Saturday, June 18, 2016

How do you solve a problem like The Donald?

Sorry, folks -- I was away from my computer for a while. It felt odd, getting out of the house...

The "GOP vs Trump" narrative has become impossible to ignore. Talking Points Memo reports that Paul Ryan has threatened to sue a President Trump.
“I would sue any president that exceeds his or her powers,” Ryan said in a back-and-forth about Trump's claims that he could implement a Muslim ban or build a Mexican border wall without congressional approval.
Unprecedented! No powerful Republican has ever spoken in this fashion about his party's nominee. TPM also reports that Trump has no "ground game" to speak of, and has not been coordinating with the RNC.
Trump seems to have decided he's just not going to have one. Maybe he'll decide that's ridiculous and he wants to build on after all. But you can't just build a campaign operation overnight. And Trump is way, way behind.
Who the hell is advising Trump? I was under the impression that Stone and Manafort knew something about politics...

Here's CNN...
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus has been quietly having conversations with state party leaders to discuss the latest push by convention delegates to nominate anyone other than Donald Trump.

Priebus has spoken with GOP party chairmen in multiple states in recent days in part to get a better sense of how large the anti-Trump faction is among their convention delegations, according to two people familiar with the conversations.
And here:
Given the strife, a growing group of anti-Trump delegates is convinced that enough like-minded Republicans will band together in the next month to change party rules and allow delegates to vote for whomever they want at the convention, regardless of who won state caucuses or primaries.

The new push is being run by people who can actually make changes to party rules, rather than by pundits and media figures who have been pining for a Trump alternative. Many of the delegates involved supported Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) in the primary race but say they are not taking cues from any of Trump’s vanquished opponents.

“This literally is an ‘Anybody but Trump’ movement,” said Kendal Unruh, a Republican delegate from Colorado who is leading the campaign.
Many, many factors caused this revolt. But the proximate cause -- the straw with the power to shatter the vertebra of even the mightiest dromedary -- was Trump's reaction to the Orlando massacre.

All he needed to do was sound presidential. All he needed to do was leave his ego at the door for just one damned day.

Just. One. Day.

Hell, even I could have done it. How does this sound?

"This is not a day for politics. This is a day for all Americans, of every party and persuasion, to come together in mourning. It's a day for prayer, a day for grief, a day for tears, a day to console the victims whose pain we all share. Soon, we shall gather as a nation and ask ourselves the necessary questions: How did this happen? How could it have been prevented? How can we unite our efforts and work together to insure our safety without doing injury to the freedoms we cherish...?"

And so on. The speech writes itself.

Yes, a statement of that sort would have been conventional -- even banal. After a tragedy, people want to hear conventional sentiments from our leading political figures; there is solace in the familiar. People do not want to hear narcissistic self-praise, or brutish partisan insults, or anything that smacks of opportunism. The day after the Orlando massacre was not a day for the political hard sell.

If Trump were a man of sound judgment, he would have said the right words. But Trump couldn't stop himself. He combined the egomania of Caligula with the sales pitch of Soapy Smith:

On this tragic day, as on all other days, I am I. Me am me. Me the magnificent. The amazing I. I I I. Me me me. Trump Trump Trump. All others are stupid. All others are criminal. All others are out to get you. Your only salvation is I I I me me me Trump Trump Trump. Everything in your lives will be tremendous and glorious and magnificent if you are led by me me me ME ME ME ME ME.

Trump just can't not be Trump. Not even for one day. And now his own party is saying "Enough is enough."

6 comments:

Stephen Morgan said...

Well, Trump was right about one thing. They really are bad losers.

Michael said...

I've been predicting for severeal weeks (on Twitter) that the GOP will find a way to dump Trump. If you ask me how, I'd say rules change. (New rule: To qualify, nominee must do something Trump would never do, like show his tax returns.) If you ask me who will be his replacement, I'd say Mitt Romney.

I stand by predictions. But here's the thing to worry about: If Trump goes, what will happen in November?

The Dems have been doing their happy dance at the prospect of running against Trump. The anti-Trump ads and speeches write themselves. The message is clear and simple: Elect me if you don't want Trump. Clinton can just bide her time until November practicing her presidential shtick.

But if Trump goes, and he is replaced with a safe, centrist, uncontroversial nominee like Ronmey, then all bets are off. HRC might have to work to earn the job.

Ivory Bill Woodpecker said...

If Joe is right about Putin (in the post just below this one), then Bad Vlad must be doing his best Jean-Luc Picard impression right about now.

Ivory Bill Woodpecker said...

"But if Trump goes, and he is replaced with a safe, centrist, uncontroversial nominee like Romney, then all bets are off. HRC might have to work to earn the job."

Unknown said...

Disclaimer: I don't care about Trump or Hillary. I'm likely better off if Hillary wins because of my Obamacare/Income situation. That being said, I hate to see anyone railroaded and words re-written / made-up about anyone...even a blowhard like Trump:

You try to re-write history saying here is Trump's speech:

"On this tragic day, as on all other days, I am I. Me am me. Me the magnificent. The amazing I. I I I. Me me me. Trump Trump Trump. All others are stupid. All others are criminal. All others are out to get you. Your only salvation is I I I me me me Trump Trump Trump. Everything in your lives will be tremendous and glorious and magnificent if you are led by me me me ME ME ME ME ME."


When I just looked at the transcript, I found standard normally expected stuff like this:

"So many people dead, so many people gravely injured, so much carnage, such a disgrace.

The horror is beyond description.

The families of these wonderful people are totally devastated. Likewise, our whole nation, and indeed the whole world, is devastated.

We express our deepest sympathies to the victims, the wounded, and their families.

We mourn, as one people, for our nation’s loss – and pledge our support to any and all who need it.

I would like to ask now that we all observe a moment of silence for the victims of the attack.

[SILENCE]

Our nation stands together in solidarity with the members of Orlando’s LGBT Community.

This is a very dark moment in America’s history.

A radical Islamic terrorist targeted the nightclub not only because he wanted to kill Americans, but in order to execute gay and lesbian citizens because of their sexual orientation.

It is a strike at the heart and soul of who we are as a nation.

It is an assault on the ability of free people to live their lives, love who they want and express their identity.

It is an attack on the right of every single American to live in peace and safety in their own country.

We need to respond to this attack on America as one united people – with force, purpose and determination."


Was the speech overall a good positive thing? Probably not AND I don't care...I'm just pointing out there is a tremendous slant going on here. Is it possible that some people see the complete slant here and ignore all the good investigative work and other thoughts put into the posts because everything is so obviously constantly slanted and should not be taken as anything but entertainment or one-sided opinion?

Who knows? Do I know a better way to stop the Trump train? Sorry to say, No. I just saw a Live feed on youtube of a Trump rally in Vegas with a packed house at the Treasure Island theater where I saw Mystere and there were also 15,000 people watching on youtube live. The positive comments were going by so fast, you couldn't even read them...a bullet train indeed.

I saw a clip from the show "The View" the other day and it turns out (according to them), Trump is actually working with ISIS to kill us...we certainly cannot support a guy like that. At least I think that is the message I was supposed to get from that revelation.

Some of the people I hear on POTUS channel on XM-radio say Trump has jumped the shark, no money left and nobody wants to fund him, etc...After hearing their commentary, I guess the Trump Train has derailed and become a moot point now.

Bob Harrison said...

You must have missed the tweet, Mr. Steve.