Corvid-19 and its impact (name edit)

[Terminal Blue]

He's not trying to give a report card of his historical knowledge, he's trying to express that more people die of the flu each year than some people may be aware of.

I don't think anyone disagrees that that was the broad rhetorical intent of what he said.

But he did not actually say "some people", he referred explicitly to himself. He did not say "more people [than you might think]" he said "anybody".

To a normal person, this kind of discrepancy between rhetorical intent and the point as communicated is bad communication. The fact that you feel the need to sit here and explain the rhetorical point to people who already know what it is is pretty clear evidence of such.

It is only people who are already emotionally invested in Donald Trump as a person who will do the mental gymnastics of coming up with complex strategic reasons why he says these things, based on the increasingly desperate belief that he is actually some kind of secret genius playing 4D chess in the political arena. There is no "logic and reason" to that preexisting belief, it (and any conclusions derived from it) are excuses.

You can talk about how people "aren't bothering" to consider what Trump says, but that is just a thinly veiled accusation of bad faith. Part of competence, part of rhetorical strategy, is creating a situation in which your audience does not have to do the work of making what you say smarter or more informative than it actually is. Donald Trump is not a secret political genius operating on levels we can't understand, a genius would not leave this degree of ambiguity between what they actually said and what the point was supposed to be, particularly when so much is at stake.

This did happen a day or so after people accused him of downplaying covid-19 by comparing it to the flu, so this time he was emphasizing the seriousness of the flu.

Also, just to point out this is kind of a shitty point.

Everything we are learning about coronavirus suggests it is considerably worse than flu. It is much more infectious, and seems to be far more dangerous once contracted. Unlike flu, it cannot be vaccinated against and does not respond to at least some of the anti viral drugs which can be used to treat flu.

Seasonal flu kills people, but only in the sense that everyone technically has to die of something. Seasonal flu does not overwhelm medical services, it does not lead to doctors having to let people who could theoretically be saved die due to lack of available medical supplies or facilities as is happening in many countries now. It is not remotely the same.

Emphasising the "seriousness" of flu does not address the fundamental problem that it is irresponsible to compare coronavirus to flu.

 

[tstorm823]

I don't think anyone disagrees that that was the broad rhetorical intent of what he said.

I think some people do disagree. I think people consider Trump's words to be genuinely haphazard nonsense without rhyme or reason, and are open to the suggestion that he had no real intent in saying that and was just enjoying talking about himself regardless of substance.

But he did not actually say "some people", he referred explicitly to himself. He did not say "more people [than you might think]" he said "anybody".

To a normal person, this kind of discrepancy between rhetorical intent and the point as communicated is bad communication. The fact that you feel the need to sit here and explain the rhetorical point to people who already know what it is is pretty clear evidence of such.

I don't agree that it's bad communication. Both hyperbole and making your claim personal to yourself are valid tools in persuasive rhetoric. And as the climax of a longer statement, I think it worked well. To paraphrase, "dummies like me might not realize it, but the flu is very serious business", that's a solid punchline for what he was saying.

It could be a mistake on a wider view to say that. In the headlines and sound bytes culture of politics, it's probably wiser to avoid any sentences that can't survive in a vacuum. If everyone wants to say it was stupid of him to say that, sure, I'd buy that for a dollar. But that's not what I'm taking issue with. I'm taking issue with the insistence that he literally didn't know people died of the flu and there's no other reason he would say that. That I don't buy.

Emphasising the "seriousness" of flu does not address the fundamental problem that it is irresponsible to compare coronavirus to flu.

You do understand that pandemic flus happen every few decades that kill millions of people globally, right? The Spanish flu infected a higher percentage of the human population than covid-19 did of the Diamond Princess passengers. It's an absolutely valid comparison.

 

[Terminal Blue]

I think some people do disagree. I think people consider Trump's words to be genuinely haphazard nonsense without rhyme or reason, and are open to the suggestion that he had no real intent in saying that and was just enjoying talking about himself regardless of substance.

And there is an element of truth in that.

It is clear that Trump's response had been prepared to some degree, hence why he was able to quote a specific statistic. However, the way he actually speaks is not indicative of a high degree of preparation. He does frequently bring issues back to himself or talk himself even when it is irrelevant or even inappropriate. His speech is often vague and circular. He routinely avoids specific information in favour of generalizations. He blatantly lies or contradicts his own administration. He makes vague references to unrelated topics, sometimes with no relation to whatever he is supposed to be commenting on.

There may be some form of rhyme and reason to what Trump says, he has after all been briefed, but that does not change the fact that much of it genuinely is haphazard nonsense.

I don't agree that it's bad communication. Both hyperbole and making your claim personal to yourself are valid tools in persuasive rhetoric.

How exactly, in this case, do those tools serve the persuasiveness of the rhetoric?

The point you are making is not difficult or complex to convey. You managed it in a single unambiguous sentence. Why is Trump, hypercompetent genius and master of subtle persuasion, seemingly less able to convey this point effectively than you are, to the point where we need to rely on inference and broader context to even guess at what he is trying to say?

You do understand that pandemic flus happen every few decades that kill millions of people globally, right? The Spanish flu infected a higher percentage of the human population than covid-19 did of the Diamond Princess passengers. It's an absolutely valid comparison.

Normally I'm okay with arguing things for the hell of it. However, if you're going to sit there and barefacedly disregard the opinion of the entire medical and scientific professions because they disagree with orange daddy, then you need to evaluate your position.

SARS-CoV-2 (the virus which causes COVID-19) has been shown to be far more contagious than influenza. While the spanish flu infected a significant percentage of people, it did so over three years and under very favourable conditions for viral transmission and at a time when very few medicines were commonly available to deal with viral illness. While SARS-CoV-2 will likely infect similar numbers of people in the long term, it can potentially spread much faster due to the higher risk of transmission, and while there's a lot we still don't know about COVID-19, it is clear at this point that it is both more severe than flu, and has a higher mortality rate.

Comparing it to flu is disingenuous because flu does not entail the massive changes to public life required by COVID-19. Maybe the Spanish Flu outbreak did, but that was a hundred years ago. It's unlikely that anyone alive today has any significant memory of Spanish Flu. Heck, H1N1 infected more people, in absolute terms, than Spanish Flu, and who even remembers that H1N1 existed?

 

[Kwak]

That he's just describing fantasy scenarios about his own ignorance with no basis in reality at all?

Bingo!

He's not trying to give a report card of his historical knowledge, he's trying to express that more people die of the flu each year than some people may be aware of. This did happen a day or so after people accused him of downplaying covid-19 by comparing it to the flu, so this time he was emphasizing the seriousness of the flu. But because a big part of Trump's schtick is about not being talked down to by elites, rather than say the ignorant masses don't know how deadly the flu is, he presented it in a self-deprecating sense that people can relate to.

"elites"? Fucking hell.

 

[Agema]

It is clear that Trump's response had been prepared to some degree, hence why he was able to quote a specific statistic.

Maybe - he's not always very good at that. At least one of he speeches he listed the deaths from some form of 'flu and gave three different values - at least one of those three was correct, but even still...

However, the way he actually speaks is not indicative of a high degree of preparation. He does frequently bring issues back to himself or talk himself even when it is irrelevant or even inappropriate. His speech is often vague and circular. He routinely avoids specific information in favour of generalizations. He blatantly lies or contradicts his own administration. He makes vague references to unrelated topics, sometimes with no relation to whatever he is supposed to be commenting on.

There may be some form of rhyme and reason to what Trump says, he has after all been briefed, but that does not change the fact that much of it genuinely is haphazard nonsense.

Yep.

There are loads of people who can stand at a podium and spout in a way that will enthuse a crowd. But a lot of them can manage a sort of "folksy", down-to-earth manner whilst still conveying accurate facts under a clear rationale set out with logical cohesion. Trump seemingly can't. As you say, a lot of this about Trump's performance is likely to be poor preparation.

I think Trump only gets by because he has a great deal of goodwill from his fans. I think if some random guy turned up on the podium and spouted gibberish like that, people would wonder what the hell was going on and when the real act started. But Trump has a name / brand, a background including the kudos of being extremely rich, and most importantly the fact that they selected him as their leader. He's thus afforded a huge amount of leeway to spew drivel and be excused for it, to always seek the positives. People outside the Trump base have no interest in giving him this leeway. Neither group appears to be very interested in trying to see the point of the other.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

There may be some form of rhyme and reason to what Trump says, he has after all been briefed, but that does not change the fact that much of it genuinely is haphazard nonsense.

No matter how many times I say it, people never pay attention: Trump's genius -- and yes, that's what it is -- is in his ability to troll people into making themselves look like absolute donkeys, or into self-destructive behavior.

We're in the middle of a global pandemic that's killed thousands and before the end of it will kill millions, the media's slap-fighting over whether citing the virus' country of origin is racist, and Congressional Democrats are bitching about means-testing a Malthusian crisis. End of story.

If you haven't clued into this yet, you're not paying attention, you never have paid attention, and you're unlikely to ever pay attention.

 

[Terminal Blue]

No matter how many times I say it, people never pay attention: Trump's genius -- and yes, that's what it is -- is in his ability to troll people into making themselves look like absolute donkeys, or into self-destructive behavior.

At best, I think you could argue that Trump has the ability to lower the bar of political discourse to such a degree that, in responding to him, others will occasionally have to stoop to his level and then be held accountable for their actions in a way that he, as a special silly clown man, is not. You can say it as many times as you like, but I don't believe that is remotely intentional. In the case of someone like Boris Johnson, it absolutely is intentional, but Trump for all of his many flaws seems to possess very little capacity for real guile or manipulation.

We're in the middle of a global pandemic that's killed thousands and before the end of it will kill millions, the media's slap-fighting over whether citing the virus' country of origin is racist, and Congressional Democrats are bitching about means-testing a Malthusian crisis. End of story.

One could also say that we're in the middle of a global pandemic that will kill millions and yet the head of state of the most powerful country on earth is being weirdly, aggressively insistent on using racialized language to refer to the virus, against the explicit recommendation of most experts and political figures worldwide. One could also say that we're in the middle of a global pandemic that will kill millions, and yet racists are going around attacking east Asian people who have never been to China because they see the virus' country of origin as a convenient excuse to do so. Expecting everyone else to ignore and not talk about that because doing so might make them look bad to people who clearly don't actually care is frankly childish.

If you think the real world actually operates on "u mad bro" rules where pointing out that the person who theoretically has the most power of anyone on earth is acting in ways that do not befit the very real consequences of their actions means you have been "trolled" or "baited", then you probably need to spend some time away from the internet because it is warping your sense of normality.

 

[Marik2]

What makes me mad is that after this is all over, Winnie the Pooh will most likely not close the wet markets. And no one will learn from this.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

No matter how many times I say it, people never pay attention: Trump's genius -- and yes, that's what it is -- is in his ability to troll people into making themselves look like absolute donkeys, or into self-destructive behavior.

It isn't genius that you've got one mode of talking and that is slinging shit at your opponents for all you are worth while constantly talking up yourself and whatever thing has your fancy for the moment, all the while making stuff up as you go. I would give this theory credit if it wasn't for the fact that Trump has proven utterly unable to do anything but this. His playbook has only one play and that is talking up himself, downplaying any criticism and attacking his opponents, preferably by giving them a mean nickname like you were still in middle school.

As Trump has displayed amply in the last few weeks, he is not able to assume the role of a crisis leader, because he doesn't know how to present a serious, composed and able demeanor. Even when he tries to address the US people with some gravitas and be a Leader he slips straight into making shit up, attacking the Democrats and blaming the rest of the world. This is not a man who has some genius approach to politics, this is a man who only knows one trick and keeps using it over and over. The reason it works is because that one trick appeals to a lot of discontented people who are looking for anyone with power who understands them, and Trump's attacks target all the groups that these people want to put blame on.

 

[dscross]

No more going to the pub for us Brits. That alone will be a shock to the system.

 

[tstorm823]

As Trump has displayed amply in the last few weeks, he is not able to assume the role of a crisis leader, because he doesn't know how to present a serious, composed and able demeanor. Even when he tries to address the US people with some gravitas and be a Leader he slips straight into making shit up, attacking the Democrats and blaming the rest of the world.

You know, in the last few days, Trump has been supported by a lot of Democrats:

California Governor Gavin Newsom: "He said, 'We're going to do the right thing, and you have my support.' He said everything that I could have hoped for ... And every single thing he said, they followed through on."

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo: "They have been responsive late at night, early in the morning. And thus far, they have been doing everything that they can do, and I want to say thank you, and I want to say that I appreciate it."

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio: "I disagree with President Trump on many things, but I actually think the travel ban piece of his strategy is in many ways warranted."

Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar: "Unprecedented times require unprecedented leadership and we are seeing that in our country right now... we should never let politics get in the way of good policy. This is a great start and hope others will be part of a united front"

The first 3 years of Trump's presidency didn't have actual crises, just a whole lot of manufactured nonsense. The Democrats just kept fighting with Trump constantly, seemingly not realizing or not caring that he's a fickle and self-obsessed person who will do what you want if you cooperate with him. I have been saying this for years, he's only been so conservative as president because only Republicans agree to work with him. He's not a partisan loyalist, he's not an idealogue, he goes with whatever makes people like him. Now that there's something that's actually important, that Democrats have to work with Trump or be responsible for people dying, and suddenly he's cooperating with them instead of calling them names. It's almost like they were the problem the whole time. If you're good to Trump, he's good to you. If you're bad to Trump, he's bad to you. It may not be the most presidential thing, but it's not a difficult puzzle to solve. And the same isn't true of Trump's opponents, they don't want to cooperate across the aisle, they view fighting the opposition as a noble cause. The Democrats should absolutely be blamed for the things they've said and the things they've failed to accomplish because they've had years of a president who would have worked with them on anything they wanted if they just stopped being jerks, and they wouldn't do it until they absolutely had to.

Chuck Schumer said that the other day he called Trump up on the phone and implored him to invoke the defense powers act to produce medical supplies, and he heard Trump over the phone immediately tell his people to make it happen. They could have had this relationship with Trump the whole time. The same is true of every other nation. All they have to do is not demonize or condescend to him, and they can have whatever cooperation with the White House they want. So maybe blaming Democrats and the rest of the world is completely justified.

It's unlikely that anyone alive today has any significant memory of Spanish Flu. Heck, H1N1 infected more people, in absolute terms, than Spanish Flu, and who even remembers that H1N1 existed?

Everyone remembers H1N1 existed. Swine flue globally killed hundreds of thousands of people, and that was considered a good result compared to original estimates in the millions. People panicked, events were cancelled. Sure, it didn't end up being a world ending pandemic, but you are the one downplaying pandemics here.

 

[Agema]

The Democrats should absolutely be blamed for the things they've said and the things they've failed to accomplish because they've had years of a president who would have worked with them on anything they wanted if they just stopped being jerks, and they wouldn't do it until they absolutely had to.

This is utterly implausible.

You're forgetting that there's a Republican party, too, who happened to have control of both houses of legislature for the first two years of Trump's presidency. The Democrats couldn't have passed anything that the Republicans didn't also want, because given the choice Trump's going to back the party which provides him with all the screaming fans at rallies.

Secondly, Trump not being an ideologue doesn't mean he didn't have his own agenda, which largely seems to have involved aggressively dismantling everything his Democratic Party predecessor as president achieved: political conflict was inevitable. Trump is so pathetically thin-skinned and abusive that he was always going to turn that utterly toxic.

Thirdly, Democratic Party politicians could not ignore how it looks to their own voters if they slavishly sucked up to a racist, corrupt, sexual predator who took great delight in insulting them. Not even in return for a few political deals. Trump poisoned the well with Democrats before he even took up the presidency, and carried on chucking dead carcasses in by the wagonload after he assumed office. You make a deal with the devil only when you absolutely have to, otherwise you're selling your soul for less than it's worth.

Everyone remembers H1N1 existed.

Nope: I'd totally forgotten about it.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

His playbook has only one play and that is talking up himself, downplaying any criticism and attacking his opponents, preferably by giving them a mean nickname like you were still in middle school.

When, exactly, in his life has he ever had to change tact in the first place? Corporate media goes to the ends of the Earth to give him earned media and make excuses for it because he is and always has been a ratings driver, and this has consistently been the case since the '80s. The insidiousness of his shtick itself is that people will bend over backwards to deny it, and cling to the notion he is, as you claim, a one-track pony idiot despite the mountain of directly contradictory evidence. This ain't rocket science, he's someone who figured out decades ago how to weaponize corporate media's profit motive to inflate his own status.

I don't personally see how this is so difficult to understand or figure out in the first place. I learned to stop buying into the "Republican President = stupid" narrative fourteen years ago. Trump is the third of three GOP Presidents of my lifetime against whom this allegation has been levied, and he's the third GOP President of my lifetime for whom it's been completely, irrevocably wrong. It's nothing more than a liberal talking point to excuse away liberals' own gross strategic incompetence, and keep supporters from looking too closely at any underlying strategic logic.

 

[tstorm823]

This is utterly implausible.

You're forgetting that there's a Republican party, too, who happened to have control of both houses of legislature for the first two years of Trump's presidency. The Democrats couldn't have passed anything that the Republicans didn't also want, because given the choice Trump's going to back the party which provides him with all the screaming fans at rallies.

You're suggesting that Democrats are less capable of getting bills through Republicans than Kim Kardashian. Kim Kardashian went to Trump with a traditionally Democratic initiative and got it through. You really think Pelosi couldn't manage that?

Thirdly, Democratic Party politicians could not ignore how it looks to their own voters if they slavishly sucked up to a racist, corrupt, sexual predator who took great delight in insulting them.

If they had worked with him like they are now, they would have proven in very short order that neither side is what the other side's insults claim they are.

Nope: I'd totally forgotten about it.

Congratulations.

 

[Agema]

You're suggesting that Democrats are less capable of getting bills through Republicans than Kim Kardashian. Kim Kardashian went to Trump with a traditionally Democratic initiative and got it through. You really think Pelosi couldn't manage that?

I think you mean the bipartisan bill originally sponsored by Republicans. Whether Kim Kardashian's intervention was important is unclear - it was certainly newsworthy. It is certainly nice the Republicans put forward an initiative one would expect to come from the Democrats.

If they had worked with him like they are now, they would have proven in very short order that neither side is what the other side's insults claim they are.

Firstly, it's a crisis: tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives and the nation's economic health depend on action being taken. Secondly, there's broad agreement about what needs to be done. It's not the same thing at all.

 

[Terminal Blue]

I have been saying this for years, he's only been so conservative as president because only Republicans agree to work with him. He's not a partisan loyalist, he's not an idealogue, he goes with whatever makes people like him.

Donald Trump's "spiritual advisor" is an evangelical church leader called Paula White. White has served the Trump administration in an official capacity as the head of the Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiative, but she is also a close personal friend of Trump and routinely offers him personal advice and political guidance.

Beyond her very questionable personal conduct (she routinely promises divinely given rewards or gifts to those who donate money to her), Paula White is a proponent of spiritual warfare, the idea that bad things in the world are caused by demonic influence and that Christians must be proactive in combating this influence. This belief on its own isn't uncommon in Christianity, but if you're familiar with spiritual warfare in its modern context you probably know where this is going.

Paula White preaches that anything which does not accord with far right, evangelical conservative values is literally the result of supernatural demonic forces. She preaches that there are elemental demonic realms which are seeking to corrupt and influence the path of the united states, and whose plans must be "aborted", to reference the line for which she is most famous. She is part of a movement which preaches that America is infested with demonic squid from the demonic kingdom of water,[footnote]Florida is especially prone to demonic squid[/footnote] and that social problems and "unchristian" behaviour (like being gay, or wanting women to be equal to men) are the product of evil spiritual influences.

The fact that the Trump presidency is exceptionally right wing isn't an accident, and it's naive to view it as such. Trump may not possess a very coherent political philosophy, but he consistently and voluntarily aligns himself with people who do not match up at all with this supposed goal of being liked. He does this because these people fit with his own ideological worldview. They support and reinforce things he believes. He does not hang out with Islamophobic conspiracy theorists like Frank Gaffney because of popularity, he does it because these people affirm and share some of his own beliefs. Heck, Trump is infamous for contradicting his own administration and coming out with material he has either picked up from his friends or gained from right wing media sources.

Notice that we're back to the problem of Trump's followers reading whatever they want to read into his lack of eloquence. Despite that lack of eloquence, he does have a clearly visible ideological position.

Swine flue globally killed hundreds of thousands of people,

And?

Hundreds of thousands of people die every week, and globally, heart disease kills more people than all respiratory infections combined. The simple fact is, every person on this planet has to die at some point, and when they die they will die of something. H1N1 did not pose a significantly challenge to our normal lives. It did not overwhelm healthcare systems. It did not require doctors, except maybe in very rare and impoverished conditions, to make difficult choices about who to treat or who to save. It did not require worldwide effort to slow the rate of infection.

That is why it is irresponsible. to compare it to Coronavirus, because again.. and this is not really up for debate, Coronavirus is worse than flu. Coronavirus does pose a significant threat of overwhelming healthcare systems in a way we have never seen in our lifetimes. Coronavirus does require unprecedented measures to tackle.

Claiming it is like flu does not instil in people the necessary sense of urgency, because flu is not an urgent issue. You can try to argue that it is an urgent issue by pointing to the fact that it kills people, but a certain ammount of death is normal. Again, everyone has to die. Flu is part of our normal lives. The deaths flu causes are a part of our normal lives. The existing infrastructure is built to handle flu. Coronavirus is not a part of our normal lives, and our infrastructure is not built to handle it.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

[tweet t="https://twitter.com/RobertFaturechi/status/1240746141236359168"]

This is just a great big coincidence, I'm sure.

What are the odds this guy will get hit with insider trading and go to jail like Martha Stewart? Trump going to pardon him too?

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

No matter how many times I say it, people never pay attention: Trump's genius -- and yes, that's what it is -- is in his ability to troll people into making themselves look like absolute donkeys, or into self-destructive behavior.

It isn't genius that you've got one mode of talking and that is slinging shit at your opponents for all you are worth while constantly talking up yourself and whatever thing has your fancy for the moment, all the while making stuff up as you go. I would give this theory credit if it wasn't for the fact that Trump has proven utterly unable to do anything but this. His playbook has only one play and that is talking up himself, downplaying any criticism and attacking his opponents, preferably by giving them a mean nickname like you were still in middle school.

As Trump has displayed amply in the last few weeks, he is not able to assume the role of a crisis leader, because he doesn't know how to present a serious, composed and able demeanor. Even when he tries to address the US people with some gravitas and be a Leader he slips straight into making shit up, attacking the Democrats and blaming the rest of the world. This is not a man who has some genius approach to politics, this is a man who only knows one trick and keeps using it over and over. The reason it works is because that one trick appeals to a lot of discontented people who are looking for anyone with power who understands them, and Trump's attacks target all the groups that these people want to put blame on.

Meanwhile we have our people on the front lines going without proper PPE and the necessary resources because of the series of mistakes Trump made that made this so much worse. He doesn't know how to do his job, nor does he even know what his job is supposed to be. He flies by the seat of his arse and is taking the entire country with him. He is constantly all over the place and cannot even make it through a coherent speech written for him without screwing it up and being an idiot. It is like he is completely incapable of opening his mouth without saying something stupid.

I am not even sure he is capable of understanding what is about to happen when our front lines all fall ill at the same time while we are overcapacity of everything we need to combat this. No, it is more important to him to blame China for his unpreparedness and lack of proper response while he rants about " The Federal Government is not a shipping service" when in times of emergencies, it is his job to ensure the federal government steps up and becomes whatever is needed, be it a shipping service, builder or protector to maintain the general welfare of the people. It is like he is not capable of understanding that means he will deliver necessary supplies to the front lines himself if needed if that is what it takes to save the nation. He just doesn't "get it".

 

[tstorm823]

The fact that the Trump presidency is exceptionally right wing isn't an accident, and it's naive to view it as such. Trump may not possess a very coherent political philosophy, but he consistently and voluntarily aligns himself with people who do not match up at all with this supposed goal of being liked. He does this because these people fit with his own ideological worldview. They support and reinforce things he believes. He does not hang out with Islamophobic conspiracy theorists like Frank Gaffney because of popularity, he does it because these people affirm and share some of his own beliefs. Heck, Trump is infamous for contradicting his own administration and coming out with material he has either picked up from his friends or gained from right wing media sources.

You're wrong. It's not that those people affirm his beliefs, it's that they glorify him as a person. You have to remember, these are the same sorts of people that preach prosperity theology. They see wealth and good fortune as evidence of moral righteousness. Regardless of whether these people actually believe that or just preach that to justify their own wealth, the screwed up nonsense they preach demands that they support the wealthy and fortunate. In that context, Donald Trump is a saint to these people.

That's the only belief that Trump aligns with these people. It's not that he's secretly a far-right religious zealot, it's that he likes people who treat him like a saint, and he's not particularly picky about who. And if any of them turned on Trump, he'd dump them without hesitation.

People here keep telling me I'm reading things he says in all sorts of weird ways to make them mean whatever I want to in order to defend him. I'm not doing that. Trump is not complicated. There are no tea leaves. He's just a narcissist. He only does two things: he exaggerates and reciprocates. That's enough to explain everything he does. He exaggerates because he's a narcissist and wants to make himself exceptional at all times. And he reciprocates to how people treat him, because in Trump-world, the measure of moral character is how good you are to Trump. Because he's a narcissist.

If you ever stop analyzing his actions through that lens, you're going to get it wrong.

 

[Trunkage]

The fact that the Trump presidency is exceptionally right wing isn't an accident, and it's naive to view it as such. Trump may not possess a very coherent political philosophy, but he consistently and voluntarily aligns himself with people who do not match up at all with this supposed goal of being liked. He does this because these people fit with his own ideological worldview. They support and reinforce things he believes. He does not hang out with Islamophobic conspiracy theorists like Frank Gaffney because of popularity, he does it because these people affirm and share some of his own beliefs. Heck, Trump is infamous for contradicting his own administration and coming out with material he has either picked up from his friends or gained from right wing media sources.

You're wrong. It's not that those people affirm his beliefs, it's that they glorify him as a person. You have to remember, these are the same sorts of people that preach prosperity theology. They see wealth and good fortune as evidence of moral righteousness. Regardless of whether these people actually believe that or just preach that to justify their own wealth, the screwed up nonsense they preach demands that they support the wealthy and fortunate. In that context, Donald Trump is a saint to these people.

That's the only belief that Trump aligns with these people. It's not that he's secretly a far-right religious zealot, it's that he likes people who treat him like a saint, and he's not particularly picky about who. And if any of them turned on Trump, he'd dump them without hesitation.

People here keep telling me I'm reading things he says in all sorts of weird ways to make them mean whatever I want to in order to defend him. I'm not doing that. Trump is not complicated. There are no tea leaves. He's just a narcissist. He only does two things: he exaggerates and reciprocates. That's enough to explain everything he does. He exaggerates because he's a narcissist and wants to make himself exceptional at all times. And he reciprocates to how people treat him, because in Trump-world, the measure of moral character is how good you are to Trump. Because he's a narcissist.

If you ever stop analyzing his actions through that lens, you're going to get it wrong.

I mean, that's what quite a few of his supporters are like - Narcissists. It might be a Corporatists thinking they are the only ones driving the economy, evangelicals who think a wealth person can only be that way through divine intervention or Republicans who think that if you're not rich, it can only be your fault thus making laws to further disenfranchise them is righteous. Hell, Neo-Nazis are narcissistic.

But then, quite a few Dems are showing thier narcissism recently. They're usually better at hiding it