Yea, No, He's Also Deeply Stupid

It's probably mostly meaningless but this is a really stupid article.  I take it's meaning, but really, even the fundamentally incurious moron who now occupies the oval office doesn't know "nothing" he just doesn't know the things that are relevant to his position.  He knows how to bully, and how to shame and cajole people into doing what he wants, and how to manipulate the press, but the line that is adopted in the article is like saying dogs are smart because they eat when they're hungry.  So fucking what?  Following a logical path isn't a sign of intelligence, or understanding, and applying those adjectives to a person who is primarily exhibiting a very base instinct for self preservation (and a complimentary instinct to illicit praise from others of himself) and whose instinct works to get those things (mostly because he was given lots of money when young) isn't, well, smart.

Of Course They're Incompetent

Here's a scenario for you:

You are someone who specializes in [pretty much anything] and there is a position in the White House staff to provide advice and help implement policy regarding the thing you specialize in.  You are asked to take said position.  It is the Trump White House.

Normaly the answer to something like this is not simple, but there's a good chance it would be "Yes!" That last line though is a kicker.  The problem is that Trump is a know-nothing man child who may listen to you while you are in the room but you've got at best a 50/50 chance that your informed suggestion will get implemented, a chance that goes down dramatically if anyone else talks to him between the time you did and the time that said suggestion gets implemented.  The chance approaches zero if any of a small handful of people are opposed.  In the end, whether you get fired, resign or just toil on fruitlessly, you will be forever tarnished as "that person who worked for the Trump administration."

So the answer becomes easy: NO!   The fact is that, almost by definition, anyone who accepts a position in this White House or from this president is inherently unqualified and incompetent.  His supreme court pick is already tarnished by virtue of the fact that it should have been filled a year earlier, but it was Trump that put forth the nomination.  Justice lobster is sure to have asterisks by his name throughout history.

This all brings me back to the beginning of an article Digby quotes extensively from here (article is NYT which I will try my best to never link directly again):

Mr. Trump’s appetite for chaos, coupled with his disregard for the self-protective conventions of the presidency, have left his staff confused and squabbling. And his own mood, according to two advisers who spoke on the condition of anonymity, has become sour and dark, turning against most of his aides — even his son-in-law, Jared Kushner — and describing them in a fury as “incompetent,” according to one of those advisers.

Emphasis mine.  No competent aids would accept a position, and in the unlikely event one did (because she really thought she could make a difference) Donald would end up firing her because a competent person would end up disagreeing with president man-child on pretty much everything.

Good Conversation With One Oddity

This conversation between Ezra Klein and Molly Ball is pretty good overall (though it doesn't really address what to do about things) but for a very odd point Molly made near the end.  She said

It’s his celebrity, it’s his money — so many of his positions are so antithetical to the interests of the donor class in the Republican Party that only someone with his own money and visibility could have done that. And, as you said, his shamelessness: He doesn’t care what people think of him.

That’s rare, particularly among rich, famous people. Most rich and famous people care very much about their image. And he doesn’t, and that’s a remarkable quality.

But he does care...a lot.  He carries grudges against people who say that he is a bad businessman or that he cheats (taxes, contractors, whatever) or that he is only where he is because of a rich father...or that he has short fingers.

There have been plenty of stories (I doubt this was the first, but maybe) saying the reason he got into the race in the first place was because Obama slighted him at the White House Correspondents' Dinner (I don't know if a better argument that that event shouldn't exist could be made).  His entire net worth is a judgement on what the value of the "Trump" brand is.

He cares.  He's just way too stupid to understand what he should do to actually get the respect he craves.

I. Don't. Get. His. Supporters.

Yea, yea, lots of them are deplorables, many of the rest are stupid, and some (maybe the rest?) are, for lack of a more specific descriptor: evil.  Really, though, even for supporters in the first two categories, isn't the idea of this person as President of the United States enough of an embarrassment that they just couldn't bring themselves to vote for him?  So maybe not I don't get his supporters as much as I don't get how they could actually turn that support into voting for him for president.

By definition a country that would elect a Donald Trump it's president can't be great.  It is obviously, seriously flawed.  And it may happen!  I don't think it will, but it could.  

I'm actually kind of surprised that more conspiracy theories haven't surfaced so my unsubstantiated but every bit as probable as a Trump presidency seemed 4 years ago theories...  

1.  Donald bet $[1, 5, 10]bn that Hillary Clinton would win the presidency in 2016, and decided to become the Republican nominee to make it happen (figuring that a typical Republican may actually win since so many voters have such a poor opinion of her).  Had been going well, but the Russians are on the other side of the bet so they are trying to interfere in support of Donald and not have to pay out.

2. Less fun bur more likely... Aside from the more sensible Republicans who have thrown support to Hillary (or at least said they would not vote Donald)--a group that actually includes Dubbya--and the sycophants who have turned into Donald cheerleaders (Giuliani and Christie) the overall republican establishment is lining up in "support" of Donald's candidacy with no actual intention of letting him be president.  How?  Well in order of decreasing niceness (and, oddly enough increasing benefit to Republicans)...

Nice version: they already have the impeachment documents drawn up and will be ready to go with them the day after he is inaugurated.  Less nice is blackmail adjacent: they have his tax returns and will threaten to release them if he does not resign immediately after being elected--clearly he will do just about anything not to have those released.  Really not nice: well, Donald doesn't seem like someone to take orders quietly does he?  

They Want to Blow it Up

So, if you are a rational, logical, coherent, compassionate, humane individual (any one, or all) then there isn't any question that you will vote for Hillary Clinton.  It really doesn't matter if you like her, her politics, her policies, her family, since the other major party candidate has no business being anywhere close to power.

The apparently >50% of Trump supporters who are deplorables of one variety or another has been discussed elsewhere quite a bit.  The remainder are more of a question.  It's possible that many of his other supporters are also deplorables, but smart enough not to answer questions in a way that proves it.  It also seems like there is a group that just wants to blow shit up.  People who may not ever bother voting, or who regularly vote for 3rd party candidates, and who see in Trump a candidate whose election could actually wreck US politics.  I should add: no matter how bad he will be, he won't be enough to destroy US politics so it can be reworked.  He's too incompetent.  He will do real lasting harm, but the likelyhood of much good coming of it is low, and whatever good may come won't be enough to offset the damage.

I think the "Blow Shit Up" constituency is largely incoherent, lacks knowledge of our world/country/politics and/or just doesn't give a damn about their fellow human beings/Americans.  They are, however, a constituency that doesn't normally have a major party candidate to support, and because they don't necessarily vote in most elections, they may be larger than most people think.

This Election "Undecided" = "Doesn't Like Clinton but Probably not a Racist", or "A Idiot"

I understand not liking the Clintons (not Hillary in particular who I think is better than Bill), but there is no world in which voting for Trump is acceptable to anyone who isn't a racist, misogynistic, sexist, xenophobic ass hole.

If you are voting for Donald Trump you are at least one of those things.  If you are a "liberal" and not voting for Hillary you are probably "a idiot" (if you are a "liberal" and voting Trump see the previous assessment).  I like the idea of viable Green and Libertarian parties for local politics and the US House.  There's really no way that works in this country for president (and really even for US Senate), so if you vote Jill Stein in most places you are a idiot.  If you are "conservative" and vote Gary Johnson, then that is probably the best sign that you are in fact conservative and not a racist ass hole pretending conservative means something it doesn't.

So undecided voters are a bit of a mix.  Some are "a idiots" certainly, but a large fraction are probably Republicans (nominal or de facto) who understand that supporting Donald puts you in league with racists, sexists, bigots and one yuuuge misogynistic authoritarian demagogue (who may or may not be a racist bigot, but that doesn't matter...no, it really doesn't).

And What Gave You That Idea?

There's a whole bunch I don't really understand in this election, but every once in a 30 second period looking at anything about Trump something stands out as particularly bizarre.  Take Jacob Monty an Hispanic member of of Trump's "National Hispanic Advisory Council" (seriously, and yes, that is an actual thing):

“I was a strong supporter of Donald Trump when I believed he was going to address the immigration problem realistically and compassionately,” Jacob Monty explained. “What I heard today was not realistic and not compassionate.”

Ok, really?  Really?!?  I know there has been a lot of completely unwarranted wishful thinking among Republicans and Republican leaners regarding what Trump's "real positions" were but there has been precisely zero evidence that he had any realistic or compassionate plan for anything but immigration in particular.  His campaign was built on the wall and calling Mexicans rapists and banning Muslims from entering.

What the fuck is wrong with this person?  Is he that stupid?  Did he think he could actually make a difference on policy just because Trump is obiously an idiot who doesn't understand anything but will parrot whatever he just heard back?  In fact hating immigrants (particularly those of color) is the only thing that is remotely consistent in Trump's entire campaign.

Another bit of WTF was this morning when a reporter on NPR said something about how "Trump's supporters" have been waiting for these policy details on...

No! No, a million times no.  His "supporters" have not been waiting on policy details.  They don't give a crap about policy details.  If they did, they wouldn't be his supporters.

It's pretty obvious I don't like Republican policies, but if you are a Republican who does give a crap about policy details, you supported any non-Trump candidate, and now you are either behind Gary Johnson (economic policy) or Hillary Clinton (foreign policy) or just not going to vote ("the gays shouldn't marry and marijuana should stay illegal damnit!").  The people who are waiting for these details are a combination of less hateful Republican voters who really want some excuse to go ahead and pull the lever for someone they know is horribly unqualified, and more left leaning people who want the option to further mock Trump and his supporters for their non-nonsensical positions (and there is no way any policy position that Trump could take would be able to make any sense against the backdrop of reality and his previous positions/statements).

Yes, This Election is Terrifying

There is something very broken in a party that could nominate Donald Trump.  While victory is unlikely, he does have the second best chance of anyone to end up president January 2017, and even assuming he does lose there's a good chance that 40+% of all votes cast will be for him, and that represents a large fraction of our population that is ok with a racist, sexist, man-child as president of the United States.

There is absolutely no way that any thinking, caring, or frankly, just breathing person could believe that he is qualified.  So any vote for him is demonstrating a desire to burn the United States Constitution, and perhaps the world beyond.  I suspect that he is too stupid, incompetent and lazy to actually be as destructive as his rhetoric would imply, but just his becoming president would wreak havoc.

A lot of people don't like Hillary Clinton.  I'm not a huge fan (though for very different reasons than you hear about from the mainstream media...seriously, the emails? the foundation? press conferences?).  Yea, there's some poor judgement, but to compare her problems to Trump it's like the difference between accidentally stepping on someone's toes because you were staring at your phone to deliberately murdering someone along with their entire family, friends, neighbors, bombing the city they lived in...

It's not fucking close.  This isn't some lesser of two evils Mussolini vs. Hitler.  It's Anne Hataway (you may not like her but she's going to be good at the job) vs. fucking Donald Trump...I tried to think of a comparison, but to be fair most horrible people are still way more competent than he is he's like a clown pretending to be Stalin or something... Oh, maybe Kim Jong-un, but I'm not sure he's got enough power to count.

In Which We Learn How Came To Be President Trump

This article could prove prophetic if the baby-fingered orange noise machine does win.  Also: why oh why can't we have better journalists.