Is Biden really that bad?

Biden Laid the Trap. Trump Walked Into It.
At his Pennsylvania rally, the former president gave exactly the narcissistic display his Democratic nemesis tried to provoke.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton warned that Donald Trump was a fool who could be baited with a tweet. This past Thursday night, in Philadelphia, Joe Biden upped the ante by asking, in effect: What idiot thing might the former president do if baited with a whole speech? On Saturday night, the world got its answer.

For the 2022 election cycle, smart Republicans had a clear and simple plan: Don’t let the election be about Trump. Make it about gas prices, or crime, or the border, or race, or sex education, or anything—anything but Trump. Trump lost the popular vote in 2016. He lost control of the House in 2018. He lost the presidency in 2020. He lost both Senate seats in Georgia in 2021. Republicans had good reason to dread the havoc he’d create if he joined the fight in 2022.

So they pleaded with Trump to keep out of the 2022 race. A Republican lawmaker in a close contest told CNN on August 19, “I don’t say his name, ever.”

Maybe the pleas were always doomed to fail. Show Trump a spotlight, and he’s going to step into it. But Republicans pinned their hopes on the chance that Trump might muster some self-discipline this one time, some regard for the interests and wishes of his partners and allies.

David Frum: The justification for Biden’s speech

One of the purposes of Biden’s Philadelphia attack on Trump’s faction within the Republican Party was surely to goad Trump. It worked.

Yesterday, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Trump addressed a rally supposedly in support of Republican candidates in the state: Mehmet Oz for the Senate; the January 6 apologist Doug Mastriano for governor. This was not Trump’s first 2022 rally speech. He spoke in Arizona in July. But this one was different: so extreme, strident, and ugly—and so obviously provoked by Biden’s speech that this was what led local news: “Donald Trump Blasts Philadelphia, President Biden During Rally for Doug Mastriano, Dr. Oz in Wilkes-Barre.”

Yes, you read that right: Campaigning in Pennsylvania, the ex-president denounced the state’s largest city. “I think Philadelphia was a great choice to make this speech of hatred and anger. [Biden’s] speech was hatred and anger,” Trump declared last night. “Last year, the city set an all-time murder record with 560 homicides, and it’s on track to shatter that record again in 2022. Numbers that nobody’s ever seen other than in some other Democrat-run cities.”

Trump spoke at length about the FBI search of his house for stolen government documents. He lashed out at the FBI, attacking the bureau and the Department of Justice as “vicious monsters.” He complained about the FBI searching his closets for stolen government documents, inadvertently reminding everyone that the FBI had actually found stolen government documents in his closet—and in his bathroom too. Trump called Biden an “enemy of the state.” He abused his party’s leader in the U.S. Senate as someone who “should be ashamed.” He claimed to have won the popular vote in the state of Pennsylvania, which, in fact, he lost by more than 80,000 votes.

The rally format allowed time for only brief remarks by the two candidates actually on the ballot, Oz and Mastriano. Its message was otherwise all Trump, Trump, Trump. A Republican vote is a Trump vote. A Republican vote is a vote to endorse lies about the 2020 presidential election.

On and on it went, in a protracted display of narcissistic injury that was exactly the behavior that Biden’s Philadelphia speech had been designed to elicit.

David A. Graham: Trump can’t hide from the Mar-a-Lago photo

Every day since the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago has brought new proof that Trump still dominates the Republican Party. He has extracted support even from would-be rivals like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis—rituals of submission within a party hierarchy that respects only acts of domination.

Republican congressional leaders desperately but hopelessly tried to avert the risk that this next election would become yet another national referendum on Trump’s leadership. Despite Trump’s lying and boasting, politicians who can count to 50 and 218—the respective numbers needed for a majority in the Senate and House—have to reckon with the real-world costs of Trump’s defeats. But Biden understood their man’s psychology too well.

Biden came to Philadelphia to deliver a wound to Trump’s boundless yet fragile ego. Trump obliged with a monstrously self-involved meltdown 48 hours later. And now his party has nowhere to hide. Trump has overwritten his name on every Republican line of every ballot in 2022.

Biden dangled the bait. Trump took it—and put his whole party on the hook with him. Republican leaders are left with little choice but to pretend to like it.

Offmymeds said:

I like Politics Girl

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1566552044042870789

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Nice.

Fogdog said:

At some point, it becomes to hard to suspend disbelief. But for right wing authoritarian followers, they don't care.

Log in | Psychology Today

www.psychologytoday.com

Bob Altmeyer is a pioneer in the study of authoritarian leaders and their followers. His research spans 40 years and has been replicated and confirmed by subsequent researchers. Authoritarian leaders, he found, have a social dominance orientation. Their followers tend to be:

• fiercely loyal to the leader.
• fearful of change.
• resistant to contrary evidence or arguments.
• aversive to introspection.
• deficient in empathy.
• skeptical of equality.
• conventional in lifestyle.
• dogmatically religious and yet unapologetically amoral and aggressive in support of anything advocated by the leader.

Psychologist researchers have linked the personality trait of people who believe in fate or determinism or people who need to feel certain they are right to right wing authoritarianism and all that is listed above. In every society, about 25% of its people exhibit strong right wing authoritarian tendencies.

Those people will never give up on Trump. But not all of Trump's followers rate highly on the right wing authoritarian scale. The conservative hangers on are starting to see the light. Hence the division you see. How could any conservative who isn't wedded to the cult of Trump continue to dogmatically support Trump when he violates the tenet that the US is based upon the rule of law and not the rule of people? If Jan 6 wasn't the last straw, the FBI search and seizure of top secret documents at Mar a Lago that Trump had no business keeping there is.

What remains among people supporting Trump are the right wing authoritarian followers and lower order right wing social dominant types. They aren't Nazis but they would have been Nazis in Hitler's Germany.

Here is a great mash up of North Korean and Fox News reporting showing how authoritarianism can cross social and linguistic barriers:

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i bet trump tried to get that lady newscaster to defect to America, "finally someone with the enthusiasm to read my news the way it should be read."....it's easy to get people to be enthusiastic when they know that they could end up strapped to the end of an artillery piece, andcould be the highlight of the performance of the 1812 overture...

Offmymeds said:

We all know exactly what the GOP would do though as soon as they attained control.

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yeah, they would smear a good man's name, because he dared to stand up to fascist thugs, led by a criminal fuck...
but they're doing that already...
they would hold sham hearings, and try their best to impeach Biden, or impugn him, and smear his reputation...they just don't seem to understand that they are the only ones who believe their horseshit...they can hold up all the "proof" they want, because none of it proves anything they say...they don't have any proof that Biden, OR his son, have done one thing wrong...if they had ANY proof, they would be punching us all in the face with it, instead of whining like the fucking bitches that they are...

Roger A. Shrubber said:

yeah, they would smear a good man's name, because he dared to stand up to fascist thugs, led by a criminal fuck...
but they're doing that already...
they would hold sham hearings, and try their best to impeach Biden, or impugn him, and smear his reputation...they just don't seem to understand that they are the only ones who believe their horseshit...they can hold up all the "proof" they want, because none of it proves anything they say...they don't have any proof that Biden, OR his son, have done one thing wrong...if they had ANY proof, they would be punching us all in the face with it, instead of whining like the fucking bitches that they are...

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True. McCarthy, Bannon, et al are openly advocating it. It wouldn't be less visible if they wore T-shirts reading "Fascism for America! Fight Liberals".

At this moment I am blaming SCOTUS Citizens United decision and the capitalist entertainment system that is destroying our guardrail for democracy, journalism.

the SCOTUS HAS to be the next target, right after the mid terms...at least kavanaugh and barret have to fucking go...and clarence thomas and his fucking freak wife are a whole separate issue that needs to be dealt with...but one way or another, at least three, and preferably 5 of them HAVE TO MOTHERFUCKING GO...there is no goddamn way they can be left on the court for decades, they've already befouled it long enough.

Roger A. Shrubber said:

the SCOTUS HAS to be the next target, right after the mid terms...at least kavanaugh and barret have to fucking go...and clarence thomas and his fucking freak wife are a whole separate issue that needs to be dealt with...but one way or another, at least three, and preferably 5 of them HAVE TO MOTHERFUCKING GO...there is no goddamn way they can be left on the court for decades, they've already befouled it long enough.

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That's why I harp about a special independent counsel, or several, clear the decks for more important work and let someone else torture the bastards for two years. The congress has other important work to do while they twist in the wind at public hearings on TV. They should hold an impeachment inquiry for Thomas and one into the vetting of Kavanagh. They can protect abortion through federal law for now, but packing the court might have to wait until 2024. By the time the DOJ is done with Trump and his minions and the independent special counsel is done with the congressional GOP traitors, you should have a clear shot at the whole ball of wax in 2024. That's provided the democrats win enough, can level the playing field with HR1 and voting rights, and enact anti domestic terrorism legislation, including death threats, among other things to safe guard democracy and the constitution.

Roger A. Shrubber said:

sooo, all you trumptard fucking morons who keep going on about the border, about how only criminals, human traffickers, or drug cartels are the ones crossing illegaly...about how those illegal immigrants are taking your construction jobs....your what the fuck ever jobs...
remember how i kept asking "who is going to hoe beets? who is going to pick peaches? or cabbage, or grapes?" and none of you fucking answered me? well, now AMERICAN FARMERS are asking the same questions...
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/farmers-pushing-immigration-reform-counter-labor-shortages-escalating-rcna45741
but you know we can't let those drug muling, human trafficking, gangbangers into the country...
goddamn fucking morons, you try to point this shit out to them, until it gets so bad it becomes news...and they're still too motherfucking stupid to understand

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Most of those farmers are republicans, rural America is their stronghold, they are fucking themselves over immigration and climate change, since farmers and ranchers suffer the most with drought. Trump fucked them with his China tariffs and perhaps the current food crises will help them to recover, if drought doesn't do them in. Still they love Donald and bend over the hay bail with their drawers around their ankles shouting, "here Donald, stick it in here", as they point to their asses. What can you say about people who fuck themselves repeatedly over pure bullshit?

DIY-HP-LED said:

Most of those farmers are republicans, rural America is their stronghold, they are fucking themselves over immigration and climate change, since farmers and ranchers suffer the most with drought. Trump fucked them with his China tariffs and perhaps the current food crises will help them to recover, if drought doesn't do them in. Still they love Donald and bend over the hay bail with their drawers around their ankles shouting, "here Donald, stick it in here", as they point to their asses. What can you say about people who fuck themselves repeatedly over pure bullshit?

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It gets worse
Every farm in my area has a sign saying “No wind turbines “
It’s a cult

Herb & Suds said:

It gets worse
Every farm in my area has a sign saying “No wind turbines “
It’s a cult

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Ya just need to look at the information they are consuming, mostly hate radio on long rural drives. Part of Joe's plan is rural highspeed internet and I figure it should include basic cable TV (or equivalent) for free too, just the broadcast networks regulated by the FCC, no specialty propaganda or religious channels. The should also reassign the AM band to digital, silencing the serpent's voice in millions of half tons.

DIY-HP-LED said:

Donald is gonna burn out the bulb in his projector.

GOP Escalates Violent Rhetoric As Investigation Into Trump Advances
75,673 views Sep 4, 2022 Following Donald Trump's first rally since the Mar-a-Lago search, Rep. David Cicilline, Ruth Ben-Ghat, Miles Taylor and Jonathan Capehart discuss the escalating violent rhetoric of Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans.

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California needs to go independent. Let them smoke and have no cops. Then the rest of the country can be normal again.

NYCBambu said:

California needs to go independent. Let them smoke and have no cops. Then the rest of the country can be normal again.

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California is doing fine since they got rid of republicans, the social problems are mostly the fault of red states with no social programs who use the cities as dumping grounds for their problems. They also sponge off blue states and don't tax their own citizens enough, if the feds cut off transfer payments from blue states, most shithole red states would starve. Talk about a bunch of welfare bums, red states are the biggest leeches and drag on America, blue states make money and attract brains, red states drive them out.

NYCBambu said:

California needs to go independent. Let them smoke and have no cops. Then the rest of the country can be normal again.

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As long as Texas doesn’t secede America will never be normal

Some intellectual giant earlier suggested California go it alone. Probably got a bonus for posting that.
How separating California from the Union is a good thing requires one to accept the premise that the Union is a bad thing.

It does not take a college degree to realize also that a Californian nation would need to secure its borders against the theocracy next door. Such a theocracy would be the natural consequence of allowing the Christian nationalists to focus their efforts into Repug-dominated regions. Denver and Austin would need to become city-states embedded in the new quasipapal state.

Double word score: the nation faced such a division before, and its resolution cost us millions of lives lost under barbaric conditions. This breathtakingly trenchant wit’s fascist paymasters would like a rerun.

Fogdog said:

HI Bot,

Your code is showing.

Just thought I'd let you know.

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and it is full of bitstains

Herb & Suds said:

It gets worse
Every farm in my area has a sign saying “No wind turbines “
It’s a cult

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you should get a collective going, buy up the biggest connected parcels you can buy, and rent it out to a wind power company...and for dessert, line the whole thing with solar panels...

cannabineer said:

Some intellectual giant earlier suggested California go it alone. Probably got a bonus for posting that.
How separating California from the Union is a good thing requires one to accept the premise that the Union is a bad thing.

It does not take a college degree to realize also that a Californian nation would need to secure its borders against the theocracy next door. Such a theocracy would be the natural consequence of allowing the Christian nationalists to focus their efforts into Repug-dominated regions. Denver and Austin would need to become city-states embedded in the new quasipapal state.

Double word score: the nation faced such a division before, and its resolution cost us millions of lives lost under barbaric conditions. This breathtakingly trenchant wit’s fascist paymasters would like a rerun.

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how would this californicnation supply itself with water? all U.S. rivers stop at the border....

Roger A. Shrubber said:

you should get a collective going, buy up the biggest connected parcels you can buy, and rent it out to a wind power company...and for dessert, line the whole thing with solar panels...

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I live in trumpland where all the politicians are kinfolk and they would actually wait till I bought the land and equipment before revoking my permits and demanding a variance
Which no one gets unless they are in your church

Roger A. Shrubber said:

how would this californicnation supply itself with water? all U.S. rivers stop at the border....

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Just one reason why the suggestion is so bad.

But stipulating to the scenario, we would probably be federated with OR and WA. A pipeline from the Mackenzie would be a logical next step. Paid for by imposing eye-watering taxes on the sale of any CA monopoly product, like semiconductors or food, to the Christian Republic of Deseret.