It's difficult for me to decide which of Trump's many obnoxious qualities are the worst.
Is it his habitual shameless lying? Is it his refusal to admit that he lost to Biden in a free and fair election? Is it his wanna-be authoritarianism reflected in his love for dictators like the rulers of Russia, North Korea, and China? Is it his attempt to overthrow our democracy by his support for the January 6 insurrection and efforts to undermine the 2020 electoral college results? Is it the fact that he's been convicted criminally of falsifying business records and found by a court to have sexually assaulted a woman?
Any one of these should be enough to disqualify Trump in the eyes of American voters, which makes it all the more astounding that at the moment, Trump and Harris are locked in a very tight race for the presidency that appears to tilt toward Harris by only a small margin.
Yet recently Harris has given coherent interviews to 60 Minutes, Howard Stern, Stephen Colbert, The View, and Call Me Daddy, a podcast hosted by Alexandra Cooper that's popular with young women.
(In case you're wondering, as I was, where the name Call Me Daddy came from, Wikipedia explains: "The podcast name 'Call Her Daddy' reflects female empowerment, originating from a conversation where cohost [at the time] Sofia Franklyn suggested women should be seen as powerful by calling them 'daddy' instead of men.")
Meanwhile, Trump refused to take part in the October 60 Minutes interview of presidential candidates that has been a tradition since 1968.
Why? Because 60 Minutes refused to agree to Trump's request for no fact-checking, saying that fact-checking is part of every story they do. Also, Trump wanted 60 Minutes to apologize for what one of their journalists said in her 2020 interview of Trump, even though she didn't say what Trump claimed she did.
It's often difficult to tell whether Trump's lies are intentional or if he has deteriorated so much mentally, he's no longer capable of distinguishing truth from falsehood. I think both things are true: Trump lies because that's his nature and also because he's either on the edge of dementia or over the edge.
An October 6 New York Times story raised the curtain on Trump's inability to speak coherently, something Harris is able to do effortlessly. This is a gift article from my subscriber account, so you should be able to read the entire story from that link. Here's how the story starts out.
Former President Donald J. Trump vividly recounted how the audience at his climactic debate with Vice President Kamala Harris was on his side. Except that there was no audience. The debate was held in an empty hall. No one “went crazy,” as Mr. Trump put it, because no one was there.
Anyone can misremember, of course. But the debate had been just a week earlier and a fairly memorable moment. And it was hardly the only time Mr. Trump has seemed confused, forgetful, incoherent or disconnected from reality lately. In fact, it happens so often these days that it no longer even generates much attention.
He rambles, he repeats himself, he roams from thought to thought — some of them hard to understand, some of them unfinished, some of them factually fantastical. He voices outlandish claims that seem to be made up out of whole cloth. He digresses into bizarre tangents about golf, about sharks, about his own “beautiful” body. He relishes “a great day in Louisiana” after spending the day in Georgia. He expresses fear that North Korea is “trying to kill me”when he presumably means Iran. As late as last month, Mr. Trump was still speaking as if he were running against President Biden, five weeks after his withdrawal from the race.
With Mr. Biden out, Mr. Trump, at 78, is now the oldest major party nominee for president in history and would be the oldest president ever if he wins and finishes another term at 82. A review of Mr. Trump’s rallies, interviews, statements and social media posts finds signs of change since he first took the political stage in 2015. He has always been discursive and has often been untethered to truth, but with the passage of time his speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane and increasingly fixated on the past.
According to a computer analysis by The New York Times, Mr. Trump’s rally speeches now last an average of 82 minutes, compared with 45 minutes in 2016. Proportionately, he uses 13 percent more all-or-nothing terms like “always” and “never” than he did eight years ago, which some experts consider a sign of advancing age.
Similarly, he uses 32 percent more negative words than positive words now, compared with 21 percent in 2016, which can be another indicator of cognitive change. And he uses swearwords 69 percent more often than he did when he first ran, a trend that could reflect what experts call disinhibition. (A study by Stat, a health care news outlet, produced similar findings.)
Mr. Trump frequently reaches to the past for his frame of reference, often to the 1980s and 1990s, when he was in his tabloid-fueled heyday. He cites fictional characters from that era like Hannibal Lecter from “Silence of the Lip” (he meant “Silence of the Lambs”), asks “where’s Johnny Carson, bring back Johnny” (who died in 2005) and ruminates on how attractive Cary Grant was (“the most handsome man”). He asks supporters whether they remember the landing in New York of Charles Lindbergh, who actually landed in Paris and long before Mr. Trump was born.
He seems confused about modern technology, suggesting that “most people don’t have any idea what the hell a phone app is” in a country where 96 percent of people own a smartphone. If sometimes he seems stuck in the 1990s, there are moments when he pines for the 1890s, holding out that decade as the halcyon period of American history and William McKinley as his model president because of his support for tariffs.
And he heads off into rhetorical cul-de-sacs. “So we built a thing called the Panama Canal,” he told the conservative host Tucker Carlson last year. “We lost 35,000 people to the mosquito, you know, malaria. We lost 35,000 people building — we lost 35,000 people because of the mosquito. Vicious. They had to build under nets. It was one of the true great wonders of the world. As he said, ‘One of the nine wonders of the world.’ No, no, it was one of the seven. It just happened a little while ago. You know, he says, ‘Nine wonders of the world.’ You could make nine wonders. He would’ve been better off if he stuck with the nine and just said, ‘Yeah, I think it’s nine.’”
The gambling sites (probably the most accurate oracle we have) all had Trump leading Biden.
Right after Kamala debated Trump, and the full marketing weight of the DNC and their fellow travelers in the media was put behind her, she received a slight boost. A couple of weeks ago it was
Kamala -110, Trump +100
Day by day Kamala's lead has faded. Trump now has the odds:
Trump -120, Kamala +128
https://www.oddschecker.com/us/politics/us-politics
Perhaps over half the country is mentally unfit. Yes, that must be it.
Seriously, the mentally unfit argument was lame back in 2016..
Posted by: sant64 | October 10, 2024 at 12:29 PM
Yawn. Yet another deeply hypocritical, double standard puff piece in vacuous, mindless, tribalistic support of the person and party that is continuing to engage in the most barbaric and racist genocide of modern times. The sheer inhumanity is heartbreaking. Let those who have eyes, heart and a soul bear witness to the depths of human depravity and callous indifference to the incomprehensible and horrific generational suffering their actions beget.
Dear Sant64, actually Trump is marginal favourite, 5/6 and Harris is 6/5.
As you may recall, I'm quite good at making the occasional well timed prediction:
7th Oct 2005:
https://groups.io/g/RadhasoamiStudies/message/52152
18th Oct 2005:
https://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2005/10/ive_been_fired.html
Back in Nov or Dec, I had a similar flash of insight.... I immediately opened a bookies account and attempted to place a bet of at least 1 thousand UK pounds on Trump to win the election, who had odds of 7/4. Unfortunately I was only allowed to place a £250 bet meaning I would win something like £680 if he won, stake included . Within about 2 weeks the odds had dropped to even meaning both parties were now equal odds and 50/50 and I could have covered my initial bet and guaranteed a profit whomever won. But I didn't because I couldn't see how Biden could win, more on that later. The morning after Biden shit the bed during the debate and embarrassed everyone, like Brian, who had been saying for years he was a very competent president despite the overwhelming evidence in front of our eyes, the odds were again slashed on Biden and he was now 7/4 to win, and I could have covered my bet and made a nice profit whomever won! But I didn't, Biden was a car crash waiting to happen and at this point I knew the only way I could lose the bet was a) Trump was assassinated, b) Biden stood down or c) he was illegally imprisoned or barred from standing. Yep, all these contingencies were clearly considered before I even placed my initial bet, and nearly all came to pass!
However, when Biden stepped down, I could see the media overdrive with the Trojan horse of a black/Indian woman to placate the growing number of liberal crifics of the obviously imperialist, racist, genocidal, war mongering, anti free speech democrat party....in America, appearances, however false, are everything and substance, truth, reality and integrity etc are completely irrelevant.
At this point, Dems as a party (not Kamala as a person) were still 7/4 to win. I quickly covered my initial bet with 250 on the Dems. I now win a little sum whoever wins. Within 2 or 3 days the odds on Harris dropped to even, a 50/50 chance.
The point of this is to highlight that even despite all the mainstream media and culture going into a mindless and completely hypocritical and dishonest campaign of hyper partisan, pumping out lie after lie after hypocrisy after lie, one has to imagine there are just enough...just... people out there in the US who don't blindly and mindlessly vote for whomever their murderous, war machine loving mainstream media tells them to, and can choose to believe their own lying eyes over the reality averse and breathtakingly hypocritical talking points this media constantly pumps out. Just read the Brian's blog and the article within for an example. These are the folks who claimed for years Biden was compos mentis despite it being beyond laughably obvious he was utterly senile and delusional. No credibility, no integrity, no objectivity, just mindless, tribal cheerleading.
Furthermore, I had placed my faith in the idea there would be a tiny minority, but large enough to affect the outcome of the election, who had enough human decency, compassion, empathy, humanity etc that they would be unable to bring themselves to vote for the architects of the most barbaric and inhuman genocide of recent times whilst also war mongering all over the planet and attempting to bring about WW3. It is a feint hope for humanity.
Moral of this story?: I wish I was able to place the original bet for a couple of thousand pounds like I had intended to.
And, humanity is pretty darn heartless, and very darn stupid.
Posted by: manjit | October 12, 2024 at 03:02 AM
But we're in love with Kamala Harris, despite her appalling record of corruption and incompetence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Omgw-g1gVnM
I already knew Kamala was incompetent, but Harmeet Dhillon's expose opened my eyes to how corrupt Harris is.
Posted by: sant64 | October 12, 2024 at 07:14 AM