Trump the dissident; Trump the performer
Here’s an interesting piece by someone who doesn’t appear to be a Trump supporter:
… [W]hile I don’t think Trump is a dissident now, he is once again playing the role. He has millions who see him as unjustly persecuted for his politics, and a movement based on the premise of political persecution is already in gear.
The writer sees the whole thing as performative, just a role Trump is playing, rather than the real thing. It strikes me, and not for the first time, that anti-Trump forces, whether on left or right or in the middle, see him as an actor and ignore the very very real forces arrayed against him that have in fact politically persecuted him and to which he might indeed be sincerely reacting. Russiagate and the Steele dossier are undeniable examples, given the facts.
It also strikes me that, at least for the left, perhaps they think Trump is merely acting because so many of their own positions are performative roles that they play. I also think it’s relevant that one of the big charges from Jack Smith and in the Georgia case is the idea that Trump was merely pretending to think he won the 2020 election when in fact he knew he’d lost it.
Anyone who has studied Trump should be quite aware that it is highly likely he really thinks he won that election. I also wonder, in 2016 when all those Democrats were whining that the real election winner had been Hillary, whether they actually thought that was true or whether they were just saying it for effect. My guess is the latter.
Liars and pretenders often assume that everyone else is doing the same thing and playing the same game.
The Great Pretenders.
The Great Criminal Pretenders.
It’s just one lie after the next.
The effect—as intended—is mind-numbing.
Which, of course, begs the question:
If NOTHING that one says is true, does that mean that EVERYTHING one says is true?
Paging Joseph Goebbels…or Comrade O’Brien…
– – – – – – –
Related:
“Even WaPo’s ‘Fact-Checker’ Has Had Enough of Biden’s Constant Lies”—
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2023/09/02/even-wapos-fact-checker-has-had-enough-of-bidens-constant-lies-n1724063
…though I think Robert Spencer may be suffering from a potent bout of wishful thinking here…
+ Bonus…
Things—er, make that creatures—that go BUMP in the night….
https://twitchy.com/dougp/2023/09/02/glenn-greenwald-has-trouble-finding-the-words-to-describe-that-philip-bump-meltdown-n2386805
the great Pretenders
My City Was Gone (2007 Remaster)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thu8DWsirJo
“My City Was Gone” now remembered and associated with Rush Limbaugh; not an act either.
Here’s something from seven years ago that I missed.
Was that BAD MAN just acting here??
https://twitter.com/ReedMCooper/status/1697616961755103659?s=20
I find Trump Derrangement Syndrome incomprehensible, despite I guess seven years of trying to understand it. This visceral declaration that he absolutely must not be president, because he is–Trump, as best as it ever gets explained to me.
“Liars and pretenders often assume that everyone else is doing the same thing and playing the same game.”
Exactly this.
We use the words “virtue signalling” for a reason. For far too many on the left, their leftism is performance art for those they seek to impress. They are unwilling to follow the logical consequences of their performance to discover the disasters looming.
And…they assume they’ll be rewarded. Their “leaders” have no such obligation to them.
When I think about the possibility of several jail sentences coming out of these indictments, it turns my blood cold. I admire Trump’s confidence in his lawyers, and his willingness to fight against injustice. How many people would do that?
He’s a single man (yes, he’s wealthy) who is being assaulted by the full weight of the DOJ and two local prosecutors. They literally have far more resources than he has. It’s David versus Goliath. Yet, he is undaunted.
This has been played out in literature in the past – Robin Hood versus King John and Les Misérables with Javert pursuing Jean Valjean. It all stinks to high heaven and the government prosecutors don’t care. They’re using their authority to frighten others away from challenging their power.
IMO, it has become a morality tale – the “Deplorables” against the authoritarians. When enough voters understand this, it will mean Trump triumphs and authoritarianism gets set back – for a while at least.
This reminds me of the “taking Trump seriously” versus “taking Trump literally” conversations. I see the showman side of Trump, but can’t deny that he does take some things seriously. Opponents have traditionally seen Trump as all about personal ambition or self-interest, even denying that he has a sense of humor. Virtually everyone in politics is narcissistic and a performer to one degree or another, but that doesn’t mean that they are all incapable of rising to the occasion and sometimes doing things that benefit the country.
Judging by the snippet, your writer, Mark Simon, apparently sees the millions Trump is going to have pay in legal fines and the efforts to remove him from the ballot as part of a show that Trump is putting on. In that case, it’s Simon who has trouble seeing things as they are and taking things seriously.
But as I read Simon’s substack further, it sounds like he’s more conflicted and divided. My reading is that Simon obviously has contempt for Donald Trump, but he does admit that in Washington DC politics Trump is indeed something of a dissenter, and that Trump’s supporters view his opposition to the corrupt “swamp” as righteous. Simon doesn’t see official Washington and the political Establishment as bad, though. He certainly doesn’t see the system as worse than Trump.
I suppose he’s too DC-focused, too institution-focused, too focused, for example on seeing John McCain as a good man and honorable statesman, and not focused enough on the condition of the country. He makes the mistake millions made of thinking that their objections to Trump the man built a convincing case for defeating Trump. Many of us outside of Establishment circles did take the state of the country into account, rather than just Trump’s deportment.
I’d also say that the word “dissident,” like the word “resistance,” carries a lot of baggage that makes it harder to view things clearly. “Outsider” or “reformer” or some other term might be better.
I also wonder, in 2016 when all those Democrats were whining that the real election winner had been Hillary, whether they actually thought that was true or whether they were just saying it for effect. My guess is the latter.
________
That’s probably true of most of the writers and talking heads, but not all. Note how Naomi Wolf speaks of her thinking until recently. She pretty clearly believed.
And most of those I actually know clearly believe what they are saying. Even the ones who should know better. It’s a kind of addiction, I think.
“Liars and pretenders often assume that everyone else is doing the same thing and playing the same game.”
This to me, is the true meaning of the word “projection”, rather than the currently fashionable “accusation” variant of the word, wherein I accuse my enemy of my own behavior as a ruse.
It is rather the profound inability to grasp the possibility that others may have motives that are distinct from one’s own, and perhaps justified.
Trump did win the election. In committing electoral fraud to deny him the electoral count they invalidated their citizenship. They are TWANLOC.
Funny, I downloaded the NYT election data after the election and found lots of obvious cheating. For example in Michigan, Biden getting 140K votes all of a sudden in a single update in the middle of the night to bring him close to Trump. Trump running away with it in PA and then suddenly in the middle of the night getting a bare trickle of votes the rest of the night letting Biden win. There was lots of other weird things like negative votes which made the vote counting suspect. But the press, which is innumerate and corrupt, hid all this in cahoots with the Dems which allows lots of ignorant people who don’t like Trump to feel justified in their rejection of his claim to have won.
@Paul,
Not really. Trump was quite committed to having everyone vote in person on Election Day.
Now, whether that was because he thought it was the best way to combat fraud (the Red team) or because he wanted to create a Red Mirage (the Blue team) is debateable. However, it does not necessarily mean cheating.
It’s all an act…..So say the Democrats..
I am reminded of Patricio Guzmán’s documentaries on the Allende years: La Batalla de Chile. He describes two substantial protests against Allende and the Popular Unit program- the 1972 trucker’s strike and the protests against the planned ENU(National Unified School) as being “pretexts,” ignoring that those protesting had rather valid reasons. They were not mere “pretexts.”
The truckers struck in Aysen in southern Chile because the local government announced plans to establish a government-owned transport company. The protests went viral. If protests against the planned ENU were “pretexts,” then why did the Catholic Church, in objecting to the ENU, made its first objection to something in Allende’s program? That was the first objection of the church in 2.5 years of Allende’s term. (Perhaps a curriculum proposed for EVERY school in Chile that talked about “Socialist values wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea.)
It’s all an act, all “pretexts,” the lefties tell us.
BTW, Dinesh D’Souza’s 2000 Mules points out electoral fraud in Georgia and other states.
I believe Mr. Trump won the election, which was then stolen by the Democrats.
With his background of corruption going back decades, no rational person would vote Biden.
Paul in Boston has a point.
To expand; Trump legitimately thought he won because, the defense says,he saw… follows an endless list of such dodgy, irregular, non-standard weird happenings in the election as to take a week. Possibly including testimony from some of the legion of variants. Followed by dem refusal(s) to allow for investigation.
After which, it would be obvious that any honest person couldn’t help but think something irregular had happened, and that means that Trump’ s view was, considering all–this mountain– of evidence honestly come by, in good faith, and logical. Innocent, in other words. Be interesting to see how much the judge allows in, and how much is merely made public in detail and with great energy.
“Be interesting….”
…if the judge EVEN ALLOWS such testimony…
(…keeping in mind the decision, of certain presiding judges, to keep EVERYTHING about Hillary Clinton’s—and friends’—freakin’ fantastic Russiagate extravaganza OUT of the Sussman and Danchenko trials….)
Related:
This may have been already linked to…but if not…
“THE PARTY THAT CRIED WOLF”—
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/09/the-party-that-cried-wolf.php
Opening graf:
“Desperate to take the focus off the FBI’s investigation into her use of a private server during her tenure as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton and her sycophants strangled reality beyond all recognition to build the case that then-candidate Donald Trump was an agent of Russia. Although Clinton lost the 2016 election, their efforts mired Trump’s campaign and then his nascent presidency in scandal for three years. And to this day, no one has been held responsible for what, up until then, had been the dirtiest political trick in modern memory….”
Etc., etc.
Question, though: ONLY a dirty political trick?
Agnew, Nixon, Clinton, Edwards, and Trump. Can think of very little that I would have done the same way that they did to get into trouble in the first place.
Fair or unfair Is it really so hard to avoid trouble? Ask everyone who made it through. Accusations happen to everyone. LBJ and Kennedy would have been fried if they had acted the way they did in a different time.
judge jones, who apprenticed under fani willis, or judge chutkin, how does a dc judge like beryl howell, who was on senior status, rule on guiliani’s claims anyways,
Barry.
And then there’s that. Who could believe that a party which would stoop to that–see Mueller–would be clean in an election?
at the time, ross didn’t know how true it was
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/opinion/the-trumpiest-roman-of-them-all.html
What I see as the endgame is that either of these two possibilities comes to pass:
1. Trump is found guilty of… well, whatever they’re saying he did, which results in his being sentenced to prison time. He appeals but by the time his appeal goes as far as it needs to, the election is over.
Or,
2. Trump is “successful” in proving that he really believed he won the election – which will then be played throughout the media as “He’s delusional!”, which should result in his not being elected. (This is why I put “successful” in quotes.)
And then there’s
2.a. In the event that he is able to be elected after all, this “delusion” is the basis for a 25th amendment challenge.
It’s a Kafka trap: any outcome results in his being kept out of power even if not out of office (and I think his being elected is a long shot anyway), personally hounded, and financially punished.
of course the catiline story comes through us, from sallust, the caesar partisan, some like steven saylor look askance at this story,
Trump is not the only “performer”….
‘ “Remarkably Dishonest” DA Fani Willis Violates The Law’—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/da-fani-willis-violates-law
‘ Here’s What Special Counsel Jack Smith Omitted From His January 6 Indictment Against Trump’—-
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2023/08/07/lawyer-points-out-where-special-counsel-jack-smith-could-be-charged-under-his-fraud-standard-n2626699
And there’s crumbling New York’s D.A. Bragg, not to mention the Hon. Letitia James.
Circus performers all of ’em.
Trapeze artists.
Extortionate contortionists.
Masters of ILLUSION….
(None of them, however, surpasses His Esteemed Eloquence, Joseph R. Biden…with his Gift of Gabbledygook…except, perhaps, his equally incoherent partner in Vice.)
BJ, thanks for proving my point by ignoring all the obvious cheating. Here’s one for you to investigate, the women at the Atlanta voting center stuffing the ballot box. In December of 2020 the Georgia State Senate investigated vote fraud in the election. They uncovered surveillance video showing the women counting the same ballots over and over. The estimate was that they added 18 K votes to Biden. This should have been sufficient evidence to change the state electors to Trump.
The video used to be available on the web. Spend twenty minutes searching for. Educate yourself. The fraud was real, not the typical vapors that Dems get when they don’t get the power that they “deserve” and want.
Trump did tell people to vote on election day, but that doesn’t mean that the large dumps of votes for Biden aren’t suspicious. Suspending the count in key cities in swing states is also certainly suspicious.
_______
I’d hope that if I were in Trump’s position I would have done things differently, but I wouldn’t lump him in with clear cases of financial corruption (Agnew … and Biden?) or horndoggery. (Clinton, Edwards). Agreed that Kennedy and Johnson were lucky living when they did and having the support from the media that they did.
________
With his background of corruption going back decades, no rational person would vote Biden.
Politics is about “the lesser of two evils.” Conceivably some people that that way about Biden. Plus, people rely on very limited sources of information.
Here’s an article from Powerline blog about Tucker Carlson. The interesting part is towards the end:
One last comment: the podcast includes a suggestion by Corolla and ensuing conversation about the idea that we are in a new era of independent journalism, alternative media, and a freer exchange of ideas on the internet, so that the old gatekeepers can no longer keep secrets. But isn’t this where we came in? People were saying the same thing–more people, more enthusiastically–back in 2003. How have things gone since then?
Well, one thing that has happened is that social media took the world by storm. Relatively few people now surf the internet. Instead, as an intelligent young person explained to me a few days ago, people generally expect information to be delivered to them in their “feeds.” Great. So the Deep State (or whatever you want to call it) was able to block information from getting to tens of millions of Americans, if not more, by the simple expedient of pressuring and collaborating with a handful of liberal social media and tech companies. This is progress?
I think it is true that a more diverse array of voices can be heard these days than, say, in the heyday of Walter Cronkite and the New York Times. But the establishment’s ability to influence and sometimes control the “news” has not gone away.
Hinderaker has TDS twice. Trump Derangement and Tucker derangement. Look at the comments to his post. 3/4 disagree with him.
yes he purposefully mistates most of tucker’s statements, no surprise, I don’t know about larry sinclair, but there is much the press presents as true,
I don’t know about Hinderaker and Trump, but Tucker does seem to be a loose cannon. I generally agree with him on the issues, but his manner is off-putting for me. He wouldn’t be as good as he is if he weren’t willing to “think outside the box,” but sometimes he needs an editor to keep him focused on the proven facts.
My point in citing the article was that people don’t research everything and hear all points of view, as tech enthusiasts in the early years of the internet assumed they would. Most people don’t have the time, so they rely on what their favorite (and only) sources tell them, which explains (together with whatever help cheating provided) why Biden is president.
how many things that government bodies have asserted to be true, and haven’t, the list is longer that the arms of kali,
in the relevant exercise, these proscriptions are full of untruths,
Dissident, performer, promoter, perennial frontrunner, dog whistleblower, superhero, savior of humanity – all true at various levels of imagination.
Mike K:
I think you are mistaking John Hinderaker with Paul Mirengoff. Mirengoff had terminal TDS. IIRC Mirengoff’s TDS got him booted off Powerlineblog and it seemed to have been brought to a head by incivility directed towards Steve Hayward, a fellow Powerlineblog author.
I agree with Hinderaker’s critique of Tucker’s unique perspective on a few areas. But then I don’t buy all of Tucker’s lines. You be you.
fox did the decision of validating this kabuki theatre that we are suffering through, in every possible way,
om.
You decide. Yes, Mirengoff had spent too much time imn DC.
Robert Barnes had a lot of details on Trumps election challenge in Ga, and how the courts deliberately ran the clock out so it was never heard.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/the-duran-trump-indictments-biden-scandals-w-robert-barnes/
When it comes to the left, if you assume they are guilty of what they accuse others of, you won’t be far wrong. Confession through projection.
‘ Politics is about “the lesser of two evils.” ‘
Which is why the INITIAL AND CONTINUED—NON-STOP, ROUND THE CLOCK, 24/7…and then some(!)—DEMONIZATION, DEFAMATION and DELIGITIMZATION of Trump and his supporters is such an “INGENIOUS” ploy.
It WORKS.
And it never stops.
Never lets up.
To the contrary, how many “indictments” and accusations are we up to?
(Have we reached infiniti yet??)
Such that “Biden” can say anything, do anything, tell any lie, recite any falsehood, confirm any bit of nonsense, etc.,…and “he” does, oh how “he” does (“he” does nothing else!)….Bamboozling Back Better with aBandon.
Yes, BECAUSE IT WORKS! And HOW it does!! (That is, if “works” is defined as “strengthening” a group of zealous, venal, unrepentant, grossly dishonest thugs, scoundrels and criminals, calling themselves—HIDING BEHIND—a “political party”….while DESTROYING the trust, the good will, the sense of justice and the hope that binds the country together.
IOW…while DESTROYING the country.
File under: Dreyfus Judas Trump.
There were undoubtedly plenty of election irregularities. If cheating is going on, then if, say, Trump is unexpectedly strong in A.123 then the cheaters need to offset that appropriately in some place, say A’.123. This example is hardly the only kind that can be imagined. There are dozens of others like the counties that tend to correctly predict the President election cycle after election cycle. In 2016, these bellwether counties tended to go for Trump (except for one in Washington State). Then there is questions about mail in ballots or collecting ballots, that 2,000 Mules dealt with an interesting way. It would be helpful if these issues and more were all assembled into one document. I have been waiting for Trump or a supporter to do just that.
I’m not a lawyer. But I am a Deplorable. It is my belief that Trump is being PERSECUTED, not prosecuted for actual violations of law. His persecutors are primarily black female DAs today, and he will face trials before all-black (= Democrat) juries, but were the FBI before, and Biden sets a new standard for getting away with lifelong corruption and keeping of classified documents on the dirt of his garage behind his Corvette sans any investigation. I do not pretend to understand why Trump kept all 25 boxes of federal documents in his FL home.
40 armed Fibbies entering Trump’s home in FL at 4 am? Reminds me of the good old days in 1930s Germany!
The elephant in the room. Not a white elephant.
J. E. Dyer (aka The Optimistic Conservative) got a mention on a previous thread. Here she is in full forensic mode on one of the reasons why Establishment D.C. was and is gunning, perhaps literally, for Trump:
https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2023/09/01/heres-motive-hindsight-20-20-on-trumps-disruption-of-obama-biden-enterprises/
In typical Dyer fashion, it’s long and complicated, but she shows her work. Like George Smiley, she pays special attention to chronology.
For those who don’t want to read the whole thing, here’s Dyer’s summary:
“Trump was a disruptive interloper, from the perspective of the permanent state that makes its living off exploiting the powers of the federal government. He was using the law too much like a county sheriff – using it to straightforwardly go after crime – rather than like a DA in a Democratic-run city.”
As Dyer describes it, Trump–wittingly or unwittingly–torpedoed a multi-billion-dollar side-deal the Bidens had lined up with help from the Obama administration. Even worse, he had started sniffing around connections between the corrupt Biden family business and Obama’s larger agenda of “fundamental transformation” and state control. Hence the campaign to kneecap his presidency, “fortify” the 2020 election, and destroy him personally.
Money doesn’t explain everything, but it explains a lot of things.