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Writer's pictureHowie Klein

After Tonight’s Meet The Press, Will The Election Hinge On Voters Seeing Trump’s Cognitive Decline



You know about Trump’s use of projection, right? “Some of the greatest world leaders,” he said, “have been in their 80s. I'm not anywhere very near 80, by the way. And Biden's not too old. I don't think Biden's too old. But I think he's incompetent, and that's a bigger problem.” (And by the way, if he’s elected, he’d be 79 a few months after moving back into the White House.) He’s right though about “the bigger problem.” The unscripted Meet the Press interview shows a doddering senile old man unable to stay on track and respond coherently to any questions, at least not satisfactorily by even a 9 years old's standards.


He’s always been obsessed with “good genes.” And he’ll be babbling about his good genes again tonight. When Kristen Welker asked him if he’s concerned that he'd be in his 80s if re-elected, he said “No, because my father lived much longer than that. My mother lived much longer that that. So genetically, that's a good thing.”


Who embraces all this bullshit? “They’re more conservative than other Republicans. More likely to be men. Less likely to have graduated from college. And they’re way more confident they’ve made up their minds, even though the first primary or caucus is still four months away.” That, explained Steven Shepard in his 2024 pre-mortem autopsy, is the coalition Señor Trumpanzee “has assembled in asserting his dominance over the Republican presidential primary… a runaway train.”


Even though DeSantis and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy — the second- and third-place candidates in the Quinnipiac poll — are mostly running to Trump’s right, the former president’s supporters are consistently more conservative than the voters who back other candidates.
…Ideology isn’t the only defining cleavage between Trump and non-Trump Republican voters. Education polarization has roiled American politics over the past two decades, particularly among white voters, who are increasingly divided between more-educated voters moving toward Democrats and those with lower levels of educational attainment becoming more Republican. The same rupture exists within the GOP.
According to the Quinnipiac poll, 54 percent of Trump’s white supporters were without college degrees and 15 percent of them had four-year degrees. For the other candidates’ white voters, 36 percent had no college degrees and an equal share had four-year degrees.
Given the gender gap between the parties, Trump’s alleged misconduct and his comments about women, it’s not a surprise that men made up a majority of his Republican supporters. But the margin is not that lopsided: 42 percent of Trump voters in the primary were women in the poll, and the former president was the top choice of Republican women by far.
…Essentially, the Republican primary has boiled down to a majority of voters who would pick Trump— and most of them are sure about it. They represent what has become the most influential voting bloc in the party: more conservative voters with lower levels of educational attainment.
Banking on something happening to disrupt that— whether it’s another legal bombshell or an early-state electoral upset— may be Trump’s opponents’ best hope, but it isn’t much of one.


So, when a barely known former Trump attorney (outside the media bubble)— in this case Jenna Ellis— turns on Trump, it means exactly nothing… not one single vote. Martin Pengelly reported yesterday that omn her crackpot radio show Ellis said she would never vote for him again: “Why I have chosen to distance is because of that frankly malignant narcissistic tendency to simply say that he’s never done anything wrong.”


Ellis is a former counsel for the Thomas More Society, a conservative Catholic group, whose claims to be a constitutional lawyer have been widely doubted.
Described by the New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman as “a lawyer whom Trump sought out after seeing her television commentary,” in 2020 Ellis rose from relative obscurity to become part of what she called an “elite strike force team” working to overturn Trump’s defeat by Biden.
That effort failed. American Family Radio signed up Ellis in December last year. On her show on Thursday, she spoke to Steve Deace, another rightwing host.
Deace said: “Before that man [Trump] needs to be president again … [to] escape the quote-unquote, ‘witch-hunts’, that man needs Jesus again because … his ambitions would be fueled by showing some self-awareness. And he won’t do it because he can’t admit, ‘I’m not God.’”
Ellis said Deace had “perfectly articulated exactly how I as a voter feel.” She knew Trump well “as a friend, as a former boss,” she said, adding: “I have great love and respect for him personally.
“But everything that you just said resonates with me as exactly why I simply can’t support him for elected office again. Why I have chosen to distance is because of that, frankly, malignant narcissistic tendency to simply say that he’s never done anything wrong.
“And the total idolatry that I’m seeing from some of the supporters that are unwilling to put the constitution and the country and the conservative principles above their love for a star is really troubling.
“And I think that we do need to, as Americans and as conservatives and particularly as Christians, take this very seriously and understand where are we putting our vote.”

Like I said… she won’t change a single vote. Recall Nebraska Senator Roman Hruska (R) whining how millions of mediocre people need representation too? It didn’t work in 1970 when Hruska was trying to help Nixon get G. Harrold Carswell— 6 years later arrested in a public toilet trying to perform fellatio on a police officer— confirmed to the Supreme Court... but those mediocre people are back with a vengeance now.



1 Comment


Guest
Sep 17, 2023

Nazi voters see god, not a cognitively diminished pure evil motherfucking nazi. But they'd still love him just for being a nazi.


All the rest of the voters see one cognitively diminished pure evil motherfucker nazi running against a VERY cognitively diminished lifetime racist misogynist corrupt neoliberal fascist pussy.


and they'll be convinced that this is as good as it gets.


remember when Nicholson asked that room full of pathetic neurotics that question? It was ... comedy.


That's what this shithole is. a fucking comedy. The money thanks you.

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