rolling “Trump is gonna win” containment thread

Repubs run as Dems all the time, no reason not to flip that script

Aimless and Alfred completely right. This nihilistic energy preexists the Orange Person. It will outlive the Orange Person.

Yeah, all sensible humans want him to die in agony, because his soul is full of eels and he deserves the worst that the Fates can inflict. I am pretty sure we are in broad agreement that Trump should suffer and die, or die and suffer, or simultaneously suffer and die. The sequence is not important.

But.

There is still a post-Trump landscape where the shit he stirred will still rule. The demons he summoned, the passions he inflamed, the bullshit he flooded the zone with, the lies he spread, and the malevolent energies he unleashed (just for cruel fun, just to own the libs, just to gain power).

All of that dreck will still be there when he succumbs to whatever dietary habit comes to get him.

We can wait out Trump the person.I don't think we can wait out Trumpism the phenomenon. That shit is here to stay.

I don't disagree YMP and there needs to be a longer term strategy for dealing with the Trump phenomenon, but one bright spot that we've seen through DeSantis is that it really isn't that easy to find the individual that can keep those forces swirling in such high numbers.

In theory yes, so far ... Let's see how Kid Rock does in 2028 though

Aimless and Alfred completely right. This nihilistic energy preexists the Orange Person. It will outlive the Orange Person.

Yes, this. William Gass, in The Tunnel, has his narrator Wm. Kohler invent a political party, the Party of Disappointed People. It's pretty much exactly Trumpism.

Jon, you speak wisdom, but we don't really know what will happen when the actual Orange Individual is removed from the equation.

Trump voters, when denied actual Trump, might very well embrace a DeSantis-type figure. I suspect that for many of them, DeSantis's only drawback is that he isn't named Donald J. Trump.

Ehh, DeSantis is a weirdo, Trump has that showman quality... Trumpism even captured more than a few Obama voters

They like star power, not policy

YMP is right in this: before Trump the party couldn't find another Reagan either.

Maybe! I guess we'll see.

From where I am sitting, the only qualification required for GOP success is... having the right enemies.

I'm sure there's another, more charismatic evil option coming down the road, but my point is more that it feels unlikely that, say Trump keels over next week, that DeSantis or Haley keeps that momentum. Most of these Trumpers aren't going to rally their boat flotillas and truck parades for anybody else in the field right now.

xps I'd predict that Kid Rock wouldn't play as well with the cohort of small business Chamber of Commerce lifelong Republican types who have been able to swallow the idea that Trump is a successful businessman/tycoon. The ones who own a local HVAC company or a Dollar Store franchise. They aren't as important as they used to be to the GOP, but they do matter still. They respond better to the nihilists who sport the suit and tie and flag lapel pin look.

A few xps, sorry. I look across the metaphorical aisle and all I can see is "How much do you hate people of color? How much do you hate people who tell you about their pronouns? How much do you hate reasonably accurate accounts of American history? How much of an election do you get when you think about closing the southern border? How many books do you want to remove from the public library?"

Like, that is it. That's the platform. Good luck USA

Lol at election/erection typo

I got election

The last time I had an election was before blekfast

I went looking for an erection for way too long before realizing it was an election

A dull cliche!

Alexander Payne’s Erection

his soul is full of eels

unfair to eels imo; they're just trying to live and do eel stuff

plus they are delicious, unlike our unfortunate thread subject

https://images.app.goo.gl/G1DeRJGroXiMGmzn9

La Lechera, I apologize to you and to eels. Henceforth I will direct my feels to the real eels.

This is, by the way, the best song written and performed entirely by eels. It is called "Woman Driving Man Sleeping."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxDmpaR8fMA

The Tin Drum - Horse Head Scene

Best eel reference in a song:

Got a long black eel,
And nowhere to stick it,
That's why I'm barefootin',
On the wicked picket.

- Black Randy and the Metrosquad

Is this the eel life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide etc.

No escape from this cavity

Yeah, all sensible humans want him to die in agony

This is something I think about a lot, as during his tenure as President I fantasized vividly and embarrassingly often about violently dispatching him (plus some of his enablers/other odious pols -- the Mitch McConnells, Stephen Millers, Steve Bannons, etc.) But, I know that to do so is had for the soul. I don't think it's good to wish ill on others even if they are truly "evil" people (I'm not big on the concept of ~Evil~ but I think that he has consistently and at large scale done one of the worst things a person can do, which is to stoke and encourage others' bad tendencies. He has truly made the US and the world at large  a much worse place and has catalyzed some very unwholesome energies, and given them an unholy momentum for the foreseeable future, in a way that's not really quantifiable as is say, "GWB/Cheney are responsible for x number of deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq!")

So it's weird because on the one hand it does seem evident, to me at least, that if a dozen or so people were to disappear from the earth today (most of them are billionaires, fwiw) life on the planet would get instantaneously better. Truly! There would be a collective global sigh of relief, because these people who suck so so bad and who are seemingly hellbent on making everything shittier and shittier for the rest of us, who only ever seem to use their powers for not-good, would no longer have that pernicious influence that contributes so substantially to the dread we all feel. But, I know it's not good to think in that way. I'm not going to try to speak for others, but I know that I have my own inner Trump, inner Elon, inner Bezos, inner Putin, inner Bibi, inner Modi, inner fascist (yes, it is crowded in here) and that is truly the heart of the problem, and not the bad "out there". Plus I know that I lack the wisdom to make decisions involving judging and condemning people -- who knows but that my self-righteous impulses wouldn't end up upsetting a delicate ecology. Maybe Trump, Elon, Bibi and their actions are somehow keeping something even WORSE from happening. But I don't know. Things are pretty bad as is. I do knowthat I've discovered in my own life that it's bad to wish for bad things to happen to others. Even Trumps... Otherwise (among other things,) I'm just taking on the tendencies of that which I objected to so strongly in the first place.

Also, as a postscript to this novel, it's insane that we have to encounter Trump's name and image every day once again, and that he might be around for several more years. People were talking I think in the other Trump thread about the abusive parent type dynamic among the MAGA cult and their relationship to him, and I think it's an apt comparison. All of us, MAGA and non-, are going through this seemingly neverending saga in which we are held hostage by this terrible man who keeps pumping out terrible ideas into this world. I've said before that I feel like I unironically have "TDS". We're all being traumatized by this freak. It's not good! Why does God seem to hate us so?

All of us, MAGA and non-, are going through this seemingly neverending saga in which we are held hostage by this terrible man who keeps pumping out terrible ideas into this world. I've said before that I feel like I unironically have "TDS". We're all being traumatized by this freak. It's not good! Why does God seem to hate us so?

I feel the same way

x3

I fantasized vividly and embarrassingly often about violently dispatching him

you're not alone in this

X3

I would give detailed plans but I'm worried that most ILXors are actually Secret Service

https://i.imgur.com/BBO6LMj.jpg

i just have an unusual affection for coiled earpieces, that's all. and 2D pants

what is TDS?

you mean TSD?

Trump Derangement Syndrome.

I'm convinced that if the top dozen "evil" people disappeared, the next tier dozen would take their place and become just as evil.

Trump's more like SBD, if you get my drift.

I wish he was silent

FOREVER

I'm convinced that if the top dozen "evil" people disappeared, the next tier dozen would take their place and become just as evil.

― nickn, Thursday, January 18, 2024

Maybe, and they may work behind the scenes to try to cement an oligarchy and undermine democracy. But that is slow work compared to the destruction Trump has been responsible for in just a few years

Wow ty nickn

I wasn’t familiar with the acronym but now that I am the similarity is striking.

Never hearing Trump's voice again would be a blessing.

Agreed, but I also don't want to see his stupid fucking face, or his bad ties, or the way his shoes tilt him forward, or his odious sons.

There is basically nothing redeeming about this individual, except maybe one thing. That his repellent personal nature repels enough people to get his terrible politics out of the way, for a bit. I know that this political strain is eternal, but maybe we can get a break from it.

Trump has been a media figure in my life for 40 years. Throughout the 2016 campaign and into his presidency I was compelled to watch his speeches live because Ms. T reminded me that "someone is going to assassinate him and if you miss seeing it live you're going to be really pissed"

Ugh, I'm so sorry

someone is going to assassinate him

I'm sure I have posted about this before, but prior to my grandmother's death at age 91 in 2019 she would openly talk about doing this. She had a little .25 pistol and figured no one would pay her any mind.

I do wonder if Trump were assassinated he would become some tedious tragic martyr for the cause. But I'm sure that'll also be the case when he dies on the toilet trying to evacuate an ancient well-done steak from his elastic colon.

Many xps but Trump’s appeal is still that he’s somehow less offputting than the losers he was up against in 2016 and the losers who’ve followed along his path. Put him on stage with Ted Cruz or DeSantis or Blake Masters and he seems like the one closest to a real human.

a real piece of shit human but i see your point