Likeable in what context in what universe?
He’s a pistol, really funny. He’s really funny.
The dumboverse we’re doomed to live in?
Who would’ve thought that the GOP would be nominating a candidate WORSE than W?
They were supposed to un-fuck themselves. They haven’t yet.
I think there are rather few measures by which Trump is worse than W. (The racism is more overt, that’s for sure.) You’re remembering W too charitably.
Speaking as a big fan of Taibbi’s, I’m sorry to say that these two articles are pretty meh. In the past he’s had so much detail that one can’t find elsewhere, about financial matters or Bain Capital or whatever.
seems sensible, I don’t actually want to punch Trump the way I always used to fantasize doing with Bush. I guess I could force myself for the good of humanity. Maybe I’m just growing more cynical as I age.
Ben Carson’s buffoonery reminds me more of GW’s than Trump’s does.
Was there ever really a time in American history when intelligence was exalted, and a candidate could expect to appeal to voters by appearing to be really smart – perhaps so smart as to even have ideas that the voters could not immediately comprehend?
(Hmm. Trying that again, without the recursive self-referential loop)[quote=“Jorpho, post:9, topic:74563”]
Was there ever really a time in American history when intelligence was exalted, and a candidate could expect to appeal to voters by appearing to be really smart […]?
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I think that particular strain of American-campaign DNA went extinct after Adlai Stevenson’s second landslide defeat.
And then Kennedy rode the new media of the age (TV!) into charisma-land, and it was all over for nerdy policy wonks.
Great article, but best lines in RS were about Cruz, I LOL reading it at lunch:
Cruz in person is almost physically repellent. Psychology Today even ran an article by a neurology professor named Dr. Richard Cytowic about the peculiarly off-putting qualities of Cruz’s face.
He used a German term, backpfeifengesicht, literally “a face in need of a good punch,” to describe Cruz. This may be overstating things a little. Cruz certainly has an odd face – it looks like someone sewed pieces of a waterlogged Reagan mask together at gunpoint
Speaking of buffoonery, Jonathan Meades mercilessly mocked Trump at the end of his first film about Scotland, the Aberdeen one (starts at 50 m 40 s):
"And in the kingdom of the bald, the man who says his roots are in the Hebrides is king… though Hebrides is a most unusual way to describe one’s armpit and groin.
His career has been one long flirtation with success; if you suck cess, you get success. He is richer than the richest man in the world, who is MacDonald Trump. He creates his own body weight in wealth every ten seconds. None of his businesses has gone bust owing nine hundred million pounds, so the decision to give him planning permission to build New Trumpton-On-Sea is a farsighted one."
The haters can’t seem to make up their minds it seems
Not likable, not a buffoon, and who in the GOP thinks Trump is pliable? I do not expect him to follow anybody’s orders. His supporters think this makes him a rogue maverick, but it means he will never listen to his cabinet.
If America cannot figure out that Hillary is preferable to Trump,
America deserves every calamity Trump delivers unto it.
I’d like to remind you that if America nukes itself, we outside get the fallout.
Why, given the US influence in the world, don’t we have at least 5-10% of a vote per person in the elections over there? Isn’t it a bit unfair?
Every country that has a US military base in it should get a congresscritter and a vote in the Presidential election.
Yeah, likable is the last description that comes to mind. He’s an asshole and a bully. (Ok, granted, some people like that. I.e. other assholes.) But I think Bush paved the way for him here, too. Bush was definitely a bully, “joking” (repeatedly) with radio reporters that they had a “face for radio” (i.e. were ugly), coming up with nicknames as a way of putting people in their place, etc. So Trump is just Bush turned up to 11.
I have no idea but I do know that Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt were both super into reading.
I like when he stops talking
