I'm still not sure whether Donald himself is just dumb or whether he knows he can get away with saying things because his voters are dumb. Neither option looks good in an international context...
Not only the Norway thing, but he also (pretends?) doesn't understand how NATO works. Being angry about NATO members, a defensive treaty, not joining an offensive campaign in Iran.
> I'm still not sure whether Donald himself is just dumb
Yes.
He has failed upward in an insane way. A combination of his petty exploitation of people's good nature and subordinates desperate to be trickled down upon have propelled him to a level of power and wealth he is not fit for outside of his greediness.
Of course you can. Your handlers have to know what they’re doing, of course, but the candidate themselves? They don’t even have to be able to speak coherently (Bush II had some issues in that direction, and of course Trump pretty much just babbles nonsense, for hours, and people put up with it).
> They don’t even have to be able to speak coherently
One painful lesson of my childhood was that coherent logic doesn't win arguments, telling people what they want to hear wins arguments. Sure, 10% of people think rationally but GUESS WHAT it's the other 90% that actually puts politicians into positions of power so it's important to win THEIR votes.
Trump understands this perfectly. HN is an echo chamber "Trump is such a dum-dum" but none of you stupid pigfuckers consider the option that he simply never cared about correctly fulfilling his civil duties, he only cared about power, fame, and money, and he learned how to game the system to achieve these goals, which is an impressive skill to wield.
It's like, engineers complaining again and again about "stupid managers" while failing to see that they're the ones doing on-call while the manager is chilling on Bahamas.
So we're all stupid pigfuckers, but it's OK for Trump to rape women and underaged children, be best buddies with Epstein, cover up the Trump-Epstein Files (TM) because he and his oligarch doners are in them, and for you to defend and praise him, huh?
The painful lesson you should have learned was that you personally are not capable of coherent logic, so you always lose arguments, just like you're spectacularly losing this one.
Instead, you admittedly learned to easily lie through your teeth, and always tell people -- including yourself -- just what they want to hear. That's not winning an argument, that's surrender. The argument is over, and you sealed your loss with your own words.
No woman in her right mind would want to be around a MAGA incel like you, who worships and defends pedophiles. And it's a good thing -- as you've recently admitted yourself -- that every relationship you've ever had failed, because you pedophile defenders should not reproduce yourselves or ever be around other people's children. And that's why you'll always be alone with your AI girlfriend, because you debase and humiliate yourself by worshiping and defending pedophiles like Trump.
Edit: esuorac: "I mean the evidence speaks for himself. One of you two is president." -- this and the rest of your comment are incoherent non-sequiturs. I can't make heads or tails of what you're trying to say.
Please don't be coy and pseudorational like a neck-bearded libertarian. Be clear and unambiguous about your position, then justify it without handwaving or bald faced lying as anal_reactor does: do you support and defend rapists and pedophiles like anal_reactor does, or not? If you do, then explain your justification for not releasing the Trump-Epstein Files (TM).
"Equal time" isn't going to stop a narcissistic rapist pedophile with a cult of brainwashed followers like anal_reactor, who already surrendered this argument by admitting that since childhood he lies to tell people what they want to hear.
Since Hillary called Trump Putin's puppet during the debate, history has proven her absolutely correct. And when she called Trump supporters a "basket of deplorables", she was being polite and wildly understating it -- they're much worse than that. The fact that they took "deplorable" as a badge of honor and ran with it, and everything they've said and done since, proves her right.
It's not about us fucking pigs, it's about Trump lusting after his own daughter, fucking children, raping women, starting unwinnable wars, and bombing schoolchildren. And anal_reactor and his ilk condoning and defending that by lying for him. Why not release the Trump-Epstein Files (TM)?
> Instead, you admittedly learned to easily lie through your teeth, and always tell people -- including yourself -- just what they want to hear. That's not winning an argument, that's surrender. The argument is over, and you sealed your loss with your own words.
Politicians are never having just a debate. They're only nominal arguing with the other contestants and really talking to the audience. It's not surrendering when you tell the audience what they want.
> So we're all stupid pigfuckers, but it's OK
I mean the evidence speaks for himself. One of you two is president. IMO, the solution here is not to re-hash arguements about whether or not he's fit to be president. It's going to be to expand the fair-time rules to apply to cable & not-cable.
If you have some large reach like Fox News then when you run altered footage to make it seem like Donald Trump is in favor of releasing the Epstein files you should have to allow opposition to have equal time explaining why Trump is not going to release files he's in.
Or if you're a financial podcaster like Dave Ramsey, when you have Trump on your show to promote him as good for the economy you then need to allow opposition equal time to explain how he repeatedly attacked Iran and started numerous trade wars in his first time and absolutely is going to do that in his second term leading to inflation.
> It's not about us fucking pigs, it's about Trump lusting after his own daughter, fucking children, raping women, starting unwinnable wars, and bombing schoolchildren.
You also forgot the part where he organized a coup on the Capitol, scammed millions out of their funds MULTIPLE times and also became a funny meme.
My hero. I can only aspire to be such an absolute Chad.
You're no longer a part of this conversation after admitting that since childhood you lie by telling people what they want to hear, and trying to use that admission as justification for supporting Trump.
The adults in the room are having a serious discussion that you are no longer qualified to participate in, because you have degraded yourself into merely a pathological specimen of a MAGA cult member, generously providing evidence for the points I was making, but no longer a participant in a serious or intellectually honest conversation yourself.
By all means, please feel free to keep talking, because everything you say proves my point, but nobody has any reason to take anything you say seriously, by your own admission.
You're no more serious or coherent a person than Haley Stevens.
Talking to you feels like reddit discussions. You don't bother actually reading my point, there's just monkey brain neuron activation that if I don't join "le Trump is le stupid" club then I'm a pariah. Unless we're talking about the childish meaning of the word "stupid", because children call "stupid" everything they don't like. That would, honestly, explain a lot, because if Trump is all that evil you mentioned and got away with it, then he's "cunning", not "stupid".
Before you answer, please dump our conversation into ChatGPT and consult, I'm feeling like talking to a machine would be easier.
You obviously can. An EU delegation had to explain the EU to Trump using colored cards as if he was a small child and it took many attempts before he got it. So the deciding quality must be something else.
You're assuming that understanding it was his priority in the first place. It wasn't.
Imagine a painter saying "these software engineers are profoundly stupid, I spent a whole day explaining to one how different color combinations are differently interpreted by different cultures and he still wouldn't get it".
I still find it amazing nobody brings up he "aced it" once.
When a 80 year old "aces" a driving test they still have to take it more times to check for further decline. You only take these tests until you fail them.
Trump stans: "actually he's very intelligent, he just has a gift for focusing on what the average voter cares about and talking in their terms rather than those of elites"
Trump: "Not many people know this, but dumb is spelled with a 'b' "
That happened when Trump was discussing trade issues with the EU. Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission at the time, had to prepare colorful flash cards in simple language to explain the issues to Trump, because Trump didn't know at all what he was talking about.
A similar thing happened between him and Merkel, when Trump didn't understand that the EU was a unified trading bloc with a common market and that making separate trade agreements with Germany was not possible. Trump allegedly asked Merkel more than 10 times why he could not do that.
I don't think Americans still understand what a laughing stock their president is to the rest of the world. This goes beyond personal sympathies and antipathies; he is objectively a very unintelligent person and his exceptionally poor manners make things only worse.
> I don't think Americans still understand what a laughing stock their president is to the rest of the world.
The US is a very big and diverse place with a lot of different people and perspectives. However, most of us actually do understand what a laughing stock the president is. It’s the response that ends up being what we’re judged upon. The responses that perform insane mental gymnastics to absolve him (such as gp) cast most of us in a bad light as thoughtless parrots. There’s also a big nationalist response that leads people to defend a president that they know is an embarrassment because “USA.” There are also those of us who work in silence to educate and allow the embarrassments to carry on humiliating themselves
> I don't think Americans still understand what a laughing stock their president is to the rest of the world.
And, I don't think that Americans yet understand what leaders elsewhere are incrementally factoring in: this is not a one a one-off event. It happened twice. There is every reason to expect that it can happen again - this is a thing that the USA will do from time to time, and so they cannot be relied upon. Decoupling is the wise direction.
e.g.
"The world's trust in America is collapsing. That has consequences"
There's nothing more amusing than watching a butt-hurt thin-skinned Trump cult member lose his shit and pathetically attempt to defend him whenever somebody makes a joke at his expense that's funny because it's true.
Trump's reaction to Robby Roadsteamer singing "Trump went on the Jeffrey Epstein plane" was priceless. If he wasn't on the plane, then why doesn't he release all the Trump-Epstein Files (TM) like he promised?
Enjoy the midterm elections, and keep up the performance for our amusement. Now do "Trump's not racist"! Then "Trump's not demented!" Then "Trump's not a rapist!" Then "Trump's not a pedophile!"
I believe that it simply speaks to his worldview. It's an institution in Norway, so he expects that Norwegian leaders can and should pressure the organization into awarding him. This is what he would do.
> In January 1944 an attempt by the Quisling government to take over the functions of the Nobel Committee led to the resignation of Jahn and other committee members. The Swedish consulate-general in Oslo formally took over the management of the Foundation's Oslo property on behalf of the Nobel Foundation.[14]
Norway won't play Trump's games. Just because the government appoints members to a committee doesn't mean it will (or even can) fire those people to force a decision it wants.
I don't disagree, but the name is pretty much where trump gets Norway from. He doesn't comprehend that our heads of states dont have the power to influence this in the first place.
It is the committee that is based in Norway. Doesn’t mean it is Norway the country. Just like US does not control the decisions of UN just because UN is located in US.
Well, it's a bit more muddled than that, to quote wikipedia:
"
Five members are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament. In his will, Alfred Nobel tasked the parliament of Norway with selecting the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. Despite its members being appointed by Parliament, the committee is a private body tasked with awarding a private prize. In recent decades, most committee members were retired politicians.
"
A diverse Committee that makes its own decisions, and politicians abstain from influencing it. Because it is intended to be independent, and people see value in that, so they honour it. Nobody needs from the outside to have a say, because politics and the committee trust each other to do the right thing. It's alien, I know.
