I think John Barron should team up with Ron Vara to take another shot at empasizing that the tariffs are paid by the countries on which they are imposed and not by American consumers.
Great piece; nice writing and interesting. I'm often trying to get people to see how they're manipulated and to stop reacting to the Latest Outrage of the Day, Trump derived or otherwise, and that he's orchestrating this purposely for reactions. I'll accept 7-dimensional, but I'm not sold yet on the muscle memory hypothesis. He could benefit from a squelch dial and knowing when too much of a good thing (for his ends) is too much. I think he's easily sixth dimension, but too sloppy. Yet, pity the fools who think they can beat him at his own game (loosely, the Resistance and state AGs, not FIRE which isn't in this class.)
The MSNBC piece is great, I thought SNL was dead beyond any chance of being funny or mildly self aware.
When you're the POTUS people kind of feel the need to respond to the things you say, no matter who's in office. When the POTUS is DJT everyone interested in politics has become coiled like a spring waiting to jump at the latest thing, even when it's trivial. This creates a very strong illusion that he's orchestrating all these reactions. But he doesn't have to, chaos is his home turf & he has a huge comms apparatus around him. They can react to the reactions for him, spinning it in whatever way works best. He can play to his strength, lighting fires, and let Rubio, Bessent and whoever sort them out.
What Trump is doing is his version of Obama's Stray Voltage. Every time Obama wanted a distraction someone would mention the "Birth Certificate" or was he born in Kenya or the many versions of his life in his multiple biographies. And it worked! Trump is doing the same thing with renaming The Gulf of Mexico, or this or that. Sometimes (See Greenland) it plays out. A magician waves the wand in his right hand and has the pretty assistant walk across the stage to distract you from what he is doing with his left hand. Same difference so to speak. What Trump should have done ( in my opinion) as far as the media is to point out what Biden\Obama did with banning or ignoring certain networks (not to mention locking reporters in a close) and make a statement that HE wasn't going to do that! Missed opportunity there. Trump's main problem is he lacks a tape delay between his brain and his mouth. His remarks or Reiner's murder show that. He also tends to take the cheap shot and has a limited vocabulary of insults. "Failing" seems to be his go to word. Someone should gift him with a Thesaurus.
My guess is it will all hinge on Iran and I think he really doesn't know what he's doing there. No plan to really win and more importantly no plan what to do if he does. Some are comparing it to a modern day siege. You siege cities (Troy is a good example . Not countries.
What's the point of the media ban? Was it actually to kick the press out of the WH?
I find that hard to believe. Trump loves being talked about. He is the embodiment of the Wilde quote that the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. In addition, if Trump's media strategy is to be omnipresent, how is that going to work if the media isn't there to report on his every provocation?
If Trump's goal is simply to keep his name in the spotlight, when difference does it make if he loses the case? In fact I have to wonder if he believed the ban had a snowball's chance at surviving in the first place. If the goal is just to create another outrage with the understanding that it has zero chance of surviving legal challenge, why not tweet about it? You're going to lose in court anyway, and if the real goal is exposure then the more angry posts the better.
The real question with regards to Trump's competence is the same one that applies to any leader: you're not just talking about Trump, you're also talking about the people that work for him. The canonical example is perhaps the 2016 election. Now we take for granted that Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, etc. are swing states. But ten years ago nobody thought that the blue wall would crack--except for Trump's campaign team.
That's not mere "competence". Competence is just executing on the conventional wisdom. Seeing the opportunity and overturning that conventional wisdom is something that is far more formidable.
I think John Barron should team up with Ron Vara to take another shot at empasizing that the tariffs are paid by the countries on which they are imposed and not by American consumers.
Great piece; nice writing and interesting. I'm often trying to get people to see how they're manipulated and to stop reacting to the Latest Outrage of the Day, Trump derived or otherwise, and that he's orchestrating this purposely for reactions. I'll accept 7-dimensional, but I'm not sold yet on the muscle memory hypothesis. He could benefit from a squelch dial and knowing when too much of a good thing (for his ends) is too much. I think he's easily sixth dimension, but too sloppy. Yet, pity the fools who think they can beat him at his own game (loosely, the Resistance and state AGs, not FIRE which isn't in this class.)
The MSNBC piece is great, I thought SNL was dead beyond any chance of being funny or mildly self aware.
When you're the POTUS people kind of feel the need to respond to the things you say, no matter who's in office. When the POTUS is DJT everyone interested in politics has become coiled like a spring waiting to jump at the latest thing, even when it's trivial. This creates a very strong illusion that he's orchestrating all these reactions. But he doesn't have to, chaos is his home turf & he has a huge comms apparatus around him. They can react to the reactions for him, spinning it in whatever way works best. He can play to his strength, lighting fires, and let Rubio, Bessent and whoever sort them out.
What Trump is doing is his version of Obama's Stray Voltage. Every time Obama wanted a distraction someone would mention the "Birth Certificate" or was he born in Kenya or the many versions of his life in his multiple biographies. And it worked! Trump is doing the same thing with renaming The Gulf of Mexico, or this or that. Sometimes (See Greenland) it plays out. A magician waves the wand in his right hand and has the pretty assistant walk across the stage to distract you from what he is doing with his left hand. Same difference so to speak. What Trump should have done ( in my opinion) as far as the media is to point out what Biden\Obama did with banning or ignoring certain networks (not to mention locking reporters in a close) and make a statement that HE wasn't going to do that! Missed opportunity there. Trump's main problem is he lacks a tape delay between his brain and his mouth. His remarks or Reiner's murder show that. He also tends to take the cheap shot and has a limited vocabulary of insults. "Failing" seems to be his go to word. Someone should gift him with a Thesaurus.
My guess is it will all hinge on Iran and I think he really doesn't know what he's doing there. No plan to really win and more importantly no plan what to do if he does. Some are comparing it to a modern day siege. You siege cities (Troy is a good example . Not countries.
What's the point of the media ban? Was it actually to kick the press out of the WH?
I find that hard to believe. Trump loves being talked about. He is the embodiment of the Wilde quote that the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. In addition, if Trump's media strategy is to be omnipresent, how is that going to work if the media isn't there to report on his every provocation?
If Trump's goal is simply to keep his name in the spotlight, when difference does it make if he loses the case? In fact I have to wonder if he believed the ban had a snowball's chance at surviving in the first place. If the goal is just to create another outrage with the understanding that it has zero chance of surviving legal challenge, why not tweet about it? You're going to lose in court anyway, and if the real goal is exposure then the more angry posts the better.
The real question with regards to Trump's competence is the same one that applies to any leader: you're not just talking about Trump, you're also talking about the people that work for him. The canonical example is perhaps the 2016 election. Now we take for granted that Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, etc. are swing states. But ten years ago nobody thought that the blue wall would crack--except for Trump's campaign team.
That's not mere "competence". Competence is just executing on the conventional wisdom. Seeing the opportunity and overturning that conventional wisdom is something that is far more formidable.