We could start in more recent years and decades. It was when Ronald Reagan was running against incumbent Jimmy Carter. Reagan did something unexpected, and possibly even shocking, during one of the debates. Carter was saying something, and Reagan replied "there you go again." He made this unbelievably wiseass wisecrack to the president of the United States. But the public weren't turned off by it. Reagan bought himself some support for having the nerve to make a wiseass wisecrack like that, to the sitting president.
Over three years ago, Joe Biden, in a debate with the sitting president, called Trump a "clown," twice, and asked "why don't you shut up," once. Biden, too, bought himself support for being confrontational, and not submissive, that way. It wouldn't be possible to calculate the effect, but both Reagan and Biden won their elections.
If we go back much further, and consider a fable, there's the public who fawned over the emperor's new clothes, and the boy who pointed out the emperor wasn't wearing any clothes. In that fable, the rest of the public then felt empowered to admit the emperor was naked, and they laughed at him. They were freed to laugh at the emperor. Because a young boy commented on reality.
Tonight, yet again, the Republican presidential hopefuls are having a debate. And again, Donnie Trump won't be there. Instead, Fox News is hosting one of his solo "town hall" affairs. They're afraid of Trump. Most Republicans are afraid of Trump. They're afraid of him because they know he has enough of a base to displace them from office, as his Wyoming base did to Liz Cheney. Trump's base are out of their minds. They have no idea what the issues are, or what they're doing. They allowed themselves to forget that Liz Cheney is a rock solid, relatively far right, Republican, and just because of one vote she made, to acknowledge that Trump did something criminal enough to deserve impeachment, they turned on her, and they turned from her.
Carter had done some significantly good and right things. I didn't vote for him when he ran the first time, but I did the second time. "There you go again" isn't substantive. It has no meaning. It's just a wiseass wisecrack, and it was intended to suggest that no one intimidated Ronald Reagan.
Trump is without question a clown, an inveterate liar, and he's totally (that's 100%, not 99.8%) self-focused. And he should shut up. If he's not candidate enough, or man enough, to debate his opponents, then he's answered the question Republicans should be asking.
He shouldn't have the sycophants at Fox News running interference for him, or praising him for his new and magnificent outfit, when he isn't wearing anything.
The majority of voters understood what was wrong with Trump in 2016, and they voted for Clinton. A larger majority of voters had an even clearer understanding of what was wrong with Trump in 2020, and they voted for Biden. Perhaps in part because Biden helped them have confidence in what they then knew for a fact, having lived it for four years, when Biden called Trump a clown and told him to shut up. It's unfortunate that political discourse gets to be that degree of schoolyard, but reality has to be acknowledged. Unless you're afraid of assumed or imagined consequences, and you play along, and praise the emperor for his magnificent new outfit.
Fox News, and other media, are primarily interested in making money, so they have viewers and advertisers to worry about pleasing, and they haven't all taken a deep breath, and acknowledged reality. They're further intimidated because such a massive majority of people who fill out surveys of which Republican candidate they want to be president name Trump. Frankly, I think in the real world (country) of real people, Trump will take a shellacking, if he gets far enough to face Biden. Biden's got issues, but none like Trump's.
Increasing numbers of right wing pundits have formally or informally fallen away from Trump. Trump's rallies and other events draw pathetically small "crowds" now.
One thing I very commonly tell people is that it is the job of children, from as soon as they're old enough to start doing their job, to become capable and independent, including independent of their parents. It is the job of parents to permit, or even encourage, their children to become capable and independent, including independent of them. I tell them that if they have no other way of thinking about that, they should realize that their offspring are more or less guaranteed to outlive the parents. If the offspring are not capable and independent, including independent of the parents, when the parents die of old age, and the offspring are in their 40s, 50s, 60s, or maybe even 70s, the offspring are in very deep trouble.
Trump has kept this charade going so far by inventing the idea that he earned more votes than Clinton or Biden, and that the second election was stolen from him. And the children who are his supporters have clung to that as a basis for continuing to support him. What are they going to do when this 77 year old man who doesn't exercise, and eats junk food, is gone?
Trump 2024 !!!
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