Trump cheated and got caught. So what?
Americans have learned that Trump is, indeed, a crooked, self-centered bully who uses the power of his office to get what he wants for himself.
We knew that all along.
That is his brand. Republicans like him for that.
Republicans in the House and Senate understand the same things that Republican voters understand. Donald Trump is their guy. What happens to him happens to them, so they are going to stand by their guy.
That is his brand. Republicans like him for that.
Republicans in the House and Senate understand the same things that Republican voters understand. Donald Trump is their guy. What happens to him happens to them, so they are going to stand by their guy.
Sports fans understand this. He is the star player on their team. If he is a pitcher who throws a spitball using a bit of oil hidden as hair cream, or a basketball player who flops to draw the charging foul, the fans don't mind. It is playing to win.
Trump's brand isn't virtue. It is that he bullies and pushes his way to the front to get what he and his team want. His enemies are their enemies, and if he cheats a little, it is for a good cause.
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| Push to the front |
Democrats should prepare themselves mentally for the future likelihood of Trump's re-election.
That will be the subject of future posts, but first the impeachment needs to play out, a step in that drama.
Thad Guyer follows American politics from wherever he and his laptop computer happen to be, currently Vietnam. He is an attorney with an international practice representing whistleblowers.
Guest Post by Thad Guyer
Trump is Good at Skirting Criminality-- Most Politicians Are
"Trump is just way better at it because he has the experience of a career criminal. So do bankers with massive fraudulent loans in the 2008 economic collapse, Wall-Streeters like Bernie Maddoff, and big pharma killing tens of thousands with opioids. Trump's book could be named Art of the Steal, as he manipulated contracts, banks loans, zoning laws and casino licenses for decades. You're just going to get good at getting away with quasi-criminality if you do it all the time, especially if you're being tutored by McCarthy witch-hunt lawyer Roy Cohn.
Despite the wishful if not preposterous clickbait of the liberal media that Trump "is running scared now" during stripper payoffs, emoluments, Mueller, and now impeachment, Trump has not yet broken a sweat. He has never once raised his voice.
Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff, Avanati, Brennan, and Strok are all minor league to Trump. He takes on the big boys like FBI Director James Comey (“you’re fired”), Manhattan District Attorney Preet Bahara (”you’re fired”) and Special prosecutor Robert Mueller (“you wasted $40 million with your dream teams of wannabee ‘killers’”), and one and all sent them defeated and stammering to Capitol Hill. Once you've smacked down titans like Mueller and Comey, well then, you are the Hulk growing bigger and more powerful. You feed on stadiums of tens of thousands of rally goers. You've got your Republican army in Congress, the nation's largest cable network Fox News with the New York Times and Washington Post stuck with disillusioned readers.
What other assets does Trump have that makes him good at it? A virtually invincible legal duo in Solicitor General Noel Francisco and Attorney General William Barr, who present their cases to a 5-4 Supreme Court with two of Trump’s appointments, and soon the majority of the entire federal judiciary. There’s more. He has a splintered field of 2020 Democratic contenders who are clearly not up to it, Hillary Clinton and late entrants shouting exactly that, and polls climbing with a majority of voters saying that while they themselves are against Trump, they predict his re-election.
To top it all off, like Napoleon grabbing the crown from the Pope to try it on, Trump is soon to grab victory from the Democrats mired down in their losing and likely humiliating impeachment spectacle. Yes, Trump has scaled the POTUS learning curve with his New York real estate, casino and reality TV background, and he is good at walking the line between the legal and the illegal like he is the gangway to one of his rally stages."
9 comments:
We’re doomed. Thanks, Chicken Little. I feel better now ...
Are we talking about the same Donald Trump with a 42% aggregate approval rating? The same Donald Trump who begged the voters of Kentucky and Louisiana to vote for Republican Governors, and failed. The same Donald Trump who has a plurality of voters that support his removal through impeachment?
Because if we are, I'm just going to go ahead and disagree with this blog write-up.
The narratives that linger from the McCarthy era have come to the forefront again. Why?
Because bigotry, misogyny, religious extremism, and racism are deeply systemic, not just to America, but to all human societies and are useful tools for the unscrupulous. It's like a disease that periodically infects and sickens us.
As you correctly state, criminals have infiltrated the Republic. It is the eternal struggle between good and evil with the lesson being that those who stand for American values, the real ones, can not become complacent.
Also, while I appreciate the observations I do wish you would acknowledge that there is opposition, it is growing, and while I do often feel grim I also believe it's a necessary trait for Progressives to be optimistic, if only to dampen a cynical view of human nature that is a the exclusive value of Regressives.
Reply to Mr. Stine: Be advised that EVERY democratic presidential candidate has a LOWER approval rating than Trump. EVERY ONE OF THEM. You can diss on Trump all you want, but the public thinks LESS of the democratic presidential candidates than it does Trump. Chew on that for a while.
As a first grader, before my first day of school I had learned from my older sister to watch out for eighth grade school bully "Steve" who always sat with his sycophant buddies at the back of the bus. Sure enough that first day, every seat on the bus was taken...except for one spot...at the back of the bus. "Steve" eyed me with a malicious grin as his buddies uneasily jostled and smirked.
He held out his hand to me, introduced himself and said, "Hey, kid, shake my hand." I figured that it was going to be a pretty hard squeeze, so I did what any self-respecting farm boy would do: I spit in his hand. He swung his hand to slap me but the guy next to him stopped his hand midway and said, "Leave him be, he's a Hunky like us." (Being of Hungarian descent evidently made me a temporary part of the club.)
Andrew Yang said it best last night,Trump is just a symptom of what is wrong in this country. We either stand up now against the corporate usurpation of our government, our democratic republic, or say goodbye to the great American experiment...that is really going to hurt.
Andy Seles
I delete posts that consist of quotes from Breitbart and put links to Breitbart. I don't want this site to be an aggregation site where people come to be sent elsewhere. If readers have internalized some thoughts and want to share them, great.
Peter Sage
Kevin, everything I’m reading tells me approval ratings are bad predictors. I’d be happy to hear data to prove otherwise. I think Thad and Peter are correct in saying that people need someone to vote for; not against. There are more people bullish for Trump than any one of his likely opponents.
This 2003 article shows a strong correlation between approval ratings and re-election for Presidents. https://news.gallup.com/poll/8608/reflections-presidential-job-approval-reelection-odds.aspx
Since then, George W. Bush and Barack Obama were re-elected with 50% or above approval ratings on election day. 50% is the benchmark, and makes sense for obvious reasons. George H.W. Bush, Carter, and Ford lost with approvals at 45% or below. The only outlier is Harry Truman's victory, and the polling for him was incomplete.
Yes he has to beaten on Election Day by somebody, and probably 7 people on that stage would win a General Election. People seem to be getting used to Trump's 42% polling average, but make no mistake, that's a terrible approval rating and shows poor chances for his re-election.
Thanks Kevin - appreciate the hopeful evidence. But I wonder if these empirical samples are too small to be statistically relevant. Also there are so many other differences from those times - like the state of economy, cultural mix, media impact, racial, religious and generational world-views to rely on approval ratings as a reliable data point.
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