Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

If it was your uncle, and the doctor was going to say, he has the brainworms and there's nothing you can do about it -- don't let him operate heavy machinery or argue with people on the Twitter -- would you go to the doctor to hear that? Depressing.

This is an impossible hypothetical. So I know the doctor's diagnosis prior to his evaluation of my uncle? Do I have a time machine?

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

He has very high emotional intelligence. He reads people well, and he knows how to find their weaknesses. And for certain types of people, he has a remarkable ability to push their buttons.

Enh. I think every single insult he thinks of is based on his junior high-level brain. I'm never that impressed. What's annoying is that the media picks it up and repeats it, whether it's a nickname or some stupid "dad killed JFK"-type bullshit. I'm not really giving him credit for any of this garbage.

TM

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Why don't you love your crazy uncle and how come you are siding with foreigners and effete liberal snobs over him?

Because he is also racist.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

Because he is also racist.

Just because he doesn't like black people doesn't mean he's racist.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Enh. I think every single insult he thinks of is based on his junior high-level brain. I'm never that impressed. What's annoying is that the media picks it up and repeats it, whether it's a nickname or some stupid "dad killed JFK"-type bullshit. I'm not really giving him credit for any of this garbage.

TM

Genghis Khan was really good at besieging and sacking cities, and he made it work for him. You don't need to approve of all of the looting and slaughter to acknowledge the way those skills helped him gain political power.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

Have you considered the possibility that one reason we're so polarized might be that we have an intentionally unrepresentative federal government?

Of course. What do you think got Trump elected? When the Ds are in, the conservatives feel unrepresented. When the Rs are in, liberals and progressives feel unrepresented.

Nobody recalls, you can’t always get what you want. And sometimes, you don’t even get what you think you need.

For 8 years, we heard rabid Bush hatred. For 8 more, we heard rabid Obama hatred. Trump is a ratcheting up of the process. Whatever follows him will be an extreme reaction to him. It appears likely to go one of two ways. Either a moderate is elected as a reaction to and rejection of the craziness that was Trump, or an extreme progressive will be elected as a fight-fire-with-Fire response to Trump.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Are we all in agreement that Trump is the dumbest person to ever hold national office? People keep arguing that he says things like, "Wind noise gives you cancer" because he loves fossil fuel and wants to mislead his base. But even if you believe he knows how ridiculously stupid that statement is (and I don't), the fact that he thinks he can influence people by saying it is, in itself, beyond stupid.

TM

Harding? He was supposedly an imbecile.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Genghis Khan was really good at besieging and sacking cities, and he made it work for him. You don't need to approve of all of the looting and slaughter to acknowledge the way those skills helped him gain political power.

Smart’s cheap.

You know the Colonel Kurtz speech about the effectiveness of being willing to hack off arms. That’s too frequently the difference between the politically powerful and everybody else.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

George Conway is right. He is either mentally ill or quickly declining mentally. Ignoring the fact that he is a racist, narcissistic, insecure baby, it certainly appears that he is having a lot of trouble speaking clearly. Cognitively, something is wrong. While I'm sure he's always been an asshole, he has, in the past (but unlike now), been able to speak coherently and...make sense. Conway linked to an interview of Trump from the 80s and that Trump sounds totally different than 2019 Trump. "Articulate and coherent" according to Conway. If my uncle spoke like 2019 Trump, I'd tell my mom to get him to a doctor immediately.

He’s so out of his element he has no idea which decision to make. Allegedly, in business, he rarely planned anything. Subordinates did that. He had some bright CFO who died in a helicopter accident. I think this was the guy who told him not to buy the Taj. After that guy died, Trump’s businesses started cratering.

Trump is a creation of early assymetric returns. He bet on NYC at a time when r/e was cheap. That move cemented a reputation as a shrewd deal maker which he’s proven to have been the product of dumb luck more than anything else ever since.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Harding? He was supposedly an imbecile.

Not even in the same league. I suspect you'll need to go back in time to find a syphilitic royal to find any government leader who compares.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Why don't you love your crazy uncle and how come you are siding with foreigners and effete liberal snobs over him?

Because the snobs are usually unqualified?

The best course is simply to get drunk uncle plastered until he passes out. I’m still working on the cure for faux snobs. They’re usually too worried about the facade slipping to get them drunk enough to pass out.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Not even in the same league. I suspect you'll need to go back in time to find a syphilitic royal to find any government leader who compares.

Grant was loaded much of his tenure. Does chemically compromised count?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Of course. What do you think got Trump elected? When the Ds are in, the conservatives feel unrepresented. When the Rs are in, liberals and progressives feel unrepresented.

Nobody recalls, you can’t always get what you want. And sometimes, you don’t even get what you think you need.

For 8 years, we heard rabid Bush hatred. For 8 more, we heard rabid Obama hatred. Trump is a ratcheting up of the process. Whatever follows him will be an extreme reaction to him. It appears likely to go one of two ways. Either a moderate is elected as a reaction to and rejection of the craziness that was Trump, or an extreme progressive will be elected as a fight-fire-with-Fire response to Trump.

For years, Democrats have wanted bipartisan government, and Republicans have not. A certain kind of moderate Democrat has a fetish for bipartisanship. See here, for example.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I'm assuming he just says whatever pops in his brain? Someone made a joke years ago that windmills will be found to cause cancer, and it floated up to the surface of the soup that is his brain as maybe truth. It also helps that he doesn't care if he is flat out lying. He obviously won't take any handling.

To be honest, Reagan might have been really dumb too, but his speeches were micro-managed.

Trump is not technically dumb. I also don’t think him exclusively narcissistic. Insecurity appears his greatest malady. Somebody made this kid feel like he could never cease proving himself when he was little. He’s chasing something and doesn’t even know what it is. Howard Stern has it right: His fragile ego is incompatible with the constant negative attention that comes with the Presidency, and we are watching a raving breakdown in real time.

The only scary thing with Trump is he does not internalize. His survival is proof of that. With his diet, stress, and sleep habits, and the expenditure of energy involved in constant lying, he’d have died long ago if he internalized. His release is to lash out, in increasingly extreme ways.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Grant was loaded much of his tenure. Does chemically compromised count?

I'd take a loaded Grant over almost all the other Presidents. He was a tremendous President.