Trump is not strong.
Up until now he’s never been tested. The biggest crisis in his life before being elected was the possibility of, gasp, being merely rich instead of super-rich. And the way he’s reacted to his first real challenge - being President - has been to freak out, blame others, melt down, and hide from his responsibilities. None of that shows strength.
He is confident and arrogant. But confidence and arrogance are no more strength than a painting of a tiger is a tiger.
I think it’s been discussed around here before but that’s not strength to me. That demonstrates a remarkable ability to manipulate weak-minded people but doesn’t mean he’s strong. He’s just a really good con man and manipulator.
He can’t even impose his will on his cabinet, as evidenced by the op-ed. The majority of Republicans are just going along with him because they’re greedy fucks or racist fucks or Nazi fucks. I don’t see that as strength or leadership in any way, shape, or form.
I would agree with all that except that he is confident. Everything he does reeks of insecurity. He is always stacking himself against others and doing all he can to tear down those with obviously superior traits and accomplishments.
Somehow he got tens of millions of Americans to think he’s the bee’s knees.
It continues to mystify me. I get demagoguery, but even that takes skill, or so I’d have thought. Hitler had in his way a powerful intellect and was by all accounts a spellbinding orator. Trump just gets on stage and acts like a douche.
Still, here we are, so obviously he’s got something to some people.
That’s the million flies fallacy.
No fallacy. Just stating fact.
They’re greedy. We have a family member who keeps saying, “While I don’t care for trump personally, he’s been great for our pocketbook”. They already had plenty of money before. So blind greed and “I got mine and want more”.
This is a far cry from the community of giving and caring we had in the 1940’s and 50’s (unless you were black).
Me, too. I keep saying to them, “well, one day the people who aren’t so happy are going to kill you and eat you,” but they don’t listen.
Sounds like it’s killing and eating time, then. Just one, you know, as an example to let them know you’re serious.
Oui, pour encourager les autres.
There are plenty of older people for whom the economy = the stock market. They are happy with its current state. They assume everyone else is, too, because unemployment is low.
There’s no good way to bridge the gap between them and the majority of Americans, for whom ‘the economy’ is a combination of wages, job security, healthcare expenses and tuition/ education debt.
This was one of my cousins who is 42.
Dangit, you stole the Voltaire quote I was going to use! Grrrr.
Very well said. Though I don’t think “older” is the primary characteristic of the asshole group so much as “wealthy”.
Trump has caused Les Wexner to quit the Republican party.
You’ve probably never heard of retail mogul Wexner unless you live in Ohio or religiously follow business news, but he’s a billionaire, the richest man in Ohio, and the biggest GOP donor in the state. More importantly he is a typical specimen of the cadre that ran the traditional Reagan-era GOP: a rich old corporate white guy with a mansion and a yacht who was a Young Republican in college.
If Wexner stops giving to GOP candidates, it’ll have a big effect on Ohio politics. More importantly, if the GOP is losing rich old corporate white guys like Wexner, can it continue as a going concern? It’ll take a lot of poor old racist white guys to make up for a Wexner in a party that has always used money as the surest means to power.
Anything that can get Ohio back on the side of the good guys is okay by me. C’mon, Ohio!
Gonna take a lot more for the Wexners of the world to fit through any keyholes, tell you what.
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I thought the passage referred to a camel going through the eye of a needle (as being easier than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven)? That’s the translation I’d always heard, anyway.
Yeah, ex-Catholic here, that’s how I was taught.