Trump lives in a universe where he needs to look good and can't stand any criticism, where he needs to hear adulation and can't take any responsibility. And it is driving him, allegedly, "malignantly crazy" that his poll numbers are dropping like a rock. Joe Biden's lead over Trump is more solid than Hillary Clinton's was, and this was precisely the scenario Trump feared.
(So much so, in fact, that last year he extorted the president of Ukraine for dirt on Joe Biden's son, Hunter, by withholding aid, an act for which Trump was later impeached by the Democratic House of Representatives. Ukrainian prosecutors, in fact, haven't got anything on the former vice-president's son.)
So, it's certainly not out of form for Trump to retain the services of a friendly if possibly misguided polling firm to provide more pleasant-sounding numbers. (His former personal lawyer admitted to rigging polls for his boss so this has precedent.) The president has acquired the notion that polls exist, not to provide metrics for what a campaign needs to improve messaging for (because that would be work and might even require discipline, and yeah no, Trump isn't getting that shit together anytime soon) but to create impressions. So he has fallen under the belief that a bad CNN poll (that nemesis, CNN!) has been devised to suppress support for him. So much so that CNN has been sent a cease and desist letter to take down the offending poll.
CNN, naturally, has declined, with a letter that boils downs to "First Amendment, fuck you." As they absolutely should.
It's sad that Trump can't think of anything better to do regarding his poll numbers than, well, this, even though, if his campaign staff has any competency whatsoever, they've certainly tried to get him to try and get a handle on his messaging--so he will be resuming his campaign rallies on Juneteenth in Tulsa (planned stops in Texas, Arizona, and Florida after Oklahoma, so you can tell he's concentrating on those battlegrounds, there) and is also going to have a speech on race written by Stephen Miller.
So that's really...reading the room, I guess. Rather like his carefully-crafted statement just a bit ago about those military bases named for Confederate leaders. However, I don't think he's in the same room as the rest of America, and is all too happy with a polling sample of one--himself.
*I thought the better of the most amusing YouTube video I originally used for an accompanying visual but if you did see that, sorry, not sorry. I only thought it too graceful to really represent Trump's essence, so I went with this somewhat idealized portrait that I believe he purchased with charity money and used at one of his business locations, so, much more representative of his actual self.
2 comments:
Hey Vixen,
your parents and I are somewhere around the same age as President Trump.
I have to say that I think he looks pretty good for a senior citizen.
However, you have to discount the fact that very wealthy people and successful movie stars have a tremendous barrage of treatments and attention to help them look younger than they really are.
Our three cats like to stay in a room we have designated as our library. We are now calling this Militant Occupied Chaz.
If there are those who would like to gain a better understanding of our newest country, I would suggest they read Tom Wolfe's old book, Radical Chic. For example, you can read about the Black Panther Party being invited to cocktail parties at Leonard Bernstein's house with all his hoist-toity, fashionable upper-class liberal friends.
Everything that is happening only seems new. It has all existed before in some variation in the memories of so many of us who are still alive.
Yes, he is such a pretty boy.
Don't care how old: pretty boy.
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