General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump is a prisoner of his base.
If I were a campaign advisor, I'd urge him to give Churchillian speeches from now until next Tuesday. But he can't. His base expects red meat, the bloodier the better. He's stuck.
malaise
(268,998 posts)PJMcK
(22,037 posts)Trump is fundamentally an ignorant asshole. How in the world could he ever give an oratorical speech?
Raven
(13,891 posts)lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)catbyte
(34,386 posts)the same sentence, lol. He's utterly incapable of anything like that. These "rallies" are nothing but socially-acceptable fellation; an ego-stroking of epic proportions. Nothing more, nothing less. It a pathetic act of a pathetic man and his equally pathetic cult.
Statistical
(19,264 posts)Trump doesn't like people asking hard questions. He doesn't like debates. He doesn't like criticism. He doesn't like to think up hard solutions.
Trump only likes the unquestioning loyalty of his adoring supporters. The only place he gets that is at rallies. There is nobody in the Trump campaign deluded enough to think the rallies are anything but a pacifier for the man baby.
C_U_L8R
(45,002 posts)It's clear he thought he knew better and is just winging it with his worst instincts on display. Expect him to double down on dumb.
The Magistrate
(95,247 posts)His 'base' is all he wants, and he holds them in thrall to their own material and spiritual deprivation, though in his grip they imagine they get spiritual satisfaction as he drains them dry.
Wounded Bear
(58,654 posts)fleur-de-lisa
(14,624 posts)Dump wanted to be loved and admired by the elite of New York, but they saw him for what he was . . . just a lying con man and mobster.
Solly Mack
(90,767 posts)I get what you're saying, but Trump is incapable of great speech because he's incapable of seeing the world independent of his abnormally developed ego.
Think of the relationship between Trump and his ego as a matter of symbiosis with Trump being the symbiont to the ego's host position. Trump lives inside his ego and not the other way around, in other words. Physically, of course, Trump is the host body - but not the true host.
He's not stuck in the chaos he created.
It's not the desires of his base holding him back.
They are, at the same time, both incidental and necessary to his ego.
Trump would cease to exist without his ego. It's become a life all of its own.
Trump is the reason Trump can't do better.
Trump's ego thrives on chaos. Yes, that ego enjoys the adulation of the crowd and the crowd enjoys their two-minutes of hate. A mutualistic relationship to a point. But only to a point.
For a few hours they bask in the vainglorious atmosphere that is Trump's demented ego. Then they go home, carrying the glow of hate with them, to a world that does not fit into the reality Trump's ego has created.
Oh, they wear the blinders needed to maintain their happy illusion while their jobs go away, their bills need paying, the air and water quality diminishes, animals die out, people are dying in a pandemic, foreclosures and evictions, no money for education or health care, Social Security, Medicare, and other safety nets being demolished - and they'll blame it all on everyone else not them or Trump or the GOP.
Even as they drown and Trump and the GOP hoard the life-preservers, they'll blame others.
That's when the true parasitic nature of the relationship is exposed. That base, who will freeze to death just to see him, has no real power in the relationship. It's there simply to feed off - and the tiny bit they get in return only serves to destroy them as well.
Response to Raven (Original post)
Solly Mack This message was self-deleted by its author.