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Stuart Attewell (Paris, Fr)'s avatar

Not only is he a particularly bad and dangerous individual...full of his own "special qualities"...he is totally naive if he thought he could charm Woodward out of " doing a Nixon" on him. I'm breathless in front of such fantasmagoric stupidity.

Francois Hollande, EX-president of France thought that he could charm a couple of French journalists throughout his "reign" according them "secret" interviews. They produced a book about 6 months before he was fighting for re-election from the exclusive interviews that they taped with him. The book was entitled "What a President should never say" . Hollande was forced to back out of his re-election bid as a result rather than face total humiliation. He disappeared into a well deserved nonentity. I think we can reserve for Trump his well deserved fate too.

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Allegra K. Troiano's avatar

The difference is that Trump has a base of people that would follow him into a death chamber before they admitted he is unfit as president. The French were neither as loyal or as stupid.

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Stuart Attewell (Paris, Fr)'s avatar

Following is an interestiing word. I come back to greek mythology and the Trojan Horse. Many of "his people" see in him a fabulous opportunity to both make a lot of money raping and pillaging the state, organizing life to protect their current and future wealth and making sure their kind can feed off the people for evermore. Once in the driving seat they don't need Trump anymore.

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Alexander Moss (VA)'s avatar

I believe you only refer to those who already have money and power. Many of his "base" have neither, but continue to flock to him like lambs to the slaughter. They cannot necessarily make more money because of him, and they have no definable wealth to protect. That population is more scary to me than the obvious hangers-on who are only interested in Trump as their puppet.

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Stuart Attewell (Paris, Fr)'s avatar

They are going to be extremely disappointed, even mad as hell both at Trump and the rest of the world...humiliated that they were mistaken in believing in their "messiah" who both lied to them and was disgusted by them and humiliated even more as for the rest of the world their blind, dumb and deaf niavety was plain to see. Biden is going to be obliged to help them retake a place in society...not as in their dreams but alongside everyone else.

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Daniel Friedman (5 gen nyc)'s avatar

"Biden is going to be obliged to help them retake a place in society...not as in their dreams but alongside everyone else."

How'd that work out after the last civil war?

Refighting that one because of the loose ends.

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Stuart Attewell (Paris, Fr)'s avatar

Yes indeed as Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's then Democratic Party VP, took over after the Republican President's assassination and undid practically all that Lincoln had achieved and all of for what the North fought and won the Civil War setting back equality and human rights by at least 100 if not 150 years.

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Daniel Friedman (5 gen nyc)'s avatar

"Trump placed a portrait of Jackson in the Oval Office and made a pilgrimage to the late president’s tomb in Nashville less than two months after being sworn in.

"'Trump is the first president to so openly admire and point to Jackson as a model, and to borrow so clearly and explicitly from the language of Jacksonian ‘democracy,’ ' said J.M. Opal, a historian at McGill University and author of Avenging the People: Andrew Jackson, the Rule of Law, and the American Nation. " - PolitiFact

The 2 books that Trump has certainly read are on Jackson and Hitler.

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Stuart Attewell (Paris, Fr)'s avatar

I wrote an article on the similarities last summer. It's on might site...an Englishmans view...from Paris.

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Cheri, MO's avatar

Stuart, you’re speaking to the choir here. We know this will eventually happen, but look at the damage in the mean time. Scary and nervous times we are in.

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Daniel Friedman (5 gen nyc)'s avatar

My first real scare was in Lancaster, PA where I was driving behind a car with a bumper sticker that read: "I follow Trump".

This was way before the election.

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Denise H.'s avatar

Still seeing trump bumper stickers in Texas. Fewer signs in yards though.

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Stuart Attewell (Paris, Fr)'s avatar

Once they're stuck on your car it's a bind to scape them off..not very pretty results...but yard signs come down easily..just a kick will suffice!

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Richard Burrill's avatar

Yes, Daniel, I live across the Susquehanna from you in York, PA. We get lots of signs by folks who follow Trump. Oh my!

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Stuart Attewell (Paris, Fr)'s avatar

Me too! The son of a friend took a year off travelling and working on lumber caps and suchlike from Alaska to Florida and came back summer 2016 convinced that Trump would win.

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Daniel Friedman (5 gen nyc)'s avatar

The signs were there. Confederate flags, cold stares in gas stations, attracting coldness when I'd get leave nyc.

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daria (MID)'s avatar

" I'm breathless in front of such fantasmagoric stupidity. "

Best line of the day.

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TCinLA's avatar

20 years in the worst prison possible, "in the general population."

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Stuart Attewell (Paris, Fr)'s avatar

On the streets and without any money after bankruptcy, serving a sentence for state crimes (after Pence has pardoned the resigning President for federal offences) and paying out to all those who will chase him through the courts.

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Alexander Moss (VA)'s avatar

I have heard others offer that position; that Trump will resign just prior to inauguration and have Pence pardon him. Let's just hope that inauguration is for a Democratic president, and not the current one.

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STEVEN HENRY's avatar

I believe you cannot pardon for state offenses, only federal ones....and Cyrus Vance Jr is pursuing Trump just like the crocodile with the ticking clock followed Captain Hook.

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wlipman@comcast.net's avatar

And, if Mike Pence isn't the perfect Mr. Smee, then tell me who is!

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Michele's avatar

I call him Uriah Heep.

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TCinLA's avatar

Yes, state crimes cannot be pardoned by the president.

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Lynell(VA by way of MD&DC)'s avatar

I wonder about civil litigation. The families of the many who needlessly died (wrongful death) because of deliberate mishandling of the pandemic as well as those who recovered but could have long-lasting negative residual effects (presidential malpractice?) Seriously.

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Joan Friedman (MA, from NY)'s avatar

You actually can't sue the President for damages based on miserable performance of his public duties. That's the law that AG Barr is twisting inside out to try to shield Trump from responsibility for his vicious remarks about Ej Carroll's report that he had raped her.

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Stuart Attewell (Paris, Fr)'s avatar

I hope firstly that there IS an inauguration and then that it is consecrating Biden's very clear victory.

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Sally ArDubbs's avatar

Take away his stage. A lonely cell, cut off from access to social media would be hell for him. With no one to posture and preen for he would wither and die.

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Denise H.'s avatar

Tell him everyday his ratings have plummeted. 😝

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Sally ArDubbs's avatar

He might have a stroke on the spot. Who do we have to talk to about making that happen?

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Ellie Kona's avatar

Talking to Woodward was the idiot side of idiot savant, and fortunate for how he has further revealed himself. I don't think trump is capable of humiliation, which derives from humility. The non-entity part would be hell for a narcissist!

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Stuart Attewell (Paris, Fr)'s avatar

I wonder about the "savant" bit but fully agree with the rest. In my mind he of course doesn't feel the humiliation...or much else...but will be incensed that others would consider him humiliated. A classic case...à la chinoise...of extreme anger at loss of face and looking for someone to blame.

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Deborah Howe's avatar

Trump's vanity is his own nemesis.

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Chris Anthony's avatar

I wonder if Trump thought Woodward would write something more akin to “Write It When I’m Gone” written by Thomas DeFrank about Gerald Ford. If so, he miscalculated.

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Stuart Attewell (Paris, Fr)'s avatar

He's capable of believing in his own illusions of course but he certainly won't change his opinion of himself because others don't agree. For him we will all be more stupid and worthless than even he imagined. Self justification and promotion of his persona is the only game that his limited ability to control his own psychic impulses will allow. Without that his conscious mind would fall down an enormous hole into his unconscious depths.

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Joan Friedman (MA, from NY)'s avatar

I couldn't care less what happens to Trump after he leaves office. I'm concerned about the rest of us - restoring the rule of law, reducing the excessive power of the presidency and the senate majority leader, reducing the ability of 5% of the population to control the federal government, etc etc

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TCinLA's avatar

Just remember what the Wharton professor whose class Trump was allowed to AUDIT (being too stupid to get into Wharton): "Donald Trump was the dumbest fucking student who ever walked in my classroom." Some. Things. Never. Change.

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TCinLA's avatar

"John Barron", Trump's "publicist", thought he was dealing with the gang at Page Six back in the 1980s.

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