Thursday, August 15, 2024

MAGA media panics over Trump’s increasingly insane campaign strategy - or lack thereof

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By The Critical Mind

Community

Daily Kos

Stuart Varney

On Tuesday morning, Stuart Varney of Fox Business reflected on Trump’s campaign after Donald’s disastrous Twitter “interview” with Elon Musk on Monday night. The heretofore Trump fan was not complimentary.

He started by noting a palace revolt. And added a brutal comparison to Trump’s erstwhile rival.

"There's a rising tide of criticism of Donald Trump from his own supporters and from some of his fellow Republicans. It reminds me of the quiet, low-voice criticisms of President Biden's cognitive ability before he was pushed out of his re-election campaign."

Varney continued by referring to articles in The Hill and the Wall Street Journal outlining criticism by Trump’s teammates over his increasingly evident liabilities.

Of The Hill piece Stuart said,

“The article goes through a litany of problems. Trump goes off on tangents, like fighting over crowd size. He's attacked allies like Georgia Governor Brian Kemp. In short, The Hill says he lacks discipline. He can't deliver a coherent message."

He then quoted the author of the WSJ editorial, who wrote:

“By my calculation, about one-third of Mr. Trump’s remarks fell into three categories: false, obtuse, or lunatic.”

Varney added that a major GOP criticism of the vulgarian-in-chief was his puerile and misogynistic vocabulary. A moronic tactic Stuart thinks dooms the campaign to failure.

“He used foul language to describe Kamala Harris. How on earth will he win the vital women's vote when he uses words they hate?”

Being a denizen of the Fox sty, Varney maintains that despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Trump is up to the job he’s running for. But Stuart remains clearheaded enough to note that the stupid man’s misogyny will prevent Trump from getting that job.

"Trump could do the job of president, but can he win? There's a growing chorus saying, he won't win if he can't stay on message, can't focus on policy, and refuses to change his language on women."

Varney ends by pointing out that Trump is up against it because he’s a moron.

"It's now an election he has to fight to win, and he's brought this on himself.”

Varney was not the only Foxer pleading with Trump to stop being a self-destructive whiny bastard.

 

Larry Kudlow and Kellyanne Conway

On Monday evening, Larry Kudlow had Kellyanne “alternative facts” Conway on his Fox Business show. Larry implored Trump,

“Don’t wander off. Don't call her [Kamala Harris] stupid and all kinds of names.” Adding: “Stay on message.”

Kellyanne tried happy talk. And saw things invisible to the reality-based community. She claimed there's a "winning formula" for Trump and even called it "plain to see.” She said she's noticed that "hunger swagger" back as his polls continue to fall. And that today reminded her of 2016 when Trump was running as an "underdog" and was "underestimated.” But she unintentionally admitted that for all her wishful thinking, the ship was foundering and Trump should try,

"Less insults, more insights."

How did we get here?

(Note: The rest of this diary is editorial, which the reader can safely ignore if pressed for time.)

On May 31, 2017, at 12:06 a.m. on the 132nd day of his term, then-President Trump tweeted,

 “Despite the constant negative press covfefe”

Everyone assumed that a sleep-deprived Trump had fat-fingered a typo and hit ‘post’ in error — and the tweet would be soon deleted. It was not. Within 38 minutes it had 25,000 likes. At 6 a.m., Trump doubled down on his neologism with another tweet, 

“Who can figure out the true meaning of ‘covfefe’ ??? Enjoy!”

The event confirmed three things. 

  • Trump will never admit a mistake. And will say anything to imply the mistake was proof of his out-of-this-world intellect.
  • The MAGA base will “like” anything the cult leader utters. And create elaborate fantasies to explain the genius of his oracular offerings.
  • The MAGA media will celebrate that their guy is playing 3D chess while liberals have trouble trying to set up a game of checkers. 
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This slavish celebration of Trump’s asininity remained status quo until July 21, 2024. Trump was leading in the polls. The bookies had him as an odds-on favorite for a second term. Even the mainstream media began to speculate that blue states like New York might be in play. And MAGA dared to fantasize about an election rout reminiscent of Ronald Reagan’s 49-state victory in 1984.

Then President Biden bowed out and handed the baton to his VP, Kamala Harris.

The MAGA media was disappointed, but unperturbed. They believed the Democrats would turn the search for Biden’s successor into a circular firing squad. And should Harris prevail, she would be fatally wounded by the process. Besides, she had dropped out of the 2020 campaign without winning a single delegate. They reassured themselves that she was a lightweight campaigner soon to be nicknamed into oblivion.

But Kamala proved to be brat. Her campaign caught fire. Her selection of Tim Walz as running mate paid off in spades. Her run became a supernova of buzz, excitement, and energy. Thousands volunteered. Millions poured in. Double-haters became single-haters, and cast their lot with Harris. And suddenly Trump was the old man in the race. His act was shopworn, trite, and tired.

Then his campaign descended into farce. He declared that Kamala had only recently become black. He claimed the adoring hordes at the Democratic rallies were AI-generated. He demanded that his Jan 6, pre-riot, pep talk was better attended than Martin Luther King‘s “I Have a Dream“ speech. He rambled through a 90-minute press conference. Meandered through a two-hour tech-challenged, mutual masturbation with Musk. And his knockout nickname for his younger, smarter, faster-fisted opponent was the pathetic flop, “Kamabla.”

Even the MAGA media cannot pretend Trump still has a winning hand. Or that he can even still play cards. They are panicking. And in response to Trump’s foot-shooting, they are asking the clearly demented dotard to focus on the issues and dial down the personal attacks.

They would have better luck asking a baby to stop shitting its diaper.

Trump is visibly vitriolic about Kamala's TIME cover.  Does he not remember that he was a TIME cover boy not so long ago?

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