Is This the Trump Tipping Point? (NYT columnist Jennifer Senior)

[highplainsdem]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/07/opinion/trump-mattis-polls.html

You never want to say that you’ve reached a tipping point with this administration. Donald J. Trump has proved to be the Nosferatu of American politics: heartless, partial to Slavs, beneath grace and thus far impervious to destruction.

-snip-

Yet something right now really is different. I think.

-snip-

Trump is flailing like an overturned turtle. A historic health crisis, an economic crisis and a social crisis all at once — it’s far too much for a reality TV star to handle, no more manageable than it’d be for him to land an airplane. What this moment may have revealed, ironically enough, is that only in a time of stability and outrageous decadence could the United States have had the luxury of picking such a dark and divisive candidate with the intellectual firepower of a water gun. When Trump asked voters “What have you got to lose?” most never dreamed that the answer could be: Everything.

-snip-

At a time of genuine crisis, Americans aren’t pining for Darth Vader. They’re pining for a healer. It’s healing words of empathy that have thus far won the day. Trump may have been fumbling with his Bible, but it was Nancy Pelosi who read aloud from Ecclesiastes, and it was Joe Biden who said in a heartfelt, 24-minute speech that he wished the president would open it every once in a while.

It’s probably too much to hope for. But for the first time in three years, change is not.

Found this thanks to tweets from George Conway this morning, thread starting here:

Link to tweet

[dawg day]

1. Partial to Slavs? Huh?

Is that about Putin, or another way to say "Caucasians"?

[highplainsdem]

2. Ivana, Melania...and, of course, Putin.

[zaj]

9. Sabastisn Gorka and Victor Orban

Dictators

[TimeToGo]

17. Pretty sure it means Russians.

[Silver1]

18. That threw me too.

What a bizarre thing to say. It implies there is something wrong with Slavs.

[reACTIONary]

30. Nosferatu was Slavic location, so that...

... ties in with the conceit, his wives' background and Putin.

[PatrickforO]

21. He's beholden to Putin, but two of his wives, including the current one,

have been from Eastern Europe. Ivana was born in what was once Czechoslovakia. Melania, the current 'first lady,' was born in Slovenia. Both were models.

[ChazInAz]

24. Old movie buff, here.

"Nosferatu" was filmed in location in Slovenia, mostly in Castle Urava. That would make Count Orlock, unlike Dracula, a Slav.
Orlock was much more repulsive than Dracula, no?

[Aristus]

26. Actually, Stoker, in his description of Dracula, made it pretty clear that he was repulsive.

'Sexy Dracula' pretty much started with Bela Lugosi. (Yeah, I know; not very sexy by today's standards; the 20's and 30's were a different time.

Stoker describes Dracula's exceptional strength, long, sharpened nails, and long canine teeth, bad breath, and hairy palms. Not very appealing...

[ChazInAz]

29. Right you are!

Murnau did everything he could to wriggle around Stoker's copyright, including changing his villain to be even more repulsive.
Actor reminiscence coming up. Many years back, when I played the Transylvanian baddy, our director gave the unsuspecting audiences BOTH versions. Your Humble was Stoker's version when he was pretending to be human. The vampiric one was a tall, beautiful female dancer in the same costume with a Nosferatu makeup. She was utterly terrifying!

[Aristus]

31. I wish I could have seen that!

That sounds like an amazing piece of theater!

[uponit7771]

3. No, Dems need to penetrate right wing messaging

[Pacifist Patriot]

4. His tipping point will be November 03.

Anyone who thinks he'll be held accountable before then hasn't been paying attention.

[lagomorph777]

13. He'll tip like a racist statue.

[Moostache]

20. I'll help throw him into the river... (n/t)

[Wounded Bear]

5. The thing about tipping points...

is that you don't know if you've actually reached one until you pass it.

[malaise]

6. Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Nailed it!

"...with the intellectual firepower of a water gun".

[PatrickforO]

22. Best line in the article n/t

[malaise]

23. By a distance

I'm stealing that

[Grasswire2]

32. my favorite line recently...

.....regarding Trump:

"...all the appeal of a busted muffler"

[Cirque du So-What]

7. Don't have that far to go

He’s already listing forward at a 30-degree angle.

[Cha]

8. We'll know when he's done.. that's

what I'm waiting for.

TY, hpd

[empedocles]

10. trump in context

'The name "Nosferatu" has been presented as possibly an archaic Romanian word, synonymous with "vampire". However, it was largely popularized in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Western fiction such as Dracula (1897), and the film Nosferatu (1922). One of the many suggested etymologies of the term is that it is derived from the Romanian Nesuferit ("offensive" or "troublesome&quot .
- Wikipedia '

[samsingh]

11. george conway providing light against trump. his wife trying to turn it off.

i don't understand.

[bucolic_frolic]

12. She's onto something, it's turning to an election about moral authority

Biden has told us it's about character all along because he understands Trump's personality at a very deep level. And it's just a hop, skip, jump from there to moral authority, and the reality is Trump has none. He may have power, incumbency, marketing, religious zealots - but moral authority? Legitimacy? Trust?

[Baitball Blogger]

14. Cannot believe, that after everything that has happened, we have to put this in

Question format and not as a concrete statement.

[NewJeffCT]

16. he's had 1001 tipping points over the past 5 years

starting with him coming down the escalator in June of 2015 to say that Mexico was sending rapists, drugs and criminals to the US. That should have tipped him out of the race, but he kept going and going

[uponit7771]

15. ***NO !!!*** Trumps approval needs to be at 31% for the tipping point to "start"

[Kablooie]

19. No. They will hold onto Trump until death.

Most Rs have put their whole being and self worth into supporting this ass. They've sacrificed all their values to support him and they know it but can't admit it. A few have the self awareness to break out but most would rather die than admit this.
Literally.

There will be no turning of the MAGA tide until Trump is gone.

[GopherGal]

25. Sunk Cost Fallacy

I think it's some kind of moral sunk-cost thing. If they stop believing in him, they've put up with all of his peccadillos (attacking Gold Star families, destroying alliances, kids in cages, etc) for nothing.

[wiggs]

27. Worries me that so many are putting their faith in the integrity of a campaign season and

election. Friends and family members seem to think there will be a fair election, or at least one without a catastrophic manufactured distraction...of which the WH and world oligarchs are not only capable but likely willing to implement. Those who support Tr*mp, oligarchs and cultists here and abroad, are not likely to pull punches and let mere citizens decide their fates.

But yes...on the isolated issues we may very well see change today or soon. And yes...we have to keep working HARD on the election and on making sure messages and facts are out on Trump and enabling GOP. This is important groundwork. But I hope dems, dem leaders, and pundits are ready for the onslaught against fair campaigns and elections with Tr#mp and allies using the full power of the WH (and DOJ and Senate) and mob connections to tilt process and results to their benefit. I will work for election of Biden and local candidates but the nation needs to have its eyes open...dems are famous for naivete, for bringing knives to a gun fight and it can't be this time around. For instance, I hope dem leaders are working behind the scenes with non-cultist goprs to draw the line together wrt WH-pushed investigations, executive orders, state voter suppression, foreign interference, lawsuits re voting filed with friendly judges, distractions created with fake threats, private armies raised, etc etc)

Tru@p and allies are in jail if he loses...and that's aside from the tens of trillions of dollars at stake for him and his friends. This has been in the works for 40 years and they will not give up easily.

[Grasswire2]

33. YES A MILLION TIMES YES

I've been hollering about this for months if not years now.

And even if he does lose, the 11 weeks of lame duck vengeance rampage will kill us all.

We must push for a drumbeat of demand for him to resign NOW, in disgrace.

[Blue_Tires]

28. Good piece, but this line:

"Trump asked voters “What have you got to lose?” most never dreamed that the answer could be: Everything."

Anybody who wasn't expecting things to be this awful was either not paying attention, deluding themselves, or they never listened to people like me because I said four years ago that the very future of the country would be on the line. So far the only thing I've really gotten wrong was foolishly thinking that the Cabinet and Senate would be the "grownups" who would keep him from getting too far out of line. Instead they've done nothing but enable him constantly. Even before inauguration, when Trump showed he had zero interest in even pretending that he was going to divest himself from his businesses (and congress showed no interest in holding him accountable to the law), and the entire federal government was going to be nothing more than a tool to fluff his ego and prop up his failing corporate empire, I knew we were fucked....