WatDabney

I have zero doubt that a large part of the reason that Trump appointed Musk in the first place was so that he could later throw him under the bus.

When did we start rewarding politicians for being angry and stupid?

So… the legal concept of free speech does not apply to private businesses but does apply to branches of the government, so Gym Jordan is actually violating the way in which it does apply in order to try to force it to apply in a way in which it does not.

It’s as if there’s some sort of contest between Republicans to see who can most egregiously violate the most legal principles at one time - as if it’s not enough to just destroy America - they have to try to destroy it as much as possible and in the most stupid and brazenly illegal ways possible.

Yes - just as with the DEI controversy, the main point is just to fan the flames of racism.

The 1% understand that the US is approaching a breaking point. Things are going to shit, and people are going to start looking for someone to blame for the ugliness and horror and death to come.

And the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of the 1%.

And of course, they don’t want us to see that. So they’re doing everything they can to divide us against ourselves.

Yes, and his name is Todd Howard.

The irony is that Beth pretty much set the standard for ambitious, weird and unexpected with Morrowind, and have been backing away ever since.

And so now we just wait and see what excuse Musk will trot out next.

Stewart is a smart, insightful, quick-witted and tenacious debater and Musk is a cowardly, thin-skinned blowhard who’s never had an original thought in his life.

So it’s not a matter of if Musk will weasel out of it, but just of when and how.

The Toddler-in-chief throwing another tantrum.

At least.

I quite sincerely believe that it’s not even a question of if the US gets to the concentration camps and mass graves stage, but merely of when.

I wish I was exaggerating.

Ah. So reporting “Trump is a lying sack of shit who claims to be dismantling agencies in order to cut spending but is actually methodically eliminating every part of the government that serves to limit the abuses the 1% can heap on the rest of the country” is somehow “normalizing” his actions and reporting “Trump’s spending cuts are failing to accomplish as much actual reduction in spending as he promised” somehow is not.

Got it.

Questions and accusations are more for the audience than trying to get Trump to reconsider why he’s doing something

I’m fully aware of that (and the notion tgat Trump would ever reconsider anything is foolish on its face). And it’s for the audience that the politicians and analysts and commentators need to change the context of their analyses.

and at least currently that bias toward “how things were supposed to work” still exists in the general public.

And that’s a lot of the problem. The people need to be smacked upside the head with the two-by-four of truth.

Yes, yes, a billion times yes.

To me, the fundamental problem - the primary reason that it seems so difficult to deal with Trump - is that so many politicians and analysts and commentators are still spproaching issues as if the old rules are still in place, and they quite simply aren’t.

Every time that another analysis or editorial appears that discusses the “failures” of the Trump administration, since their policies will undermine the original goals of the agency/programs in question, it’s ultimately just meaningless noise, since it starts with the patently false presumption that the original goals still count. They don’t.

The Trump administration isn’t failing to achieve traditional goals - it’s succeeding in achieving an entirely new and different set of goals. And there isn’t going to be any meaningful commentary until it focuses on those new goals.

That’s certainly possible, but it’s by no means necessary, and not even particularly likely.

Trump is a spoiled, petulant, childish narcissist. He wouldn’t react well to blackmail – his ego would lead him to be at least situationally passive/aggressive about it.

And in fact, that’s why I do think he’s being blackmailed by Israel (and specifically via information, evidence, video clips and so on that they got from Epstein). His sort of lukewarm, on-again/off-again support for them is just what I’d expect in that situation - he’ll go along, but he’s at least going to drag his feet.

With Russia though, I really think the primary motivator is that he idolizes Putin. You can see it in his face in any images from any of their meetings - he lights up like a schoolgirl with a crush. And that would explain why he’s so enthusiastic and even reckless about allying with Russia - because he thinks he can only gain from it, since he’ll get to be a trusted ally to his idol.

Which also illustrates the fact that he’s sort of stupid and short-sighted, because if he was smarter and more circumspect, he’d know that, given the chance, Putin is going to play him like a fiddle.

It’s simple really - Vance was the point man because Trump wants to be able to throw somebody under the bus if need be.

As I’ve noted before, if you think of dialogue like a roleplaying video game in which you have labeled options - you can choose the “friendly” response or the “neutral” response or the “antagonistic” response or whatever - it’s as if, in every situation, Vance chooses the “asshole” response.

I think the right might have a point, and that Trump and his cronies and patrons aren’t instituting fascism

They’re instituting feudalism.

That’s what he’s always done.

He has the attention span of a toddler. He latches onto ideas, and specifically things that will satisfy his ego, his greed or his lust, with a laser focus, for exactly and only so long as they manage to hold his attention.

And at the same time, he has essentially no conception of objective truth. It’s not quite that he lives in a fantasy world as that his need to satisfy his ego, greed and/or lust is so much his focus that everything else pales in comparison, including truth.

So he essentially sincerely says whatever he thinks will serve to accomplish whatever it is that he’s focused on at the moment. It’s not so much that he lies as that he doesn’t really make a distinction between truth and lies. The only meaningful measure of a claim is whether or not it will serve his goals.

And all of that means that a smart, canny and manipulative man - Putin, for instance - can get him pointed in whatever direction he wants by feeding him the right bait and the right bullet points to go along with it.

She’s just a figurehead anyway.

He’s not “surrendering” to them - he’s actively working for their benefit, as it’s been clear all along he intended to do.

As I’ve said many times, Trump and Musk and so much of the American right are pro-Russia largely because they have so many shared values.

MAGA republicans are looking forward to the time when they too will be able to torture and strip female prisoners and parade them around naked.