The problem is that Trump WOULD have done most of those things when he was younger. His history of making bad situations worse with impulsive, ill informed decisions, and then blaming scapegoats, should have been a flashing, blaring alarm in 2015. Instead, the GOP pandered to the people who mistook bullying for strength.
They didn't mistake anything. They wanted a president who would bully the people they want bullied, notably people of color and women who believe in equal rights and responsibilities.
yes, the only thing that kept him from doing the stupid things he has/is doing is that he had adults in the room to tell him no instead of the sycophants and ass-kissers he has now.
I don't know, the presence of Dr. Birx at a news conference didn't stop him from impulsively spouting one of his brilliant ideas about how to cure COVID with Lysol. He'd just seen a video about playground safety and the one and only piece of information he took away from it was that it was safe for children to play on outdoor equipment because sunshine kills viruses as effectively as household cleaners.
Mainstream media killed itself with its candidate coverage in 2024 and full capitulation to Trump after the election. If you don’t read independent media, you have no idea what is really going on, and that explains the majority of people in the United States.
"And most of the time, Trump does appear more spry than many 80-year-olds."
This 80-year-old begs to differ. And I don't care as much about his not having a spry body as I do about his obviously absent mind. It's past time to invoke the 25th Amendment.
Maybe the reason so much attention was given to President Biden's age was because there wasn't much else to fill the news cycle. I suppose it's not very exciting to report on an administration filled with normal adults doing their jobs just like the rest of us.
Worse than that. They felt they had to give not just equal time to covering Biden's age, compared to Trump's MANY SERIOUS CRIMES and all Trump's LIES and declarations that as president he would do mass deportation with the military, and then use the military in the blue cities to deal with the democrats and how he was going to go after his political enemies. He NAMED those enemies, did not even bother to try and come up with crimes. he called Democrats "vermin" and referred to them as "the enemy within".
No, worse than that, because Biden did not insult them, attack them, threaten them and Biden was president, so they decided they had to cover his age even more.
They did not even bother to get any real analysis by professionals (unlike the large number pointing at the danger signals on Trump) about Biden's age. They treated Trump's crimes as being separate from being qualified to serve as president, but that didn't stop them going after Biden, even AFTER he dropped out.
They are like children, fighting and struggling with their parents, because they know their parent won't really hurt them. They are 'safe' to fight. But with Trump, because he punches back, accuses the press of being biased, then lies and cheats in every way he can... the Reporters / Editors resort to 'Professional Non-Partisan' mode, which they translate as 'equal time, talk only about the polls and absolute objective unquestioned facts or simply quoting his exact statements - - - when talking about Trump, but when it comes to talking about a democrat the gloves come off and they go full scale 'British tabloid' reporting, hysterically focusing on the latest scandal, like when the president wore a tan suit... (that was Obama of course).
Thank you, Paul. I might add that there are many enablers of Trump in the media that need to suffer some kind of consequence for their yellow journalism these last ten years, and deep down they know this. I also think it’s self preservation with respect to protecting the predator class that arose from the Epstein files. I have heard people say that if the names are released it will devastate America, institutions will crumble… Puhleez… no one is irreplaceable, including the arrogant assholes who think they have a right to abuse other people’s children. I held my nose and voted for Hillary, and I held my nose and voted for Joe, the only reason being they weren’t Donald Trump, who has made my skin crawl since the 80’s.
Yes. But the institutions are already crumbling thanks to the sledgehammers wielded first by DOGE and now by the Project 2025 author at OMB. Republicans in Congress and the Cabinet are traitors and they should all be punished for letting this happen.
Seriously? Reporters don't cover Trump the same way as Biden or ANY past president. Trump figured out the secret.
Reporters covered Bidens age so heavily because they think their job is to be impartial, as opposed to reporting that which is important so that people can make their choices in an informed way.
Biden gave them NOTHING to report on aside from his large number of successes, good things happening and his occasional gaffe, which he had been doing his entire life.
Yes, reporters like to report on public opinion. The trap is, if people are asked a question after Reporters go into hysterics over his age, then many people are going to agree they are concerned about his age. THEN the reporters talk about the polls saying people are concerned, and the cycle continues. They are doing the same thing on Platner's 'scandals.
Reporters apparently HATE covering policy issues, and they HATE going after... So they make the most news they can out of whatever scandal they can find, unless of course it is an old scandal, even if most people are unaware of it.
Biden gave them NOTHING else they wanted to cover, so they focused on his age, which was never tied to any policy or action or duty that Biden failed to do. Because he never failed.
You like to reference the debate, the infamous debate. I saw that debate. You know what I saw? Trump refused to respond to the questions. He did his usual standup routine of accusations, deflections, distractions, lies... Whereas Biden made the STUPID mistake of thinking the debate moderators were acting in good faith, but the entire setup was BS. They toss out a complex question on a complex issue and give them 90 seconds to give a thoughtful answer with nuance (any failure will be ripped apart for weeks) and so Biden was giving that answer and trying to keep in the time limit, and just at the end of the 90 seconds, wrapping it all up, he stumbled. maybe age, maybe because he is a mere mortal, maybe because of his lifelong stutter blocking him from using the right word. Yes, it was painful, just as when an Olympic gymnast stumbles and falls at the last part of the routine.
Trump did not even try, and nobody said a WORD about Trump's performance. Biden followed the rules and made government work. Trump breaks every rule and makes government FAIL.
Sure the Reporters talk about Trump all the time, but never in the same way, never declaring he is not fit for office. Trump just does another terrible thing and the news cycle continues.
Instead, EVERY terrible thing should be feeding into the SAME story of ALL the terrible things he does, every corruption, incompetence, dementia, CRIME he does should go to the master list of reasons Trump should not be in office. "Today Trump committed two more crimes, accepted three more bribes, showed two overt signs of failing health and dementia, fourteen clear lies and said four things indicating he is STILL grossly incompetent after more than five years On the Job Training. Details are on our website."
Anything else is just being a shill for him. Nobody believes him anymore. Nobody respects him any more, not even his own staff. They fear his tantrums, and his 'Militia' that he pardoned and is trying to reward. But they all know he is one 'sick puppy' which is why they pile on the 'over the top' compliments which anyone else would see as insulting.
Biden gave the moderators thoughtful policy statements. Trump gave lies and accusations. Reporters ignored the answers, said 'Trump looked strong' and attacked Bidens age.
The issue is not about 'talking about Trump's age like we did Biden's... It is about looking at the reality in front of us. WHY are we still talking about Biden? Trump is giving a master class on incompetence, corruption, destruction of our nation and our government... and all the reporters can do is talk about polls, rarely actually reporting facts and even more rarely giving context about how he keeps doing terrible things
I recall how Republicans blamed Jill Biden for not intervening and keeping her husband from running for a second term. Indeed, I recall a Washington Post opinion piece (it was still before the 2024 election, so I was still subscribing but becoming increasingly irritated with coverage) from a woman who wrote that as a wife, Jill needed to know when not to let her husband be out there anymore. Nobody has said that Melania has a duty to intervene. No one has said that Ivanka has a duty to intervene.
I would argue that the Republican controlled Congress has the duty to intervene, but they would have to find their spines first.
Absolutely it's up to Congress, but the congressional Republicans were in decline before Trump came along. The 25th Amendment gives key roles to the vice president and the cabinet, but that's an even longer shot. Many believe that Peter Thiel is pulling JD Vance's strings, but even if he isn't, Vance and the cabinet were chosen because they're toadies.
All the screeching about President Biden's decline pisses me off. Yes, he absolutely should have kept his promise about being a one-term president. From late 2023 onward he should have been building Kamala Harris up to succeed him. With all their handicaps, the Harris-Walz ticket came heartbreakingly close to pulling it off.
But here's the crucial thing to remember: Whatever Biden's physical and mental failings, his administration was doing an excellent job digging us out from the wreck of Trump + COVID. The Trump II administration never was capable of doing any such thing.
I will not weep bitter tears: Republicans chose their cult of personality … but when that person falters, it too falters—there is no plan B, no Baby Doc to take it from here.
I see Trump as the endgame of a process that started decades ago. Trump's a parody of all those "dark money" types who've been pulling strings for a long time. His major achievement is that (for some at least) he's made Reagan, Bush I, and even Bush II look good by comparison.
My crystal ball has gone very cloudy on this one. My #1 question is "Will the Republican Party survive, and if it doesn't, what will arise in its place?" I *really* don't want born-again anti-Trumpers flooding into the Democratic Party -- we've got enough problems, and some of us have discovered that "economic justice" and even "social democracy" aren't dirty words. Hell, in some quarters "democratic socialism" is becoming a thing! <g>
The "family" created him, and his sons in particular are profiting handsomely as long as he's in office, so where's the incentive to intervene? Mary Trump and her brother managed to jump clear, and Mary has been doing crucial work in letting us how where Trump came from and how he got this way.
If you look at the "dark money" crowd (Jane Mayer's 2016 DARK MONEY remains an essential guide), you'll notice many similarities and one glaring difference: the mega-big donors have a subtlety and/or self-restraint that the Trump clan completely lacks. At the same time, many of them apparently signed up to fund the ballroom-palooza. They have enough $$$ to bet on several horses at once.
The Biden age coverage wasn't journalism... it was a morality play the press assigned itself. They wanted to be the ones who sounded the alarm, to claim credit for forcing accountability. But with Trump, the same outlets have filed him under "acts of God"... something to report on, not interrogate. The problem is the personalist presidency makes cognitive decline more dangerous here, not less. Biden had guardrails. This administration runs on one man's unfiltered impulse. That asymmetry deserves the asymmetric coverage. We're getting the opposite.
All this makes one marvel at how this administration is in the hands of loud cowards: Threats of annihilation, surprise night attacks, picking on those who are not expected to fight back (trans people, people in fishing boats), the whole “icky girls are nasty” thing.
STOP saying that the felon posts on social media until the wee hours of the morning. I've been keeping an eye on it for a couple, 3 weeks now. Except for around the time of the G-7, when morning was night & night was morning, he mostly hasn't been posting in the middle of the night. Case in point: posting stopped at ~9pm Sun. & as of 6:49am has not resumed yet Mon.
Additionally, just because something is posted, does not mean that he was involved in posting it. Most of what is being posted could be posted by anyone. It's a lot of reposts/shares, AI slop, & stuff we've heard b4. For instance, Sun there was another post threatening to sue the NY Times. Yawn. How many times has he posted something similar? Easy to update & reuse an old post. but also, Aaron Rupar caught the same post being posted twice in 1 week.
* Age limits for federal elected officials. Amid widespread concern over the advanced age of many political leaders, including President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump and some members of Congress, 79% of the public favors putting a maximum age in place for elected officials in Washington, D.C. These views also are widely shared across partisan lines.
* Age limits for the Supreme Court. Nearly as many Americans (74%) support putting age limits in place for justices of the Supreme Court. Democrats (82% favor) are more supportive of creating age limits for the justices than are Republicans (68%).
It's easier to focus on a panacea like age limits than on the deep roots of our current crisis. Let's talk instead about the Citizens United decision of 2010, unleashing corporate money in electoral politics. Let's talk about the right-wing, anti-democratic capture of the Supreme Court that made Citizens United possible *before* Trump was elected the first time. (That decision was 5–4, btw.) Let's talk about the Reagan tax cuts and the explosive rise of the billionaire class.
Above all, let's talk about how economic power, if left to its own devices, predictably eats the three constitutional branches of government alive. Term limits aren't going to fix any of that. Economic power knows how to get around term limits.
Remember, he also is spectacularly stupid. Really stupid. In the classic sense.
Sure, he’s empty inside of anything other than whatever might satisfy his current appetite: for attention, for hunger, for praise, for wealth, for exploitative power, and especially for anything Taboo.
The problem is that Trump WOULD have done most of those things when he was younger. His history of making bad situations worse with impulsive, ill informed decisions, and then blaming scapegoats, should have been a flashing, blaring alarm in 2015. Instead, the GOP pandered to the people who mistook bullying for strength.
They didn't mistake anything. They wanted a president who would bully the people they want bullied, notably people of color and women who believe in equal rights and responsibilities.
yes, the only thing that kept him from doing the stupid things he has/is doing is that he had adults in the room to tell him no instead of the sycophants and ass-kissers he has now.
I don't know, the presence of Dr. Birx at a news conference didn't stop him from impulsively spouting one of his brilliant ideas about how to cure COVID with Lysol. He'd just seen a video about playground safety and the one and only piece of information he took away from it was that it was safe for children to play on outdoor equipment because sunshine kills viruses as effectively as household cleaners.
Mainstream media killed itself with its candidate coverage in 2024 and full capitulation to Trump after the election. If you don’t read independent media, you have no idea what is really going on, and that explains the majority of people in the United States.
"And most of the time, Trump does appear more spry than many 80-year-olds."
This 80-year-old begs to differ. And I don't care as much about his not having a spry body as I do about his obviously absent mind. It's past time to invoke the 25th Amendment.
Yes, I didn't think that was accurate either. He's far from "spry." !
I just wish he were far from us.
Yeah me too. Maybe he could take a submersible trip to look at the Mariana Trench? Or a Space X rocket trip to.. anywhere!
Maybe the reason so much attention was given to President Biden's age was because there wasn't much else to fill the news cycle. I suppose it's not very exciting to report on an administration filled with normal adults doing their jobs just like the rest of us.
Worse than that. They felt they had to give not just equal time to covering Biden's age, compared to Trump's MANY SERIOUS CRIMES and all Trump's LIES and declarations that as president he would do mass deportation with the military, and then use the military in the blue cities to deal with the democrats and how he was going to go after his political enemies. He NAMED those enemies, did not even bother to try and come up with crimes. he called Democrats "vermin" and referred to them as "the enemy within".
No, worse than that, because Biden did not insult them, attack them, threaten them and Biden was president, so they decided they had to cover his age even more.
They did not even bother to get any real analysis by professionals (unlike the large number pointing at the danger signals on Trump) about Biden's age. They treated Trump's crimes as being separate from being qualified to serve as president, but that didn't stop them going after Biden, even AFTER he dropped out.
Agree they shamefully treated Trump's crimes as a separate issue from being qualified (how?!!!!) which helped pave the way to his reelection.
Every single day, Trump does at least three things that would have ended any other presidency.
1) A gross display of Incompetence and / or Dementia (Don't care which one)
2) Outright (self serving) lies - which he never admits to being lies.
3) Violating laws and / or the Constitution, and / or international law...
4) Extorting or accepting bribes for official acts.
5) Distancing from allies and embracing dictators / enemies, starts wars....
6) Blatantly ignoring the constitution and the legislature. until forced by the courts, and even then...
Yeah, he does pretty much all of these, multiple times every day.
Somebody needs to start a list, of ALL his crimes, bribes.... with categories and facts to back each one up. Should include his daily quota of lies.
They are like children, fighting and struggling with their parents, because they know their parent won't really hurt them. They are 'safe' to fight. But with Trump, because he punches back, accuses the press of being biased, then lies and cheats in every way he can... the Reporters / Editors resort to 'Professional Non-Partisan' mode, which they translate as 'equal time, talk only about the polls and absolute objective unquestioned facts or simply quoting his exact statements - - - when talking about Trump, but when it comes to talking about a democrat the gloves come off and they go full scale 'British tabloid' reporting, hysterically focusing on the latest scandal, like when the president wore a tan suit... (that was Obama of course).
Thank you, Paul. I might add that there are many enablers of Trump in the media that need to suffer some kind of consequence for their yellow journalism these last ten years, and deep down they know this. I also think it’s self preservation with respect to protecting the predator class that arose from the Epstein files. I have heard people say that if the names are released it will devastate America, institutions will crumble… Puhleez… no one is irreplaceable, including the arrogant assholes who think they have a right to abuse other people’s children. I held my nose and voted for Hillary, and I held my nose and voted for Joe, the only reason being they weren’t Donald Trump, who has made my skin crawl since the 80’s.
Yes. But the institutions are already crumbling thanks to the sledgehammers wielded first by DOGE and now by the Project 2025 author at OMB. Republicans in Congress and the Cabinet are traitors and they should all be punished for letting this happen.
Agreed. They will be punished at the ballot box this November.🤞🏼
why not? Billionaire tax cuts. Bribes to get approval for mergers, relief on regulations, etc. “the best government we can buy” (is this Huey Long?)
Seriously? Reporters don't cover Trump the same way as Biden or ANY past president. Trump figured out the secret.
Reporters covered Bidens age so heavily because they think their job is to be impartial, as opposed to reporting that which is important so that people can make their choices in an informed way.
Biden gave them NOTHING to report on aside from his large number of successes, good things happening and his occasional gaffe, which he had been doing his entire life.
Yes, reporters like to report on public opinion. The trap is, if people are asked a question after Reporters go into hysterics over his age, then many people are going to agree they are concerned about his age. THEN the reporters talk about the polls saying people are concerned, and the cycle continues. They are doing the same thing on Platner's 'scandals.
Reporters apparently HATE covering policy issues, and they HATE going after... So they make the most news they can out of whatever scandal they can find, unless of course it is an old scandal, even if most people are unaware of it.
Biden gave them NOTHING else they wanted to cover, so they focused on his age, which was never tied to any policy or action or duty that Biden failed to do. Because he never failed.
You like to reference the debate, the infamous debate. I saw that debate. You know what I saw? Trump refused to respond to the questions. He did his usual standup routine of accusations, deflections, distractions, lies... Whereas Biden made the STUPID mistake of thinking the debate moderators were acting in good faith, but the entire setup was BS. They toss out a complex question on a complex issue and give them 90 seconds to give a thoughtful answer with nuance (any failure will be ripped apart for weeks) and so Biden was giving that answer and trying to keep in the time limit, and just at the end of the 90 seconds, wrapping it all up, he stumbled. maybe age, maybe because he is a mere mortal, maybe because of his lifelong stutter blocking him from using the right word. Yes, it was painful, just as when an Olympic gymnast stumbles and falls at the last part of the routine.
Trump did not even try, and nobody said a WORD about Trump's performance. Biden followed the rules and made government work. Trump breaks every rule and makes government FAIL.
Sure the Reporters talk about Trump all the time, but never in the same way, never declaring he is not fit for office. Trump just does another terrible thing and the news cycle continues.
Instead, EVERY terrible thing should be feeding into the SAME story of ALL the terrible things he does, every corruption, incompetence, dementia, CRIME he does should go to the master list of reasons Trump should not be in office. "Today Trump committed two more crimes, accepted three more bribes, showed two overt signs of failing health and dementia, fourteen clear lies and said four things indicating he is STILL grossly incompetent after more than five years On the Job Training. Details are on our website."
Anything else is just being a shill for him. Nobody believes him anymore. Nobody respects him any more, not even his own staff. They fear his tantrums, and his 'Militia' that he pardoned and is trying to reward. But they all know he is one 'sick puppy' which is why they pile on the 'over the top' compliments which anyone else would see as insulting.
Biden gave the moderators thoughtful policy statements. Trump gave lies and accusations. Reporters ignored the answers, said 'Trump looked strong' and attacked Bidens age.
The issue is not about 'talking about Trump's age like we did Biden's... It is about looking at the reality in front of us. WHY are we still talking about Biden? Trump is giving a master class on incompetence, corruption, destruction of our nation and our government... and all the reporters can do is talk about polls, rarely actually reporting facts and even more rarely giving context about how he keeps doing terrible things
I see this precipitous decline - grumpy grampy - and I have to wonder, “Where’s the family?” Too terrible to be unloved.
I recall how Republicans blamed Jill Biden for not intervening and keeping her husband from running for a second term. Indeed, I recall a Washington Post opinion piece (it was still before the 2024 election, so I was still subscribing but becoming increasingly irritated with coverage) from a woman who wrote that as a wife, Jill needed to know when not to let her husband be out there anymore. Nobody has said that Melania has a duty to intervene. No one has said that Ivanka has a duty to intervene.
I would argue that the Republican controlled Congress has the duty to intervene, but they would have to find their spines first.
Absolutely it's up to Congress, but the congressional Republicans were in decline before Trump came along. The 25th Amendment gives key roles to the vice president and the cabinet, but that's an even longer shot. Many believe that Peter Thiel is pulling JD Vance's strings, but even if he isn't, Vance and the cabinet were chosen because they're toadies.
All the screeching about President Biden's decline pisses me off. Yes, he absolutely should have kept his promise about being a one-term president. From late 2023 onward he should have been building Kamala Harris up to succeed him. With all their handicaps, the Harris-Walz ticket came heartbreakingly close to pulling it off.
But here's the crucial thing to remember: Whatever Biden's physical and mental failings, his administration was doing an excellent job digging us out from the wreck of Trump + COVID. The Trump II administration never was capable of doing any such thing.
I will not weep bitter tears: Republicans chose their cult of personality … but when that person falters, it too falters—there is no plan B, no Baby Doc to take it from here.
I see Trump as the endgame of a process that started decades ago. Trump's a parody of all those "dark money" types who've been pulling strings for a long time. His major achievement is that (for some at least) he's made Reagan, Bush I, and even Bush II look good by comparison.
Endgame, yes … but also dead stop? I don’t see anyone to carry the torch once Trump has stumped on to lame-duck inconsequence.
My crystal ball has gone very cloudy on this one. My #1 question is "Will the Republican Party survive, and if it doesn't, what will arise in its place?" I *really* don't want born-again anti-Trumpers flooding into the Democratic Party -- we've got enough problems, and some of us have discovered that "economic justice" and even "social democracy" aren't dirty words. Hell, in some quarters "democratic socialism" is becoming a thing! <g>
Not just “find their spines” but then ask daddy for permission.
The "family" created him, and his sons in particular are profiting handsomely as long as he's in office, so where's the incentive to intervene? Mary Trump and her brother managed to jump clear, and Mary has been doing crucial work in letting us how where Trump came from and how he got this way.
How very cold blooded! Chronicles of the Family Lizard.
If you look at the "dark money" crowd (Jane Mayer's 2016 DARK MONEY remains an essential guide), you'll notice many similarities and one glaring difference: the mega-big donors have a subtlety and/or self-restraint that the Trump clan completely lacks. At the same time, many of them apparently signed up to fund the ballroom-palooza. They have enough $$$ to bet on several horses at once.
Dark Money hedging its bets? I am shocked … SHOCKED!
I'd prefer not to have any more Trumps involved, thanks.
And miss the flowering of the Gilded Age 2.0?
You talked me right into avoiding that.
The Biden age coverage wasn't journalism... it was a morality play the press assigned itself. They wanted to be the ones who sounded the alarm, to claim credit for forcing accountability. But with Trump, the same outlets have filed him under "acts of God"... something to report on, not interrogate. The problem is the personalist presidency makes cognitive decline more dangerous here, not less. Biden had guardrails. This administration runs on one man's unfiltered impulse. That asymmetry deserves the asymmetric coverage. We're getting the opposite.
All this makes one marvel at how this administration is in the hands of loud cowards: Threats of annihilation, surprise night attacks, picking on those who are not expected to fight back (trans people, people in fishing boats), the whole “icky girls are nasty” thing.
Yes! And the cursing (shithole, fucking etc) in public statements would have set off a storm of commentary if this were another (Dem) elected official
STOP saying that the felon posts on social media until the wee hours of the morning. I've been keeping an eye on it for a couple, 3 weeks now. Except for around the time of the G-7, when morning was night & night was morning, he mostly hasn't been posting in the middle of the night. Case in point: posting stopped at ~9pm Sun. & as of 6:49am has not resumed yet Mon.
Additionally, just because something is posted, does not mean that he was involved in posting it. Most of what is being posted could be posted by anyone. It's a lot of reposts/shares, AI slop, & stuff we've heard b4. For instance, Sun there was another post threatening to sue the NY Times. Yawn. How many times has he posted something similar? Easy to update & reuse an old post. but also, Aaron Rupar caught the same post being posted twice in 1 week.
Have to agree, the language in the posts is too elaborate compared to his spoken monosyllabic nonsense.
So, is this the Trump version of the "AutoPen"? Is Trump in charge or not?
Posts ARE policy. Trump trained the government in his first term to treat his posts as official 'Executive' orders.
By the way, even if he rage posts only some nights, it is still going to be talked about for a while.
Our newspapers suck.
The Biden age coverage wasn't journalism...
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/09/19/americans-dismal-views-of-the-nations-politics/
* Age limits for federal elected officials. Amid widespread concern over the advanced age of many political leaders, including President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump and some members of Congress, 79% of the public favors putting a maximum age in place for elected officials in Washington, D.C. These views also are widely shared across partisan lines.
* Age limits for the Supreme Court. Nearly as many Americans (74%) support putting age limits in place for justices of the Supreme Court. Democrats (82% favor) are more supportive of creating age limits for the justices than are Republicans (68%).
It's easier to focus on a panacea like age limits than on the deep roots of our current crisis. Let's talk instead about the Citizens United decision of 2010, unleashing corporate money in electoral politics. Let's talk about the right-wing, anti-democratic capture of the Supreme Court that made Citizens United possible *before* Trump was elected the first time. (That decision was 5–4, btw.) Let's talk about the Reagan tax cuts and the explosive rise of the billionaire class.
Above all, let's talk about how economic power, if left to its own devices, predictably eats the three constitutional branches of government alive. Term limits aren't going to fix any of that. Economic power knows how to get around term limits.
Remember, he also is spectacularly stupid. Really stupid. In the classic sense.
Sure, he’s empty inside of anything other than whatever might satisfy his current appetite: for attention, for hunger, for praise, for wealth, for exploitative power, and especially for anything Taboo.
But he really is a stupid person.