FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2024
Is Donald Trump mentally ill? Is the Republican candidate, Donald J. Trump, (some version of) mentally ill?
We regard that as one of the major questions to emerge from the current campaign. A second major question would be this:
Are we the people—are we humans—really built for this line of work?
By that second question, we mean the following:
Given our basic wiring, are we humans built for the task of running a modern "democracy?' Are we built for the (relatively recent) task of adhering to "Enlightenment values?"
Also are we built for the task of maintaining a "rational" discourse? Or is something else possible?
Is it possible that certain new realities—the so-called "democratization of media; the relative ease of international travel—have created a world which is "now too much for us," to borrow an old phrase from Frost?
Have those new realities created a world within which we aren't equipped to function? So it goes as we ask you, once again, if Donald Trump may be "mentally ill."
Is Donald Trump "mentally ill?" We've routinely put such terms inside scare quotes because the very concept of "mental illness" remains remarkably fuzzy.
Is "mental illness" simply a metaphor, in which we draw a fuzzy comparison with the more straightforward concept of physical illness?
No one doubts that measles is real, but is "sociopathy" (to cite one example) some equivalent manifestation? Or is "sociopathy" (to cite one example) simply a form of bad behavior?
Is "mental illness" just an excuse? Here's part of the leading authority's profile of Thomas Szasz:
Thomas Szasz
Thomas Stephen Szasz (1920 – 2012) was a Hungarian-American academic and psychiatrist. He served for most of his career as professor of psychiatry at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University. A distinguished lifetime fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a life member of the American Psychoanalytic Association, he was best known as a social critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry...
[...]
Mental illness is a myth
In Szasz's view, people who are said to have a mental illness only have "problems in living." Diagnoses of "mental illness" or "mental disorder" are passed off as scientific but are judgments (of disdain) to support certain uses of power by authorities. In that line of thinking, schizophrenia becomes not the name of a disease entity but a judgment of extreme psychiatric and social disapprobation. Szasz called schizophrenia "the sacred symbol of psychiatry" because those so labeled have long provided and continue to provide justification for psychiatric theories, treatments, abuses, and reforms.
He argued that psychiatry is a pseudoscience that parodies medicine by using medical-sounding words...
And so on from there. That said, we restate our first question:
Is Donald Trump some version of mentally ill? In our view, this is the one of the seminal questions which has emerged from the current campaign. Nor is he the only major public figure concerning whom this question might well be asked.
Is Trump some version of mentally ill? As we've repeatedly noted, it's a question our high-end journalists have agreed that we must never explore. That too is part of the second question we ask:
As a species, are we humans built for the current task? As a species, are we humans built for the modern world's ongoing moral and intellectual challenges?
Is the one candidate mentally ill? We think it's a seminal question!
However you want to parse that question, there he sat, just yesterday, saying such things as you can see below. We compliment the Washington Post for the way it has chosen to report this matter:
Trump suggests ‘war hawk’ Liz Cheney should have guns ‘trained on her face’
GLENDALE, Ariz. — Former president Donald Trump appeared to suggest on Thursday that former congresswoman and longtime Trump critic Liz Cheney should be subjected to gunfire as he called her a “war hawk,” saying during a live event with Tucker Carlson, “Let’s see how she feels about it,” with guns “trained on her face” as a target.
Trump went on a tangent about his pardon of Lewis “Scooter” Libby, a former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, and then talked about Liz Cheney—the former vice president’s daughter, who broke with the GOP to denounce Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“His daughter is a very dumb individual, very dumb,” Trump said. “She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.”
“They’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building, saying, ‘Oh gee, let’s send 10,000 troops right in the mouth of the enemy,’” he added.
We'll note that the headline understates what the candidate seems to have said.
The candidate didn't simply say that Cheney "should have guns trained on her face." In his usual jumbled fashion, he also seemed to say that she should have to stand there "with nine barrels shooting at her."
She should have to face, and be shot by, a firing squad! That said, the Post's report about the candidate's behavior continues directly as shown:
Trump also attacked several other prominent Republicans who have criticized him, closing out one of his final days on the campaign trail with an event that seemed geared toward his base rather than swing voters.
He called his former national security adviser John Bolton a “nut job” and a “moron.”
“I could see his face get red, red, red, with that stupid white mustache, and he’d be ready to explode,” Trump said. “When Kim Jong Un saw him, he said: ‘Oh s---. I think the guy wants to go to war.’ So he was great for me to negotiate with.”
He mocked “crying Adam Kinzinger,” the former Republican congressman who was part of a Democratic-led House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.
“They’re not select—they’re scum,” Trump said of the committee.
And he went after Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California), describing him as a “watermelon head,” “real scum” and “unattractive both inside and out.”
For better or worse, this is highly unusual conduct by a major party presidential nominee. In our view, the New York Times has broken its back, down through the years, in its refusal to treat this departure from American norms as a major front-page news framework.
This kind of behavior by Candidate Trump's represents a giant departure from traditional American norms. We think such departures from long-standing norms is major news whenever it happens. But does it suggest the possibility that the candidate is mentally ill?
For better or worse, the entire upper-end press corps has agreed that we must never ask. That said, Trump was speaking to Tucker Carlson yesterday when he made those unusual remarks. As reported at Mediaite, here is the latest on him:
Tucker Carlson Says Demon Attack Left Him Bleeding In His Bed With ‘Claw Mark’ Scars
Tucker Carlson said that he was “physically mauled” by a demon a year and a half ago that left him bleeding and with still-visible scars on his body from “claw marks” in a clip posted by the “Christianities?” YouTube channel on Thursday.
Asked by his interlocutor, John Heers, if he thought “the presence of evil is kickstarting people to wonder about the good?” Carlson answered “That’s what happened to me,” before recounting the story.
“I had a direct experience with it,” said Carlson.
“In the milieu of journalism?” asked Heers.
“No, in my bed at night,” replied Carlson. “And I got attacked while I was asleep with my wife and four dogs and mauled, physically mauled.”
“In a spiritual attack by a demon?” inquired Heers.
“Yeah, by a demon,” affirmed Carlson. “Or by something unseen that left claw marks on my sides.”
In his report at Mediaite, Isaac Schorr transcribes more of Carlson's remarks.
Carlson's remarks are part of the trailer for a forthcoming documentary film. You can see the videotape of Carlson's fuller remarks at the Mediaite report, or simply by clicking here.
Was Tucker Carlson clawed by a demon eighteen months ago? Did he "rise from his warm bed," bleeding, while his wife and his four dogs slept?
So the gentleman has now said. Yesterday, he was the conduit for Candidate Trump's array of insults—and for his evocation of violence against Cheney.
All in all, riddle us this:
Are we humans, as a species, built for this modern world? Given our basic wiring, are we built for a post-Enlightenment world? Are we built for a world in which we are assumed to be "the rational animal?"
It seems to us that these are the basic questions which have emerged from our current campaign. It seems to us that our major news orgs have refused, every step of the way, to address these basic questions.
Is it possible that Trump is mentally ill? "Mental illness" is a fuzzy concept, and our high-ranking journalists seem happy to keep it that way.
(Quite often, these journalists "went to the finest schools." As we've noted in the past, we're not always entirely sure why they bothered to do that.)
Is it possible that Candidate Trump is mentally ill? We've long assumed that he is.
We've always recommended pity for people so afflicted, if that is the appropriate term—for the loss of human potential brought on by such afflictions. We've often suggested that Bob Dylan foresaw the coming of this particular beast way back in 1967:
I pity the poor immigrant
I pity the poor immigrant
Who wishes he would've stayed home
Who uses all his power to do evil
But in the end is always left so alone
That man whom with his fingers cheats
Who lies with every breath
Who passionately hates his life
And likewise fears his death
[...]
Who eats but is not satisfied
Who hears but does not see
Who falls in love with wealth itself
And turns his back on me
For those inclined to become upset, "immigrant" is a metaphor here. This prophetic song wasn't a news report.
In our view, Candidate Harris has shown herself to have what Oliver Wendell Holmes once described as "a first-class temperament" during this campaign. (Holmes was speaking of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.)
She has often seemed to do a very poor job answering basic questions. That said, she's never lost her cool or abandoned her basic decency. We've come to greatly admire her for that.
We're hoping that she emerges next Tuesday night as the winner of this election—though if she does, the civil war will only be starting then.
We'll almost surely have more on "mental illness" next week. We may even recall our many radio appearances with Professor Richard Vatz, who literally wrote the book about Szasz while qualifying as the nicest guy in the world.
"Mental illness" seems to be all around us at present! In certain obvious ways, the term may seem to be a metaphor. That said, it cloaks a much more basic question:
Are we the people—are we humans—built for this modern assignment? In Lincoln's words, are we equipped to succeed with "a task before [us] greater than that which rested upon Washington?"
Are we humans built for this work? Also, is it possible that one of our candidates may be mentally ill?
ReplyDeleteI am so joyful! I can't stop giggling!
Y'all are some version of mentally ill!
Hope the ball-tanning works out for you.
Delete
DeleteYou are a motherless child! This is such a joy!
Y'all are Adolf Hitlers!
Yeah, the first few ball-tanning sessions can produce irrational exuberance. I'd go easy the next few days.
DeleteI am sending my Message of Joy to all you Hitlers!
DeleteI was accosted by a succubus who left a hickey on my neck as my wife and our six wolverines slept nearby.
ReplyDeleteThis is too silly. Carlson was mauled but Somerby is worrying about whether Trump is mentally ill? Szasz is not worth talking about in an age when the reality of mental illness has been confirmed by neuroimaging and anyone who has ever had a sick family member. Somerby's essay today is insulting. I am worried about whether Somerby is mentally ill, but that is nothing new.
ReplyDeleteThis. Thank you.
Delete10:15 - "the reality of mental illness has been confirmed by neuroimaging"
DeleteGoogle - "Brain scans alone cannot be used to diagnose a mental disorder, such as autism, anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder."
You understand the difference between "confirm" and "diagnose" don't you.
DeleteObviously you must, so please explain how brain scans can "confirm the reality of mental illness" when they cannot "diagnose a mental disorder."
DeleteMoreso PP does not seem to understand the difference between necessary and sufficient.
DeleteAs is the case with everything in human life, there is a dance between nature and nurture.
PP is a right wing adult cosplaying as a child in order to bait and trigger "libs".
Best to ignore.
There isn't space here to teach PP about neuroscience and what a brain scan is, nor about neurotransmitters in various areas of the brain, how they facilitate thinking, and how they are different in those who are diagnosed with mental illness based on behavioral symptoms.
DeleteHere is an example of research examining the neural substrate for mental illness, in this case schizophrenia:
Unmasking schizophrenia: synaptic pruning in adolescence reveals a latent physiological vulnerability in prefrontal recurrent networks
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9870034/#:~:text=There%20is%20accumulating%20evidence%20that,%2C%20insufficient%20synaptogenesis%2C%20or%20both.
What makes PP think that schizophrenia cannot be diagnosed? It is diagnosed routinely. Szasz was a crackpot and modern science has left his wrong-headed ideas behind.
"Theories of the pathophysiology in schizophrenia are converging on the synapse. This special issue collects papers from leading researchers that suggest a hypothesis that multiple factors spanning many levels lead to synaptic dysfunction in recurrent circuits in prefrontal cortex."
I think it was Vonnegut who said if you can’t explain it, you don’t understand it.
Delete10:09 - If you’re laboring under the mistaken belief that I’m right wing then you must be even dumber than you sound.
DeleteWhy would someone think PP, who defends Somerby's repeating of Right-wing grievances, is right wing?
DeleteIf Vonnegut meant that to apply to science, he was a moron. People spend years in school learning to understand complex fields. PP is repeating Somerby's vapid complaint that Einstein should have been able to explain his theories to him or else Einstein didn't understand his own work. It would make a lot of sense if PP were Somerby in disguise.
Delete10:13 - No, Somerby is smarter than I am, because he doesn’t bother with the likes of you.
DeleteOh, and BTW, Somerby never said Einstein didn’t understand his theory. Jeez.
DeleteApril Fool's Day is for writing nonsense. Yesterday was the day you give out candy to children. Somerby needs to cast his ballot and leave it at that.
ReplyDeleteGrifters gonna grift:
ReplyDeleteUnpaid bills haunt Trump's Halloween rally in Albuquerque, leave campaign scrambling for venue
https://www.salon.com/2024/10/31/unpaid-bills-haunt-halloween-rally-in-albuquerque-leave-campaign-scrambling-for-venue/?in_brief=true
I think Trump makes a good point. Liz Cheney is a despicable warmonger. Let's see her go fight. The only problem is Trump is just as bad as she is and is lying to his supporters by positioning himself as if he's unlike her.
ReplyDeleteCome you masters of war
You that build the big guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks
You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly
You fasten all the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you sit back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
While the young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud
Trump is many things. Murderous warmonger like Dick and Liz Cheney isn't one of them.
DeleteRemarkably, he's worse.
DeleteWorse than a murderous warmonger? Democrats have lost the plot.
Delete12:54, don't worry, Boris, Liz Cheney won't be in charge of Harris' foreign policy. democrats are pretty clear about the plot and will remain pure. Now tell us about what RFK Jr.'s role will be specifically, asshole. And Elon's role. What will he be doing, specifically? Will it include trips to Moscow every now and then? And while we're at it, let me know what Trump's business relationship is with Saudi Arabia.
DeleteMiriam Adelson just handed a cool $100 million to Trump's campaign in exchange for Trump's pledge to support Israel annexing the West Bank. I wonder if that will cause and repercussions in the Middle East?
Trump, during his reign, bombed various places, increased drone attacks exponentially, assassinated people, allowed Putin to militarize, cowered to Putin by letting Putin keep Crimea, and of course directly caused hundreds of thousands of Americans to unnecessarily die from Covid.
DeleteIn reality, Trump had more American military deaths under his watch than Biden has.
Trump has a long history of disdain for our brave soldiers, calling them suckers and losers, and then when presented with the bill for a funeral for a Latin-American murdered at Fort Hood, Trump exclaimed that it should not cost that much to "bury a fucking Mexican".
Trump is no more a pacifist than Hitler.
JD Vance: Trump is America's Hitler
Trump: I am not Hitler
It is true, Hitler never raped a 13yo like Trump has, telling his victim she reminded him of his own daughter before assaulting her.
We all recall Donny J "bonespurs" Chickenshit marching in protests of the Vietnam war. LOL
DeleteTrump says his father was a good man.
DeleteHis dad marched with the KKK and then refused to rent to Black people.
His dad left Trump with almost half a billion dollars, which Trump then wasted on failed businesses, going bankrupt six times before being bailed out by foreign bad actors like Russian oligarchs and corrupt Saudis and a "reality" tv show.
"Reality" tv shows are in fact scripted, it is a con. The fact that an ignorant, corrupt, and criminal lost soul like Trump can arise from "reality" tv to become president, well demonstrates the perniciousness of storytelling, the same kind of storytelling Somerby uses here to bolster his nonsense. Somerby is too lazy and too poor of a thinker to bother with actual evidence.
You have no idea what your talking about. Somerby generally quotes with precision in his analysis.
DeleteSomerby's "quotes" never are on offer to substantiate his claims, they are, by design, meant to evoke an emotional response, as we often see here, the typical response is as if the fanboys see Somerby as a damsel in distress tied down on the railroad tracks, with Dems off to the side twirling their mustache. But brother, please, Somerby is a clown.
DeleteQuoting "with precision" is not analysis.
DeleteThere are stories about Hitler committing rape/incest with Geli Raubal, who lived in the same home with Hitler and committed suicide after telling a friend that Hitler had been sexually abusing her.
DeleteFair enough.
DeleteJD Vance seems to have gotten it right then.
JD Vance: Trump is America's Hitler
Although he could have put it this way too: Trump is America's serial rapist/sexual assaulter
We humans are not typified by Carlson or Trump or even by Somerby.
ReplyDeleteFor most mentally ill people, their illness is characterized by emotional pain and a greal deal of suffering. The idea of someone happy in their delusions is not what most mentally ill people experience. In real life, the voices in someone's head scold them and tell them they are shit. Schizophrenics tend to live in fear of everything around them, not least that they may hurt someone else in striking out against tormenters. A person with OCD has so many rituals that they cannot live freely, again to stave off anxiety and intrusive thoughts of doing harm. Depression is hell.
ReplyDeleteWhen someone like Szasz suggests that it may be society that is ill and the sane healthy, he ignores the pain that is obvious to those who care for the mentally ill. That makes quoting Szasz (who was left by the wayside back in the 70s) an insult to the suffering and their friends and families. If Somerby had half a brain he wouldn't be using Szasz to promote his personal agenda like this, and suggesting that there is no such thing as mental illness (as Szasz does), or that the medical model is inappropriate for treating social disorder, which flies in the face of modern treatment and our ability to observe what is going wrong in disordered brains.
It doesn't matter what specifically is wrong with people like Carlson and Trump and Somerby. It matters only that we try to help them when we can by keeping them from hurting themselves or others, and that we protect our society from their instability. Vote for Harris, who is obviously sane. Then if you want to help Trump, contribute to a charity to help the mentally ill. Don't send Trump money and don't vote for him, if you care about anything but owning the libs. And if you do care about owning libs, go next door and spit on your neighbor, but please leave our nation intact to function as a government, for the well-being of the people. Leave dictators in the past and let Trump find his own way out the door.
insane healthy
DeleteIt sounds to me like Tucker is going for the ultimate grift with the Pat Robertson rubes and the rest of the snake handlers. There's good money to be had. He has obviously abandoned any idea of making a career as a serious journalist.
ReplyDeleteIn bed with his wife and four dogs. That’s a good husband.
ReplyDeleteHe probably failed to mention a transgender neighbor who was sharing their bed as well.
DeleteSounds like a party.
DeleteGiven his sleeping arrangements, if Tucker woke up with deep scratches on his back, there are some obvious suspects, e.g. his "wife".
DeleteIlya, oh, so you’re automatically exonerating the tranny, huh?
DeleteHe is in bed with four (!!!) dogs, wakes up scratched, and some bleeding from the scratches, and blames it on a "demon"??? Not one of the dogs?? Has Tucker lost it (or lost it even more?)? seems so, if this is true. Or just pandering to the fundamentalists as someone plausibly suggested here. Cecilia, can you explain this phenomenal event?
DeleteAC/MA, of course, I can’t explain it.
DeleteThis phenomenon was portrayed in the movie, The Sixth Sense. The little boy of “I see dead people” had scratches on his body from ghosts trying to get his attention. Years earlier, my grandmother had told me of an experience she had that was similar to Tucker’s (but less violent), so years later, it was interesting to see it portrayed in the movie. While in college, I’d had a coworker tell me the same thing.happened to her.
I can’t explain it. Obviously, if you’re a believer in something beyond the material world, it’s not going to be completely outlandish to your thinking.
thanks for responding Cecilia. We adopted a Yorkie-poo, a rescue dog, about a year ago, he weighs 9 pounds. He has claws, which is typical of dogs. He likes to play rough sometimes, and his claws can scratch. Isn't it more likely that if this pundit got scratched when in bed for the night with four dogs that he got scratched by one of the dogs? I'll believe in demons when I see one,
DeleteNo demons, but plenty of ghouls, who are fine with women dying, instead of getting reproductive healthcare.
DeleteAC/MA, yes, it’s far and away more plausible that it was a dog scratch. Tucker said that the hounds and his wife were all asleep and that the attack was vicious.
DeleteI don’t know. There’s been Catholic exorcists who say that scratches appear on the bodies of the person being exorcised. In places they couldn’t reach.
It’s really moot to talk about to someone who isn’t inclined to entertain any possibility that someone unexplainable happened. That’s ok. You have every right to think like that. Initially, I took your question as an attempt to try make a bit of fun of me and people who aren’t atheists. That would have been alright too, it’s all ripe for humor,, but you didn’t do that.
Oops, Inmeantvto say—- It’s really moot to talk about it with someone who isn’t inclined to entertain any possibility that something unexplainable happened.
DeleteThe go-to explanation must involve reality. The supernatural only comes into the picture if the natural world has no explanation (known to science, not to any given ignorant individual). Where reality contradicts religion (such as in the age of our planet) then reality provides the compelling explanation and religion must give way, as it has already done throughout time. When something is "unexplainable" that doesn't default to a religious explanation, because of the long history of religion providing ridiculously wrong explanations of things that are now well understand by scientists.
DeletePeople who believe these kinds of fantastical stories leave themselves open to exploitation by charlatans.
Mike Oldfield at age 19 composed, performed, and recorded Tubular Bells in '73 before The Exorcist was filmed. It was then used in the film, but it is also considered one of the greatest pieces of music produced in modern times.
DeleteOver the next decades, Oldfield became one of the biggest selling musical artists in Europe, although largely ignored in the US.
Oldfield these days is a recluse living on an island somewhere, and when asked about Trump a few years ago, his answer was a bit murky.
Sometimes you have to separate the artist from the art, just like separating faith from evidence.
There is no credible evidence of anything supernatural, people believe in such nonsense based on faith.
Faith is the worst basis for believing anything, it is a signal that something is wrong in the head.
Just as likely, these sad folks that claim to believe in the supernatural, are being disingenuous, are in fact getting off on trying to make others feel uncomfortable, a way of attaining some feeling of dominance.
Worse are folks like Tucker and others that engage in things like the "prosperity theology", where grifters take advantage of the wounded lost souls in our society.
Cecilia, many are familiar with the line in Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto about religion - that it is the "opiate of the masses" - less might be aware of the words that directly follow: "it's the heart of a heartless world."
DeleteAC/MA, I didn’t know that. Nice.
DeleteDemocrats are so desperate they're running on defending the vile war criminal Cheneys who lied us into war and killed hundreds of thousands. This election couldn't be any funnier and Democrats couldn't be more broken.
ReplyDeleteHow many republican lawmakers supported that war in Iraq and are now supporting Donald J Chickenshit?
DeleteMost of them. Cheneys are murderers.
DeleteSo is Lindsey Graham, who lives up trump's ass.
DeleteTrump also supported the Iraq war.
DeleteNo Dem is "defending" Cheney.
Arnold Schwarzenegger recently endorsed Harris and is voting for her.
Dems are not "defending" the massive amount of Republicans voting for Harris, it is just a circumstance that is happening because Trump is that bad.
The Democratic Party morphed into the Republican Party. Democrats are neocons now. They pulled a fast one on their rank and file supporters - many of whom don't even realize they are now Republicans. Indignant, obtuse commenters here will post pieces from the fucking Bulwark not realizing it is pure neocon propaganda. Here are their editors bragging how neocons took over the Democratic Party.
Deletehttps://x.com/AuronMacintyre/status/1852072746592727547
"The Democratic Party morphed into the Republican Party."
DeleteTo a large extent, true. What has the Republican Paty morphed into?
A cult of personality devoted to the Big Lie at their Dear Leader's insistence, and otherwise believes whatever they see on the internet that makes them feel good.
I wouldn't describe it like that. I would describe it as a populist movement fed up with our losing foreign policy ambitions and ineffective, poorly run government run by avericious narcissists who are being led by a complete charlatan showman who has no plans to change any it. So kind of like Clinton Democrats But they are the populists now, which is a good place to be around election time.
Delete" led by a complete charlatan showman"
DeleteLet's see, which candidate better fits that description....I'm thinking....I'm thinking... thinking strange phrases are entering my mind: Trump University.... thinking.... Trump bibles..... still thinking....can't admit he lost an election everyone knows he lost....oh this is a hard one.
Yes, that was referring to Trump.
Delete(It's written confusingly)
DeleteI’d describe it as a populist movement, frustrated with our failed foreign policy ambitions and our ineffective, poorly run government led by avaricious narcissists—who are now rallying behind a complete charlatan showman with no plans to change any of it.
So kind of like Clinton Democrats But they are the populists now, which is a good place to be around election time.
anon 5:29 you left out the part where god intervened and diverted the bullet from hitting him through the eyes, in order to save the country, and probably the entire world. That's pretty strong reason to support Trump, I/m surprised you left that out.
DeleteMeh.
DeleteRepublican voters don't care about any of that stuff.
They're just in it for the bigotry.
Regan opened the door to bigotry in the guise of religion, and Trump kicked it off the hinges.
“complete charlatan showman”
DeleteStill thinking….strange phrases that won’t leave me alone:….orange make-up….falsified business records….election interference….classified docs in the john…multiple bankruptcies….Which candidate is the ‘complete charlatan showman’?
So hard to tell.
7:46 Why is it hard to tell?
Delete7:10 Thanks for letting me know.
Sorry, I was being sarcastic. it's really easy to tell because you were dumb enough to pick the two words in the English language that fit Trump to a tee: charlatan and showman. Yet you applied them to Harris.
Delete"To a large extent, true", this claim is just not borne out.
DeleteTo some extent, with Clinton and Obama, yes, in the sense that they both endorsed neoliberalism, but otherwise absolutely not.
In reality, Biden has been our most progressive president (with the exception of his policies related to Israel) since FDR.
I never applied them to Harris.
DeleteIf so, then my apologies. But then your comment, even in its revision, is very confusingly written.
DeleteWas "that was referring to Trump" confusing for you?
DeleteDemocrats are now GOP Republicans with adjustments for wedge issues. "Republicans" are now MAGA which is a populist spinoff akin to Clinton Democrats with rhetoric and appeals that tap into the frustrations of Americans who feel left behind by the political establishment. But Trump has no real plan to do anything for them and no record of doing anything for them in his first term. He's totally full of shit.
But his campaign rhetoric of empathy for working- and middle-class Americans is really smart and is probably going to put the Democratic party on its ass. In national politics, when a party abandons its populist appeal, like the Democratic Party has, it leaves it sitting there unclaimed. And when that happens, you can be sure a charlatan huckster will come along and take it for themselves to use to their advantage.
I think they may keep calling it the Democratic Party but it is now a new, right wing Republican Party. It took 20 years for one party to morph into the other.
The Republican Party supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
DeleteIt took a year, or two, for them to morph into the new KKK.
"She has often seemed to do a very poor job answering basic questions.
ReplyDeleteRubbish.
I've been ruining many a Thanksgiving since the 60's holding forth in the most incendiary language about how animals like Liz Cheney send young men to their deaths in foreign wars while they sit on their fat lazy asses and cheer on the slaughter.
ReplyDeleteThis is the first time I've nodded with a Trump remark.
Was Liz Cheney in office at the time GW Bush lied us into the invasion of Iraq? Why don't you fuck off, Boris.
DeleteShe's a war criminal just like Dad.
Delete"Was Liz Cheney in office at the time GW Bush lied us into the invasion of Iraq?"
DeleteIt’s great that Liz Cheney is supporting Kamala but facts are facts. She helped lie us into Iraq and that lie was a huge contributor to the rise of Trumpism and its distrust of elites and expertise:
“Liz Cheney, who was deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs during this stretch, supported the war—and has defended it ever since.”
‘She has long been one of the nation’s most forceful advocates of those policies, including the 2003 Iraq war. During the 2004 Presidential campaign, Liz called “liberating 50 million people in Iraq and Afghanistan” steps to “keep America safe” in a CNN interview. In a 2007 Washington Post op-ed, Cheney argued that, “quitting helps terrorists” and “politicians urging America to quit in Iraq should explain how we win the war on terrorism once we’ve scared all of our allies away.”’
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/05/how-liz-cheney-and-her-dad-paved-the-way-for-the-big-lie/
https://swampland.time.com/2013/09/04/how-liz-cheney-went-from-being-pro-iraq-war-to-anti-syria/
She was a stalwart Trump supporter right up to the time Trump attempted to stage a coup on our country. She is putting country above party now. Hector, why the fuck do you have to ask how high every time cynical republicans yell JUMP!
DeleteHere we go again. Donald J Chickensit waves a red cape and everyone has to run around like dumbfucks chasing it.
DeleteAs a Republican that voted for Trump, I have switched my vote to Harris. Jan 6 and the crazy Supreme Court have made it clear that Trump is a danger and Harris will make a much better president.
DeleteThere are no Democrats agreeing with or supporting many of my main views - I run a small business and I am your typical socially liberal/fiscally conservative Republican.
Many terrible people make perfectly anodyne, innocuous, or otherwise obvious points; just because you agree with those points does not mean that those terrible people are credible or should be heeded in any way.
Famously, Hitler in a speech scolded anti-Semites, yet he did what he did.
Pointing out that Cheney is a typical Republican with typical Republican views, in no way diminishes the impact of her endorsing Harris and her fear over Trump.
All it does is highlight how horrible Trump is and the danger he poses.
Pointing out Cheney's flaws (from a Democrat's perspective) in this context, indicates more of a supportive position for Trump, than any kind of credible criticism of Cheney or Democrats.
"Pointing out Cheney's flaws (from a Democrat's perspective) in this context, indicates more of a supportive position for Trump"
DeleteMy post above was more of an indication of a supportive position for reality than for the pretend-world many here prefer.
Believe it or not, Hector, I have a view of reality also.
DeleteCheney's father and George Bush created the big lie about Iraq having WMD, but Liz Cheney defended. You would hardly expect her to break with her dad over that. But she was not involved in creating that lie or the war that followed:
Deletehttps://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/05/how-liz-cheney-and-her-dad-paved-the-way-for-the-big-lie/
This is a left wing publication and even they have nothing tying Cheney to the big lie promoted by Bush and Dick Cheney.
Hitler in reality gave a speech denouncing antisemitism, what is the point of pointing that reality out?
DeleteDuh, it is only try to show Hitler in a positive light.
In the context of this election, criticizing Cheney for things unrelated to this election can only be an attempt to hurt Harris.
It is as if a hurricane is coming, and someone says well most days it is sunny so no worries.
This criticism of Cheney within the current context is specious and spurious.
Is this where we come to sing the praises of the honorable Cheney family? Lied us into war for the glory of America at the modest cost of 4500 dead US soldiers?
ReplyDeleteI'm so confused.
No, Boris, this is where we come to discuss Donald J Chickenshit publicly suggesting Liz Cheney should be shot in the face. So, fuck off.
DeletePrior to Cheney's endorsement of Harris, you and everybody else on the left would have happily volunteered to be in the firing squad for her and her super evil father.
DeleteGuess everything is forgivable when people agree with you politically.
"Guess everything is forgivable when people agree with you politically."
DeleteIncluding insurrection?
3:09, no I would not have volunteered to be in the firing squad.
DeleteI have listened to Liz Cheney speak about her endorsement of Kamala. Her stated reasons are definitely not political, they are reasons that rise above politics. If you can't understand this clear distinction, I don't know what to tell you.
Rumor has it that there are millions of people in this country eager to place JD Vance a heartbeat away from the presidency. JD Vance, owned and operated by Peter Thiel. So fuck off with your phony purity concern trolling.
ReplyDeleteI am a sane, rational person who will vote for Harris, because she is so joyful, giggles so much.
As am I.
Delete2:16,
DeleteThank you for standing up to fascism.
I slept with four dogs in my bed and when I woke up, the box of doghnuts on my nightstand had been devoured.
ReplyDeleteWhat coud explain it if not the supernatural?
QiB, at different times, I’ve had two different people tell me about having that same experience and one of them was my grandmother.
DeleteCool story.
DeleteCece: Did you granny have four dogs in her bed? Occam's razor applies here. If you have four carniverous quadrupeds in your bed and you wake up bleeding, there are some rather obvious theories to examine before you leap to assuming demons did it.
DeleteQiB, not even a cat. I get you.
DeletePretty sure the Harris campaign shat the bed here. It's got everything.
ReplyDeleteA lie debunked by millions of corrections across the internet reminding people of why they don't believe the news media.
A good argument from a Republican that used to be made by Democrats but that everyone agrees with.
An embrace of a villainous family nobody likes.
A fire lit under any complacent Trump voters.
Kamala herself repeating the distortion.
All Democrats had to do is be normal.
I'm a little familiar with the late, difficult to spell, Thomas Szasz. I would disagree with him as far as schizophrenia goes and certain other diagnosed mental illnesses. However, as far as TDH's layman's diagnosis of Trump being "mentally ill" and a "sociopath" - I would go along with Szasz - and as I've posted here before, TDH, for more than one reason, is not convincing. Whatever Trump has done or said, he did get elected POTUS - a rare feat. If the non-Red press started calling him mentally ill what good would it do. TDH asks several questions here. the world has gotten more and more complex. All kinds of norms, and customs, have been shattered, very quickly, some for the better, maybe some not (I don't go for this insistence that there are more than two "genders", for example). But change is going to happen. Nothing lasts forever. I never got Obama's slogan: "change" - it was meaningless, what kind of "change?" TDH give as examples Trump's excoriation of Liz and Dick Cheney and Bolton; these figures were despised (with some reason) by libs. They got us into Iraq, and were hard core big military proponents, right wing foreign policy. Trump, in this instance, criticizing them sounds like a moderate, anti-war figure. - I could go on and on - but thankfully for anyone reading this, I won't.
ReplyDeleteA real media criticism blog would mention "Trump being unfit for any political office" is a news story not being reported.
Delete"I never got Obama's slogan: "change" - it was meaningless, what kind of "change?"
DeleteThis should be obvious. The kind of change that puts a black man into the presidency. The slogan appears directly under Obama's picture. You need to think about the slogan in the context of who Obama is (and was at that time).
Liz Cheney served in the House from 2017 to 2023. She was not a politician during the Iraq war and had nothing to do with getting the US into it. It would be unsurprising if she supported her father, but she had no official role during Dick Cheney's term in office. She represented a Wyoming district, which would be conservative. The way people are discussing her here is inaccurate and equivalent to the way the right has been blaming Harris for whatever Biden did, even when she had not involvement.
DeleteTLDR: AC/MA is stupid.
Delete
ReplyDeleteCalling people "mentally ill" and "sociopaths" is what mentally ill sociopaths do.
Don't sell the Soviets short. They did it too.
Deleteanon 4:22 - so you're a sociopath?
DeleteTo summarize, the day's campaign news, the Democrat party and Harris campaign embrace war criminals like the Cheneys and promote lying to the public as a moral good.
ReplyDeleteA decent person has to ask, to what end?
Carville weighed in today on lying to voters (he's for it).
"The people that I find most loathsome: The wormiest, slimiest people in this: What I call, The truth teller caucus. The people out there that are such burdened with the obligation to tell the truth."
Where's the cite for that quote?
Delete4:23, that's funny, I don't see any mention of Donald J Chickenshit suggesting Liz Cheney be shot in the face by a firing squad. Did you miss that little nugget, maggot? The big brave orange chickenshit's balls shriveled up when he had the opportunity to testify to the Jan 6 Congressional Commitee, didn't they, maggot.
Delete"Trump's too much of a fascist for the Cheney's" isn't the vote-winning argument for the GOP candidate, 4:23 thinks it is.
DeleteBy the way, with all the hyperventilation, did anyone see the jobs report? 12K new! From Biden's miracle economy ... with 112K in downward revisions. Oops.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's time to stop being all religious and faith based and call bullshit when some starry-eyed zealot tries to tell you a miracle has occurred.
Job growth has been propped up by government hiring. That’s not sustainable. The chickens are coming home to roost.
DeleteSorry to rain on your parade:
Delete"the number was skewed by an ongoing strike at Boeing and by the impact of Hurricanes Milton and Helene. The unemployment rate, which is less subject to temporary distortions, held steady at 4.1% in October, according to the Labor Department report released on Friday."
In the 80's they called this "Morning in America".
DeleteDiC - About 550K govt jobs were added under Trump (before Covid), and about 590K more than the Trump peak were added under Biden. Government jobs do not explain the objectively terrific economy we’re presently experiencing.
Delete"...propped up by government hiring"
DeleteGovernment hiring includes jobs at the federal, state, and local levels. It's not some ruse perpetrated from Washington to manipulate jobs numbers. If you get down in the weeds, you'll find that many of those "government" jobs are in deep red cities or states and involve essential services.
But go on with your pat answers to every question.
Yep, 18 million chickens coming home to roost.
DeleteDemocrats spent 25 years saying that Dick Cheney's kids should have to go fight in a war and all it took was Donald Trump agreeing with them to change their minds.
ReplyDeleteThis is silly. Liz Cheney served on the 1/6 Select Committee and that is why Trump is against her and vice versa. She knows what he did and she has stated that it is unworthy of Republicans to do such things. That has nothing to do with Dick Cheney's stance on the Iraq war or anything her father said or did. Democrats didn't change their minds about anything.
DeleteWhen in the course of war does a soldier have nine barrels trained on his face? Trump's message here invokes a firing squad. His intention here, besides spewing vitriole, is debatable. He is a demented old man who may not choose his words carefully. Note the consistency of his simple minded thought: all of his adversaries are dumb, many of them genetically so. Never been a fan of the Cheneys but Liz Cheney has done a courageous thing, given the number of right wing nutcases there are out there with guns. Like the first clown that shot at Trump. Which makes his comment all the more inappropriate: that the target of an assassination attempt should talk in such terms. Military tribunals for his enemies as well. Nice touch. But demented old men sometimes talk nasty like this.
Delete7:52,
DeleteI'm getting "The USA combined forces with Soviet Russia to fight worldwide fascism in World War II" vibes from the Cheney endorsement of Harris.
When in the course of a firing squad is the target "handed a rifle"?
DeleteA Ukraine soldier with a rifle is frequently facing nine Russian barrels trained on him which is the point.
The point is that if you Ukraine hawks are so enthusiastic, get your cowardly asses over there and fight because they're out of men or shut the fuck up.
I predict:
ReplyDeleteTrump wins in a landslide or significant margin.
Thanks HF.
DeleteI predict no one will ever find a Republican voter who cares about something other than bigotry and white supremacy.
Delete