Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Monday, July 13, 2015

The Jerk








We've been watching this train wreck of a candidate for weeks now, trying to understand the TGOP's fascination for him.  Some explanations are that people are angry; that people want someone to "tell it like it is;" that a segment of our population actually likes egomaniacal  blowhards and believe they'd make great leaders. (Benito Mussolini comes to mind.) He's a hot mess of contradictions and lies, telling America and the world that Mexicans are criminals, drug dealers, and rapists, but then saying he assumes SOME are good people.  Just some.  And he LOVES THEM, he really loves Mexicans! Y'know the Mexicans he gives a fat juicy wet kiss of love to, then slanders.   This is how the TGOP hopes to gain the trust and respect of the Latino and Hispanic communities? People actually think Trump is a smart guy; the sort of smart guy whose outrageous racist remarks are killing the Republican Party.


Trump lied about the 20,000 people who attended his appearance in Arizona. The venue where it was moved to, the North Ballroom of the Phoenix Convention Center ,holds only 4100 people.    

Keep it up Trumpy.  You think your lead in the GOP polls means that the country is with you? 

You are the most disliked GOP candidate.  Good luck and please, please, please, keep flying your freak flag, Donnie, your 15 minutes of shame will soon be over.  






As a reminder, here are two other TGOPers that were wildly popular with that crowd and whom that crowd claimed the liberals feared.  Where are they now?







Martin Longman at Ten Miles Square blog...: 

 "I’ve spent 10 years trying to convince you that this is exactly what the Republican Party has become. But I couldn’t get people to shun the GOP the way they are suddenly shunning Donald Trump and the Confederate Flag. 

Milbank is right. Trump didn’t invent any of this. He’s just exploiting it in a way that’s a little more obvious than the way that Rick Santorum and Lindsey Graham and Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz have been exploiting it. 

 If the GOP thinks they are better or even substantially different from Trump, they’re simply mistaken. He’s giving the people what they have been conditioned to want... 

 A jerk."

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

“Trump” is not his real name.

The Donald’s grandfather was a German immigrant named Frederick Drumpf who emigrated to the U.S. in 1885 and became a naturalized citizen in 1892.

At some point, he started calling himself “Frederick Trump,” but it is unclear if he ever changed his name officially. Some have speculated that he didn’t want to be known as “Drumpf” because of prevailing prejudice against Germans (which would heighten, of course, during World War I).

Frederick (or more appropriately, Friedrich) returned to his native Kallstadt in Germany’s Rheinland to marry Elisabeth Christ in 1902.

Drumpf returned to the U.S, and settled in Queens, N.Y. He would die in 1918 during the Spanish Flu epidemic.

Of course, his grandson would attain incredible wealth and global fame under the name “Trump.”

“Trump” is an actual name, it is of English origin and according to linguistic sources it is a “metonymic occupational name for a trumpeter, from Middle English trumpe [‘trumpet’].”

Quite appropriate for someone who likes blowing his own horn.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Anon, didn't know that. Thanks.

From Charlie Pierce:

"There is nothing more tiresome than respectable Republicans who go around moaning about Donald Trump now and pretend that they don't know how all this ever happened to their party, who pretend that their long-fingered vulgarianism hasn't depended vitally on short-fingered vulgarianism for four decades. This is how the Republicans ended up not only with Trump, but with Ben Carson, and Rick Santorum and almost all the others."

Dervish Sanders said...

Thom Hartmann thinks that (at least some) of Trump's appeal has to do with the fact that Trump believes we need to renegotiate our trade agreements and bring jobs to back the US. I think there is something to this, although Trump's anti-Hispanic rhetoric, I think, also accounts for a large part of his current popularity among some Republican voters. (Hillary Clinton supports these trade agreements, BTW, while Bernie Sanders opposes them).

Shaw Kenawe said...


"Trump believes we need to renegotiate our trade agreements and bring jobs to back the US."


Trump has outsourced the manufacture of his clothing lines to Mexico and China. He doesn't practice what he bleats. Hypocrite.

Ray Cranston said...

Conservatism is by definition an infatuation with the past, a fear of the future, an allegiance to the real or imaginary status quo, a terror of change. Conservatism is, psychologically, the politics of fear and pessimism; the psychology of Liberalism is that of trust, confidence, and optimism.

Liberal Democrats and Republicans got the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts passed. Conservative Democrats and Republicans fought them. Conservatives use conflation and count on the stupidity of their followers not to understand that “Democrat” didn’t (and doesn’t) always mean “liberal” and “Republican” doesn’t always mean, “conservative.” Much like the Republicans of the 1860’s were the progressives, the Southern Democrats of Johnson’s era were the conservatives who opposed the Civil Right’s Act. Conservative hero, Ronald Reagan, never supported the use of federal power to provide blacks with civil rights. He opposed the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965. Reagan said in 1980 that the Voting Rights Act had been “humiliating to the South.”

Fear of the future and progress, and now probably fear of losing power is what haunts a lot of conservatives. Change has come and they can't handle it.

Les Carpenter said...

Conservatism (or conservativism) is any political philosophy that favours tradition (in the sense of various religious, cultural, or nationally-defined beliefs and customs) in the face of external forces for change, and is critical of proposals for radical social change. Some Conservatives seek to preserve the status quo or to reform society slowly, while others seek to return to the values of an earlier time.

Classical Conservatism does not reject change per se, but insists that changes be organic, rather than revolutionary, arguing that any attempt to modify the complex web of human interactions that form human society purely for the sake of some doctrine or theory runs the risk of running afoul of the law of unintended consequences and/or of moral hazards. As a general ideology, Conservatism is opposed to the ideals of Liberalism and Socialism.

Conservatism generally refers to right-wing politics which advocate the preservation of personal wealth and private ownership (Capitalism) and emphasize self-reliance and Individualism. Conservatives in general are more punitive toward criminals, tend to hold more orthodox religious views, and are often ethnocentric and hostile toward homosexuals and other minority groups.

SOURCE

Les Carpenter said...

The left's fixation on The Donald belies a certain trepidation of the man.

Shaw Kenawe said...

RN, do you seriously believe that the left thinks Trump has any chance of winning the nomination or the presidency? You think that because we on the left talk about him and expose his demagoguery that means we're afraid that he's going to be the GOP nominee and eventually the president? Seriously?

Do you accuse the folks on the right of being trepidatious when they attack Hillary. Does that mean they have a fixation on her?


This is an election cycle. You know what that means.

I'm not a big fan of Lindsey Graham, but I respect that he had the courage to call Trump out on his blanket slander of Latinos and Hispanics.




Paula said...

The only thing bigger than Trump's mouth is his ego:

"It was a combination of reading an “expletive-laden” interview he did with Robert Costa of the Washington Post, in which he swore his way through it while watching Fox News and cheering himself on as if he were commenting on an epic film hero come to life. Discussing himself, a peevish and rather clueless Trump told Costa “I get the biggest crowds. I get the biggest standing ovations.”

[Eyeing the television, Trump gets up to watch another Fox News segment about his Arizona gathering. “Jeanine Pirro, let’s see what she has to say about me.”


Me. Me. Me. Me. Me.

Les Carpenter said...

Yup, I do know what it means. Ak though I suspect you believe I don't.

Do I talk about the rights trepidation of HRC? No. Because that is obvious to anyone with more than a half dozen functioning brain sells simply from observing the rhetoric.

With respect to The Donald and the left's response to his standing in the polls, it smells the same.

Personally, for what it's worth, The Donald will self destruct IMO. And soon.

skudrunner said...

At this point in the election cycle it is all about coverage and "optics". Trump has to make outrageous statements so he gets the press and it has worked. Hillary has not gotten much press so she is hiding from any controversial statements and hiding from the press,

There is no way Trump can win the nomination and no way Hillary can lose it so he has little to lose by being controversial and far out there and >H< has little to gain by allowing much access.

She does need to change her line about a great right wing conspiracy because even the NYT doesn't buy that anymore.

Shaw Kenawe said...

I'm already sick of this electoral cycle. I'd rather talk about Pluto.

Les Carpenter said...

Wow! skudrunner is making a lot of sense here.

Ducky's here said...

Well, when the Iranian agreement is announced I expect the entire Republican clown car to pop a collective vessel.

That will probably mask the more interesting give and take on the issue between Sanders and Clinton.

The more Trump is in the spotlight the less time we have to listen to the grownups.

Anonymous Reader of TeaPublican Blogs said...

Is it Ricky Conservative or Trash Mouth Al? The little shittle can't make up his mind.

Definitely fertummelt!

Anonymous Reader of TeaPublican Blogs said...





Ricky Conservative is Trash Mouth Al

Infidel753 said...

I'm reliably informed that in British slang, the word "trump" can mean "fart". Political humorists over there must already be having a field day.

Shaw Kenawe said...

ARoTPB,

Thanks for finding that, but he and they are not worth my time or anyone's else's.

Infidel753, perfect. That describes what he emits from his mouth.

Ducky, have they popped their vessels?

Jor America said...

You're expecting better from the Baggers? Where have you been for the last 6 1/2 years?

Clearwater, Florida said...

"He [Trump] is a belligerent, loudmouth racist with not an ounce of compassion for less fortunate people," Krugman said in an interview with Bloomberg TV's Joe Weisenthal. "In other words, he's exactly the kind of person the Republican base consists of and identifies with."

Anonymous said...

He's not just a jerk, he's a stooooopid jerk!

Call Me Hank said...

"Conservative pundit Ben Stein on Tuesday called presidential candidate Donald Trump a "loose cannon" and "dangerous" to the Republican Party."

Maybe he's "dangerous" to the Republican Party, but the Baggers think he's the perfect man to lead this country.


TeaBagger's opinion of Trump: "ALL THESE PROBLEMS POINT TO WHY WE NEED TRUMP! We can’t afford to have the typical politician take over at a time like this. There’s too much at stake. I hope to God he makes it, despite all the negative things said about him."


Remember. They're the same people who thought Sarah Palin was more than qualified to be vice president and president of the USA!

Ducky's here said...

"At first glance it looks like a stock civil religious emblem, the type used by Fox News to whip up nationalism for a war. Yet one sharp-eyed history buff spotted that the soldiers yomping up Trump’s shoulder towards his famous weave were members of the Waffen-SS."

ooops, La Trump did it again.

Driving the clown car