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[Trekkin]

Trump is authentic. Authentically terrible, but authentic. His positions are for the most part things he's seemed to believe in for decades, and despite wolololoing all over the place on social issues his isolationist nationalism and bullheaded economic beliefs can be observed all the way back in the 90s and previous. Further, his personal style is consistent and interesting.

I suppose it depends in part on which version of Trump you mean; to some degree his mask has been fragmenting, but when he has his whole branding apparatus in place and functioning, he's the "blue-collar billionaire." The whole "he tells it like it is" schtick is just part of that attempt to seem earnest by saying things that people with his wealth generally avoid saying in public, but that they are shocking does not make them any less calculated.
   In a way, Trump is like a glitzier version of Dubya: he plays the idiot knowing that people will either believe the act or believe that, by seeing through it, they're seeing through to the "real him." Conveniently, the "real him" is as canny as they believe themselves to be, instead of merely a different, sadder, more mundane kind of idiot.
   Trump is neither the buffoon he pretends to be at his rallies nor the tycoon he wants you to think is putting on the act. His team allows certain of his vices to show through to lend an air of authenticity to both, but beyond the hamburgers and the affairs is just a deeply unhappy old man who was never quite as smart as his dad wanted him to be.

[Frumple]

... if you're ignoring or massively romanticizing how piss poor his reaction to that over the years has been, I guess. That "just" is caveated by lashing out at all sorts of different people, indulging in a host of unethical behavior, and generally being about the worst sort of unhappy old person an unhappy old person can be. Or person regardless of age that hasn't started outright murdering people, anyway.

Assuming that's actually what's happening and he's not just, say, a malignant narcissist of the clinical sort acting like one. I'd bet more money on the latter, personally. I've known sad old people with daddy issues and they didn't end up that sort of jackass.

[Trekkin]

... if you're ignoring or massively romanticizing how piss poor his reaction to that over the years has been, I guess. That "just" is caveated by lashing out at all sorts of different people, indulging in a host of unethical behavior, and generally being about the worst sort of unhappy old person an unhappy old person can be. Or person regardless of age that hasn't started outright murdering people, anyway.

Assuming that's actually what's happening and he's not just, say, a malignant narcissist of the clinical sort acting like one. I'd bet more money on the latter, personally. I've known sad old people with daddy issues and they didn't end up that sort of jackass.

That "just" was meant to indicate the relative mundanity of who Trump actually is relative to who he claims to be, not any sort of moral judgment. Yes, he's awful -- I wouldn't say he's significantly more awful than many people who have spent their lives surrounded by yes-men, but that's a very low bar to clear. He's certainly more volubly so than most, partly by design.

My point is simply that he's not as special as either his cheerleaders or his detractors make him out to be, once you account for the effect of his enablers. He's a very unfortunately common sort of terrible, and it's not like we don't all know people as racist or as sexist or as generally spiteful.

[misko27]

I swear The Onion is gonna run out of shit to make fun out of by the time Trumps term is over, because it'll become fucking reality.

I remember seeing (but can't remember the details of) some Onion article recently I couldn't distinguish with reality, but most of the Onion's political material is sarcastically commenting on real life now it seems, like Secretary Of State Fired After Inappropriately Weighing In On International Politics, Gary Cohn resigns after Trump's bigoted remarks on Aluminum, and NRA Ad Director Still Searching For Right Sinister Music To Play Over Footage Of High Schoolers. Less of their outright ridiculous articles like the classic Obama: 'Help Us Destroy Jesus And Start A New Age Of Liberal Darkness', it seems.

Honestly, fuck the doners. I mean that on a pragmatic level. You can have all the money in the world but lose if you're a cardboard cutout. If there's anything to be learned from Trump's dumb, dumb political strategies it's not to be skittish.

People can tell when you're being avoidant or pandering and they don't like it. There will always be more rich people with weird politics for you to draw from. There's not always fire. And without fire, you will fail.

The NY Times put out an article more-or-less agreeing with you, I think. And for what it's worth, I've heard that the DNCC has been pushing hard to recruit a diverse selection of candidates. One consequence is that Nancy Pelosi is likely to be denounced by more candidates as time goes on.

Anyway, the whole Russo-British row continues, with the US finally getting involved: In an unusual move, Britain has taken to the UN Security Council to accuse Russia of the attack, receiving full support from US counterpart Nikki Haley. Elsewhere, in possibly related news, the Trump Administration has finally imposed sanctions on Russia for Cyberattacks. I wonder if Tillerson's departure has anything to do with that.

[smjjames]

Hrm, it's possible that Tillerson could have been a factor with the sanctions and the ex-spy case gives Trump an out. Instead of saying that the sanctions are due to election meddling, which touches a nerve, he can claim that it's related to the spy stuff.

There's probably other events that are also coming into play, namely an ongoing attempt on the electric grid and a virus attack back in June.

It's hard to tell how much of it was from Tillerson blocking it since he and Trump didn't have a good relationship at all.

[McTraveller]

It's always fun to re-visit Sand Won't Save You This Time as well as other articles in the categories Things I Won't Work With, etc. Nothing (particularly) political/US-related, but worth sharing anyway.

Awesome.  I love this quote:
"If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire."

[bloop_bleep]

It's always fun to re-visit Sand Won't Save You This Time as well as other articles in the categories Things I Won't Work With, etc. Nothing (particularly) political/US-related, but worth sharing anyway.

Awesome.  I love this quote:
"If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire."

You missed the best one:
"For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes."

[redwallzyl]

Donald Trump Jr. is getting divorce. I'm shocked. Who would ever have anticipated this turn of events. /s

http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/378689-donald-trump-jr-files-for-divorce

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Apparently the blue wave has had a backlash in California: Following the withdrawal deadline, the state Democratic Party failed to consolidate ballots in five house districts, which could potentially lead to a vote split that leaves only Republican candidates on the second round. Great job, guys.

[smjjames]

Diverse? Is that like Don Jr. getting two wives? lol. In all seriousness, I saw another article saying that she didn't want anything to do with the family anymore or something to that effect. Sounds like the investigation and plus the politics took their toll on the marriage.

In (sorta) Cabinet reshuffle news, Trump has announced his intent to replace McMaster as National Security Adviser, though they're trying to give him a soft landing/exit rather than the rather dramatic one that Tillerson got.

Apparently the blue wave has had a backlash in California: Following the withdrawal deadline, the state Democratic Party failed to consolidate ballots in five house districts, which could potentially lead to a vote split that leaves only Republican candidates on the second round. Great job, guys.

I didn't hear about that. Though what I did hear is that due to Californias 'jungle primary' and the mass amount of Democrats vying for the top two, they could crowd themselves out and end up with only two Republican candidates in some districts. Basically, their own success and enthusiasm is ending up hurting them. edit: Or maybe that is what you're talking about?

I don't think the jungle primary works very well for competitiveness between the two parties anyway. We haven't had it for very long though.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Scenario A: The Trumps are generally horrible maladjusted people and she just plain wants out of having to smell Don Jr.'s imported infant cologne collection every day.

Scenario B: She and Don Jr. know perfectly well he's about to go down in flames and are using the divorce proceedings to launder as much of the family fortune as possible.

Scenario C: Mueller just repeated his Enron killshot and has compromised Vanessa through incrimination or some other method.

[smjjames]

I tried to find where I saw the comment that said that she wanted nothing to do with the family and couldn't find it, so, that may not be accurate. They're going their ways peacefully though as it's uncontested.

Sounds like one of the more usual reasons for a divorce, they simply grew apart: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/mar/15/trump-jr-divorce-wife-vanessa-reports

[bloop_bleep]

Question: Exactly how many cabinet or cabinet-level officials from the start of Donald Trump's administration are actually left at this point? One? Two?

Wanna bet on how many cabinet positions will have been cycled through at least two times by the end of his presidency?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Trump has replaced 4 of the 23 people generally recognized as cabinet-level. It's more the timing of the removals and the status of the officials in question. You're more likely to remove, say, the Ambassador to the United Nations than the Secretary of State. In fact, no modern Secretary of State got removed quite like Tillerson did, so it's big news all on its own. And of course, Trump can't remove his Vice President until the 2020 election.

[smjjames]

Trump has replaced 4 of the 23 people generally recognized as cabinet-level. It's more the timing of the removals and the status of the officials in question. You're more likely to remove, say, the Ambassador to the United Nations than the Secretary of State. In fact, no modern Secretary of State got removed quite like Tillerson did, so it's big news all on its own. And of course, Trump can't remove his Vice President until the 2020 election.

Well, if you count people still working in his admin, he's technically only removed two, Tom Price and Rex Tillerson. The other two (Kelly and Pompeo) got shuffled to other positions.