David Frum: Biden Laid the Trap. Trump Walked Into It.
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Laurence Tribe
@tribelaw
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In addition to his loftier aims, “Biden came to Philadelphia to deliver a wound to Trump’s boundless yet fragile ego. Trump obliged with a monstrously self-involved meltdown 48 hours later. And now his party has nowhere to hide.” Bazinga!
theatlantic.com
Biden Laid the Trap. Trump Walked Into It.
At his Pennsylvania rally, the former president gave exactly the narcissistic display his Democratic nemesis tried to provoke.
5:57 PM · Sep 4, 2022
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/09/trump-pennsylvania-rally-republicans/671344/
No paywall
https://archive.ph/vYs9R
In 2016, Hillary Clinton warned that Donald Trump was a fool who could be baited with a tweet.
This past Thursday night, in Philadelphia, Joe Biden upped the ante by asking, in effect: What idiot thing might the former president do if baited with a whole speech? On Saturday night, the world got its answer.
For the 2022 election cycle, smart Republicans had a clear and simple plan: Don’t let the election be about Trump. Make it about gas prices, or crime, or the border, or race, or sex education, or anything—anything but Trump. Trump lost the popular vote in 2016. He lost control of the House in 2018. He lost the presidency in 2020. He lost both Senate seats in Georgia in 2021. Republicans had good reason to dread the havoc he’d create if he joined the fight in 2022.
So they pleaded with Trump to keep out of the 2022 race. A Republican lawmaker in a close contest told CNN on August 19, “I don’t say his name, ever.”
Maybe the pleas were always doomed to fail. Show Trump a spotlight, and he’s going to step into it. But Republicans pinned their hopes on the chance that Trump might muster some self-discipline this one time, some regard for the interests and wishes of his partners and allies.
One of the purposes of Biden’s Philadelphia attack on Trump’s faction within the Republican Party was surely to goad Trump. It worked.
*snip*
= new reply since forum marked as read
Zuckerberg had visited him in he WH last week. Handlers aetrying keep Trump out of sight. He believes he is still in the WH!
This was on the Palmer report this morning. He watches so I do not have to!
Maybe the pleas were always doomed to fail. Show Trump a spotlight, and he’s going to step into it. But Republicans pinned their hopes on the chance that Trump might muster some self-discipline this one time, some regard for the interests and wishes of his partners and allies.
Here's another good one from an Insider headline:
Lindsey Graham: Trump will lose 2024 if he doesn't fix his personality
And political parties, etc.
with ruthless sociopaths and conscienceless psychopaths, social dominators and double highs. Seriously. The Republican Party's become so corrupt and accessible (as decent leaders backed away/were purged) that it draws them like flies to carrion.
Political operatives can't function without understanding their opponents. Anyway, I'm sure they all obtain the same studies looking for insights, except for those they routinely commission for themselves only.
It'd be really fun to read reports on...McConnell for one. I've read a couple of biographies and feel sure he's diagnosable. He's famous among his own colleagues for knowing so little about issues that come before the senate that he can't hold up his end of a conversation. (!!!) Not that he wastes his time that way anyway. Power, growing and applying it, are what interest him.
You couldn't make this stuff up if you couldn't have imagined it was possible. 
I suspect they're far, far, far more insulated from criminal prosecution than regular criminals, exempted by their role in government and lack of laws defining harmful and/or unethical work actions as criminal. And then, of course, it's an ongoing lesson in power, only a portion of which is in official government hands as delegated by the electorate.
McConnell notably has been careful to maintain separation from political "crimes," but I've really been hoping he dropped the ball during the tRump era so we can get him. No one ever mentions the possibility of him being subpoenaed or even interviewed by investigators, though.
personally...whatever he is, power-loving but a turtle with serious limitations, not a Putin with giant ambitions.
Fwiw, , my impression is that McConnell's also always been careful to stay personally within the letter of laws that could bite them. He and others have been plotting a RW takeover through electoral and judicial means for a lot longer than tRump's been on the scene, and caution suggests they've always intended to remain safe and powerful no matter what.
Things got crazy once the base cut loose and created their own wannabe dictator, but they've mostly been able to work with it, letting those who threw in with tRump stick their necks out. Especially now.
Anyway, that's my best guess, until thrilling news were to come that McConnell slipped and did something he could be nailed for. Basically lawful as far as we know, though, and that would mean we can't put him and his cabal in jail. We might help those in public life leave and die in the disgrace they so deserve, though.
breaking the law himself, and those like him, because that could be dangerous to them. The protections of power available to the powerful are not absolute under our current system. And, above all, breaking the law is unnecessary because they have other, well proven, legal means for getting the people to destroy our democracy for them.
But in any case, these are not exactly the kind of revolutionaries who rush the machine guns guarding the palace, or even get their clothes mussed. They're too old and "entitled" to risk their privileges.
I think Biden is reminding conservatives unhappy with what MAGAs are doing of who they've always believed themselves to be and need to be. We do that with children, tell them they're good so they'll see themselves that way. Using grown-up definitions of good.
McConnell still needs tRump's voters to come out big and hopeful for Pub candidates, but he'd have huge difficulty covering for tRump even if he didn't need to protect him since tRump lost the WH and control of both houses of congress. Speaking of McC being angry!
So I don't think tRump behaving could change that because McConnell just doesn't have the power to stop us, and I really do not think he controls the DoJ or FBI during a Democratic administration. His hopes hinge on the midterms shifting congressional power back to him in January, but Biden would still be chief executive in charge of DoJ/FBI and various federal other investigative functions, including the OIG.
I've been seeing what's happening among the Pubs as basically competing far-right authoritarian takeovers -- fascistic white nationalist populist and big business/establishment. They have to work together to defeat the Democrats/existing government, but afterward they would battle each other. Their big power blocs would ultimately support whichever won, including their wannabe pluto/kleptocrats and the *religious right,* which in itself includes most of the MAGAs and white supremacists, a fair number of extremist billionaires, and a killer majority on SCOTUS...!
Whatever the reality is, we live in interesting times.
occult, behind-the-scenes powers and seriously underestimating both the powers and differences in principles and goals of Democrats.
The Republicans own their massive corruption. Today's RW extremists and corrupt subversives in government have extremely (!) different goals from the overall strongly liberal Democratic caucuses.
Take a look at THIS:
This group studies the performance of political parties around the globe. The Republican Party has taken a steep dive into authoritarianism, similar, while the Republicans controlled DC, to Hungary's dictator-headed RW party. Viktor Orban is still very popular among MAGAs.
The Democratic Party graphs over the past century as the same steady horizontal blue line that represents all the blessings of progressive, liberal government that Democratic/democratic government has created. See how far apart the lines are? And how we haven't changed with them? That extremely slight dip on the right of the blue line represents increased effect on our party of a LW authoritarian-leaning populist movement @2016, but very minor -- it lost and our normal, steady-blue-line progressive liberalism continues as before, then and since.)
Altogether something I'm very proud of and able to reassured by in these scary times.
