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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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 Abright-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.
The media, owned by corporations, covers djt as though he is another corporation that must needs be treated with kid gloves in public. That serves the fundamental dynamic here: the oligarchies' call that they must control all actual levers of power/control, no matter the human cost. To say otherwise is to condemn us -- we who comprise the 'human cost' -- to unrelenting suffering. No, the corporate media and their masters get no free passes.
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
Biden started from a high baseline, so his "decline," such as it was, was noticeable to more people. Trump started from a low baseline decades ago and should have been in the running for "worst president ever" during his first term. Why wasn't he? Well, take a look at his Republican predecessors: Bush II, Bush I, and Reagan. They've all used racism, misogyny, and fear of "modernity" (whatever that is -- resistance to white male supremacy?) to enlist the votes they need to turn our aspiring democracy over to the highest bidders.
With our trademark penchant for amnesia, many of us have forgotten that the Citizens United decision and the Tea Party election both happened in 2010. Combine that with the decades-long decline of the Republican Party (remember Newt Gingri(n)ch?) and the Democrats' inability to get their act together in 2016, and it's not all that hard to see how the racist, spectacularly incompetent Trump got elected the first time.
With all the pearl-clutching about the 2024 election and the destruction that followed after 1/20/2025, we really need to deal with the fact that none of this came out of nowhere.
As Oliver Willis said many years ago (paraphrasing): Trump is good for the business of the MSM. They want to keep him propped up for as long as they can, because when "boring" candidates control the coverage, they get less clicks.
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.
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.
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.
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?)
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.
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.
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.
Not just “find their spines” but then ask daddy for permission.
I'd prefer not to have any more Trumps involved, thanks.
And miss the flowering of the Gilded Age 2.0?
"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.
Our newspapers suck.
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.
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.
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 Abright-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.
The media, owned by corporations, covers djt as though he is another corporation that must needs be treated with kid gloves in public. That serves the fundamental dynamic here: the oligarchies' call that they must control all actual levers of power/control, no matter the human cost. To say otherwise is to condemn us -- we who comprise the 'human cost' -- to unrelenting suffering. No, the corporate media and their masters get no free passes.
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
Biden started from a high baseline, so his "decline," such as it was, was noticeable to more people. Trump started from a low baseline decades ago and should have been in the running for "worst president ever" during his first term. Why wasn't he? Well, take a look at his Republican predecessors: Bush II, Bush I, and Reagan. They've all used racism, misogyny, and fear of "modernity" (whatever that is -- resistance to white male supremacy?) to enlist the votes they need to turn our aspiring democracy over to the highest bidders.
With our trademark penchant for amnesia, many of us have forgotten that the Citizens United decision and the Tea Party election both happened in 2010. Combine that with the decades-long decline of the Republican Party (remember Newt Gingri(n)ch?) and the Democrats' inability to get their act together in 2016, and it's not all that hard to see how the racist, spectacularly incompetent Trump got elected the first time.
With all the pearl-clutching about the 2024 election and the destruction that followed after 1/20/2025, we really need to deal with the fact that none of this came out of nowhere.
As Oliver Willis said many years ago (paraphrasing): Trump is good for the business of the MSM. They want to keep him propped up for as long as they can, because when "boring" candidates control the coverage, they get less clicks.