The Twitter warning labels are getting better. pic.twitter.com/1kD7JTd8OJ
— Mig Greengard (@chessninja) November 16, 2020
Late Night Open Thread: Call It the Betty Cracker AmendmentPost + Comments (78)
Trump Crime Cartel Death Watch Open Thread: Murdoch Has Declared Trump A Sunk Cost
Here's the clip as Fox News finally pulls the plug on Team Trump https://t.co/7XPEBhWmdk
— Jack Blanchard (@Jack_Blanchard_) November 9, 2020
This has been brewing for some time, of course. From the Washington Post, “The long love affair between Fox News and Trump may be over”:
The last day of Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign began just after 7 a.m., as polls opened on the East Coast, with a call to “Fox & Friends,” the television morning show that had turned the reality star into a U.S. president. He got his usual hero’s welcome. But it was no longer enough…
…[H]is remarks quickly turned pointed that Tuesday morning as he boasted about how well he had done in the job of president, despite unexpected challenges — not from China or Russia or North Korea, he said, but from the United States. And he mused rhetorically about what had changed the most for him since 2016.
“Fox,” he said, answering his own question. “It’s much different now.” As the hosts sputtered, he elaborated: “In the old days, they wouldn’t put sleepy Joe Biden on every time he opened his mouth. . . . It’s a much different operation — I’m just telling you.”
It was the last day of a campaign Fox had done so much to support, but it was a preview of the war — now one week old but months in the making — that may have permanently ruptured the bond between President Trump and his once-favorite television channel. As he faces expulsion from the White House, Trump has vowed revenge on the network that propelled his political career, according to close White House aides — perhaps by publicly attacking Fox or undermining its business model by endorsing a competitor…
In recent months, he had begun to complain — on Twitter and to his aides — that Fox had turned on him. That impression was only heightened when reports emerged that Murdoch was telling associates that the president was going to lose…
Which leads to this excellent, if daintily-phrased, NYTimes article from last week — “New York Post Shifts Tone on Trump as a Top Editor Plans His Own Exit”:
Late Night Open Thread: The Ghouliania Philes, Four Seasons Total Landscaping Edition
Rudy Giuliani: "Who was it called by?"
Media: "All of networks."
Rudy Giuliani: "All the networks!" pic.twitter.com/TXjreOmrAh
— CSPAN (@cspan) November 7, 2020
Giuliani and Trump have been running buddies in the ‘not prosecutorially corrupt’ NYC version of Ankh-Morpork since at least the 1980s; it’s only fair (to the narrative) that he now plays the Fool to Trump’s King Leer…
Trump Bunker Open Thread: He *Thinks* He Can Barricade Himself In
This is not what people do when they think they will have a legitimate victory. https://t.co/dujeDNRTSp
— Malaclypse (@Mal_A_Clypse) November 2, 2020
No counting chickens, etc etc, but take some consolation in the fact that the Squatter-in-Chief and all his grubby minions are currently running themselves ragged in pure pants-wetting terror…
Trump Bunker Open Thread: He *Thinks* He Can Barricade Himself InPost + Comments (248)
Death Cult Bunker Open Thread: Paranoia Strikes Deep
International market indicators…
My favorite part of this is watching Trump’s face drop when he realizes Bibi is not gonna endorse his campaign line. https://t.co/V1oqYTUjY2
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) October 23, 2020
it’s worth considering that trump is so deep into his extremely online fox news cinematic universe that he really and truly believes he’s up ten points right now and the first time he’s considered actually losing will be election night watching teevee along with the rest of us
— kilgore trout, biden wi-fi switchman (@KT_So_It_Goes) October 23, 2020
Naaaaah…
“Finger-pointing is a common feature of campaigns that think they’re losing, but it's happening at an uncommon level in this campaign. Shifting responsibility has been a staple of the Trump presidency — and his lieutenants are now following suit.” https://t.co/eeo36qrfgn
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) October 24, 2020
… Top Trump advisers insist they remain confident, with campaign manager Bill Stepien saying privately the president still has a path to victory…
But senior Republicans say a culture of paranoia has developed in the waning days of the race, with fears mounting that they will be the targets of post-election attacks if Trump loses, which could damage their careers going forward.
“I haven’t worked for Donald Trump since 2015, but I guess nothing changes,” said Sam Nunberg, a former Trump political adviser.
Shaaade… enfreude!
Death Cult Bunker Open Thread: Paranoia Strikes DeepPost + Comments (254)
Late Night Open Thread: People for Whom It Is Hard to Feel Pity
“How much Trump stink is on my resume right now?” Preparing for the worst, GOPers ponder life after Trump. My latest on the uptick in resumes circulating on Gmail, disqualifiers for corporate clients, & where all the Trump staff might go post Trumpworld. https://t.co/h8iT0xlPjd
— Jacqueline Alemany (@JaxAlemany) October 16, 2020
The Washington Post is the company paper in a town where the monopoly industry is national politics, so this is actually a pertinent issue for them. Not that the answer isn’t both obvious and (for us sane people) depressing:
… “There’s always a market for lobbyists, but look at someone like Spicer who had high-profile gigs in the White House and where did he land?” noted Amanda Carpenter, a Trump critic, CNN contributor and former aide to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.). “He’s a host on Newsmax right now. That’s not the kind of leg-up to high-profile communications in the corporate world that’s the typical path…. If he can’t do it, I think people with such a high profile will have similar problems.”…
Over a dozen Republican strategists, former Trump administration staffers, current Capitol Hill hands and associates close to the Trump White House predict that many graduates of the Trump administration could have a tough time sticking a landing in the private sector.
They say Trump’s shaky standing in the campaign — and his pull on down-ballot races — is already making Republicans especially nervous…
“Americans have short memories,” Rodney Faraon, a former CIA analyst and member of the president’s daily brief team in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, who is now a partner with Martin+Crumpton Group. “One would think that the GOP would, as John McCain would say, ‘return to normal order,’ and then we can finally debate issues on the basis of real substance. But that’s the big $64,000 question. What happens to the GOP after Trump?”…
‘Return to normal order’ is quite the lift, right now. Rather like announcing that the patient will be fine once those stubborn Kapowsi’s sarcoma nodules are successfully treated — it’s the underlying immune deficiency which let the cancer establish itself that’s the real problem.
Late Night Open Thread: People for Whom It Is Hard to Feel PityPost + Comments (139)
Political Weathervanes Open Thread: The Media Villagers Switch Sides
WATCH: ABC’s @JONKARL TO @REALDONALDTRUMP:
“Why did you lie to the American people?
Why should we trust what you have to say now?" pic.twitter.com/p64myQBLyK
— Kaivan Shroff (@KaivanShroff) September 10, 2020
Thursday evening, erstwhile Young Republican Jonathan Karl got the first question at Trump’s hastily-called ‘presser’, and boldly demanded, “President Trump, why did you lie to the American people?”
Trump, predictably, responded by calling it ‘a very bad question’, ‘not true’, a ‘disgrace‘ promoted by The Failing Blah-Blah-Blah. Karl spent the first segment of the nightly national news taking a victory lap.
Sending them thoughts and prayers. https://t.co/SLaeRyGiCC
— Daily Trix (@DailyTrix) September 11, 2020
Comes a point, in every failed autocracy, where pulling down the wounded Beast becomes more rewarding than protecting It from Its many enemies. Annie Linskey made her journamalistic bones at the Boston Globe hate-stalking Elizabeth Warren during Warren’s senatorial campaigns; she was lured to the Washington Post to do the same job, then promoted to ankle-biting Joe Biden once he wrapped up the nomination. But now Trump is the ‘high visibility’ target!
Political Weathervanes Open Thread: The Media Villagers Switch SidesPost + Comments (101)