- More examples of Trump as the rambling, incoherent traitor;
- How people trust Trump on the economy because he oversimplifies things, and conservatives don’t do complexity or nuance;
- Thomas B. Edsall on Trump’s appeal to racists;
- A Florida Republican who thinks her non-Christian opponent should be disqualified from office.
Could it ever happen that Trump’s supporters realize what a horrible mistake they’ve made when Trump begins rambling like this before the entire world?
Salon, Charles R. Davis, 16 Oct 2024: “His brain is completely out of commission”: Moderator repeatedly calls out Trump for rambling, subtitled “The 78-year-old Republican could not stay focused nor answer basic questions about tariffs and his economic agenda”
Speaking at the Economic Club of Chicago on Tuesday, an unfocused and irritable Donald Trump botched answers to basic questions about how his agenda would impact American businesses and consumers while not denying that he has been having phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump’s meandering replies consisted of the usual grab-bag of tangential anecdotes and endless grievances, his interviewer repeatedly forced to keep him on track by reminding him of the topic he was supposed to be discussing.
The performance, coming a day after a Trump “town hall” devolved into the Republican nominee meandering on stage for 39 awkward and alarming minutes as his fans listened to his favorite songs, did not reassure critics who say the former president’s recent behavior is a sign of cognitive decline. The Republican nominee was never one for specifics, or staying on message, but his claimed “weave” — rambling about something else before returning to the topic at hand — appears less intentional and more like a man experiencing the inevitable effects of aging.
With an example of one of Trump’s non-responsive responses.
And:
His brain is completely out of commission,” conservative attorney George Conway posted on social media regarding Trump’s scattered responses. But former Rep. Joe Walsh, R-Ill., a Tea Party activist turned critic of MAGA, went a step further, channeling what would have been the conservative response to any other politician keeping in constant contact with an adversary after having tried go overthrow the republic: “He’s a traitor to this country.”
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Yes, why is Trump acting like traitor, actively trying to sow distrust of the government he wants to lead?
LA Times, Robin Abcarian, 16 Oct 2024: Column: Trump wants Helene victims to fear and doubt FEMA. Their experience is contradicting him
You’ve all heard the phony claims about how terrible the federal government’s response to the recent hurricanes has been, right?
Former President Trump has lied repeatedly about the effort. He’s spun a preposterous tale about the feds abandoning hard-hit parts of western North Carolina because they are majority Republican. He says the government has redirected billions of dollars meant for disaster response to “housing for illegal migrants, many of whom should not be in our country.”
Ugh.
Such malicious lies from our increasingly unhinged former president are not harmless. They tie up resources, enrage and distract elected officials, demoralize workers who are struggling to restore roads, electricity and water, and, inevitably, invite threats of violence.
FEMA folks are fighting back, but there’s only so much they can do against the crazies. Examples of storm victims and interactions follow.
The answer, apparently: his megalomaniac “Only I can fix this” mentality…. And because that works with some people.
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Why do people say they trust Trump on the economy?
Salon, Austin Sarat, 16 Oct 2024: Laundering lies: Glenn Youngkin shows how easily media is manipulated to sanewash Donald Trump, subtitled “If Americans don’t take what Trump says literally it may cost them their freedom”
Jake Tapper of CNN interviewed Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, who kept insisting Trump didn’t mean what he actually said about siccing the military on his “enemies within.”
“I’m literally reading his quotes,” Tapper responded. “I’m literally reading his quotes to you, and I played them earlier so you could hear that they were not made up by me. He’s literally talking about ‘radical left lunatics,’ and then one of those ‘lunatics’ he mentioned was Congressman Adam Schiff.”
And so on, with other examples, from JD Vance and others.
Summarizing the tendency of those who have now gotten used to Trump’s brew of outrageous threats and outright lies, the Times says that “people think he says things for effect, that he’s blustering, because that’s part of what he does, his shtick. They don’t believe that it’s actually going to happen.’”
So Trump’s supporters insist he doesn’t mean what he says. What is it then? He’s performing? He’s lying? You can’t have it both ways. Either way, you can’t count on anything based on what Trump says.
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Here’s a key puzzle.
The Atlantic, David A. Graham, 15 Oct 2024: The Secret of Trump’s Economic Message, subtitled “When he speaks about the economy, he sounds like a child—which might be the source of his appeal.”
When Donald Trump speaks about the economy, he sounds like a child. China gives us billions of dollars via tariffs. American auto workers take imported cars out of a box and stick the pieces together. These are very light paraphrases of statements he made today at the Economic Club of Chicago, in a sometimes combative interview with the Bloomberg editor in chief John Micklethwait.
Yet voters consistently say they trust Trump more to handle the economy than they do Kamala Harris. Why? Perhaps because, when Trump speaks about the economy, he sounds like a child. Yes, he has a reputation as a businessman, and voters consistently trust Republicans more on the issue (even though the economy fares better under Democrats). But Trump’s reductionism may be the real source of his appeal when it comes to the economy and other policy areas. (“Build the wall”; “make NATO pay their fair share.”) By restricting his discussion to the bluntest, broadest, and vaguest of terms, he sells an appealing illusion.
This is consistent with my take that conservatives tend to think in black or white terms, and are immune to nuance; and so they are attracted to simplistic arguments. The article goes on with the frustrated attempts of the interviewer, John Micklethwait, to get Trump to actually answer a question, any question.
Considering the former president’s checkered history, Micklethwait’s desire to probe him on the facts is understandable, but it’s also futile. Trump is selling a fantasy, not a white paper. As he repeatedly danced around the questions today, he joked about his oratorical approach: “I call it the weave. As long as you end up at the right location in the end.” Trump believes that the right location for him is the White House. The weave just might get him there again.
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Edsall’s occasional collage of links and excerpts.
NY Times, Thomas B. Edsall, 16 Oct 2024: Trump Has Turned It Up to 11
As I said yesterday: conservatives can always rile up their base by playing to their racism.
Donald Trump is so dependent on racial and ethnic antagonism that without it, he would be a marginal figure, relegated to the sidelines.
Trump’s constant demonization of Black people and immigrants has inured the public to the fact that he is the first — or certainly the most explicit — modern president and party nominee to transparently generate, not to mention exacerbate, fear and white animosity toward people of color.
Despite his appeal to a small if potentially crucial segment of Black and Hispanic men, racial bigotry has been central to Trump’s appeal from his initial quest, in 2015 and 2016, to take over the Republican Party. In the closing days of the 2024 election, he continues to foment race hatred and to rely on it ever more intently.
With review of Trump’s history of racist comments and actions.
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Not about Trump, but about the insularity and bigotry of religious conservatives. If other people don’t live exactly as they do, there must be something wrong with them.
Hemant Mehta, Friendly Atheist, 16 Oct 2024: Florida Republican says opponent’s Humanism “should disqualify her” from office, subtitled “Republican David Smith is desperately targeting Sarah Henry’s advocacy for church/state separation”
The photo is of Sarah Henry. Because Henry opposed a giant cross on public land, David Smith accuses her of “hating Christians,” and sent mailers out to voters making that charge. The article goes on with examples of how Smith spreads misinformation and takes Henry’s quotes out of context. Hemant comments:
When I spoke with Sarah about the smear campaign yesterday, she told me that the TV ad was the only one Smith was running and they were spending roughly $1.7 million on it. It’s been effective in the sense that voters have seen it, but that doesn’t mean it’s working.
When Sarah and her team have knocked on doors, they routinely get comments about the ads from voters who are shocked that Sarah doesn’t have devil horns on her head. “You look so nice! I can’t believe any of that,” they tell her.
It’s also surprising to me that this is the ad the Republican candidate is going with. You expect Republicans to run against Democrats by highlighting their liberal views. Maybe an ad saying Sarah supports abortion rights and human rights and voting rights and all those other things conservatives reject. But no. They’re running with Don’t vote for this evil lady because she’s not a Christian.
It’s such a low blow—both inaccurate and offensive—that it’s gone out of style. As someone who’s tracked those kinds of ads for years, I haven’t seen any other ad like it this cycle, even though there are more openly non-religious candidates running for state or federal office than ever before.
Once again: absence of nuance. If you’re not part of my tribe, you have no place in public life. And you’re evil, because you’re not Christian.
