3d ago

Trump’s ‘Bah! Humbug!’ address suggests he is feeling the chill of opinion polls

www.theguardian.com Trump’s ‘Bah! Humbug!’ address suggests he is feeling the chill of opinion polls

Primetime speech – delivered with shouty spirit but no cheer – betrayed a figure dogged by a cost of living crisis and the looming release of the Epstein files

It will go down in history as the “Bah! Humbug!” address.

But this was not an address by a self-confident man dishing out Christmas presents to the nation. It smacked of desperation from one who can feel the December windchill of opinion polls – a Reuters/ Ipsos poll on Tuesday showed just 33% of US adults approve of how Trump has handled the economy – dissent in his own Republican ranks and the Jeffrey Epstein files looming on Friday.

The speech also revealed Trump’s need for a reliable foil. Over the years Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been useful nemeses for a man and movement defined less by what they are for than what they are against.

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“Eleven months ago, I inherited a mess, and I’m fixing it,” Trump said, starting as he meant to go on by telling a lie: he claimed that inflation was the worst in 48 years when he took office, when in fact it had come back down to 3%.
He went on to place blame at the feet of Biden, previous trade deals, immigrants and what he described as a corrupt system.
Fascists can't actually solve problems, even though they will tell you they're the only ones who can. They don't have problem solving skills, that's why they're fascists. They blame, deflect and scapegoat, and do it very aggressively and forcefully. Unfortunately, many people mistake that for strength. But fascists are not strong, they're weak, and they try to compensate for their weakness by acting very strong, in very superficial ways. That's why they are so focused on hyper masculine performance.
REAL strength is not an over inflated ego, it's not threats and cruelty, it's not being ignorant and proud of it, it's not unnecessary aggression and violence. Real strength is accountability. Weak people think it shows strength to never admit when you're wrong, but that's completely false. Real strength is owning up to your mistakes, but not so you can crumble into self loathing, it's so you can learn from them and become better. Real strength is learning, it's knowledge and understanding.
You can't fix a problem that you don't understand, and you can't understand a problem if you are unwilling to look at it honestly and critically, without bias. But that takes humility and weak people think humility is weakness, and they think arrogance is strength. The opposite is true. Humility is STRENGTH. That's why fascists can never lead, because leadership takes real strength and they don't have it.
- He doesn't know the difference between a strongman and a strong man.
  
  You just described the problem with rampant toxic masculinity and poor expectation setting. A country of angry young self imagined cuks projecting fear and anxiety.
- Freaking bingo! Well said!!
- That's a great comment.
  Gone is the age of the gentleman - literally a gentle man. The best definition I've heard of that is that 'a gentleman puts the needs of others above his own.'

Pettysburg address
- This made me LOL IRL so I made you a picture.

Come on massive stroke…
- God this would be ideal for this dumb fuck. That way he doesn't die, but he lives as an idiotic vegetable for the rest of his life suffering. Also coincidentally did you know that Donald j Trump who is best friends with Jeffrey r Epstein is a child rapist? We've seen pictures and evidence in the releases so far and this is a well-known fact.
  
  The best/worst case scenario is he has a massive stroke live on TV but somehow survives but is wheelchair bound and has to use a Stephen Hawking style speaker in order to talk. It would be hilarious to have him wheel out on stage and with his robot voice say “the deep state did this to me!”
  
  Show him the video of himself mocking the disabled reporter on a loop.
  
  My friend had a large stroke. He can barely talk, he's confined to a wheel chair, his hands are mostly useless, and he slumps over and drools on himself. The kicker is his brain it like he was before the stroke. Hes a prisoner in broken skin suit.
  That's the life I want for Trump.
  
  i feel like it'd be better if he died in some embarrassing accident due to his own incompetence, tripping down the stairs of AF1 for example.
  
  I'm not sure this isn't his current condition based on his statements.
- There isn't one Claus von Stauffenberg in the whole secret service?
- It would be something seeing the republicans having to remove him. I'm sure they'd make it into a giant show about how great he's been.
  
  It would be hilarious to see the GOP and his family constantly saying he is in perfect healthy condition while he is drooling and unable to form full words while shitting this pants in a wheelchair on life support.

Trump also announced that he would send a “warrior dividend” of $1,776 to 1.45 million US service members in the coming week. He said it had been made possible by revenue from tariffs, failing to mention those same tariffs have driven prices up.
First, it won't happen because he talks out his ass by default. A more important second though, how insulting is it that he thinks a token payment is going to buy him the loyalty of the military? I'm strikingly reminded of Caligula in the movie promising '10 gold pieces to every man'.
- Weren't tariff dividends meant to be sent to every American below certain income? So now he's just trying to bribe the military, because fuck those civilians protesting against him.
  
  So now we’re up to:
  $5,000 from DOGE
  $2,000 from Tariffs
  $1,776 from Tariffs to service members
  And of course the true amount of the $8,776 people will see…. $0
  
  Maybe someone explained to him that there wasn't enough money for the previous plan. Or maybe he doesn't remember there was a previous plan.
  
  Keep the ones happy who will enforce national gestapo and an at-home war on dissenters. That’s what this is. A bribe.
  
  Last I understood as of like a week ago, they are no longer sending a straight check for $2k but instead the money will be given to you in the form of a tax refund. Which sounds to me like just a perfect way to do nothing and then say you sent it to everyone. Then when no one sees any difference just tell them they owed more taxes than they thought or filed wrong or whatever. But call me a negative Nancy I guess 🤷
- Sadly a token payment works on an alarming percentage of people.
- It will happen, just like it has for years except this is Demented Donnie's con/grift/lie.
  
  Cute, so claiming credit for other's work as usual. The way it's phrased is made to sound like some novel thing he specifically is doing.

That was some strange deranged rant. WTF even was that?
- Tantrum. This is called a tantrum.

Blows my mind that even a third of people still support this putz - I knew the human race had plenty of assholes, but that's absurd. Wonder just how many die-hards will be left at the peak of the massive recession Trump has set up to happen next year.
- Crazy that people think that 1/3 supporting a fascist pedophile is 'nort that bad'.
- it's a death cult. that much has been clear for ~5 years now
- The emotional equivalent of the "sunken cost fallacy" where they've invested so much of their identity in him they can't back out now.
- Well, he was President before, did a terrible job and was then reelected...so.
- Most people aren't watching.
  The only people who even tune into these speeches or watch them in their entirety are people who have direct stake in the political "tone" in our country, IE: grifters and pundits and twitter clip-farmers. And of course, a small segment of people who actually care about our future and understand how important politics are.
  But if you want to see just how bad it is, make a political comment in a large gaming subreddit or forum.
  This is all by design too, it's a ploy from the KGB handbook from 50 years ago, that you can destabilize a nation by making both sides of every issue so contentious, stupid and pointless that average people stop caring. This is where we're at.
- the peak of the massive recession Trump has set up to happen next year.
  The recession is already happening, Trump just cancelled the reports to hide it. It will become more obvious once corporations report less profits than anticipated over the holiday season.
  As usual in America, nothing will done until it starts hurting the Corpos.

apparently this was a sugar high: just before the remarks started, according to a White House pool report, an usher brought in three Diet Cokes and ice.
But… that’s the sugar free one… he must have been on something else.
- I mean, 3 diet cokes is a lot of caffeine.
  Edit: I've been corrected that 3 diet cokes is, in fact, not a lot of caffeine. Guess he's micro-dosing amphetamines. My bad, y'all.
  
  A 12oz Diet Coke is 46mg caffeine. A cup of coffee is about 150mg.
  
  From someone who has been on the caffeine pony - caffeine withdrawal is no joke. If he's been deprived of his diet cokes for medical reasons, it makes total sense that they'd give him some right before a televised address read from a teleprompter that he wasn't supposed to deviate from.
  
  As a regular consumer of caffeine, let me assure you it is not. As someone else said, he had the equivalent of a cup of coffee. I personally don't start suffering any significant withdrawal symptoms until I have more than 100 mg per day, and fairly significant withdrawal symptoms if I regularly have over 400 mg per day. But even as a single dose of caffeine, 150 mg is pretty typical. That said, caffeine can give a temporary boost to cognitive function, even for dementia patients.
- They must have meant diet cocaine. As in not cut with sugar.
- There's no such thing as a "sugar high". This is just Trump being Trump. He's been an idiot for ever.
  Remember his speech to the boy scouts in his first term?
  
  I don't remember the speech, but I'm guessing he was complimenting how hot their younger sisters were.
- only 3? With the way he consumes those things, he was probably actually going through a withdrawal
- Hint: He was sniffing a lot during that drooling speech.....

100% of all jobs created since I took office have been in the private sector.
Even Trump has forgotten all about DOGE.

MTG is smarter than we've given her credit for.
She was the first rat off the ship, and she'll be playing off her 'independent' stance up until 2028.
"MAGA listened to Trump, and we paid the price for supporting the wrong man! He wasn't true to the cause but I am!"
- Still stupid enough to have gotten on to the ship in the first place
  
  Pretty sure she perspnally benefitted from being on the ship and hasn't had any negative repercussions.
  
  Is it stupid? Jumping on board got her a political career, she made some serious cash, she jumped off at the earliest opportunity to still come out smelling of roses for certain people and won herself some points from her more credulous detractors. She's many things, few if any of them good, but one thing she isn't is stupid
  
  She's done very well for herself. National name, life time pension, and plenty of other benefits we can only guess at.
  Don't mistake morality for intelligence.
- Don't give her that credit. She stopped getting what she wanted so she bailed. She was not the first rat off the ship either. She didn't come to her senses or anything.
  That said, I support her efforts to splinter the party. Not because I agree with her but because it benefits me
  
  It's hard to give people you hate credit for good ideas, but learning from everyone is part of politics.
  George Patton was the general the Germans feared the most; he was also the one who studied their tactics the most.
- MTG got approached by a group of consultants promising her the presidency
  Have you listened to her lately? She sounds like Kamala during the second half of her mini-campaign
  
  I hope she runs for president, the only thing this country hates more than people of color is women, insta win for the Dems, or hopefully a different party altogether
  
  So MTG is saying the president did a great job and that she wouldn't change any of his policies if she was elected president?

Trump desperately hoping the mindset in the military is like "I would never follow illegal orders for only $1,775 dollars! Show me the money!". Trump mistakenly believing he can buy and sell honour because he does not have any and cannot recognize it. He doesn't understand how standing up for a principle doesn't make you an automatic sucker or loser.
- Haha, stupid donald, ikr? The US military servicemembers will follow illegal genocidal orders for free, as long as there are brown people getting maimed or killed. The cheque would be a nice bonus at most.

So, 33% of Americans are terminally stupid.
- The sad thing is I'm fine with the 33% who are slack-jawed morons. It's inevitable that any segment of a population is going to fall somewhere on the bell-curve.
  We can fix stupid. That's where the term comes from "I rather be lucky than smart." You can actually correct stupidity in yourself or in your population with effort and management. Or at least keep them directed at the right targets.
  Our real ire here, the people we need to be making their lives absolute hell night and day are the grifters, the pundits, the streamers and youtube influencers and right-wing radio hosts, the science-deniers and "just asking questions" nazis and of course, the tens of thousands of paid propaganda-spreaders on twitter, people who live in other countries and have no stake in our future and just work every day at getting their talking points shared and clipped for a few dollars. Enough to live on in places like India.
  If it wasn't for those people, that 33% would still be stupid, but they would be less afraid, less reactionary, less focused on new, invented targets.
  We'll never fix it entirely, we're a primitive and unevolved species broadly, but we could do a LOT better at managing our own living space if we unified and targeted the right problems.

More like “Why don’t you like me?” rant. What an absolute baby
- Source
  
  Jeez, the school were worried?
- The "pick me" girl of presidents.

Oh if only he'd feel the chill of the grave.

I didn't watch it but I was hoping for a Budd Dwyer moment.
- Hey, man. Nice shot. Good shot, man.

He’s not feeling shit. He’s just successfully distracting idiots with short attention spans.
- As usual. Left and right alike are completely wrapped up in his tone and his "eyebrow raising" performances, bickering with each other about what he "means" about this and that.
  Meanwhile, they're extorting other countries for oil at gunpoint, completely gutting all of our social programs for every last penny, deploying more grifts and cons, taking over the fed, and withdrawing healthcare protections for marginalized people.
  They are literally just robbing the whole country. We will never see a fat fucking DIME of what they're pouring directly into the pockets of investors and donors, and that's what they don't want us unified and focused on. Because then we might all start comparing notes and realizing we want the same thing and like... go fix shit.
  
  No one has forgotten any of those things just because they're briefly talking about this.
  Venezuela, health care and Epstein are all more prominent in the media.

I mean it's his 2nd term, he's almost dead, and it's not like the treasonous Republican party is going to oust him.
So all we're going to get out of this is maybe some raised blood pressure because he's a narcissist and narcissists don't like knowing how many people don't like them. Doesn't really help us though.
- Little more concerned about the damage he can cause in the next three years. Yeah. It's his last term. But if the last year is any indication, we've got a loooong way to go.
- Maybe that raised blood pressure is the thing that kills him? If so then that's quite helpful, so everyone wins.

Excellent analysis by Jim Stewartson here:
Trump’s Colonized Mind: The Cognitive Dysfunction Destabilizing the Planet
The neurological, psychological, and political breakdown of the American president—and the people taking full advantage of it.
"Trump is experiencing a rapid decline in cognitive function. – He is alone and angry on a deserted mental island. – It’s impossible to watch him at this point and ignore his dysfunction. – It’s as if his shrinking mind has been colonized by his advisors and donors. – Donald Trump is less the leader of a nation and more of a glitchy, reprogrammable weapon of mass destruction—being wielded by a constellation of America’s enemies, foreign and domestic."
https://www.mind-war.com/p/trumps-colonized-mind-the-cognitive

A speech like that killed Carter's presidency. What are the odds that will happen to Trump?
- Remember that snowball in hell… yeah me neither.

33% approval rating is more than the amount of votes he received. It looks like a win to me.
- All these "news" about him going down, any moment now, are super annoying. All just for the clicks and people, even here on Lemmy, gobble it up.
  
  That's not really what the article says

Any discomfort he’s feeling, I’m good with.
- It's just too bad the discomfort isn't paired with head electrodes and amperage

🙏🏼🪦 praying for a Christmas miracle
- Van with the pumped up kicks WILL be worse. I promise.
  
  No he won't, he has ZERO political capital. Yes he has Thiel behind him, but every politician at a high level has some evil oligarch behind them.
  You still can't do shit without political currency, and in Trump's case it's his cult-of-personality that neither the right nor the left even fully understand yet and keep trying to feebly copy in different personalities.
  Trump isn't honest but he's genuine. Exit polling from across the country reinforced this perception, that people are so burned-out on politics and personalities, that they don't see a difference between candidates, and just saw Trump as the only human candidate, and if you can back up from the circus you you realize that people rather vote in a hateful, angry, dour old sack of lies who is honest about how they feel than another establishment politician.
  JD has tried over and over to capture the attention of the MAGA horde. The MAGA horde is raw political power, they are the band of armed, flag-carrying patriots who will follow their leader no matter what, this has been the kind force that has toppled empires and created nations for thousands of years.
  And they cannot stand Vance. He talks like a politician, he drones on and plays it safe and over-acts and gets more traction with his "babyface" memes than he does with policy discussion. He doesn't get what "authenticity" means and when he tries to be like Trump he just falls flat, like with the recent speech about hating turkey... completely tone-deaf to what his base wants to hear and why.
  Vance is still going to be a problem for our country, but nowhere NEAR as bad as Trumpism. He will be a lame-duck for the remaining time he spends in office, and he won't be immune the same way Trump is. He will be targeted as a scapegoat by both sides because he just doesn't have the power behind him to move policy, and a LOT of other people want the iron throne.
  
  He isn’t the leader of a cult

"Cut off their Medicare. That'll show the disloyal bastards..."

The author of the piece would have been better served leaving out the attempts to portray drinking Diet Coke as bad or weird behaviour. Lots of people drink Diet Coke without forming fascist governments. Mentioning it multiple times in one article makes it sound like you’re desperately reaching, which isn’t necessary.

TIL that "Humbug" is also used in English (I thought only Germans used that word)
- We really only use it with a story called A Christmas Carol. It's the main remark the protagonist uses whenever he sees something related to Christmas of which he abhors, such as kids playing and families enjoying each other's company during Christmas time.

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