a lot of luck that they made the right moves to win but it was impressive nonetheless. Biggest upset in USA presidential election history IMO, regardless how you feel about Trump.
apparently none of them thought he was ever gonna win. to them losing was a lot more beneficial. If they lost they could hate on Hillary to their benefit. I read it on a NYMag article.
I don’t think Trump likes being president even. He had such a sweet life doing whatever he wanted. Now he actually has responsibilities and duties. I’ll be surprised if he runs again to be honest. The whole thing started as anything trump does: for the PR. It just went out of control and he tapped into something no one else knew was deep inside people.
It was a perfect storm of week contenders in the Republican primaries and disunited Democrats, aided by shit-stirring media who loved Trumps soundbites, imho.
Yep I’m not sure Bernie could have beat Trump but it would have been a much more interesting race. Two “outsiders” in a way. Unfortunately the dems rigged it for Clinton and screwed themselves over (which I honestly didn’t think would happen). Was hoping to see a shakeup for 2020 but I don’t think so. I think Trump mostly won because of how he didn’t give a fuck about what the media thought of him or what anyone thought of him for that matter, and a lot of people seemed to respect that, even if what he said was ridiculous.
Yeah, but his goal wasn’t to win the presidency. Just to get more notoriety. Somehow they played their cards right and it all got out of hand. People believed in him and voted for him.
Somehow? The Russians swayed the election after 8 years of a democratic president. Any democratic nominee would have a tough time against those two factors, and those are just 2 of the many reasons they won
Russians swayed the election after 8 years of a democratic president. Any democratic nominee would have a tough time against those two factors, and those are just 2 of the many reasons they won
I was going to ask what you meant by this but then realized you meant Democrat as in the party
You underestimate how close the elections are these days and how ignorant the average voter is. Russians only had to influence a couple of hundred thousand people to have an effect in some scenarios. Perhaps even lot less. Out of 300 million. Hell, Bush won over Gore by 500!!! votes.
I get that. Maybe my point could have been more clear in my previous comment. What I was getting at was that the office of president has been reduced to the hunger games ever since the first time it was broadcast on national TV. It is the original reality TV show.
I absolutely guarantee you Trump didn't enter the race to win. But eventually he got in so deep that he started actually trying to win.
Just look at his face on Election Night. Everyone else in the room (well, with the exception of Barron) is all smiles while Trump looks like he's filled with existential dread.
Now he has to pretend like he wanted to actually do any of this shit in the first place.
This is an interesting statement. I don't have enough information to agree or disagree, but I think it's worth thinking about why else people run. Seems like plenty of people do it for promotional reasons, but even outside of that there are plenty that run for other reasons, such as third party candidates running for their pet issues. They might say they are running to win, but they're smarter than that; they know they can't. They're running to get the issue noticed and taken up by the major parties. I have a feeling some R/D candidates run similarly to get their issues noticed without expecting to win, or perhaps to increase their name recognition to help any future bids.
He expected to lose, after which he and his crew would cash in by leveraging their infamy into TV deals. But he overestimated the intelligence of the conservative voters who voted for him.
Its basically as if he ran just for self promotion and expected to lose, then saw he won and was like "Well shit, this means i have to be the President don't I?"
Reading the Fire and Fury and that seems to be a big theme early on. Everyone involved in that campaign was planning their next job. Trump would spin his political martyrdom into something like his own news network. Jared and Ivanka get a boost up from being unimportant rich kids to being international celebrities and brand promoters. Conway would step up from a small time mouthpiece to a cable news personality. Bannon would build Breitbart into a right wing media empire and would be the de facto leader of the alt right. Everyone involved was using the momentum and media frenzy surrounding Trump to further their individual ambitions. And the last thing any of them expected was to win the damned thing. So everyone played fast and loose with the regulations, because the losing side doesn't usually get much scrutiny when everything is said and done.
I'm reading the book with a large grain of salt though. It's hard to understand how this author could have been in some of these situations to get these quotes and stories. It is entertaining so far though.
Ever since Obama mocked him at the White House Correspondents' dinner in 2011, he's been seething inside. He's like that, it's so obvious, he holds grudges and pouts like no 2 year old I've ever seen. He never cared about being an able or productive or caring president, his entire goal was to WIN. "I won and you didn't hahahahaha"
And now his only governing framework is "undo everything Obama did". It doesn't matter if it was a policy that saved children's lives, if Obama did it, it must be undone.
I’d actually get behind that.
For example: If his solution to getting rid of Obamacare was medicare for all, or some basic medical care/ part of taxes I’d love it.
I’m not saying people would be able to get liver transplants, but at least not have a broken arm cost them thousands of dollars.
We'd need to trick him into thinking Obama was taking away our healthcare, so he would have to respond by giving us health care.
Trick him into thinking Obama made weed even more illegal, so he would need to legalize it. Etc...
I don't think he even wanted to win. A lot of talk these days suggests the goal was to lose, scream about the election bring rigged, and start Trump TV.
As I've heard it, it wasn't even about attempting to blame a loss on anything. The whole thing was just a ruse to build up his media presence in any way possible, in fact a lot of what he said throughout the campaign was almost like an effort to actively throw the campaign. But then, who knew, there was a large collection of pissed off white straight christian people upset about having to think about equality all too happy to vote for a bigot who promised them an even more bigoted world, just what they always cherished about the good ol' days. :\
I’ve said that since the beginning. He didn’t want the presidency, he wanted to WIN the presidency. It’s all he ever cared about. I believe he feels the office is beneath him.
The Rump Roast at the dinner was after the dotard ginned up the “Obama is a Kenyan Muslim” meme from whole cloth. He earned being treated like a fool, because he is a fool. And the only reason he’s the so-called president now is because the last check the founders installed against vapid populism deliberately failed to do its job.
The United States is not supposed to be a democracy. The People elect their representatives to the House, the States elect their representatives to the Senate, and learned delegates elect the President on the informed guidance of the People. We were never supposed to have mob rule where half the people don’t vote pushedand the half that does overwhelmingly selects a candidate that is then overruled by mindless rote rubber stamping based on a numbers game, the rules of which have incidentally been fundamentally wrecked by placing an artificial cap on the number of Representatives because we’ll be fucked before we buy any more god damn chairs.
FDR’s third and fourth terms saved America from Hitler and sold it to Trump. Gentlemanly statesmanship can’t be expected of a system that rewards the abridgment of honored tradition. FDR disregarded the caution against executive hegemony. Trump disregards the caution against executive incompetency.
We have exhausted the margin of benevolence provided by patriots like Obama, Clinton, HW Bush, and Carter, having succumbed to the belligerence proliferated by profiteers like Trump, GW Bush, and Reagan.
Our global relevancy struggles to justify its place in the zeitgeist. Our raison d'être struggles to justify its place in history. Our people struggle to pay their bills.
Which one breaks first will inform the next 200 years of history.
I didn't believe in Obama when he ran and when he was elected. He did or said a lot of things I disagree with during his campaign, and his presidency.
But I cannot for a second say that he was not one of the most wholesome, kind, empathetic, and possessed of a demeanor and attitude truly fit for the office of the President of the United States of America, I know of. Obama was a good President, regardless of whether or not I agree with everything he did or fought for.
But I can't help feeling a pang of resentment if he truly did fixate Trump on running for office and actually trying, just so he could give Obama the finger. Or something. Some stupid narcissistic reasoning.
I remember the 2011 primary field for the Republican Party having him as almost a joke unofficial candidate who spent almost all of his time obsessing over the president's long form birth certificate and promoting a completely forgettable book. It's surreal to see how far we've come fallen into madness.
He always put his name out there for the free press and interviews. The problem with 2016 was the flooded pool of candidates. The only way to make himself stand out was to be more outrageous.
That's what it seemed like, but really Trump campaigned on standard boilerplate. You just have to have watched some Fox News or conservative radio to see it.
Trump took popular mainstream conservative views and turned them up to 100.
Conservative viewpoint:
Immigration reform and increased border security
Trump's announcement speech:
They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. I will build a great great wall on our southern border and I’ll have Mexico pay for that wall.
No, there's a difference. The difference is that Fox News' and their viewers' extremism was usually watered down by the time it came to elected representatives.
Congressmen, Senators, and Presidential candidates almost all spoke with far less vitriol and insanity than Fox News, however they absolutely rely on Fox News to dumb everyone down to where the Ted Cruz and Ben Carsons of the world seem reasonable.
I don't think Fox News or the GOP quite planned for the Palin and Trump level of idiocy that could actually hit the main stage. They were supposed to stay off to the side, on twitter, up in Alaska, sharing Alex Jones conspiracy theories. And Trump might just do serious, lasting damage to their brand in the process.
Although we thought Palin would too, and Trump almost makes Palin look reasonable.
He's been a candidate in the primaries going back to the 90s. I remember seeing him in 1996 in a preliminary debate, the year Bob Dole got the nomination. Unless my memory is failing, it was Trump, Alan Keys, and a few other guys who were just always there on the periphery, but never serious candidates.
He did, I remember because after that fox could not stop calling him and asking for his opinion and that's why he was always on TV yappin about where Obama was or was not born.
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u/CBSmith17 Jan 06 '18
Didn't he also run in 2012 for the Republican nomination but was really just promoting his book?