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Trump's NFL critique a "tensai" (genius) move to shore up his base

Z

Zolo

Member
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/us/politics/trump-nascar-nfl-protests.html

WASHINGTON — President Trump was restless on the flight home from his rally on Friday night in Alabama, griping about the size of the crowd, wondering how his pink tie played with his audience and fretting about the low energy of the Senate candidate he was there to bolster.

But there was one part of the trip that cheered him up, according to three people close to the president: rallygoers' thunderous approval of his attack on Colin Kaepernick, a former N.F.L. quarterback, for kneeling in protest during the national anthem, a slam punctuated by an epithet-laced suggestion that team owners fire employees who disrespect patriotic tradition.

Over the weekend, Mr. Trump, while with a small group of advisers in the dining room of his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., asked a few members what they thought of his attack on Mr. Kaepernick. The response, according to one Trump associate, was polite but decidedly lukewarm.

Mr. Trump responded by telling people that it was a huge hit with his base, making it clear that he did not mind alienating his critics if it meant solidifying his core support.
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Mr. Trump, according to the officials, believes his decision to back Luther Strange — a struggling establishment conservative in the Alabama Senate race and the reason Mr. Trump went to Alabama — makes him appear weak. He has repeatedly expressed unhappiness with his political team for persuading him to back Mr. Strange, who has drawn opposition from many of Mr. Trump's supporters, including Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump's former chief strategist, and not his opponent, Roy Moore, a former judge.

For those reasons, Mr. Trump leaned right harder than usual on Friday night. He chided Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, for opposing his latest attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and he ridiculed North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, as the ”Little Rocket Man." He also offered the most tempered of support for his purported ally, Mr. Strange — ”Big Luther" to the president.
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In private, the president and his top aides freely admit that he is engaged in a culture war on behalf of his white, working-class base, a New York billionaire waging war against ”politically correct" coastal elites on behalf of his supporters in the South and in the Midwest. He believes the war was foisted upon him by former President Barack Obama and other Democrats — and he is determined to win, current and former aides said.
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Mr. Trump's football tweets came just before a Monday evening dinner at the White House with several Christian evangelical leaders, conservative activists from the Koch political network and Leonard A. Leo, the executive vice president of the Federalist Society.

Mr. Trump at one point asked those in attendance if evangelical voters were aware of what he has done in office, citing their support in the campaign, according to an attendee.

Some at the dinner praised his criticism of the N.F.L., and the president replied that his remarks had ”caught on."
Click to expand...
 
J

Jintor

Member
it's pathetic, really. fundamentally, transparently, all that Trump wants is to bask in applause from those he feels already like him, and if that means trampling on people that they hate, he'll do it. Who knows if any other part of his personality is genuine.
 
DietRob

DietRob

i've been begging for over 5 years.
I don't see the point in 'suring up his base'. These morons have proven time and time again that no matter what he does they will stick with him.

Personally I think it's much more simple and we are giving the guy way too much credit. This isn't calculated, planned, or strategic. It's his abundant and overwhelming bigotry and ignorance.
 
F

Frozenprince

Banned
This whole thing was just another stunt to distract from the GOP's failures yet again to do anything?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
 
Z

Zolo

Member
DietRob said:
I don't see the point in 'suring up his base'. These morons have proven time and time again that no matter what he does they will stick with him.

Personally I think it's much more simple and we are giving the guy way too much credit. This isn't calculated, planned, or strategic. It's his abundant and overwhelming bigotry and ignorance.
Click to expand...

That point's in the article as well.

”It's not a coincidence that the same week he did the DACA deal that he just flooded Twitter with a bunch of red meat for the base," Mr. Conant added. ”I think his fundamental problem is he needs to figure out ways to grow his base, and his instinct is instead to double down on what he's already got. Whenever he tacks to the middle, his numbers tick up. But he just can't bring himself to move beyond his base."
Click to expand...

The bigotry and ignorance part is him engaged in a "culture" war.
 
R

Respect

Member
Almost everything he does at this point feels like this. If (please when) Mueller nails his ass to the wall, he'll just cry #fakenews and he knows that will be enough for his ignorant, racist base.
 
G

G0523

Member
hanspampel said:
why do they write N.F.L.?
Click to expand...

Because they are the New. York. Times.
I. Got. Nothing.

Trump will always have his base. His ever-shrinking base. That even his own people are giving him lukewarm responses to the crap he spewed over the weekend will only make more people give him the cold shoulder.
 
B

BatDan

Bane? Get them on board, I'll call it in.
Frozenprince said:
This whole thing was just another stunt to distract from the GOP's failures yet again to do anything?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Click to expand...

It might not be just that.
It's likely this was his angry reaction to the IRS giving information to Mueller.
Or as the article notes, his comments on Kapernick got the biggest "pop" from his base. So being the narcissistic fuck that he is, he doubled down on that hard.
 
W

whyamihere

Banned
This is like when Trump did his Trans ban and his advisors tried to portray it as a shrewd move to and purple state senators take position on trans servicemembers when it was just his fucking stream of consciousness idiocy.
 
DietRob

DietRob

i've been begging for over 5 years.
Zolo said:
That point's in the article as well.



The bigotry and ignorance part is him engaged in a "culture" war.
Click to expand...

Ah I see. I didn't read the article yet. Just what was in the OP.

I do agree that his primary motivation in saying this shit is to get applause. It's so pathetic how weak and desperate he is to be liked. I guarantee that if Chuck and Nancy kissed his ass more and the 'coastal elites' pretended to like him we could get the guy to do whatever we want.

All he has ever wanted in life is to be accepted by the Elite New York City circles.

The stink of Trump is too much though and even pretending to like him for political gain is too toxic to even entertain.
 
S

Sobriquet

Member
He believes the war was foisted upon him by former President Barack Obama and other Democrats — and he is determined to win, current and former aides said.
Click to expand...
That's an eye-opener. As if we didn't know before, it confirms he's insane.
 
N

Nerdkiller

Membeur
DietRob said:
I don't see the point in 'suring up his base'. These morons have proven time and time again that no matter what he does they will stick with him.

Personally I think it's much more simple and we are giving the guy way too much credit. This isn't calculated, planned, or strategic. It's his abundant and overwhelming bigotry and ignorance.
Click to expand...
Nope. As was proven at the Alabama special election primary when the Turnip endorsed candidate lost...

https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/912850853660364800

Chris Hayes said:
As @nycsouthpaw said, maybe it's not a Trump cult of personality, but rather a hardcore portion of GOP base that wants more open bigotry.
Click to expand...
If He was to even give the minorities any semblance of an olive branch, they'd turn in him in a New York minute.
 
V

vacantseas

Member
Of course it is. Every controversial thing has been done with his base in mind. Every distracting tweet that is in the news cycle diverts attention from something else. This has been going on for 9 months now and shouldn’t be a surprise at all.
 
Z

Zolo

Member
Sobriquet said:
That's an eye-opener. As if we didn't know before, it confirms he's insane.
Click to expand...

You'd be surprised. The vast majority of Republicans blame Obama for splitting the country by not condemning protesters and BLM. There's also a notable decrease in his support in places in the midwest after this.
 
S

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
If his base was cancer, Trump would be the magic bullet science has been clamoring for. A single agent that the cells would all clump around so they could be more easily excised from the body.
 
L

linkboy

Member
Sobriquet said:
That's an eye-opener. As if we didn't know before, it confirms he's insane.
Click to expand...

There's a whole contingent of the GOP that thinks they're in an all out war with anyone who doesn't share their viewpoint.

That's basically what the whole RINO (Republican In Name Only) is. As soon as they don't agree with a member of their party (or are told, like good, obidient little boys and girls), they immediately dislike that person (even if they liked him/her a few minutes ago).

They've totally drank the fascist punch and have totally fallen in love with it.
 
K

Kai Dracon

Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
I honestly think Trump thought winning the election would officially make him the biggest winner in America. It is why he is obsessed with losing the popular vote, with the election map. He isn't smart or playing 12d chess. He just wants to feel like everyone is sucking up to him.

Trump has seemed genuinely shocked and upset that most people hate him as president. It is as if he is subconsciously panicking because there are no new marks left to sucker in. He has divided the entire country between those who love him and hate him, and in the final tally of his entire life, he is found wanting.
 
L

linkboy

Member
Kai Dracon said:
I honestly think Drumpf thought winning the election would officially make him the biggest winner in America. It is why he is obsessed with losing the popular vote, with the election map. He isn't smart or playing 12d chess. He just wants to feel like everyone is sucking up to him.

Drumpf has seemed genuinely shocked and upset that most people hate him as president. It is as if he is subconsciously panicking because there are no new marks left to sucker in. He has divided the entire country between those who love him and hate him, and in the final tally of his entire life, he is found wanting.
Click to expand...

The man is consumed by his ego. It dictates everything that he does.

I'm hoping by the time his time in office is done (the sooner the better) he slinks his broke ass back and dies a broken, bitter man.

Just the sight of his face pisses me off so much.
 
P

phanphare

Banned
he also hijacked the protest and made it about uniting in opposition against him talking shit about the NFL, probably the chess move he intended
 
A

Amalthea

Banned
Of course it was a calculated attempt to shore up his base, saying awful things to get cheered on by his neanderthal base is like the only form of forward thinking he is capable of.
 
M

mnannola

Member
Trump is banking on an energized base in order to keep the GOP congress from impeaching him. As long as he still has the support of a good amount of republicans, the GOP will be too scared to impeach.
 
D

Derwind

Member
Trumps base is really all he has. There's a reason why Trump values loyalty above all because you'd need to have a shit ton of loyalty for this racist orange bum to give him even an iota of the attention he craves. The onky credit I give to Trump supporters, is they're fucking loyal. Like an abused spouse is loyal to their abusive partner.
 
K

KuroNeeko

Member
Jacob said:
The Times' style guide calls for using periods after each letter of an acronym if it's not pronounced as a word.
Click to expand...

To add to this, if it's not pronounced as a word, then it's not an acronym, but an initialism. There is no strict rule as to whether acronyms or initialisms require full-stop periods between each letter, so this may be an in-house convention that the NYT has adopted (as Jacob has mentioned above).
 
M

Mike M

Nick N
"Calculated" is strong phrasing, it's more stimulus response. Comment got applause -> keep repeating comment is the sum total of the thought process at work here.
 
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