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Trump Fatigue

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Trump makes me very nearly physically sick. Separating those families, locking their kids in cages. The stupid, obnoxious way he looks and talks. His incoherence, his vile opinions, his brutal dismantling of everything that doesn’t have his name in gold on the front. And the following he encourages. When the Mueller team first got their feet under their desks I was following their every move. The sleazy characters they dragged in front of the camera with their cheap spiel seemed almost entertaining. People I never wanted to see or hear again were occupying the highest positions in American government, spouting lies, evading questions, stirring up the morons who’d follow Trump even if a tape of him screwing his daughter surfaced. Morons who think that Russia is on their side, more than the FBI. Insane times.

I don’t know exactly where the tipping point occurred for me. Certainly the ICE border lock-ups provided the first literally unwatchable footage from the Trump administration. And I got sick of Michael Avenatti, whose screen-hogging cliché-ridden rants quickly became as tiresome as his opponents’. Shep Smith at Fox News – of all places – provides an oasis of sharp and reasoned commentary. Rachel Maddow, Steven Colbert, and all the other rock-star commentators deliver the same message to the same audience night after night, without affecting a damn thing. For the Democrats, a withering Twitter response is seen as a political victory, yet I don’t hear even one of them stand up and make the truly devastating speech – from the fucking heart – that a Martin Luther King would be capable of. Bernie’s a nice guy, but he’s not a fighter, and that’s what the Dems need, not another Nice Person With Legitimate Concerns.

The long and short of it is that a kind of fatigue is creeping in. Trump is going to be there for a while yet, and he’s going to continue his insane policy of harm, destruction, and isolation even against the combined onslaught of another devastating Jim Carrey painting and a Colbert rim-shot “risqué” remark. Mueller is ultimately powerless to get rid of him – he can only present the evidence and hope that Congress does the right thing. I sometimes find myself thinking, fuck the USA anyway, and I know that’s wrong. That’s what Putin wants us to think.

There’s nothing I can do about any of this, except to limit the time I spend following the story, and getting upset by it. Maybe I’ll reach the happy state of most Thais, whose combined given fuck wouldn’t fill a paper cup. That’s an increasingly attractive option.

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Comments

  2. I’ve been extremely alarmed by the systematic unravelling of environmental protections and regulations by top Trump arselicker Scott Pruitt, and his slavish minions at the EPA. We all know it’s a pain having to consider environmental regulations, when profit maximisation is your prime motive. So Trump’s EPA decided to make it easier and cheaper for large corporations to pollute the air and water, and kill off rare plants and animals that got in their way.

    I consider these to be very serious and avoidable crimes. Yet his base cheer Trump on. Pollution can be written off as collateral damage when offered the bigger prize of pissing off a ‘liberal’. That seems to be the extent of it.

    Pruitt’s largesse ultimately proved too much for Trump – which is saying something. But the cruel and ignorant tone of this administration towards the environment, science and climate change is pretty shocking in the 21st century, in a so-called modern Western democracy. Trump is the embodiment of a certain kind of ignorance. Many of his supporters seem to like it that way. Trump and many Republicans seem to favour pre-Enlightenment thinking, so long as it keeps getting them elected.

  3. I have fucking given up too – the problem being the more outrageous he becomes the higher his approval ratings go. In the Republican party at least. Its like watching a freak show with people attracted to frequently more disfigured exhibits. It shows the worst side of the human condition and frankly it appalls me but there is fuck all I can do about it.

  4. I know what you mean, and I do need a holiday from it more and more often these days to avoid nausea.
    But then it feels like his Twitter floods, the endless rally rants, the idiotic ideas (Space Force!) etc are all put out there to do exactly that: tire everybody out and stop them asking follow-up questions on the bigger stories going on in the background, quietly. Something new pops up every day, pushing last week’s subjects out of the spotlight; if they ever made it there in the first place, while some more spectacular fool stood front and center shouting “Look at me, look at me!”
    And if we’re tired, on the other side of the world, how tired must the Americans be? That’s perfect for Trump, if one part of the citizens are too sick of the freak show to seek information of what’s really going on, and the other part is shouting “Fake News” at everything they don’t want to hear.
    But, for my own peace of mind, not having a vote there anyway, at the moment I’m taking as much of a holiday from the news as possible.

    • Totally *this* ⬆️
      It’s a shit-show to distract from the real horrors that are going on. I HATE how this millenium has turned me into a paranoid conspiracy theorist.

  5. I am absolutely certain that Trump’s advisors insist he keeps on doing what he is doing non-stop every day. All over the world people are saying “I can’t take any more of this fuckwittery” ie Trump wins. We’ve got to be stronger than this monster but jeeze it’s hard…

    • However much I dislike Brexit and the conniving slimy bastards behind it, Brexit eventually will most likely be a footnote in world history. Britain may well turn to policies based on racist bigotry and the economy will no doubt suffer for many a year but compared to what Trump & Co are capable of….

  7. I’ll tell you how tired most Americans are. Pretty damn tired. Fortunately we’re also pretty damn angry and, hopefully, that will show up in the midterms.

    One of the hardest things about this whole debacle is how to ever forgive those who foisted this disaster of a man on us. When there was never any doubt as to what sort of man he was. The man is not just endangering the world or the nation. He’s endangering my children and grandchildren. I take this very personally. So how do you forgive intelligent, educated, successful siblings who helped to put him in office? I can’t figure out if there’s some sort of mass mental illness or if long-time previously sane Republicans couldn’t admit even to themselves how screwed up the Republican Party had become and chose to throw the entire country under the bus rather than admit – again, even to themselves – that they’ve been wrong about almost everything for years. It’s hard to even think about these siblings without thinking that they are endangering my family. I really don’t know if I’ll ever get past this.

  8. It’s about intentionally creating fatigue I think. Truth always lags behind lies, so if you keep the lies and misinformation coming, the truth can’t catch you up. It’s either a genius strategy or an unexpected benefit of having a narcissist with a twitter account as president. The problem with post-truth is that it means there’s no consequences either. Keep piling on the lies and distortions, until no one knows what’s true or has the will to find out.

    Trump may be the pioneer of this but it’s becoming a defining theme in politics – there is no true, so therefore there is no wrong. Scares the crap out of me.

  10. The problem is, there is so much more background to all of this, as you weep, but it’s all totally fucking cynical. Obama was a cunt, as were the cunts before him, and now we have another one, perhaps even bigger, BUT, he upsets the situation, and I’m not giving him laurels for that at all, but I’m heart sick of all this bullshit don’t look in the mirror. Let’s look.

        • Of course Obama was far from perfect as mentioned above, but his work on healthcare and turning the economy around (which Trump is reaping the benefits of) deserve credit.

          But as a person he is in another league compared to the disgrace in the White House. A committed family man, compassionate, loyal and decent.

          Compare that to Trump, his kids morally bankrupt (juries out on Barron, poor sod) sexual predator, Mafia connections, multiple affairs, terrible businessman, the list goes on.

          Yes there are people that think Obama is a cunt, you can see them at the nauseating rallys that Trump holds.

          Roll on November, it may well be very different for Trump afterwards.

          • You lost me at ‘as a person’ and your unproven grumpings. I don’t know/ care one way or another come November, but, this airbrushing Obama… oh yeah.. you really feel for Trump’s kids. There’s an Anglo Saxon term that ends in ‘off’ (translated). By the way, how do you feel about five years olds and self gender choice in Scotland?

            • Anyway, I’ll leave at this is good humour afternnon (jazz was happens). I utterly fail to see how any decent, sane person good buy into Obama, unless unless their by rote liberal feel good bells ring. Seriously. Check it all with an open mind. Do some digging. HE makes the suddenly cuddly ol’ George H look exactly that, and as for Trump, ‘We have accidental LIFE!’

              • Thanks for your considered replies, and telling me to F Off. Have you tried being nice?

                I respected your opinion, shame you couldn’t do the same. But I’ll survive.

                I knew there was a reason I tend to swerve the ‘political’ threads on here, thanks for reminding me.

              • As an American who has been reading the news very closely now for many years, I have no idea what you are ranting about. I mean that literally. Your posts have been incomprehensible.

                But I know enough to know that back and forth with the tinfoil hat brigade is an exercise in futility. So that will be my final exchange with you. You have the floor. I won’t be listening.

                On the chance that you actually do have mental health issues, I hope you get the help you need and I wish you well.

                • Its all a bit like when you suddenly realised dear old Kate Bush was a bit of a right wing harpy, ain’t it? (I tried to look for other examples but they were all a bit predictable, from Ted Nugent to Tony Hadley)

                  • I don’t care what Kate Bush’s politics are – or any pop star’s. I wouldn’t enjoy her music if she was an agit-prop pavé-chucking leftie. Similarly, I don’t automatically enjoy the work of left-wing musicians. Music stands or falls on its own merits, of course, but Rob C is as much a hippie as Trump is a Republican.

                    “Standing in a church no more makes you a Christian than standing in a garage makes you a car.”

                    • Me, I am not so keen on her either, but it is strange. I won’t like someone JUST because they are a goddam pinko, but I MIGHT actively dislike them if they aren’t. Someone of the right has to go a lot lot further to impress me, and some do, Ken Clarke, PJ O’Rourke. It’s the same with religion: if you have one, especially the c word, I’m troubled.
                      Good old fashioned ingrained prejudice, I guess.

                    • I am not a hippie HP. I have never ‘identified’ as one. I’m not a pacifist either.

                  • If you mean right wing as in not toeing the progressive liberal line, then call me deplorable although I prefer the term ‘free thinking political atheist’, Retrodude.

                    • Thanks – I read the Truthdig piece. Yes, in some ways, from a certain angle, you’re going to see similarities between Obama and Trump. Or any two other POTUS. Because that’s the process – you do certain things to get elected, and then certain other things when you’re elected. Welcome to politics. But the choice between Trump and Obama? Well, there isn’t one. We’re dealing with Trump, not Obama, because Obama has joined the POTUS Pantheon. Anyone saying “yebbut whatabout Obama” – as Sam Husseini is doing in this short opinion piece, is wasting time and ammunition, and only doing what Trump wants. Obama is not the problem here, and he’s not the answer to anything outside of a history test.

                      Just read the second Pilger piece (I think I’ve seen it before). He’s doing the same “yebbut whatabout” thing. Want to go back in time and put right everything Obama got wrong? Go ahead. Want to use Obama’s falling from grace (again – welcome to politics) to excuse, explain, or mitigate Trump’s appalling behaviour? Really?

                    • I’ve lived in the States since 2002. So I saw most of GW, all of Obama and now Trump.

                      Obviously Obama wasn’t perfect, but I think the needles has to come down in favor of him. Let’s take a quick look:

                      The Administration’s stance on Obergefell.
                      Healthcare reform: and let me tell you, as someone with a chronic health condition (T1 Diabetes), that shit resonated. For some of us, it was a very real life or death decision.
                      The economy.
                      Wall Street regulation.
                      Climate change work.
                      Immigration work.
                      Puttin the first Hispanic person on SCOTUS, and NOT making race the central theme of his terms.

                      I’d have him back in a heartbeat compared to the pygmies out there.

                    • Not many, but some. My wife is also career Federal who has served under multiple Administrations.

                      We generally don’t do politics because we know we won’t get anywhere good. What does strike me is that so many of them revert to not so much a pro Trump stance as anti-HRC.

  11. Noteworthy that the man they call Dolt 45’s new favourite term of abuse is “Lowlife” given that his regime in power has been characterized by corruption and lies.
    More so than ever, the state of the nation means that corporate thieves like the U.S.
    It seems Don switched to the Republican side, because he got off on their talk of a New World Order.
    He asks his supporters to dismiss the substance of stories about him and instead display true faith.
    His addresses at his rallies would hardly be any worse if, halfway through, there was a rap written by Keith Allen.
    Reactions to his tantrums on the international stage have ranged from confusion to shellshock.
    200 years of good relations with Canada were ruined in a day.
    Things have got so bad, many are yearning for the good old days of 1963 – when Presidents got shot.

    • Thanks for taking the time to read it. I’m not pro Trump. I am merely sick and tired of the lauding of St Barry, the vile Clintons, and many leftists are now looking at Dubya as if he’s some loveable slightly daft old mutt after all compared to this EVIL. All I see is huge double standards if you march under that banner. Again, I’m not pro Trump. I’m pro the Planet, and anti Trump, Soros, Clinton, Obama and all of the corrupt corporate cabal in whatever form. A pox on them all. The lesser of two evils is never acceptable. Enough.

      • I think Pilger’s piece is excellent, and merely and precisely pointing out the sheer level of hypocrisy. Good for him. One of the few sane and honourable journalists left, along with Chris Hedges etc. No wonder they’re not exactly welcome in the corporate agenda driven bias of the (once) Mainstream Media. That grip is getting much weaker due to alternative online and social media sources. Now we’re seeing the wider move on free speech. Bring it on then.

        *The less said about The Guardian, the better. The Daily Mail of the left with a veneer of broadsheet respectability, longer words and less celebrity cellulite*.

        • For what its worth @RobC I agree with you. Obama was a seriously inept President and is the root cause of at least some of the problems facing Trump now. I am not for one minute condoning any Trump policies but Obama left a mess for any successor to inherit. Contrary to popular belief he didn’t sort out either the Cuba issue or Healthcare – what he did was go some way towards addressing those issues and then leaving them unfinished.
          Likewise Syria and Russia – Syria he backed down on because the Russians shouted at him. Russia he threw lots of threats at and it was clear from his inauguration that he was not a fan of Putin. Fair enough but personal fondness or otherwise should not be a basis on how foreign policy is conducted. His antipathy to Putin and toothless foreign policy were almost certainly a green light for Russian policy towards the Ukraine as one example.

          • I don’t think that’s entirely fair. On healthcare he did well to achieve anything at all. It’s not like he had absolute power and chose to leave things half-done – he had a hostile congress to deal with.

            Likewise on foreign policy, he had notable successes. Avoiding getting sucked into Syria was certainly one, the Iran deal was another – along with generally improving the US’s global standing.

            No doubt this contributed to Putin’s desire to ensure that Obama was not replaced by someone with similar views.

            • Yes. Obama was constantly struggling against a Republican Congress & Senate. Trump, on the other hand, has a favourable majority in both houses, yet blames the Democrats when he doesn’t win a vote. If every republican voted along party lines, he wouldn’t need any democrat support at all.

              Hopefully, things will be different after November. Then, his rhetoric will be in the about-to-explode zone all the time.

            • Must agree to differ on Syria Lando – agree getting sucked in was not desirable – allowing the Russians free reign and subsequent resurgence of machismo was less desirable.

      • But the problem with this “lesser of two evils is never acceptable” is that, with very few exceptions, that’s the choice we get. Last time round it was Hillary Emails and Trump. I don’t know about you, but I can see the lesser of the two evils from here, without reading glasses. It’s some comfort – delusional comfort – to know that Trump didn’t win the popular vote, and needed a rigged voting system manipulated by the Russians to get elected. But sometimes truly evil guys win. Trump is truly evil. Not just bumbling, inefficient, “different”. For all her shadiness and lack of a grasp on what she should have been doing more/less of, Ms. Emails looks almost stainless next to Trump.

        And “all the corrupt corporate cabal” is just what everyone deals with all the time every day of their lives. Here be monsters.

        • I do not agree with you that Trump is truly innately evil, no more than Hilary, Bill or Barry. Despicable? Sociopathic? Yes. All of them. That’s the requirement. I don’t buy Russiagate either, at least not to the extent that it’s being whipped up by the equally rampant election fiddling and regime changing at the costs of how many countless innocent lives sore losers. The whole game stinks, and I for one believe that it’s teetering on the verge of collapse. Forces both light and dark have been unleashed by their demonic behaviour, and things are going to get very bad indeed. It is the cyclical nature of things. Collective karma no less. Bung in impending climate catastrophe and things don’t look even less rosey. That’s what happens when you relentlessly fuck with the Tao.

            • Wanna get lubed up and naked ? Fancy a wrestle? Toxic masculinity, they call it. I call it Righteous Man Tao.

              *the less said about sprout c**ts the better*

              (Keeping it family friendly)

          • I don’t buy the Russiagate thing either Rob. A few months back the Sunday Times published an in depth article on the ‘tampering’ including listing a number of messages from Russian bots on Facebook and other social media sites. There wasn’t one message that would have made me think ‘Oh despite being a lifelong Democrat I think I will vote for Trump’. Also barely a week before the election the tape was released of Trumps conversation about women that was about as disparaging as you could get. He still got the vote. The American electorate made their decision not on any tampering imaginary or otherwise by Russian bots but by their collective hatred of Hilary. I visit the USA regularly and each trip have a number of conversations with a number of long time business associates. Plenty of them dislike Trump, all of them hated Hilary.
            In that respect she was deeply polarising. I know that Trump is too and ultimately as was said to me it was a choice between a crook and a thief.
            It is up to the Democrats to put forward a dynamic candidate for the next election.
            They will have to campaign on something better than ‘Americas tarnished reputation overseas’ – most Americans rate that well down the list of whats makes a great President.

            • I think the Russian interference was more nuanced than that, Steve; Putin and the lads are past masters at this carry on. Astroturfing is, I think, the buzz word I’m looking for here, where you’ve a load of trolls in a factory in St Petersberg trotting out certain lines, and mucking up with peoples perspectives on what *other* Americans believe. It’s somewhat akin to psychological warfare; the kind of thing that wouldn’t work well in Ireland (though they’ve tried but it’s why the abortion referendum passed) because too many people know each other.

            • I’m a full-time American. I’m even related to a lot of them. What I think you’re missing is the extent to which the right wing has created an almost unbelievably distorted image of HRC. It’s so far off it would be comical if it weren’t so impactful. This has been going on for decades and ramped up even more in 2016. Even those neverTrumper Republicans that I mentioned in another post admit that the Republican Party has been hijacked by a terrifyingly effective right wing media, largely Fox News and right wing talk radio, which creates an alternate reality.

              My mother, who had always been a moderate Republican, spent the last years of her life watching Fox News for hours all day. She couldn’t see or hear well enough to follow any sort of drama on TV anymore so she would leave Fox on all day because they were Republicans like her, right? I can’t tell you how hard it was to watch her mind being filled with the nonsense on that channel. She fell totally for the right wing rage machine. That’s their SOP – constantly ginning up outrage over some minor, and usually, completely misrepresented issue. Not to mention that anyone who was a Democrat or (gasp) a liberal hated America and was a danger to the country. Pointing out that her truly beloved daughter and that daughter’s truly beloved grown children, pillars of the community all, were the much maligned Democrats never seemed to change her mind. It got to the point that I had to ask her to turn it off while I was visiting and we had to avoid political issues completely.

              And it’s not just failing old ladies. I was shocked by the extent to which my intelligent Republican siblings largely closed their minds to anything in any way positive about Democrats. These moderate, informed people were aware of Trump’s failings but still managed to either vote for him or throw their vote away because, hey, Hillary was worse than anything, right? I know they had both been taking in all the hit jobs on her for years. I remember one of them saying ‘yeah, I know Obama was born here but have you seen…..’ followed by a bunch of birther nonsense that had obviously been granted some level of credence. They wanted to believe in anything Republican. Shocking.

              I know friends and acquaintances who voted in statewide elections for comically unfit candidates against clearly qualified candidates because, hey, at least he/she is not a Democrat. How to make sense of this? It’s scary. There’s been some real brainwashing going on in the US for many years now.

              Many analysts believe the Russian meddling on social media was, all by itself, enough to turn the tide of the election. (Remember – less than 80,000 votes total over 3 states.) Why? Because they had apparently really done their homework, piled on the already successful right wing rage machine, knew all the right buttons to push and pushed them. They had even studied specific areas of the country they knew were susceptible to that sort of thing.

              We’re in trouble over here. I never thought I would have to worry about the types of things many of us are worrying about now. The ability of the media to misinform, mislead and generally mess with people’s minds is scary. Add in the power and money happy to take advantage of that and……where do we go from here?

              • To restore your faith, if you’re on Twitter look for Paul Rosenzweig. Very old school Republican, who announced over the weekend why he was voting D.

                As context setter, he worked for Ken Starr.

                • I had almost included in one of my posts that a number of Republican columnists have actually come out recently urging Republicans to vote straight Democratic as the only way to bring the party back from crazy town. It’s always nice to see that but the people who need to hear it won’t because these folks appear in mainstream media publications, therefore they are fake news therefore their columns are not seen by those who need to see them. See how this works? There is no penetrating their information bubble.

              • @eastcoast – thanks for taking the time to write your thoughtful comment. Someone said, back during the elections, that “any man is better than any woman”, which might have been the attitude of more than a few, regardless of political persuasion. And then you had the anti-HRC dems, who thought a vote for the GOP was politically astute. Not so many of them, perhaps, but still.

                As for those who “don’t buy” Russian interference – they haven’t read enough, or haven’t read the right sources (Trump supporters “don’t buy” it, either, but they can’t/don’t read). It happened. Proven. And it’s going to happen again, which is something Trump’s happy with.

                • Thanks to you and Lodestone for your kind comments.
                  There are two other factors working against HRC that I was going to mention but cut for brevity. One is misogyny which you mentioned. I have no doubt (life is my reference) that there is a significant number of men who are just not yet ready to vote for a woman. The other factor is the third party voters, particularly the Green Party. Simple arithmetic shows that Green Party votes more than made the difference in the three states that gave the electoral college to Trump. And Jill Stein, their candidate, was quoted saying that HRC would be even worse for the environment than Trump. Go figure. So crazy isn’t limited to the right.

  13. He’s a head case, clearly. He blatantly lies, then calls others out for fake news, he praises dictators and disses democratically elected leaders, he calls black people and women dumb, he can’t think more than one step ahead (those tariffs are coming back to bite him), he tweets gleefully about his sanctions against an ally, Turkey, but is silent about those on Russia, he constantly rewrites history to make himself look good (he didn’t predict Brexit, he only commented on it after the vote) and, worst of all, he simply doesn’t give a shit. He is only interested in playing to the gallery, his gallery, a baying mob full of thugs. And all that is merely scratching the surface.

    He is right on one thing, though. Collusion isn’t a crime but that’s because it isn’t a legal term. The crime is called conspiracy. Putin definitely has something juicy on him.

    It’s tiresome watching from this side of the pond. It must be hell living through it in America.

  14. Inducing Trump Fatigue is an effective and intentional strategy, as has been noted. I’m not really surprised to see another introduced into this thread – the “yebbut whatabout …” strategy. Okay, it goes, Trump’s no saint but whatabout … Hillary emails … Obama drones … Deep State …

    This is basically what the appalling Kellyanne Conway does in every “interview”. Takes one word from the question and drags in some figure from the past to make her point – which is to deflect and evade. We have our own Kellyanne right here.

    You can be anti-Trump and still be a Republican. Rick Wilson’s book “Everything That Trump Touches Dies” is the most blistering, sharp, and unforgiving (and LOL funny) portrait yet of Trump and his Trumpsters, and Wilson’s a Republican. He doesn’t waste time (unlike the Kellyannes) hauling in Obama for a retroactive kicking. He focuses right in on the problem. And he’s not exhausted yet. We need more like him. Doesn’t much matter if they’re from the “left” or the “right”. More like him, and less like Kellyanne Huckabee Giuiani. Om shanti my arse.

    • What the Trump phenomenon has shown is that even in democracies there is an astonishing collection of ‘lowlifes’ willing to rally around power, irrespective of its tone or morality. The pompous and sinister Sebastian Gorka is the one who gets me, a man who can only see great things in his cult leader.

      I’m not convinced that Trump has control of the narrative any more. His crimes seem hidden in plain site. Manafort’s trial is lifting the lid on white collar crime and corruption in the Trump orbit. Even if Trump is not impeached, he will be damaged goods.

  15. Re: way up there⬆️
    The gas thing about the cries for Bri’s return from the Upside Down is that there was a moment when Bri was dropping posts which were as frequent and welcome as squirts of diarrhoea, when The Vulpine One (IIRC) wrote a popular post titled “I haven’t taken a sh*t for six days” (or similar).
    Quick as a flash, Bri wrote a post entitled “I haven’t written a post for six hours”.
    Now that was the mic drop moment. He could have walked away triumphant after that.
    (Although I suppose it’s in keeping with the times that there are endless attempts to reissue and repackage that thing we’ve only just forgotten why we stopped enjoying..)

  17. What is enlightening about the Trump phenomenon is the way we are learning about how much various Americans hate one another. Just like with the various mass murders. And if Democracy and Retail aren’t good enough, what future for the world as we know it?

    Trump is just the truth of it all coming out. It’s always been scary. Now it’s become clearer. It’s NOT going to turn out alright. Sweet dreams.

    • Yep. Recent polls, both of Presidential approval and local elections, suggest that if you could simply prevent non-whites from voting the week before, Trump would easily win a second term.
      Sure, there are pockets of dissent among the yoof, women and so on, but the overall numbers are that, after everything they have seen, white America taken as one mass would put him in again. Sobering.

  19. Like what he said in the OP (way up there), I had to stop following Trumpland in detail once the business with the children started. Now I’m back into it and listen to the Rachel Maddow podcast and the Slate Political Gabfest etc again. It seems to me there are two things that can possibly Make America Vaguely OK again

    1. Mueller
    2. The mid-terms

    If either of those fuck out, we are all fucked, to put it technically

  20. As the months pass, I’m wondering more frequently whether what the world could do with is one well aimed .50 round, and I’m getting the feeling that the probability is increasing for someone to sooner or later press that trigger.

    What bothers me far more than the prospect of orange brain-splatter across the White House lawn is where that scenario goes next. Many months ago I posted comments here to the effect that I foresaw the possibility of American Civil War 2. I do worry that perhaps Vlad, in one of his down-time moments between asset stripping Russia’s resources or posing with his shirt off for ludicrous photographs, has that outcome in mind as Plan A, as it’s a lot cheaper than Plan B, which involves lots of noisy, messy and expensive military stuff.

  22. It’s ironic to see the similarities between the stupified flabberghastedness of the comments here, from a largely not-in-the-USA congregation, regarding the current American dilemma, and the press commentary I’ve been reading this last week (the Irish qualities) where the same bewilderment is evident in spades regarding the UK’s current insistence on stabbing itself in the eyes repeatedly with a blunt European stick.

    Someone pulled out the common sense plug around 18 months ago, on both sides of the Atlantic, and no one can find a way to ram it back home again, at least, likely not until the bath is empty and we’ve all experienced the long, wet, shivering dispair of waiting for the warmth to return.

    • Brexit is the UK’s Lonely Bedsit Suicide. Doesn’t affect the world much. The UK is the EU’s nuisance nation. The rest of the world will pull out of business and education relationships and establish them somewhere else. No big deal. But Trump (and the demographic and zeitgeist he represents) is something else. He/it is a threat to the world.

      • The EU is a…. good riddance. Totalitarian undemocratic elitist corporate capitalist bollocks. Going down fast. A sinking ship.

        Good night Jean Claude. Goodnight Mary Ellen.

        *cheesy harmonica parp* That’s all folks!

        • “Totalitarian undemocratic elitist corporate capitalist bollocks.”

          Oh right. All of that will be a thing of the past in Brexit Britain.

          You should run for King Of Albion, Rob. I can see your pro-dreamcatcher anti-tardigrade platform attracting a lot of Make The UK Great Again types.

        • Hoorah and good riddance to all those ‘Totalitarian undemocratic elitist corporate capitalist’ European-wide laws providing for animal welfare rights, environmental controls and subsidies, food standards and regional origin protection rights, water quality measures and legislation…. (goes on for pages yet)….. and we’ll all be looking forward to seeing you on the picket line hugging a tree as it’s horizontal carcass is carted away on the back of a fracking company’s truck.

  23. If there’s one very tiny positive I can take from the 2016 election, I am now (thanks to Pod Save America et al) slightly less ignorant of the US political system. From here it seems that for the mid-terms it only needs a decent turnout, and the kind of swing already seen in the special elections, for the Dems to take the House back. So that could at least put some kind of brake on him.

    They could also take the Senate because they only need to gain 2 seats. However, should the Dems take the House and impeach DT, getting a conviction won’t be easy because there are only 35 senate seats up in 2018, 26 of which are already Dems – and a two-thirds majority (67 votes) is needed for conviction. So in practice some Republicans would have to vote to remove him.

    One other account on Twitter well worth following is one George Conway, whose tweets are anything but supportive of Trump. He just happens to be Kellyanne’s husband. Makes you wonder what their conversations at home are like.

  24. And today’s bulletin from the White House of horrors, DT refers to sacked aide Omarosa Manigault Newman as ‘that dog’. Imagine any other world leader, etc etc etc

    • Imagine if that was someone in the real world – a family member, your boss, one of your kid’s teachers – anyone really – the repercussions would be quickly seen. But this is Trump and he is well on the way to making reprehensible behaviour, not quite acceptable, but normal. Problem is that tomorrow we will move on to the next scandal and will hardly remember what today’s scandal was. Exactly the premise of this thread.

      • While most of the attention will be on the fact that anyone of a grade above Sewer Robot would call a former member of his staff a “lowlife” and a “dog” in print, I can’t help fixating on that first sentence:

        “When you give a crazed, crying lowlife a break, and give her a job at the White House, I guess it just didn’t work out.”

        What is that?
        Sometimes, in the first weeks of the football season you see a foreign manager struggling to express himself in English, but it’s usually easy enough to identify the thought that he’s trying to articulate. But that sentence above is the sort of nonsense you’d draw a red line through if it was presented to you by a nine year old…

  25. I find myself in a state of utter bewilderment about him and what’s happened.

    WTF is driving him? I get that initially the run and the attempt at nomination was a stunt. To keep him in the public eye and keep generating revenue. He was and is no more a politician with a drive to serve his nation than what I’ve just pulled out of my nose. Then he was nominated.

    So the ‘plan’ – the internet has said – then was to keep the ball rolling making insane declarations to eventually lose at the ballot box, from which point he could launch himself as a media-mogul using his Presidential Nominee kudos.

    But the vile man won, very much against his team expectations. So, it was then to a large degree down to meddling and Putin’s master plan to rule the world via blackmail. Even if that was the plan it needed a lot of luck to actually happen.

    It’s been the worst concatenation of circumstance since Sarajevo in 1914 and the subsequent blustering of Kaiser Wilhelm.

    I still find it jaw-dropping that the worst man in the world for any job has found himself in the most important one in the world. He’s a cross between Aldridge Prior The Hopeless Liar and The Parkie out of Viz. And Bertie Blunt’s Parrot, which we all know is a ….

  26. I reckon the background to the election of Trump is rather well-expressed here:

    “Capitol”

    It’s built to impress you and it works like that
    All that white marble and the guards at the door
    The metal detector, the following eyes
    Geometric patterns covering the floor

    The symbols of power, eagles and flags
    Attendants, assistants moving like sharks
    Through crowds of citizens, patriotic souls
    Visiting the capitol and National Parks

    And you think to yourself
    This is where it happens
    They run the whole damned thing from here
    Money to burn
    Filling up their pockets
    Where no one can see
    And no one can hear

    I wonder what they say, say to each other
    How do they think, what do they feel
    When they come out of those rooms
    And put on their faces
    Is anything they say to the cameras real?

    They come for the power for power they stay
    And they’ll do anything to keep it that way
    They’ll ignore the constitution
    And hide behind the scenes
    Anything to stay a part of the machine

    And you think to yourself
    This is where it happens
    They run the whole damned thing from here
    Money to burn
    Filling up their pockets
    Where no one can see
    And no one can hear

    And the votes are just pieces of paper
    And they sneer at the people who voted
    And they laugh as the votes were not counted
    And the will of the people was noted
    And completely ignored

    And you think to yourself
    This is where it happens
    They run the whole damned thing from here
    Money to burn
    Filling up their pockets
    Where no one can see
    And no one can hear

    (David Crosby – Lyrics)
    album: “Sky Trails” (2017)

    A lot of people thought that electing Trump would be striking a blow against this sort of thing.
    Sadly, it seems they were wrong and they’ve only made things worse.

  27. I have little to add here, but remember this.

    Nixon had to be forced to quite even after his White House recordings were made public. Most of the electorate was on his side till then.

    Trump is lying in plain sight on twitter, every day of his life. It’s hard to care, or indeed keep up.

    But he will be proved to have broken the law. Soon. And if this happens before the midterms, the Democrats will reap the benefits. And then Trump will be prosecuted. If it doesn’t happen then, then it will happen later. And te party which enabled this will be out of power for at least a decade.

    There is a silver lining. When the people who voted him in realize he doesn’t give a fuck about them, they will turn, bigly.

    • Fingers crossed. But…

      There’s no guarantee he will be prosecuted. His current SCOTUS nominee has expressed that he doesn’t believe sitting Presidents can be prosecuted.

      If that case makes to SCOTUS, I wouldn’t bet the farm on them allowing it. IT would be a huge Constitutional issue.

    • There’s a rather nice card from nearly all of the mods which reads: “Once again, Mr Saucecraft, you have “come up trumps” (SWWDT!!) in curating a timely and provocative think-piece past “the ton”! Hope the Kopi Luwak coffee and case of ’78 Domaine de la Romanee-Conti Grand Cru, Cote de Nuits “hits the spot”! Keep up the good work and big thanks from all your “fans” here at “Team Mod”!!”

      Backatcha, guys!

      • You know, HP, those months in the wilderness after Arsegate rent the Afterworld in twain have served you well. Here you are, consistently on-point wth your topic choices, curating and nurturing with the loving twinkle of Percy Thrower in the Blue Peter garden. Unhampered by virtue-signallers, flouncers and cry-bullies, welcoming contributors from every clique with your warmth, wit and wisdom. Welcome back Mr Saucecraft, say I!

        • Don’t recall seeing you around these parts before, kalamo. If you’re new, welcome aboard!
          Donny may not be a psychopath, but he has betrayed a chilling lack of base level concern for human life – from his questions about why we don’t kill the families of terrorists, to deliberately turning his back on the people of Puerto Rico, right down to choosing the occasion of a gentleman dying in a fire in his building to boast that it was the quality of the construction that limited the fire, without at all mentioning (when even a cold blooded psychopath would have the social awareness to) the poor man that had died.

          • I have a list of checkboxes for fucking nutbar/borderline psycho, and Trump ticks them all. “Buffoon” implies someone comically incompetent, a bit of a fool, but not dislikeable. That’s not Donny.

  31. You know what the trouble with Trump is? I don’t think he has personal friendships. Any friendships he may claim are all to do with family, business and power. Where’s his mate Keith from the old days that he still catches up with every now and then?

    There is no Keith.

  33. Thanks, I’ve been here for a while as an occasional lurker with a lost password. The quality of the discussions is such that I’ve no need to post, but as luck would have it, I’ve refound my password.
    It does look more sinister, today’s events add to that impression and I shall curb my “Serve those damned Americans right” attitude, until he’s gone.

  34. I really hope that one of the outcomes from the Mueller investigation is to make Trump poor.

    And once he’s gone, it would be best if there was a worldwide consensus that we never mention this unfortunate episode again.

  35. What can anyone make from the most recent tirade on Twitter towards the Special Counsel. ‘Disgraced and discredited Bob Mueller and his whole group of Angry Democrat Thugs…’

    Jeez, the nerve of this guy. Not to mention the slanderous, libellous tone and entirely untruthful content.

    He’s a deeply spoilt and thoroughly nasty human being who is now being called to account. He’s been found out and he’s thrashing like a trapped snake. And trapped he is. Spitting venom with no hope of release. Responsible and intellectually superior individuals will ruin him. Either soon or in a few years. But he’s going to lose everything and go to his grave in penury and disgrace. He knows that much.

    • The sad truth is he doesn’t need to be truthful anymore.

      Witness his counsel, Giuiiani, this morning: “The truth is not the truth!” He’s either not very good at articulating his point (not a good thing for a lawyer I would have thought) or he has also drunk the Koolaid.

      • Not as far as his base in concerned, I think you’re right. God, it’s terrifying to watch these people trying to knit soup with these semantics. Who else do they think may remotely fall for it?

        Surely most normal Americans of whatever affiliation can see perfectly clearly a stupid and trapped gangster flailing about pretending to be a President? Surely they must be thinking, ‘that’s quite enough’

        • I wonder if there is such a thing as an ordinary American.

          I’ve suspected for years that American society is a tinderbox of hatreds that is only kept from igniting by a measure of prosperity that is unlikely to be sustained in the foreseeable future. And, the US, being the most indebted nation in history by far, this means that it is only the escalating national debt that prevents social chaos.

          I don’t think one can understand Trump without an understanding of what is at stake in US domestic politics. Internationally, the US is under huge threat as a massive Eurasian block of powers economically linked to China takes shape. I think Trump would desperately like to pull Putin away from that, but with zero prospects.

          It seems important not to regard Trump as the whole problem, him and a handful of crazies that back him. His constituency is real, is angry, and it’s on a collision course with its opponents. This is scary shit and it’s no good looking at Trump himself and thinking that if only the electoral system could be fixed then the country would put all this behind it.

  36. Americans are programmed, pretty much from birth, to regard America as entitled to be the greatest nation of all.
    Furthermore, white Christian English-speaking America has been programmed to regard anyone not white, English-speaking and Christian as inferior, out to get them and therefore not to be trusted.
    It’ll take more than getting Trump out of the White House to fix this.

    • Oh Christ. You’re so right, and so wrong, all at the same time.

      I’ll repeat, once again, that USA is not a homogenous place; the same applies to White America. My son, who lives with his Mom, has been brought up as you describe, and wouldn’t recognize himself in your description.

      Nor would my colleagues, who working to improve college education for everyone. Nor would the white coaching staff on my rugby team who are helping mainly underprivileged minority children.

      There are people as you describe, but isn’t all of them. Some of the best people I know are white religious Americans.

      I’m all for informed discussion – but it must be informed, and recognize that there all kinds of different people and perspectives out there.

      If you don’t recognize that, you diminish your point.

      • I’m just saying that that’s the programming that Americans have to deal with.
        I’m not saying that all Americans are just brainless products of it. Far from it with the ones I have come to know.

          • The degree to which so many Americans appear to take it on faith that theirs is the greatest country is disconcerting. For a nation, no less than for one’s goolies, regular self examination can only be healthy.
            (Only this week the Governor Of New York was showered with sh*t for responding to the MAGA slogan with the suggestion that maybe “America was never that great”).
            And the flip side is a willful lack of interest in the rest of the world which feeds into Trump’s nose/face/spite isolationist policies.
            Now, I know you could make this video anywhere, but I wonder how much longer you would have to wait for suitable chumps to walk by in other cities:

            (Jimmy Kimmel Show – Can You Name A Country?)

            • I would struggle to identify a lot of the Northern & Eastern European or South American countries and some in Asia too.

              I suspect they were trying to prove a point there and filtering accordingly, though.
              Kudos to that kid at the end who obviously has an interest in either International Politics or Geography. He ought to go far.

              • That’s no indicator of anything characteristically American. Thais don’t understand maps (as any tourist who has tried showing one to a taxi driver will know), and have only the cloudiest knowledge of any lands across their borders. They don’t know the points of the compass, either. They’re pretty hazy on left and right, too. I once asked a local if he wanted to travel to other countries, and he looked at me a bit strangely. “Why? I’m here.”

  37. So:
    Cohen has pled out to some of his case load and landed ver Donald in the mire.
    Manafort went, well – 8 guilty, 10 mistrial, zero acquittal.

    My bet? It will be the details that get him. Not the big huge ‘RUSSIA!!!” stuff, the little details that go into supporting it.

    “Campaign finance? We’ll have a bit of that. Not declaring a foreign agency? Add that to the mix.”

    November is now big. Any hint of a blue wave, and GOP start to wonder if they do better by jettisoning Trump. A Dem House, and the equation changes entirely. Selff interest drives American politics at both the individual and party level. The moment dumping Trump improves chances, he’s done.

          • Ah. It’s ok everyone. He’s just tweeted that ‘it’s not a crime’.

            Do you know, I had wondered. Phew. That’s that sorted at last.

            At this point I would not be surprised for the next headline news being this shameless idiot has been thrown bodily through the Oval Office window by White House staffers whose patience has broken.

    • What would Trump have to have done for a 2/3rds Senate majority to vote for impeachment next January? The silence from this GOP dominated Congress will not, and should not, be forgotten. They are enablers and facilitators. And all for what? More tax cuts for the rich and a new right wing SCOTUS? Talk about losing your moral compass.

      What if Mueller turned up evidence of murders? That people were bumped off. Would they act then? The worse it gets for Trump, the more the GOP seem complicit.

    • I have a feeling the current leadership of the GOP will never ditch him, no matter what. The worse it gets the more they’ll dig in and the dirtier they’ll fight. If they have to go down they’ll try to take everyone else down with them.

  38. Coincidentally, I’ve just finished watching Ken Burns’ Vietnam documentary. I’m wondering if Nixon would have been in danger of impeachment these days, let alone Trump.

  39. Afterworders who are interested in good quality scrutiny of the murky goings on of the Trump regime are recommended to check out the excellent Sarah Kendzior’s Twitter feed @sarahkendzior
    – she is sharp and analytical, successfully cutting through just about all the smokescreens thrown up since Trump got in.
    What makes her insight all the more impressive is that she saw Trump coming and with a Cassandra-like accuracy has foreseen most of the plays of Benito Cheeto in advance – appointing family members to powerful positions, banning journalists from press briefings, wanting military parades etc. – she also co-hosts the relatively new podcast ‘Gaslit Nation’ which so far is very impressive.
    Check her out.

  40. “[Cohen’s] attorney Lanny Davis … went on CNN and made a startling Trump-Russia announcement: Michael Cohen was in the room. Davis confirmed on-air on CNN that Michael Cohen participated in the meeting between Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr, and other members of the Trump campaign which took place a few days before Trump Jr met with the Russians at Trump Tower.”

    Micheal Cohen – People’s Hero and Saviour of Democracy? Not as weird as Trump being president.

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