I admit, it is foolhardy for me to post after 8 pm.
Those who are first and foremost looking for gothcha responses and personal jabs at a little old lady in New Jersey represent what is terribly wrong in American politics. Kill dissent or ridicule a POV or observation at all costs! Best tool out there is to call a person a name — or a (truly deadly) single capital letter from the alphabet —which effectively ends a discussion by killing the messenger forthwith!
innuendo is a dish served by those who have zero ideas how to deal with what’s happening and resort to cranky in-fighting, rather than face the mess we are all in. Let’s review the hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan for starters….
I admit, it is foolhardy for me to post after 8 pm.
Those who are first and foremost looking for gothcha responses and personal jabs at a little old lady in New Jersey represent what is terribly wrong in American politics. Kill dissent or ridicule a POV or observation at all costs! Best tool out there is to call a person a name — or a (truly deadly) single capital letter from the alphabet —which effectively ends a discussion by killing the messenger forthwith!
innuendo is a dish served by those who have zero ideas how to deal with what’s happening and resort to cranky in-fighting, rather than face the mess we are all in. Let’s review the hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan for starters….
In fact, "what is terribly wrong in American politics" is lack of interest in finding out the facts. That leads to opinions reached based on false understandings.
When people point out or correct those false understandings, that isn't something to criticize.
I admit, it is foolhardy for me to post after 8 pm.
Those who are first and foremost looking for gothcha responses and personal jabs at a little old lady in New Jersey represent what is terribly wrong in American politics. Kill dissent or ridicule a POV or observation at all costs! Best tool out there is to call a person a name — or a (truly deadly) single capital letter from the alphabet —which effectively ends a discussion by killing the messenger forthwith!
innuendo is a dish served by those who have zero ideas how to deal with what’s happening and resort to cranky in-fighting, rather than face the mess we are all in. Let’s review the hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan for starters….
Interesting profile in The New Yorker of a Trump operative…
Excerpts…
The Face of Donald Trump’s Deceptively Savvy Media Strategy
The former President and his spokesman, Steven Cheung, like to hurl insults at their political rivals, but behind the scenes the campaign has maintained a cozy relationship with much of the mainstream press.
The Face of Donald Trump’s Deceptively Savvy Media Strategy
The former President and his spokesman, Steven Cheung, like to hurl insults at their political rivals, but behind the scenes the campaign has maintained a cozy relationship with much of the mainstream press.
During the 2020 election, Cheung served as a consultant to the Trump campaign, helping to organize the Republican National Convention. A year later, he worked on Caitlyn Jenner’s failed gubernatorial bid, then flirted with the idea of running for Congress himself, in California’s Ninth District. Instead, he was one of the first hires at maga Inc., a pro-Trump super pac, and rejoined the Trump campaign when it launched, in November, 2022. By most accounts, this year’s effort, which is being run by two longtime Republican operatives, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, is better organized and more disciplined than in years past. “The 2016 Trump campaign was famously very slapdash,” Dave Weigel, a political reporter at the news site Semafor, said. “It would deal with the media when it had the time. The story of this Trump campaign is a very professional operation that gives reporters what they want.”
One of the campaign’s initial challenges was to dispense with Trump’s G.O.P. rivals, namely Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, for whom Wiles had previously worked. Cheung’s brutal treatment of DeSantis was part of a deterrence strategy. “ ‘You should get out of this race or we’re going to ruin you for 2028’ ” is how the newspaper reporter put it. During the primaries, Cheung sent out statements under the rubric Kiss of Death, which were written more in the style of a partisan Reddit poster than a communications professional. Asawin Suebsaeng, a senior political reporter at Rolling Stone, recalled seeing a statement from Cheung that made multiple allusions to DeSantis soiling himself. “I told him that his delivery reminds me less of a conventional political operative and more of the Chester Ming character in ‘The Wolf of Wall Street,’ ” Suebsaeng told me. “I did not entirely mean it as a compliment, but I don’t think he took much offense to the notion.”
But Cheung’s public invective also concealed a savvy media strategy: Trump purported to be against the media, but he and his campaign were careful to maintain good relations with many reporters. By contrast, the DeSantis campaign spurned the traditional press, both publicly and privately, and instead courted conservative influencers. His chief spokesperson, Christina Pushaw, whose previous experience included working as an adviser to the former President of Georgia, once tweeted out screenshots of a reporter’s e-mails requesting comment along with belittling commentary; in the summer of 2021, her Twitter account was temporarily suspended after the Associated Press complained that she was harassing one of its journalists online.
Now that the general-election season is under way, a number of reporters I spoke to said that the Trump operation has, in some ways, been easier to deal with than the Biden campaign. “The Biden people have a different expectation from the press,” the newspaper reporter said. “If you write something critical about them, it’s always, like, ‘But Trump!,’ or, ‘Are you on Trump’s side?’ ” Similarly, the mainstream-news reporter said that the Biden team “cannot take a punch. They’re always furious over these tiny things because they kind of expect you to be on their side, like, ‘We’re fighting for reproductive rights for women.’ The Trump people don’t expect a ton of fair stories—there’s a certain type of story they’ll get mad at, but they can also just take a lot of hits.” Both reporters emphasized that they have written many stories that were critical of Trump. “You can have decent relationships with Trump people if you tell them what you’re doing and you’re transparent about your reporting process and they have a chance to respond,” the newspaper reporter said.
Still, although the Trump campaign can seem unfazed by stories that might otherwise read as damaging—a piece about Trump’s plans to pursue mass deportations, for instance, is a net good, since it makes the candidate look tough—anything that might make Trump look weak or guided by others is met with ire. Late last year, the Times and the Washington Post quoted Republicans outside of the campaign’s orbit discussing how a second Trump Administration would use its powers. In response, the campaign released a statement from Wiles and LaCivita: “Unless a second term priority is articulated by President Trump himself, or is officially communicated by the campaign, it is not authorized in any way.” The newspaper reporter told me, “This iteration of Trump World is obsessed with not having palace-intrigue stories.” The campaign is also wary of stories that might make Trump look too extreme, or even overtly racist. In November, 2022, just a week after Trump launched his campaign, Ye brought the white supremacist Nick Fuentes to dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Boyle, at Breitbart, pointed out that the campaign was quick to respond to the ensuing outcry, issuing a statement from Trump: “Kanye West very much wanted to visit Mar-a-Lago. Our dinner meeting was intended to be Kanye and me only, but he arrived with a guest whom I had never met and knew nothing about.”
Recent reports that the ex-President has privately expressed support for a sixteen-week ban on abortion rankled some campaign staff. “They want to run Trump as a moderate on abortion,” Suebsaeng said. (On Wednesday, Trump suggested that he would favor a fifteen-week ban.) But, on the whole, the campaign seems to prefer an election that is less focussed on policy issues. “HELP! MY DIAPER IS FULL!” Cheung recently tweeted, alongside a photo of Biden speaking at a podium. A campaign statement attributed to Cheung linked to a video of Biden meandering through a crowded room and described the President as “a short-circuited Roomba. Not even with help does he know what’s going on or where he is.” When Biden’s director of rapid response tweeted a taunting statement about a glitching live stream on Trump’s Truth Social account, Cheung responded, “Looks like your internet connection is **** and you should invest in better campaign infrastructure, bitch.” As another longtime campaign reporter said of Cheung, “He’ll do whatever Trump says. There are lines that are crossed that delight Trump but wouldn’t get you a job elsewhere. Cheung isn’t thinking beyond Trump.” ♦
I admit, it is foolhardy for me to post after 8 pm.
Those who are first and foremost looking for gothcha responses and personal jabs at a little old lady in New Jersey represent what is terribly wrong in American politics. Kill dissent or ridicule a POV or observation at all costs! Best tool out there is to call a person a name — or a (truly deadly) single capital letter from the alphabet —which effectively ends a discussion by killing the messenger forthwith!
innuendo is a dish served by those who have zero ideas how to deal with what’s happening and resort to cranky in-fighting, rather than face the mess we are all in. Let’s review the hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan for starters….
what's really wrong with our politics is how many people are deceived by disinformation and are resistant to accepting the truth when it's pointed out to them.
Those who are first and foremost looking for gothcha responses and personal jabs at a little old lady in New Jersey represent what is terribly wrong in American politics.
It was a jab at posting from a poorly informed position. A worthwhile target, no?
Let’s review the hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan for starters….
I'm still trying to understand how it is possible for us to spend 20 years, thousands of lives and billions of dollars in Afghanistan and completely fail to create a government that isn't a house of cards.
I would say that we were justified in attacking Afghanistan. And that fact itself is a refreshing change from practically every one of our wars since Korea. But I have to wonder if occupying Afghanistan was a better move than biding our time and taking some action against the Taliban and Bin Laden that didn't consist of us taking over the country.
Edited to add that keeping our military in Afghanistan forever was a good option either.
Are you sure this is how you want to present yourself? It will probably result in you posts receiving less criticism. The underlying assumption, after all, has been that you are a grown woman in full possession of your faculties, which means accountable for your words. If you're now implying that you are in fact just "a little old lady," well, few here would seek to emulate Trump and punch down.
Are you sure this is how you want to present yourself? It will probably result in you posts receiving less criticism. The underlying assumption, after all, has been that you are a grown woman in full possession of your faculties, which means accountable for your words. If you're now implying that you are in fact just "a little old lady," well, few here would seek to emulate Trump and punch down.
Wrong about me yet again, PVW. This self-described “little old lady” is a quite “grown” up one. And to be honest, I have been a news junkie for, let’s see, probably some 80+ years — recall, I am the child of a decorated WW1 veteran, who grew up near an army base in Brooklyn during WW2, and learned what was happening from the multiple editions of many daily newspapers, newsreels, and FDR fireside chats on the radio!
Former President Donald Trump walks outside the courtroom in the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Feb. 15. PHOTO: ANDREW KELLY/REUTERS
As Donald Trump works to untangle himself from the latest legal knots his opponents have tied for him, a critical question for the presidential election is this: Are Americans who say they plan to vote for the former president doing so in spite or because of the sustained lawfare campaign he faces up to (and possibly beyond) Election Day?
There’s always been a solid core of Mr. Trump’s voters for whom every legal arrow fired his way is an additional incentive to support him against overzealous opponents. But for President Biden to prevail, there has to be a significant number of voters for whom the alleged wrongs and the doubts they raise about Mr. Trump’s suitability for office will eventually supersede whatever reasons they have now for voting for the Republican nominee.
The bleak news for the Democrats is that the polling evidence seems to suggest that the answer is, in fact, both—different sets of voters are ready to vote for the Republican in spite and because of his legal woes. The aggressive efforts by prosecutors to confiscate his money and send him to prison are only bolstering his standing with, and improving likely turnout among, Republicans. But crucially, at least for now, those efforts are failing to convince independent voters to elevate the doubts they have about him over the many reasons they have for supporting him.
Despite a solid dissenting minority in the Republican primaries, polling data suggest Mr. Trump is still on course to sweep up all but a tiny number of Republican voters in November. A Grinnell College survey last week, helmed by the widely respected pollster Ann Selzer, showed Mr. Trump winning 83% of registered Republicans—almost identical to the proportion of Democrats saying they will vote for Mr. Biden. When you remove the don’t knows, both candidates’ support among their own voters rises to more than 90%.
The multipronged lawfare effort against Mr. Trump seems to be strengthening Republican determination to back him. And the sequence in which the cases are unfolding also looks likely to benefit Mr. Trump. While we await the outcome of a Supreme Court decision in one of the cases brought by Jack Smith, the federal special counsel, the trio of dubious cases brought by Democratic state prosecutors are playing out in ways that are doing nothing for the reputations of Letitia James, Alvin Bragg and Fani Willis.
For zealots, nothing exceeds like excess. Mr. Trump’s many enemies may love the sight of him scrambling to avoid the seizure of his assets by Ms. James, but I suspect to a wider audience the spectacle of a Democratic attorney general in a Democratic state executing an order from a Democratic judge to appropriate hundreds of millions of dollars belonging to the Republican presidential candidate is an unwholesome one. Mr. Bragg’s novel use of state law to prosecutea federal crime and Ms. Willis’s very visible personal entanglements only reinforce the sense among Republicans that this is all unequal justice.
A Politico/Ipsos poll last week found that if Mr. Trump were convicted in Mr. Bragg’s criminal trial, due to start next month, almost four times as many Republicans said it would make them more likely to support him than less likely.
But what about independent voters? There’s certainly evidence that they don’t see Mr. Trump as the innocent victim he and his supporters claim. That same Politico/Ipsos poll found four times as many independents said a conviction would make them less likely than more likely to vote for Mr. Trump. But there’s plenty of reason to think that their doubts about the Republican pale when they are asked to think about their other concerns about the country.
These voters seem to be prepared to look past Mr. Trump’s potentially blotted legal record if he can set the country on a better path as president. The Grinnell poll showed him leading Mr. Biden 43% to 27% among independent voters. Other polls explain why. An Economist/YouGov survey indicated that only 12% of independents think the country is on the right track, only 23% approve of the job Mr. Biden is doing, and large majorities disapprove of his performance on the key issues—66% on immigration; 64% on inflation; 59% on jobs and the economy and 57% on crime.
As Mr. Biden’s approval numbers continue to flirt with historic lows, as the clock ticks down to Election Day, and as wave after wave of civil and criminal proceedings wash over the Trump campaign, Mr. Biden seems to believe that presenting Mr. Trump as the enemy of democracy is his route to victory.
But there is—at least for now, ahead of any conclusions to the various cases against Mr. Trump—a vast disconnect between the way the political class and most of the media think about this election and the way the voters do. This unprecedented lawfare campaign seems to be only energizing the Trump-friendly and doing very little to persuade the Trump-skeptical
Wrong about me yet again, PVW. This self-described “little old lady” is a quite “grown” up one. And to be honest, I have been a news junkie for, let’s see, probably some 80+ years — recall, I am the child of a decorated WW1 veteran, who grew up near an army base in Brooklyn during WW2, and learned what was happening from the multiple editions of many daily newspapers, newsreels, and FDR fireside chats on the radio!
Glad to hear it. I'll continue to treat your posts as ones you are unwilling, rather than unable, to defend.
Former President Donald Trump walks outside the courtroom in the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Feb. 15. PHOTO: ANDREW KELLY/REUTERS
As Donald Trump works to untangle himself from the latest legal knots his opponents have tied for him, a critical question for the presidential election is this: Are Americans who say they plan to vote for the former president doing so in spite or because of the sustained lawfare campaign he faces up to (and possibly beyond) Election Day?
There’s always been a solid core of Mr. Trump’s voters for whom every legal arrow fired his way is an additional incentive to support him against overzealous opponents. But for President Biden to prevail, there has to be a significant number of voters for whom the alleged wrongs and the doubts they raise about Mr. Trump’s suitability for office will eventually supersede whatever reasons they have now for voting for the Republican nominee.
The bleak news for the Democrats is that the polling evidence seems to suggest that the answer is, in fact, both—different sets of voters are ready to vote for the Republican in spite and because of his legal woes. The aggressive efforts by prosecutors to confiscate his money and send him to prison are only bolstering his standing with, and improving likely turnout among, Republicans. But crucially, at least for now, those efforts are failing to convince independent voters to elevate the doubts they have about him over the many reasons they have for supporting him.
Despite a solid dissenting minority in the Republican primaries, polling data suggest Mr. Trump is still on course to sweep up all but a tiny number of Republican voters in November. A Grinnell College survey last week, helmed by the widely respected pollster Ann Selzer, showed Mr. Trump winning 83% of registered Republicans—almost identical to the proportion of Democrats saying they will vote for Mr. Biden. When you remove the don’t knows, both candidates’ support among their own voters rises to more than 90%.
The multipronged lawfare effort against Mr. Trump seems to be strengthening Republican determination to back him. And the sequence in which the cases are unfolding also looks likely to benefit Mr. Trump. While we await the outcome of a Supreme Court decision in one of the cases brought by Jack Smith, the federal special counsel, the trio of dubious cases brought by Democratic state prosecutors are playing out in ways that are doing nothing for the reputations of Letitia James, Alvin Bragg and Fani Willis.
For zealots, nothing exceeds like excess. Mr. Trump’s many enemies may love the sight of him scrambling to avoid the seizure of his assets by Ms. James, but I suspect to a wider audience the spectacle of a Democratic attorney general in a Democratic state executing an order from a Democratic judge to appropriate hundreds of millions of dollars belonging to the Republican presidential candidate is an unwholesome one. Mr. Bragg’s novel use of state law to prosecutea federal crime and Ms. Willis’s very visible personal entanglements only reinforce the sense among Republicans that this is all unequal justice.
A Politico/Ipsos poll last week found that if Mr. Trump were convicted in Mr. Bragg’s criminal trial, due to start next month, almost four times as many Republicans said it would make them more likely to support him than less likely.
But what about independent voters? There’s certainly evidence that they don’t see Mr. Trump as the innocent victim he and his supporters claim. That same Politico/Ipsos poll found four times as many independents said a conviction would make them less likely than more likely to vote for Mr. Trump. But there’s plenty of reason to think that their doubts about the Republican pale when they are asked to think about their other concerns about the country.
These voters seem to be prepared to look past Mr. Trump’s potentially blotted legal record if he can set the country on a better path as president. The Grinnell poll showed him leading Mr. Biden 43% to 27% among independent voters. Other polls explain why. An Economist/YouGov survey indicated that only 12% of independents think the country is on the right track, only 23% approve of the job Mr. Biden is doing, and large majorities disapprove of his performance on the key issues—66% on immigration; 64% on inflation; 59% on jobs and the economy and 57% on crime.
As Mr. Biden’s approval numbers continue to flirt with historic lows, as the clock ticks down to Election Day, and as wave after wave of civil and criminal proceedings wash over the Trump campaign, Mr. Biden seems to believe that presenting Mr. Trump as the enemy of democracy is his route to victory.
But there is—at least for now, ahead of any conclusions to the various cases against Mr. Trump—a vast disconnect between the way the political class and most of the media think about this election and the way the voters do. This unprecedented lawfare campaign seems to be only energizing the Trump-friendly and doing very little to persuade the Trump-skeptical
I just love it when content of the article contradicts the title.
The Democrats’ lawfare strategy appears to be backfiring as swing voters turn against Joe Biden.
But what about independent voters? There’s certainly evidence that they don’t see Mr. Trump as the innocent victim he and his supporters claim. That same Politico/Ipsos poll found four times as many independents said a conviction would make them less likely than more likely to vote for Mr. Trump.
Wrong about me yet again, PVW. This self-described “little old lady” is a quite “grown” up one. And to be honest, I have been a news junkie for, let’s see, probably some 80+ years — recall, I am the child of a decorated WW1 veteran, who grew up near an army base in Brooklyn during WW2, and learned what was happening from the multiple editions of many daily newspapers, newsreels, and FDR fireside chats on the radio!
Glad to hear it. I'll continue to treat your posts as ones you are unwilling, rather than unable, to defend.
Please. You make assertions and when challenged just post non-sequiturs. You are no one to talk.
Opening line of the above article: "As Donald Trump works to untangle himself from the latest legal knots his opponents have tied for him"
...put me off immediately, since it seems it's his own various schemes and assumptions that have tripped him up. As someone famous said "Oh what a tangled web we weave..."
As someone famous said "Oh what a tangled web we weave..."
I always get it mixed up with Shakespeare.
actually I used the quotation fairly recently on MOL and have done so on other occasions — but as to its coinage, I haven’t the foggiest! And by the time I get to Google it, I am sure one of the whizzbangers here will give us the answer.
I suppose this thread is as good a place for this as any. So this morning I was on the subway, standing at the center pole and looking down at my phone. Catching up on MOL among other things -- I'd only had time for a very quick glance through some posts that had come in overnight in early morning and had jotted off something quick before headed out the door. Then I noticed a standing guy yelling at a seated woman. I didn't catch what it was all about, but she apparently had said something he didn't like and was reacting with a great deal of disproportionate anger, calling her names, etc. So I just kind of shuffled my feet to subtly change position, so that I was between them, breaking their line of sight to each other, but still looking down on my phone so as to seem oblivious, like I was just shifting position and unintentionally ended up between them. Sometimes a tiny nudge is enough to disrupt a flow and send it a different direction. Train stops, guy got off, everyone went on with their morning.
I was kind of curious what the woman had said that ticked him off so much -- but then again, when people react like that, there's usually other stuff going on in their lives. I suppose any of us can find ourselves suddenly the target of unreasonable, over-the-top anger, in subway cars -- and other venues. Best course of action is probably to disengage, de-escalate, and hope that whatever issues are at play everyone involved can find the support they need to work through them.
"There are Trump supporters who, for a variety of reasons, some of them legitimate, fear for the future of the country and mistakenly see Trump as an answer to those fears. They may fall for his victimhood routine because fighting the establishment and dissenting from authority are as American as fried chicken, from the first Puritan to Edward Snowden. None of us, including President Biden, can give up on these misguided people who are our fellow citizens.
"Those of us who discern in Donald Trump a clear and present danger to American democracy must be clear that we do not place that indictment on all Trump supporters. We do indict him and his acolytes, from the talking heads who shill for him on Fox, to the GOP politicians who put loyalty to Trump ahead of devotion to the Constitution. No one could watch that press conference and think this man should be allowed to return to power.
"In moments of crisis, humans look for points of reassurance. We think we have seen all there is to see about Trump's unfitness for office. Then you see a performance like the one he delivered March 25 and it freaks you out. Being freaked out is a sign of sanity, not contagion. It must point us to action. This vindictive, unstable man ought not be invested with civil authority ever again."
"Those of us who discern in Donald Trump a clear and present danger to American democracy must be clear that we do not place that indictment on all Trump supporters. We do indict him and his acolytes, from the talking heads who shill for him on Fox, to the GOP politicians who put loyalty to Trump ahead of devotion to the Constitution.
I admit, it is foolhardy for me to post after 8 pm.
Those who are first and foremost looking for gothcha responses and personal jabs at a little old lady in New Jersey represent what is terribly wrong in American politics. Kill dissent or ridicule a POV or observation at all costs! Best tool out there is to call a person a name — or a (truly deadly) single capital letter from the alphabet —which effectively ends a discussion by killing the messenger forthwith!
innuendo is a dish served by those who have zero ideas how to deal with what’s happening and resort to cranky in-fighting, rather than face the mess we are all in. Let’s review the hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan for starters….