If she's the loomer, does that mean he's the loomee?
Trump is too old to get pregnant anyway.
We won't know until we've scientifically tested every possible way.
I wrestled with how gross to make that sentence.
You people! He doesn't love her for her body, but for her mind.
Even more pathetic is that Vance followed her racism. The guy's just a total bootlicker for Trump- "Oh his latest obsession said something racist? I'll repeat it too!"
Vance: "Whether you're eating curry at your dinner table or fried chicken, things have gotten more expensive thanks to her."
I have never understood why racists ceded fried chicken, one of the tastiest foods known to man, to The Other. And watermelon too! Watermelon is delightful! (I understand intellectually it probably has to do with greasy fingers and seed spitting and Old Southern manners but phooey.)
I don't like watermelon. Too much water.
The phrase "bumping uglies" has never been more appropriate.
My theory of Trump is that he became addicted to the excitement and ego boost of politics, after he lost the ability to maintain an erection.
It's consistent with my theory that he would think it's good for there to be rumors that he is having an affair, since virility is such an important part of his brand.
I understand intellectually it probably has to do with greasy fingers and seed spitting and Old Southern manners
Even more pathetic is that Vance followed her racism. The guy's just a total bootlicker for Trump
There's room at the foot of their coital bed for bootlickers.
He could be their literal lickspittle.
Never really contemplated how gross the term "lickspittle" is before.
So, unhinged even for them.
This sort of remark -- "even for them" -- reflects a universal trope that is at least 90 percent wrong. Trump and his minions have not become meaningfully more extreme. Trump has not become meaningfully more incoherent and his repugnance has not become meaningfully more obvious -- despite what everyone says.
Does Loomer take us in a more fascist direction than the president of the United States telling the Proud Boys -- on live national television -- to "stand back and stand by"? Has Trump and his crew topped Jan. 6?
Would Loomer constitute a meaningful sex scandal? Please.
How do we compare "eating cats and dogs" with injecting disinfectant; or with "I like people who weren't captured;" or with "Obama was born in Kenya"?
The media has marginally, incrementally improved in the last eight years, so the reporting is slightly better, but we're still in a media world that Trump has made.
Suppose there were a sexual affair. I want someone to complete the sentence, "This behavior will change people's opinions of Trump because ..."
Where the hell is Melania? Admittedly, the abandonment of a pretense of a conventional marriage is newish, but that really happened awhile ago, and has barely been remarked upon.
(Yeah, Trump's response to that question about Loomer sounded, to my ear, to be tantamount to a confession. And so what?)
But I have a morbid fascination about how weird it could get.
Yeah, sure. Me too. It would be irresponsible not to speculate!
How do we compare "eating cats and dogs" with injecting disinfectant; or with "I like people who weren't captured;" or with "Obama was born in Kenya"?
The first one is likely/calculated to start a pogrom. The others are just bugfuck nuts or racist towards a single individual.
Sorry. I'm just triggered by talk that Trump is becoming more extreme, or that he's just losing it. He never had it!
Didn't the eating cats and dogs thing start with JD? Or even if it started with Loomer, Vance repeated it before Trump.
Suppose there were a sexual affair. I want someone to complete the sentence, "This behavior will change people's opinions of Trump because ..."
It'll pile on the Reality TV Show absurdity of their clown car. It's just hammering away at their remaining Serious Adults cred. It won't really move the needle with anyone in a Trump-flavored epistemic bubble.
It's just healthy for Trump to be the laughingstock of America, and this would contribute.
17: I don't see that at all. Trump directly threatened violence if he lost the 2020 election, then delivered.
People have this deep need to see him degenerating, and it's just not supported by the evidence. Calling for a pogrom? I feel confident that I don't need to remind you that "they're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists."
16:
By "even for them" I meant the various right-wing personalities buzzing around social media / politics.
I don't care what's in any of their hearts. What I was suggesting, maybe not clear enough, is that Loomer observes far fewer boundaries in what she was willing to say in public, as opposed to imply or condone. They're always figuring out how far they go by some indeterminate Einstein-Bose condensate of social positioning and oneupmanship, Her access folds into that soup.
I doubt Trump is morally an iota worse, but I think he is now doing worse deeds. In 2016 he said stuff that justified racist brutality in concept, and by police which is a fixture anyway. In 2017 he justified a specific riot by non-cop Nazis - but after the fact. I think this is the first time he has actually been actively goading mass violence with a particular raison de guerre in a particular place.
Oh wait, obviously January 6th is another case of 23.last. Silly me. But it still adds up to him getting worse (in terms of deeds) progressively over time. The new level is violence directed against Black people en masse, in a specific place, by his people en masse. And it is still a real step of up from 1/6.
Trump is like Macbeth -- "Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill"
25: Except not as eloquent or self-aware.
An optimistic take via Charley in the other thread.
What I was suggesting, maybe not clear enough, is that Loomer observes far fewer boundaries in what she was willing to say in public, as opposed to imply or condone.
I got that, and it's what I'm pushing back against.
If we're stepping away from Trump and getting into the public statements of his minions, well, let's compare Loomer's comments with the public assertions of the Proud Boys. Or Steve Bannon. Or members of his cabinet.
Sure, yeah, Trump's whole thing is providing the audience with novelty, and the specifics of Loomer are in some ways unusual and therefore attract attention. But Loomer isn't worse.
I do think it's reasonable to fear that Trump will be more effective in a second term, but that's true primarily because he has the opportunity to finish the work of his first term. I'm not seeing a discontinuity in 2024 from the guy who created a Supreme Court majority that is on the verge of declaring that it's okay if Trump shoots someone on 5th Avenue as long as he does so in his official capacity.
27: Yeah, you and Charley are trolling me. Here's my response to Charley in the other thread:
132: Even after that watershed moment, the Fonz could have won the electoral college. And I've been hearing for a long time that "this particular set of outrages finally crosses a line." We'll see.
And we will see! But even a rejection of Trump by the American voters won't be novel. It would literally be the third time.
Trump has warped the minds of everybody. None of this is as fresh and original as people seem to think. (Except for SCOTUS. That really seems huge and new to me.)
A lot of what you're saying I agree with, so I think we're batting around many common concepts in the semblance of an argument. By the way, the link in 27 is not so much "went too far" as "veered somehow into the comical".
21: It's just healthy for Trump to be the laughingstock of America, and this would contribute.
Bears repeating.
I used to have the energy to needle conservatives about whether this or that right wing complaint of the day was rooted in their primal trauma of the Civil Rights Act, Goldwater's defeat, FDR winning four elections and the Second World War or the South eating Lincoln's righteous fire in the Civil War, and watching them get frothy, but it got boring. Nice to have Trump supplying them another two or three generations of whining, I guess.
There's a purely self-interested reason we should cheer for TCFG and Loomer bumping uglies: if TCFG wins, we want him surrounded by imbeciles, incompetents, chancers, adventurers and adventuresses. Grifters of all kinds, sure, but the more extreme and imbecilic the better. The faster a TCFG regime collapses in a heap of glowing rubble, the better for us and the world. The worst outcome is if it managed to keep going, shambling on, and eventually to kill off democracy. Better that it strangles itself in its own excrement.
Or whatever bodily fluid the two of them prefer.
I've long agreed with 11.1, and I think you can date it to roughly 2007 and it explains why he got into politics. For example, he had multiple sexual assault allegations every year until 2006 and then only one after that. That said, there's also rumors that he no longer has sex but does still receive blow jobs (including from Loomer), so it's possible that he's able to have a weak erection under very specific circumstances. Nonetheless I think the general picture that he lost his interest in sex around 2007 and that resulted in him getting into politics is basically correct.
That was me.
I don't think it matches up as cleanly as that. He ran for president in a semi-serious way back in 2000. And 2006 is shortly after Mark Burnett revived his career and gave him that new level of star / intimidation power, so that's an alternate explanation for stuff not coming to light.
It is true that in the past decade, he seems mostly indifferent to women. When you consider all the lechery of younger Trump, and how easily he spews verbal diarrhea on whatever he's thinking about, he mostly seems to not ever think of women sexually at all anymore.
Poor Loomer. Must she always pine for emotionally unavailable men? Can she melt his heart of ice, and harden his wiener of water?
38: Or the word didn't get out at the time.
He's also had a continuing pattern of hiring women based on hotness rather than competence.
I guess that's why he keeps saying Loomer isn't an employee.
rumors that he no longer has sex but does still receive blow jobs
Bill was accused of perjury for an assertion like this under oath.
People have this deep need to see him degenerating, and it's just not supported by the evidence.
To be fair, it's all been downhill since the Bowling Green massacre. His grief for its victims pushed him over the edge. He used to be such a rational man, a very factual genius, always able to distinguish between the concepts of person, woman, man, camera, and tv. I weep for what the world has lost.
41: He also hires men based on looks, it seems to be about what he thinks plays on TV and not attraction.
I think the Loomer things is just one of those periodic times where events make the Republicans worried that the Faustian bargain with Trump to try to capture white working class plus trad conservatives is not working. Mitch McConnell explicitly described this at some point during Trump's first term. Other times were Attacking McCain/ Gold Star families in 2016. Access Hollywood, Charlottesville and of course Jan 6th. Right now there has been a conjunction of several things --debate, cats and dogs and some increased cognitive decline fuckups* that have them worried. But in each of those cases most Rs have in the end realized that walking away incurs massive short-term political pain (and probably permanent expulsion for first-movers) even if they do rid themselves of Trump. I expect some rallying to Trump (and maybe several cycles of disillusionment/rallying) before election day--and they will almost certainly be "fully rallied" on E-day. I think things like his palling around with Alex Jones in 2016 was every bit as extreme. (That led to HRC's good talk on his extremism** but which then got blown up with "deplorables")
*I do think there are some things "worse" in terms of his cognitive stuff now than previously, although there was always an element of it. I just don't think it is advanced enough yet to turn off the not already turned off.
**Although it led to one of the most despairing moments of the 2016 campaign for me. Trump responded with basically "no you're the racist" which led Chuck Todd to lament that the campaign was becoming "a race to the bottom" even before the deplorables crap. And it was the general media reaction as well.
Other times were Attacking McCain/ Gold Star families in 2016.
Also got Putin worried.
I'm on board with the no sex but receiving oral theory. I imagine, though, that he's down for younger women with decent racks fawning over him, even if there's no release.
I'll repeat my theory from earlier in the year why he seems worse, even if he's not actually declining (which I'm conceding only for the sake of argument). In 2016, the coverage was all about how unreal this shit was. There would be guardrails, he was going to pivot, at heart he's a deal guy, and he'd be making deals all the time, etc. All that is gone now. Now he's the guy who really did do the half-assed attempted coup of J6,* and the guy who's made it perfectly clear that he's not going to pivot, not going to appoint establishmentarians, not going to observe any guardrails. So all the diarrhea has to be taken seriously.**
* I don't share the hope that incompetent people will collapse the Trump regime. He and his minions will serve out their full terms. They'll do bullshit rulemakings, and, with Chevron now gone, will get judges in the outlying divisions of the Northern District of Texas to sign off on them.***
** There was an actual debate in 2016 about taking him literally vs taking him seriously. This isn't happening now.
*** Yes, we're fated to be ruled by governing philosophies of Amarillo and Wichita Falls in the coming decade no matter who wins the White House in 2024.
There was an actual debate in 2016 about taking him literally vs taking him seriously. This isn't happening now.
Headlines are still behaving like it, even if there's no underlying debate.
49: Yeah, I think that still happens when he says things like yesterday re: lowering grocery prices by restricting/taxing food imports.
It was intimated to me this post would be ogged catnip.
50 There are apparently a bunch of people in Pa who think he's better on the economy. No better way to fight inflation than putting tariffs on foreign goods and deporting working immigrants!
How is receiving oral not sex? I've never heard anyone but WJC assert this, and I don't imagine he believed it.
I meant no sex other than BJs, not that a BJ isn't sex.
Didn't the prosecutor define it carefully so as to rule out oral?
56 It was a civil suit. There was a set definition, but iirc it was adopted by the judge (probably after having been proposed by WJC's team)