Outside the Beltway

Trump Shouldn’t be President

He is either too dishonest or too stupid to hold the office (or, you know, both).

Steven L. Taylor
54

Comments

President Trump speaking. with flag in background. Black and white photo. February 22, 2025
White House Photo

This is just one simple illustration of why Trump shouldn’t be president. In the clip below, he demonstrates himself to be easily manipulated and not to care one whit about the truth.

At best, he know he is lying to the public about violence against whites in South Africa and is using printouts from a blog post about the Democratic Republic of Congo to fool people watching and to act the fool in front of the President of South Africa.

At best!

At worst, he actually thinks that blog posts about a country other than South Africa are, in fact, evidence of violence in South Africa.

This would suggest that he won’t (or can’t) read and is easily manipulable by the people around him.

Either pole suggests that he should not be the President of the United States.

The country with the most sophisticated intelligence capabilities in the world, and the president is holding up"a months-old blog post" from an obscure, conspiracy-mongering site "featuring a photo from the Democratic Republic of Congo" while making allegations against South Africa to its president

— Brendan Nyhan (@brendannyhan.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T20:21:07.993Z

By the way, this is yet again an example of him treating a democratic ally far worse than he treated a tyrant who orchestrated the murder and dismemberment of a journalist.

But hey! Did you know that Joe Biden was old?

Categories

, ,

Tags

, ,

54 responses to “Trump Shouldn’t be President”

  1. Matt Bernius Avatar
    Matt Bernius

    Here’s NRP’s coverage of that event:
    https://www.npr.org/2025/05/22/x-s1-5406758/shock-and-anger-in-south-africa-after-oval-office-ambush

    BTW, I know at least one our commenters is making a lot of hay out of interpreting a comment from Jake Tapper that Hunter Biden was running the White House. I just want to remind folks that in the last few months we’ve seen Trump not be aware that US service members were missing, be left off of the Signal Gate text chain, and defer to Laura Loomer on NatSec positions (someone who isn’t even a member of his government). That’s among lots of other items.

    Again, no President can do everything or be in every meeting. And, at the same time, there are real questions about who is driving the bus on any particular issue.

    15
  2. Jay L Gischer Avatar
    Jay L Gischer

    My money is on he knows he’s lying. It’s what he’s done his whole life. Sometimes he brags about it.

    8
  3. Mikey Avatar
    Mikey

    @Matt Bernius: This morning on the way to work I started listening to the most recent Ezra Klein podcast (one of the two reasons I still pay for NYT digital access, the other being the incredible Jamelle Bouie). This episode, he’s interviewing none other than Jake Tapper, of course regarding the new book (which Biden’s granddaughter Naomi has called “political fairy smut,” LOL).

    There’s a lot to unpack already, it’s an interesting conversation to say the least, but what struck me very early on is that Tapper’s accounts of Biden’s problems with mental acuity are EXACTLY LIKE HOW TRUMP IS but somehow with Trump it just…doesn’t fucking matter, apparently.

    And regardless of the state of Biden’s brain at any time during his Presidency, he never did–and never would!–conduct an Oval Office meeting the way Trump has on multiple occasions.

    16
  4. reid Avatar
    reid

    @Mikey: Reagan was called the teflon president (IIRC), but he would be absolutely jealous of Trump’s ability to be the worst possible human in the role of president and still hardly attract any substantial criticism from the people.

    10
  5. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Jay L Gischer: I think this is entirely possible. But he could get better props for his lying pretty dman easaily.

    2
  6. al Ameda Avatar
    al Ameda

    @Jay L Gischer:

    My money is on he knows he’s lying. It’s what he’s done his whole life. Sometimes he brags about it.

    Dead on. Exactly.

    In Economics there is a principle, Gresham’s Law, which posits that ‘bad money drives out good money.’ There should be an equivalent law regarding information in our digitial environment, if you, as Republican operatives do openly – flood the zone with ‘bad information’ (misinformation, disinformation, outright lies) it overwhelms ‘good information,’ drives it out. The truth will very likely not ever catch up to constant stream of lies.

    14
  7. just nutha Avatar
    just nutha

    @Matt Bernius: Allow me to be the first to opine that the situation is not that Trump was unaware that service personnel were missing, but rather that he prefers service personnel that don’t go missing and just DGAF.

    7
  8. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    @Mikey:

    Ezra Klein podcast (one of the two reasons I still pay for NYT digital access, the other being the incredible Jamelle Bouie).

    You can get the Ezra Klein podcast for free.

    And Bouie has a podcast, YouTube, TikTok and Twitch. The dude does a lot. The podcast is about movies, and I think he streams video games on twitch, but the other two are opinion.

    3
  9. Modulo Myself Avatar
    Modulo Myself

    He’s stupid, and the voters who go along with this or excuse it are stupid, and the media coverage of politicians is using doublespeak when it comes to stupidity.

    But the doublespeak will not stop. We’ve always excused stupidity in this country with politics. In the 90s and early 00s, we had to listen to morons explain that gay marriage threatened their straight marriages. Really, it did. How is that any dumber than Trump recycling racist slop?

    4
  10. Joe Avatar
    Joe

    I recently saw a Reel (I know – I need to make better use of my time) of a speaker who was teeing off on this point after hearing Trump explain that Biden has “stage 9 cancer,” saying it at least twice, cluelessly, as several aids declined to correct him. The speaker’s point is that Trump has no clue about what is being communicated to him and no concern about what he communicates out, just making up a random number.

    10
  11. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    At best, he know he is lying to the public about violence against whites in South Africa and is using printouts from a blog post about the Democratic Republic of Congo to fool people watching and to act the fool in front of the President of South Africa

    Perhaps he believes that South Africa means the entirety of Sub-Saharan Africa. Similar to South America or Western Europe.

    Keep in mind that he didn’t print this blog post out himself, and I think he had a video too. People around him are either indulging his shit, or feeding him shit.

    Shit being the technical term, since I have no idea whether any particular thing is lies or whether he believes it. He’s really dumb and gullible and racist, and he has a loose relationship with the truth. A lot of the time I think things start as lies and then he begins to believe his own lies.

    6
  12. Matt Bernius Avatar
    Matt Bernius

    I want to advocate (again) for focusing on impact, not intent.

    In terms of intent, Trump may be lying. It’s also possible that he doesn’t know he’s wrong and is showing something handed to him. It’s also equally possible that he doesn’t care because he’s decided this is happening. If I had to put my bets on anything, it’s primary #3 with a mix of the other two. That said, I honestly don’t think any of that matters at the end of the day.

    What matters is the impact of his doing this. And that this is the second time during a press conference that he’s ambushed a foreign leader–and the second time he’s done so with a foreign leader of a nation we are “friendly” with… all within 4 months of being President. I cannot remember anything comparable during his first term.

    I don’t think it’s a sustainable way of conducting foreign policy. That said, Marco Rubio has demonstrated an almost superhuman capacity to submit to untold humiliation to maintain what he considers to be a position of power and respect. I really don’t know what could break him at this point.

    And I also know that if a Democratic President had done this, it would be all the Right Wing Media Sphere (including Fox News) would be discussing, especially if this was a case where a White leader was ambushed about the alleged treatment of Black citizens. I mean we all remember Revrend Wright and Obama didn’t even say anything at the time.

    So let’s stick with impact.

    7
  13. Jen Avatar
    Jen

    The most astonishing thing to me remains the fact that most of the public has become so inured to this behavior that it doesn’t even register anymore.

    He is completely surrounded by inept loons, and makes an utter fool of himself (example above) DAILY, if not HOURLY, and yet we’re supposed to GAF about Biden???? *That’s* what is being reported on in major news outlets?????

    8
  14. Robert in SF Avatar
    Robert in SF

    @Mikey: For NYTimes access, did you check your libraries digital access online? Maybe they offer something you can use to access the parts you are interested in?

    San Francisco offers a 3 day pass (which can be renewed without limit).

    1
  15. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    @Jen:

    But the MAGAs don’t trust–don’t even consult–the major news outlets. They get their “news” from The Gateway Pundit, The Conservative Tree House, Real America’s Voice News, Alex Jones, Epoch Times, OAN, etc.

    6
  16. Jen Avatar
    Jen

    @CSK: Right, but the general non-MAGA population that aren’t dedicated political types are digesting what is available at a passing glance. For them, the news is that Biden is old, not that Trump made a goofball of himself in front of yet another foreign leader.

    I’m not interested in the MAGA crowd. My concern lies solely with what the disinterested/apolitical people are absorbing, particularly if they vote.

    8
  17. Connor Avatar
    Connor

    Heh. I seem to recall being admonished just a few days ago to get my own website if I had issues.

    Well, here’s a thought. If you don’t like Trump, find an electable candidate, run a quality campaign, convince the voters and win an election. Kamala Harris? LOL

    With Democrats dying on the hills of bizarre issues and people, I don’t see a Dem Pres for awhile. You progressives need to look in the mirror.

    2
  18. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    @Jen:

    Point taken.

  19. Jen Avatar
    Jen

    @Connor:

    I don’t see a Dem Pres for awhile.

    One of the most important things I learned when I worked in politics (for Republicans, remember), is that elections seem to follow Newton’s third law very well. Democrats just won a State Senate seat in New York, in a conservative district that supported Trump by significant margins. The key, of course, was that Dems ran a conservative Democrat for the seat.

    5
  20. Michael Reynolds Avatar
    Michael Reynolds

    Definitely stupid and dishonest. As are his supporters. Evidence of that latter point is the refusal/inability of our resident MAGAs to engage here like grown-ups.

    But don’t leave out moral depravity. Trump isn’t just an idiot and a pathological liar, he’s an absolute dumpster fire of a human being, a real pig. It shows you the state of masculinity in this country that men are eager members of his cult of personality.

    That said, cults of personality are invariably built around vile people, no one but a POS would allow himself to be the center of a cult. When men are insecure they become dangerous, much more so than when they’re merely angry. A male cult member is a weak man, a frightened, inadequate man looking for an excuse to surrender to an objectionable asshole whose assholery they see as macho.

    I’ll briefly jump one of my hobby horses and point out that people who refuse to admit that we have a masculinity problem are damn fools. It has been building for decades, and for decades both men and women snickered and insisted I was overly emotional or pleading from personal interest when I broached the topic. In vain did I point out that unlike women, men can become violent and dangerous, so, maybe pay a little attention? Bwah hah hah, worried about men, hah hah hah, oh that Michael, he so silly.

    And now we have a rapist as president.

    Masculine insecurity was mitigated in the old days when men were drafted into the military, and had all sorts of specific employment carve-outs with men only jobs. I count myself lucky in that I affirmed my machismo with exciting criminal activities and now, as a rather odd side-effect, have no insecurities at all. I could comfortably wear pink – were it not for the fact that everything I own is some shade of gray.

    3
  21. Matt Avatar
    Matt

    @Jen: That and Trump’s promises of rainbows and ponies for everyone has failed to transition to anything resembling reality. Instead of relying on the media to tell them what Trump really means people are able to see first hand the actual results of his policies first hand while wondering where the ponies and rainbows went.

    3
  22. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    @Matt Bernius:

    I want to advocate (again) for focusing on impact, not intent.

    The impact is that the administration creates a smokescreen of shit, so no one can make any headway in reporting on anything. I’d put Noem’s alleged ignorance about Habeas Corpus in the same category.

    Meanwhile, the administration is violating court orders, arresting people in courthouses, sending people to gulags, cutting the social safety net, giving vast tax breaks to a tiny number of Americans…

    And, when you see the effect, it’s clear that this is part of a strategy.

    In the late 60s or early 70s, some shitheads decided to try to assault the notion of truth, with Operation Mindfuck, promoting conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination and other conspiracy theories. The idea was that when no one can trust anything, people would somehow come to their senses and end the Vietnam war. Did this make sense? No, but these were shitheads.

    Trump and the modern right wing power structure are doing Operation Mindfuck 2 (The Electric Bugaloo), knowing that if they destroy trust they can get away with pretty much anything, because who will know what they are doing?

    The Republican Big Beautiful Bill will slash Medicaid (which will ravage a lot of rural hospitals, in addition to the primary effects), and blow out the deficit so badly that it will trigger MediCare cuts, unless someone changes a law in the meantime. But who would know that?

    3
  23. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    @Michael Reynolds:

    I count myself lucky in that I affirmed my machismo with exciting criminal activities and now, as a rather odd side-effect, have no insecurities at all. I could comfortably wear pink – were it not for the fact that everything I own is some shade of gray.

    Usually people who claim to have no insecurities just haven’t recognized their insecurities. So test it.

    Paint your nails gray. You won’t even have to change your palette. Do it, and see how it feels to have people immediately identify you as “other.”

    10
  24. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    Trump is, all around, an appalling person. He always has been. And, as HarvardLaw92 and I constantly emphasized, he’s motivated by two conflicting things: his overwhelming lifelong desire to be accepted as “one of them” by the Manhattan haut monde, who have nothing but contempt for him, and his desire for vengeance against those very people for rejecting him.

    It puts him in an uncomfortable position with respect to his fans, who adore him as “the blue collar billionaire,” because if there’s one thing he doesn’t want to be, it’s blue collar.

    8
  25. Kurtz Avatar
    Kurtz

    @Matt Bernius:

    I don’t think it’s a sustainable way of conducting foreign policy. That said, Marco Rubio has demonstrated an almost superhuman capacity to submit to untold humiliation to maintain what he considers to be a position of power and respect. I really don’t know what could break him at this point.

    Marco Rubio is Tom Wambsgans, funny that.

    5
  26. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    He shouldn’t even be out of prison. The HUGE mistake was not putting him behind bars well before the primary season got started.

    3
  27. charontwo Avatar
    charontwo

    @Kurtz:

    Marco Rubio is Tom Wambsgans, funny that.

    Wambgans was Logan Roy’s successor at the end.

    1
  28. Rob1 Avatar
    Rob1

    Trump’s hand picked crew in SCOTUS gave him carte blanche, and now he’s going to run the table.

    He has to give only thinnest appearance of propriety, and sometimes, as with the $400M aircraft “gift,” not even that.

    2
  29. Jim X 32 Avatar
    Jim X 32

    @Jen: MAGA and MAGA adjacent material is in the mainstream media ecosystem—so that’s what the disinterested voter digests. Liberal content is not prevalent on popular, non – political podcasts; YouTube channels; tik Tok or IG. The good Liberal content that is on those mediums do not possess the ability to go viral across the activist and non activist community like RW material.

    The MAGA and MAGA-Lite people in my orbit all share and show me the same videos. Liberals share different videos in different factions. There is no mass in that approach. There could be, if the most popular Dems would promote content and content creators that resonates with activist and voters who only pay attention to politics for 2 months every Presidential election. The beauty of social media is there are thousands of variations of content produced at no cost that the best 1% could be astroturfed.

    Americans love the story of the bully being bullied–Its an archetype Trump has used–that can easily be turned on him. Someone popular in the Party has to start picking a winning ecosystem of comedians, etc to start reframing the story.

    2
  30. dazedandconfused Avatar
    dazedandconfused

    Trump’s strategy explained.

    He decided to make that meeting public for a reason, and it has nothing to do with South Africa or Africa.

    2
  31. The Q Avatar
    The Q

    Can we please stop with the “yeah Joe was border line senile, but Trump is insane bla bla”…I get it – Trump is a threat against everything the founders tried to check, but there was no way Biden could have lasted until 2029 and if Matt refuses to believe this, then he is as deluded as the trumpers we all detest.

    I am a Democrat. I was LIED to by Jill and his inner circle. We could all see his decline, yet as Tapper outlines, any mention of this was met with the same ferocious intensity as the MAGA response to any Republican that dares deviate from the madman’s agenda.

    We hate it when MAGAs do the whataboutism argument, so let’s stop excusing Biden’s obvious impairment and lies to cover it up with Trump’s current insanity. It cost us the election and we have 1100 more days of derangement ahead of us. Biden and his cohort bear a huge responsibility for this loss.

    Joe was a liar and selfish…yes I preferred Joe to Trump and as Bill Maher said (I know he is hated now by the wokers) about Joe, notwithstanding his mental state “I will vote him even if his head is in a jar of blue liquid” over Trump, but this does not condone the atrocious behavior of his inner circle in succumbing to the “Feinstein Syndrome” of covering up a deteriorating mental state.

    The DNC should be running ads about the tax cuts just passed: Scene: A little girl playing with 2 dolls with this VO “Donald Trump thinks your daughter should play with 2 dolls. Under his tax cuts (scene then switches to another little girl) daughters of billionaires will get to play with – then cut to the rich daughter with literally a dump truck of dolls falling on her head. “Is this fair? Is this what you voted for?”

    If we don’t cut out the DEI, trans, race, gender sideshows and start focusing on class warfare, our party is doomed.

    4
  32. Bill Jempty Avatar
    Bill Jempty

    @Mikey:

    This episode, he’s interviewing none other than Jake Tapper, of course regarding the new book (which Biden’s granddaughter Naomi has called “political fairy smut,”

    Yes Tapper’s book contains a fairy tale though he didn’t invent it, I’m talking about Biden being given the sacrament of the last rites in 1988, and Jill Bidensupposedly stopped it.

    Back at the hospital as she approached his room, a nurse told Dr. Biden not to enter because a priest was inside administering his last rites.

    “What? He’s not gonna die,” she said, according to her new biography, before rushing into the room and telling the priest, “Get out! Get out! … My husband is not going to die.”

    Tapper skews the story, saying Jill Biden was kept out of her husband’s room. Whichever version you care to believe- and you shouldn’t for either-, its a bunch of bs because the sacrament known as the last rites became the anointing of the sick in 1972 or so. Anointing of the sick isn’t just for Catholics near death,

    Yes Tapper’s book contains at least one fairy tale but some member of the Biden family created it.

    1
  33. Jim X 32 Avatar
    Jim X 32

    @Gustopher: The Russian playbook says the outcome of this type of rapid-fire lying environment is cynicism and indifference–both of which are good factors for a permissive environment for the State Powers to loot a country’s wealth with little threat of uprising.

    The strategy has worked here as advertised.

    4
  34. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Connor: Your president can’t tell the difference between the DRC and South Africa and thinks that random blog posts are evidence.

    You have zero room to talk.

    12
  35. Jim X 32 Avatar
    Jim X 32

    @The Q: One team circled the wagons around their guy…and won. The other shot their guy in the back, shit on him, then cried about losing.

    The take away was to RALLY AROUND YOUR GUY. Why the hell would the casual voter that voted for Trump–vote for a guy who’s own Party railed about how they wanted someone else? If a crowd of dummies walk into a hotel and there are 2 Ballrooms, 1 with people outside excited as hell, and 1 with half the people complaining that they wished they were in another Ballroom–which Ballroom are the lemmings most likely to end up in?

    You didn’t need Joe to last 4 years– you needed him to last until February. And now, because the serious Dem voter was unable to humble themselves, instead of wondering who KH would pick to be her VP, we are wondering if the Damage to the Federal Government can ever be repaired.

    Which set is wondering is better? It would have been different had Dems simply SUPPORTED THEIR FLAWED GUY as ferverently as MAGA supported theirs. I’m glad Joe kicked y’all in the ass on the VIEW when he pointed out that millions of his voters (you know the guy that went UNCHALLENGED in the Primary and won Millions of votes) didn’t show up. LOL

    I’ll bet you support your candidate next time and not let Chin-stroking podcasters(who only political junkies can name), has-been actors/politicans, and cable news personalies dictate the candidates.

    7
  36. Jim X 32 Avatar
    Jim X 32

    @Steven L. Taylor: Not to mention having a handle that’s and adjective for how T-rump deals the prostitutes.

    He’s a poor-mans Fortune

    1
  37. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @The Q: Biden wasn’t on the ballot in 2024, for all the other stuff it is still kind of important to note that.

    And you can whine about DEI trans people, and Bill Maher all you like, the issue wasn’t any of those things, it was ultimately inflation and the economy.

    3
  38. gVOR10 Avatar
    gVOR10

    @Bill Jempty: I don’t know why Tapper is all of a sudden respectable. I’m open to other opinions, especially as my opinion of Tapper is such that I don’t pay much attention to him. He’s always struck me as primarily concerned about his own career more than anything else. Looking for honest, unbiased reporting, he seems more part of the problem than the solution.

    2
  39. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    @The Q:

    there was no way Biden could have lasted until 2029

    So? We have a VP for redundancy. It’s one of the less broken parts of our system.

    And I don’t think anyone knew he had metastasized cancer. And he was old, but not senile by a long shot — that could change, and our system isn’t well designed to handle that, but power would end up flowing around him. (As Tapper claims it already was doing, when he isn’t claiming that Hunter was the real president, and apparently that is fine as there was no need to break the story when it was allegedly happening when it could be saved for a book).

    3
  40. Michael Reynolds Avatar
    Michael Reynolds

    @Jim X 32:
    Senile Biden and senile Trump are not comparable in their public appearance. Trump is clearly less physically impaired. In the debate he spouted lies, but at least he spouted, while Biden mumbled like he just woke up from a nap. Once that debate happened his infirmity became relevant and inescapable. There is no point pretending that he was up for a campaign, he wasn’t and Trump was. So, no, I don’t believe we could have just closed ranks behind him.

    There’s a fundamental difference between us and them: they deep-throat lies 24/7 and we don’t. There’s no point pretending that our side would have been sufficiently disciplined to shut up and pretend. That’s them, not us. If that’s a disadvantage, well, too bad because it is what it is.

    Biden should never have run. I’m not going to twist myself into Orwellian doublethink because an octogenarian narcissist cared more about himself than his party or his country. Nor were independents and marginal dems going to. The only possible way to sell Biden was as ‘not Trump’ and that was never going to be enough. You have to be going somewhere in order to lead and Biden was going nowhere. Trump’s message: ‘Let’s go to this future.’ Biden’s message was, ‘Hey, everything’s fine as is.’ Biden was so fucking limp he couldn’t defend abortion, FFS.

    We had and have no message. We had no economic plan other than more of what people didn’t like. No vision. No direction. And to be blunt, too many people didn’t like us because for four years all most people heard from us was pronouns and Gaza.

    6
  41. The Q Avatar
    The Q

    Jim X 32, in Feb. 2024, 73% of Dems polled thought Biden too old to run for Christ sakes and 86% of voters overall thought him too old and yet, you and other out of touch Dem elitists insisted we shut the fuck up and support a senile old man. Sure, and be like the dim witted MAGAs with their Hitler salutes and unfettered support? No thank you.

    And Dr. Taylor “And you can whine about DEI trans people, and Bill Maher all you like, the issue wasn’t any of those things, it was ultimately inflation and the economy.” Oh really? Maybe it was 80% or 85% those issues but when we ultimately lost (the popular vote by 1.5%) because we couldn’t turn over one out of 100 to vote for us then maybe those “marginal” issues I alluded to weren’t as irrelevant as you rant. As for Biden “wasn’t on the 2024 ticket” – his policies sure were as KH failed miserably to disassociate herself from him (no need to remind Dr. Taylor of the View segment which ran about 25,000 times around the country) so to say that he wasn’t on the ballot is disingenuous.

    And Gustopher and Jim X 32, yeah, I realize there is a VP but I don’t think that it would have been a great slogan, “Elect Joe Biden…at least until Feb. 2025 when the most unpopular VP in modern times can take over.” Now that’s a winning ticket. I’m sure the voters would have gone for that pitch.

    2
  42. al Ameda Avatar
    al Ameda

    @Connor:

    With Democrats dying on the hills of bizarre issues and people, I don’t see a Dem Pres for awhile. You progressives need to look in the mirror.

    A couple of observations:

    (1) “In Springfield, they are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They’re eating – they are eating the pets of the people that live there.”

    (2) The news cycle changes fast these days and it is still a long way to go before the 2028-29 campaign cycle. So enjoy the ‘white genocide’ lies along with Hubris served up raw, as you like it.

    11
  43. DK Avatar
    DK

    @Jim X 32:

    (you know the guy that went UNCHALLENGED in the Primary and won Millions of votes)

    Not totally unchallenged. Uncommitted and Dean Philips gave it a go.

    It’s a clever trick Donorcrats pulled, vetoing primary voters in July. They got that one, but this won’t be the case in 2028.

    The 2028 Democratic nominee will be chosen by voters most loyal to Dems, like black voters who’ll turn out in South Carolina. Those with Woke Derangement Syndrome will not dictate the choice.

    The primary winner won’t be someone that caters to the “Fuck Joe Biden” and “Genocide Joe” crowd. Won’t be someone parroting dumb rightwing agitprop about trans panic or DEI. Not one who dismisses bedrock human rights issues as “identity politics.” Not someone sucking up to Jake Tapper. Not an acolyte of entitled egomaniacs who delegitimize voters of color by screaming “it’s rigged!” when they lose to a majority-minority coalition.

    It will probably be a generic white guy, not gayor a woman — since the Dem base has no reason to trust that America’s white voter majority is ready to admit or fix sexism and bigotry.

    Biden didn’t force a majority of white voters to pick a rapist. Latino male voters’ error of civic judgment in 2024 is not the fault of Dem messaging. But Americans are allergic to accountability for indefensibly poor choices none of our high-quality-of-life peer nations would make.

    In those places, had Biden had dropped out three days before the election his replacement still would have won. Because those societies have the good sense to see Trump is not qualified, for any reason.

    So core Dem primary voters will need to be strategically risk averse. But whether more or less progressive, more or less charasmatic, the nominee will, as always, be a good person — a mainstream liberal, eminently qualified, who articulates demands for quality and affordable housing, healthcare, energy etc.

    They will win 85+% of black and LGBT voters, be preferred by supermajorities in allied countries. If other Americans decide they’d rather lose Medicaid and Medicare, we’ll continue getting the mediocrity and failure we deserve. Oh well.

    7
  44. Michael Reynolds Avatar
    Michael Reynolds

    I don’t normally find myself agreeing with @the Q, but yes, of course DEI/trans/pronouns/ACAB/Gaza had an effect. The rallying cry of the MAGAts is not ‘egg prices,’ it’s ‘woke.’ We’re months into this and still in denial. I have tried repeatedly to get people here to look at our mistakes and all I get is denial. ‘Well, it couldn’t be anything we did.’ Not our fault – the cry of the loser. They did and they said and they they they, always they and never we.

    We made mistakes. You know how I know we made mistakes? We fucking lost to a fucking rapist moron. You think we lose to a rapist moron and none of it’s on us?

    Scolding, hectoring, canceling, denouncing, ‘phobing’ everyone who dissents from the latest ill-considered Twitter-generated position. This has been an exercise for me in watching trains collide. Jesus H. Christ, trans athletes? No one thought that might be a problem? Obviously it was going to be a problem. Waving Hamas flags and chanting Hamas slogans and no one thought maybe that might be an issue? Obviously it was going to be an issue. Defund? ACAB? ‘Actually, you should use the singular ‘they’ and ‘LatinX’ and actually when you roll your eyes that’s a micro-aggression, and ‘it’s all the fault of white men,’ and actually, actually, blah blah blah.

    Trump didn’t win by attacking liberal programs like Social Security or Medicaid or even Obamacare, he won because we were condescending, intolerant and humorless, addressing everyone in teacher voice. 1.5% and none of it was about our side being insufferable know-it-alls? Who the fuck wants to sign up with a party composed of scolds?

    Where was our vision? Where was our plan? What were our ideas? And how in the fuck did we end up being the ones without a sense of humor?

    I can take care of my enemies, lord, but protect me from my friends.

    4
  45. DK Avatar
    DK

    @Michael Reynolds:

    Where was our vision? Where was our plan? What were our ideas?

    85% of black voters paid attention and heard them. 85% of LGBT voters paid attention and heard them.

    Others, including many on the left, willfully ignore what Democrats are actually doing to instead parrot rightwing propaganda that falsely insists Harris and Co. ran on trans athletes (did not), Defund (thr opposite), DEI (nice boogeyman, but no), LatinX (bs), Hamas flags (news to those flying them) — and that Dems downballot didn’t offer ideas and plans (deaf? blind?).

    Even across the ocean, they paid attention: there, Harris would’ve won 70-90%. Because the choice was that obvious.

    In the entire Western world, only the usual suspect American demographics failed this basic test. Yet they still lash indignantly at the suggestion accountability is warranted — especially after their preferred party has spent decades hectoring and scolding about personal responsibility (when not too busy denouncing DemoncRATs as baby killers, banning books, crying everytime a movie casts a person of color, or canceling and demanding apologies from Disney, Colin Kaepernick, M&Ms, Bud Light, Kathy Griffin, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, SNL, Harvard, Starbucks, Mr. Potato Head, Colombia, Meryl Streep, Blues Clues and Sesame Street — the vaunted new right sense of humor at work).

    And that’s why they and their country are unlikely to improve very much. Every therapist knows change starts with personal accountability, and too many Americans are immature and incapable.

    They did and they said and they they they, always they and never we.

    The mantra of American voters.

    6
  46. JohnSF Avatar
    JohnSF

    @Connor:

    With Democrats dying on the hills of bizarre issues and people, I don’t see a Dem Pres for awhile.

    Well, lucky you, and lucky “conservatives”.
    You get to pwn the libs, at the trivial cost of the ongoing erosion of the foundations of US security and prosperity.

    Win a few, lose a few, eh?

    11
  47. wr Avatar
    wr

    @Kurtz: “Marco Rubio is Tom Wambsgans, funny that.”

    If you remember where Tom ended up, maybe not so funny…

    1
  48. Michael Reynolds Avatar
    Michael Reynolds

    @DK:
    It does not matter whether Harris ran on trans athletes. Of course she didn’t run on trans athletes it was a loser of an issue. But Harris did not, in three months, define the Democratic Party. Social media defined the public’s perception of the party. The messaging power of a candidate is minuscule compared to the power of social media. And in social media the Left spewed rank hatred of men, guilted Whites, demanded instant adoption of whatever idiotic neologism some college assistant professor happened to coin that week, and condemned as bigots anyone who didn’t announce their pronouns. The party of tolerance became the party of intolerance. We destroyed our own brand.

    Simultaneously Republicans were destroying their brand. They fell for a con man. They turned their party into a cult of personality. They threw away all their core beliefs except for greed and hatred of the ‘other.’ But crucially, as they betrayed everything they pretended to believe in, they had a place to go: the cult of Trump. The cult slotted right in where their professed beliefs had been.

    In between the obnoxious Left and the cultist Right are a big bunch of voters who mostly just want to be left alone. The Right mostly left them alone. They promised simple answers for voters who are not remotely interested in whether a trans woman is a woman, or whether it’s Hispanic or Latino or LatinX, or for that matter whether Palestinians kill Israelis or the reverse. Make America Great Again – the perfect slogan for the don’t-give-a-damn voter who wants someone else to fix everything in some vague way and leave them the fuck alone.

    We did not leave those voters the fuck alone. On the contrary, we made demands on them. We guilted them. We lectured them in our patented know-it-all voices. We were not the kind of people any of those voters wanted to hang out with. We became the opposite of fun.

    The epitome of Leftie self-destructiveness is in the term, ‘toxic masculinity.’ We labeled half the voters in the country as toxic males, and yes, I know that term was blown out of proportion and seized upon and exploited by Right wing media, but since all of that was perfectly predictable, what we should have done as soon as that term appeared on Twitter, is yelled shut the fuck up, we are men and we love men. It’s not surprising that we lost huge numbers of men, it’s surprising we retained any.

  49. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @The Q:

    Maybe it was 80% or 85% those issues but when we ultimately lost (the popular vote by 1.5%) because we couldn’t turn over one out of 100 to vote for us then maybe those “marginal” issues I alluded to weren’t as irrelevant as you rant

    A major flaw in your logic is to assume that marginal voters are motivated by marginal issues.

    For example: most of the anti-trans vote was already baked into the pro-Trump vote.

    Your focus on trans issues comes across as bigotry on your part and your need to constantly mention Bill Maher sounds more than a bit cartoonish at this point.

    4
  50. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Michael Reynolds:

    The rallying cry of the MAGAts is not ‘egg prices,’ it’s ‘woke.’

    But the MAGAts were going to vote for Trump. And actually, yes, a lot of what was part of the Trump rally and message was eggs and prices in general. Remember Trump discovering the word “groceries.”

    We know that as a basic matter of politics, elections are referenda on the incumbent party in power and that the main thing that motivated voters in 2024 was the economy.

    I know that a lot of readers here think that there is some perfect equilibrium messaging that unlocks the electorate, but that really isn’t the way it works.

    I can take care of my enemies, lord, but protect me from my friends.

    Given the degree to which you like to scold, there is some irony in that sentence, yes? 😉

    5
  51. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Michael Reynolds:

    We lectured them in our patented know-it-all voices.

    Also this.

    1
  52. DK Avatar
    DK

    @Michael Reynolds:

    We labeled half the voters in the country as toxic males

    And yet 78% of black male voters and 85% of gay male voters still voted to stop fascism and protect Medicaid. Maybe something in melanin or the gay gene protects their executive functioning from total implosion when somebody they don’t know says something they don’t like on Facetok or InstaSnap or whatever.

    Did Mark Carney define the Liberal Party in three months? Americans pretend the problem is ‘three months’ to avoid dealing with the flaws in our people who, ten years later, still can’t figure out Trump is lying.

    There is a fatal resistance among some white Americans to taking responsibility. Our black underclass has the same issue. But blacks have a long tradition — from Booker T. Washington to Malcom X to pre-MeToo Bill Cosby to Obama — of calling out its wayward.

    But our white brothers and sisters who should be leading accountability efforts instead help the enablers blame their shit choices on Biden, Dems, mean ole liberals.

    ‘An leftist hurt my feeling on social media’ is a dumb reason to vote to gut Medicare. We need white folk who should know better to put their foot down on this instead of coddling these lame excuses.

    When allies are instead dedicated to ‘Those divide-and-conquer Russian bot farms have a point’ vs. ‘Y’all are being manipulated, and I have to tell you that truth instead of validating excuses,’ it is unlikely US decline will reverse.

    Recently, an American died because he could not afford his asthma medication It would’ve cost €5 in our peer nations; it had skyrocketed to hundreds of dollars. We have real problems. Serious, adult problems. ‘I don’t like the term toxic masculinity’ is not one of them.

    America cannot afford a Democratic Party distracted by immature psychodramas. Polling has identified Trump voter regret and plenty of 2024 nonvoters deeply unsatisfied with Trump’s incompetence, and hurting from lack of affordable housing, healthcare, education, transit, etc. This is who Democrats must target in 2026, 2028+.

    The weak, insecure 21st century American manbaby feigning upset that Dems’ trans position is the same one pushed by Trump in 2016 is not a necessary get. They have a home among Rethuglikkklans and should stay there. The US is damaged enough in having one childish, unserious party. We don’t need two.

  53. Jim X 32 Avatar
    Jim X 32

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    I know that a lot of readers here think that there is some perfect equilibrium messaging that unlocks the electorate, but that really isn’t the way it works.

    This. Which is why I continually harp on the fact that the RW megaphone is bigger, more sophisticated, and expands farther than the LW megaphone. Their message is actually shitty—but it’s uncontested so the target audience have no comparison or competition.

    My handyman has been talking about Trump starting a war with Iran and grocery prices lately—do you think he will see any left-center/left wing content suggested in his social media feed? The answer is no. I can’t be on social media for 10minutes without suggested content to slide down the RW rabbit hole—and I don’t look at any RW content—ever.

    1
  54. DK Avatar
    DK

    @Jim X 32:

    do you think he will see any left-center/left wing content suggested in his social media feed?

    Zuckerberg (Facebook) and Musk (Twitter) aren’t going out of their way to elevate content that might eventually get them taxed fairly. China (TikTok) won’t push content that might prompt users to vote to reverse American decline.

    And America is not interested in exploring why certain people are more susceptible to social media brainwashing than others. (We all have access to the same platforms, after all.)

    So. Good luck, America.

    3

Latest Posts