Trump Being Trump
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"Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.
For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace - all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.
So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.
Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing - not once, ever.
I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility - for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.
But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is - his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.
Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.
And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults - he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.
There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface.
Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront.
Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.
And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.
Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that.
He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat.
He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.
And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully.
That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.
There are unspoken rules to this stuff - the Queensberry rules of basic decency - and he breaks them all. He punches downwards - which a gentleman should, would, could never do - and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless - and he kicks them when they are down.
So the fact that a significant minority - perhaps a third - of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think 'Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:
Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.
You don't need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.
This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.
After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.
God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid.
He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart.
In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws - he would make a Trump.
And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish:
'My God… what… have… I… created?
If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set."@AndyD said in Trump Being Trump:
"Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.
Yeah, if there's one thing I've learned over the last 20 years it's that that's not going to win many people over.
And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.
...Winston Churchill, the Queen, ....
I was only joking
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More of Trump doing his thing:
At the National Institute for Health all purchasing has been frozen. All! No PPE, no liquid nitrogen, no mouse food. Long term studies that have running for years are a risk. Work on the possible Bird Flu crossover has stopped.
All overseas aid, except direct food aid, has stopped. Disease prevention, water treatment, drug supply all stopped. The long negotiated Gaza ceasefire has got US aid workers in place, they can now do nothing. The US provides anti-retroviral drugs to 25 million HIV patients in Africa, including 500,000 children. All that is stopped, instantly.
@AndyD said in Trump Being Trump:
More of Trump doing his thing:
At the National Institute for Health all purchasing has been frozen. All! No PPE, no liquid nitrogen, no mouse food. Long term studies that have running for years are a risk. Work on the possible Bird Flu crossover has stopped.
For the Trump crowd, dead magat grandbabies aren’t enough. Need to stop cancer research too.
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@AndyD said in Trump Being Trump:
More of Trump doing his thing:
At the National Institute for Health all purchasing has been frozen. All! No PPE, no liquid nitrogen, no mouse food. Long term studies that have running for years are a risk. Work on the possible Bird Flu crossover has stopped.
For the Trump crowd, dead magat grandbabies aren’t enough. Need to stop cancer research too.
@jon-nyc said in Trump Being Trump:
@AndyD said in Trump Being Trump:
More of Trump doing his thing:
At the National Institute for Health all purchasing has been frozen. All! No PPE, no liquid nitrogen, no mouse food. Long term studies that have running for years are a risk. Work on the possible Bird Flu crossover has stopped.
For the Trump crowd, dead magat grandbabies aren’t enough. Need to stop cancer research too.
Only if we can bayonet the babies!
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@AndyD said in Trump Being Trump:
"Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.
Yeah, if there's one thing I've learned over the last 20 years it's that that's not going to win many people over.
And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.
...Winston Churchill, the Queen, ....
@Doctor-Phibes said in Trump Being Trump:
...Winston Churchill, the Queen, ....
And, of course, the guy who wants to be a tampon.
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@Doctor-Phibes said in Trump Being Trump:
...Winston Churchill, the Queen, ....
And, of course, the guy who wants to be a tampon.
@George-K said in Trump Being Trump:
@Doctor-Phibes said in Trump Being Trump:
...Winston Churchill, the Queen, ....
And, of course, the guy who wants to be a tampon.
To be fair, a number of conservative British leaders have been stuck-up twats.
(rim-shot) -
More of Trump doing his thing:
At the National Institute for Health all purchasing has been frozen. All! No PPE, no liquid nitrogen, no mouse food. Long term studies that have running for years are a risk. Work on the possible Bird Flu crossover has stopped.
All overseas aid, except direct food aid, has stopped. Disease prevention, water treatment, drug supply all stopped. The long negotiated Gaza ceasefire has got US aid workers in place, they can now do nothing. The US provides anti-retroviral drugs to 25 million HIV patients in Africa, including 500,000 children. All that is stopped, instantly.
@AndyD said in Trump Being Trump:
More of Trump doing his thing:
At the National Institute for Health all purchasing has been frozen. All! No PPE, no liquid nitrogen, no mouse food. Long term studies that have running for years are a risk. Work on the possible Bird Flu crossover has stopped.
All overseas aid, except direct food aid, has stopped. Disease prevention, water treatment, drug supply all stopped. The long negotiated Gaza ceasefire has got US aid workers in place, they can now do nothing. The US provides anti-retroviral drugs to 25 million HIV patients in Africa, including 500,000 children. All that is stopped, instantly.
Not sure why @Jolly and @Copper said this was "Good."
Many moons ago I did a bunch of work for NCI (National Cancer Institute) so I have limited experience inside the NIH world and saw the good it was doing.
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@AndyD said in Trump Being Trump:
More of Trump doing his thing:
At the National Institute for Health all purchasing has been frozen. All! No PPE, no liquid nitrogen, no mouse food. Long term studies that have running for years are a risk. Work on the possible Bird Flu crossover has stopped.
All overseas aid, except direct food aid, has stopped. Disease prevention, water treatment, drug supply all stopped. The long negotiated Gaza ceasefire has got US aid workers in place, they can now do nothing. The US provides anti-retroviral drugs to 25 million HIV patients in Africa, including 500,000 children. All that is stopped, instantly.
Not sure why @Jolly and @Copper said this was "Good."
Many moons ago I did a bunch of work for NCI (National Cancer Institute) so I have limited experience inside the NIH world and saw the good it was doing.
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@jon-nyc said in Trump Being Trump:
I think my explanation holds. You just need to decide which is more probable.
They are both smart guys, so I will go with #1!!
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Yes.
