Hump Day Tabs
- Via CNN: Trump privately lashes out at GOP lawmakers over racist video blowback, sources say.
- Via NBC News: Five months after Sen. Bill Cassidy asked RFK Jr. to testify, it still hasn’t happened.
- By G. Elliot Morris at Strength in Numbers: The backlash against Trump is showing up in hard data, not just polls.
- From Charles Franklin at PollsAndVotes: Highest highs and lowest lows: Gallup 1937-2025.
- Via Politico: ‘Stunning’: Jeanine Pirro’s Failure to Indict Democrats Is a Big Deal.
- Via The Daily Beast: George W. Bush Subtly Trashes Trump in Presidents Day Message. To which I say: show some clear, actual, obvious courage and forgo the subtlety and step up to the plate. Use your privilege to speak up.
- By Stephen Robinson at Public Notice: Trump is clowning his evangelical base. The following strikes me as highly accurate:
In many ways, Trump has become a parody of a 1980s televangelist, openly grifting his followers for massive amounts of cash. (Trump’s ballroom is practically his own Heritage USA.) Of course, Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart put on a more convincing show. Trump can’t bother to stay on topic these days.
I have long believed that he consciously modeled his style on them. While he didn’t start pretending to be socially conservative until his entry into politics (really 2011, which is when he first started making appeals to the far right), he was in contact with Paula White all the way back in the early 2000s.
The article on Pirro notes something I have noticed and am surprised no one has covered it in more detail, assuming it’s correct. The Trump admin and ICE in particular detain a lot of people, often for an extended period of time, without ever filing charges against them. It appears that they know they dont really have a case and there was no reason to arrest/detain so they end up releasing people. This seems to me to be pathognomonic for a police state.
Have to agree on the televangelist thing. He has the hair, skin tone and total lack of morality to meet the requirements.
Steve
@steve222: pathognomonic. Hey, I learned a new word. Thanks!
The link for Charles Franklin is broken. The correct link is https://pollsandvotes.com/
I reserve my critique of Bush because I’m not sure what his thinking was, specifically whom he is trying to get the message to.
On one hand it is true that his was a mealy-mouthed shade-tossing at Trump, but on the other is knowledge that the cult member’s minds have been extremely well conditioned to reflexively turtle-up at any direct criticism of their leader. They hear nothing after that, absolutely nothing. If I wanted to address that base effectively I too would be very very careful and drawing that comparison is good thinking. The most revered person in our history was vastly different in every meaningful way from Trump. That could be a bat that survives for a while in those belfries, and Bush knows them well.
That base has been scolded to the nth degree with all but no success. More scolding? More fruitless noise.
@dazedandconfused:
I reserve my critique of Bush because up until now he’s had the surprising good taste to keep quiet and largely away from politics. I’m not sure a) it isn’t best that he stay out of sight, and b) I don’t know that he actually has any influence among MAGA or in the current Party.
As to not being able to dent the MAGA, at some point we need to accept the need to write off the most dedicated MAGA.
@gVOR10: “Write off” certainly, they will never vote D, but Trump’s power rests on that demographic being engaged, eager and voting in those R primaries, which for the unenthusiastic are easily skipped.