Since 2016, I have participated in more conversations than I can count focused on the query: “How can anyone look at Donald Trump and conclude this mentally-ill buffoon should be President?'”
The only answer I’ve been able to come up with, after surveying the research, is that Trump hates the same people they do, and to MAGA, shared racism is all that matters.
During the last few months, that question has taken on even more relevance, because Trump’s mental processes–such as they were–have dramatically declined. That deterioration was “front and center” during what was billed as a press conference a week or so ago.
The best account of that event–attended by what was evidently a hand-picked group of “journalists” unlikely to ask pertinent or follow-up questions–was written by Tom Nichols in the Atlantic.
Donald Trump’s public events are a challenge for anyone who writes about him. His rallies and press conferences are rich sources of material, fountains of molten weirdness that blurp up stuff that would sink the career of any other politician. By the time they’re over, all of the attendees are covered in gloppy nonsense.
And then, once everyone cleans up and shakes the debris off their phones and laptops, so much of what Trump said seems too bonkers to have come from a former president and the nominee of a major party that journalists are left trying to piece together a story as if Trump were a normal person. This is what The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, has described as the “bias toward coherence,” and it leads to careful circumlocutions instead of stunned headlines.
The so-called “press conference” was Trump’s response to the publicity that Harris and Walz were generating (Trump can’t bear not being the center of attention) and was even more bizarre than usual.
Trump, predictably, did an afternoon concert of his greatest hits, including “Doctors and Mothers Are Murdering Babies After They’re Born,” “Putin and Xi Love Me and I Love Them,” and “Gas Used to Be a Buck-Eighty-Something a Gallon.” But the new material was pretty shocking…
He said (again) that the convicted January 6 insurrectionists have been treated horribly, but this time he added that no one died during the assault on the Capitol. (In fact, four people died that day.) He made his usual assertion that Russia would never have invaded Ukraine if he’d been in office, but this time he added how much he looked forward to getting along with the Iranians, despite also bragging about how he tanked the nuclear deal with them.
He claimed that attendance at the rally preceding the January 6 insurrection exceeded that of Martin Luther King’s March on Washington–an event that drew a quarter of a million people.
Trump also invented a helicopter ride with Willie Brown, who had once dated Kamala Harris, saying that Brown had told him (unspecified) “terrible” things about Harris. (Brown says no such ride ever took place.)
Nichols properly described the bottom line to all this:
The issue is that a former president is frighteningly delusional, and if any other candidate had done this—Biden was roasted over stories that were obscure but turned out to be true—it would dominate the news with understandable alarm about the well-being of the candidate.
The New York Times ran this headline: “Trump Tries to Wrestle Back Attention at Mar-a-Lago News Conference.” The Washington Post said: “Trump Holds Meandering News Conference, Where He Agrees to Debate Harris.” The British paper The Independent got closer with: “Trump Holds Seemingly Pointless Press Conference Filled With False Claims,” but CNN went with “Trump Attacks Harris and Walz During First News Conference Since Democratic Ticket Was Announced.”
All of these headlines are technically true, but they miss the point: The Republican nominee, the man who could return to office and regain the sole authority to use American nuclear weapons, is a serial liar and can’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy.
Donald Trump is not well. He is not stable. There’s something deeply wrong with him.
Here in the real world, we’ve noticed.
Perhaps the media folks are already afraid of him.
They view him as a hero; the one who speaks his mind (however unstable) with insults and profanities against their racist, sexist, bigoted views of officials in the government and the public in general and has stood between them and those they believe are the “haves” controlling them, the “have nots”, with rules, laws and ordinances they don’t agree with. We, the general public, have lived through the
“immediate gratification” and “me first” eras of rebellion and most have come out enlightened regarding the need for limits if we all are to survive the real Climate Change brought about primarily by our actions resulting in Global Warming. To Trumpers, those two terms are one and the same and interchangeable with no connection to themselves. Toss in the religious factor, which has faded in his public appearances, but, once included in their political view cannot be removed. He is also always good for a laugh with his childish insults, reported diet of fast foods and temper tantrums and he is their own “bad boy” and they won’t disown him as their idol.
We who understand the old adage, “Before enlightenment we chopped wood and carried water. After enlightenment we chopped wood and carried water.” and the fact that the light bill always comes due are willing to make the sacrifices to unite and save the “soul of America”; they simply want to continue getting their own way…which they will never get under another Trump term in the White House.
Take the visual/verbal expositions from any Trump rally or news conference or post-trial rant and compare them to the list of symptoms for psychopathy. He’s more than “ill” or “delusional”. He should be in a padded room being fed soft food.
Dangerous? There’s nothing more dangerous to humanity than a madman with power over weapons of mass destruction. Do we want Nazi Germany 2.0? No? Read the Heritage manifesto titled Project 2025. Guess who wrote the Forward. None other than Heritage’s golden boy, J.D. Vance.
This is the wood chopping and water carrying we all need to do so that our friends and neighbors will not mistakenly use their fears and bigotry to vote for a monster and the political machine that supports him.
“How can anyone look at Donald Trump and conclude this mentally-ill buffoon should be President?’” I continue to be profoundly perplexed by the apparent ignorance exhibited in the promulgation of the desire to elevate this mess of a human being to POTUS again. There is simply, utterly no redeeming quality in his being, no possible reason to agree with and follow him, other than a lack of knowledge of the facts, and/or a deep seated inherent racism. I’m afraid it is both, and it makes me sad for our country, to have that level of dystopian belief in our democracy. We are on the cusp of it, I’m sure; there are an awful lot us us who still want the right things for our country, things like compassion, integrity, equality, tolerance, etc., none of which are to be even remotely found in the persona of trump. VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO!
now take his following. there isnt much diffrence. though they may act and talk like humans who pack and sleep together, we have a wall between us and them. protection. seems their action resembles a spoiled child. trump is the spoiled child of greed. his followers want to mimick him,thinking they are getting recognition in kind from the lead madman. monkey see,monkey do.
whereas we recognize the issues and make issue. Im talking with these people who follow his drivel. face to face. im getting feedback from those who social media. not much difrrence. except they seem to quite the temper when faced with live and in color debate. I talked with 12 people this week, i look like them and work in the same blue collar world. (I dont pack with them because id be eaten if i slept with them) one heard of 2025 and gave no issue with hearing of it,he did not know of its content. the other 11,never heard of 2025. obviously the news media is still not making a point,nor is there a bot in their social media world making 2025 a issue. (hint)… but even if they dont pod or social media, the talk on the sidelines would have ya believe they are quite all right with shooting and killing anyone not with them. yes ,its going this far.. if trump looses in november. we will be seeing what all this crap has become and where its going.
ill say it again, its the rich taking this country over. they just used the loosers as they see them for a cheap majority of fools to vote with blinders on and a media that is sleeping with the rich…lets see the medias face when marshal law is invoked the day after..
There is a little used phrase that best describes the 45th President during his whole, entire life, not just his last 8 years. Those words are “lack of temperament”.
Merriam/Webster defines temperament as “. . .the characteristics or habitual inclination or mode of emotional response.”
We’ve all heard the word and have some idea of it, but this seems to have been forgotten, and in my opinion it’s because he is so extremely outlandish in his treatment of other people that his supporters have come to think that should be the norm for all behaviors of everybody – not just for the man who controls the keys to unleashing the hydrogen nuclear weapons on the people they themselves don’t like.
Eight years of hearing his words have so discombobulated half the citizens of this country (one whole political party), and his subsequent believing his own lies, that there can be no other conclusion but that he is clinically insane.
And he has taken steps to stamp those ideas onto the nation permanently with the selection of his Vice-Presidential running mate.
Politicians are experts in circumlocution. The names of their innocuous-sounding bills are a great example. Right to Farm sounds innocent, but it’s far from it.
I think the media is playing the horse race game where the focus is on one candidate and then the other—some negative and then positive. This candidate takes the lead for a couple of days and then another. It keeps the reader’s attention.
I was researching Trump and Elon X’s space interview, and ALL the media mocked the interview as technically challenged. The only technical issue was initially, but it went smoothly afterward. So, why did all the major papers mock Elon’s interview?
X members have always mocked the mainstream media as being biased and untruthful. They are being shredded for being dishonest, so any chance to return the favor to Elon, they take it. I still haven’t listened to the interview, and I look forward to getting a breakdown from other media sources.
One bit of projected good news is if Trump loses this go around, we will most likely be done with him on a national stage as the leader of the GOP. He won’t be able to rebound in another four years. What does a GOP look like post-Trump? What kind of candidate will the MAGA faithful support? It will also be a major downfall of the mainstream media because Trump has been a major source of clickbait.
Mixing a cocktail of narcissism and dementia he rambles on sharing his “facts” with the help and support of political cronies, alt right “News” media”, right wing oligarchs and think tanks and a locked and loaded corrupt Supreme Court.
First we defeat this current and most terrible danger of a re-elected mad man then we need to remain vigilant enough to subdue the people that made this possible. That’s going to be an unending struggle considering the resources they have already in place. I believe it can be done but won’t be easy to effect these purveyors of project 2025.
At least a couple of New York Times columnists have hypothesized that Trump recognizes and promises to stand by people who feel marginalized by the government and the political establishment. “I am your retribution.” I think there’s something to that theory. As for the billionaire class that supports him, I think that’s purely self interest – the country be damned.
I attended a lecture last night by journalist David Daley on his new book, “Antidemocratic: Inside the Far Right’s 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections”. He spoke of the Heritage Foundation’s plan to control our country through the judiciary, specifically by the Supreme Court. Roberts has been laying the groundwork for eliminating protections for minority voters, rights of women and people of color, and more, for years. Now, with the supermajority he has on the court, he is able to act with impunity. He doesn’t care about “the will of the people”. The court is acting as legislature and executive office with these rulings. As one audience member asked during the Q&A session, is it time to start ignoring SCOTUS? They have no way of enforcing their decisions. While the thought of Trump returning to the White House is terrifying, SCOTUS is the branch of government that causes me to lose sleep. Until Roberts and his cohorts are reigned in, it really won’t matter who we elect.
Reds are all about positioning. They feel they are entitled to perfect comfort and safety, and others less so, depending on their skin color, their religion, their place of birth, their gender, etc. They believe in military-like authoritarianism, with their top guy being tyrannical to maintain order with people like them at the top.
Of course, they want what our predecessors fought in the Revolution, Civil, and World Wars to ensure did not happen here.
“bias toward coherence” doesn’t explain the why I read articles that literally say the US economy is the best in the world, but the headline reads something like “Doubts about US Economy”. Something else is going on here and I have no idea why.
Tfg is, and has been, delusional for years.. One of the reasons the Nazis lost WWII, was that their Dear Leader was delusional about his capacity to direct a war machine. Early gains were the result of his “unique” decisions, that caught the Allies off guard, but his luck eventually ran put.
Tfg has been Malignantly narcissistic, I’ll say once again, all his adult life, and yes, Dan, something else is going on. I suggest that it is fear that if his craziness is pointed out there will be retributions should he come to power. The journalists are covering their collective tucheses.
So, I just read HCR’s current post, in which she mentions reporting on tfg’s talking (ranting) points. I am amazed that anyone with half a functioning brain gives the outpourings of his febrile brain any serious attention.
Hate is easy and haters are easily manipulated. That’s what draws people to the orange Jesus. I’m much more worried about the media and the response there that tends to normalize the abnormal. If what you’re seeing is horrific, report it as horrific. Don’t abandon your place in life where you’re supported by the Constitution to be a check on government. Don’t make light of your obligations. Report!
Sane, savvy and absolutely right on a critical point, as usual, Sheila. Thanks for this especially good, no, essential one!
Trump was a well known media star as a young man. He appeared to lead a glamorous life: rich, successful, had a beautiful wife. He was a businessman in the news all the time. His personal life was salacious and reported voraciously as he broke up with his wife, had affairs and married two other stunningly beautiful women.
Then he became a media star in a popular TV show ‘The Apprentice’ portraying him in a reality show as a very powerful man.
He does not give speeches with substance and policy. He talks, maybe the same way he talks to friends. He gossips. He thrives on mocking people he doesn’t like, and draws his supporters into sharing that gossip. Its sort of like an intimate circle of friends laughing about an outsider.
Trump makes his supporters feel important and empowered. Most are ordinary folks, not intellectual, who think Trump has brought them into this club where suddenly their misinformed half-baked notions are as valid as anyone else’s opinions.
Trump is that popular figure that ‘tells it like it is’, at least at first. That person brave enough to say what they think, but know is not nice to think. He is that bully that brings out deep feelings that finally someone said out loud and was applauded instead of told to shut up.
Now they can join in mocking people different from them, with impunity. Trump was their champion, the one that truly understood what they were feeling. Trump could lift them from their ordinary realities and put them in his movie as heroes. Defending America that they love. Defending their Christian faith. Defending notions of a past great nation when a man was a man, a woman a woman, they all believed in Jesus and celebrated nativities in towns across the country.
And once they gave Trump that power, it has been hard to let go. Once you give in to a con man it is hard to believe it was all a huge farce.
With Fox news and a determined disinformation campaign with QAnon convincing people of a child sex abuse ring under a pizza parlor, it is even harder to get out of the grip of the con.
It is hard to get up one morning and face the fact you have been conned like so many others. That your heroic empowerment was false. That the smug intellectuals were right, and they were smarter than you. That you let gossip get the better of you and make you want to hate your non white neighbor, and punish teenage girls that need healthcare without judgment. That you have to face that grinding going nowhere job as a fool.
It is hard to let go.
But more and more are letting go, as Trump declines.
Laurel. Exactly!
Laurel. Exactly right!
I can’t wait until he is not the headline news, on papers, blogs, tv or movies. I can’t wait until he is simply a joke, like a distant memory. When will that day happen? Indeed. I can’t wait.
He doesn’t always lie……..
The one true statement from the pathological liar known as trump was back in 2016 when he stated “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters”.
For those wondering why multiple media sources don’t accurately report about trump and his crazy behavior and lies, I have an answer. Thanks to republican legislatures long ago gutting the FTC and the Justice Dept’s Anti-trust division, corporations have consolidated to the point where there is no competition left and this includes media companies. Large corporations that provide the advertising income to fund the media sources won’t hesitate to pull their advertising if a reporter provides a story they don’t like.
One of Fort Wayne, Indiana’s top news anchors for several years was abruptly fired last Fall after interviewing Rep Jim Banks and holding Banks’ accountable during that interview for false statements he made and for refusing to answer some of the questions.
The threat of job loss absolutely keeps journalists from reporting the truth or even reporting a story at all.
That the republican party allowed DJT to hijack their party and normalize his craziness and greed needs to go down in history for what it is, and never to be forgotten. That the wanna be dictator, con man, felon is even allowed to run for Potus is in its way a completed fait accompli. Their next step plan to roll over Democracy and have their way is just a few months away, if the majority of American people don’t stand up for our freedoms and overwhelmingly reject their fear based authoritarian regime.
It isn’t just about race, it’s about much more. Modernity, which includes personal freedoms, to have birth control, abortions, Miranda rights, to come out of the closet and live an honest open life when you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, nonbinary, fighting mental illness, alcoholism, disabled, have a chronic disease, or all the myriad other things that we were told we weren’t supposed to talk about when we were middle class in the 1950s. And because of that training, we are still uncomfortable talking about some of them; one of the most troublesome being not middle class acting. Pay attention to the things that make you uncomfortable, look at them, think about them, and see if you can really justify that discomfort, or if you’re just running away from being uncomfortable for no real reason. Because that’s what the MAG folks are doing; showing their ongoing discomfort with all the things we were all (at least who were around) uncomfortable with in the 1950s.
Rose:
trump didnt hijack anything, the republicans couldnt find a shit for brains in their ivy league, then trump,showed up on how to con the conable.
pied piper to the gallows..
they just let him buy free air from the commercial media stations and wala.
profit for CBS etc and a con show to the death of democracy. news will be so easy to write here in a putinesq world..
So often I read comments that reflect the belief that we don’t have to agree politically to get along. Following the G.W. Bush presidency, I have lost any treason to agree. In fact, I’m sure I can’t.
As a member of “the Christian Left”, I observe that those who quench their thirst for acceptable hate messaging with the likes of Donald Trump, J. D. Vance, and other politicians of their ilk have sacrificed any iota of their moral and ethical compass.
Thanks, Jack, for your opinion. The GOP used to sort of go by the rules i.e. remember Nixon? His own party wouldn’t back him when his culpability in crimes was revealed. Today those crimes seem venial in comparison to trumps malfeasance while in office.
Maybe a better way of saying how trump took over was coming in sheep’s clothing and talking in unclear word salads while validating his supporters’ prejudices toward other people. Get in line and hold up his pecking order which they’re still trying to do.
The elite of the Republican Party thought they would just ride the wave of trump’s popularity to his victory and then they would assert their dominance and agendas over him. Well, the price they have been paying is loose cannons and bedlam, besides all the taxpayer monies that have been siphoned to the trump family and friends. Pirates, hijackers, crime bosses are how I see them and their ways don’t match up to US democracy and rule of law.
It seems to me that Laurel is outlining what it is like to be caught in a cycle of abuse, before one gets slammed.
And I so totally agree, the media seems afraid to call the actions of the right what they really are, and what the media would see if it weren’t for their inherent bias, or fear.
Thank you Sheila.