is not even tic-tac-toe. trump just says what he thinks his base wants to hear, and sometimes he says stuff 'cause he assumes his base wants to hear same as himself. the thing is, even when trump goes too far even for his base, they will make excuses... says he is joking or that unlike a politician, trump talks like a real person.
back in summer 2020 multiple obsidian boardies laughed off trump suggestions he would contest the election if it didn't go his way... and it weren't just trumpers or conservatives trying to suggest trump weren't being serious or somesuch. one poster suggested the media were to blame for fear mongering by giving credence to trump claims... that didn't age well, did it? another poster laughed off the potential threat 'cause even trump had to know he couldn't get away with refusing to leave office.
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at the time we marveled how after three years o' trump, people continued to pretend as if impossible or abject stoopid were obstacles to trump doing. we even predicted the eventual legal mechanism which would be exploited by team trump.
jan 6. build the wall. send fed troops to portland. muslim ban. etc. not just one-offs.
nevertheless, here we are in 2024 and people continue to pretend as if impossibility and too-stoopid-to-be-real is meaningful hurdles for trump. only the Courts and Congress may limit trump 'cause the trump base is all-in and the rest o' the gop believes it needs the trump base. Court integrity has sadly been hit and miss but they has refused to embrace the most extreme trump efforts such as trying to steal the election (so far) and his attempted muslim ban. on the other hand, Congress is so divided and partisan that unless democrats managed 2/3 in the senate, am not certain trump could be convicted o' any crime or wrong no matter how vile.
am no longer genuine surprised that so many liberals shrug at trump excesses. just another social media post, speech, sound bite, declaration o' unconstitutional, etc. ho-hum.
am no longer surprised when s'posed conservatives make improbable excuses for trump
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US tribalism to a degree we never woulda' predicted during peacetime.
HA! Good Fun!
ps worth reading the following 'cause in spite o' fact we noted earlier that the recent special counsel report found there were not enough evidence to prove willful retention by biden insofar as documents, we keep seeing media sources reporting much different.
https://twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/1756725689724620921