Babylon Bee: Trump playing 4D chess
Trump has revealed to reporters that Biden’s so-called “victory” in the 2020 election was actually a 4D chess plot by himself to make his own presidency look good. According to Trump, every time there’s a major crisis now, people will look back fondly on the years 2016-2020, remembering the last great golden age of America when everything was great and we had a “really handsome, extremely smart president.”
I wonder whether any NeverTrumpers are having buyer’s remorse. I doubt it, for the most part, although there’s this:
Publicly eating these words… syllable by syllable. https://t.co/BMs81sumXB
— Sam Harris (@SamHarrisOrg) August 26, 2021
To Sam Harris and the rest of the Intellectual Dark Web: Welcome to the party, pal!
Just coming around to the notion that they don’t like us. They really really don’t like us.
I commented on another blog site that I hope that anyone who voted for Biden is experiencing agonizing remorse.
I also speculated that Trump may be encouraging speculation about a 2024 run to deflect attention, and hate, from prospective candidates as long as possible; and that at an appropriate time he will announce that he is not a candidate and throw his considerable support behind a potential winner. DeSantis or Pompeo are my preferred choices because they are smart, competent and tough.
One can hope.
NeverTrumpers are either profoundly unserious people or straight up frauds and grifters, so they’ll never admit to being wrong about anything. But whatever your views on 2020 vote fraud, there were still a lot of people who voted against Trump. Some of those people are still sentient enough to notice things going to hell in a handbasket.
Real Clear Politics poll aggregator has Biden at 46.3% job approval and 50% disapproval. His approval rating has dropped almost 10 points since January.
Mike
The approval rate is far too high.
The disapproval rate is far too low.
But one may believe the polls(!) if one wishes…
(Hold on! Which polls are those again?)
File under: Poll dancing.
Harris is a cultural warrior not all that invested in political disputes. He’d be more at ease with backtracking given new data.
NeverTrumpers are either profoundly unserious people or straight up frauds and grifters, so they’ll never admit to being wrong about anything.
Embrace the power of and. Personnel changes at NR indicate that their tech industry patrons have been yanking that choke chain.
A liberal culture warrior today is the last person I’d expect to backtrack with new data.
Sam Harris’s problem, from what I can tell, is that while he has his strong convictions, he is relatively open-minded and intellectually honest. He is an old-style liberal intellectual.
He is one of the few liberals to speak clearly of the threats posed by Islam and he has taken heat for that.
I’m not expecting liberals to retweet his recantation on Biden.
“Some of those people are still sentient enough to notice things going to hell in a handbasket.”
The typical D voters I keep track of are showing no such recognition. Afghanistan, inflation, the border, not a bit of it seems to be registering. A few comments on the GOP trying to hold up the $3.5T bill, that’s about it.
physicsguy: “A few comments on the GOP trying to hold up the $3.5T bill, that’s about it.”
I’m not even hearing about that – all I hear from them are COVID, COVID, COVID, and how the “selfish” people, meaning those who have chosen to not get the COVID shot, are out to endanger us all.
The politicians’ tactic of vilifying a segment of our society is working – deflecting from the failures of the current administration and finding a scapegoat for everyone to blame. In this case it is the “selfish” who refuse to get the COVID shot.
I respond to most of these folks (or I should say about 1/4, the rest I don’t really feel safe responding to) that I’m not going to vilify any group, that I will continue to wear a mask as if I am also among the unvaccinated, and refuse to tell my company my vaccine status (when they threaten to fire me I most likely will back down – I do need an income). I tell them it is my own small way of pushing back against the vilifying of any group.
Further, I remind some of them that if they recall I said that this whole COVID thing was going to not end well and that society will be further divided since some politicians felt it was okay to call some members of the public names like knucklehead, etc. I also let them know that I so wish I was wrong.
Usually, I am met with blank stares or they rapidly change the subject. Clearly many of them are putting me in the category of crazy guy.
But, there is no talk of anything else, not the border crises, not the Afghanistan chit show, nor Biden’s dementia behavior. Nothing else but COVID.
@ Oldflyer > “I also speculated that Trump may be encouraging speculation about a 2024 run to deflect attention, and hate, from prospective candidates as long as possible”
I’ve thought that as well, but if that’s his plan, he might not be able to convince his fans to support the new baton wielder.
https://notthebee.com/article/trump-is-still-dominating-the-potential-primary-field-and-it-isnt-even-close
To physicsguy and Charles – I think it’s about curated newsfeeds. I suspect most Democrats have their Facebook, Google homepage, or wherever else they get their news giving them a decidedly different view of the world than we have.
Instead of the border crisis, they are reading stories about a federal agent on a horse who looked like he was whipping a Hatian migrant. Instead of Afghanistan, they are reading about Biden’s “triumphant” UN speech. They read nothing about the energy crisis in Europe. Instead, they read missives from left luminaries about how Republicans are “skipping out on their own bills” because they won’t fall for Democrats’ debt ceiling gambit. The result is a polis that is spectacularly ill-informed and convinced that every problem is the result of evil people on the other side of the political spectrum. (There’s more than a little of that on the right too BTW.)
I have to also reply to those who are using this to bash NeverTrump folks. If you’re talking about people who actually voted for Biden, I see your point. Failing to recognize what Biden is, or what he would be under the influence of the crazies in his party, is worthy of ridicule.
Nothing that Biden has done, however, exonorates Trump. It just came out this week that Trump knew that the story about Dominion supposedly switching votes was bunk, but allowed his surrogates to push it anyway, and even file federal lawsuits on it. This is independent of Democrats’ shenanigans, which were real and toxic in and of themselves. It looks to me as though Trump’s team realized that the Democrats’ monkey business wasn’t enough to swing the election and decided to wing it with a recycled lie from John Kerry’s campaign. (Remember Diebold?) Either that or they are just amoral monsters who told whatever story they thought would help them most in the moment, irregardless of truth.
The choice in 2020 was between really awful and even worse. I think I’m in agreement with most folks here that Biden was the “even worse,” but Trump looks good only by comparison. Not as bad as Biden or not as bad as Hillary are ridiculously low bars.
Aesopfan and Oldflyer – I’m afraid that Trump is just about maintaining his own power now. If he were actually interested in promoting a movement or advancing his supporters’ interests, he wouldn’t be flirting with running right now and blocking new blood.
I’m afraid he’s going to have to run in 2024 because his power will be significantly diminished if he doesn’t. (One term presidents typically don’t maintain a power base in a party after there is another nominee – think H.W. and Carter.) I’m also afraid that when he does run, he’ll either damage the eventual nominee or end up winning the nomination as quite possibly the only Republican in the country who could lose to Kamala.
Bauxite,
I loved every minute of the Trump presidency. He was the perfect person at the right time. The deep state is now fully exposed. But I agree with you; his running in 2024 would be a gift to the Ds and ultimately would seal the fate of the US towards a one party dictatorship. I know way too many people who voted for Biden just out of pure hate for Trump; no other reason was needed for these people. And, their animosity has not decreased at all. A Trump run in 2024 would be disastrous.
I agree the a Trump 2024 run would fail. And if he throws his hat into the ring none of the other Trumpian potential candidates will run against him. Further, the deep state will then be running the country for good.
I hope that Trump does the smart thing (of course he will!) and throw his weight behind one of the other Tru-cons.
Trump should find a safe seat to run for the House next year. Trump as Speaker during the last two years of Biden’s term would be delicious.
(One term presidents typically don’t maintain a power base in a party after there is another nominee – think H.W. and Carter.)
Retired presidents have little influence on intramural squabbles within political parties. Doesn’t matter if they’re one term or two term presidents. U.S. Grant and T. Roosevelt were unsuccessful in their objects in retirement. Beyond that, the history of the Republican Party from 1918 to 1930 can be seen as a repudiation of Roosevelt. The Clintons of course have had all manner of crooked projects, but they failed at their ultimate object. Bill looks at least as old as Gary Hart, looks older than Michael Dukakis, and has a wretched family history; as for his ‘wife’, who knows what she’d concealing (Parkinson’s and an addiction to box wine, perhaps). Obama’s object is palling around with celebrities and bringing in the cash flow to finance Mooch’s decorating budgets.
Trump’s broken the mold in several ways and we’re in a protean situation. FDR did not survive the war and Reagan was a fairly retiring figure by nature, then incapacitated.
Bauxite:
I wasn’t a Trump supporter during the campaign in 2016, but it became clear to me that he was doing good things as president. So no, he didn’t just look good in comparison to Biden now. He looked good during his term.
Perfect? No. Nor does anyone here say anything of the sort. And no one is claiming that Biden somehow “exonerates” Trump. Each person stands on his record. However, not only does Trump look very very good in comparison to Biden, he looks good in comparison to most US politicians.
If you only think that Biden was worse than Trump, that seems extremely strange to me. Biden is many many many times worse than Trump.
You think Trump is all about himself right now. I don’t. Yes, he’s a narcissist and certainly likes to promote himself. But he is also about this country and its welfare.
As a former resident of Minneapolis, what I learned is that every new city government makes serious people pine for the previous one. I don’t see that changing.
Bauxite, I am curious to know where “it came out” that Trump knew Dominion was innocent. If they were.
I don’t recall Trump saying anything about Dominion, so at worst he did not correct those who did.
Other than offering a visible target for the mindless hate among the Democrats that fueled the fire of divisions, I cannot think of anything that Trump did that was not in the interest of the country. As far as the mindless hate is concerned; it would not have mattered if the mild mannered Pence had instituted the same policies–that hate would have been as intense. They might have attacked him differently; but, I have no doubt that they would.
As we see clearly now, even with Trump gone, the hate and division continue unabated. Hate whites. Hate any Black person who is not sufficiently “anti-racist”. Hate heterosexuals. Hate cops. Hate Israel. Hate anyone who does not hate Israel. Hate the deplorables who would vote for a Trump; and are often people who fix things and make things, and sometimes get their hands dirty. Eew! Just hate anyone who disagrees with the meme of the day. It can’t all be Trump’s legacy, can it?
physicsguy: “The typical D voters I keep track of are showing no such recognition. Afghanistan, inflation, the border, not a bit of it seems to be registering. A few comments on the GOP trying to hold up the $3.5T bill, that’s about it.”
This is exactly what I see, though my sample is pretty small. One person, certifiably smart by any measure of IQ, demands that the Dems push through their “infrastructure” bill at any cost. I was really tempted to ask him what he thinks is so good about it, but at this point I have to think that anyone who believes Biden & Co are doing good things is simply not reachable.
My view of Trump is closer to Bauxite’s than some of y’all’s. I might even have considered myself a NeverTrumper until he won, at which point it seemed nonsense, no matter what you thought of him. Like people in New Orleans saying “NeverHurricane” after Katrina. After the 2016 election the only position that made sense to me was “Let’s hope for the best.” In fact I think I recall writing (slightly t-i-c) “If he appoints constitutionalist judges and doesn’t start a nuclear war, I’ll consider it a win.” So in that sense things turned out well. Where I disagree with some of you about his presidency is the sense that it was a Pyrrhic victory. But still, there are those judges, and that may prove decisive.
Art Deco refers to “unserious people.” The one person I know who is generally conservative and is also still (as best I can tell) a NeverTrumper kind of fits that. She’s smart but at least where politics is concerned seems to operate on something like instinct or intuition. Or even aesthetic sense.