mtutiger

Wiles is probably the best thing that's ever happened for Trump's political career post-2020... if she's heading for the exits, yikes

Is Joe McCarthy an acceptable comparison for you, or does that make one afflicted with 'TDS'? Just making sure I have the rules correct

Yeah, there's both quantitative and qualitative evidence that he's slipping. It isn't "echo chamber" stuff IMO.

Reiner, for as strong as his views were, was always someone who was egalitarian about them and would go to bat for those who felt differently. James Woods' comments about how he fought for him to get the part of Byron de la Beckwith in Ghosts of Mississippi is a good example of this... These guys probably agreed on nothing politically, Woods himself is a massive Trumper nowadays, and yet Reiner was there fighting on his behalf anyway. According to Woods, it came at a low point in his career and he feels that it ultimately saved it. Aside from the pure hatred exhibited by the remarks, tend to think this is part of why the backlash is so intense here. He picked someone with a lot of cultural clout with normal Americans, and he also picked someone with a lot of clout across the political spectrum in Hollywood and in elite media circles.

"Trump Derangement Syndrome" has been a useful construct for Trump over the years, but the reality is that there are plenty of legitimate reasons to dislike Donald Trump (as a leader and as a human being) and the construct is often used in a way to delegitimize any of that criticism or dislike for him in a way that doesn't have to address the substance of it. Same with "Orange Man Bad".... a rhetorically clever but cynical and ultimately meaningless phrase that effectively absolves the user from having to deal with any substance behind whatever criticism is being lodged. The reality is that he's just a bad person and always has been... and we're now seeing an even more unfiltered version of him due to the inevitable loss of control that was always going to happen as he got older. And his critics have always had a better read on things than some would like to admit.

This is 100% spot on. People are saying that he's always been this way, which isn't wrong.... but four years ago, something like this would have been worded more carefully, even coming from him. But he's getting sloppier in his old age, this *was* different even if the sentiment isn't hard to believe coming from him.

They point at the book, but if they bothered actually reading it or internalizing many of it's lessons, they wouldn't hold someone like this in such high esteem. Because again, with how he has lead his life and how he comports himself, there's no better avatar for spiritual death among public figures in this country IMO. And Christians wonder why so many Americans take a skeptical view of the Christian faith in this country... when all you do is talk, but then turn around and exalt someone who lives a life that goes against all of what your faith purportedly stands for and goes against all of the things that you judge everyone else for, why wouldn't you expect people to be cynical about it all? It's honestly sad that in such a horrific act that took away someone who created art and added to the culture as Reiner did, we have no choice to address our narcissistic (and addled) President who will stop at nothing to insert himself into the story and make it all about his personal grievances. What a shame.

The ultimate takeaway from his words. He's a black hole who lacks any sort of humanity. Sure, same as it ever was, but he's becoming less subtle and more sloppy in his old age as well. It's ironic that his strongest support continues to come from self-professed Christians, because I cannot think of a public figure who symbolizes spiritual death quite like he does.

Wow, who knew that hiring a bunch of incompetent people would result in a lot of incompetence?

Classic narcissistic personality disorder

I doubt she's changed at all, I don't particularly care if she has or hasn't frankly. The infighting spilling out from behind closed doors and into the public is naturally going to be a source of schadenfreude. And in the short term is useful (long term debatable, but none of us have control over that) And as much as Trump's supporters AND many of his opponents build him up into this mythical force of nature that cannot be stopped, the moment where jailbreaks would start to occur when evidence of the ground shifting started to become noticed (ie. The elections last week) was inevitable. The Epstein stuff was gasoline on the fire. These are politicians after all... They are ambitious, they want to move up, and to do so they often run to where the American public is going in the aggregate. A diminished Trump hobbled by a lousy economy and dogged by the Epstein stuff is a liability, not an asset

This reads a lot more as a "let them fight" thing than MTG being "cheered" on to me.

There's some inside baseball sour grapes at play here (ie. Trump refusing to endorse for a Governor/Senate run in Georgia) and don't want to down play that. However, Marge certainly also recognizes more than others that Donald Trump is increasingly becoming an albatross politically. And on top of that is 80 years old, his brain is mashed potatoes and, eventually, that he's going to die. Trump has, to date, snuffed out the ambition of a lot of GOP reps, but as he continues to become more of a liability politically and as he continues to fade mentally, it wouldn't surprise me if you start to see more jailbreaks. Just surprised we're seeing more from the far right, although let's be honest, the mainstream/moderate types in the GOP are absolute squishes

Sure, but in terms of whose more fired up, dont most recent elections suggest that it isn't necessarily his base that's the most fired up? This isn't even getting to the point that he will never be on a ballot again either... The GOP generally struggles when he isn't on option

Sure, but Trump won an election with 250k votes spread across three states with an approval sitting between 45-50%. He's currently at ~41ish percent in the aggregate and is getting polls showing him in the 30s. So yeah, when you win an election with 250k votes spread across three states while sitting at 45-50% and you lose 5-10% of your approval/support, that is *catastrophic*. I don't care how devoted the base is. That's not rose colored glasses, thats just objectively looking at the situation. What happened last week is a strong piece of evidence as well

Again, GWB was considered radioactive at the end of his term, yet his actual approval rating was still around 33%... It's not a strength to have just your base when you lose practically everyone else.

Isn't 33% less than 50%?

For the remainder of his term, this is correct... The "scales falling from eyes" thing isn't going to happen, but it doesn't really need to happen. His loss of standing since becoming President is a good example of that. Similar to GWB, if there is a "scales falling from eyes" moment, it's going to happen after he's gone or after he's dead

This is an email chain between Jeffrey Epstein and a former NY Times reporter (Landon Thomas Jr.) where Epstein apparently offers Thomas access to incriminating photos of Donald Trump. At which point ...... nothing happens. Over in the POTUS thread I called this a story as much about elite impunity as it is about Donald Trump.... this is what I mean.

Tend to agree with Tater on this one, although there was never gonna be a "scales falling from eyes" moment here. Remember, even at the end of GWB's term, 1 out of 3 Americans still approved of him. That's the floor in American politics. (And there's at least one poll, AP/NORC, who has him at 36% right now, so he may be getting closer to it depending on who one talks to) The bigger thing though is that the political implications shouldn't be what makes this newsworthy or not. I'm not even sure they matter all that much for Trump himself; he's 80 years old and in his second term. As many rumors swirl, he's not going to run again. Who the hell even knows what condition he's in physically or mentally a year from now, let alone in 2028. What makes it newsworthy is that we deserve to know the truth of what happened. Not only with Trump, who obviously factors heavily into the Epstein story, but everyone else. Regardless of who they are and what party they belong to. Trump is the biggest part of the story because he's President and it's unconscionable that we may have a pedo as President, but it's a story bigger than Trump, one of elite impunity; where elites (and yes, Holic, Trump IS an elite) get to play by one set of rules and the rest of us who follow the rules are punished.

Yeah, they aren't gonna be able to jawbone their way into making everyone think prices are down... you'd think they would have learned something from the previous four years

I see your point, but the actions of the administration to try to silence to the highest degree possible disclosure of any information is naturally gonna add a level of credibility to a wider audience. As we learned in Watergate, it's not the crime, it's the cover-up

Wow, you mean that Holic doesn't get to speak for all vets? Who knew?

Put me down as believing, deep down, that they know it's bad. But the thing is that it's not over either.... more will end up coming out. And even any move that he could make to silence or cover it up (such as commuting or pardoning Maxwell) will end up having a Streisand effect anyway. It will not end the questions or the issue. This is a pretty good offramp, but suspect that for as bad many of the diehards deep down know it is, they'll blow right past the exit as they always do.