Yeah, well, given Trump's narcissism, its related infantilism, his modest, limited intelligence, and his need to be a bully, I've believed for awhile that there's much less thought out policy here than the child acting impulsively.
The primo example at the moment in the Iran war thing which is pretty much the product of impulse and approximately no lucid thinking through. That is, any thought involved was limited in any number of ways.
So, generally speaking, I find the whole project as it were of doping out why the administration does anything as something with extremely limited upside at best and of course the downside of being a distraction from more important things like, I dunno, cleaning up the national Democrats. Or even engaging in appropriate thoughts and prayers for POTUS, specially now that he seems to actually be losing his shit. (See, aircraft carrier BS.)
But more importantly, it's almost nice to see that Donny or his people found another poorly raised fucked up young woman to be Trump II's Hope Hicks.
I think all of this is true, but I think the main factor in play is simple: Trump ran and won on lowering prices/inflation to pre-Covid levels, and on no new wars. He has failed spectacularly at both. He rattled people's cages with ooga-booga about drug dealing illegal immigrants, and instead of seeing dangerous looking shirtless guys covered in menacing tats being rounded up, people have watched American citizens getting gunned down and abuelas dragged out of the houses they've lived in for 30 years.
I've been following Trump's approval numbers on G. Elliot Morris's site Fifty Plus One, and when gasoline drops 30 or 40 cents a gallon, Trump's approval goes up -- by one point. So I don't think any ranting from Trump or any of his flunkies can significantly move the needle now. Bottom line: even MAGA has to eat, and they shop at the supermarket.
I think Natalie's face needs photoshopped onto that one gross picture of fatty dry-humping his teenage daughter. ( Amazing that the phrase "one gross picture of fatty dry-humping his teenage daughter. " Can be credibly written about our commander and chief)
I have a theory - the rise of the Poop Bears in our culture coincides with the rise of Trump.
well, you certainly can outline our existential miasma with the best of them!
remember hoping for the drool bib and incessant babbling stage to hit by the end of last year. but his slow descent empowered by venal idiot minions is much much worse. and we're all carried us along on the decoy plane as we slowly descend, spiraling into hell with chubs. i begin to ponder the possibility of incoming drones.
It's maddening, in the sense that it's supposed to drive us mad. At least the trolls never know the line of the day, so that's fun. I was wasting my limited time on earth in the comments section, listening to everyone describing just how much champagne they had stashed up for the great day, and one person, if person they were, said "Enjoy your party, Dems! You won't have anything left after the Commies take over!" Meanwhile, Trump was giving Li'l Kim, as Commie as they come, a warm wet satisfying slow lots of eye contact....
Meh. So Trump's fantasizing about humping the help, and the help seems happy to play along while changing his diaper/emptying his colostomy bag. Does it make a difference to ANY voter? Nope. That he's a completely amoral and immoral sack of shit is known by all and sundry. It hasn't made any difference to anyone.
That he sides with dictators is also well known by everyone who even walks past a turned-on television. This, too, makes no difference. Nor does his failed war with Iran. Nor does his creation of ICE as his very own Stazi.
It seems that Americans have now become so inured to their own politics that the only things that matter are the things at effect each voter on a personal and individual level. Gas prices. Half of their home-improvement contractor's crew being hauled away by ICE. Their TEMU order getting jacked up 15% by tariffs. Their morning coffee costing triple what it did two years ago. These things move the needle. The loss of American democracy? Not so much.
I think his voters weren't in the market for the ruin that would come with his (mis)rule. They thought they were buying the uncut racism and a selection of Jim Crow from the a la carte menu. Unfortunately, all of that came with heaping side helpings of war, economic downturn, and staggering stupidity. No substitutions!
"We've replaced these voters' decision with war, economic downtown, and staggering stupidity. Let's see if they notice."
Since they're still getting uncut racism and Jim Crow, their grumbling may not amount to much. There's the hope that enough will stay home in November to matter, though the churches will certainly GOTV. Anyway, the answer to all the above: Biden's fault.
Our government by design is extremely slow to respond to voters' needs and wants. In fact, it's worse than slow; it actively stymies change (e.g., the Senate, the imperial Supreme Court, the near impossibility of amending the Constitution). Add to this a Congress that is equal parts sclerotic, craven, fascist, and milquetoast, and the average voter feels elections make no difference. Vague mouth-noises about "affordability," "kitchen table issues," and health care, but no action on anything except increased racism and state violence (which are a depressing constant and dismayingly easy to sell). Given the general feeling that the government is completely nonresponsive, people treat elections like a tribal exercise: vote for your favorite character from reality teevee, and vote for Your Team like it's college football.
I’ve been out among the Trump voters out west for the past month, and it’s like a big box of white whine that never fucking stops. So when it comes to what they are whining about at any given moment, it’s pretty much whatever Joe Rogan and the like are telling them to whine about. I literally listened to it for hours the other night and cost of food or gas never came up, nor the related tariffs or war of ego.
The guy Trump calls "My Oilman", a billionaire of course, was asked about the high price of gas and his response was, "C'mon, people are out there driving $80,000 pickups, what do they care about $5 a gallon gas?" Which is true for some values of the variable "people."
You seem to imply that everyone has given up on Trump and he's the last one to hear about it. But as of 8:00 am PDT today, his latest approval numbers are 37-40%--i.e., historically abysmal, but too high (in my humble IMHO) by a factor of ten. Of course, it's one thing to tell a pollster he's still your guy, and it's another to get your ass off the couch and vote for the local Republican dipshit, so we'll see come November.
But my question to Roy would be: whom are Trump and his people trying to please or placate with these tactics, however ineptly? They seem to be holding on to MAGA, but we've always known that isn't enough to stay in power. That said, yes, they've blown it and continue to blow it with most everybody else.
They're dancing with the one that (they think) brung them, the MAGA base. That's who they've stroked from the first. Except once it had crossover appeal, so to speak. Now everyone who's not hardcore MAGA is sick of it. As I said (prematurely, it turned out) two years ago: https://edroso.substack.com/p/the-end-of-the-affect
What Roy said. In particular, the 2024 campaign was aimed at their base and no one else. Who was clamoring for Mass Deportations Now? Trump and his court remain convinced they have a large enough base that with some judicious vote supression they are guaranteed a win. They don't need anyone else. The nebulous "independent" voter that gave him both victories will respond to whatever bit of message tickles their fancy, but reality is making that harder.
I've been puzzling over this for years, in a world where elections do matter and where winning elections requires a majority - or at least a plurality - of the votes, how does any of this make any sense? And it just doesn't.
I think the corruption, the mental rot, the decadence has gone WAAAAY past the point where anyone in his circle would think "If we say ___ then ___ voters will like that." I think we've reached the stage of "If it feels good, do it."
Plus: On the one hand, everybody knows Trump doesn't care about anyone but himself. He's certainly not doing anything to get people to vote Republican except granting his divine endorsement to this or that schmuck. Which, increasingly, doesn't work. But even he has to know that if the Dems take the House (let alone both that and the Senate), they will (or at least should) make life hell for everyone around him, if not for him himself.
On the other hand, who said he was rational? Literally all he wants is money, revenge, and monuments to his ego. So of course he's a disaster for the GOP. And one they richly deserve.
Because I gotta million of 'em, here's another theory: He knows the shellacking is coming, he's doing something I've seen failing students do, which is to set up a situation where you can say, "Eh, I only failed because I didn't try." If this is true, expect :"Stupid House and Senate, I didn't want those anyway, only a lame Dum-o-crat would want those."
He can know it's coming but sincerely (!) not care. He may think, as Prez with the power POTUS has granted him, that he can tough it out until his term ends. Or, if it becomes too unpleasant, quit. I think I think (sic) that the one thing that he really does fear is the revelation of the Epstein files. Grift, theft, bribery--that's all in the game. That's what winners do. Economic and military failures he can blame on everyone else. I'd like to think that even he would not be able to shrug off people saying to him, "YOU RAPED LITTLE GIRLS?"
I wonder if elected Republicans are finally figuring out he doesn't give a shit about them and Republican party, or if they still haven't figured it out, or if they knew it all along but thought they would use him more than he would use them. That last one is touching, two people who hate one another but stay together for the sake of the grifting.
The failure of Trumpian name calling to rouse the rage and rile the rubes seems to be a shift in who owns whom. Are we looking at which is the better insult, calling Ossoff Pee Wee Herman versus Stephen Miller's more resonant monicker Pee Wee German?
Pete Kegsbreath and Kash J. Edgar Boozer seem to be better insults than the witless words thrown back. Could it in part be the obvious fact the libtards are better at the tactics and perhaps the strategy when they go at it?
Social media verdict is captured by the shirts and hats: Fuck Trump. It drives MAGA wild and also defangs them.
I have had “libtard” hurled at me online by people who appear to believe that the epithet is an absolutely devastating insult. I imagine that in their playground days it was “stupid poopyhead.”
"Stupid poopyhead" would be the choice of the conservative schoolyard intellectuals. Pity (rhetorically only, thank you!) Steven Cheung, who's a couple of steps down...
Most likely they were on the receiving end of those insults and have been reveling in payback is hell ever since Trump came on the scene. They likely had shitty family lives as well, as did Trump. I believe the only hope we have for solving humanity’s problems is to do a much better job of protecting children from bullies and bad parenting.
I think it was Robin Snyder on substack who called Cheung "the two-ton creepoid." Or possibly "creepazoid." Forgive me if I'm repeating myself, I just think that particular snark deserves to be repeated.
They're gargoyles, as Roy said, and it makes them deserving targets of mockery. It seems that because they are so atrocious and so obvious about it, that even normies have been noticing.
“While initial local news reports suggested the closure was tied to an owner relocating to Florida, staff inside the building offered a far more direct explanation for why the operation is shutting down.
“No. That’s why we’re closing,” an employee named Dan told Slate while vacuuming the shop floor when asked if foot traffic was steady. “We’re not busy anymore.””
The ancient codhead who owns it has a second tRUMP store: a crafter friend there tells me it’s halved its floor space, to add a vape store (Kratom, anyone?)..
“Standing nearby, Dan offered his boss a stark assessment of fading MAGA retail appeal, telling Hays directly that Trump “really is dwindling, dwindling, dwindling” in popularity as working-class shoppers face tough household budget choices.
“People really are saying, ‘I don’t know if I’m going to do a full load of groceries or I’m going to put my electric bill on a credit card this month,’” Dan said.”
The owner formerly had a sort of Old South/Confederate merch store, and that wasn’t sustainable
…and I’ve begun to see signs saying “ having second thoughts? You are not alone.” And
I liked Cheung’s characterization of Harp as a hardworking American. If that trope ever meant anything, it wasn’t Ms. Copy making copies or eye candy. No one can miss how the attacks on Ossoff and Talarico are heavy on questioning their masculinity, when their rhetoric has had the biggest cojones of all the Dem candidates. These fascists have thin, thin skins; no wonder Trump is covered with bruises.
It's funny how headlines like "Trump, 80, Cornered on Relationship With Blonde Aide, 35," and "Sen. Jon Ossoff Publicly Questions Trump's Closeness with Much-Younger Aide Natalie Harp," say a whole lot more about Natalie Harp than Ossoff did. His only mention of her was in a paragraph about how Trump is a slacker: "He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar." That's it. The NYT had much more about her back in November of 2024:
The Trump gang's reaction is a lot more revealing. When even Lee Zeldin emerges from his cocoon of ambition to defend poor Natalie you know something's up.
Now, the typo just shows what this is doing to us all: "The Iraq War is certainly a clusterfuck of tactics"...
Where I disagree with Roy is the suggestion that there is any thought of "strategy," beyond racism and bullying. Rabid alpha animal blunders his blunders, and his minions reverse engineer something to call it genius.The political instincts of Presidents Vought and Miller may be a bad joke, but they're quite effective at scorched earth. Along with Tubby's successful looting, the strategy is to leave nothing to rebuild.
"Rabid alpha animal blunders his blunders, and his minions reverse engineer something to call it genius"
Yeah, I'd like to reserve a fancy word like "strategy" for a fancy game like chess, where a player considers many possible moves and the consequences of each. When has he or anyone who works for him even considered as many as TWO alternative courses of action, or ever considered the consequences of ANYTHING?
Yesterday I learned that an alligator has a brain about the size of a peanut, which is amazing, but also makes sense because how much "strategizing" does an alligator need to do?
Equally inept, if on a much smaller scale. How long before Fender's CEO is drafted to join the slow motion collision that is the Trump "administration?
Well, Republicans have been running on short-term strategy, aka tactics, since oh I dunno, the rise of GWB (speaking of which, Rove had a strategy for locking in a generation or more of Republican victory by integrating the conservative Hispanic voters in the Republican coalition. Go ahead, see if you can guess the Republican reaponse to that strategy). Doubling down or fear, racism, and vote supression has carried them since then but Trump has put all the chips on 00 at this point. They're going down but they will be back. Again. With more tactics.
And Harp, from what I've read, is cosplaying I Dream of Jeanie hard with the old man. You think he won't fall for that? I hope he's at least slipping her some cash from time to time to buy something nice for herself. That's classy.
"Go ahead, see if you can guess the Republican response to that strategy"
After Romney lost the party did a post-mortem where the recommendation was that they make an effort to become more diverse, win more support from people of color. LOL
Which reminds me: Romney's "joke" whining he'd have had a better chance had he been Latino. Who could have predicted his party would offer nothing but culture war and anti-diversity.
Yeah, well, given Trump's narcissism, its related infantilism, his modest, limited intelligence, and his need to be a bully, I've believed for awhile that there's much less thought out policy here than the child acting impulsively.
The primo example at the moment in the Iran war thing which is pretty much the product of impulse and approximately no lucid thinking through. That is, any thought involved was limited in any number of ways.
So, generally speaking, I find the whole project as it were of doping out why the administration does anything as something with extremely limited upside at best and of course the downside of being a distraction from more important things like, I dunno, cleaning up the national Democrats. Or even engaging in appropriate thoughts and prayers for POTUS, specially now that he seems to actually be losing his shit. (See, aircraft carrier BS.)
But more importantly, it's almost nice to see that Donny or his people found another poorly raised fucked up young woman to be Trump II's Hope Hicks.
Good un. https://substack.com/home/post/p-211689932, that's my latest on Iran.
I think all of this is true, but I think the main factor in play is simple: Trump ran and won on lowering prices/inflation to pre-Covid levels, and on no new wars. He has failed spectacularly at both. He rattled people's cages with ooga-booga about drug dealing illegal immigrants, and instead of seeing dangerous looking shirtless guys covered in menacing tats being rounded up, people have watched American citizens getting gunned down and abuelas dragged out of the houses they've lived in for 30 years.
I've been following Trump's approval numbers on G. Elliot Morris's site Fifty Plus One, and when gasoline drops 30 or 40 cents a gallon, Trump's approval goes up -- by one point. So I don't think any ranting from Trump or any of his flunkies can significantly move the needle now. Bottom line: even MAGA has to eat, and they shop at the supermarket.
"concatenation"
That's a good word !
I think Natalie's face needs photoshopped onto that one gross picture of fatty dry-humping his teenage daughter. ( Amazing that the phrase "one gross picture of fatty dry-humping his teenage daughter. " Can be credibly written about our commander and chief)
I have a theory - the rise of the Poop Bears in our culture coincides with the rise of Trump.
Just Sayin'
Should I google Poop Bears? I think not.
Charmin Bears -
An old joke of the spousette’s: A bear and a rabbit are squatting side by side, doing what woodland creatures are known to do in the woods.
𝗕𝗲𝗮𝗿: Ever have a problem with shut sticking to your fur?
𝗥𝗮𝗯𝗯𝗶𝘁: Can’t say that I have.
(Bear picks up rabbit and wipes his arse with it.)
AAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGH POOP BEARS I HATE THEM SO MUCH
Me too, but it cannot be denied that Worriedman's theory is reason enough for further musing on the age old causation vs. correlation question.
Both phenomena , Poop Bears and Trump, make me look around and think “ Something has gone really wrong here.”
It's literally people who think their shit don't stink.
well, you certainly can outline our existential miasma with the best of them!
remember hoping for the drool bib and incessant babbling stage to hit by the end of last year. but his slow descent empowered by venal idiot minions is much much worse. and we're all carried us along on the decoy plane as we slowly descend, spiraling into hell with chubs. i begin to ponder the possibility of incoming drones.
It's maddening, in the sense that it's supposed to drive us mad. At least the trolls never know the line of the day, so that's fun. I was wasting my limited time on earth in the comments section, listening to everyone describing just how much champagne they had stashed up for the great day, and one person, if person they were, said "Enjoy your party, Dems! You won't have anything left after the Commies take over!" Meanwhile, Trump was giving Li'l Kim, as Commie as they come, a warm wet satisfying slow lots of eye contact....
And he's shaking down private companies for a percentage of their stock.
Meh. So Trump's fantasizing about humping the help, and the help seems happy to play along while changing his diaper/emptying his colostomy bag. Does it make a difference to ANY voter? Nope. That he's a completely amoral and immoral sack of shit is known by all and sundry. It hasn't made any difference to anyone.
That he sides with dictators is also well known by everyone who even walks past a turned-on television. This, too, makes no difference. Nor does his failed war with Iran. Nor does his creation of ICE as his very own Stazi.
It seems that Americans have now become so inured to their own politics that the only things that matter are the things at effect each voter on a personal and individual level. Gas prices. Half of their home-improvement contractor's crew being hauled away by ICE. Their TEMU order getting jacked up 15% by tariffs. Their morning coffee costing triple what it did two years ago. These things move the needle. The loss of American democracy? Not so much.
As an outsider, this what I see.
Things were OK and he managed to get enough voters to agree to ruin them to spite black people, women etc. So I must dispute your analysis.
I think his voters weren't in the market for the ruin that would come with his (mis)rule. They thought they were buying the uncut racism and a selection of Jim Crow from the a la carte menu. Unfortunately, all of that came with heaping side helpings of war, economic downturn, and staggering stupidity. No substitutions!
"We've replaced these voters' decision with war, economic downtown, and staggering stupidity. Let's see if they notice."
Since they're still getting uncut racism and Jim Crow, their grumbling may not amount to much. There's the hope that enough will stay home in November to matter, though the churches will certainly GOTV. Anyway, the answer to all the above: Biden's fault.
Our government by design is extremely slow to respond to voters' needs and wants. In fact, it's worse than slow; it actively stymies change (e.g., the Senate, the imperial Supreme Court, the near impossibility of amending the Constitution). Add to this a Congress that is equal parts sclerotic, craven, fascist, and milquetoast, and the average voter feels elections make no difference. Vague mouth-noises about "affordability," "kitchen table issues," and health care, but no action on anything except increased racism and state violence (which are a depressing constant and dismayingly easy to sell). Given the general feeling that the government is completely nonresponsive, people treat elections like a tribal exercise: vote for your favorite character from reality teevee, and vote for Your Team like it's college football.
Can I get that to go?
I’ve been out among the Trump voters out west for the past month, and it’s like a big box of white whine that never fucking stops. So when it comes to what they are whining about at any given moment, it’s pretty much whatever Joe Rogan and the like are telling them to whine about. I literally listened to it for hours the other night and cost of food or gas never came up, nor the related tariffs or war of ego.
The guy Trump calls "My Oilman", a billionaire of course, was asked about the high price of gas and his response was, "C'mon, people are out there driving $80,000 pickups, what do they care about $5 a gallon gas?" Which is true for some values of the variable "people."
You seem to imply that everyone has given up on Trump and he's the last one to hear about it. But as of 8:00 am PDT today, his latest approval numbers are 37-40%--i.e., historically abysmal, but too high (in my humble IMHO) by a factor of ten. Of course, it's one thing to tell a pollster he's still your guy, and it's another to get your ass off the couch and vote for the local Republican dipshit, so we'll see come November.
But my question to Roy would be: whom are Trump and his people trying to please or placate with these tactics, however ineptly? They seem to be holding on to MAGA, but we've always known that isn't enough to stay in power. That said, yes, they've blown it and continue to blow it with most everybody else.
They're dancing with the one that (they think) brung them, the MAGA base. That's who they've stroked from the first. Except once it had crossover appeal, so to speak. Now everyone who's not hardcore MAGA is sick of it. As I said (prematurely, it turned out) two years ago: https://edroso.substack.com/p/the-end-of-the-affect
The Prematurely Correct Roy Edroso!
What Roy said. In particular, the 2024 campaign was aimed at their base and no one else. Who was clamoring for Mass Deportations Now? Trump and his court remain convinced they have a large enough base that with some judicious vote supression they are guaranteed a win. They don't need anyone else. The nebulous "independent" voter that gave him both victories will respond to whatever bit of message tickles their fancy, but reality is making that harder.
I've been puzzling over this for years, in a world where elections do matter and where winning elections requires a majority - or at least a plurality - of the votes, how does any of this make any sense? And it just doesn't.
I think the corruption, the mental rot, the decadence has gone WAAAAY past the point where anyone in his circle would think "If we say ___ then ___ voters will like that." I think we've reached the stage of "If it feels good, do it."
Plus: On the one hand, everybody knows Trump doesn't care about anyone but himself. He's certainly not doing anything to get people to vote Republican except granting his divine endorsement to this or that schmuck. Which, increasingly, doesn't work. But even he has to know that if the Dems take the House (let alone both that and the Senate), they will (or at least should) make life hell for everyone around him, if not for him himself.
On the other hand, who said he was rational? Literally all he wants is money, revenge, and monuments to his ego. So of course he's a disaster for the GOP. And one they richly deserve.
Because I gotta million of 'em, here's another theory: He knows the shellacking is coming, he's doing something I've seen failing students do, which is to set up a situation where you can say, "Eh, I only failed because I didn't try." If this is true, expect :"Stupid House and Senate, I didn't want those anyway, only a lame Dum-o-crat would want those."
And notice that's the BEST-case scenario.
He can know it's coming but sincerely (!) not care. He may think, as Prez with the power POTUS has granted him, that he can tough it out until his term ends. Or, if it becomes too unpleasant, quit. I think I think (sic) that the one thing that he really does fear is the revelation of the Epstein files. Grift, theft, bribery--that's all in the game. That's what winners do. Economic and military failures he can blame on everyone else. I'd like to think that even he would not be able to shrug off people saying to him, "YOU RAPED LITTLE GIRLS?"
I wonder if elected Republicans are finally figuring out he doesn't give a shit about them and Republican party, or if they still haven't figured it out, or if they knew it all along but thought they would use him more than he would use them. That last one is touching, two people who hate one another but stay together for the sake of the grifting.
"the things at effect each voter on a personal and individual level"
The project of atomization of the American culture has evidently succeeded. Like Thatcher said, a nation of individuals and families.
The failure of Trumpian name calling to rouse the rage and rile the rubes seems to be a shift in who owns whom. Are we looking at which is the better insult, calling Ossoff Pee Wee Herman versus Stephen Miller's more resonant monicker Pee Wee German?
Pete Kegsbreath and Kash J. Edgar Boozer seem to be better insults than the witless words thrown back. Could it in part be the obvious fact the libtards are better at the tactics and perhaps the strategy when they go at it?
Social media verdict is captured by the shirts and hats: Fuck Trump. It drives MAGA wild and also defangs them.
Conservatism has never, not once in human history, contributed to anything but more human suffering and misery.
I have had “libtard” hurled at me online by people who appear to believe that the epithet is an absolutely devastating insult. I imagine that in their playground days it was “stupid poopyhead.”
Cue, as I always do and always will, Bertie Wooster: "Harsh language, yes. And I meant it to sting."
"Stupid poopyhead" would be the choice of the conservative schoolyard intellectuals. Pity (rhetorically only, thank you!) Steven Cheung, who's a couple of steps down...
Most likely they were on the receiving end of those insults and have been reveling in payback is hell ever since Trump came on the scene. They likely had shitty family lives as well, as did Trump. I believe the only hope we have for solving humanity’s problems is to do a much better job of protecting children from bullies and bad parenting.
"the only hope we have for solving humanity’s problems is to do a much better job of protecting children from bullies and bad parenting"
And that's why their social policies attempt to keep that from happening.
They want to raise racist, misogynist rage and gambling addicts to keep the grift going until Barron can run.
I think it was Robin Snyder on substack who called Cheung "the two-ton creepoid." Or possibly "creepazoid." Forgive me if I'm repeating myself, I just think that particular snark deserves to be repeated.
They're gargoyles, as Roy said, and it makes them deserving targets of mockery. It seems that because they are so atrocious and so obvious about it, that even normies have been noticing.
There’s plenty of angst among the MAGAts here in Redneckistan, and I’m hearing GOPers starting to say “he needs to go…”
A perhaps more solid sign o’ th’ times is the Going Out of Business sign on the Trump Superstore on I-40 near Gatlinburg TN. https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/trump-superstore-owner-reveals-reason-164953044.html
“While initial local news reports suggested the closure was tied to an owner relocating to Florida, staff inside the building offered a far more direct explanation for why the operation is shutting down.
“No. That’s why we’re closing,” an employee named Dan told Slate while vacuuming the shop floor when asked if foot traffic was steady. “We’re not busy anymore.””
The ancient codhead who owns it has a second tRUMP store: a crafter friend there tells me it’s halved its floor space, to add a vape store (Kratom, anyone?)..
“Standing nearby, Dan offered his boss a stark assessment of fading MAGA retail appeal, telling Hays directly that Trump “really is dwindling, dwindling, dwindling” in popularity as working-class shoppers face tough household budget choices.
“People really are saying, ‘I don’t know if I’m going to do a full load of groceries or I’m going to put my electric bill on a credit card this month,’” Dan said.”
The owner formerly had a sort of Old South/Confederate merch store, and that wasn’t sustainable
…and I’ve begun to see signs saying “ having second thoughts? You are not alone.” And
“leavingmaga.org” .
The fever has begun to break.
I liked Cheung’s characterization of Harp as a hardworking American. If that trope ever meant anything, it wasn’t Ms. Copy making copies or eye candy. No one can miss how the attacks on Ossoff and Talarico are heavy on questioning their masculinity, when their rhetoric has had the biggest cojones of all the Dem candidates. These fascists have thin, thin skins; no wonder Trump is covered with bruises.
And the "master race" reps? I don't fucking think so...
I think there's a syllable or two missing between those quotation marks.
It's funny how headlines like "Trump, 80, Cornered on Relationship With Blonde Aide, 35," and "Sen. Jon Ossoff Publicly Questions Trump's Closeness with Much-Younger Aide Natalie Harp," say a whole lot more about Natalie Harp than Ossoff did. His only mention of her was in a paragraph about how Trump is a slacker: "He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar." That's it. The NYT had much more about her back in November of 2024:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/25/us/politics/trump-natalie-harp.html?unlocked_article_code=1.6VA.cn9N.FuBiUH2sFevN&smid=url-share
The Trump gang's reaction is a lot more revealing. When even Lee Zeldin emerges from his cocoon of ambition to defend poor Natalie you know something's up.
"Sen. Jon Ossoff Publicly Questions Trump's Closeness with Much-Younger Aide Natalie Harp"
I think if I was writing the headlines, it would have been "Sen. Jon Ossoff Says Trump Doesn't Give a Shit About You"
Now, the typo just shows what this is doing to us all: "The Iraq War is certainly a clusterfuck of tactics"...
Where I disagree with Roy is the suggestion that there is any thought of "strategy," beyond racism and bullying. Rabid alpha animal blunders his blunders, and his minions reverse engineer something to call it genius.The political instincts of Presidents Vought and Miller may be a bad joke, but they're quite effective at scorched earth. Along with Tubby's successful looting, the strategy is to leave nothing to rebuild.
Typo fixed, thanks!
"Rabid alpha animal blunders his blunders, and his minions reverse engineer something to call it genius"
Yeah, I'd like to reserve a fancy word like "strategy" for a fancy game like chess, where a player considers many possible moves and the consequences of each. When has he or anyone who works for him even considered as many as TWO alternative courses of action, or ever considered the consequences of ANYTHING?
Yesterday I learned that an alligator has a brain about the size of a peanut, which is amazing, but also makes sense because how much "strategizing" does an alligator need to do?
"... the stale air of failure ..." Indeed.
A Whiter shade of stale
Oh, I'll start over. I thought this was about the Fender lawsuit.
Equally inept, if on a much smaller scale. How long before Fender's CEO is drafted to join the slow motion collision that is the Trump "administration?
Wow, that's some crazy shit. I need to follow guitar news more closely.
Nah.
Not always this Full of Drama?
Hell, i dunno, seems like about every coupla years something breaks through
to the casual observer. Wait 'til you hear about Daddario strings
Well, Republicans have been running on short-term strategy, aka tactics, since oh I dunno, the rise of GWB (speaking of which, Rove had a strategy for locking in a generation or more of Republican victory by integrating the conservative Hispanic voters in the Republican coalition. Go ahead, see if you can guess the Republican reaponse to that strategy). Doubling down or fear, racism, and vote supression has carried them since then but Trump has put all the chips on 00 at this point. They're going down but they will be back. Again. With more tactics.
And Harp, from what I've read, is cosplaying I Dream of Jeanie hard with the old man. You think he won't fall for that? I hope he's at least slipping her some cash from time to time to buy something nice for herself. That's classy.
"Go ahead, see if you can guess the Republican response to that strategy"
After Romney lost the party did a post-mortem where the recommendation was that they make an effort to become more diverse, win more support from people of color. LOL
Which reminds me: Romney's "joke" whining he'd have had a better chance had he been Latino. Who could have predicted his party would offer nothing but culture war and anti-diversity.
hey Roy, something for your earholes https://ronaldbattista.substack.com/?utm_campaign=pub&utm_medium=web