So what do you Brits make of Trump ?

[filghy2]

If McConnell is as committed to the GOP as I think he cannot really go after Trump because it would fracture the base. It may be in the best interests of the GOP to move away from Trumpism but they can't be seen to be doing it deliberately or they will lose voters. And what does a move away from Trumpism mean? Continued partisanship, obstructionism, bad faith, but do it in a way that is not as obviously corrupt, buffoonish, and unhinged looking.

They seem to be stuck in a trap where they can't reject Trump because the rank and file love him, but at the same time Trump and his supporters' behaviour alienates the swing voters they need to win elections. The only solution they seem to have is to double down on electoral manipulation so they can govern with minority support.

If McConnell is committed to the party's interests then the question is what is the party committed to. In the past it has been primarily the party of business interests, but that seems to be subordinated increasingly to tribal culture wars. The Republican establishment has assumed that cultural issues could be harnessed to advance its pro-business agenda but the tail may now be wagging the dog.
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ts-us-politics

Contrary to Stavros I don't think the Republican Party stands for nothing. What it stands for increasingly is angry cultural nationalism. Its core support comes from people who feel threatened by economic and social change, which they associate with nefarious forces seeking to undermine their way of life. They love Trump because he is so effective at channelling this sense of grievance.

[Stavros]

Contrary to Stavros I don't think the Republican Party stands for nothing. What it stands for increasingly is angry cultural nationalism. Its core support comes from people who feel threatened by economic and social change, which they associate with nefarious forces seeking to undermine their way of life. They love Trump because he is so effective at channelling this sense of grievance.

You make a fair point with regard to my use of language, but if the Republican Party of Trump is now just one long, loud complaint about Immigrants, 'cancel culture' and rigged elections, what does it amount to? It might not be nothing in literal terms, but in terms of the political debate it doesn't amount to much compared to the real issues that concern most people -jobs, health, education, transport, the environment, and as a hot issue right now, policing. Trump has little or nothing to say about real issues, while McConnell sits in Congress hoping, perhaps praying that Trump will just fade away, as if he had not noticed Trump has alowed grudges going back to his childhood to dominate his agenda, and will carry on regardless of that dumb son of a Mitch.

The real question now it seems to me, is, will someone challenge Trump after 2022 when the time comes to make a real decision about 2024? And if he decides not to run, he will still want to be the 'Infuencer in Chief'.

[Stavros]

Ah the coincidences of history....

правда
First published in 1903, in 1912 it was taken over by the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic and Labour Party.

правда Социальное
First announced 22nd October 2021, the media platform of the Trump Media and Technology Group.

Truth, and Truth Social, from two of the greatest, most notorious liars in history. One led a revolution that created a one-party dictatorship, the other....

[Stavros]

I see reports from Florida that Cry-Baby Trump is still stamping his feet and crying because Ameriicans didn't vote for him to be their President. Just as unsurprising has been his claim Putin is 'Smart'. If you are as ignorant as Trump of course Putin is going to look smart. If you have a functioning brain, however, Putin's actions in Ukraine look so risky they might even end up finishing his career. How smart is that?

Now consider this, because Trump, for whom repetition is as dreary as the repetitious Hallellujah! chorus in Handel's Messiah, has said yet again

"No president was ever as tough on Russia as I was".
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...esidential-bid

If you want a bland version which facts check the claim try this-
https://www.politifact.com/factcheck...ssia-barack-o/

A more exact thus more damaging debunk is here-
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-...ight-rcna17565

But let's go back in time. JFK faced down the USSR in 1962. The negotiations with the USSR ended with the missiles being withdrawn from Cuba, and though secretly agreed at the time, the US agreed to remove its own missiles from Turkey. Publicly, it was the USSR that was viewe to have been beaten, and as a result, within two years, Khrushchev had been removed from power.

If that is not tough enough, consider Ronald Reagan's response to the USSR's entry into the power stuggle in Afghanistan in 1979 -funding and arming the Mujahideen throughout the 1980s, in concert with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, in a devastating military mistake for the USSR that was fundamental to the succession of Gorbachev as General Secretary of the CPSU, ending the USSR's involvement in Afghanistan and thus becoming one step toward what Gorbachev had not in fact intended, the dissolution of the USSR. Tough!

And has any US President ever relied so much on Russian money to survive? How many had business interests in Russia? How many US Presidents fawned all over the Russian leader of their day, even claiming Russian intelligence is better than their own? And how many President, during an election campaign they know had been infiltrated by the Russians, chose not to defend the US at the time, but take sides with Russia against the USA?

In a company of one, the most unique traitor in American history.

[Stavros]

The latest from the 'Greatest President of all Time' -pleading with ordinary Americans to fund his Trump Force One (because he can't afford it?)-

"So, in the history of our country, nothing like me has ever happened," Trump said. "I don't say that positive, negative. You know, you've never had a businessman."Trump went on to explain that most US presidents have a background in politics or the military.
"So you had soldiers and you had politicians," Trump said. "There's never been an outsider."
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/trump-hist...165803315.html

Same old Trump- ignorant, self-obsessed, absurd, doesn't know what Google is.

Here are the Presidents who were businessmen-

https://time.com/4547837/donald-trum...ss-presidents/

[Stavros]

"I ran twice and won twice, and I did much better the second time than we did the first," Trump said, calling the election results "rigged."
Trump also hinted that he would make another run for president in 2024.
"Now, we may have to run again," he said to applause and cheers from the crowd. He added: "In 2024, we are going to take back that beautiful, beautiful White House."
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/trump-floa...075706082.html

Hmmm...if he won twice that's it, he can't run for a third term. Or maybe he lost? Just maybe...

[Stavros]

On the basis of these riveting hearings, not that his supporters can be bothered to watch them (but he does, obsessively, of course), history may ask how it was that such a deranged man held hostage other men one might assume to be intelligent enough to know when they have been taken for a ride. I don't know what 'Beast' the Fake President was in when he lunged for the wheel, and it is no surprise that men disputing Ms Hutchinson's account are believed to be so loyal to the Beast to deny her account, whatever, the stunning fact to me was Mark Meadows simply shrugging his head in complete indifference to the events that were unfolding in the Capital of his country. That combination of Judicial Activism and political indifference may be defined as the key components in the decline of the US as a Union.

As for the deluded fool who may be fighting the next ten years on the last ten years-

"Holder: Donald Trump is not a rational player. I mean, he just isn’t. You can’t have a conversation with him in the same way that you can have a conversation with most other people. He is somebody that lives in a different reality. He had started the lie about the election back in 2016. What I saw after the first interview with him in the White House was that he now became someone who believed in his own lie, and that is a person who is delusional. That is a person who is incredibly dangerous, because you can't debate with that person. There is no way that anybody can persuade Donald Trump that he’s wrong. And this is something that’s characteristic of him all the way through his life, and the series goes into this in the sense that he will never accept that he had done anything wrong. He will always double back. He’s always right, and it’s always somebody else’s fault. I mean, he lives in cloud cuckoo land."
Filmmaker who gave footage to Jan. 6 committee: Trump is 'dangerous,' living in 'cloud cuckoo land' (yahoo.com)

[Stavros]

This is weird, as if he were a Medieval King prone to extreme fits. But what should the Music Man play for the 45th? I am trying to think of something venal, but I love music too much. As for me, for what that's worth, I link the sort of thing guaranteed to lift anyone from the pit -with Kleiber at his peak in Munich, my destination in a few weeks time. The whole opera is worth watching too.

"Stephanie Grisham, Donald Trump’s ex-press secretary, has said this week that her boss’s temper was so furious at times during his presidency that his staff would summon an aide dubbed the Music Man, who would play songs to soothe him. The repertoire reportedly consisted of the president’s favourite show tunes, including Memory from the musical Cats.
With this in mind, we would like to hear from readers about their most calming musical choices. What are the tunes you turn to in times of great stress?"
Tell us: what is the song that calms you down? | Music | The Guardian

Enjoy!

[Stavros]

"Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said Monday his investigators found just one dead voter after thoroughly reviewing findings from a partisan review of the 2020 election that alleged 282 ballots were cast in the name of someone who had died."
Arizona AG says most alleged 2020 dead voters were alive (yahoo.com)

Trump: I believe, sincerely, those people are dead. (This is not a quote, but an assumption based on what we are told his lawyers will argue is Trump's defence of the Jan 6th Insurrection against the USA).

And if it is illegal for a former President, or anyone else, to display the Presidential Seal of Office at their private golf clubs, why hasn't this man been arrested for breaking the law?

Trump plasters presidential seal across golf club during Saudi-backed LIV tournament despite complaints | The Independent

[Stavros]

Is the law catching up with Trump-world? Hope springs eternal...

"Regarding Trump Tower, on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, James said: “Mr Trump represented that his apartment spanned more than 30,000 sq ft, which was the basis for valuing the apartment.
In reality, the apartment had an area of less than 11,000 sq ft, something that Mr Trump was well aware of. And based on that inflated square footage the value of the apartment in 2015 and 2016 was $327m.
“To this date, no apartment in New York City has ever sold for close to that amount.
...
“Claiming you have money that you do not have does not amount to the art of the deal. It’s the art of the steal… No one is above the law.”
New York attorney general announces civil lawsuit against Trump and family (yahoo.com)