Trumpolini will begin his victory tour of the swing states this week, starting in Cincinnati, Ohio on Thursday. This isn’t a normal thing; presidents-elect are usually too busy preparing to take on leadership of one of the largest organizations in the world to bother with staging mass circle-jerks with supporters.
But perhaps the Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer Tour presents an opportunity to show that we’re not all Good Germans. I’m not in Ohio, but if I were, I’d be combing through social media right now to find and/or start discussions about staging demonstrations to counter the fascist-scented adulation event.
And when the shit-gibbon takes his Hair Furor act to Florida, I will be there — regardless of where it is in the state. For the moment, we’re still living in a country where the president understands and respects the First Amendment.
Why bother? Well, Trump is a narcissist who thrives on adulation. But his ego is brittle enough that he is driven to tell embarrassing lies about facts that contradict his self-image, such as his massive popular vote loss and the spontaneous demonstrations that broke out nationwide when he won the Electoral College. It gets under his skin.
Trump’s takeaway from the RNC was that he is “very well-liked.” Well, he’s not; Trump will in fact be inaugurated as the most unpopular president-elect in the history of polling, who lost the popular vote by the widest margin ever. He should be reminded frequently that we don’t all love him, via news reports of peaceful demonstrations, if necessary. No honeymoon for you, you nasty old goat.
I’m sure opinions vary around here on the utility of protests. I think they have their place, and coming out in force to express opposition to a tin-horn fascist wannabe who’s trying to stage a self-love fest on my turf sounds like a good idea to me. What say you?
PS: Opposing Manhattan Mussolini and shoring up democratic institutions will require the ability to multitask. You can call your senators while you’re waiting for the demonstration to start.
Dog Dawg Damn
I think the protests should be even stronger after his win. Let’s show the country how their next President reacts when challenged by those he is supposed to serve…
Jeffro
He loves the rallies – he was never going to give up the ‘fun’ part of this job. Betcha we see him at a couple of these per month going forward. Sure hope the media likes being called “Lugenpresse” (or whatever Nazi slogan it was)…maybe they could start there with some actual reporting? Get those Trumpkins up on the evening news spouting their racist, Nazi stuff a couple nights a week.
The Dangerman
Pence’s job.
Trump’s (hand) job.
c u n d gulag
t-RUMP won’t want to face protesters, so he’ll probably helicopter in.
Still, we need to show that a majority of the voters in this country aren’t either bone-marrow stupid, or insane.
And we need to do that at every place t-RUMP decides to appear until – if – we have a new Presidential Election.
Due to my disability, I can’t stand or march and protest anymore.
But I’ll do what can!
low-tech cyclist
The shitgibbon doesn’t have time for his national security briefings, but he’s got time for a victory tour. Priorities!
I live in southern Maryland, and I’m not gonna drive up to wherever in Pennsylvania his ‘Victory Tour’ stops.
(Say, wasn’t that what Michael Jackson called his post-Thriller tour?)
Mnemosyne
Seriously, you guys, I just came across this passage in the Frances Trollope book written after her visit here around 1830:
One of her biggest complaints about Americans — other than the constant spitting of tobacco — is the nonstop electioneering. IN THE 1830s.
(I’ll cover her opinions about Americans’ shouts about “freedom” while they oppress slaves and American Indians another time. They are not pretty.)
jenn
Protesting has its place, but it should be an add-on to, rather than a replacement for, actual action. All the marching in the world isn’t going to make up for not voting when you have a chance to do so.
Betty Cracker
@Jeffro: I think you’re right that he plans to do rallies frequently, but my hope is he runs into a buzzsaw of reality there. Even presidents who don’t start off with historically high negatives find it difficult to maintain a fever pitch of support from their base when the actual presidenting starts. And if there’s widespread disgust with his agenda — and there already is! — he may soon find these events backfire as he attracts more detractors than supporters.
JDM
Which the media would follow with “‘racist, Nazi stuff’ say Democrats”. Then they’ll let the Trumpkin have the last word, thank them profusely for appearing, and go to commercial.
jenn
@jenn: I’m not actually trying to downplay the importance of protests – I think they are important – it’s just that I know some folks for whom the act of marching in a protest alleviates their urgency to act in more concrete ways.
rikyrah
Love the title, BC.
Mnemosyne
@jenn:
Co-signed. We need to multitask.
Iowa Old Lady
Is he going to control who goes to these rallies? Because otherwise, he may find that the people who were at the Clinton rallies are now at his.
Schlemazel
@jenn:
mostly agreed. There are 3 very good reasons to stage mass protests.
The Nazis have to see that they are not the majority and that there are a substantial number of people who stand opposed.
The spineless Dem battalion has to see real anger to give them some courage that they dearly need
It will upset poor Trumpkins all to hell & speed the inevitable breakdown.
But anger without actual action is pointless
Major Major Major Major
“But what are they protesting? They lost, fair* and square!”
Adria McDowell (formerly Lurker Extraordinaire
John Boehner must be drunk AS FUCK right now. He got out while the getting was good.
The Shitgibbon’s people will control who attends all of these rallies. That way they can create the perception that everyone loves Shitgibbon.
Gotta keep reminding myself I’m four hours to Windsor, Canada.
Iowa Old Lady
Here’s how to get tickets for the Cincinnati rally.
schrodinger's cat
FWIW both M and H of WWII fame had done more with their lives before they became the heads of their respective governments than the current American version, neither had daddy’s bucks to help smooth their way either. Has anyone more singularly unqualified become a head of the government in a modern democracy.
Banana republics have better standards.
gene108
@Dog Dawg Damn:
The only thing Trump supporters think the rest of the country needs to be served is a boot up the ass.
kindness
Somehow I expect what ever violence occurs at TrumpCo’s election jubilee tour won’t be so low key. Yes, I know, that would be shocking, eh? We can see that the Trump Brownshirts will try to maximize their fun as these events will be fewer and farther apart. But I think the demonstators now have some incentive of their own too. I wish I was more hopeful. I’m not.
Brachiator
Narcissist doesn’t even begin to describe Trump. But I think someone, maybe even someone here, guessed that he would stage these kinds of rallies. He neither knows nor care what the actual duties of a president might be. He wants to toss out the occasional command or tweet and then sit back and lap up the adulation of his supporters.
He may have separated the office of the president into a ceremonial head of state role, which he fulfills, while leaving much of the actual governing to Pence and the rest of the GOP.
People should protest, disrupt, and even burn some flags. When the president-elect has such a distaste for dissent, dissent becomes even more necessary.
Another sign Trump is not interested in fulfilling the duties of president, which includes some degree of accountability:
I still don’t know whether Trump has the gonads to go full dictator, but it is still stunning to see how his base has absolutely no problem with his antics, and much less surprising to see how the GOP leadership believe that they have found a perfect patsy-in-chief to rubber stamp their policy goals.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator:
I am shocked, shocked! to find authoritarianism going on in these people!
Dog Mom
1) Get tickets to ‘event’. 2) Burn the tickets. 3) Post video online. 4) Make donation to worthy cause!
O. Felix Culpa
This is an excellent piece on Narcissistic Personality Disorder as it pertains to Trump, recommended by an insightful therapist friend of mine:
geg6
@Adria McDowell (formerly Lurker Extraordinaire:
I’m five from Toronto and, believe me, I’ve been gazing north for a couple of weeks now.
Calouste
@schrodinger’s cat: One thing to keep in mind is that M & H actually build up their own parties from (mostly) scratch, and the people in their parties were loyal and obedient to the party leader (and of course that showed that they had some organizational competence). Trump hasn’t done that, he has just taken over an existing party, and he will have to buy loyalty. Which he will of course. But rather then a 1920/30s fascist I expect him to behave like a medieval king, who has to buy the loyalty of his barons. How well that is going to work these days is of course the $1 million question.
Also, classical fascism has a concept of the country and the people being at a more important level than the party and the leader. Trump is just about Trump.
Gindy51
@Betty Cracker: I recall a scene in I, Claudius where Caligula is getting shit from the crowd and says if Rome had one neck he’d cut it… the thing is just crazy enough to go full vindictive on everyone just because he gets booed.
Bill Arnold
@Dog Mom:
1) Get tickets to ‘event’. 2) Burn the tickets. 3) Post video online.
Oooh. And there’s a genre here. Tickets can be destroyed in so many amusing ways.
Mike in dc
I think protests are good, inasmuch as they keep morale and visibility up, and provide networking opportunities for future activism. Once the new regime starts, however, the focus should shift to opposing the policy initiatives of Trump and Paul Ryan as much as possible. The first 6 months, until the August recess, is the most critical period. Success then can and should mean successes in 2018 and 2020.
daves09
Am going to San Fran. for the inauguration-hoping for a really massive protest-and if not we’ll be there marching by ourselves.
Never, ever give an inch to His Fraudulence and his goons-and fuck any democrat who takes a job with the shitheels and craphounds.
gene108
The rallies are a brilliant idea, the more I think about it.
Trump’s whole approach to mass communications is to create a scene and use that scene to distract everyone from the issues of substance that he will do as President.
The media, the liberal blogs, et. al. will be reporting about how crazy and not normal Trump is for holding these rallies. Or in the case of the cable networks, they’ll give it wall-to-wall coverage because “hey, it fills airtime for free”.
And all the while, the real discussion of what Devos for Sec. of Ed. or Mitch McConnell’s wife for another cabinet post (she was Bush, Jr.’s Sec of Labor) or Tom Price as HHS will mean for us, little powerless Americans, when Trump is sworn in.
trollhattan
Triumph of the Shill. O’Keefe will be happy to step into Riefenstahl’s pumps–he’s quite accomplished.
sam
serious question – now that he’s a public official (or at least a soon to be public official), doesn’t he have to open these events up to the actual public, and not just “adoring fans”?
Then again, maybe that’s yet another one of those “conventions” that was never formalized into a rule because no one thought it had to be until now.
trollhattan
@Gindy51:
Hmm, does Trump have a favorite horse?
NotMax
Will there be a charge for tickets? If so, where or to whom does that money go?
Brachiator
@O. Felix Culpa:
If you really believed this psychobabble, shouldn’t you be arguing that Trump should be institutionalized?
This is just about the dumbest piece of crap I’ve read in some time. Does this mean that we all get to nominate a Supreme Court nominee?
Hanging psychological labels on Trump is not even as much fun as swinging at a Pinata, blindfolded and in the dark. At the end of the day, Trump is still president, and still wields real power. And that’s a real problem for all of us.
JenJen
As a Cincinnatian, please allow me to point out that people in my city are disgusted with the news that he’s beginning a “victory tour” here, a puzzling choice, considering he lost Cincinnati and our county of Hamilton by 10 points.
Jeff
I can see the come to Donald moments as the stands empty and the great unwashed surge toward their messiah and accept Donald as their personal savior.
O. Felix Culpa
@Brachiator:
Speaking as a person who grew up with someone with NPD, what the author describes in not psychobabble but actual experience. Why do you assume I don’t think he should be institutionalized?
Further, why do you think assuming a hostile tone with an (admittedly virtual) ally is helpful? We’re all under extreme duress, for sure. As for your final comment, the author’s suggestion that we can’t wait for our own Dear Leader to arise makes sense and coheres with what many on this site and elsewhere suggest. Responsibility begins with each of us. I also call my legislators to urge them to provide state and national leadership, but G-d help us if we wait for them to tell us what to do next.
Schlemazel
@Dog Mom:
That is not a half bad idea. If we could get hundreds of people to order 2-4 tickets & then not go the place would be half empty. That in itself would say more than a loud protest outside.
I’d skip advertising I was destroying the tickets though.
Mike in NC
@NotMax: Obviously the money collected selling tickets to the rallies will go straight into the pocket of Trumpenfuhrer.
Mnemosyne
@JenJen:
It’s not puzzling at all if you think of it as the Sore Winner Tour. He’s going to show all you assholes who voted against him that he is too a winner!
Schlemazel
@JenJen:
Encourage as many people as you can to get tickets and just don’t go!
EBT
I kind of expect him to Taft himself.
Schlemazel
@Mike in NC:
WAIT! They are charging money for the tickets?!?! OMG, it is all grift all the way down
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
I have a narcissist in my family (my nieces’ mother) and this is not psychobabble. This is an actual analysis of how a narcissist thinks. They do not think like other people so the strategies you would use on non-narcissists are doomed to fail.
O. Felix Culpa
@Schlemazel:
Omnidirectional grift, methinks.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
Some of his supporters think he is just having fun, putting on a good show, and enjoying the discomfort of prissy liberals.
O. Felix Culpa
@Mnemosyne:
Precisely. That’s why understanding who you’re dealing with is so important. Narcissists always upend rational people, because narcissists don’t play by anyone’s rules but their own. They have no internal constraints. They adhere to no ethic or moral code. They are often charming (when they want to be) and know how to play people…and then dump them at a whim. It’s a losing effort to try to reason with them or make “sense” of what they do. The media inherently try to create sense-making narratives, a losing effort with someone like Trump. That’s why we have to name him for what he is and resist the man, the narratives, and his policies.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
I can understand that it might make perfect sense with a person you actually know. But I tend to resist long distance attempts to diagnose celebrities or politicians. Also, liberals love to substitute psychological categories for moral categories, and also to think that once they have analyzed a person, then their work is done.
If Trump is a narcissist, but otherwise functional and normal, then he is just an asshole you don’t like who is president-elect of the United States. If his condition is dangerous, then he should be institutionalized and 25th Amendment remedies used to remove him from office. If some analyst doing long distance diagnoses thinks that Trump is a danger to the country, then that person should put his or her career on the line and make a public accusation. Otherwise, this is just intellectual noodling.
Starfish
Will the “protestors have been paid by the Clinton campaign” argument be less convincing now that the campaign is over or will it just shift to “protestors have been paid by George Soros?”
O. Felix Culpa
@Brachiator:
Perhaps you might wish to re-read the article.
ETA: It’s also helpful to know your enemy prior to engaging him in battle. I view the information provided as useful knowledge that can help guide strategy. YMMV.
TriassicSands
Betty, I think you’d find that the First Amendment that Donald Trump understands and respects is not the one you understand and respect. Why just today the Times is reporting that Trump is calling for jailing or stripping the citizenship of anyone who burns the American flag. The SCOTUS has already ruled on that First Amendment issue and needless to say they didn’t come down in favor of Trump’s interpretation.
Kay
I won’t go because I will be in Pittsburgh that day, but I think Trump protests are great because it so clearly bothers him that he’s unpopular :)
Brachiator
@O. Felix Culpa:
You have a point. Unfortunately, your guess about his condition (and it is just a guess) is not going to result in anything concrete.
I don’t think that long distance diagnoses are worth anything. As I noted to another poster, I think that some of us liberals think that it is sufficient to find the psychological wrapper for our opponents, and to substitute pseudo-psychological judgments for moral and ethical ones. I find this to be tiresome and a waste of time; but you are very correct that I could have conveyed that better, and for that I apologize.
Yep. Well said.
As an aside, and with a touch, I hope of humor, I once ran across a brief observation by some psychologist who noted that so many fetishes were being described in the official manuals that they were displacing “normal” behavior and was causing him (or her) to rethink the distinction between normalcy and disorders, and to consider whether the vast majority of psychological types described were just variations of human behavior. Here and elsewhere I see so many people described as a psychopath or sociopath (every Republican) or narcissist that I wonder how all these people can still be functional without the world tearing itself apart. On the other hand, if the vast majority of these people are indeed functional, then the usefulness of the categories comes into question.
jacy
@Brachiator:
You’ve obviously never dealt up-close-and-personal with a disordered narcissist. Narcissists aren’t just assholes. And it is important that people understand that’s what he is. Assholes play by asshole rules. You can predict what they’ll do, mostly. Narcissists create their own reality, and you can’t predict what they’ll do, because everything in their head is shifting sand.
But I don’t agree with the last part of the therapist’s suggestion. Not mocking is a good strategy when dealing with a narcissist in your personal life. But for a public figure, I feel that mocking is vital. Because narcissists are quitters. When things injure their ego too much, they quit. They run. Eventually they’ll do whatever they can to stop feeling the insecurity. People make the mistake of thinking that narcissists think highly of themselves. They don’t. They harbor the secret feeling that they are worthless, which is why they rely on self-aggrandizement. They have to make other people say they are great. Narcissists are driven completely by insecurity. When you think of it that way, what Trump does makes sense.
Bill Arnold
Re tech solutions to the fake news problem, saw this in The Guardian today, and it’s actually interesting:
How to solve Facebook’s fake news problem: experts pitch their ideas
And it links a open google docs document full of ideas started by Eli Pariser which is brimming with ideas. (Many of them unworkable, but that’s OK.)
Design Solutions for Fake News
(What I’ve read so far in this doc has been interesting.)
Steeplejack (phone)
@TriassicSands:
The actual current president, Barack Obama, to whom Betty was referring, understands the First Amendment just fine.
Bill Arnold
@Kay:
This. More of This. Lots more.
Starfish
@Bill Arnold: People can take giant versions of those unflattering Trump pictures being passed around Twitter.
schrodinger's cat
@Bill Arnold: Is there a software to make WWC less credulous?
O. Felix Culpa
@Brachiator: I appreciate your response. I agree that sticking a psychological label on Trump is an insufficient response in and of itself and I don’t see many people here doing that. As for the authority with which someone can provide a “diagnosis,” his behavior during the campaign has provided ample data for a reasoned judgment. Frankly, frontal lobe dementia might also be a factor, but there I am admittedly in the realm of speculation. 25th Amendment solutions, anyone? //
The most important point, though, is that the man is profoundly dangerous and must be resisted. On that point I trust we can wholeheartedly agree.
J R in WV
@schrodinger’s cat:
Perhaps I’m just being abnormally stupid, but who the heck are “…both M and H of WWII fame” – Google is no help, and my memory must not be what it once was.
Churchill? Roosevelt? Eisenhower? Maybe Montgomery, who was cheerfully hated by everyone who ahd to work with him? Sorry, drawing a complete blank.
J R in WV
@TriassicSands:
“For the moment…” Obama is still President. And understands the constitution, after all he was a teacher of constitutional law. For the moment. Which will be over in a flash.
schrodinger's cat
@J R in WV: The two best known despots of the 20th century, leaders of Italy and Germany during WWII.
Brachiator
@jacy:
Why? What difference will it make? Does this say that instead of press conferences, Trump should have to answer periodic questions from therapists?
And if Trump is some dangerous lunatic who is entirely unpredictable, why aren’t Democratic Party leaders trying to invoke the 25th Amendment? Aside from providing fodder here, this supposed analysis of Trump is insignificant.
But I don’t agree with the last part of the therapist’s suggestion. Not mocking is a good strategy when dealing with a narcissist in your personal life. But for a public figure, I feel that mocking is vital. Because narcissists are quitters.
So far, Trump has quit himself from mockery at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner a few years ago into the White House itself. I used to be one of those who suggested that Trump should be mocked early and often. It hasn’t worked out quite like I expected.
Again, I don’t think that what is offered here with respect to “understanding Trump” has squat to do with how to defeat him, especially since he has the GOP behind him.
CarolDuhart2
Another reason to be annoyed is that it’s the holiday. One unmentioned rule of Presidential transitions is that the holidays are an informal cooling off period-a chance for shoppers and holidayers to catch their breath and think more about family than politics. Even when Shrub took office in 2001, he simply went to work and stayed out of everybody’s way. Tying up traffic for an unneeded exercise in pure vanity is not welcome in early December.
Steve Holmes
I think general Trump protests are counter productive. The media will dismiss them as sour grapes.
All protests should be issue oriented. Over the last few weeks we’ve seen issues that can be protested in the form of nominees and their priorities.
Look to the Tea Party for protests that work. “Hands Off My Heathcare” or “Trump is putting the elites, in charge of the henhouse” are more likely to get positive airtime than “Trump Sucks”
TriassicSands
@Steeplejack (phone):
@Steeplejack (phone):
I’m well aware who the current president is. I was simply pointing out that we’re headed for something that may be quite different. We’ve got two more months of Obama and at least four years of the Sociopath-in-Chief.
Betty’s allusion to our current president was simply a means for me to mention the outrageous Trump Tweets in which he reveals yet another gaping abyss in understanding concerning a free an open society.
Note: some journalists and others might take a little exception to Obama’s appreciation for the First Amendment. His treatment of some journalists regarding sources and some whistleblowers has not been all we might have expected and hoped for. I think on balance Obama has been a very fine president, but he has certainly not been perfect, even if he looks that way when compared with what is coming.
SiubhanDuinne
@O. Felix Culpa:
Thanks so much for posting this. I saw it a day or two ago, meant to bookmark it then but didn’t, so I’m glad you gave me another chance.
One item I am especially guilty of:
I have to confess that, yes, I do sometimes get a kind of perverse “enjoyment” — I’m not sure that’s the best word, but close enough — out of his over-the-top statements and tweets and behaviors and actions. Not sure how well I can contain that, going forward, but I will try not to add to his energy any more than necessary. Regardless, I appreciate the heads-up that that’s what I’m doing.
Very useful piece. This time, I saved it.
SiubhanDuinne
@gene108:
And now, apparently, it’s Mnuchin for Treasury.
SiubhanDuinne
@Brachiator:
I think I might have identified the flaw in your reasoning.
SiubhanDuinne
@TriassicSands:
I am about 99.9% sure that Betty was referring to our “for the moment” president, i.e., one Barack Obama. And I think he understands the First Amendment just fine.
SiubhanDuinne
@J R in WV:
M = Mussolini
H = Hitler
You must have had a tiring day. You’re generally a lot sharper :-)
Central Planning
@Brachiator:
Hey! That’s what we do here!
ETA – It would be irresponsible to not speculate.
Steeplejack (phone)
@TriassicSands:
Your tone came across as condescending and pointing out the bleedingly obvious.
No one here, least of all Cracker, needs that explained to them.
John Weiss
@kindness: Well, buddy, you can choose how hopeful you are. Optimism is a political statement you know.
TriassicSands
@SiubhanDuinne:
And I’m 100% sure she was referring to Obama. I never doubted that. This was simply a way to introduce the outrageous crap Trump tweeted last night / today.
I should have worded it differently. If it sounded like I was correcting her, that was not my intention at all. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
@Steeplejack (phone):
I’m sorry if the way I worded it came across as condescending; it wasn’t meant that way as I explained in comment 69. If you still feel the need to lecture me after reading that comment then you are wasting your time.
As I explained in this comment above, I worded my comment poorly. The point of my comment was to relate what Trump has just tweeted regarding First Amendment rights.
You should speak for yourself, I know that Betty doesn’t need you to ride to her rescue. If she had a problem with what I wrote I would have gladly clarified my intention for her and apologized to her if what I wrote offended her in any way. Unlike some BJ commenters I don’t come her to argue, call names, or lecture.