Does Trump do things just to be at the top of the news cycle?

Is this part of his psychosis?  Trade war - No Daca - Amazon evil - Mexican Wall - Firing after firing - Tweets.

I somehow think he likes that his tweets and rhetoric can make the Dow plummet.

Again the question - when will any sitting Republican (who isn't leaving congress) speak out against this lunacy?


Yes. If it isn't a conscious strategy of his, it's a reflex.


Of course, he likes his Tweets.

He likes the attention he's given. He loves it when media he watches, such as Fox & Friends, laud him and his Tweets.

He's a very insecure, a person who needs constant reassurance on his greatness, a need to be constantly lauded.

His cabinet has his number. Which is why in his first publicly viewed cabinet meeting they lined up lauding his "greatness" and what a privilege it is to be given the great honor of serving under him. Disgusting.



jamie said:

Is this part of his psychosis?  Trade war - No Daca - Amazon evil - Mexican Wall - Firing after firing - Tweets.

I somehow think he likes that his tweets and rhetoric can make the Dow plummet.

Again the question - when will any sitting Republican (who isn't leaving congress) speak out against this lunacy?

Yes.  And this is what makes him so dangerous.  He would happily preside over irradiated ruins as long as 1) people sang his praises and 2) he didn't suffer personally.


Duh, yes! 

The opioid fueled zombies love it! 


to the original post I reply with a question of my own, does the pope wear a funny hat?

To Baldwin, I would say that dehumanizing those who support him is probably not a helpful strategy.


You noticed! It's narcissism. 


Peaceinourtime, plus a dose of megalomania: see, he ‘has the power to affect world events‘ ... he’s just lost the ability to tell if he should (on his own), and if he’s always right/just. 



peaceinourtime said:

You noticed! It's narcissism. 

My own brand of narcissism had me convinced that he does it just to ruin my day.


This Sinclair/Fox/hate radio/Trump alliance is getting scarier by the minute. Meanwhile, crickets from GOP Congress.


Then there's...


More than 3-in-4 of 803 American respondents, or 77 percent, said they believe that major traditional television and newspaper media outlets report “fake news,” according to a Monmouth University poll released Monday, marking a sharp increase in distrust of those news organizations from a year ago, when 63 percent registered concerns about the spread of misinformation.

politico



GL2 said:

Then there's...




More than 3-in-4 of 803 American respondents, or 77 percent, said they believe that major traditional television and newspaper media outlets report “fake news,” according to a Monmouth University poll released Monday, marking a sharp increase in distrust of those news organizations from a year ago, when 63 percent registered concerns about the spread of misinformation.

politico

It seems American education has failed us.

"An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people." - T Jefferson

You said you taught HS. How do you feel that a large portion of the American public is very easily manipulated? That they lack basic critical thinking skills?



mrincredible said:

to the original post I reply with a question of my own, does the pope wear a funny hat?

To Baldwin, I would say that dehumanizing those who support him is probably not a helpful strategy.

Those deplorables are stupid and have not earned any sympathy. Tell your distant cousins, family, and friends who voted for this f(*&ing moron this is their fault! 



BG9 said:



GL2 said:

Then there's...




More than 3-in-4 of 803 American respondents, or 77 percent, said they believe that major traditional television and newspaper media outlets report “fake news,” according to a Monmouth University poll released Monday, marking a sharp increase in distrust of those news organizations from a year ago, when 63 percent registered concerns about the spread of misinformation.

politico

It seems American education has failed us.

"An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people." - T Jefferson


You said you taught HS. How do you feel that a large portion of the American public is very easily manipulated? That they lack basic critical thinking skills?

An alternative point of view is that a lot of people trust their local news.  How good a job is CNN doing of covering news in rust-belt towns, coal towns and rural America?  How many CNN reporters are living in these areas.



GL2 said:

Then there's...




More than 3-in-4 of 803 American respondents, or 77 percent, said they believe that major traditional television and newspaper media outlets report “fake news,” according to a Monmouth University poll released Monday, marking a sharp increase in distrust of those news organizations from a year ago, when 63 percent registered concerns about the spread of misinformation.

politico

Well, if one were to include Fox News in the cohort of "major traditional television and newspaper media outlets," what would your answer be?


Baldwin, pls note that mrincredible did not address earning/deserving, only strategy.  And he's right about that, imo.



mjc said:

Baldwin, pls note that mrincredible did not address earning/deserving, only strategy.  And he's right about that, imo.

Yep.

There are people who voted for him who could probably be convinced it was a mistake.  But not by insulting and dehumanizing them.  The 2016 presidential election was decided on razor thin majorities in key electoral college states. Control of Congress may come down to the same kind of thin margins in the Fall.

Trump won the Republican nomination by building a coalition.  Some of them are white nationalists whose fears about immigration he stoked, and I'm not sure those folks could ever vote for a Democrat. But there were a hell of a lot of people in the country who felt abandoned by the two major parties and were willing to roll the dice on someone who claimed he would buck convention to act on their behalf.  Those people might be regretting their choice, but calling them "opioid-fueled zombies"?  You might as well put up a sign on the voting booths that says "Democrats Don't Want You if you Voted for Trump!!"

I'll throw one example in here of what I'm talking about.  In the Alabama (corrected from Arkansas) special election for Senate it's easy to say "White Evangelicals voted for Roy Moore", which is largely true ... it was about 80%.  But ~20% didn't ... and most of them voted for a pro-choice Democrat, which should have been a big news story. Ordinarily that 20% would have been less than 10%.  What would happen to the electoral map if you switched even 5% of voters from the Republican column to the Democratic? Can you do that by telling them they're stupid?

To bring this back around to the original intention of the thread, I think there is something strategic to what Trump is doing, but I'm not sure how conscious it is. A lot of his actions line up with a marketable concept of "America First!" I'm a firm believer in most liberal/progressive economic and political theory but man it's a lot easier to say "I'm punishing China for taking away American jobs!"  Lots of people vote on their emotions, so I think he is employing a strategy to keep the emotions of his voters fired up.


He's a reactionary type and those people are always destructive. Also, IMO, the Russia stuff and finance stuff is really choking him. He can't get a reputable lawyer. No one wants this case and no one wants to work with him. He's constantly in melt down mode and must not know there are meds for that. 


If retaliatory Chinese tariffs on, eg, pork and cranberries (and maybe ginseng?) cut into ag markets, there will be a lot of emotion in Wis & Iowa.  Whether enough to overcome Republican burbs in Wis + unaffected ag producers, I don't know.



mjc said:

If retaliatory Chinese tariffs on, eg, pork and cranberries (and maybe ginseng?) cut into ag...

I'm sorry, mjc, it's at this point in your post that you lost the President's attention.  MAGA!

(sarcasm abundant in that post)


He continues to tell clearly provable lies. He said Democrats were to blame for DACA being dead and that people are seeking to cross the border into the US to take advantage of DACA.

Aside from being contradictory Republicans control both Houses of Congress and do not need Democratic votes to pass anything they want, and DACA applies to only those who have been here for at least 9-10 years. Anyone who does not know that is just plain stupid. Can they be educated? Can they be made to see that Trump is lying to them?

Apparently there are people who voted for Obama and then voted for Trump. There should be a way to bring them away from Trump and back to a Democrat. There are other Trump voters or third-party votes who may have been motivated only by their antipathy to Hillary Clinton. They may be reachable.

However the main focus of the Dems should be on increasing the turnout of Blacks , Hispanics and Youth.


@mrincredible, it was Alabama, not Arkansas. But yeah.


The biggest issue is that Trump is never held accountable for his lies.  He never apologizes - he never corrects false statements.

All the exposed lies and corrections go through the "Fake news" channels - so his base never gets to see these.



jamie said:

The biggest issue is that Trump is never held accountable for his lies.  He never apologizes - he never corrects false statements.

All the exposed lies and corrections go through the "Fake news" channels - so his base never gets to see these.

And Sarah Huckabee Sanders deflects and the "journalists" in the room hardly call her out for it.



Tom_Reingold said:

@mrincredible, it was Alabama, not Arkansas. But yeah.

Darn it. I need to remember to Google things before I post them. The old memory is starting to slow down a little bit.

I corrected my post with a note that I had corrected it.



BG9 said:



GL2 said:

Then there's...




More than 3-in-4 of 803 American respondents, or 77 percent, said they believe that major traditional television and newspaper media outlets report “fake news,” according to a Monmouth University poll released Monday, marking a sharp increase in distrust of those news organizations from a year ago, when 63 percent registered concerns about the spread of misinformation.

politico

It seems American education has failed us.

"An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people." - T Jefferson


You said you taught HS. How do you feel that a large portion of the American public is very easily manipulated? That they lack basic critical thinking skills?

I retired in '07, around 6 months after the iPhone was introduced and before social media exploded. Americans are largely fat, ignorant, and lazy, preferring not to read or think deeply. Comfort and materialism rule - big-*** cars, oversize sofas with cup holders, and giant TVs. I often wonder how I might be able to teach English/writing/research in 2018 when so little emphasis on thinking is valued. That said, I believe that willful ignorance goes along with American values. Thinking/reading/understanding is tough work. When your news comes from social media and the ever expanding evil of so-called conservative media, the balance tips to the easy-to-understand sources.

The majority seems comfortably numb and relies on the affluent, educated minority to keep the wheels turning. 



I'd like to see a state-by-state breakdown of that survey


This is the most frustrating and destructive factor. No one wants to be brave. And honestly, it's not bravery, it's simply doing the right thing for their constituents. My only take away is that because he's not called out on his lies by his party, they either must believe his lies (or some conspiracy base form of them) or they simply are too weak to push back. Either way, their inability to do their jobs and take care of the country and its people is crippling. 

jamie said:

The biggest issue is that Trump is never held accountable for his lies.  He never apologizes - he never corrects false statements.

All the exposed lies and corrections go through the "Fake news" channels - so his base never gets to see these.




GL2 said:

I retired in '07, around 6 months after the iPhone was introduced and before social media exploded. Americans are largely fat, ignorant, and lazy, preferring not to read or think deeply. Comfort and materialism rule - big-*** cars, oversize sofas with cup holders, and giant TVs. I often wonder how I might be able to teach English/writing/research in 2018 when so little emphasis on thinking is valued. That said, I believe that willful ignorance goes along with American values. Thinking/reading/understanding is tough work. When your news comes from social media and the ever expanding evil of so-called conservative media, the balance tips to the easy-to-understand sources.

The majority seems comfortably numb and relies on the affluent, educated minority to keep the wheels turning. 


You're starting to sound like an old fogey. smile I'm not going to pretend that we don't have problems, but I would say that being misinformed is the default condition of the human species.  What is new is the way in which instant and round-the-clock "news" intersects with this default condition.

Complicating things, we are living in the most dangerous of times when a new empire is going to replace the existing empire.  By this I mean that, barring some absolutely ruinous event, the Chinese economy is going to eclipse ours and, increasingly, China will write the rules.  The only way to offset Chinese economic power is to reinforce international organizations such as the WTO and the U.N.  Unfortunately, Trump, and a lot of other countries for that matter, are possessed by a hard-headed go it alone mindset which is undermining international cooperation.



Not sure how much is idiocy vs stealth disguised as chaotic attention seeking.  This is the guy whose former wife alleged in her divorce proceedings that he had Mein Kampf on his nightstand.  I think we should all be thinking about what measures we can take with family, friends and neighbors to keep one another safe should things suddenly take a nosedive.  It can happen anywhere in the world and the safeguards we have had in place as a country are being openly attacked by the entire Dumpster administration.  I wish I didn't think we were headed for serious catastrophe.  


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