Rod wrote:

 
 

Along these lines - I have thought, all along, that he only did this to stir up shit (or else he works for the Clintons like the popular conspiracy theory), and really can't be bothered with the presidency. He's got too much else to do in his multi-millionaire world to be troubled with having to go to all the meetings and summits, etc.

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:I'm sure Trump never expected to be the nominee, but here he is, and I think the real possibility of actually becoming president scares the hell out of him, as it should. I really wonder if at this point, he is trying to be so outrageous with his newest insults, attacks and outright lies, that he loses to Hillary and can then scream about how the system is rigged and she stole the presidency from him. (He has already started on the rigging excuse) Yet with every bomb he tosses, his supporters blindly double down on supporting him. It must be driving him nuts! 

“Obama-Clinton have single-handedly destabilized the Middle East, handed Iraq, Libya and Syria to Isis, and allowed our personnel to be slaughtered at Benghazi,” Trump wrote, in a single-paragraph release sent to reporters by his campaign. “Then they put Iran on the path to nuclear weapons. Then they allowed dozens of veterans to die waiting for medical care that never came. Hillary Clinton put the whole country at risk with her illegal email server, deleted evidence of her crime, and lied repeatedly about her conduct with endangered us all. They released criminal aliens into our country who killed one innocent American after another... and have repeatedly admitted migrants later implicated in terrorism.”

“They have produced the worst recovery since the Great Depression,” Trump continued. “They have shipped millions of our best jobs overseas to appease their global special interests. They have betrayed our security and our workers, and Hillary Clinton has proven herself unfit to serve in any government office.”

I know we all construct our own versions of reality, but this is giving construction a whole new twist. It is kind of interesting that Trump's reality is every bit as much a fabrication as his building projects. I think it is how his mind works. He wants an apartment with two bathrooms? There done! Problem solved. He wants a nemesis of his white male Anglo-Saxon version of the American dream as his opponent which he can beat at the election? There, done! This might work on TV. It might even work while canvassing for election, in fact it seems to. But what happens when reality comes up and hits him in the face? His reaction to the Khans gives us a pretty good indication. He just couldn't process the fact that here was a shining example of a real world couple who ran counter to all his preconceptions of what muslims stood for. The dissonance was too much so he fell back on his routine. The shocking thing was not his distaste for the Khans, though God forbid that was bad enough. No, the shocking thing was that he had no tools in his toolbox to handle the situation.

Is Donald Trump Just Plain Crazy?

By Eugene Robinson

During the primary season, as Donald Trump’s bizarre outbursts helped him crush the competition, I thought he was being crazy like a fox. Now I am increasingly convinced that he’s just plain crazy.

I’m serious about that. Leave aside for the moment Trump’s policies, which in my opinion range from the unconstitutional to the un-American to the potentially catastrophic. At this point, it would be irresponsible to ignore the fact that Trump’s grasp on reality appears to be tenuous at best.

Begin with the fact that he lies the way other people breathe. Telling a self-serving lie — no matter how transparent, no matter how easily disproved — seems to be a reflex for him. Look at the things he has said in just the past week.

Of course. That way it won't be his fault when he loses. The man is utterly incapable of taking responsibility for himself.

 haresfur wrote: 
Thank you!

 kurtster wrote: 
Never (burp) have been. Never (fart) will.

 Steely_D wrote: 
Ah shucks, you didn't have to go and get all politically correct for me.

 

 kurtster wrote: 
The binary choice is between the incompetent asshole salesman and the highly trained liar politician.

yeah, there IS a goddamn difference

So the binary choice is between a proven asshole and the proven liar.  

The advantage goes to the liar cuz its easier to deny being lied to than to deny being insulted. 

That and the liar promises the most free stuff.

 

 islander wrote: 
A ha! An optimist!

 VV wrote: 
Yes. Bullseye. 

Trump's no-apology approach works when he's talking about politicians or celebrities or famous people. To Trump supporters, they're fair game and deserving of rough treatment. But that "strength" looks ugly and hateful when he hurts regular people. That WashPo article I pointed to in my previous post just below reports that Trump's mocking of a disabled NYT reporter really stuck in the craw of focus groups. Like attacking the Khans, that kind of behavior is out of bounds; it's cruel and bullying. 

Trump will have to make friends with more voters in order to win. I don't think he's capable of that or showing compassion and humility. 
 

 haresfur wrote: 
From David Brooks, on Sunday:

"And I wonder what this moral pygmy on top of a ticket what’s doing to the country and what will do as President.’"

 Steely_D wrote: 
Seems like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell have found their balls and are criticizing Douchebag Don as well, along with other GOP politicians: 

 

Some interesting points from this WashPo article (emphases are mine):

 

Khan confrontation keys in on human decency — and that could haunt Trump



“Nobody minds when he attacks other politicians; in fact, they like it. He’s instilling an ­accountability that doesn’t exist. But they don’t like it when he goes after real people, and they wish he would stop,” said GOP pollster Frank Luntz, who conducted a focus group about Trump with voters Friday in Columbus, Ohio.

...

Critics believe that in the case of the Khans, Trump has gone way too far, comparing it to a famed turning point for McCarthyism in the 1950s. Grilled by then-Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy at a congressional hearing as part of the Wisconsin Republican’s crusade to root out communist sympathizers, then-Army counsel Joseph N. Welch asked, “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

Initial reports suggest the Khan episode has hurt Trump, at least for now. A pair of national polls taken over the weekend and released Monday showed a ­sizable bump for Clinton, suggesting the Khan affair, coupled with a successful Democratic convention, was working to her advantage. Clinton led 52 percent to 43 percent in a CNN-ORC survey and 47 percent to 41 percent in a CBS News survey.

Polls consistently show that Trump’s biggest vulnerabilities are on questions of character and temperament. Three-quarters of Americans said Trump does not show enough respect for people he disagrees with, and 55 percent said this was a “major problem,” according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll in May.

...

Democratic strategist Stephanie Cutter, a former adviser to Obama, said Trump’s comments about the Khans are breaking through to voters because they violate people’s expectations of decency and empathy.

“They worry about what kind of role model this sets for their kids,” Cutter said. “They don’t want a president who is insulting people based on their disability or religion or gender or threatening to knock somebody in the head.”

 

 

 Steely_D wrote: 
From the VFW statement:

When you question a mother’s pain, by implying that her religion, not her grief, kept her from addressing an arena of people, you are attacking us,” the Gold Star families wrote. “When you say your job building buildings is akin to our sacrifice, you are attacking our sacrifice.”

 

 haresfur wrote: 
When the VFW comes after you, it's not so good.
Particularly if you've been beating your chest about how you want to take care of veterans. 

 haresfur wrote: 
No, not today.

Washington Post front page:

14 articles mentioning Trump
2 mentioning Clinton (and one was Howard Stern wanting her to come on his show) 

All publicity is good publicity 

 Steely_D wrote: 
You do have one. Her name is Hillary.