• @[email protected]
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    3 months ago

    It’s just simple abuse. It’s no more complicated that that. Trump is not some genius, he’s just an abusive asshole with a megaphone.

    The whole point is to constantly be testing the loyalty of supporters, while punishing detractors. For the supporters, the constant “attention” is a reward. Every opportunity to say “there are three lights” is making themselves part of the lie. For the rest of us, the constant, unavoidable gaslighting is exhausting, and the visible, ever present degradation of our civic institutions is horrifying. Yet we are forced to either witness it and confront it day after day if we are to oppose it, or check out and let it happen, just hoping it ends quickly.

    • @[email protected]
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      3 months ago

      Trump is not some genius, he’s just an abusive asshole with a megaphone.

      As the son of a former abusive asshole myself, there’s truth in it. A large percentage of people will accept abuse for close to a decade, but usually they inevitably snap and try getting away from the abuse. It just requires constant small losses to realize, and you can’t let them rot alone. Otherwise they fall even deeper into a cult-like thinking. Maybe it should be seen a little akin addiction, they need a reminder, there’s a small way to get back to how things were before.

    • @[email protected]
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      -13 months ago

      Does he have book smarts? No, but this guy has a genius level ability to promote himself. He’s increased his inherited fortune by billions by selling himself (even if he could have don’t better just by putting his money in index funds). His worth is all in his brand.

      Even for those of us who see through his lies, you still can’t stop fucking talking about him. People are always fucking talking about him, all the time.

      He has gotten half of one of the largest countries in the world to blindly support him.

      It makes me cringe to say it, and he is a terrible, terrible person, but to argue this guy isn’t a genius is to ignore reality.

      • geekwithsoul
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        03 months ago

        I think he’s the perfect example of “clever but not smart.” Genius implies any of what he says or does is intentional - it’s not. But because he’s lived his whole life in privilege and the weird miasma that is the current reality, he’s able to wedge himself into a position where half the country who should despise him loves him instead.

        The reality of Trump appeals to very few but the idea of Trump appeals to many with the awareness to be afraid, but neither the intellect or the courage to understand why - so they’ve latched on to the symbol of him and stick with it to avoid the cognitive dissonance.

  • @[email protected]
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    403 months ago

    The Left has been correct about everything since the New Deal. Lies are the only thing they have left.

    • @GraniteM
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      193 months ago

      Conservatives heard Stephen Colbert say “Reality has a liberal bias” and concluded that the only solution was to declare war on reality.

      • Baron Von J
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        123 months ago

        Conservatives thought Colbert was one of them at first. Then again, they didn’t know Rage Against the Machine hated them or The Boys was mocking them, either.

  • @shalafi
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    173 months ago

    Part of it is narcissism. I see the word thrown a lot, to mean a lot of things. A major component is unable to face being wrong. If it comes out his mouth, he believes it to be true, right down to his roots.

    I was 40 or so until I realized my mother had never once in life said she was sorry or admitted fault. One time my ex and I nailed her to the wall with her own words. You could see the cognitive dissonance boiling away. And compared to her, Trump has weapons grade NPD.

  • @[email protected]
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    53 months ago

    First off, fuck Trump. Just wanted to get that out of the way.

    Second, this article is summarizing another article that it links to at the beginning. The original article was written in 2017. If they’re going to plagarize paraphrase another article, could they at least choose something more recent?

    Trump has been convicted of 34 felonies since then and has plenty more convictions on the way. Surely they can at least try to update the article.

    • @btaf45OP
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      13 months ago

      The original article was written in 2017

      And more relevant than ever today

      could they at least choose something more recent?

      That’s totally unimportant. Relevancy is what matters. Recency is only important when it relates to relevancy.