Fight! Fight! Fight!
A salesman senses when he is losing a regular customer.
Customers lean back. They ask questions. They wonder about alternatives. Meetings get postponed. Instead of just refilling their regular order, they cut back a little but don't say why. It's little things, but they tell a story.
I will quote from Charlie's graveside speech near the end of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. Willie Loman was a salesman, Charlie said:
He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished.
Trump knows he has a spot on his hat. He doesn't need pundits or polls or staffers to tell him. He sees and feels the signs: questions about his age and dozing off; inquiries about the spot on his hand; people openly questioning his mental fitness; Marjorie Taylor Greene's betrayal, the Epstein discharge petition in the House; Democratic wins in recent elections; GOP congressmen defecting on the ACA subsidies -- the list goes on.
He planned a power play, and it began with a ruse. With an armada stationed off Venezuela, Trump scheduled a prime-time Oval Office address to the nation. All broadcast networks interrupted regular programming for the big presidential announcement.
Trump gave a partisan rally speech. That was the power play. The pundits and media got punked. Ha! Fooled you!! He said he inherited carnage and his predecessors are corrupt, foolish traitors. But he fixed immigration, taxes, the economy, public safety, everything. America is now safe, secure, envied and respected.
Nobody does it better
Makes me feel sad for the rest
Nobody does it half as good as you
Baby, you're the best
It works better when it's said about you, not by you.
I have been a salesman all my life -- fundraising in Boston, politics and investments here -- and I, too, have a feel for the telltale signs of peril for a salesman. I saw a giant "tell" last night. I saw desperation in his pressured speech and grandiosity.
When a salesman starts talking loudly and quickly, it is a tell. The salesman is trying to fill the potential void when objections might be voiced. Overselling is a tell. Superlatives and black-white absolutes can project confidence, but there is a tipping point where puffery backfires. Customers hear the overselling. Confident salespeople know it's a tell, and avoid it even when they know something is wrong. They project reliability. They communicate that they have no fear of the simple truth. They don't raise their voices.
Whether in a brokerage office, a car dealership, or at one's front door hearing a pitch from a pest-control company, we know when the salesman has moved into the "Hail, Mary" zone. The salesman starts talking about discounts, two-for-one, and money-back guarantees. Infomercials do this, because they have one brief time to make a sale or it is gone forever. Trump sounded like an infomercial on Home Shopping Network or a local ad for a business doing a close-out sale.
I am reminded of a 30-second ad from the 1980s, an ad for Dry Idea underarm deodorant:
 |
| "Never let them see you sweat." |
"There are three nevers in comedy. Never follow a better comedian. Never let hecklers have the last word. And no matter how bad a joke bombs -- although that has never happened to me -- never let them see you sweat."
Trump is watching his mandate disappear. He needs it back. He wants to be adored and feared, and it isn't quite working now. He was trying so hard not to let people see him sweat that people saw him sweat last night. He has a huge base of supporters, and they won't see it. Trump is being Trump, angry and confident as ever. I think the speech worked for them.
But on the margin, persuadable voters noticed that Trump is flailing.
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9 comments:
A telling summary of last night's gratuitous harangue. He was frenetic, rushing his lines, and practically shouting them in the process. A word for the day, perhaps? Shrinkage.
Peter, don't you ever tire of criticizing Trump daily? Unless Trump dies, then you're stuck with him for 3 more years, then he's gone. Let's discuss some of the sterling Democrat politicians, like Tina Kotek. Kotek has been running the show in Oregon for 20 years, and Oregon is a mess in more ways than one, and Tina has no skills, and she can't fix Oregon. Yet, Tina wants to run for governor again. Tina has a degree in Religion, and she spent her prior professional career working for non-profits. That's not the background of a solid, competent leader, and as we can see, Tina only exists because of Portland. Tina Kotek needs to be thrown out of office.
I care less and less what Trump says. He is diminishing as the days go by. I look forward to the day he is to small to see.
Some things are getting clearer...this is someone who is severely diminished, so much so that it's obvious that the people around him that are controlling his actions. Rubio-Venezuela, Miller-Immigration, etc. They are the ones who should be scrutinized, and now are a greater danger to the nation.
"Facing impeachment, Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, becoming the only U.S. president to do so. In total, 69 people were charged with Watergate crimes—including two cabinet members—and most pleaded guilty or were convicted." - Google AI
A classic "whataboutism."
Yes, Trump is physically and mentally unfit for our nation’s highest office, but he always has been. He’s a rude, crude, vicious, malicious convicted felon whose only talents are spreading lies and calling people stupid names. He can’t even govern his own mouth, much less a nation. Between his senility, his malevolence and his gross incompetence, he’s destroying our economy and democracy. Nonetheless, according to Real Clear Politics, his average approval rating remains over 43%. It’s shocking that so many Americans are so anti-American. When Clinton called his supporters a basket of deplorables, she was being too kind.
My Republican friends (yes, I socialize with Republicans) tell me they like what he has done. What concerns them is that the chaos is daily. Also, I've noticed fewer and fewer Trump MAGA hats and flags displayed as I drive by the weekly No Kings demonstrations.
Trump’s approval rating is getting lower. But the Democrats’ approval rating is not getting higher. People want something different.
The chaos IS what he has done. The DOGE chainsaw and White House demolition well represent his alleged accomplishments.
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