You know he do the weave, right?
Trump in cognitive decline:
When I say insane asylums, and then I say, Doctor Hannibal Lecter, does anybody know? They go crazy. They say, oh, he brings up these names out of— Well, that’s genius. Right. Doctor Hannibal Lecter. There’s nobody worse than him. Silence of the Lambs. Who the hell else would even remember that? I have a great memory, but they always hit me. I don’t bring it up too much because they have to take such a— he brought up Hannibal Lecter. What does that have to do with this? What is it? It has everything to do with it, right? He was – that’s who we’re allowing into our country, and, we don’t want to allow that into our countries, so I’ve done something for you for you that I haven’t done in 20 speeches. I brought up Doctor Hannibal Lecter and we’re allowing him, you watch, you watch these fake people will say again, he brought up Hannibal Lecter has absolutely nothing to do. You know I do the weave, right? The weave. It’s genius. You bring up Hannibal Lecter, you mention insane asylum. Hannibal Lecter. You go out, no. There’ll be a time in life where the weave won’t finish properly at the bottom and then we can talk. But right now it’s pure genius. Hey, I have an uncle, my uncle, Uncle John, my father’s brother, 41 years at MIT, longest serving professor has so many degrees, he didn’t know what the hell to do with them all in the most complicated. I understand a lot of this stuff, you know, I believe in that. Like, I mean, Jack Nicklaus is not gonna produce a bad golfer. Right. You know, that’s the way it works. It’s just one of those things and it’s in the family and it’s whatever
We’re letting Hannibal Lecter into the country? I hadn’t heard that!
The idea that his UNCLE isn’t going to put forth bad genetics is irrelevant, since his UNCLE is not his father. Even if genetics reliably worked that way. Which it doesn’t. Geniuses can produce quite ordinary children, and often do. They can even produce learning impaired children, which they often do.
Other than that – WTF? The sentences don’t even hang together…he’s getting worse, it’s obvious. And if he were a genius, he wouldn’t need to say it. All he would need to do is something so genius that everyone else would say it. Since all he does is stupid, he has to constantly tell us he’s a genius.
Reading that in the voice of Grandpa Simpson is hilarious. Reading it in the knowledge that it came from the mouth of potentially the next US president is fucking terrifying.
Yeah. 52 or so hours from now we’ll know our fate. I’m living in dread.
There’s a glimmer of hope in Iowa, where one poll has Harris ahead, thanks largely to older women.
I hope there’s more than one glimmer.
We’ll know when we know I guess; we read the tea leaves searching for certainty and it just ain’t there.
My own belief is that we should appoint politicians in the same manner that we do for jurors: names drawn out of a hat with limited right of objection from each side. Your average grubby power-seeking egomaniac would go out straight away, including the likes of Trump.
Yours and mine, Omar. It should be regarded as a civic duty, and therefore a job which everyone gets an opportunity to do.
I would add that any candidate for state, national, or federal government, before their name is eligible for the draw, should first have spent at least a decade in lower levels of government, such as parish, town and county. I’m so fed up with both career politicians and celebrities suddenly deciding to get on the bandwagon.
The most terrifying thing about this isn’t Trump’s insanity in itself – it’s the knowledge that he’ll receive a large amount of votes despite it.
I don’t think we should select them like jurors; I think we should hire them like we do teachers. Teachers are required to meet certain competency standards, know at least something about their subject, and other things that are more ineffable. Have search committees, hire them for a prescribed term, have performance evaluations, and have the ability to fire them.
It’s how we select almost everyone in every job, and in most jobs, it works reasonably well, though of course there are people who get hired above their competency level. It would likely work if you made it bipartisan (though of course, we wouldn’t need parties), independent of any branch of government, and figure out a way to select the committee that can avoid the potential for corruption from both political appointments and elections. Perhaps that would be a good place for the jury selection, but we’d have to find a way to prevent big money from rigging it.
Actually, that’s frightening enough, but I think what frightens me more is the number of votes he’ll receive because of it.
I’m not an American, but most of my family and a lot of my friends live in the US, and, of course, people here often say “when America sneezes, Canada gets pneumonia”. Anyway, what terrifies me most about a Trump victory is only partly the prospect of having Trump back as president. Worse than that, I think, is the inevitability of Vance becoming president, probably sooner rather than later.
Yes that too.
tigger @ #8:
In the US, voting at all levels, from county to federal, is optional, and some eligible people never vote in their lifetimes. But Trump is a type-specimen egotist, and his antics up there before his captivated crowds clearly say loud and clear: “I’ve get you all where I want you, and that’s in my pocket.!”
I think that arrogant attitude of his can be turned against him, for example by Harris asking Trump’s followers from in front of one of her own meetings, something like: “Do you think that Trump respects you, when he clearly believes that he has you in his pocket.? Because that is the only possible attitude he can have, being the world-class egotist that he clearly is.!” And she could add something like: “For my part, I don’t want to be in anyone’s pocket, or have anyone in my own. That is what respect is all about. But Trump has described himself as a would-be tyrant. And no tyrant in all of history has ever respected those below him. Tyrants want a following of toadies.! Don’t let him fool you into being his toady, and in his pocket.”
That does not appeal to the listeners’ egos. But it does appeal to their sense of self-worth, and self-image, and the rugged individualism first identified as a force to be reckoned with in American history by the historian Frederick Jackson Turner.
IMHO.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2023/12/11/donald-trump-dictator-one-day-reelected/71880010007/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Significance_of_the_Frontier_in_American_History