The Art of the Donald Trumpocalypse

killbot737 · Post by **killbot737** » Fri Jul 22, 2016 9:21 pm

This what I have been thinking lately as well.

Cleon's ruling principles were an inveterate hatred of the nobility, and an equal hatred of Sparta.

Trump's ruling principles were an inveterate hatred of accountability, and an equal hatred of modesty.

Max Peck · Post by **Max Peck** » Fri Jul 22, 2016 9:53 pm

Grifman wrote:
PLW wrote:Demagoguery playbook:
1. Our country used to be strong and now it's weak.
2. Traitors foreign and abroad are the reason.
3. You and your family are threatened.
4. Only I can fix it, and only if you give me extraordinary powers.
5. This is the last chance. If you miss it now, everything goes to hell.

It's as old as Cleon, if not before.
It was pretty popular in 1930's Germany too.

And present day Russia. And Turkey.

Defiant · Post by **Defiant** » Sat Jul 23, 2016 10:22 am

Trump Would Fund Super-PACs Aimed at Taking Down Cruz, Kasich

Donald Trump plans to create and fund super-PACs specifically aimed at ending the political careers of Ted Cruz and John Kasich should either run for office again, after both snubbed the Republican nominee during his party's convention this week, a person familiar with Trump’s thinking told Bloomberg Politics on Friday.

malchior · Post by **malchior** » Sat Jul 23, 2016 10:25 am

Awesome - our future little dictator is growing up so fast!

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Sat Jul 23, 2016 10:53 am

Trump doesn't spend his money on stuff not intended to make more money.

He sure does like to talk however.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Sat Jul 23, 2016 10:54 am

That threat could create the opportunity for bipartisan campaign finance reform.

tjg_marantz · Post by **tjg_marantz** » Sat Jul 23, 2016 11:26 am

Bankrupt within 6 years.

Ralph-Wiggum · Post by **Ralph-Wiggum** » Sat Jul 23, 2016 2:35 pm

The Washington Post has already declared that there's no chance they will endorse Trump.

DONALD J. TRUMP, until now a Republican problem, this week became a challenge the nation must confront and overcome. The real estate tycoon is uniquely unqualified to serve as president, in experience and temperament. He is mounting a campaign of snarl and sneer, not substance. To the extent he has views, they are wrong in their diagnosis of America’s problems and dangerous in their proposed solutions. Mr. Trump’s politics of denigration and division could strain the bonds that have held a diverse nation together. His contempt for constitutional norms might reveal the nation’s two-century-old experiment in checks and balances to be more fragile than we knew.

Any one of these characteristics would be disqualifying; together, they make Mr. Trump a peril. We recognize that this is not the usual moment to make such a statement. In an ordinary election year, we would acknowledge the Republican nominee, move on to the Democratic convention and spend the following months, like other voters, evaluating the candidates’ performance in debates, on the stump and in position papers. This year we will follow the campaign as always, offering honest views on all the candidates. But we cannot salute the Republican nominee or pretend that we might endorse him this fall. A Trump presidency would be dangerous for the nation and the world.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Sat Jul 23, 2016 4:08 pm

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:The Washington Post has already declared that there's no chance they will endorse Trump.

I'm shocked. They always got along so well.

The problem is that a lot of people feel the same way about the media in general and the Post in particular as Trumpy, and this won't make the slightest bit of difference one way or the other.

em2nought · Post by **em2nought** » Sat Jul 23, 2016 5:52 pm

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:The Washington Post has already declared that there's no chance they will endorse Trump.

There goes maybe 6% of the vote http://www.investors.com/politics/edito ... d-be-less/ It's a shame that the mainstream media has made themselves almost totally irrelevant with the thinking populace.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Sat Jul 23, 2016 6:04 pm

em2nought wrote:the thinking populace.

tjg_marantz · Post by **tjg_marantz** » Sat Jul 23, 2016 6:17 pm

I have to admit I did a double take. What a moronic thing to believe.

RunningMn9 · Post by **RunningMn9** » Sat Jul 23, 2016 6:52 pm

Wait, what?

Captain Caveman · Post by **Captain Caveman** » Sat Jul 23, 2016 11:19 pm

This guy is so weird.

Captain Caveman · Post by **Captain Caveman** » Sat Jul 23, 2016 11:21 pm

And, of course, his math is wrong.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Sat Jul 23, 2016 11:49 pm

I'm guessing that's the equivalent of a sex tape for Trump. He's probably wrestling the bald headed champ to it even as I write this.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Sun Jul 24, 2016 8:27 am

hepcat wrote:I'm guessing that's the equivalent of a sex tape for Trump. He's probably wrestling the bald headed champ to it even as I write this.

The danger of reading one of hepcat's posts before morning coffee:

1) I read that as "chimp", so.......

2) I assumed it wasn't a euphemism.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Sun Jul 24, 2016 8:55 am

Oh, it's not a euphemism.

gilraen · Post by **gilraen** » Sun Jul 24, 2016 2:18 pm

Listening to portions of Trump's interview to Chuck Todd this morning on MTP - he's making NATO sound like a protection racket, with some moaning about "our country is now weak, our military is depleted, we can't protect them if they don't pay us". Just sick.

And when asked about EU and Brexit, apparently he has absolutely no idea why EU was formed in the first place - his response was that European countries got together with the sole purpose of "competing with the United States".

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Sun Jul 24, 2016 5:55 pm

More on the Trump-Putin Axis:

Trump’s New Russia Adviser Has Deep Ties to Kremlin’s Gazprom.

Putin’s Puppet. If the Russian president could design a candidate to undermine American interests....

Trump & Putin. Yes, It's Really a Thing.

The Kremlin’s Candidate: In the 2016 election, Putin’s propaganda network is picking sides.

tl;dr:

Trump is knee-deep in Russian money. Putin is talking up his candidacy the same way he talks up far-right European parties that he believes are favorable to him and opposed to the United States.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Sun Jul 24, 2016 7:15 pm

Holman wrote:More on the Trump-Putin Axis:

Trump’s New Russia Adviser Has Deep Ties to Kremlin’s Gazprom.

Putin’s Puppet. If the Russian president could design a candidate to undermine American interests....

Trump & Putin. Yes, It's Really a Thing.

The Kremlin’s Candidate: In the 2016 election, Putin’s propaganda network is picking sides.

tl;dr:

Trump is knee-deep in Russian money. Putin is talking up his candidacy the same way he talks up far-right European parties that he believes are favorable to him and opposed to the United States.

If Trump thinks his ability to game the American real-estate market, and his success at swindling the rubes who signed up for Trump University, makes him ready to deal with a guy who managed to survive a career at the top-level of the KGB only to make himself the presiding autocrat of the world's leading kleptocracy, I'd like to be there when he finds out how wrong he is.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Sun Jul 24, 2016 7:44 pm

The idea that Trump could even sit in the bleachers watching Putin in action, let alone take him on and defeat him, is laughable.

Is there any evidence that Trump has ever gotten the better of anyone with the least bit of experience, knowledge and intelligence? I mean, he bamboozled the entire Scottish government to their detriment, but I'm guessing they didn't do their homework. They certainly are vocal in their opposition now though.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Sun Jul 24, 2016 7:49 pm

GreenGoo wrote:I mean, he bamboozled the entire Scottish government to their detriment

In fairness, they were probably drunk at the time.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Sun Jul 24, 2016 8:21 pm

"...at the time"? That implies they might have been sober at some point.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Sun Jul 24, 2016 9:51 pm

Here's the question I would like to ask every person supporting Trump - I call it the "Trump Turing Test"

If Trump said that the Jews were murderers, rapists and criminals, and that they all hated America, would you still support him? If not, then why do you support him when he says the same thing about illegal Mexican immigrants and Muslims? Are they any less human and due any less respect than the Jews?

I'd really like to ask Paul Ryan this.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Sun Jul 24, 2016 10:38 pm

I suspect that quite a few of them are actually waiting and hoping he does say just that.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Mon Jul 25, 2016 12:29 am

I'd just like to remind everyone that the current nominee for the Republicans was a vocal Birther.

What times we live in.

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Mon Jul 25, 2016 7:10 am

GreenGoo wrote:I'd just like to remind everyone that the current nominee for the Republicans was a vocal Birther.

What times we live in.

The fact that there is even a birther movement is disturbing.

malchior · Post by **malchior** » Mon Jul 25, 2016 8:09 am

Charles Blow wrote an OpEd in the Times where he said he was beginning to question the competency of the American electorate. That is where I am personally. You can list 30 things he said in the last couple of weeks any of which should banish him from POLITICS but 50% of the electorate is ready to pull a lever for him? We are in way worse shape than anyone thought. No wonder the Russians are semi-openly meddling.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Jul 25, 2016 8:54 am

malchior wrote:. You can list 30 things he said in the last couple of weeks any of which should banish him from POLITICS but 50% of the electorate is ready to pull a lever for him not Hillary?

I think that's the whole thing in a nutshell.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Mon Jul 25, 2016 9:40 am

hepcat wrote:
malchior wrote:. You can list 30 things he said in the last couple of weeks any of which should banish him from POLITICS but 50% of the electorate is ready to pull a lever for him not Hillary?
I think that's the whole thing in a nutshell.

As I've posted before, and someone much smarter than me said, there comes a time when love of country trumps (goddammit) hatred of Hillary.

malchior · Post by **malchior** » Mon Jul 25, 2016 3:11 pm

Wow - someone is really pushing the Russia connection. There are some things that should be verifiable such as whether he truly has been blackballed by 'western banks'. This seems like a reasonable claim due to his serial bankruptcies but the assertion that a good part of his money flows in from Russia? That would be likely hard to prove.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Mon Jul 25, 2016 3:35 pm

malchior wrote:Wow - someone is really pushing the Russia connection. There are some things that should be verifiable such as whether he truly has been blackballed by 'western banks'. This seems like a reasonable claim due to his serial bankruptcies but the assertion that a good part of his money flows in from Russia? That would be likely hard to prove.

I think it's pretty well established that Trump is persona non grata at major banks due to his serial bankruptcies. It's also pretty well established that Trump has had extensive business relations in Russia, and that several of his advisors have prominent Putin connections. I don't think there's any particular evidence of Trump receiving money from Russian government sources, in part because Trump hasn't released any accounting of income (through tax returns, for example). Given all of the other established ties between Trump and Putin, though, the questions on that are pretty serious.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Mon Jul 25, 2016 11:01 pm

Today Trump doubled down on threats against NATO:

"I want them to pay," he said. "They don’t pay us what they should be paying! We lose on everything. Folks, we lose on everything."

He went on to criticize former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's foreign policy record: "She makes it impossible to negotiate. She’s not a negotiator. She’s a fool.”

"We have to walk," Trump added. "Within two days they're calling back! Get back over here, we’ll pay you whatever the hell you want."

"They will pay us if the right person asks," he said. "That’s the way it works, folks. That’s the way it works."

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Mon Jul 25, 2016 11:27 pm

Geezus, the more he talks the less I think he's even capable of negotiating sex with his wife.

Any decent negotiator knows that money is only one of the negotiables on the table. As the world's richest country, the one thing the US is NOT SHORT of, is money. The US is not in NATO because it's a sound financial investment.

He's like a self help real estate best selling author. The pages are full of stuff that the reader already knows, but it makes them feel smart that the author says the same thing.

Is he really suggesting that no one but him could use the ultra-secret awesome negotiating technique of walking away from the table? Hillary's vast experience in the political arena and years as secretary of state are no match for his bachelor's degree and long list of failed businesses?

Fuck I hate this guy.

Fuck. Fuck.

Fuck.

Edit: What about all the foreign aid that is being handed out with no cash return? Is that just because some governmental fool doesn't understand how to make a deal? The only thing Drumpf understands is money, and it's becoming more and more apparent that he doesn't even understand that very well.

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Mon Jul 25, 2016 11:40 pm

I suspect that he's never been in any kind of negotiation like the ones he would be called into as President. He's used to being the BigDogAtTheTable. So, yeah, in the past he's been able to threaten to walk away to get what he wants. But to think that he will be able to do the same thing on the world political stage? As much as I'd love to see him get his ass handed to him, I live in this country.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Tue Jul 26, 2016 12:08 am

TheMix wrote:I suspect that he's never been in any kind of negotiation like the ones he would be called into as President. He's used to being the BigDogAtTheTable. So, yeah, in the past he's been able to threaten to walk away to get what he wants. But to think that he will be able to do the same thing on the world political stage? As much as I'd love to see him get his ass handed to him, I live in this country.

Well the US *is* the big dog at the table, except where China and Russia are concerned, so there are probably plenty of places he could walk away. Of course the damage he'd do to the US's credibility on the world stage might take decades to restore, but hey, at least he'll have squeezed a few million out of NATO.

As even the most junior video gamer will tell you, being right is not the same thing as getting what you need on the geo-political stage.

To be honest I'm surprised he's even aware that not all nations in NATO aren't pulling their weight (Last I looked Canada was one of them). I'm gonna hafta assume that was on one of the cue cards Putin gave him.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Tue Jul 26, 2016 8:43 am

The terrifying thing about him as any kind of foreign policy negotiator is that he really believes that not getting 100% of what he wants, which also means way more than anyone else, is losing. I have absolutely no confidence that compromise is in his vocabulary, and if it is, it's listed as a synonym for "losing".

Ironic that he keeps stealing "You Can't Always Get What You Want" as campaign music, since I don't think he knows what to do in a situation where he doesn't get what he wants. Other than write an angry tweet about how the other person is a dumb loser.

Captain Caveman · Post by **Captain Caveman** » Tue Jul 26, 2016 10:50 am

Am I reading too much into this, or is this an implied threat to out Cory Booker?

malchior · Post by **malchior** » Tue Jul 26, 2016 10:59 am

I think that was a thinly veiled statement of his rumored sexuality. Trump really is the monster everyone fears.