The sidekick is too young. But he's also charisma-free. I doubt very much he could hold together the motley crew that is the current GOP.
So do I. I expect to see quite a battle for the next Republican presidential candidate, and I don’t think it’s a given that candidate will be in the Trump mold. I think a lot depends on how tomorrow goes.
Even if it’s the biggest blue wave imaginable, it would, I think, be a big mistake to see that as an electoral endorsement of the Democratic Party. (It may of course, be at least in part endorsement of specific Democratic candidates who are more attractive than their GOP opponents, as with Talarico and Paxton.) Rather, I think it’s better viewed as voters registering displeasure with the GOP generally and Trump specifically; voting against them is the only way to register that displeasure in a midterm election. It’s basically a vote against Trump, not a vote for Democrats as such.
The bigger the blue wave, if there is a blue wave, the stronger the signal might be to the GOP that Trump may not be their ticket to success in 2028.
A lot of the UK YouTube serious news commentators are picking up that he seems disinhibited about fetishing men’s bodies in his recent rallies. Leading on into the series of questions, is he bi and been hiding it, if so wtf given how damaging his policies have been for the lgbtq+ community, and will this put off his evangelical base ?
I don’t think anyone in the US, at least not anyone I’ve heard, is hearing Trump’s comments about men’s physiques as some kind of clue that he’s bi and been hiding it. It plays much more, I think, as part and parcel of his misogyny and his approval of a particular kind masculinity. It’s his particularly bizarre and creepy way of saying “He’s a real man, so you should vote for him.”
A lot of the UK YouTube serious news commentators are picking up that he seems disinhibited about fetishing men’s bodies in his recent rallies. Leading on into the series of questions, is he bi and been hiding it, if so wtf given how damaging his policies have been for the lgbtq+ community, and will this put off his evangelical base ?
He was way more pornographic in his second-hand insinuations about Arnold Palmer's penis just before the 2024 election, and it did not seem to hurt him with evangelicals at all.
He was way more pornographic in his second-hand insinuations about Arnold Palmer's penis just before the 2024 election, and it did not seem to hurt him with evangelicals at all.
Because real men, as all good red-blooded evangelical men know, don't play golf. They go hunting.
He was way more pornographic in his second-hand insinuations about Arnold Palmer's penis just before the 2024 election, and it did not seem to hurt him with evangelicals at all.
Because real men, as all good red-blooded evangelical men know, don't play golf. They go hunting.
Well, this is Trump we’re talking about. In his world, real men play golf, presumably on one of his golf courses, or kill elephants and other endangered species while on big game safari.
A lot of the UK YouTube serious news commentators are picking up that he seems disinhibited about fetishing men’s bodies in his recent rallies. Leading on into the series of questions, is he bi and been hiding it, if so wtf given how damaging his policies have been for the lgbtq+ community, and will this put off his evangelical base ?
TRIP on youtube is worth a look, interviewing the Mooch...if that were not the one to which you were referring :-)
A lot of the UK YouTube serious news commentators are picking up that he seems disinhibited about fetishing men’s bodies in his recent rallies. Leading on into the series of questions, is he bi and been hiding it, if so wtf given how damaging his policies have been for the lgbtq+ community, and will this put off his evangelical base ?
As my mother used to say, “He’s opening his mouth and letting the wind blow his tongue around”.
I don’t think he is aware of what he is saying, let alone the meaning.
He was way more pornographic in his second-hand insinuations about Arnold Palmer's penis just before the 2024 election, and it did not seem to hurt him with evangelicals at all.
Because real men, as all good red-blooded evangelical men know, don't play golf. They go hunting.
For the record, his comments about Palmer's dick were meant as complimentary: all the other dudes in the club shower were just mesmerized at how much he was packin'.
More defeats for the fartletter-in-chief. The Supreme Court has rejected his bid to have 20,000 California ballots invalidated as having been cast by alleged non-citizens. And a judge has dismissed his effort to have the Alaska senate race decertified if a Democrat wins.
The latter, though, is interesting. It is alleged that Democrats deliberately recruited a gentleman named Dan Sullivan to run against the incumbent Republican senator Dan Sullivan, hoping that voters would be sufficiently confused as to dilute the Republican vote. If true, this would not be illegal -- indeed, Republicans as well as Democrats have engaged in this practice before -- unless the "other" Dan Sullivan was promised a reward of some sort for putting his name on the ballot.
It amuses me that trump believes that Alaskans are too stupid to see what is going on there, and might be manipulated by the Sullivan exploit.
That was basically the argument the court made. Alaskans have known about this situation for months, and they have been advised through multiple media channels to take care to be sure they are voting for the candidate of their choice. Furthermore, the ballot is clearly marked "Dan Sullivan, incumbent Republican senator" and just plain old "Daniel Sullivan."
We could do with less ablism about Trump's reputed incontinence, he is a reprehensible human being because of what he chooses to do, rather than because of any specific disability or illness he may happen have.
I don’t think anyone in the US, at least not anyone I’ve heard, is hearing Trump’s comments about men’s physiques as some kind of clue that he’s bi and been hiding it. It plays much more, I think, as part and parcel of his misogyny and his approval of a particular kind masculinity.
Yeah, so much so that people have built compilations of his statements:
Which seem to a mix of what you said, and Trump's love of the superlative. Although the most recent comments seem to go a little further, though otoh he obviously has a history of being a little more explicit/crude.
Hey, did ya'll see whom Zelenskyy has awarded The Order of Princess Olga, First Class? Maybe he hired the same consultant as Infantino for the FIFA Peace Prize.
Hey, did ya'll see whom Zelenskyy has awarded The Order of Princess Olga, First Class? Maybe he hired the same consultant as Infantino for the FIFA Peace Prize.
Do have an accessible linky? I've not seen anything about this on UK news.
I suspect that the ex-comedian Zelenskyy is probably poking subtle fun at Trump, which must be very tempting, given the way the Orange Overlord has treated Ukraine recently.
Hey, did ya'll see whom Zelenskyy has awarded The Order of Princess Olga, First Class? Maybe he hired the same consultant as Infantino for the FIFA Peace Prize.
Do have an accessible linky? I've not seen anything about this on UK news.
Reuters: "Ukraine's Zelenskiy awards Melania Trump state honour".
I suspect that the ex-comedian Zelenskyy is probably poking subtle fun at Trump, which must be very tempting, given the way the Orange Overlord has treated Ukraine recently.
No, I don't think Zelenskyy would publically mock, even subtly, one of the guys making pivotal decisions about how much material support Ukraine gets from the west. I think it's brown-nosing, ostensibly justified by Melania's apparently legitimate contribution to the evacuation of refugees during a recent ceasefire.
The Order of Princess Olga is apparently a real thing, with previous recipients including noted Atlanticists Anne Applebaum and Nancy Pelosi.
Hey, did ya'll see whom Zelenskyy has awarded The Order of Princess Olga, First Class? Maybe he hired the same consultant as Infantino for the FIFA Peace Prize.
Do have an accessible linky? I've not seen anything about this on UK news.
I suspect that the ex-comedian Zelenskyy is probably poking subtle fun at Trump, which must be very tempting, given the way the Orange Overlord has treated Ukraine recently.
The Order of Princess Olga is apparently a real thing ...
Okay but to my parochial American mind where all princesses except Princess Di are Disney cartoons, this sounds completely fake.
Well, in Canada, we actually have something called the Nickel Resolution, forbidding our citizens from taking British titles(*). So yeah, "The Order of Princess Olga" might sound somewhat foreign to some Canadians as well, but it does appear to be pretty real.
(*) Trump himself violated the spirit of this resolution by announcing his pardon of Conrad Black using Black's title of "Lord Black of Crossharbour". That title being the reason Black had to renounce his Canadian citizenship, since the Liberals wouldn't allow him to take the title as a Canadian, in what Black's apologists claimed was selective enforcement.
I would say, on the basis of the life of St Olga of Kyiv, that the message is: Don't mess with Ukraine unless you want your arse handed to you (eg your emissaries buried alive, and a fair bit of massacre).
Now he's trying to make the Oval Office a national monument in order to make it more difficult, if just short of impossible, for his successor to get rid of the garish ovdecorating he did and restore it to its original state.
But, as the linked article points out, it won't work.
It's just posturing. Ozymandias wants us to look around at his works and despair. But nothing will remain. The next President, probably regardless of party, will issue a proclamation revoking Trump's, rip down the gaudy gold Cheesecake Factory decorations and sell them for a profit at the Smithsonian gift shop, using the proceeds to pay down the national debt.
My biggest worry now is that we'll squander this opportunity.
We need people who walk wisely, seeing this as a temporary gift that could vanish if we don't build well during this time. The more we avoid the tendency to act like children taunting their defeated enemies ("See what we can do now and you can't stop us, neener neener!") the better off we'll all be.
My biggest worry now is that we'll squander this opportunity.
We need people who walk wisely, seeing this as a temporary gift that could vanish if we don't build well during this time. The more we avoid the tendency to act like children taunting their defeated enemies ("See what we can do now and you can't stop us, neener neener!") the better off we'll all be.
Goood luck with that .... these people are politicians ..... I once (God forbid) voted for one Tony Blair with all those hopes.
LHM
A restrained and careful exploration of corruption will bee in line with the voters. A political slagging of MAGA won’t be.
I think some House and/or Senate proposals on affordability issues should be more important plus genuine attempts to get bipartisan support. Trump will undoubtedly use vetoes and Executive Orders to frustrate Congress. But the Democrats will benefit from thoughtful and constructive proposals with some bipartisan support.
I think Talarico has demonstrated that there is serious public cross-the-board frustration with politics as usual, polarisation and divisive disrespectful attacks.
Trump cannot change his spots. However it will be interesting to see whether political establishments in general will get the point. It’s hard when anyone has ingrained “business as usual” habits to realise that the voters are fed up with those habits. They want to see politicians whose primary aim is to serve the voters, not themselves.
I think Talarico has demonstrated that there is serious public cross-the-board frustration with politics as usual, polarisation and divisive disrespectful attacks.
But this hasn't been "politics as usual". That has been the difficulty. The problem with Trump is that he is not like a normal politician.
I think Talarico has demonstrated that there is serious public cross-the-board frustration with politics as usual, polarisation and divisive disrespectful attacks.
But this hasn't been "politics as usual". That has been the difficulty. The problem with Trump is that he is not like a normal politician.
Plus, insofar as he stakes out identifiably progressive positions, Talarico is NOT rejecting polarisation, because he is moving away from the centre.
Whether he engages in "divisive, disrespectul attacks", I can't say. It doesn't seem to be part of his public repertoire, but we don't know what kinda push-polls etc his operatives mighta been running in the backrooms. I'd be pretty surprised if it was all Matthew 5:39, 24/7.
Overall, I think it's hard to judge the significance of Talarico's victory, because the whole election was pretty much a Democratic sweep from coast to coast, so it's hard to know how much of his success was a positive reaction to him personally, and how much was just a desire to punish Republicans.
I think Talarico has demonstrated that there is serious public cross-the-board frustration with politics as usual, polarisation and divisive disrespectful attacks.
But this hasn't been "politics as usual". That has been the difficulty. The problem with Trump is that he is not like a normal politician.
Plus, insofar as he stakes out identifiably progressive positions, Talarico is NOT rejecting polarisation, because he is moving away from the centre.
Whether he engages in "divisive, disrespectul attacks", I can't say. It doesn't seem to be part of his public repertoire, but we don't know what kinda push-polls etc his operatives mighta been running in the backrooms. I'd be pretty surprised if it was all Matthew 5:39, 24/7.
Overall, I think it's hard to judge the significance of Talarico's victory, because the whole election was pretty much a Democratic sweep from coast to coast, so it's hard to know how much of his success was a positive reaction to him personally, and how much was just a desire to punish Republicans.
And how much was a desire to punch Ken Paxton in particular. Paxton is (metaphorically) incredibly punchable, even for a Republican.
The next President, probably regardless of party, will issue a proclamation revoking Trump's, rip down the gaudy gold Cheesecake Factory decorations.
And the ballroom, and the triumphal arch (if built), and the blue bottom of the Reflecting Pool, and the paved-over Rose Garden, and . . . what else?
Mar-a-Lago? Various 'Trump Towers'? Billy Connelly once remarked, in his inimitable Scottish accent, that the 'Tower' in Chicago (IIRC) resembled nothing more than a giant public toilet...
BTW, I didn't realise that 'The Cheesecake Factory' is an actual chain of restaurants (?), but, looking at online images, I see what Barack Obama meant!
Comments
Even if it’s the biggest blue wave imaginable, it would, I think, be a big mistake to see that as an electoral endorsement of the Democratic Party. (It may of course, be at least in part endorsement of specific Democratic candidates who are more attractive than their GOP opponents, as with Talarico and Paxton.) Rather, I think it’s better viewed as voters registering displeasure with the GOP generally and Trump specifically; voting against them is the only way to register that displeasure in a midterm election. It’s basically a vote against Trump, not a vote for Democrats as such.
The bigger the blue wave, if there is a blue wave, the stronger the signal might be to the GOP that Trump may not be their ticket to success in 2028.
I don’t think anyone in the US, at least not anyone I’ve heard, is hearing Trump’s comments about men’s physiques as some kind of clue that he’s bi and been hiding it. It plays much more, I think, as part and parcel of his misogyny and his approval of a particular kind masculinity. It’s his particularly bizarre and creepy way of saying “He’s a real man, so you should vote for him.”
He was way more pornographic in his second-hand insinuations about Arnold Palmer's penis just before the 2024 election, and it did not seem to hurt him with evangelicals at all.
TRIP on youtube is worth a look, interviewing the Mooch...if that were not the one to which you were referring :-)
As my mother used to say, “He’s opening his mouth and letting the wind blow his tongue around”.
I don’t think he is aware of what he is saying, let alone the meaning.
For the record, his comments about Palmer's dick were meant as complimentary: all the other dudes in the club shower were just mesmerized at how much he was packin'.
The latter, though, is interesting. It is alleged that Democrats deliberately recruited a gentleman named Dan Sullivan to run against the incumbent Republican senator Dan Sullivan, hoping that voters would be sufficiently confused as to dilute the Republican vote. If true, this would not be illegal -- indeed, Republicans as well as Democrats have engaged in this practice before -- unless the "other" Dan Sullivan was promised a reward of some sort for putting his name on the ballot.
If this is so, he is to be pitied - incontinence is a most unpleasant and undignified ailment...
Is it time for him to be put into some sort of care facility?
(Miss Amanda will get her wrap.)
Doublethink, Admin
Yeah, so much so that people have built compilations of his statements:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgoIajELUds
Which seem to a mix of what you said, and Trump's love of the superlative. Although the most recent comments seem to go a little further, though otoh he obviously has a history of being a little more explicit/crude.
There are signs of hope worldwide - Hungary, Serbia, Brazil...
Do have an accessible linky? I've not seen anything about this on UK news.
I suspect that the ex-comedian Zelenskyy is probably poking subtle fun at Trump, which must be very tempting, given the way the Orange Overlord has treated Ukraine recently.
Reuters: "Ukraine's Zelenskiy awards Melania Trump state honour".
No, I don't think Zelenskyy would publically mock, even subtly, one of the guys making pivotal decisions about how much material support Ukraine gets from the west. I think it's brown-nosing, ostensibly justified by Melania's apparently legitimate contribution to the evacuation of refugees during a recent ceasefire.
The Order of Princess Olga is apparently a real thing, with previous recipients including noted Atlanticists Anne Applebaum and Nancy Pelosi.
Yes.
Okay but to my parochial American mind where all princesses except Princess Di are Disney cartoons, this sounds completely fake.
BBC link that mentions it. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm87zvpzwq0no
It's lurking in the Europe and US & Canada sections of their site. Couldn't see it on the front page.
No doubt there's more to the matter than meets the eye, but if Mrs Trump has indeed been a force for good, then the award is well-deserved.
Well, in Canada, we actually have something called the Nickel Resolution, forbidding our citizens from taking British titles(*). So yeah, "The Order of Princess Olga" might sound somewhat foreign to some Canadians as well, but it does appear to be pretty real.
(*) Trump himself violated the spirit of this resolution by announcing his pardon of Conrad Black using Black's title of "Lord Black of Crossharbour". That title being the reason Black had to renounce his Canadian citizenship, since the Liberals wouldn't allow him to take the title as a Canadian, in what Black's apologists claimed was selective enforcement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_of_Kiev
Whether or not Melania Trump deserves the honour is beside the point. Trump didn't get it himself so it will barely impinge on his consciousness.
But, as the linked article points out, it won't work.
My biggest worry now is that we'll squander this opportunity.
We need people who walk wisely, seeing this as a temporary gift that could vanish if we don't build well during this time. The more we avoid the tendency to act like children taunting their defeated enemies ("See what we can do now and you can't stop us, neener neener!") the better off we'll all be.
Goood luck with that .... these people are politicians ..... I once (God forbid) voted for one Tony Blair with all those hopes.
LHM
I think some House and/or Senate proposals on affordability issues should be more important plus genuine attempts to get bipartisan support. Trump will undoubtedly use vetoes and Executive Orders to frustrate Congress. But the Democrats will benefit from thoughtful and constructive proposals with some bipartisan support.
I think Talarico has demonstrated that there is serious public cross-the-board frustration with politics as usual, polarisation and divisive disrespectful attacks.
Trump cannot change his spots. However it will be interesting to see whether political establishments in general will get the point. It’s hard when anyone has ingrained “business as usual” habits to realise that the voters are fed up with those habits. They want to see politicians whose primary aim is to serve the voters, not themselves.
But this hasn't been "politics as usual". That has been the difficulty. The problem with Trump is that he is not like a normal politician.
Plus, insofar as he stakes out identifiably progressive positions, Talarico is NOT rejecting polarisation, because he is moving away from the centre.
Whether he engages in "divisive, disrespectul attacks", I can't say. It doesn't seem to be part of his public repertoire, but we don't know what kinda push-polls etc his operatives mighta been running in the backrooms. I'd be pretty surprised if it was all Matthew 5:39, 24/7.
Overall, I think it's hard to judge the significance of Talarico's victory, because the whole election was pretty much a Democratic sweep from coast to coast, so it's hard to know how much of his success was a positive reaction to him personally, and how much was just a desire to punish Republicans.
And how much was a desire to punch Ken Paxton in particular. Paxton is (metaphorically) incredibly punchable, even for a Republican.
Mar-a-Lago? Various 'Trump Towers'? Billy Connelly once remarked, in his inimitable Scottish accent, that the 'Tower' in Chicago (IIRC) resembled nothing more than a giant public toilet...
BTW, I didn't realise that 'The Cheesecake Factory' is an actual chain of restaurants (?), but, looking at online images, I see what Barack Obama meant!
They look tasteful compared to the Whitehouse.