Echoing the candidate, Trump’s ally Roger Stone claimed that Huma Abedin, the vice-chair of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, could be a “Saudi spy” or “terrorist agent.”
.. This talk is something of a relic of the New York of the nineteen-eighties, from which Trump himself emerged, suffused with ethnic competition and fear. It was Trump’s sensibility as a real-estate executive of that era, whose managers marked “C” for colored on rental applications.
.. But, as is almost always the case, the more we learned about the shooter’s life, the less to the point this sounded.
.. Mateen’s father has denied that his son was gay, and said, in apologizing for the attack, that “God himself will punish those involved in homosexuality.”
.. His views were visible not just to his co-religionists but also to his co-workers. He was part of our society.
.. His ethnic essentialism, the dwelling on dual loyalties, has become not just a point of offense but an electoral problem.
.. fifty-five per cent of likely voters polled swore that they would “never” vote for the casino mogul.
Trump is running as Trump. Surprise!
The other major example of doing what’s always worked is the ad hominem attack on big-dog opponents. It worked in the primaries. Trump went after one leading challenger after another, knocking them out sequentially.
.. More riskily, Trump is now going toe-to-toe with a sitting president.
.. Barack Obama is no Jeb Bush. He’s not low energy. He’s a skilled campaigner who clearly despises Trump and relishes the fight.
.. His dabbling in conspiracy, from Ted Cruz’s father’s supposed involvement in the Kennedy assassination to Vince Foster’s (“very fishy”) suicide. All of which suggests, and cements, the image of a man who shoots from the hip and is prone to both wild theories and extreme policies.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Conspiracies (Web Exclusive)
John Oliver wakes up the sheeple who have had the wool pulled over their eyes by the lamestream media. The connection between the illuminati and cadberry eggs
Trump Tries to Take It Back
See, he’s going to act presidential, as promised, but that doesn’t include the temperament and judgment part of the act. It’s beyond his range. Imagine Trump with the daily briefing in the White House, trying to discern a tabloid rumor from a national security threat.
.. An easy take-back was breaking the promise to self-finance his campaign. He claims to be a billionaire, beholden to no one. Let the beholding begin. “Do I want to sell a couple of buildings and self-fund?” he said this week, by way of announcing he’s open to donations from special interests. “I don’t know that I want to do that personally.”
.. Mexican immigrants — presumably still rapists and criminals in his mind, without doubt, but unlike the convicted rapist and registered sex offender Mike Tyson, not sold on Trump.
.. “The blacks,” or as Trump now calls them, “the African-Americans,” will be a hard sell as well. They will not forget that Trump spent considerable time trying to delegitimize the first African-American presidency. He sent his investigators to Hawaii, looking to prove that the president was not an American citizen. What they found was “absolutely unbelievable,” Trump said, but he’s never released it. Here you should read “unbelievable” in the literal sense.
.. Women — big, big problem there for a thrice-married man who said his personal Vietnam was keeping himself safe from the “scary world” of women with sexually transmitted diseases. Can’t take back “fat pigs” and “dogs” and “disgusting animals,” or musing about punishing women who get abortions.