I have a hypothesis about why Donald Trump is saying outrageous, indefensible things. I think he’s worried about looking bad in the debates to come and that worry, combined with Hillary’s growing lead over him, makes it look very likely that he will lose in November. This is a guy who is used to winning. He wins and he wins and he wins. Losing is bad for his image.
Why would a rich, famous guy with a hot Eastern European wife put himself through all of this if he can’t win? But bailing at this point would look weak. So, he’s going to have his own party pull the plug on him.
There are other possibilities of course. He could really mean what he says and he wants to fire up his base, who have guns. Lots of guns.
What concerns me is the tepid response from the media. The New York Times Editorial was the equivalent of the naughty step. Heidi Li Feldman, formerly of Heidi Li’s Potpourri, pointed me to a criticism in The Guardian of pre-WWII coverage of Germany by British newspapers that also was tepid about what was starting to become an alarming and unusual political movement complete with assassination attempts and thuggish behavior from the leader and his followers.
The danger here is that unless there is a strong public condemnation of this rhetoric and behavior, it’s only going to get worse because we will have acclimated ourselves to it. It will be, “Well, they’re always saying stupid things like that” or, “you should know what you’re getting into if you go to a Trump Rally” or, “Sure they sound like they’re going to aggressively patrol polling stations this fall but what are they going to do to stop people from voting?”. Before you know it, you have another Kristallnacht on your hands.
Now, I’m not saying that this will happen this year to this candidate and his enraged and armed followers. But we need to walk this back- now- because there is no brake on how many people can buy guns in this country. One or a couple or a posse could decide they’ve had enough of commie Hillary and her libtard voters. We know what happens next because we have a lot of history on film.
As much as I’d like to see Donald lose to Hillary by a YUGE margin, it’s safer for all of us if he’s forced out and some “reasonable” Republican got his followers to calm their tits already.
Filed under: General | Tagged: 2nd amendment, Germany 1933, Hillary Clinton, Trump |
The Confluence 
Unfortunately I don’t think the GOP has the guts to get rid of Trump. They had the perfect opportunity to get rid of him at the convention and punted. But I also don’t think that another candidate would do any better at the polls than Trump has been doing. The media needs to take responsibility for what they have been doing in all this too. They have dehumanized Hillary until the kind of rhetoric Trump is spouting is acceptable.
I agree with you on the media’s complicity in dehumanizing Hillary. They’ve never advocated violence but they’ve made her into a real Emannuel Goldstein and have paved the way for the 3 minute hates we see at Trump rallies.
Maybe they should stop asking people if Clinton is trustworthy.
If that’s all they’ve got, then they’ve answered their own question.
Brilliant.
The GOP Establishment must stick with Trump, even if they loathe him with the passion of a thousand burning suns.
If the Republican Party fails to win the White House this time, it is unlikely that the Republicans will be able to block Prez Hillary’s Supreme Court nomination(s) for four more years.
Five Democratic appointees on the Supreme Court means that all those finely-crafted voter-suppression laws will be declared unconstitutional.
They might even find a way to declare gerrymandering unconstitutional.
Voter suppression and gerrymandering are all that stand between the GOP and the fate of their ancestral party, the (U. S.) Whig Party.
So, the GOP Establishment has no choice but to support Orange Julius Caesar, unless they are ready to switch parties.
Lets not forget we just had a female politician killed -Jo Cox MP Murdered For Her EU positions.
Good point. Yelling “Britain first!” or something like that. Way too many parallels.
Just saw Samantha Bees tweet on her countdown clock to Kristallnacht. I swear I didn’t see it first.
I just finished reading In The Garden of Beasts based on it being recommended here. Chilling, chilling, and I have a strong sense of reader deja vu now, looking at the news.
Agree completely that this behavior needs to be stopped NOW.
I’m going to go look at the gun & ammo sales stats for the last 3 days. To see if there’s a spike.
Yikes!
If Trump’s mind is anywhere within the pretty wide range of normal, then yes, he simply can’t believe he made it through the primaries and has each month escalated his outrageous comments – just wondering how far he could go with his game. It appears that our country has no “crossed line” for Trump but has about a million “lines” that Hillary can’t cross.
He must be panicking inside, if he is in that iffy normal range, that he can’t get out of this crazy campaign.
And thus far, Ryan is learning he can probably do or say anything too, given his win yesterday.
I just can’t understand what has happened to half our country to cause it to morally disintegrate.
My view, it’s too late for the Republicans to do anything with Trump or Trumps Base. The party’s self-inflicted wounds all come from their historic crazed hatred of all things Clinton and it has destroyed them from within. Trump has absolutely no chance in hell of winning and never did, they will lose the Senate for sure and the Clinton tsunami will likely take over the House in November. Abandon Party would be my best advice for any non-extremist candidate in a competitive district who wants to survive. Then we voters need to get rid of Gerrymandering, now.
rd, interesting timing since I just posted this on my blog at Consimworld:
Because his behavior has apparently been hurting him lately we all (myself included) assume that Trump is just a dangerous clown, in over his head. But I think we should remain open to the possibility that Trump’s outrages are calculated, intended, and indicative of an evil rather than disordered brain, and that if his campaign fails (and we mustn’t get complacent) it is because he misjudged the level of white racist support he could call upon on election day rather than that he simply can’t control himself. We’ve all said Trump isn’t Hitler (again, myself included). But it is always possible that underneath it all, he is. Given the number of people who misjudged AH as just a clown in over his head, perhaps we shouldn’t feel too confident in that judgement of Trump.
I am not sure that the Republicans won’t get him out. Can you really call for the assassination of your opponent without any drastic penalty? If so, we may be at a new low that is alien for the U.S. Why is he not being interviewed by the Secret Service or the CIA? I am not sure which org is responsible for dealing with such threats.
It appears you can if you are a republican, your opponent is a girl and her name is Clinton.
The media accounts have omitted the words uttered after the remark, also seemingly casually, about how it would be a “horrible day” if the “2d amendment folks” really acted on his suggestion. This completely nullifies the feeble cover story that T was referencing political power, which would not be “horrible,” only the democratic process in action.
The way I took it, the ‘horrible day’ he referenced is what it would be if Hillary (according to him) was able to name the SCOTUS.
He has no plan. He is incapable of planning ahead. He is incapable of forming a plan. Therefore, he has no intention of getting out. As long as he is “the news,” in his twisted mind, he is a winner. (BTW, he does want Hillary dead, no doubt about that.) Also, it appears he’s making money, which I suspect he desperately needs.
At this rate, it won’t be long before our own right-wingers become a bigger menace to the USA than ISIS could ever dream of being. 😡
Trump dog whistles to his fans that, how can I put it?-someone should take Hillary to the woodshed, and only one should come out-decent people are aghast.
Here comes panting Wolf Blitzer: “Breaking News, Larry Klayman has found two new emails proving that Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and her husband, former (two term) President Bill Clinton, knew people who knew people.”
Omg, that is too funny. Yes, they knew people that knew people. Shocking!
With a few rare exceptions, who I don’t think will be numerous enough to matter, the only people who give a flying duck about Hillary’s e-mails are people who would never have voted for her anyway.