Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 5:02am

Trump: No Rules

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Chris Cilliza understands how difficult it can be to run against a candidate willing to say or do anything:

 

The best way to explain Trump is through pickup basketball. (Pickup hoops is the best way to explain lots and lots of things in life. I have long maintained that I can tell what kind of person someone is in their life by playing two games of pickup basketball with them.)  In any pickup game, there are usually one or two excellent players — guys who played at some level in college who know the game, know how to get their shots and just make it look easy. Those guys aren’t easy to guard — they’re athletic and good after all — but, if you play against them enough, you can develop a strategy on how best to slow them down. Crowd them. Make them drive. Deny them the ball. Make them work on defense. Whatever. There is a game plan that can be built against them, because while they are good, they are predictably good — they usually do the same good stuff in roughly the same way over and over.

Then there is the one guy who plays super unorthodox. It’s usually someone who is a good athlete but has never played organized hoops in his life. He jumps off his right foot to shoot a right-handed layup. He takes shots from all sorts of weird angles that go in. He passes when he should shoot. He shoots when he should pass. That guy, weirdly, is harder to game-plan for than the predictably excellent guy, because you have no idea what he’s going to do next. He might pull up from 30 feet and shoot. He might try some weird up-and-under layup move. And somehow it works for him in a way it wouldn’t for someone who spent 15 years playing organized basketball. He breaks rules he doesn’t even know exist, even as you are trying to defend him within those rules.

That’s Trump as a candidate. He touts his own unpredictability as an asset, and in the context of a campaign it absolutely is. The likes of Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz could never develop a consistent plan of attack against Trump because he was, day in and day out, not only doing and saying things no “normal” candidate would but also changing up what he said and how he said it constantly. Bush always seemed somewhere between bemused and alarmed at Trump during the campaign. Why? Because Bush is the classic example of a pol who wants to know the rules of the game, commit them to memory and then play as hard as he can by them to win. He has no idea what to do with a guy who laughs at the rules and is willing to do whatever it takes to win.

Go here to read the rest.  Two other factors ensure that Trump will be a formidable candidate.  First, Trump is a savage.  He will attack Clinton with the truth and he will attack her with lies.  There is nothing too low for him.  Democrats have usually had a strong advantage in the tactics of the gutter, but I don’t think anyone can out dirty politic Trump.  Second, Trump would be now a defeated primary candidate if he were not riding a huge and growing wave of voter anger at the country being misled for so long, and I see no evidence that it is near cresting yet.  Someone who has been a part of government as long as Clinton will be an easy target for this anger.

 

 

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Kennybhoy
Kennybhoy
Friday, May 6, AD 2016 12:39pm

For some reason these scenes from the TV movie version of “Harrison Bergeron” have been in my mind over the course of the primaries and someone of the same mind uploaded the relevant scenes to youtube today…

Kennybhoy
Kennybhoy
Friday, May 6, AD 2016 12:47pm

“Two other factors ensure that Trump will be a formidable candidate.”

Aye. I’m with Mark Steyn in believing that Sanders would have stood a better chance against Trump…

Kennybhoy
Kennybhoy
Friday, May 6, AD 2016 12:50pm

Correction. The youtube vid is three weeks old.

Micha Elyi
Micha Elyi
Friday, May 6, AD 2016 2:04pm

…willing to do whatever it takes to win…

That’s usually considered the mark of a dishonest politician.
Trump fits the profile.
 
Oddly, I’m hearing many people insist that Trump is not a politician and use as evidence for their claim an example of Trump doing something people say they hate politicians for doing. The first time Trump walked back one of his off-the-cuff remarks, he outed himself as the public stereotype of a politician.

Patricia
Patricia
Friday, May 6, AD 2016 9:07pm

Has there been any such discussion of the eight years of duplicity, contempt, and orders exercised by admin lately?

Philip
Philip
Saturday, May 7, AD 2016 3:47am

Rule #10 of Saul Alinski’s rules for radicals seems in play at many a Trump gathering’s.

Violence. Underdog sympathizers.

http://www.bestofbeck.com/wp/activism/saul-alinskys-12-rules-for-radicals

Trump has his rule book as well.

Don L
Saturday, May 7, AD 2016 6:04am

What are the rules in battle. Who gets to make them? Who gets to ignore them? Were there rules against firebombing civilians in Dresden, Tokyo, or A-bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Did breaking those rules cause great good, evil, or just establish the right to ignore serious rules?

The reality was that the GOPe made the rules (primaries) so they could ultimately pretend voters picked the candidate while they ultimately controlled who it would be via their control over the process, rule changes (if need be etc.)
It appears to the chagrin of a lot of elitists that someone outsmarted them by understanding people, more than the rules.
Obama isn’t the only one able to ignore rules made (or weakly enforced) by man.
How it will all end, only Providence knows.

Guy McClung
Admin
Saturday, May 7, AD 2016 7:11am

Sadly, this is how it goes now in America: you want the government, that small group of aristocrats, to do something good. You know they are evil and rotten to the core {Micheal Elyi: “dishonest politician” – baby puppies]. But you are a realist, so to get your “good” done, you believe you have to have a politician do if for you. In our world today, you don’t go out and vote for Mother Teresa to get your “good” done-you need the baddest rat bastard, or rat bitch as the case may be, because the folks who will be opposing efforts to get your “good” done will also be rodenti illegitimi themselves. You realize your amoral gutter-fighting gunslinger must be more amoral, further down in the gutter, and a better shot than the opposition’s. The Democrats Of Death figured this out a long time ago. And the Democatholics, especially the bishops, have known this for a long time – why do you think that every four years they publish a long-winded document that pastors can hold up at Mass and say “See, you can vote for a Democrat”?. So, if your are going to vote for Hillary Demon or Trump Devil, you ask yourself Who is the Baddest Bad Butt who Can Stomp The Living Excrement Out Of the other? so that “good” will be done? In America today, nothing else matters. Guy McClung, San Antonio, Texas

Don L
Saturday, May 7, AD 2016 7:55am

“Stupid?” Somehow, I expected a higher level response from this blog to my honest attempt at commentary. I shan’t offend the censorious threats again….

Foxfier
Admin
Saturday, May 7, AD 2016 10:17am

If you’re using the term in some way that has real content, then it can be replaced with the substance.
It’s a shorthand– which works fine if everyone agrees with the stuff that goes into the phrase. Since “GOPe” has mostly been used to say “shut up, your views are invalid,” anybody who is using it or the related “establishment” route (Same Stuff, Different Day) has to go to the work of actually providing the substance.
If it makes you feel any better, it’s kind of like “social justice.” Now people trying to make sure that the laws of society aren’t unjust have to find a way to say that, without seeming to make common cause with people whose entire goal is punishing people for the crimes of others. (which is unjust)

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Saturday, May 7, AD 2016 10:50am

Like Foxfier, I think it’s useful shorthand for describing the divisions between insiders and outsiders (e.g. Angelo Codevilla’s “ruling class” and “country class,” Thomas Sowell’s “Annointed” and “Benighted,” David Lebedoff’s “New Elite” and “Left Behinds” etc.) that, like the Poor, are with us always.
.
Not sure if it’s on it’s way to becoming one of Orwell’s dying metaphors yet or not.
.
The thing that’s funny to me (in the “peculiar” sense of funny) is that the thing Trump understood about people is that they don’t like rules —especially rules they don’t understand.
.
A nation of ostensibly free citizens that doesn’t like rules, while being enamored of politicians who promise to “get things done,” whether Obama with his pen and his phone, or Trump promising to use his business savvy cut through the gridlock and red tape, is a nation that isn’t going to be either free or citizens for too much longer.

Elaine Krewer
Admin
Saturday, May 7, AD 2016 10:27pm

While driving to St. Louis for a book fair this morning, I caught part of a talk radio program that included a telling conversation between the host and a caller who was a diehard Trump supporter. You can listen to it at the link below. The conversation runs from 20:53 to 27:42, followed by the host’s remarks up to the 31:41 mark:

http://www.971talk.com/media/podcasts/randy-tobler-show-podcast-hour-4-may-7th-2016

In a nutshell, the caller accused the host of being “divisive” because he (the host) does not unconditionally support Trump and insists that Trump should be called out whenever he resorts to lies, gutter-level insults, and other tactics that go against everything conservatives are supposed to stand for. Why? Well, according to the caller, Trump HAS to win at any cost because if he doesn’t and Hillary (whom the caller compared to the Roman Emperor Caligula) wins, the nation is doomed and there will “never” be another chance to set things right. After the caller got done ranting the host went on to say this:

“(The caller) got 6 minutes to lecture me about how divisive I am. I find that interesting…. You all who are angry (at those) who have questions about Donald Trump, maybe you are misdirecting your anger. Your anger should be at the American culture… (Trump) is more a comment on the degradation and erosion of our culture than it is on anything else…

“The gentleman who called and said he had voted for Ronald Reagan and John Kennedy — you would never have heard those people speak publicly about others in such an insulting way as Donald Trump has. You would never have seen the boorish behavior, the braggidociousness. The very things we crave and we want and we’re disappointed hasn’t happened in American culture, the Judeo-Christian values of integrity and self-regulation and concern for one another and humility — you see none of that in Donald Trump.”

I suspect that it’s desperation, more than anything else, which is driving the cultish support for Trump. Conservatives see the country slipping farther and farther to the left, and think Trump is their last chance to halt the slide, so they justify everything he does on the grounds that it’s necessary to win.

Also, the caller seems to have forgotten that it wasn’t Caligula, reprehensible though he was, who brought down the Roman Empire; that wouldn’t happen for another 400 years. Yes, Hillary would be a terrible president and would do a LOT of damage to the country, but does the prospect of her returning to the White House have to inspire so much panic that conservatives lose their collective minds? There will be another election in 4 years, after all.

Barbara Gordon
Barbara Gordon
Sunday, May 8, AD 2016 2:45am

Unfortunately there are no rules for anyone or anything in this once great country. The rule of law has been completely destroyed by the law makers themselves, the courts, and the bureaucracies at large. We are living in the modern equivalent of the Biblical times surrounding the book of judges (everyone does what is right in their own eyes) combined with the times of Noah (eating & drinking/marrying/hearts intent only to do evil.)

Hey! Maybe the Pope is taking his cue from the book of Judges when he is telling people to do what is right in their own eyes in re: to marriage/Eucharist. *sarcasm*

Philip
Philip
Sunday, May 8, AD 2016 5:09am

@Eliane Krewer.

Agreed. The erosion problem has been weakening the once great foundation of Our Home of the free, unabated. This isn’t to say that all is lost. We live in quick fixes and immediate attention, yet this erosion problem didn’t happen overnight and nor will the repairs. Trump Clinton Sanders or Winnie the Poo….Our Hope is in Christ! The Solid foundation that can stand any tests and withstand any torrents.

@Barbara Gordon.
Biblically the time of Judge’s! Yes indeed.
As far as sarcasm goes….well if the red shoes fit. Wait. He doesn’t do red, does he?

William P. Walsh
William P. Walsh
Sunday, May 8, AD 2016 10:27am

We have long since traded the Ten Commandments of God for the ten thousand commandments of man. This election promises to be emblematic of our ensuing decline.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Monday, May 9, AD 2016 1:04pm

I suspect that it’s desperation, more than anything else, which is driving the cultish support for Trump. Conservatives see the country slipping farther and farther to the left, and think Trump is their last chance to halt the slide, so they justify everything he does on the grounds that it’s necessary to win.

Fear —at what Obama has done to the country and what his likely Democratic successor might do; and Anger —at the GOP for not doing enough to try to put a stop to it.
.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but personally? I’ve made all my best decisions when I was was angry and afraid!

CAM
CAM
Monday, May 9, AD 2016 1:42pm

“Fear —at what Obama has done to the country and what his likely Democratic successor might do; and Anger —at the GOP for not doing enough to try to put a stop to it.”
Added to that “It’s the economy, Stupid.” although I cannot remember who said it.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Monday, May 9, AD 2016 3:29pm

James Carville (sp?)

Let me tell you, if the Obama economy was as bad as the Bush one was, Hillary would be a shoo-on.

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