Another Failed Peter Pan Audition

New Trump?

Still wondering about the average lifespan of a Trump venture, and whether or not we're seeing this one entering its death throes.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Today's Pakman

There's no way to know what Trump has been told he should do and say, and certainly no way to know how his slippery little mind interprets it - and we have no fuckin' clue what he means when he does actually speak.

Who's They?

Something Occurs To Me

Trump is a mediocre Salesman who knows (maybe recently learned) Buzzword Technique.

ie: He knows how to identify certain concepts held closely by his prospects (MAGA, Evangelicals, etc), and then pepper his spiel with buzzwords that those prospects will then interpret as meaning "he's one of us - he's with us - he really is on our side."

He inserted the phrase, "... looks like an angel, but he's really a devil ...", which is pretty reminiscent of the fire-n-brimstone preachers he's been hanging out with for quite a while.

I've recently noticed him doing this, and it seems like it's a bit of a new wrinkle.

Lose The Perversion

Felony Forgery

Seems like it's always a Republican, and it also seems like they never get slapped nearly as hard as the brown people who've made honest mistakes.

You are nine kinds of

fucked up, America

That's A Little Better

Just a little.

I don't think a politician should have a fan base. It helps when people believe they can be more or less confident that a politician can do the job, and that they line up with him ideologically - again, more or less. But we can't walk around expecting "our guy" to do exactly what we want him to do. And we sure as hell shouldn't be following that politician with any level of blind loyalty.

We have to do some growing up when it comes to how we think about politics and the politicians who're asking us for our votes. We seem to be too willing to accept an all-or-nothing proposition - like if the candidate isn't 100% in step with us on every issue every time, we're going to plop ourselves down in the corner and pout.

And we have to understand that there are things going on - aspects of the decision making process - that we don't get to know about.

So anyway, I've bitched about 'the polling' for a while, and I get the feeling that maybe the pollsters are starting to get hip to their own shortcomings, recognizing they may be just a tiny bit out of touch, because their methods are just a tiny bit outdated, and their questions are too often so generalized as to be meaningless - and don't get me started on why there's never a fucking followup question.

eg:

OK, so you're dissatisfied with Biden's performance - why?

a. he's doing the wrong things 

b. he's doing the right things, but I want him to do more

Donald Trump Stung as New Poll Shows How Unpopular He Is

Donald Trump continues to have a low favorability score among Americans, new polling shows, despite being the likely Republican nominee after winning the lion's share of primaries and seeing off his only remaining rival.

An ABC News/Ipsos survey of 536 U.S. adults, conducted between March 8-9, found that 29 percent have a favorable view of the former president compared to 59 percent who view him unfavorably.

It came after Trump secured all but one of the primaries on Super Tuesday—giving him 1,075 out of 1,215 delegates he needs to become the presumptive Republican nominee—which prompted former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley to drop out of the race to leave him unopposed. Primaries being held on Tuesday could push Trump over the line.

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Trump's popularity has remained largely unchanged since last summer. In similar polls conducted last year, which have a margin of error of 4.5 percent either way, he has hovered around a 30 percent favorability rating.

That rating dipped to 25 percent—with 61 percent viewing him unfavorably—at the start of April last year, immediately after he became the first president in U.S. history to be indicted with criminal charges, which he denies, in New York.

Newsweek approached the Trump campaign via email for comment on Monday.

The same ABC/Ipsos poll found that President Joe Biden, who is on course to be renominated by the Democratic Party, is also viewed as similarly unpopular, though his unfavorability rating is slightly lower.

Some 33 percent viewed the incumbent favorably to 54 percent who viewed him unfavorably. In November, a similar poll put his unfavorability rating at 50 percent with his favorability unchanged, while in prior polls the two ratings have modulated around the same numbers.

Neither candidate is viewed as more popular than unpopular, recent polling has consistently shown, with more people disapproving of both than approving. Analysts have said that both will struggle to entice voters to turn out for the election due to their disenchantment with the choice of candidates.

The latest ABC/Ipsos poll found that 36 percent thought Trump was trusted to do a better job as president to 33 percent who thought Joe Biden would—but 30 percent thought neither would.

The two candidates have been running neck and neck in national polls, with just a few percentage points separating them.

Trump may suffer from becoming the first former president to now face four criminal trials—which he claims are politically motivated—which are due to take place while he is campaigning for the 2024 election. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

At the same time, Biden, already the oldest serving president in U.S. history at 81, has faced concerns about his age and mental acuity over a number of public gaffes, which Republicans have used to imply Biden is unfit to continue as president for another term.

If re-elected, he would be 86 by the end of his second term. But the president has brushed off queries about his physical and mental health, telling a news conference in February that his "memory is fine" and "I know what the hell I'm doing."

Recent polling also shows that nearly half of U.S. adults think Trump, 77, is too old to serve another term, and the former president has also faced questions about his mental agility.

Biden has been criticized for his approach to undocumented immigration into the U.S. and the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. Around two thirds of voters disapproved of his handling of immigration and the Middle Eastern conflict, the ABC/Ipsos poll found.

Some of this dissent has come from Democrats who have threatened not to vote for the president over the situation in Gaza. However, political scientists have suggested Biden's base will hold their nose over the issue when faced with the prospect of a Trump victory.

A Change Gotta Come

Trump always seems only about half prepared - at best.

And this looks like somebody carrying a lot of heavy baggage - like he got some more bad news not long before he had to go on.

Either that or he's just got too much to do. A guy who's never really worked at anything but polishing his own apple is not likely to respond well to the kind of workload he's probably got now.

And if what I'm hearing is right - that he's got handlers who're pushing him to do some actual politicking, and stick to a schedule (which doesn't include hanging out in his jammies until 10 or 11 every morning) - we could see that jerk stroke out in a relative hurry.

I can't say truthfully that I don't wish him harm, and I can't say truthfully that I do myself proud thinking I want to see him buried.

This whole thing sucks.

On Radicalization

Sometimes, an "influencer" goes a little viral with some off-the-wall commentary, and they can become radicalized by their audience's feedback, as both they and their supporters constantly push each other further towards the extreme.

None of it has to make sense beyond everybody getting a nice little dopamine rush from having their biases regularly confirmed. And since that's how the influencer makes bank, they have a powerful incentive to keep it up, and no incentive to change anything.

Joe Rogan has made multiples of hundreds of millions of dollars this way - and he's the all-time champion because he plays both sides of the fence by entertaining wacky bullshit like ancient aliens one day, and then booking Brian Cox or Neil DeGrasse Tyson a few days later for a rational discussion of why the shit he was pimping last week makes no sense to normal people.

Asymmetric Information Warfare

It's easier to make a mess than it is to clean it up.

Commentators and influencers get so tuned into the ITS and LIKES and SHARES and SUBSCRIBER numbers that they begin tailoring their posts to accommodate their fans - "...they become radicalized by their own audience."

That's some really scary shit.

On Being Less Afraid

What He Says He'll Do

... is almost always exactly what he doesn't do.

But this guy is mad - in both the emotional and psychiatric senses.

This is not the kind of comic relief "unhinged" that pundits love to throw around, leaving everybody a plausible way to rationalize that he's just being a little nutty - he doesn't really mean that - c'mon, that's the thing he does to keep the rubes all amped up. It's part of his act.

No. Stop it. Even if it is just that thing he does, this fucker's audience is taking it all very seriously.