The Art of the Donald Trumpocalypse

Max Peck · Post by **Max Peck** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 1:04 pm

Isgrimnur wrote:Sick burn, Trumpie.

Of Obama's criticism, Trump added, "He can't handle the country. He's doing a terrible job running the country."

Moliere · Post by **Moliere** » Mon Nov 09, 2015 11:43 am

Because his ego needs another boost.

Donald Trump ‘Saturday Night Live’ Hosting Gig Boosts SNL Ratings To Highest Level Since 2012

Max Peck · Post by **Max Peck** » Mon Nov 09, 2015 12:21 pm

Moliere wrote:

Because his ego needs another boost.

Donald Trump ‘Saturday Night Live’ Hosting Gig Boosts SNL Ratings To Highest Level Since 2012

The good news is that if anything ever happens to President Trump, then Darrell Hammond is ready to step in, à la Dave.

Then, just to mess with the right wingers, he could strip off the Trump disguise to reveal he's actually Al Gore.

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 11:18 am

Donald was in fine form last night.

He scoffed at those who have accused him of not understanding foreign policy, saying he knows more about Islamic State terrorists "than the generals do." He took credit for predicting the threat of Osama bin Laden and being right on the "anchor baby situation," a position he says "these great geniuses from Harvard Law School" now back. He uttered the word "crap" at least three times, and promised to "bomb the s---" out of oil fields benefiting terrorists. He signed a book for a guy in the audience and then tossed it back at him with a flip: "Here you go, baby. I love you."

Trump called Republican rival Carly Fiorina "Carly whatever-the-hell-her-name-is," accused Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton of playing the "woman's card" and said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is "weak like a baby." He then devoted more than 10 minutes angrily attacking his chief rival, Ben Carson, saying the retired doctor has a "pathological disease" with no cure, similar to being a child molester.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 12:58 pm

You know what's always effective? Insulting voters.

"How stupid are the people of Iowa?" declared Trump during a rally at Iowa Central Community College. "How stupid are the people of the country to believe this crap?" For more than an hour and a half Thursday night, the billionaire real estate mogul harshly criticized not only Carson, but many of his other competitors in the race for the GOP presidential nomination.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 1:11 pm

Man, if he accidentally wins, he's going to be pissed.

Carpet_pissr · Post by **Carpet_pissr** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 1:59 pm

He won't win - he just committed the cardinal sin of running for office, and stated that wages are too high.

When someone decides to really take him out, that's all they will need to use in an ad campaign.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 2:03 pm

You'd think so. I mean, he's doing everything he can to ensure he doesn't win as that has never really been his goal. But there are so many morons out there who apparently don't understand that this is a publicity stunt that he may actually win.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 2:51 pm

Trump is betting that Americans love a bully.

raydude · Post by **raydude** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 3:26 pm

tgb wrote:You know what's always effective? Insulting voters.

"How stupid are the people of Iowa?" declared Trump during a rally at Iowa Central Community College. "How stupid are the people of the country to believe this crap?" For more than an hour and a half Thursday night, the billionaire real estate mogul harshly criticized not only Carson, but many of his other competitors in the race for the GOP presidential nomination.

At this point I'm willing to consider that insulting Iowa may actually win him the nomination. I just don't understand why he can keep escalating the crazy and still be near the top in the polls.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 3:33 pm

Bees love honey. GOP primary voters love crazy.

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 3:54 pm

http://polling.reuters.com/#poll/TR130/ ... 3/type/day

Carpet_pissr · Post by **Carpet_pissr** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 3:57 pm

Wow, that's ALMOST in decreasing order of crazy! Impressive correlation.

Moliere · Post by **Moliere** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 4:00 pm

Carpet_pissr wrote:Wow, that's ALMOST in decreasing order of crazy! Impressive correlation.

Except for Huckabee. He should be polling a lot higher.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 4:02 pm

Damn, Carly really has dropped off the radar at this point. She's even behind Jeb and Huckleberry on that chart.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 4:51 pm

hepcat wrote:Damn, Carly really has dropped off the radar at this point. She's even behind Jeb and Huckleberry on that chart.

She's got no worries. She's the Designated VP.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 5:48 pm

Although if Trump wins, he'll do away with the VP position altogether. He's a one man operation, damn it! As a matter of fact, why the hell would he need the house and the senate, secretary of state and the White House gardener? Trump can veto himself if he feels he's gone too far. AND he knows more about geraniums than any goddamn botanist on earth!

raydude · Post by **raydude** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 5:57 pm

hepcat wrote: AND he knows more about geraniums than any goddamn botanist on earth!

If only we could send HIM to Mars and strand him there.

LawBeefaroni · Post by **LawBeefaroni** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 6:17 pm

hepcat wrote:Although if Trump wins, he'll do away with the VP position altogether. He's a one man operation, damn it! As a matter of fact, why the hell would he need the house and the senate, secretary of state and the White House gardener? Trump can veto himself if he feels he's gone too far. AND he knows more about geraniums than any goddamn botanist on earth!

He won't do away with it, he'll create a competitive reality show to choose one.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 7:55 pm

It just says something terrible that the two least competent candidates lead the Republican field. I believe the only way the Republicans get can it together again is to nominate one of the top three - Trump, Carson, or Cruz, and then get wiped out in the general election. Only then will the loonies be discredited enough for the grown ups to take power back.

raydude · Post by **raydude** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 8:02 pm

I fear we may have come to far with respect to the right wing echo chamber for the ship to right itself. Look at how the number of Republican governors is increasing. Even with examples like Kansas.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 9:04 pm

raydude wrote:I fear we may have come to far with respect to the right wing echo chamber for the ship to right itself. Look at how the number of Republican governors is increasing. Even with examples like Kansas.

Not just governorships, either; they hold a record majority of state legislative houses (68 out of 99, IIRC). This is inexplicable to me.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 9:16 pm

Grifman wrote:It just says something terrible that the two least competent candidates lead the Republican field. I believe the only way the Republicans get can it together again is to nominate one of the top three - Trump, Carson, or Cruz, and then get wiped out in the general election. Only then will the loonies be discredited enough for the grown ups to take power back.

I'm not sure this can happen. The echo chamber demands ideological purity, and gerrymandering supplies it at the state level, where the most extreme candidates run essentially unopposed.

The natural result of this system is an ideologue like Ted Cruz, but he's still a politician working under Washington rules. What makes Trump and Carson so interesting is that they are not even that: Trump is a genuinely unprincipled operator who has learned to manipulate the new media reality, while Ben Carson (who, for example, believes that Chinese troops are in Syria because he read it on a website) is entirely its product.

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 9:24 pm

A lot of people tired of the system. They know a third party run is futile and wouldn't fix anything even if it worked. So they are going to throw shit around and trash the place.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 11:37 pm

"Nice country we've got here...pity if something happened to it."

Rip's right about the anti-insider sentiment, and the Dems are going to nominate the consummate insider. 2016 is shaping up as the strangest, least predictable election in my lifetime. It's not going to follow the usual script unless the Rep establishment regains control of its party.

Jaymann · Post by **Jaymann** » Sat Nov 14, 2015 8:39 am

Kraken wrote:"Nice country we've got here...pity if something happened to it."

Rip's right about the anti-insider sentiment, and the Dems are going to nominate the consummate insider. 2016 is shaping up as the strangest, least predictable election in my lifetime. It's not going to follow the usual script unless the Rep establishment regains control of its party.

In that respect is it that different from Goldwater vs. Johnson?

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Sat Nov 14, 2015 5:40 pm

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Sat Nov 14, 2015 9:01 pm

Just because she's stuck to her seat doesn't mean the Donald has won.

malchior · Post by **malchior** » Sun Nov 15, 2015 12:45 pm

Trump needs to denounce Ann Coulter quickly - she has not been right about anything on the national level ... pretty much ever.

malchior · Post by **malchior** » Sun Nov 15, 2015 12:48 pm

Grifman wrote:It just says something terrible that the two least competent candidates lead the Republican field. I believe the only way the Republicans get can it together again is to nominate one of the top three - Trump, Carson, or Cruz, and then get wiped out in the general election. Only then will the loonies be discredited enough for the grown ups to take power back.

I was talking about this exact line of thought last night. When McCain lost...it was because he wasn't ideologically pure enough. Then Romney lost...still not ideologically pure enough. Let's get an ideologically pure, outsider nominated ... see them crash and burn ... and *maybe* get a *reality-driven* second party back on track. I remember when the Conservatives liked to trumpet how they had a solid footing in reality...they are so far that now that it is painful.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Sun Nov 15, 2015 2:30 pm

malchior wrote:
Grifman wrote:It just says something terrible that the two least competent candidates lead the Republican field. I believe the only way the Republicans get can it together again is to nominate one of the top three - Trump, Carson, or Cruz, and then get wiped out in the general election. Only then will the loonies be discredited enough for the grown ups to take power back.
I was talking about this exact line of thought last night. When McCain lost...it was because he wasn't ideologically pure enough. Then Romney lost...still not ideologically pure enough. Let's get an ideologically pure, outsider nominated ... see them crash and burn ... and *maybe* get a *reality-driven* second party back on track. I remember when the Conservatives liked to trumpet how they had a solid footing in reality...they are so far that now that it is painful.

Well, maybe. Problem is that the party got into today's straits by denying reality. Supply-side economics failed dramatically, yet tax cuts for the rich are still their economic mainstay. It failed because it wasn't pure enough! Instead of rethinking their losing policy they choose to double down. McCain lost because he ran with Palin and repudiated the "maverick" brand that made him popular in the first place. Yet they draw the lesson that Palin didn't sink McCain, McCain sank Palin.

It's a Bizarro world.

Trump breaks with Republican orthodoxy in several places; his "conservatism" is mostly a blend of xenophobia, anti-intellectualism, and crush-the-system bluster. If he gets the nom and goes down in flames, they can claim quite credibly that he wasn't ideologically pure, because he really isn't.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Sun Nov 15, 2015 2:40 pm

The Democrats went through the same sort of thing in the 70's and 80's, when ideological purity trumped (forgive the pun) electability, and look how long it took them to bounce back.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Sun Nov 15, 2015 6:09 pm

I gotta say that if Trump's heresies move the needle away from the old Republican orthodoxy, his candidacy will have had some value.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Sun Nov 15, 2015 8:10 pm

Rip wrote:

I don't know about that but he may have won the Republican nod between Thursday and Saturday. Depending on where Daesh is by the time primaries and then general comes around, it may be very scary times, indeed. I think Trump and Carson are the only two who have really been pushing the idea of wiping them off the map.

He may very well be able to ride this all the way to the nomination at least.

http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-t ... is-2015-11

malchior · Post by **malchior** » Tue Nov 17, 2015 12:13 pm

Latest poll has him at 42%. He might actually do it if this momentum holds - I can only imagine there are Republican Party elders making blood sacrifices for his death at this point.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Tue Nov 17, 2015 1:19 pm

This is getting scary.

Alefroth · Post by **Alefroth** » Tue Nov 17, 2015 1:39 pm

tgb wrote:This is getting scary.

If America is going to jump the shark, might as well go all out.

Zaxxon · Post by **Zaxxon** » Tue Nov 17, 2015 1:46 pm

Alefroth wrote:If America is going to jump the shark

Um.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Tue Nov 17, 2015 7:31 pm

Zaxxon wrote:
Alefroth wrote:If America is going to jump the shark
Um.

Zing!

Trump's gamble on xenophobia is certainly paying off bigtime now. If he can successfully nurture fear and distrust into next summer he will win the nomination.

Although I think that the closer that comes to happening, the less daft a Romney draft starts to look.

How long has it been since a convention actually selected a nominee?

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Sun Nov 22, 2015 12:54 pm

Is it Godwinizing to point out that his supporters are starting to act like brownshirts?