Friday, January 27, 2017

Only took a week...

I'm a bit surprised that the Trump sit down interview of a couple of days ago, in which he continued obsessing about his popularity, has not gained more immediate international attention for the worrying signs it displayed about Trump's basic psychological state.  Obviously, you don't want a guy with control of a stockpile of nuclear weapons to be one who is impervious to facts and capable of such self aggrandising obsessions.

But it's clear that a huge part of the problem is the people around him - particularly the unhealthy looking Stephen Bannon, who is obviously either behind, or completely supportive of, Trump's paranoia with how the media presents him.  Here he is, quoted by the NYT:
“The elite media got it dead wrong, 100 percent dead wrong,” Mr. Bannon said of the election, calling it “a humiliating defeat that they will never wash away, that will always be there.”

“The mainstream media has not fired or terminated anyone associated with following our campaign,” Mr. Bannon said. “Look at the Twitter feeds of those people: they were outright activists of the Clinton campaign.” (He did not name specific reporters or editors.)

“That’s why you have no power,” Mr. Bannon added. “You were humiliated.”

“The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while,” 

“I want you to quote this,” Mr. Bannon added. “The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States.”
Yes, just what you want.  An unstable, vindictive culture warrior who won't accept that the Trump victory was, in fact, very narrow, advising a vain, insecure man-child who stumbled into a presidency he didn't really expect.

Are Republican politicians worried about Trump?  According to Carl Bernstein, some are:
Bernstein said discussions going on in Washington this week were “unlike anything I have seen in 50 years as a reporter”.

“I am hearing from Republicans, and other reporters are as well, that there is open discussion by members of the President of the United States’ own party about his emotional maturity, stability,” he said.
Are Right wing commentators in Australia commenting about this at all?   Of course not - the likes of Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair are still just concentrating on how bad Lefties are for the extremely low level of protest violence and making some nasty signs about the Pres.   God knows how they would have coped in the truly violent hothouse political and social environment of the US in the late 60's and 70's. 

I have been writing for years that, as a pretty safe rule of thumb,  if anyone remains a climate change denialist, their judgement on pretty much anything else can't be trusted.

Well, this has been supplanted by a even more reliable rule:   if a person can't see the danger in Donald Trump's behaviour and statements, he or she is just blinded by culture war foolishness and is completely unreliable on all matters requiring sound judgement. 

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOL. In which universe is 306-232 Electoral College votes "very narrow". For leftoid dumbos, Trump has explained that if he had wanted to win the popular vote, he would have campaigned in a totally different way -- i.e. spending most of his time in New York, Chicago and LA.

Steve said...

You appear to be unaware - or have ignored - the figures showing that if he won three key states by only a little over 100,000 votes.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-election/swing-state-margins/

Narrow.

And even by electoral college numbers, it was far from a "landslide" that Trump imagines it to be:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/dec/12/donald-trump/donald-trumps-electoral-college-victory-was-not-ma/



Anonymous said...

Trump thrashed Clinton in the Electoral College -- which is exactly what he set out to do. Attempting to talk about the popular vote is typical lefty bait and switch. We never heard a word from the left about the shortcomings of the Electoral College until it was humiliated by Trump. And leftoids like you continue to make fools of themselves because they don't understand what just happened. The left speaks only for the lunatic fringe that reads the Washington Post and Trump just made them irrelevant.

not trampis said...

well obviously you didn't but there was constant chatter about aligning the electoral college with the popular vote. Even Trunmp said this some time ago.

Trump got the worst popular vote for a president since Samuel Tilden. He is in a very parlous political state.

Clinton lost because of Comey, poor electoral strategy which by the way ignored Bill and people thinking they did not have to vote as clinton was well ahead in the polls ( just like Brexit).

Yes Trump is a man who has not grown up yet. He is a narcissistic ignorant bully. He will be much worse than Nixin,

He is also liable to be impeached as he has taken no actions at all to stop having any foreign income. I think I might write about this next week

Steve said...

Anon: talking about the narrow win in 3 key swing states is not talking about the national popular vote. But yes, the size of the national popular vote against him, combined with the fact that non compulsory voting means he got the vote of only 26% of eligible voters, shows that those who think this was a national tidal wave of support for the Orange One are simply wrong.

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/10/13587462/trump-election-2016-voter-turnout

But maths and figures and facts aren't really "in" on the Right at the moment, as we know.

Anonymous said...

Dear antipodean leftoid bumpkins, DNC muppets can't impeach Trump666 when they don't have the numbers in the House or the Senate, but thanks for playing.

not trampis said...

so you think Republicans will ignore the constitution.

I doubt all will.

It make it it the big issue at the mid terms with of course health care

anon said...

well obviously you didn't but there was constant chatter about aligning the electoral college with the popular vote. Even Trunmp said this some time ago.

The electoral college aligns every decade with the census, you imbecile.

not trampis said...

aligning the electoral college with the popular vote means the popular vote is the same as the electoral college.

It wasn't in 200 and it isn't again in 2016. total fail.

Given Trump's tantrums having won the electoral college imagine what would occur if he and clinton votes were reversed.

anon said...

Who cares debating hypothetical, homer. She lost.

Stevie, do your blog favour and ban homer. He lowers the average IQ where ever he goes which is why he's banned at catallaxy.

not trampis said...

Oh dear I was right again.

Yes Catallaxy bans people who show up Davidson and co again and again .

how lucky they believe in free speech!

Anonymous said...

From Abbott Derangement to Trump Derangement. It's been great and it's getting better.