I keep coming back to "all this for literally Donald Trump," but it fits. There's not some more competent aspiring autocrat who'd somehow "earn" or "win" this. This is how it has always gone: feckless/evil elites attaching themselves to the sociopath they believe will get them where they want to go.
It’s always been so funny (not Hah Hah) that Captain Manhattan is the lodestar and everyone here hates him
so much he gave up on the only place he wants to be King of. He got the scepter and can’t wave it around PJ Clarke’s (b/c Elaine died), which is still what he truly desires.
America!
I say or think this at least once a month. And not only “Donald fucking Trump” but “Donald fucking Trump who you’ve *personally watched* backstab every single person who’s helped/enabled/bent over backwards for him”. THAT Donald fucking Trump
See that is the only part that I can't wrap my head around. I can see them giving unfettered power to an idiot, but that particular idiot will punish them, *personally*, the first time they deliver a decision that even slightly annoys him
Personally I think his loathsomeness is part of the appeal. Just as liberals love the stirring dissent read from the bench, the right loves to get in bed with hideous little monsters who move their agenda. It’s their noble sacrifice
These are guys who were bought out for an RV. A class of rich people who own used car lots and pretend they're blue collar. It totally fits that it's all for Trump.
Trump is a perfect, living embodiment of America. He represents what it truly is rather than what the propaganda tells us. Its racism, corruption, greed, narcissism, all wrapped up in one lump of a human being. That is the fight; the America we hope it can be rather than what it always has been.
He's the cracked mirror Reagan. He's charismatic enough that he can be an avatar and he does what he's asked by the people who point his maw at the disenfranchised. He's grievance made flesh and given life, like a golem made from gold lamé and big macs and filled with a letter to the editor.
Someone much smarter than me made the point that it had to be a guy from Queens. A white, mediocre son of privilege from the borough where white flight originated was the perfect villain to exploit the fraying edges of society in our era.
I had always hoped that to end democracy a power-hungry monster would have to accomplish 1 actual thing first, but I guess borrowing beyond your means and being racist are more in line with American values
Right! The silly TV rich guy who was previously famous for getting into catty feuds with Rosie O’Donnell and divorces. He was basically the distant Simpsons relative who played a millionaire at parties
Guys like that often have a buffoonish quality. Think of Mussolini or the typical, peacocking African general. Clownish. I don't think it's any more complicated than they appeal to dumb people.
Some of it predates him. There's FedSoc guys from the Bush Jr era who have been pushing for the "unitary executive" idea of the Presidency (at least when Republicans have it), where the President is essentially a King who can only be constrained by Congress withdrawing funding for concessions.
Most people think of him as the shrewd but chaotic (heavily edited around) business guy from The Apprentice, and forget - or never knew - that he used to appear on Playboy VHS tapes just so he could look at the “bazongas.” He used to go on Howard Stern and lie about which models he had sex with.
Trump had Jr. approach Kasich in 2016 with the offer to put him (as VP) in charge of domestic *and* foreign policy. When Kasich asked what Trump would be in charge of, Jr. replied "making America great again." He never actually wanted to do any of the work of being President.
Not sure why he’s trying so hard to get reelected. I didn’t think he wanted to win in the first place, he was complaining about the election being rigged way before he won
Losing was a huge blow to his vanity; he has try to erase that. Also, as president, he can stop the DOJ cases against him. I agree that he probably didn't initially even want to win in 2016, but now I think he realizes the massive opportunities for graft and narcissistic satisfaction.
Winning was a series of huge blows to his vanity too. Getting booed at the World Series? Dude. The best thing for his ego would be holing up at Mar a Lago and basking in franchise-owner adulation until the coronary gets him
True. It's as if the Romans had scrapped their Republic, not to pave the way for Julius Caesar or Augustus, but for Nero, or Caligula's horse Incitatus.
Fair, though it does feel there’s been a shift from The Party of Reagan (evil vision of exclusionary, autocratic US cloaked in high minded rhetoric and a glossy veneer) to The Party of Trump (evil vision of exclusionary, autocratic US with no pants on and the rhetoric of a drunk Cobra Commander)
in some senses, Trump is actually exactly the kind of person these conservatives have been waiting for but didn’t quite anticipate, in that his willingness to be so brazenly corrupt allows them to make the kinds of drastic changes to laws and norms they’ve sought for decades
The one good SNL bit about Trump during the fallow Baldwin years was the "What I Did for Love" parody where various GOP schmucks confess how they capitulated to him if only for a small taste of power. Naturally it's the only sketch not available online.
Or once they got to this level they felt they should be untouchable but they didn't have money to actually be untouchable. So they had to make sure they got that cash
I think one of the reasons they also do this, they can back him while continuing to feel superior to him. Let the masses have his crassness and boorishness- he accomplishes what they want and they can still feel some separation from his more venal nature. I agree though- this fucking guy?
Having grown up far from NYC, my only knowledge of this whole world was the buffoonish cartoon character Conan would depict with a still photo and flapping lips saying increasingly idiotic, self-aggrandizing things. All this for that. I hope never to lose sight of that: all of this--for that.
It should have been obvious that a country built on such a shitty misreading of Christianity was no match for a man composed entirely of the Seven Deadly Sins
I believe that most of them truly believe that they are not doing it for Trump, and that he will die before the intraparty reckoning that has been looming since 2016 comes to a head. They keep losing those rolls of the dice, but are too committed to the plan to hold up or back out now.
An incompetent, vain, buffoonish moron actually makes a better vessel for advancing a corrupt, antisocial agenda. Nobody wants a competent autocrat, because he might actually have his own agenda and set of policy preferences that he expects you to serve.
