If you had any doubt that the Former Guy (and Republicans in general) would be escalating like genocidal motherfuckers, here is your reminder that that's exactly what they'd do:
@moira The funny thing is, whenever I see a post like this, I never know whether the quote is going to be coherent or not.
I never know whether to feel positive or negative that Trump has managed to actually convey a coherent thought.
One hand, hey! Congrats on stringing some words together. On the other hand, these are the words you chose?
@volkris It's a mistake, imo, to think of him as actually incoherent.
He uses word salad intentionally, so that his followers can hear what they want to hear, picking - making - the meanings they like out of ambiguity.
Think of it as akin to mob-boss speak, wherein one doesn't issue direct orders, one merely states what one would like to happen - or what problem one might like solved - without ever actually giving a direct order.
Same kind of thing.
@moira I would generally agree, except I take it a step further and think that it might be kind of a learned behavior, where he has been doing it so long with positive reinforcement that he might not be able to actually stop now.
It's a kind of thing that seems to have. Happened to so many public figures over the years, where they adopt kind of a caricature for the cameras and over time end up becoming the thing that they at first were just pretending to be.
It doesn't really matter either way, but personally I suspect Trump has become the moron he was initially pretending to be.
@moira I think the problem is the way so many people, both his supporters and especially his detractors paper over this.
Like, Trump mumbles out some word salad and as you said, his supporters mix that into some message that they want to hear and they cheer for it. But what do his critics do? They also mix it into some message that they can get their side to yell against. I really wish the critics would bash the guy for not being able to speak English.
I think it would do a whole lot more to deflate Trump by calling him out for not being able to put together coherent thoughts than to pretend like he's putting together solid proposals that are just bad.
(And yes, through this I am saying not able to, but you can read that as not willing to)
Trump's supporters are always going to take him seriously, but the rest of us give him way too much credit when we don't lampoon him for being unable to speak.
I really think that in all this time we should have been calling him out, especially for the times. He's botched the conservative perspective, saying things that go against Republicans because he's just that damn stupid, but we gave him a pass when really we should have been highlighting things that would have eroded his support on the right.
@moira sorry for the double reply but I had one more example along the same line:
I remember how during Trump's early campaigns he managed to put together some words that would indicate a position that wasn't in keeping with Republican positions because he was too damn stupid to know what the Republican position was.
Later he would correct his position, and Republicans would pretend like it was what he said all along, but the unfortunate thing was that Trump's opponents would play along as well, bashing the guy for having the normal Republican position instead of pointing out that his position had waffled.
So it's the same sort of thing: The guy is really empowered by how we all handle him, how we all overlook just how empty and vapid he is instead of puncturing that balloon.
But then, a lot of politicians and organizations profit off of attacking him as a strong man instead of pointing out that he's really not one.
@volkris Not seeing Trump bashed for word salad incoherence _really_ does not line up with my experience. I've seen a lot of that since the beginning, from his opponents - at least, outside the Republican party.
It didn't seem to make a dent, though, and for a while it got to the level of people trying _too_ hard - where you get these "what the fuckery does this even mean?" where honestly, with even a _normal_ good-faith meaning, the intent is reasonably clear. (Sometimes.)
I still see it, for that matter. The late-nite hosts were going at him just a couple of days ago, what was the most recent one... oh yeah, that "U.S. spells us" business:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bbObqQlOM4
So people are doing it. And have been. It just doesn't seem to stick.
@moira hm it's entirely possible that the bashing is happening just where I don't normally see it.
But yeah, especially on social media I see him being taken seriously with people promoting their interpretations of his words, so that's just the sample that I end up seeing. Also, outfits like BBC and NPR seem to also buy in to the interpretations of his words.
So yeah maybe late night shows are calling him out, and I hope they are.
@volkris That seems reasonable to me.
But given that the external behaviour doesn't change, I think one must still act as if he's as big a problem as he has been, historically.
If you're right - and I hope you are - any such slow metal breakdown should reach a critical point as his legal situation continues to degrade, and hopefully he will break sometime next summer, hopefully very much in public.