Saving the Donald from himself...

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

...Is a doomed mission, obviously. Here's a look into the matter, as his campaign seems to be unraveling pretty fast at this point:

Inside the Failing Mission to Tame Donald Trump’s Tongue

I think there are two conclusions sticking out. One, Trump is a one-trick pony. He's got just one mode he feels comfortable in, and is therefore afraid of moving away from it. He's unhappy and uncomfortable whenever compelled to do so. And two, even when he understands the need to change the mode for a while, and does agree to change it (like when he tried to make a coherent speech on fiscal policy, finally reading some text from a teleprompter, cleverly written by some of his campaign managers), he just can't seem to be able to do it for much longer than a few minutes.

And when he inevitably shits over it all, and even when some of his allies attempt to sweep the shit for him on his behalf, he again doubles down on his own BS. Like that bit where a conservative TV pundit asked him if he didn't mean Obama had created the conditions for ISIS to thrive, rather than literally meaning Obama was the founder of ISIS - and Trump said that no, he did mean Obama was the actual founder of ISIS. And then he said he had been sarcastic all the while. But then he said he hadn't been "entirely" sarcastic. And so on and so forth. You get my drift.

In any case, all this schizophrenic back-and-forth doesn't sound like good qualities for a president. Basically, Trump can't seem to break from that vicious cycle of his. Now, granted, it might have helped him in the GOP primaries, as he was prominently sticking out amidst a pack of mediocre Mr Nobodies (and one Mrs). But it's now beginning to backfire very badly on him, now that he'll be needing to reach out to a wider array of segments of the electorate, and possibly tap into groups he doesn't necessarily feel comfortably with. Otherwise he's in for quite a landslide defeat - and the entire party along with him.

His conspiracy BS has started hurting him very badly at this point. The thing is, some liberal analysts have expressed fear that if he abruptly moves away from his usual conspiracy schtick and back to his populist message, he could sweep the rust belt pretty darn good - a formerly democratic stronghold that has been devastated by NAFTA and other outsourcing, and is ripe for the populist taking. That could easily happen, but it would depend on Trump leaving his conspiracy theory nonsense behind and focusing on issues, even if in a populist way.

In a nutshell, both sides' voters are so deeply dug-in, as bad a candidate as Hillary may be, and with all the negative stuff constantly surrounding her, a more sane and sensible Trump would be pretty competitive. I'm not sure if he realizes that and is playing an elaborate game right now - or he's just as stupid as a stump.

Whatever the case, right now the GOP establishment must be looking at this win that should be supposed to be theirs, and saying to themselves, "What the hell have we done to deserve this!?" And their opponents might be having a wee Schadenfreude moment out there, without even realizing they could've been in the same or a similar situation, had this monster opted for running at their side.

Comments

[garote]

Are you suggesting Trump could have won the Democratic primary??

[oportet.livejournal.com]

Nah, they'd never go for a charismatic motivational speaker with little experience and even less substance.

[garote]

You're making some kind of sarcastic comparison here, but I can't identify the reference...

[oportet.livejournal.com]

You can't remember anyone speaking in metaphors, suggesting they'd sit down and talk with our enemies, talking about how we would change the current system. Ideas usually only seem ridiculous if you don't like the person....

Anyhow, big hint right there with the curvy word.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

One more hint....he wrote these words....

“There’s no denying that many blacks share the same anxieties as many whites about the wave of illegal immigration flooding our Southern border—a sense that what’s happening now is fundamentally different from what has gone on before. Not all these fears are irrational. The number of immigrants added to the labor force every year is of a magnitude not seen in this country for over a century. If this huge influx of mostly low-skill workers provides some benefits to the economy as a whole—especially by keeping our workforce young, in contrast to an increasingly geriatric Europe and Japan—it also threatens to depress further the wages of blue-collar Americans and put strains on an already overburdened safety net.


I know, too coherent and eloquent to come from Trump, but it definitely came from some Mexican hatin' right wing loon! Definitely.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

You might be on to something there. ;-)

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily - but a Democratic Trump ticket would've been as devastating for the Democratic Party as it is now for the Republican Party.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

Well, the Democrats have kinda had their nominee picked for about 8 years - so he took the easier path for sure. Maybe he wouldn't have won, but I don't see how anyone believes he would've gotten blown out.

He could've used the same recipe - maybe substitute 'Muslims' with 'Wall Street CEO's', 'Border Wall' with 'Windmill Farms', a dash of cilantro - he would've at least taken it into June.

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

Here (http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/03/what-if-donald-trump-had-run-as-a-democrat) is one possible point of view on the matter.

[garote]

Not sure how that would have taken him any farther than Bernie...

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

He cannot turn this around at this point. His cake is baked just as Hillary's is. Even if he decided to act like a choir boy for the next few months, no one would buy his act any more.

[paft.livejournal.com]

D: Whatever the case, right now the GOP establishment must be looking at this win that should be supposed to be theirs, and saying to themselves, "What the hell have we done to deserve this!?" And their opponents might be having a wee Schadenfreude moment out there, without even realizing they could've been in the same or a similar situation, had this monster opted for running at their side.

Highly unlikely. It's not the Democrats who have been nurturing "low information voters" and invoking violence and gun waving. Sorry but as appealing as the idea may be, "bothsiderism" just doesn't work in this situation -- or at least, not with anyone who has actually been following politics in the United States for the past thirty years.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Considering I can't understand the thought process behind the people who got him nominated in the first place, I don't understand how the rest of you are so sure that him doing X or Y results in this or that opinion changes. You're so convinced what he's doing is negative? He's been treated like a joke since day 1 and now he's a candidate for President.

People are right that this election will be studied for years to come. But I don't think it will be the same conclusions that are being made here today.

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

I love it when I'm being referred to as "you people". It instantly tells me whether I should be taking any statements following such an intro seriously.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

I love it how almost all respondents instantly got focused on your last sentence, while completely ignoring all the rest. It tells a lot about where they stand in the political spectrum.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Not really. It may be the only thing with which they can disagree. The rest passes for sane and rational, whether one agrees or not. The last sentence is frankly barking: the Donald could never have stood in Hillary's way for the Democrat nomination and their is little actual equivalence between the parties, for all that the Democrats are pretty much Wall Street Conservatives. Firstly The Democrats aren't actually mad, or full of mad reality-denying folk in thrall to crude Mediæval Abrahamic superstitions, or Nazi NeoPaganism (not all Neopagans, obvs) or extreme Libertarianism with people-owning subtexts.

They are just big government capitalists, and most importantly, not mad. Or at least not mad yet.

[paft.livejournal.com]

dd: I love it how almost all respondents instantly got focused on your last sentence, while completely ignoring all the rest. It tells a lot about where they stand in the political spectrum.

What is it you think it tells you?

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

wat

(frozen) (no subject)

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

Hint: if you feel you're getting trolled or derailed, do not pour more water into the trolls' mill by responding to every response they make to your responses. It's tempting, I know, and I've been no saint in that respect either, but you totally must.

Otherwise you get the mess that you've had here.

(frozen) (no subject)

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

Sage's words. Mea culpa.

(frozen) (no subject)

[paft.livejournal.com]

Do you think my response was "trollish?" How? All I said was that I disagree with the parallel. So did a couple of other people. Is there something wrong with that?

(frozen) (no subject)

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

I said if THEY feel THEY are being trolled.

Whether *I* think it is the case is beside the point.

And here, I'm getting lured into what I advised against.

(frozen) (no subject)

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Enough of this. We've had way too much talking-about-talking at this point.

That's it. The next one to deliberately go off-topic on this thread is flying out the door.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

It appears the Trump topic is fast becoming the new abortion topic of online political debate. Any move you make is a no-no.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

Yes, more or less.