Unfit!!!. How many ways do we have to witness dishonesty, disloyalty, ignorance, stupidity, incivility, treason and bribery on display before we do something about it. Wake Up America!
39
Great photo of empty stands behind him.
31
"As sure as you’re standing here. Is anybody sitting? Nobody ever sits. You can sit if you want. No, just stand. You know what they say in the fake news? Look, you’ve been standing. Nobody sat? I don’t know, isn’t that exciting?”
On paper, this looks like gibberish. However, if you imagine him looking down on a crowd, this is not only coherent, but skillful. He is playing off the crowd, and creating a sense of community with them. He is a terrible human being, and the worst president we have ever had. But he is very good at working crowds.
8
None of Trump's policies have succeeded...Mexico never paid,NK never Denuclearized.the China Trade War was a flop. The Deficit has skyrocketed our Allies are estranged from us and our standing in the world has suffered! Everything he says is some distorted Alternative Fact or Fake News...his Administration has an over 80% turnover rate. Trump has failed to Rally alright...and it's way beyond time for him to go !! Worst President with the Most Chaotic and Dysfunctional Administration in American History!
27
I am personally aghast at the mere suggestion, much less the *news that modern Republicans remain cowed and terrified over the potential of "two Second Graders In a Sandbox" levels of NAME CALLING here in "The Land Of The Free and the Home of the Brave !"
These twinkies are afraid of *name calling ? What ever happened to "Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words will never *hurt me;" ?
The very IDEA that the majority of a group of 100 United States Senators are TERRIFIED of a mentally-challenged POTUS who tweets insults like one of the "Mean Girls" at the Middle School Lunch Table tells me that we don't even have *grownups in the Senate !
The "surgically plotted" dumbing-down of America, begun in 1980, has *beautifully paid off ! When Grown Adults are *frozen in fear, and unable to *perform the sworn function of THEIR office in terror of some grade-school level *name calling, it's time to turn off the lights on Capitol Hill, and let them all take a few days in their "Safe Space" bunkers.
Our economy, based as it is on military weapons sales, is soon to collapse as soon as our enemies the world over realize that mere *name calling is all that is required to make Americans run home and hide under their beds in abject sniveling horror !
19
Ms. Collins's articles have become as monotonous as the jokes of late night comedians, always trying to score points for the Dem. Party and whose routines seem like they have been approved in advance by those with a liberal agenda.Do u mean there is nothing funny in a relic like HRC going out and seeking another chance to run against Trump, when she has failed twice , and who has at times trouble assuming the vertical?Her daughter now thinks twice about even venturing to go to NYU to give a speech for fear she will be shouted down again.There must be some way to spend all that free time they have on their hands, like volunteering at the local animal shelter, joining the Peace Corps.
2
Nicely done.
3
Palin was a word Salad, Trumps a full Salad Bar.
Seriously.
25
The only thing Abraham Lincoln and Donald Trump have in common is that they are both pretty tall. Any similarity ends there.
15
'Honest, this has never happened before . . ." -C
1
If the candidate wins, he is responsible. If the candidate loses, he was the worst candidate ever to run and he, Trump, was responsible for closing a huge gap, never mind that the gap didn't exist. What a sorry, pathetic man!
28
Trump is insane, but Gail gives us permission to laugh at the insanity and not feel bad about it and not hang ourselves. Thanks, Gail!
22
For a long time after the election, Republicans and Democrats alike kept hoping that the Trump would "grow into" the presidency, and begin to take it seriously.
Exactly the opposite has happened. The Trump has obviously become addicted to power and abuses it more and more each day. Each day that he gets away with doing so just encourages further excesses.
All the while, the Trump is becoming more and more incoherent, more and more abusive and more and more paranoid about the loyalty of his underlings.
This is a clear recipe for disaster, and the situation is guaranteed to worsen as the impeachment proceeds.
26
Trump will destroy the Republican Party in its current state. That is good. DC gridlock is the result of the lack of Democrats and Republicans to work together.
The Dems are still the same bunch of somewhat uncoordinated moderate to liberal/progressive viewpoints that they were decades ago. Some are fairly conservative, many moderate, and few are way out there to the left. But that is no different than years and decades ago.
The Republicans have gradually been taken over by extremists. Well schooled in primary contests, they know that extreme conservatives will come out for primaries and so they pander to those voters. (You never see an ad from a Republican touting how moderate they are.) Eventually, after a few decades of this strategy, Republican candidates are nearly all extremists, who head to Washington with a promise to not compromise on issues, lest they are ousted during the next election cycle by extremists who point to their compromising voting record. What else can explain Rand Paul or Devin Nunes? DC is where compromise is critically necessary, and these guys think that is a weakness.
Trump is the culmination of this nonsense. Republican's and Democrats rely on swing votes. But swing voters across the country will swing away from Trump. If Republicans demonstrate blind allegiance (out of fear or stupidity) to him, by ignoring impeachment issues and seeking his help on the campaign trail, swing voters will move away from them as well.
19
It's hard to be amused these days, even by Gail, who often makes me laugh out loud.
This line got my attention: "If you run into any problems this week that send you into a funk, just remind yourself that Donald Trump is feeling worse. I guarantee it will perk you up." This week I've been listening (on the site Sounds True) to some experts talk very deeply and specifically about working with narcissism. trump has exhibited every behavior of pathological narcissism, and there's nothing funny about it. He has no way to self-regulate - he can only lash out and become aggressive, and this is 100% typical behavior of narcissists.
It's actually immensely frightening when trump is feeling worse - we should not delight in schadenfreude over it. This is the guy with the nuclear codes, and the worse a day is for him, the more we see him acting out.
12
It feels like the electorate is waking up and smelling that delicious coffee, made from those K cup pods kept in view behind Trump's desk. Have you seen them in some shots of office meetings? All those flavors? Something for a diverse population imported from the best countries and bound to make your day great again. Drink up Donald, you'll need the caffeine when you are called to explain about not paying any taxes.
4
It's unwise to underestimate the effectiveness of Trump, and his and the GOP's marketing, as it would be to over analyze Beshear's victory. Bevin was an extremely unpopular governor, with poor approval ratings, in a state rife with poverty, and Beshear is a centrist bordering on Republican lite, ala Joe Manchin of WV. Despite Bevin's abysmal approval ratings, he still nearly won, which to me says the vast swath's of the voting population still couldn't bring themselves to vote Democrat, and sucked it up to vote Republican again, even though they hated the guy.
10
Huge thank you for never using the word “president” in the same sentence as trump; or even in the same article (except in a quote). This should be a hard and fast rule for any journalist. He stole an election with Russia’s nefarious meddling but still couldn’t manage the popular vote. Brava!
15
He said the vote would be a moritorium on him, and is the job he is doing, and whether he should be reelected. He lost. He's a loser. He lost the popular vote to Hillary. trump's always been a loser propped up by his dad's loot and a nasty stable of crooked lawyers, like Gulliani. Another crooks.
13
"You will lose your Second Amendment as soon — I’m telling you. As sure as you’re standing here. Is anybody sitting? Nobody ever sits. You can sit if you want. No, just stand. You know what they say in the fake news? Look, you’ve been standing. Nobody sat? I don’t know, isn’t that exciting?”
This is the president of the greatest country on Earth speaking? The leader of the free world and a global superpower?
His mental meanderings are nigh-to incomprehensible.
Dear God. What I'd give to hear eloquent speech from the mouth of the former president.
31
I will vote for him again.
Please explain why.
15
My, how the lowly have fallen.
10
I hope and pray its just one more year!
4
“ ... how his mind works.”
I dare say that based on his inability to communicate a coherent thought trump doesn’t have a mind at all.
10
If you buy something and regret it, you can usually send it back. Does the same apply to 3rd-generation immigrants?
7
It would be easier for the Russians to elect a potato than Trump in America.
But a potato is ineligible.
Since Trump is corrupt and pliable as any person on Earth, they try their old Soviet Style techniques to push what they have.
Trump cannot win the popular vote, with his popularity dropped since the last election. Voters who were conned in 2016 won't fall for his lies again.
The only way he can win is by analyzing the same Republican polling data for the Electoral College with Russian statecraft, and using the stolen psychographic profiles from social media and machine learning/neural network techniques to target the requisite voters in purple states to win with a certain level of statistical confidence.
The difference in 2020 is that Democrats can do the exact same thing, but far more easily than can Trump and the Russians.
The Democratic candidate will win the popular vote.
What Democrats and the private sector need to do is use Democratic private polling data, psychographic profiles from unstructured social media data derived from artificial intelligence techniques to target the requisite voters in red and purple states to ensure the Electoral College vote is won with a high level of confidence along with the popular vote.
Statistical techniques for evaluating voting irregularities and paper ballots where they exist will serve as confirmation. There are other techniques.
We can protect our elections, even before the Electoral College is changed.
6
Why would anyone be surprised by now at Trump being Trump? Since he claims to be a genius, but knows very little, he naturally assumes that others don't know what he knows. It's all part of a strong defense mechanism that doesn't allow him to see reality.
Voters in Kentucky and Virginia made the right choice. Passing reasonable gun laws is not taking away the 2nd Amendment. In fact, they may make it stronger as guns don't fall into the wrong hands as often. Now on to the rest of the country. Be smarter than Trump gives you credit for!
16
One lesson from all this is that when Republican policy goals actually get enacted, most people really don't like it, either because it hurts them or because it doesn't work, or both. Most Americans are relatively moderate on gun control, abortion and a host of other issues.
In other words, Republicans just do not usually govern competently, and once that starts affecting people's lives they begin to wake up.
13
Impeachment is sucking all the air out of Medicare for All, Student Debt, Endless war, fight for a livable wage, etc. When is the last time you heard a Democrat mention any one of those things, besides Sanders & Warren? It's all about impeachment! Was it all designed to change the conversation so Democrats can avoid the real issues that are important to the people? Does the impeachment "crises" take negotiations off the table with North Korea? Or Iran? I am going out on a limb here, but I think most people don't care about impeachment because they know, as Daniel Ellsberg said- "That's what presidents do". They know Joe Biden is as corrupt as Trump and this whole thing just exposes the dysfunctional nature of the US government which is mired in a swamp of corruption. So out of frustration, and knowing the system is a failure, most Americans are much more concerned with the things they don't have, but should have. By design, those things are now off the table.
3
Just renewed my subscriptions to N.Y.Times and you are the reasonI did
20
It should be obvious to all by now: Trump is dumb as a turnip. A year from now we will be rid of this nettlesome dolt and free of the consequences of this idiot occupying the most important elected position in the world.
22
Saw a great bumper sticker today at the Grocery:
["Any Functioning Adult"]
["******2020******"]
26
The longer I read these NYT boards, the more intrigued I am that there are so very, very few conservatives who step up here in defense of Trump and his ethos.
Maybe they're illiterate like him. Maybe they can't be bothered — figuring it's a lost cause in this forum. Maybe they're suffering from dementia, too, like him. Maybe they're too busy playing the markets.
But I regard it as damning that Trump supporters are nowhere to be seen hereabouts.
16
@cruciform
There are roughly half-a-dozen supporters who just can't resist spewing their Fox talking points.
Some of them obviously put great time and thought into their posts. They clearly have brains.
So what happened? How can an otherwise intelligent appearing person possibly support or defend Trump?
I just shake my head.
8
There are about two dozen of them who routinely humiliate themselves defending his every depraved decision or bigoted statement, changing the subject to Hillary, whining that anyone criticizes him etc. What’s sad is they waste so much time haplessly peddling for their hero day in and day out, when Trump himself wouldn’t touch any of them with a 10-foot pole.
10
Doofus. Our president is a doofus.
24
Ms. Collins, Enjoyed your trouncing of Trump until your last sentence.....
“A Yearto Go” - the Horror !
8
Here is the donald coming after Colonel Vindman, an immigrant who showed up to fight for his country. I hope the good Colonel gets a chance to punch his lights out some day. trump is a draft dodger, a bully, a predator, a moron, a rapist and a six-time failed businessman (if you can call him that, he is really the result of his father's foolish largesse) and ultimately a criminal. And that's just the positive things one can say about him. And he is his own worst fear.....a loser destined for the garbage can of history where he WON'T be encountering Abe and George. Bye Bye donald!
23
I'm sure Hitler's rallies were also inspiring. I don't care about Trump's rallies. I care about his lying, obstruction of justice and many, many impeachable offenses. He is despicable.
29
Does he really think he is greater than Washington and Lincoln? Then he is also the stupidest president we have ever had.
23
King Donald of Trump
An Ode to a Phony and His Collaborators
By Salvius Julianus
Hear ye, hear ye:
King Donald of Trump commands your attention
All praise the Fearless Leader
King Donald struts with pride
Chin held high to take his bows
His Court of Collaborators offers praise for his glory
First in line, Pence the Sycophant
Lips pursed to kiss the King's ring
Yes men smiling around them
Flattering flunkies
Chaos and incompetence let loose
The King and His Court
Heroes one and all
Phonies to the core
Making America Second Rate
King Donald of Trump:
Archduke of arrogance
Aristocrat of abuse (children above all)
Baron of bragging
Bishop of bankruptcies
Boss of banality
Captain of cruelty
Commander of cronies
Count of crooks
Dean of demagogues
Duke of deceit
Earl of egotists
Emperor of evasion
Groper-in-chief
Guide to the gullible
High holiness of hypocrisy
Knight of knuckle-heads
Lord of lies
Majestic madman
Magnate of malarkey
Mogul of madness
Monarch of molestation
Nabob of nepotism
Noble narcissist
Officer of oligarchs
Oracle of the orange combover
Patrician of the powerful
Potentate of pomposity
Prince of plutocrats
Regent of racism
Redeemer of Russia
Ruler of righteousness
Sovereign of the swamp
Sultan of slime
Tycoon tyrant
Viceroy of vanity
Chorus:
The time to act is now
Fooled once, but not again
Impeachment is too good for King Donald
And his Court
The King and his Collaborators belong in jail
16
Awesome Gail :)
8
Your cheeky columns are the reason Trump will win 2020
1
Mixilplix -- I'm laughing so hard that I'm BLUE in the face.
7
So the ignorant white boy who wanted to be little Trump received the back hand of white people. My. my. Its about time little Trump realized that in the real world there are no dictators except in Russia and that the American
draft dodger is a king only in his own mind
.
The governor deserved to be kicked out of office. He can get a job on Fox News where he belongs, wonder what his school grades looked like. He probably is a stable genius like his super president hero .
6
Will the NYT ever publish an editorial or even a news article that is positive about Donald Trump? I wish someone would do the research on the record for number of negative ones for every president. My strong hunch is that Mr. Trump already has the NYT record for one term. . .perhaps set with still one year to go!
Seriously. . .How do you expect anyone but the NYT minions to believe there is no bias at your newspaper. . .when its all negative? That's why so many Americans trust Mr. Trump far more than the main stream media. The last poll regarding the latter I read about indicated. . .wait for this. . .11%!
Will my comment be published? I wonder.
What has he done that is positive. I can’t think of one thing.
15
You know this is the opinion section, yes? Last I checked, there’s no journalistic ethical imperative to maintain balance in editorials. In any case, there’s been plenty of neutral coverage over in the news sections.
5
I can.
Tens of millions of Americans will (hopefully), ensure he does not win a second term.
6
Gail Collins is the only thing keeping me sane between now and next November. The rest of it is just so, so depressing.
8
If you remember the campaign, there were nuns that came out to protest Trump. Now, how bad do you have to be to irritate a nun? Pretty bad.
18
It would be really great if Americans understood this on multiple levels: Trump’s next bankruptcy will be you, the U.S. taxpayer.
20
In the end what matters most is who actually goes to the polls and votes. There have been many elections where a handful of votes decided the winner. The consequences can be harmful or helpful for many years to come. I hope that the Democrats have an historic turnout in 2020. There is nothing more important to the future of our democracy.
661
@Gina
"Remember, we’ve still got a year to go."
Yes, but my fear is that Trump is trumps Democratic values.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am afraid Democrats lack a dramatic focus on the future.
I suggest they push for a new DEMOCRACY wave for 2020.
I hope Democrats try the DEMOCRACY song of L. Cohen.
"Democracy is coming to the USA"
------------------------------------------
I hope Times mentions the DEMOCRACY song.
"Democracy is coming to the USA"
2
Trump is a stream-of-consciousness president. He says things that are just plain stupid. He says things that are lies. He say things that he knows nothing about.
He reminds me of those old movie clips of Mussolini standing on the balcony, that goofy hat on his head, mugging for the camera and the adoring fascists below.
And, as with the old dictator, Trump will come to an inglorious end, and soon, with any luck.
There will always come a time when people just turn away and say "Basta!"
13
the last bit sounded like he was having a stroke.
10
I have to keep reminding myself that over 60 million Americans thought this creature should be president. Boggles the mind.
20
Thanks for some direct quotes of Trump’s verbal diarrhea. I find it hard to understand why those who attend Trump’s campaign meetings with such seeming adulation, care bear being smeared with all that rubbish. Is it like a sugar high?...a sort of ‘Trump crowd high’, and it really doesn’t matter what the content is. I guess they are those that ‘can be fooled all the time’.
12
Is a rally policy?
3
@Ken
More to the point; are the tax payers picking up the tab for it?
10
"You can sit if you want. No, just stand. You know what they say in the fake news? Look, you’ve been standing. Nobody sat? I don’t know, isn’t that exciting?”
If you can tell me what that means...and you support and/or voted for Donald Trump...I will vote for him too (just to spite myself).
9
I watched an entire Trump rally in Mississippi last week on FOX. Unlike the writer of this column, I did not find anything redeeming or enlightening in his speech. He is a good showman, though.
5
The harder they come the harder they fall
1
Love the column, but Ms. Collins, the school closure story doesn't really work. Here in the north a wind chill of 20 below zero is what we call "April".
4
Yes, Not Trump fault. Funny today he was ordered to pay $2 million out of his own pocket for that fake charity he operated which was a money machine for him and his kids. Lets see there was no board meeting for over 20 years and the fellow listed as treasurer said that was news to him. Add in the fake university which he had to pay out, for a failed airline, a failed football team, steaks, mattresses and oh, yes casinos and what genius ever loses money on casinos. More but don't have the space. He is a con man and by the way how are the coal mines doing. Oh, right on his watch 8 major coal mine companies went bankrupt and of course though one does not hear him talk about the miners and their pensions must be their fault. How, about all those manufacturing jobs returning, gee must be why Cummings engine announced big layoffs. Yes, sit there in those towns and wait for them to come back it will be like Waiting for Godot. As the wonderful trade agreement with China still working on it, but one of the items the Chinese said was the rollback of tariffs which will benefit them. It will be fitting when he leaves the White House the Southern District of New York will have a cell for him where Epstein was and where the former district attorney Ruddi Guilleni will be his bunkmate. Payback is coming and has started. His followers like some of this site said he is so wonderful would be like Jim Jones followers who drank the Kool-Aid. Look it up. Jim Trautman
19
Trump is having a sped up trajectory that has followed him wherever he goes; how amusing or what a great opportunity dissolves into, does this incompetent, venal, mendacious, con artist ever stop talking about himself?
No one wanted to listen to those who knew him best, the residents of Manhattan, the greater metro and even tri state area, who long ago recognized this man for what he is, a glutton for attention who also happens to be a serious menace to civil society and in too many cases, personal bank accounts. There's a reason that he hasn't been able to get financing from major US banks since the 80's and now he's busy emptying the Treasury with his self indulgence and noxious policies.
Yes, while the idea of Trump is still popular, the man is clearly in decline, increasingly incoherent and trapped by his constant lies, so many in this instance that the factchecker couldn't keep up. In the past, when he's created huge messes, he's simply moved on to a new group of marks expanding his range globally. It's hard to imagine where he can possibly go from here except down, down and down.
20
The Kentucky governor's race and Virginia legislature are only foreshadowings of the end for "King Donald Trump, the Idiot" and the GOP in 2020!
9
Nope, can't give a try more than I have and no rally in which Trump utters his banalities and border wall nonsense, is one too many for me. I did not vote for him, but his tax cut for the .1%, with Democratic help, the climate change departure along with the Iranian split, the constant coarseness as in this article spell only one word: out! Out out damned spot!
6
Um, no democrats voted for his tax bill. None.
5
Trump's discourse on sitting reminded me of Neddie Seagoon (he of the British radio comedy The Goon Show—think Monty Python on the radio).
Eccles: Oh, oh oh!
Seagoon: What have you done?
Eccles: I've...I've broken my leg.
Seagoon: How did you do that?
Eccles: I just got a hammer and went WHACK!
Seagoon: Splendid man Eccles. Keep up the good work. Here's a razorblade, have fun.
Bloodnok: Neddie! Neddie! We must repair the plane's talking radio. It's our only chance of contact with the outside world.
Seagoon: Don't worry. I've got a man working on it now. We'll just have to sit and wait. And so dear listener, we sat and waited. Sometimes we stood and waited, which is like sitting down only higher. Ha-hum. Three weeks went by and then...
Eccles: Mr. Seagoon! The radio set...the radio set...
Seagoon: Yes, yes, yes?!
Eccles: It still ain't working.
Given the absolute absurdity of the show, it is somehow fitting that Trump has taken us there.
8
@TvdV
How can this be the case?
LOL- never mind. warren is so out of touch and so far to the left, so reckless with her complete overhaul of our economy, pretending she can spend trillions on health care, green new deal, free college etc etc etc with no(!) burden to the middle class--i mean, c'mon. people arent THAT stupid. trump is gonna cream her.
even if she wins- warren is gonna destroy the economy so badly, there will be a tidal wave of GOP in 2, then 4 years, just like when obama over-reached.
Trump has limits to his rallying and that is good for the democracy. Trump is not God and he cannot rally rotten candidates and that is not failure that is checks and balances by the people. By the way Mike Pence has filed Trump's papers for the NH primary with a lot of fanfare just today so all the media. the fanatic Dems and the news outlets have 4 more years to bash Trump in vain.
https://www.youtube.co/watch?v=ZxNmUoVIo-g
1
That’s not what checks and balances mean, but it’s not surprising that a Trump supporter would fail to understand checks and balances.
14
@Louise Cavanaugh
Pure and unfilterated Checks and balances from my point of view are best executed democratically by we the people and not by our partisan representatives.
2
i think the media should pan the audiance as part f their covering his highly choreographed Bund Rallies.
6
Instead of touting a coherent bright vision future for our country, Donald J. Trump just delivers the same old boring campaign speeches filled with me, me, me, bragging rights, lies, and adolescents insults, that are not funny and nobody buys anymore except from his shrinking gullible red state base supporters. You definitely have to like those “read the transcript” t-shirts worm by his minions behind him. I would be careful what one wishes for as the recently released inquiry impeachment transcripts have thus far produced damning evidence against the president.
The 2018 BlueWave consists of countless patriotic Republicans and Independents along with Democrats from all walks of American life, who were sick and tired of Donald J.Trumps dysfunctional administration after only two years. 2020 is going to be another drubbing for “The Donald” Get use to it.
Good Riddance!
9
Did we quit when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Maybe not, but any and everything connected with the Trump Administration makes Brother Bluto and the rest of the Animal House crew look tame. The only thing missing from the DJT White House is a - you guessed it - "Toga, toga, toga, party."
5
The cards collapse...
7
You don't have another year........It's already over, just ask the whistle-blowers attorney!!!
2
Trump has no depth. DJT can go low, lower , and even more low. Now , however we have to figure out how to save our Constitution or country. If ,we want to. King George the third might not have been wrong, we are a bunch of idiots , and fools. We cannot control ourselves, we have no discipline, no clear idea, we hate each other. We are a mess. I don't think we will go with Brexit, But right now , we are looking like rag-tag teenagers who just rebel against everything.
4
Is that penultimate paragraph an actual quote? He's gone full Sarah Palin on us.
8
I dunno, that sounded like pretty typical Trump word salad to me. Palin wasn’t a great speaker and frequently displayed a lack of intelligence, but Trump has earned the right to be labeled as original.
7
@Rob Wolfson
I remember during the 2016 campaign when Palin was doing this weird rhyming-rapping kind of speech with Trump standing next to her (she was wearing that beaded top that sold out the next day or some such nonsense) and he had this look on his face like, ooookaaaay, got a crazy one here. And I thought, hmmm, he doesn’t realize he sounds crazy too. The difference between the two is the level of narcissism Trump exhibits when he’s doing his act. She has a normal energy to her speaking that if you weren’t listening to her words would you’d thing she was really saying something, but he has that smug, droning, self-satisfied, affected, mocking kind of tone that makes him especially hard to listen to. It makes the hairs on my neck stand up. I just don’t get why some people like to listen to that.
4
After insulting teachers for his four years, Bevin got educated yesterday. They delivered the blow that brought him down.
14
I keep signing up and reserving those precious Trump rally tickets, but dang, haven’t been to one yet! Maybe I’ll go hear him grouse at some high school’s cafetorium after he’s impeached and removed from office.
8
"Who's greater than George Washington?" We all are, but only on our birthdays which is a darned shame because ond day per year is never enough to gain the necessary traction to launch an entirely new country from scratch.
Even if there were anough time, the fake news media and the do-nothing Democrats would obstruct nation-building in its cradle. Micronesia, we need your help to investigate President Trump and his endlessly corrupt family!
1
The carnival needs to move on. The freak shows need to stop.
7
Yet again NYT tries to “fact-check” Trump, but - again - why bother? Who really cares what Trump’s thoughts on Abraham Lincoln are, anyway? It’s a mug’s game, this “fact-checking”, as Trump’s factitious tweets run far, far ahead of people’s efforts to “correct the record”, and so what is shown to be fabricated nonsense a day or a week ago, he’s already thrown dozens of other spurious tweets or off-the-cuff comments since then, and the cycle begins anew. It’s his territorial markings, and just concede him this ground...move on to substantive matters already.
1
Trump and the Republicans saved the Democrats.
If Hillary had won election, the right would have maintained control of the states they had won in 2010 during the last census.
Now the 2020 census will allow Virginia, for example, to redistrict in such a way that the Democrats will control their Congressional seats for ten years. This Blue wave will be cemented across the country in 2020.
If Hillary had won, the Supreme Court would lean left by one vote, but the Congress would be in Republican hands for ten more years.
1
“You think I’m kidding?"
Are you serious?
"You will lose your Second Amendment as soon -"
as soon you finish this sentence?
"I’m telling you." What?
"As sure as you’re standing here."
We sure are. What were you gonna tell us?
"Is anybody sitting?"
Yeah. A bunch of people are.
"Nobody ever sits."
Yes, we do.
"You can sit if you want."
Thanks. Are you sure, Mr. President?
"No, just stand."
Okay.
"You know what they say in the fake news?"
No, sir. What do they say?
"Look, you’ve been standing. Nobody sat?"
Well, we did, but you told us to get back up.
"I don’t know, isn’t that exciting?”
I don't know. Isn't what exciting,
Mr. President?
Did he skip preschool and go straight to ... nevermind. I hear it's illegal to discuss Prez's educational background. Probably for the best...
12
“By the way, you’re going to lose your Second Amendment if you vote with Democrats,” the president told that Lexington rally. “You think I’m kidding? … You will lose your Second Amendment as soon — I’m telling you. As sure as you’re standing here. Is anybody sitting? Nobody ever sits. You can sit if you want. No, just stand. You know what they say in the fake news? Look, you’ve been standing. Nobody sat? I don’t know, isn’t that exciting?”
If this doesnt' just SCREAM 25th Amendment, I don't know what does.
13
Ever notice that Trump paces the stage and claps at his "daddy needs love"rallies? Is he waiting for someone to throw him a fish?
13
With apologies to The Bard:
[TRUMP'S] ...… but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
10
Gail still feeling progressive? Kentucky is still red, son of former gov elected by skin of teeth over colossal jerk, rest of republican slate elected by wide margins. So vote Biden or get ready for four more years of colossal jerkery.
2
The only time I ever actually hear the Mandarin Menace's voice in on the TV in the break room where I work. UGH. Anyway, I got to hear part of his KY rally and he was claiming the democrats have been trying to "steal" the Presidency from him ever since he "won"
5
Sorry ladies and gentlemen. Long time subscriber. 1st time comments. I'm not American nor do I have ancestry tracing there so always reluctant to comment at all. But, it's obvious that
a. the USA is spiraling towards dictatorship. The insanity and sycophant nature of the cabal of partisans around your leader is crazy to see. Or;
b. Gonna get outta this stink by enough elected representatives going back to their professed values/morals/principles and impeaching (congress) and then removing (senate) the current president.
Followed and respected your nation for my entire adult life. Fingers crossed. I hope u all pull through xox
16
Gail to read his ramblings and print Word for Word, for, is a sight to behold truly one of the most spectacular incredible amazing minds of our time in deed. SAD so sad . LOL
8
Oh dear me- was that the English language I saw limping away from the Lexington rally? My kingdom for a sentence!
21
@johnquixote - Best comment of the day.
8
@DR Thank you! Nice to be appreciated in New England, where I studied the art of government all those years ago, making the hijack of decency all the more painful.
2
Thanks for the laughs Gail!
6
More delusion from the left. Republicans soundly won 5 of 6 state races...
I’m sure Bevin will land on his feet. With his sterling education credentials he’d make a great replacement for Betsy DeVos.
6
Anglo George Washington fought against the Anglo-German King George III.
German Scottish Donald Trump is fighting for Slavic Russian Czar wannabe Vladimir Putin.
7
Notice how rightists always skip right over rightist milquetoast presidents like hollywood reagan, mental case nixon, AWOL bush, his KNOW NEW TAXES, daddy and settle on Lincoln who we all know would be a Democrat today.
11
Thanks for the laughs Gail!
4
A whole year more of this? Ugh
3
@Mixilplix
Americans get the best Gubmint we can pay for. Ugh.
2
People are passionate about Trump they love him or hate him.
Joe Biden can never fill a rally like Trump.
Joe Biden is lukewarm.
But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth!
Revelation 3:16
@KR Rallies aren't elections. Biden is sane, has no bromances with dictators or trails of corruption charges in his wake. Dr. Biden isn't a former mistress/eastern European party girl. All in all, a great trade
2
That sitting-standing ramble is just jaw-droppingly idiotic.
Finally, Gail, it feels as if we can relax just enough really to enjoy your humor again.
Is that a glimmer of dawn?
11
Was there a point to this opinion piece?
Yeah Gail, we all known you despise the guy so move on to a new topic. How about the feasibility of Warren’s health coverage for all or what happens to a candidate when they drop out of the race? Anything but another trash Trump piece would be a welcomed change.
2
Another NY Times reader wrote this description of Trump that I think bears repeating as much as possible:
“ Pathetic mob boss-wanna be, played like a puppet by Putin, desperate for inclusion in the oligarch club, an aging playboy serial liar who can't comprehend loyalty. A hater who can't stand strong women or black people, and couldn't recite the pledge of Allegiance without a teleprompter. BoneSpurs, while trashing John McCain! A greedy real estate developer whose administration assures us he's 'still in the hospitality business', but totally immune to any bribery/flattery/concessions. Using the military to prop up his nearly bankrupt stupid investments. ”
21
The most embarrassing "president" ever. Pathetic that the GOP bows down to this inarticulate, serial lying conman. I guess the only silver lining is that he is great for shaking Democrats out of their apathy.
18
You will lose your sanity but not your second amendment rights if you vote for this despicable and lying demagogue. He is like Joe McCarthy amplified.
He gives everybody nausea, vomiting, and a migraine with his vile rantings and egomaniacal hyperbole. Trump is only great at
one thing and that is as a con artist of anger and hate! His act is boring and stale.
His Presidency an unmitigated disaster for everyone including his deluded supporters and the feckless and irreparably lost Republican Party. Support him at your eternal damnation and embarrassment!
12
The worse President of all times? Heck, he is the worse person I have ever encountered. That is a larger pool of individuals.
15
So sick of this guy.
15
That meager crowd is lily white. Just sayin'.
10
Hilarious. Gail Collins always makes it possible for me to laugh however ruefully at the misery DJT imparts. He is a deeply ignorant person capable of great harm.
11
Lincoln was a Republican?
Who knew?
I mean, he freed the slaves and crushed the South. Who wudda thunk it?
9
unfortunately Lincoln didn't crush it enough. The generosity got us Jim Crow and the white supremacists of today.
5
Sorry Gail. I can't take any more of this sitting down........or is it standing up? Hail to the Chief!!! Could we make it 50 cent size & up please?
4
It's both pathetic and gut-busting funny, when that dolt, Donald Trump practically begs his flock of sheep, "Ya gotta vote for me."
At least for now, he's in the ropes, and it's sinking in.
7
From his grave, Philip K. Dick is saying, "Dang! Even I was never able to write a character with dialog that screwy. This guy's good!"
11
You know the Donald is in trouble when “Trump fatigue” shows in Kentucky!!! Let’s now see how old Mitch starts to distance himself from the blowhard in the Whitehouse.
8
riff raff, that's all we ever get from this dangerous clown President. He riffs to aggrandize his raffish self-worth.
Abraham Lincoln would know him as a ghost of the No-Nothings. It's time to vote him GONE in the same way Clinton defeated Bush in 1992. Can the DNC get this done with Biden? Yes!
2
Trump is a vile, disgusting person. As Chris Matthews said, he’s exactly the kind of person that your parents didn’t want you to grow up to be. I cannot fathom why half the nation still supports him. All you need to know is that he has pulled us out of the Paris climate accord - a move that will decimate our children and their children and go down in history as the worst decision ever made by a president. Help!
13
In other news: it is just another day in the life of a needy, demented malignant narcissist around whom the entire universe revolves and without whom it would cease to exist.
8
I've heard people insist that Jefferson was the first Republican President because...the Democratic Republican party that dropped the "Republican" part with Jackson, was shortened to "Republican" when their opposition was the Federalists.
That is Dinesh D'Souza / Newt Gingrich re-writing of history, like claiming the Nazis and Socialists are the same because "Nazi" is a shortening of the German pronunciation of "National" and the party called itself the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NDSAP). It has as much to do with Socialism as pig-latin has to do with Latin. Ix-Nay on the omparison-cay!
Trump regularly reveals he's a willful ignoramus when he says stuff like that, and when everything he does is "the greatest in history" and everything an opponent is "a disgrace, the worst ever in history" it shows his ego, his insecurity, and, or course, his extreme delusional detachment from reality.
There is one thing he is: The truly most dangerous lunatic the world has seen since Stalin--the other truly insane man who had nuclear weapons at his command. (KJU may be vicious and dangerous, but he's clearly sane and calculating, as are Putin and Xi)
3
I was not aware Trump invented Saturday and Sunday. He did, however, invent the five day golf weekend and celebrates his invention four times a month.
12
Everything is a referendum on Trump, as well as everything else, according to Trump. Classic narcissist-histrionic Trump: "...greatest defeat in the history of the world.” In self-referencing everything, he renders even defeat in the superlative. Ugh--Take that defeat even further in reference to himself: impeach and convict.
3
the last paragraph was utterly hilarious. one can totally imagine him saying those words.
2
Your gentle as a sledge hammer humor cheers me up, as do joyous election results.
Our nation actually appears to be changing its political mind.
Plus i don’t even seem to be distorting what hath allegedly occurred.
The majorities today in Virginia and Kentucky are not maladaptive.
3
What is best about getting rid of Trump is not having to deal with a lacking Presidential mind! And just can't wait for the movie bio and of course the historic bios that re -examine for lessons learned by our national political class that must hope to spare us this disaster of the worst politician ever in America - but surely not in the corpus of world history.....
1
I'm sure the large crowds who attended rallies in Berlin, Nuremburg, Munich, etc., in the 1930s found them to be inspiring, too.
3
My favorite part of this editorial was the accompanying picture. Lots of empty seats, plenty of bored looks, not that much MAGA gear. Could the base be losing their religion?
5
@Ginger Gillin
that's me in the corner
2
@thostageo That's me in the spotlight, losing my religion...
1
No one should doubt that Trump is an expert at campaigning: he did get elected. The problem is he is incapable of governing. What is that expressions Americans say, something about talking the talk , opposed to walking the walk?
10
So Lou Dobbs appears to think that Trump and possibly including the Republicans for creating the weekend. Wow! All along I thought it was unions creating the 40 hour work week that made possible the weekend of two days off. Most of the jobs being created these days, jobs that Trump takes credit for, are service jobs which pay lousy few benefits and lots of time these people are working on the weekend.
I saw a bumper sticker awhile ago “ the weekend -thank the unions for that”
Well there are less unions now and guess what more people are working on the weekends.
9
Donald Trump was not on the ballet. When he is the results will be very different, especially after he runs millions of attack ads against the Democrats that wants 52 Trillion dollars in Medicare for All.
@Steve He certainly was on the ballot, invisibly standing at the shoulder of every GOP candidate.
2
Not like anyone in this comment section can relate- or would admit it if they could- but I found a Trump rally I attended to be inspiring and informative. Although media outlet focus on Trump’s gaffes, this clearly generates the most readership, his speech at the rally was a unique mix of patriotism and practicality.
Full disclosure, I did not vote for the guy, casting my vote for Hillary, but I nevertheless found the experience worthwhile.
At this Pennsylvania rally, Trump discussed the outsourcing of jobs, including blue collar and white collar positions, in the state, and his plan to bring them back. He also condemned Islamic terrorism with vigor- remember Obama declined to use these terms- and the efficacy of a Muslim Ban. Relatedly, Trump proclaimed that America should be a beacon for the brightest immigrants, something that most readers can appreciate.
I think there is often a reflexive opposition to Trump, but when you sift through the madness, there is much logic and appeal. I would encourage other readers to give a rally a try.
116
@Moderate in a Big City THANKS for this. Though I wouldn't intend to go to a Trump rally, nor do I respect much of this man's agenda, manner or expressed values, I am also disheartened by the eagerness (if not necessity) to cherry pick on both sides. Put back in context, many crude statements can have a very different meaning. All of this is, of course, a means to trigger people (click bait, subscriptions, eyeballs, whatever) to keep attending, to be aroused, and subsequently widen the gap rather than help us all find common ground, humanizing both sides.
The media world has created this mess, making how people feel the decision-making priority rather than helping people to think.
90
@Moderate in a Big City
I was in the US in 2015 and watched some of Trump's pre-election rallies on television. At the time the media were still treating him as the "stand-up comic" of the election. The rallies were masterpieces of 'playing the crowd'; make promises that speak to people's fears but provide no substance. Trump did pick up on some serious issues - health care, immigration - but had no feasible plans to deal with them. He still does not.
The frightening thing is that Trump the showman has become addicted to power and will abuse any authority he has to keep getting his"fix". Power has destroyed any moral scruples he may have had and convinced him that he is beyond anyone's judgement even God's. The adulation of the evangelicals does nothing to quell that delusion.
1887
@Moderate in a Big City I once heard Karl Rove speak and he was persuasive. I can understand why to the person who didn’t bother to do his/her own research he could make a compelling case.
But that is presentation not fact. The fact is, Obama didn’t assume every incident was due to Islamic terrorism, he waited to get more information and then he labeled accordingly. The fact is, keeping out Muslims, just because they are Muslim, does not make us safer. Very few of the mass shootings in this country since 2016 were carried out by Muslims. And the fact is, many people reading this paper are people of color; do you really think any would feel safe at a Trump rally?
I expect a leader to be influential and persuasive. And I expect some spin in what they say, as well. At this point if we’re not fact checking everything the man says, we’re ignoring substance in favor of form.
1183
This is where NYTimes readers really need to assess the amount of credibility they give this paper. Bevin was a flawed candidate. Everyone knows it. For Gail to jump all over this, like Trump "failed to rally" is ridiculous. He would have lost in a much bigger margin if Trump didnt go there and rally for him. Seriously, this brow beating Trump over this is so disingenuous, so obviously deceptive. If you cant see that, I dont know what to tell you.
18
@SurgicalBiologics Two of the three polls I saw from before the election put Bevin five points ahead. The third put him in a dead heat with Beshear.
The "bigger margin" that he might have lost by is a pure fabrication by the RNC and the White House. It is not factual.
So Trump did what, exactly? Merely didn't help him or lost him five points?
59
So if Bevin wins, it’s all due to Trump’s rally and Trump’s support, but if he loses, it’s because he’s a flawed candidate.
I don’t know what to tell you.
76
@SurgicalBiologics
Bevin was leading in the polls, albeit by small margins. How do you figure he would have lost worse if Trump hadn't gone to KY?
36
Please, Gail - it's deeply embarrassing to read verbatim Trump quotes. Please cut him some slack and publish redacted versions of the rambling, incomprehensible monologues only. I don't get mad anymore when I see this gibberish, just old fashioned, flush-faced, somber, oh-poor-Donald embarrassed. It's like an unwanted, too-intimate look into the mind of a chimp and what I see is dismaying, disturbing and disappointing. So please be kinder - he's your burden to bear, too, and, god willing, he'll be receiving proper care soon.
1
Anyone else worried that Bevin's inability/unwillingness to accept the election results will be repeated nov. 2020?
9
In the same tier as Washington and Lincoln? Um, I think not. And if he feels like he needs his own national holiday perhaps we re-brand Halloween as his day. The national nightmare.
9
GMS -- Trump will probably also want his own presidential library. Also a national nightmare.
2
Thanks, Gail. Your delightfully ironic "voice of reason" so wisely paints Mr. Trump, whom I can't help thinking is a platypus duck in human form because of his lower lip pouty face habits, and his factoid assertions as a character that truly lives in a "fake news" low rent theater of the absurd. Loved the picture, by the way, that showed so many vacant seats in Rupp Arena: somehow it reminds me of the photographs of the crowd on the Washington mall on Mr. Platypus's inauguration day.
4
'Besides his attempt to convince the world that he had golden coattails, '
Oops!
Good that I re-read that line! I was reading it fast and thought I had read that 'he had golden ge..tals' and I thought that cant't be! And sure enough, it says 'coattails'.
2
If we let him negotiate a deal for Trump Tower Moscow, will he just go away?
4
Some seriously good writing in this column by Gail. Two prime examples:
"Can you believe it? Less than a year,” Donald Trump told a rally in Kentucky this week, looking forward to election 2020. Not nearly as much as we are, Don"
and
"... he freely admitted that if Gov. Matt Bevin lost, the evil media would say “Trump suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world.”
Well, maybe not the greatest. There was the fall of Troy. The Battle of Waterloo. The 1940 N.F.L. championship game when the Chicago Bears beat the Washington Redskins 73-0. Still, pretty embarrassing"
Thanks Gail!
6
Who is greater than George Washington? Trump and many of his allies feel that is Trump. Others may not feel the same way. But the truth of the matter is that Trump is a unique personality perfectly fit the time to be the president of America. He is standing his ground against enormous challenge by vested interests and bureaucracy, and achieving things he promised to American people. As a result, Americans are doing much better. While Trump avoided to start unnecessary wars by choosing practical and realistic assumptions, he was willing to take a stand to protect American interest. That is why he was willing to impose tariff on Chinese products. Eliminating ISIS caliphate alone would give him a higher rank than any modern president including Regan.
1
I am curious, you make a lot of claims about President Trump and these supposed triumphs, but what is your source? I would love to read the facts you are citing, so I can get it straight.
Reply appreciated, thank you.
1
@Alex E - Are you trying to be funny? His cabinet picks are some of the greediest crooks this country has ever produced.
Where's the infrastructure and the fabulous health care he promised?
3
@MaryAnn Dube I don't understand why you need sources for news that were widely reported everywhere? Just for example: Trump eliminated ISIS caliphate within months which Obama could not do for years. I don't think you need a source to know about tariff on Chinese products imposed by Trump to force China to end predatory trade practices, if you watch TV or read NY Times. When was the American unemployment rate 3.5% last time? Do you need a source for that?
1
trumps an idiot, nuf said..
9
To add yet another level of absurdity: The Kentucky Kernel, the student newspaper of the University of Kentucky (UK), located in Lexington, was denied press credentials (without explanation) to the Trump rally. Note that the rally was held at Rupp Arena, where the UK Wildcats play basketball. Yup, that's right -- the hometown student journalists were shut out of a building they visit all the time. The Western Kentucky University paper applied for credentials after the Kernel staff did and they got them --and shared their reporting, because they are classy. (My source is the Louisville Courier Journal, for the record.) Wonder whose campaign called that move? My money is on Bevin, whose name is dirt with the UK faculty and community at large, but who knows? These guys might love that Second Amendment, but they sure as heck don't know much about the First. Freedom of the press indeed.
483
@Teacher Wow that's just nasty they shut out UK's press. Amazing..wish that got national news! Thanks for the post...
7
Trump’s belief he’s greater than Washington and Lincoln would be a fun Colbert routine if it wasn’t a sign he wants one-man rule. He’s said Article II of the Constitution lets him do what he wants, and his Ukraine deal indicates he’s going full steam ahead, violating the law, damn the consequences. Losing the Kentucky governorship or even impeachment does not set Trump back. Only forcing him to obey the law and Constitution through indicting and prosecuting his minions for contempt of Congress with the threat of prison time reduces his power. The Democrats are all talk, no enforcement, as with the Mueller Report, so it looks like Trump is going to win.
2
Republicans don’t seem to understand that there are concrete reasons as to why so many people cannot stomach the sight or sound of Donald Trump. Being an obnoxious person is not enough to get one impeached or removed from office. But breaking the law, disregarding the rule of law and the Constitution, and acting as an unwitting or knowing instrument of a hostile foreign power is not only impeachable , it is illegal . Copulating with a porn star is not grounds for removal from office , but screwing the country is.
Sooner or later we will be finished with this ridiculous circus in which Donald Trump has been the nefarious ringmaster.
Sooner or later enough of the American people will realize that they have been conned and duped by a master con artist.
And sooner or later we will be rid of this man hopefully before he destroys the fabric of our democracy.
11
The last part was the scariest. An unhinged mind in freefall, primary promoter of the Unhinged States of America. And supporters keep cheering, American anti-intellectualism on full display. Damn scary.
15
i hope Tuesday election showed people in this country started waking out to the horrible policies executed since this administration came into power. sure, we need to vote Trump out, but we shouldn't overlook the local governments--the governors, legislators, town representatives, school boards...they set local policies and how our children be taught in schools. these children are our "future". don't forget that.
3
"Remember, we’ve still got a year to go."
Maybe not.
It's all up to the spineless, catatonic republicans in the Senate who fear trump tweets and unemployment.
Somebody should counsel them that trump's tweets last at best a day and job-wise they can all go revolving door into lobbying. They just need vote to eradicate trump from the White House.
It's easy.
106
@George Dietz:To employ words like "catatonic, spineless" is a turn off, an indication that 1 is reading the emotionally charged comment of someone who is more interested in venting his dislike of the Republican Party , Trump and his 63 million adherents, than in being informative, but to use such language is a sure guarantee that 1's jeremiad will be published, so long as it is anti Trump.That is why ABH has always argued for disinterestedness, impartiality.EB is top heavy with Trump haters, and could do with new, fresh blood and the prejudices of its members r reflected in its choice of submissions. More writers like Buchanan, Hanson,Crowley would counterbalance the left wing slant Extremely unfair to those who have a different viewpoint!
@George Dietz Maybe these election results will help them grow a spine. Trump can't save them. Perhaps that ratchets down their fear a bit. There's the base, and then there is the electorate. It's pretty much to the point that doing the right thing will save the country, maybe the last smoking embers of the party, and perhaps themselves.
7
Looked long and hard to find a picture with less than standing room only at a Trump rally. Congratulations. He is still going to beat any of the current Democratic line-up. Maybe they need a new candidate who might actually win?
4
@Thomas Smith
When you looked long and hard, did that search include the photo that leads this article?
Are you honestly, seriously, and without irony claiming that section 240 in the photo leading this very article is filled to "standing room" because that solitary guy in the back row is standing?
5
Trump should re-name his book from "Art of the Deal" to "Art of the Brand". He effectively branded himself as a billionaire. He cannot make good deals. 20 years ago, he was given $300 million worth of real estate (2019 dollars) and turned it into.....$300 million after 20 years and several near bankruptcies. And stiffing a lot of banks and contractors. And taking money from a lot of government assistance programs for real estate development. We would truly know what Trump was worth on Inauguration day if we could see his tax returns. C'mon folks, this ain't a guy whose business skill is going to help the US. He has showmanship and media skill but little else.
15
Worst closing sentence ever. Thanks, Gayle.
1
If Trump is not removed from office before the next election he will either be elected or not, and the prospect of him being reelected is just too horrible to consider, so lets consider what happens if he looses. Will he even "accept" the results or will he fight somehow to hold onto power no matter what? And even if he does accept the results, he will still be the president for two and a half months. It scares me to think of what he might try to do in that time, and that is actually the best scenario we can expect.
5
Trump's awfulness is manifest, as is journalists' inability to resist the chum-bucket-in-chief's incessant baiting.
Tuesday's results were encouraging...in some districts and states; razor thin elsewhere; and solid Red in Miss.
Let's resist overplaying our hand before the big race in November, and let's never underestimate Trump and his followers. We learned nothing in '16??
Guffaw at DJT at your own peril.
7
With close to 14,000 LIES since taking office, I'll bet he can surpass that number just in the next year?
1
What is the cost of lies? It's not that we'll mistake them for truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we will no longer recognize the truth at all. Legasov.
7
Forget George Washington. Trump isn't even greater than that other "George W.", the one who called himself the (tee hee!) Decider.
6
The nation has a full year to watch this impostor of a President unravel in prime time.
And then historians will have years to analyze what a minority of Americans were thinking when they thought this guy was a good Presidential idea.
He worked hard with Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Wikileaks and the Kremlin to successfully rig the 2016 election.
He worked hard with Rudy Giuliani, William Barr and Ukraine to rig the 2020 election.
He obstructed justice, facts and the United States Constitution every step of the way.
He held nonstop all-white nativist campaign rallies instead of governing.
He tweeted.
He watched Fox News and Friends.
He attacked everyone who raised objections as an 'enemy of the people'.
He gave himself, his family and the crooked 0.1% a giant tax cut and charged it to the middle class and their children.
He ignored the Great American Healthcare Rip-Off and tried hard to pull the healthcare rug out from 15 million Americans.
And as H L Mencken wrote of Warren Harding, he uses “the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash."
Deplorable.
23
Wouldn't it be neat if a time machine could bring Washington back.
Then he could ship Trump off to the Front Lines.
5
God bless you, Gail.
Needed that.
4
Well we now know Trump’s “deep state” was his own lawyer Rudy Giuliani and it’s now obvious the mother lode of Fake News source is old Donald himself.
Hold the phone- he’s now telling us who is “delusional”.
6
DJT is not a hero.... He got caught doing quid pro quo!!
3
@TruthAloneTriumphs So what? Every president has imposed conditions on releasing aid. It’s part of the job.
1
Conditions that go only to Trump? Do you really want a foreign policy designed to politically help Trump or to benefit the country?
5
"He quoted mega-compliments from “the great Lou Dobbs,” the Fox Business talking head who recently appeared to claim Trump had invented Saturday and Sunday. (“Have a great weekend. The president makes such a thing possible for us all.”)"
Gail, that bit prompted Chris Matthews to observe that Dobbs' comment sounded like a Cialis ad. I almost fell off my chair.
Americans aren't used to sycophancy. It's not in our DNA, which tells me how much Trump keeps his party under some sort of spell.
But on some days when they keep describing "Dear Leader" remarks from Trump staffers, our country does seem more like North Korea than our former cheeky version of American sarcasm.
Of course, like humor, sarcasm not directed at enemies is something this president just doesn't get.
8
One of your best columns Gail! laughing my head off.
5
Listening to a Donald J. Trump riff reminds me of walking my dog. Stop and sniff at every bush, post, and tree, then wander off in a different direction, following some scent that caught his fancy that only he can detect.
12
Where's that blue dog?
Wow...why did bonespurs' handlers invite all those empty seats?
3
I can neither stand nor sit for another four more years of this insidious and invidious word salad.
3
Just as Trump "style" (as seen in his New York apartment) is a lousy copy of Goering's Karinhall, his rallies are pathetic copies of Nuremberg--and sadly right here in America.
3
Gail, you got me at “...although naturally we intend to read as much into the results as is humanly possible.” But, like many never, ever, ever, ever, ever (plus ever to the nth degree) Trumpers who will grasp at any straw, I loved drinking sweet revenge through the Kentucky straw.
And, never never did this New Yorker dream in her wildest imagination that she’d shout Yahoo at the results of a Kentucky governor’s election.
3
Gayle actually watches/listens to Trump bloviate? Genuine heroism at the New York Times. Radiation therapy would be more fun.
4
I can't wait to be free of Trump and his garbled, stomach-turning word salads. How dare he even suggest that he is somehow of the same ilk as Abraham Lincoln? Republicans everywhere should hang their heads in shame. Really, what will it take to snap them out of their Trump fog?! VOTE BLUE 2020.
8
I think maybe we should just patronize Trump whenever we can because I am worried he's gonna crack really soon. Seriously--tell the imbecile he's the greatest president in the world ever--until we can get him away from the football, permanently.
1
Wait ... EMPTY SEATS?
3
I love what Gail Collins writes, but we need to remember that Trump is a very sick person. He's a raging psychopath, not some kind of joke. I like her humor and her substance, but there's nothing humorous about Trump.
3
The on of subject J. Donald Trump, word comes salad mind to.
I heard Laura Ingram claim that Trump was greater than g-d!
1
I'm very proud of the young people who turned out for this election and helped get rid of that idiot Bevin! My kids are 18 and 23, and they both voted, as did most of their friends based on what I see on social media. In fact, my son and his wife completed absentee ballots because they were on their honeymoon!
226
@Jeanne - Please extend my thanks to them and my best wishes for your son and daughter in law.
19
If it is any decency left in the USA, the call of "Lock him up!" should be sung next to your National Anthem.
2
Does anyone wonder what he's smoking? Maybe it’s just that fallback effect where folks who have indulged so long in mind bending drugs that they can get the effect without the cause from time to time.
1
Drop the nets already, fellas.
5
We have a very clinically disturbed “man” as president. He is still the same disturbed boy who hit his teacher at his private Kew Gardens school. He was sent to the NY military academy because he was out of control and “incorrigible”. He is stuck, or fixated at that level of his development. An angry boy in a mans body with awesome power. He is not the problem. It is our problem. Why do so many Americans admire and adore him. We have to keep in mind that 41 million of us suffer with some form of a mental disorder. He attracts many sufferers. Too many of us suffer under the enormous stress of just trying to survive within this uncaring and rather cruel economic system. We are not “our brothers keeper”. Sad
6
Trump is lousy at showbiz. Look at that bored crowd. It's an actor's nightmare.
Audiences don't respond well to failure to maintain a train of thought, failure to make sense, and nonstop self-adulation. It worked originally because they identified with him and took his self-praise as lifting them up.
Blecch, he's just ... so... needy onstage.
Plus, audiences are fickle. Trump is a fad. Fads fade.
He breaks so many basic rules of performing that it's difficult to watch him unless you switch, Mitty-like, to your inner neurologist.
The other bad showbiz is the paid shills packed into the immediate background. Watch them try to catch their cues to clap, then anxiously scan for their next adulation moment.
Thanks for the spoonful of schadenfreude with my morning coffee!
6
Why doesn’t the news media simply fail to cover his rallies??? What’s the point, really?
3
"Free T shirts! what transcript? What?"
1
Trump is in fact the greatest American ever born. He brought us electricity the moon project.......wait, even I don’t buy this nonsense
He’s not the party of Lincoln he’s the party of McCarthy (and Roy Cohn).
5
Wait, wait! He invented Saturday and Sunday??? Come on Democrats - you can do better. How about a longer weekend? We can all get behind that.
1
Gail Collins is God’s gift to Op Ed readers! To no other columnist do I look forward to more...no, not even Krugman. Gail, you put us in stitches...more LOL belly laughs than a raft of comedians. Perhaps the driest, slyest on-the-mark wit since Mark Twain or Voltaire. Thanks!
4
This is so funny!
Donald Trump ALWAYS got more people to his events than any other candidate in 2016, and gets more than any crowd for any of this year's hollow Democrats.
But today's staff propagandists on the Left fringe are SO desperate to find anything possibly wrong for the Economy President that the photo accompanying this article has to be promoted like a discount at the liquor store.
The governor Trump tried to rescue on Monday night was reported in the free media to be the least popular governor in the country -but Trump STILL got him within 5,000 votes when the Libertarian candidate totalled four times that.
And that was the only state-wide race that the Dems won in Kentucky. I'm SURE the Times trumpeted that fact.
1
Uh No.
Use Trump’s own measure:
Trump and Bevins are the Losers.
Trump asked that it be a referendum on Trump.
It was.
Thanks Gail - another point of interest - “President” Trump almost never says a thing at a public gathering.
“Candidate” Trump holds “rallies” - which lets him control the audience.
Please suggest News Side remembers this each time copy about “hundreds of thousands all wearing MAGA hats and “forget about it” T-shirts...
Lou Dobbs is obviously uneducated, and Trump is delusional to suggest that he is the greatest president in American history, greater than Washington and Lincoln - Trump is the worst president but the greatest liar in American history.
3
It’s interesting to read this article after the Flint Water crisis article. How many Americans have had their brains damaged by the appalling level of bad food, bad water, bad schooling, bad surroundings and too much tv and too much engagement with electronic devises? A plastic artificial world that does not offer much hope. Please use the money spent for war on your suffering people. Or is it too late? Maybe this is the real message Trump is sending to us all. Be dumb be stupid, be me!
1
A year to go ??? My God, thats about 10 years in TrumpTime.
Seriously.
5
Turn off the Telly’s volume when Trump speaks and the gesturing and facial contortions are that of Mussolini. Trump’s smug arrogance and fury have progressed to the boiling point of madness.
5
It was truly frightening to see Senator Kennedy speaking at Trump's Louisiana rally about how stupid Nancy Pelosi is. I most often don't agree with Kennedy, but have always enjoyed his whimsical colloquialisms. He often displayed common sense and was often noncommittal on Trump but I'm afraid he has gone off the rails into extreme Trumpism. It's a shame. I could understand a Republican office holder being reluctant to speak out against Trump for fear of being primaries but now it has become quite common to not just defend Trump but to bring out the big guns.
1
I wonder what happened to Trump's African-American. He used to have one. The poor guy got pointed out at one of those rallies by the Racist in Chief. I haven't noticed him in any of the "crowds" lately.
6
This year through 2020 will truly be one for the ages, Gail Collins. Trump finally failing to rally his base in Virginia and Kentucky is the harbinger of the Humpty-Trumpty orange egg falling off the wall. All the king's horses and all the king's men and all Trump's enablers won't be able to put Donald Trump together again post-impeachment. We're seeing the Trumpless future starting here, starting now!
Who knew we'd elect a narcissistic bigoted sociopath as our 45th president in 2016, our watershed year for American Democracy? Who knows who America will elect one year from now? For sure the electorate won't vote for a TV reality show carney-barker again. We need some levity, Gail, before the Trump impeachment hearings in Congress hit the fan next week,
2
Lou Dobbs and DJT: “Have a great weekend. The president makes such a thing possible for us all.”
Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham: “What’s a weekend?”
Just trying not to think of that “thing” occupying our Oval Office. Also you want an example of how this president thinks? Here’s a prime example of his early dementia:
‘Face The Nation’ host John Dickerson tried to get Trump to muse on former George W Bush’s comment on how the Oval Office was round and therefore had no corners to hide in – meaning accountability always sat firmly at the President’s lap.
However, Trump failed to spot the metaphor and took it just a bit too literally. He said: “Well, there’s truth to that. There is truth to that. There are certainly no corners. And you look, there’s a certain openness. But there’s nobody out there. You know, there is an openness, but I’ve never seen anybody out there actually, as you could imagine.”
---DJ Trump 2017-2021
4
@Nuschler
To be fair Dobbs is referring to the ‘quality’ of one’s weekend not the existence of the weekend. Still, his creepy fawning over this swamp creature at the helm of our state is mind boggling. Does he have any self esteem at all?
How pathetic.
Trump will be re-elected.
1
Not a chance without Putin’s help.
“As sure as you’re standing here. Is anybody sitting? Nobody ever sits. You can sit if you want. No, just stand. You know what they say in the fake news? Look, you’ve been standing. Nobody sat. I don’t know, isn’t that exciting?”
Huh?! Trump should be impeached just on the basis of that surreal word salad.
3
Wishful thinking always wins the White House! Right?
The mainstream media created Trump. Three years ago every news program and its viewers waited with baited breath for Mr Donald to call in or appear. I am sick of this stupid narrative that Trump is a marketing genius, a political tactician without precedence in American history. He's just taking a page from the George Wallace, Huey Long Playbook and adapted it to modern technology.
3
Every day Trump tells the faithful that the whole thing is about him. Imagine being so wonderful and presidential that noted historian Lou Dobbs is forced to admit that you are better than guys who used to live a long time ago!
It's all about him, but not Ukraine! Oh no. Jeff Sessions recused himself, and Trump's every mention of his hand-picked weasel was full of self-pity that Sessions stayed out of the forming morass and preserved, for a time, the illusion that Trump's Attorney General cares more about the Constitution than a transitory leader. Consider Bill Barr Exhibit A.
It's all about him. Did you ever think you'd see a President who whines every day about how mean to him [today's bogeyman here] has been? Why, the Fake News misinterpreted his generous offer to hold the G7 at his Doral property! What's a quid? What's a pro quo?
So, Matt Bevin, the spawn of the unholy mating of Koch and fundamentalists, has had to revive his Linked In account. Clearly, many who voted for this Second Amendment (where do you think Jesus would stand on the issue of assault rifles?) meets The Scarlet Letter politician woke up and found themselves in the next incarnation of (economically) Bleeding Kansas.
Caligula dressed as Barnum came to town and tried to revive the memories of the pleasure of being mean to Democrats who want to give your money (including, in so many cases, Federal help to struggling localities) to THOSE people.
It's the voters' fault. They're probably fake voters.
1
@Jack Mahoney
Caligula dressed as Barnum came to town and tried to revive
cool...a bit of " Desolation Row " goin' on
Thanks Ms.Collins, time out while I stop laughing.
Just a postscript to his repetitive "abortion" pathology: His sons (Donald Jr. and Eric) regularly take their guns to foreign lands and kill beautiful animals, including the pregnant ones carrying a fetus. But they say it's a lot of fun, so who are we to be kill-joys.
He’s a conman and a life long criminal.
6
Ugh, another year! The shallowest,self-serving person on the planet must be endured for another year! We all know that the Senate will not convict regardless of the preponderance of evidence that proves he should. Heck, Lindsey Graham has gone so far as to say that he will not look at the evidence. Now, that is blind fealty that he and his compadres have given this wasteland of human flesh. It’s sickening to madness to watch this unfold. Should we fear for our country, you bet!
2
Loved that Trump stepped out of his bubble thinking Americans would be impressed that the Kurds and military ops who brought the ISIS leader to justice would shower him with praise for leaving the Kurds to die at the hands of Syrians and Russians.
He is the most hated man inn the United States, deservedly so.
3
In 2016, Hillary got elected but Trump got electored.
No glory in becoming president on that technicality.
Oh ... and Trump knows Obama was elected and re-elected. No need to get electored, though Obama of course had that as well.
Sad!
2
How long till he starts saying "I don't really know that guy Bevin. He was such a loser; he knew he was going to lose but he invited me down there because he thought I'd be able to get people to vote for him. But no, he's such a loser like nobody's ever seen before. Nobody knew what a loser he is. I'd never even met him and he expected me to just POOF get him elected. Sad. He lost but remember, I wasn't on the ballot. And the other five candidates, they all won."
172
Hopefully Trump's "luck" gives the Louisiana race to the Democrat. He is certainly pulling out all the stops.
2
I'm not too sure about your third from last sentence. "how his mind works." It seems you're making two dubious assumptions: that he has a mind, and that it works.
15
@DJ...It's limbic but highly effective and attractive to swaths of people...and they vote. I'm afraid we are still underestimating him and the devotion he inspires.
1
Trump's Republican party is nothing like Lincoln's Republican Party. In fact, Trump's party is nothing like George W Bush's party. There is no return for the Trump supporters and congressmen who have blindly followed Trump's moronic adventure. I look forward to the demise of folks like Jim Jordan, Devin Nunes, and the infamous Mitch McConnel. These traitors need to find the door. Let's all get behind the constitution and show Trump the street!
11
Let's not forget Sen. Graham. Lately, he could not even look straight into the camera when being interviewed.
2
It's about time somebody published a picture of a Trump rally with empty seats. Please do more of that, NYT. Keep pulling back the curtain on this Wizard of Oz-like charlatan. Stay focused on his dwindling audience. It's to the point where people are beginning to sense a sharing of culpability with the President. Most people don't like to feel guilty about something. That includes supporting a president who attempts to trade weapons for political favors.
6
"Look, you’ve been standing. Nobody sat? I don’t know, isn’t that exciting?"
when will America tire of this incoherent person? The world tired of him when he took office.
7
The hate machine, while never dormant, is cranking up faster and faster as 2020 gets closer and closer. The tsunami of lies and vitriol will be crashing over American voters, and the usual low-information crowd will revel in it. More sunshine into the back rooms of the Trump "administration" may help change a few minds, but the true believers won't be swayed. It is up to the rest of us to do our duty and outnumber the Trumpers at the polls.
6
"There actually were some issues in Tuesday’s elections. Abortion rights advocates in Kentucky argued that part of the revolt against Bevin was due to the passage of a state law banning abortions after the first six weeks of pregnancy. "
Actually, I think without this ban, he would have lost by much more because it energized a lot of folks who couldn't stand Bevin, but said they would "never support someone who was for killing babies."
It worked just the way all of the defense of marriage initiatives got voters out for George W. Bush. Abortion will be used against Amy McGrath in her challenge of Mitch McConnell next year for his Senate seat. It already is. Most of the Kentucky Democrats I know are pro-choice, but this is not THE issue for them, but it really is for many evangelical voters, and we are still one of the most conservative religious areas in the country. Even our young people are. This is something Democratic candidates need to remember and figure out ways to talk about these issues or we'll have four more years of Trump.
2
@Wanda The Democrat candidate is always forced to run on "national agenda" issues.....basicly the local Dem candidate volunteers to become a tool of the DNC, Inc working to consolidate power in WashDC, using the Federal Patronage System to hold on to that power.....the locals told whatever it takes to convince them to vote for the DNC hand picked candidate.
....
On the flip side, the Republican candiate cynically manipulates the "local" issues...so that more local, statewide power interests can control the Dole out of Patronage.
.....
This president and the fact that he still has supporters reminds us every day that there are serious problems with our nation’s education and the public’s general knowledge and literacy.
13
Not just supporters. Millions of them.
1
“He’s such a pain in the ass, but that’s what you want!” Trump told his crowd.
The venal, shallow carnival barker that is our president! This is whipping up the coliseum crowd before the gladiator contest; before throwing lions in to fight bears.
Thankfully, it's a weak circus; one that has to play louder and shout more coarsely as the crowd loses interest. The whip cracking ringmaster gets meaner, but the crowd now sees that the barker's hired hands are in town, robbing their homes while they stand rapt at the outrageous show.
I pledge allegiance to much much better than this.
13
What is evident is that Donnie never prep[ares for anything. I would guarantee you that as Donnie was walking to the stage for his Coal Miners Daughter rally, somebody mentioned what a pain in the a.. the Governor was.
That is what serves for prep work for Lazy Don.
I am not sure what I am most longing for:
1. Seeing Donnie making the Nixon walk to Marine 1 after Impeachment?
2. Seeing Donnie having to sit on the podium trying to pay attention to Elizabeth/Bernie/Joe's inaugural address?
10
No podium -- prison!
“He’s such a pain in the ass, but that’s what you want!” Trump told his crowd.
Replace the pronoun and Trump 2020 has a campaign slogan that makes sense. Republicans apparently approved of that message in 2016, so why not?
Trump's projection of self onto others works when we talk about corruption, too.
1
When I read this Trump quote -- "“He’s such a pain in the ass, but that’s what you want!” -- I couldn't help but think that it was not so bad. My friends talk like that and so do I. I'm from a working class suburb (since moved to Phoenix), one that is overwhelmingly Democrat. We're ethnic Democrats, the kind from Brooklyn. And we are gruff. The state legislators back home talk like us. But not our Congressmen or our Senators, all of whom are Democrats. Frankly, I feel more at home with blue collar Democrats than upscale ones. And I kind of like it when someone up high talks like me. My friends and I have no use for Trump. But I, for one, like the blue collar talk, which I'm sure is an attraction to Trump's blue collar supporters. Nothing wrong with "pain in the ass."
2
I want a president who raises the level of discourse. The decline in our standards of behavior is in part responsible for Trump's ascent. Coarseness and vulgarity demean the office.
7
@michjas
I too speak like this with some who are close to me and have shown a comfort with language like this. I relate to most of what you're sharing here, but I think this is tacky language for a politician to use in a public forum.
Anyway, fair enough -- I have a bigger concern . . .
Why is it, in Trump's rationale, that I should want a pain in the ass in an elected office?
The lack of critical thought, measured in the collective, shown in these gatherings is staggering. Trump is the last person who should presume to tell me what I want . . . and yet yet these people stand there and listen to this garbage like they're at a tent revival.
2
@Kathy Joi polloi.
So let me 'get' the liar-in-chief's logic here: If Kentuckians who voted for Bevin did so because trump says Bevin is a pain in the ass (cheers), did some of those who voted for and continue to grip onto trump now do so because prez trump also is a pain in the ass? Just asking--
2
I have always totally blamed the Trump Presidency on Viagra.
This is what happens when older men skip the message to do with the physical limitations that nature puts on them. Mayhem.
But what happens when the figurative political Viagra doesn't even work anymore?
Impotence is a bitch.
3
A total ass. Talk about a loser. We must all hope that folks get out in large numbers to vote. Scum like this takes a lot of votes to send packing.
Let him lose by many millions - unless he’s successfully impeached an awaiting trial next fall. Hope springs eternal.
5
Check out the lone Secret Service agent wearing the suit and blue tie in the photo. Imagine what it must be like to sit and listen to Trump, day after day. True public servants.
9
The president of the United States, BIG DONNY, is responsible for us having weekends? That will be news to the rest of the world, which uses calendars that include weekends too. Who gave us weekends before Trump anyway? I bet he gave us Christmas too....he who tells us that he was anointed by God.
6
Trump got a lesson: not all Americans are as gullible as the bused-in crowds of rad-caps that manage suffer through his rallies and listen to this incoherent rambling and raging nonsense.
When Trump appears on TV, it is best to push the mute button and take a break.
5
The only way Republicans can win any election is with the full support of Trump's rabid fan club. Even with the GOP's complex machinery to suppress Democratic voters, Republicans still need the "deplorables" to win. Republicans will not abandon Trump despite his obvious high crimes and misdemeanors. Trump over the needs of the people..that is the current Republican rallying cry.
5
Most people view receiving the loyalty of others as a product of their intelligence, dependability, skills and support. These traits clearly do not drive Trump. Developing them would require him to rise above his id. He wants our loyalty to be free of any "quid pro quo" on his part. That's what he loves about his base. Their loyalty seems free of obligations, beyond (perhaps) his entertainment value. Like the autocrats and dictators he so admires, Trump doesn't want to earn our respect. As he famously said, he expects us to let him get away with murder.
3
Looks like the good people of Kentucky are buying less snake oil nowadays. Or maybe they were home reading the transcript.
4
The laugh emoji for this Trump performance has not yet been invented! (Huge new laugh emoji here!)
It looks to me like Trump's 'I'm a complete lunatic' shtick is no longer working outside the distorted reality created at his rallies; His very own id safe space.
There is no longer any way to debate or argue with Trump and his base except through insulting jokes, so here goes;
Trump makes Caligula seem like Cicero! (rim shot!)
2
Of course its always all times about Dear leader. He is a legend in his own mind. His followers love to watch him rant and rave and say shocking things about people they do not like. Its, fun!
Remember he knows his audience and "loves the uneducated".
Kentucky is used to being fooled and thats why Mc Connell wins even though his main interest is supporting Wall Street donors. Kentucky coal miners? not so much, no donors there.
5
Please stop calling Trump events “rallies “. They are hate circuses, similar to lynch mobs, led by a racist ringmaster who encourages violence against his political opponents, calling them and the free press enemies of democracy, and who stokes racial animosity for his personal enjoyment.
The only difference between a Trump “rally” and a lynch mob is that no one has yet acted on Trump’s call to violence and actually killed someone. Not yet.
10
@Troy Wrong, Troy. Recall Charlottesville?
When Trump said "I love the uneducated," not only was he speaking about his fans, but about himself. His stupidity must make the Wharton School of Busyness cringe - I think I "found out" that Lincoln was a Republican when I was in the second grade. Surely disgraced President Warren Harding must be doing a happy dance in his grave - Harding looks pretty good now! And Harding was also...a Republican.
4
The photo makes it abundantly clear that there were a lot of empty seats....and a lot of those folks in the picture do not look very enthusiastic.
6
How dare you question a very stable genius? He knows everything (except the truth if it bit him).
1
Perhaps finally, a segment of the American electorate is now coming to the reality Trump is a fraud. The Trump band is dead...in the end, he will expire along and as a broken man.
For the American public in general....'don't get mad...get even!"
And the payback is approaching for Trump and his dedicated Republican "followers"...time is approaching quickly...
2
The dementia is clearly getting worse.
4
Main takeaway from the Kentucky election: The only way a Republican loses in a deep red state is by being such a jerk that even his own party's voters are reluctant to cast a ballot for him.
Remind you of anyone?
2
My goodness! Photo with this column shows — yes — actual empty seats behind The Man. How can that be? Must have been doctored.
1
To use Alec Waugh's phrase, these are the locust years.
Now we the people need to decide whether
a) Mr. Trump is the locust[ chomping on our constitution and government or
b) he's a locust who may go away next year. or
c) he's not a locust but so inept he let the locusts in; or
d) he's not a locust and should go on tv to say so, as one of his predecessors did to clear up the perception he was a crook.
Hint to Mr. Trump: nothing made that president look as much like a crook as feeling he needed to deny it. Nothing makes a president look more impeachable than truing to obstruct an impeachment inquiry. But "lots of people" would like to see Mr. Trump deny he's a locust.
1
Bread and circus is a terrible way to govern and be governed. Especially if you're an American farmer or an All-American clown.
3
"Trump", "mind" and "works" do not belong in the same sentence.
3
I don't know that comparing oneself favorably to Lincoln is going to wash in the slave states.
2
Putin owns Trump.
Trump owns base.
Base owns GOP.
Have fun, 2020.
4
Until the democratic party learns to play "hardball" and effectively counter the lies of the GOP we will be doomed to suffer the violence of the GOP against everyday Americans.
Dems: I see the many lies coming out of GOP mouths but there is no reaction from you! What do you think everyday Americans will believe?
Get some brass knuckles... Learn how to punch back against the GOP perfidy!
3
So many empty seats.
5
The Times reports that Trump had a conversation with Britain’s irrepressible Boris Johnson yesterday.Evidently Boris wants to keep his distance from Trump before his election.I am certain that he considers Trump is “dotty”-ditto his flaky friend Lou Dobbs.Brexit is chaos-Boris wants to stay away from Trump who is even more chaos.Trump tarnishes everything he touches-do we really have to wait another year to be rid of this crooked con man?
2
Thank you Gail for my morning laugh.
I'm grateful for more lengthy direct quote of the deranged, inchoherent mind of lazy 45. I wish the Times would print more than tweets or one-liners. It's in the more lenghty quotes where citizens can read what an embarassment our president is.
4
The greatest orator since Demosthenes.
1
There is a lesson in Kentucky and it’s about down ticket races.
1
Bingo!
That Lou Dobbs quote is remarkable. What's in the water at Fox News? The guy sounds like the voice of the propaganda arm of North Korean state run TV. He might be drinking from the same well as Stephanie Grisham, who lambasted former chief of staff John Kelly, stating that he 'couldn't handle the genius of our great President'. Pink Kool Aid anyone?
5
Actually this is straight out of the KGB playbook.
1
Unfortunately for the next year it's going to be a blitz storm of bragadocio from Trump and his Trumpeteers. Their strategy is obvious - say anything to keep Trump in the spotlight and dominating the news cycle. Deny, distract, accuse, curse, lie, cheat and even steal to gain attention. People will become so upset finally, that by election day they will rise up and shout with one voice: "shut up!"
137
Once the impeachment process starts to show real damage to this administration you can expect a presidential diversion - most likely war with Iran. The rumblings from that country are increasing daily.
1
@Mikee WWE isn't supposed to last this long. We're tired.
@Mikee
There is no strategy. This is what narcissism looks like. It's all predictable behavior.
4
I had watched the same Lexington channel (CBS) for 55 years, starting with Cronkite's coverage of Kennedy's assassination. Now at least partly owned by Sinclair, the satellite station ran the whole rally, in prime time, without commercial interruption and gave Bevin, McConnell, Paul, Barr, the attorney general candidate, and, of course, Mr. Trump. I know he is a sitting president, but still: the rally was billed as a campaign rally not a state of the union address.
I hate to leave them, but there is no excuse for this. If rules applied, the FCC would probably fine the station. But Trump has upended all the rules and now it's everyone for herself. Now Bevin is complaining that he wants a recount and the Republican head of the state senate is saying that since it's only 5,000+ votes, the Republican state legislature might scrap the whole election and appoint the governor.
These are terrifying times.
9
The sun will refuse to shine, rain will no longer be wet and Cherios won't be round anymore. In addition dog bites will hurt more and mosquito bites won't itch, but you'll grow thorns in their place . Rich people will all quit wanting to be rich and everyone will demand to be desperately poor and all the tires on every car will turn into squares and you'll have to pump wet cement in your gas tanks to drive if Trump is defeated. Oh, the tragedy!
2
A lifetime ago in 2016, I distinctly remember commenting that Trump showed nothing but disdain for the intelligence of his audiences. Basically, he was and is going out and speaking down to the them as if they were ignorant and just needed him to cavort, slam, curse, and brag about him. Him being a pseudo fake projection of themselves. "He was sticking it to Washington", I remember someone saying. Well, the schtick is old. The cursing is worse and the routine is now boring. Especially, when you see that your circumstances are really that not much better. If I were a GOP Congressperson, I would avoid Trump at all costs. Look at what he has done to Graham, John Kennedy, and Bevin etc. The Grovelings!
9
Trump has wrung out the last remnants of what little decency and discernment the GOP had left. He molded the party into a shallow minded bunch of sycophants unwilling to thwart an unhinged president--at any cost. That a majority party is unwilling to protect the substance of our governance, and blindly comply with the dictates of a would be dictator, is criminal.
When will this nightmare end?
9
God willing soon! When the House votes to impeach and the Senate holds its trial. Though I predict that Moscow Mitch will walk over to the White House soon and tell his president that he should resign or be removed from office.
2
"O.K., the last part was sort of just to give you a taste of how his mind works."
His mind works? Who knew?
11
The sun will refuse to shine, rain will no longer be wet and Cherios won't be round anymore. In addition dog bites will hurt more and mosquito bites won't itch, but you'll grow thorns in their place . Rich people will all quit wanting to be rich and everyone will demand to be desperately poor and all the tires on every car will turn into squares and you'll have to pump wet cement in your gas tanks to drive if Trump is defeated. Oh, the tragedy!
2
George Washington was the Francisco Franco of America and history in America is propaganda starting with Thomas Paine and being abused to this day by both sides in this nation that is not really a nation.
The year gets longer by the day....Wait until the 18,19, & 20 year olds vote. People who came of voting age during the trump chaos...As a 19 year old said to be today "I don't know who I will vote for in 2020 but it won't be trump!
11
It's astonishing that Trump's supporters never seem to tire of his boasting, his unbridled claims of being the best ever at everything. They never tire of his whining about how no one has been treated as poorly as he has in the entire history of the world. It is endless and pathetic. He is devoid of humility, has no capactiy for self-refection, and takes responsibility for nothing. But as Shakespeare said in "Julius Caesar, "The fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings." It will all come home to roost at some point, not only for Trump but also for his enablers. But God knows how much we - and this nation - will have to suffer first.
10
Thanks Gail. As always the most perceptive editorial writer at the Times.
4
Who would have thought, even in 2000-2008, that the quote towards the end of the article could ever come from a president of the USA …
6
Trump's disjointed rantings make even less sense when you write them out as Gail does here. We had an excellent English teacher in high school but I doubt that even she could diagram any of Trump's sentences.
4
Question: I watched Bevin on several news reports and ask..how does that cranky neighbor at the end of the block (the house you tell your kids not to go near) end up as Governor in the first place? Not only does his personality leave much to be desired, but, politically, he chooses issues that are dear to voters and proceeds to trash them. Having said that, I ask myself the question, how come the this election was not a landslide victory for the Democrat? I just do not get the voters in the South---confronted with a horrible personality and a horrible politician and they still vote for horrible.
9
Trump's delusions of grandeur make me laugh when I see him speak on TV but it is not really funny that he is destroying our credibility with other countries and destroying trade relationships, as well as alienating our allies in important parts of the world. Our president is supposed to be a top public servant, who works for the good of all Americans. His narcissism, vulgar language and pathological lying are so far below anything I have ever seen an elected official do that it is like a terrible nightmare. I hope we all wake up soon to a saner America and a better world.
6
Washington created a country. Trump creates chaos.
6
Wow - look at all those empty seats!
7
Trump's attendance at New York's centennial Veterans' Day ceremonies defiles them. Turn your backs on his "speech."
4
I'd need a lot of help from the NYT.
I I do this I need help that makes sense to the people of this region.
It's hard.
They don't call it the BLUEgrass state for nothing!
2
Recent electoral results mean little to Trump since he could always stage a coup and take over the government with help from his bosom buddy Putin...don't know why people are so complacent about this possibility.
3
Keep thinking that way. It is exactly what Hillary thought in 2016
2
And another brilliant Doug Mills photo. The picture really is worth. . .
6
Good Lord the last paragraph in Gail's column quoting Trump is another example of Trump's babbling incoherent self serving incompetence. The scary part is that his "base" probably made sense of it.
5
I love how present-day Republicans wrap themselves in Lincoln's mantle as if history over the last 150 years was one long continuous victory over blasphemous Democrats. Lincoln wouldn't recognize the party of exclusionary race-baiting, voter suppression or wealth protections the GOP has become. If they continue to be enraptured with Trump (and expect him to drag losers like Bevins across the finish line) they will need to rename their party the Know-Nothings (partly their original spawn).
318
@scottso When the Civil Rights act was passed by Liberal Democrats, the conservative Democrats joined the Republican Party and the liberal Republicans joined the Democratic Party. At that point the Republican party ceased being the "Party of Lincoln" and became the "Party of George Wallace."
47
@scottso Yep. It's certainly the Know-Nothings. But there are apparently legions of such people. Just take a look at the typical audience at a "Trump" rally. As Bobby Jindal now famously predicted, the "Stupids" have taken over the party.
28
@scottso
I always think of the Federalist Party of John Adams, Et al
3
It kills me when the chosen rally people seated and standing behind Trump cheer him on.
You would think that Trump realizes their cheers are an insult to morality and integrity. But since Trump cares less about morality and integrity and more about noise and ruthless, classless, cheers, he pretty much gives himself away.
And then those who run for positions in government who do have moral standards and integrity are just going to get the votes. The red hats, MAGA, have failed to stand for anything substantial or meaningful or right for this country. Maybe better to start leaving those red hats at home. They’re getting embarrassing, folks, they really are looking quite silly and childish, a sign of the make up of the man who demanded the red hat manufacturing.
5
@MIMA
Trump, and some of his supporters but certainly not all, don't care about morality and integrity because they have neither.
1
Your last paragraph in particular reminded me that the solution lies in two words: "25th Amendment". As if that would happen, with the current crew of cowed sycophants.
6
Trump rallies are like being hooked on heroin the first time you get a feeling of euphoria that will never be matched again unless you increase the dosage...Trump has got to increase his rhetoric or he is going to start losing his audience.
5
This is the guy who has control of the nuclear button.
2
All we want is to lose Trump and his abominable family for ever. Good candidates matter, including for commissioners.
6
Anything that mentions the Washington NFL team by name is pretty embarrassing.
1
I don't care about the definition of a personality disorder as a global, inflexible and maladaptive way of living and seeing the world. It is fairly stunning that Trump's narcissistic need to be seen as perfection and superiority incarnate has never lost a single ounce of energy. How much praise and self-praise can a single person feed himself? Greater than George Washington? He should be melting in embarrassment.
5
Beyond the annoying fact that Donald Trump, after hearing repeatedly that in helping Republican candidates his coattails are very short, now has his suit jacket tailored to hang below his knees, we need to expand the list of impeachable offenses.
The Democrats in Congress, under the skilled leadership of Adam Schiff, have President Trump nailed by multiple witnesses on the Ukraine bribery/extortion episodes and on Trump’s repeated shout-outs to Vladimir Putin, but there are other reasons for removing this man from the White House.
Gail Collins points out Donald Trump’s tendency to bring up the fact that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, and she writes that “everything about the past comes as a huge surprise to Trump.”
When someone has lived in a cocoon his entire life and is ignorant of the basics of American history which we all learned in 4th or 5th grade, that alone should be deemed Constitutional misbehavior or what the founders called a “misdemeanor,” sufficient for impeachment.
Put it on the list, Adam.
5
@sdw "When someone has lived in a cocoon his entire life and is ignorant of the basics of American history which we all learned in 4th or 5th grade," He is ignorant of other areas as well. I surmise that he has dyslexia coupled with the fact that no one has ever said no to him at any stage of his life. Why learn anything when you can cheat and skate by? Facts are so boring - ask his breifers at the Pentagon and other agencies what his reaction has been towards any attempt to enlighten him - not interested at all!
4
I see a lot of seated people in those stands. Easy to see since here aren't that many of them! Lots of empty space!
3
O.K., the last part was sort of just scary.
But... crazy as he is, he's still competent to stand trial.
6
First the boos, then the chants, then more boos. Now the un-cropped shots of the Trump Traveling Circus failing to fill the seats. We all know that Trump hates to read, but perhaps he should reconsider: The writing is clearly on the wall.
6
“'By the way, you’re going to lose your Second Amendment if you vote with Democrats,' the president told that Lexington rally."
Great idea!
There is nothing many of us would like better than to "lose" the really badly worded, outmoded, confusing, and deadly Second Amendment.
How can we go about doing that?
6
@PB How revisiting the part of the Second amendment that is conveniently ignored by the NRA and gun fanatics? All we need is a Supreme Court that rules that "well-ordered militias," the nation's defense before it developed a standing army, are no longer "necessary to the security of a free State." The local militia's role has been subsumed by each state's National Guard. To exercise your right to keep and bear arms can thus be satisfied by membership in the National Guard or an authorized police force. Individuals who are not part of a "well-ordered militia" or its modern counterpart have no such right.
2
So many wonderful parallels between George Washington and Donald Trump.
First we have the Cherry Tree myth. Young George tells his dad that he cannot tell a lie. He chopped down the cherry tree.
So we have the Ukraine Myth. Old DJT tells the public that he cannot tell a lie. He was too, incoherent to take part in a quid pro quo agreement.
We know, Washington’s first biographers, was an itinerant minister named Mason Locke Weems. His plan was, " I give his history, sufficiently minute…I then go on to show that his unparalleled rise and elevation were due to his Great Virtues.”
Trump's itinerant goofball is Rudy Giuliani. He goes on TV to tell us that Trump's rise was due to his Great Fingers and Giuliani's incoherent double talk.
Washington had his Mount Vernon and Trump his Doral Country Club.
Too, bad the Russians were so, so far away back in the late 1700's. Coulda been fun!
3
Gail, your Trump quote at the end reminds me that he has been impulsive, distracted, and nonsensical since he was (put in place by the electoral college and Russia) elected. And he's definitely getting worse: it's obvious that the brain plaques are affecting his mind. He must be removed before he can do something truly dangerous and horrifying.
6
My grandfather was beaten and jailed for organizing dockworkers in New York. My Dad fought to integrate New Jersey's public service unions. I spent the bulk of my adult life as a journeyman and elected official of my local.
On a personal level, to hear someone say Donald Trump is the reason American workers get a weekend (unless you're in retail or hospitality or really just about any of the trades any more, Thank you St. Ronnie) is just about the most offensive, tone deaf and irritating thing I have ever heard.
Lou Dobbs just lost all credibility. This mindless fawning has got to stop. Why are these people trying to deify that man? How do they not realize they are complicit in pushing our republic over the cliff? That just ruined my day and it's not yet 7 AM.
490
@BC
Try not to let Fox news and others who fawn over Trump steal your joy. It's going to be a long year. I suspect that those folks don't think about being "complicit in pushing our republic over the cliff." Some of them don't care what Trump does as long as he promotes their pet issue, and others are making money and holding on to power because of him.
31
@BC
My Dad was white collar with GM and showed me where the Battle of the Overpass took place, instructed me "never to cross a picket line," and explained that all the benefits he had (vacation, sick time, insurance) came from the fights of the labor unions.
57
@BC : Thank you thank you thank you (and your forebears) for your strong, pro-union activities.
I was very proud to be a member of a union (Communication Workers) when I worked for a daily newspaper -- and devastated, in 2008, to summarily be laid off from a mag owned by a multi-millionaire who refused to alter his boost-revenue plan even though laying off employees shattered some lives (mine included).
Every American worker needs to belong to a union; it's no coincidence that the wealth gap has intensified while the rich have engaged in union-evisceration.
26
Yes, Trump is flailing and failing. Soon he will be the guy no one wants to walk with or be seen with, except for those left in his employ & his eroding base whose televisions are stuck on the Fox channel.
Trump's didn't win the popular election in 2016.
His disapproval rating has always been higher than his approval rating since occupying the White House.
A growing percentage of Americans favor impeachment and removing Trump from office, and he is he losing Independent voters, who are moving toward the Democrats (and not only Biden) and favoring impeachment.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/01/us/politics/impeachment-monmouth-poll.html
Trump's negatives are so intense that people don't want him to appear, or his wife, for photo ops, as this article in the Boston Globe reports
https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2019/11/05/bmc-employees-protest-melania-trump-visit-wednesday/NUUAEXppssDUOpPM8gcEgK/story.html?s_campaign=breakingnews:newsletter
Trump may perceive this as his biggest threat:
Trump's properties are not so popular; lots of people don't want to stay in Trump buildings and top staff are quitting.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/who-built-this-beautiful-place-despite-trumps-visits-to-his-properties-some-of-his-businesses-show-new-signs-of-financial-decline/2019/11/05/819869cc-f691-11e9-8cf0-4cc99f74d127_story.html
Do you think Trump might be willing to resign could be if he realizes his "brand" is suffering—and all evidence indicates it is?
4
Donald's "speeches" are a stream of consciousness: no syntax, no grammar, no forethought, no afterthought, just vocalizations of whichever synapses happen to be firing at the moment.
5
In my district, voter turnout from democrats was appallingly low. That matters. If zero democrats turn up, all of whom are now busy finding something wrong with everyone running for the primary, Trump likely wins with a landslide. There are two sides here; devolution of one does not mean the other side is not devolving faster.
The Democrats should be very worried. It is still a year away from the election, and Donald Trump has already honed his stump speech to a fine edge. His ideas proceed one after the other in a logical and compelling sequence, leaving his detractors stunned and disoriented.
His policy prescriptions offer a refreshing change from the usual hum-drum reality-based ideas. Commentary like "Nobody sat? I don’t know, isn’t that exciting" reveal a keen sense of timing, well attuned to the interests of his audience. Not to mention his vice-like grasp of history.
By the way, when will Trump ever get credit for saying something that is irrefutably true? The media likes to focus on his 13,500-and-counting lies, but when he says that Lincoln was a Republican, it's ... crickets.
@GBM
Vice-like grasp of history? That's not funny, even in jest !!
trump is such a has-been. His supporters are dropping like flies and really see no reason to continue to show up to his cheer-leading events to assuage his ego. His agenda has no real bite since he does not have any cogent strategies on anything. He has always been in the game to bolster his brand and feed his ego and I think his followers are figuring that out; hence the declining attendance at his events and, as we have seen, the loud boos and chants of lock him up at the few truly public events he has attended recently. I think what draws people to his events is the entertainment factor: nothing else to do on a Saturday night in rural America and besides its free.
5
This was such a great column...did you really have to bring the Redskins score into it and remind us that we do have an entity that calls itself a football team? Otherwise, spot on!!
2
Tuesday was a long evening and the counting will be over soon and Bevin will be gone December 5th. Now onto getting Amy McGrath to beat Mitch McConnell. Looking like it is doable at this point.
6
The least popular governor in the country loses by 0.4%. In a state where Democrats have an advantage in party registration. I think it is a mistake to interpret this result as forecasting a Trump defeat next year. And as much as I loathe Trump, I can see the argument that the Ukraine call is not grounds for impeachment. And a bit of perspective. Trump is the worst president in American history. But he'still better than a majority of presidents and prime ministers worldwide. He's bad, but he's not necessarily a danger to the Republic.
Author of entertaining works about Texas, Ms. Collins might consider sharing with us the tale of Pa and Ma Ferguson.
After his impeachment and removal from office, Pa Ferguson orchestrated the election (twice) of his wife as Governor of Texas.
Absent a constitutional amendment, the First Lady is a non-starter, but maybe Ivanka is a possibility.
Trumpeting that while he did not get Governor Bevin over the line to victory, our dear leader claims his appearance on election eve erased a 15 to 20-point polling deficit. Curious because a poll that closed November 1 had Bevin up by 5 points. It appears that Trump's efforts actually reversed a Bevin advantage by sending more suburban voters to the polls to vote for the Democrat (look at the three counties in north Kentucky that sit in the Cincinnati suburbs - Boone, Campbell and Kenton all GOP counties won by Bevin and Republicans until 2019 when Bevin underperformed in Boone and Kenton and Campbell went blue). Trump, the gift that keeps on giving. Message to Senate Republicans: your majority is not safe with this bum (I'd say 'dog' but it would be an insult to dogs) at the top of your ticket.
2
Gail makes my day! I had at least a half dozen guffaws before the first cup of coffee was empty. Pip pip! We’re almost home!
4
Maybe the picture at the top of this editorial says it all. I see quite a large number of empty seats. Seems like Trump’s allure is dissipating......
4
Please note - it's not accurate to state the Pennsylvania suburbs look "never Trump"/less Republican. The election results were for the PHILADELPHIA suburbs. Pennsylvania is a big state and western PA politics are quite different from suburbs in the southeastern part of the state.
1
Illuminating to see Trump's quotes in the context of the surrounding paragraph.
Really shines a light on his state of mind.
119
@Anne ... so right!!! If journalists’ quotes of the current occupant actually were verbatim instead of forming rational sentences out of his nonsense, I think the public would be better informed. And further, it does us no service to try extracting “policy” out of the incoherences, lies, and flibberdegibbit tweets and oral blather.
21
Love it when Gail quotes Trump verbatim. Brings it from tragedy to comedy, where it belongs.
If it were the 70s and Trump were on late-night NYC public access selling used cars, doing his free-form nonsense rants, people would have gotten stoned and sat around listening to him, saying things like, “Imagine if this guy were president of the United States!”
12
You should quote Trump verbatim more often, so we do get much more insight into how he really thinks.
8
Thinks?
The guy doesn’t think. He get by with tropisms, like plants.
Is it possible to win?
I just dont see it.
2
@Moderate in a big city
It is ironic that the President wants only the brightest immigrants when he himself cannot answer the existing citizenship test. For instance: what is meant by “the rule of law”? Ans: Nobody is above the law, including you Mr President.
10
1 year. I simply cannot wait !!!!
8
All politicians lie, at least a little. Every one of them will lie to save his skin when backed into a corner. Trump lies as easily as he breathes just because he understands that a good lie is better than a hard truth. As Dylan sang, he is one "who lies with every breath". He ended that song, written decades ago, by singing, "I pity the poor immigrant when his gladness comes to pass".
What are we to make of the whirl wind of Trump lies that fly as fast as a Kansas tornado? More importantly, how do we extricate ourselves?
Trump has demonstrated that for a really large cohort of Americans, truth does not matter or they are so lost in dealing with actual facts they have no idea what is true and what is false. The desire to believe is stronger than fact, we now wake-up to learn.
7
If Abe Lincoln were to return to us tomorrow, I bet the first thing he'd do is register as a Democrat. And if Jesus Christ were to come back, he'd not be a Christian--definitely not.
12
@Ed Cone
Except it wouldn't be "Christian" in the first place without Christ.
Trump is clearly unhinged, but it seems that everyone in his administration is too intimidated to invoke the 25th amendment.
14
The funniest thing ever next to someone using duct tape to conceal the “Don’s Johns” company’s logo on ALL of the numerous port-o-potties stationed on the National Mall during Trump’s inauguration.
9
And about all those hundreds, ? thousands, waiting out side for all those empty seats? Thank you for that picture
11
I think the folks that read along with Gail Collins opinion and agree with her......are not truly grasping the realities of Trump.
Trump is not rallying anybody to vote for anybody else but him.
Trump has successfully Destroyed the Republican Party. Most NYTs readers along with most Bush Minions, refuse to accept this. They all continue to see the GOP as the enemy.
As far as what happened in KY on election night......as far as Trump is concerned.....nuthin.
It was obvious four years ago....Bevins failed to support Trump and stayed, by and large, inside the Bush Minion Camp....thus, in Trump's words, he became a "loser".
Consider the 2016 case of PA district 14.....where the (D) candidate won..Connor Lamb.....only because he was percieved to be MORE pro-Trump than the (R) candidate who foolishly clung to the old Bush MInion line of nonsense.
....
The same rule applies in KY. The voters selected the son of the old time (D) Govenor and rejected the "loser". They'll all go out and vote for Trump.
Remember Reagan Democrats??
1
I am still not fully recovered from the news that Frederick Douglass is alive and well and “getting recognized more and more” and the time he told me that Canada burned down the White House during the War of 1812.
The things President Trump knows that I don’t know are a source of constant amazement to me.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/06/us/politics/war-of-1812-history-facts.html
11
... and from the time ....
1
The Trump campaign will feature the following: The Dems will take away your steaks (no climate change is possible)! The Dems will take away your gas-guzzling SUVs (no climate change is believeable)! The Dems will take away your guns (mass shootings are fake news)! The Dems will take away your Trump Tax Cuts ($5 for a low paid secretary, $5 million for a fat cat Trump supporter)!
Actually, the last of these may be the most likely if a Dem is elected president but it is the most needed and important!
3
I'm wary of any assertion that Kentucky's results are a barometer for next November's presidential election or a referendum on Trump and his policies.
Early internal polling numbers (however believable they might be) showed Andy Beshear with a double-digit lead in his race to unseat Governor Bevin. As a college student who grew up in Lexington and has lived nearly two decades in the state, I can tell you this race was far more about Bevin's unpopularity than it was about Trump.
The approval ratings give you a taste of that, but Bevin is a man who insinuated that children were being sexually abused because teachers were on strike advocating for their promised pensions, tried to push through the legislature a 291-page pension bill that had been swiftly jammed into the framework of what had been an 11-page sewer bill, and exaggerated claims of suicides in casinos rather than debate the merits and faults of a potential new tax revenue source in sports and casino gambling.
It is an embarrassing defeat for both Bevin and Trump - I won't argue with that. But the campaign rally very likely contributed to such a razor-thin margin. Voter turnout was 42.2%, up significantly from 30.6% in 2015. Every vote mattered.
The 5 down-ballot races are evidence that Trump's brand of republicanism (if you can even call it that) has staying power in Kentucky, and will across red states, if we aren't diligent about voting him out in 2020.
5
@Ben Barberie All very astute except one thing: teachers weren't, and haven't been, on strike. Teachers picketed the capitol because of Bevin and the GOP's stupid not-really-a-pension-reform pension plan (that they tried to pass through the Legislature on a sewage bill). This is an important distinction, and one that local and national media doesn't seem to consider: for teachers to strike, there would have to be a breach of their contracts with local school districts (or some other reason), not the state of Kentucky. Saying that the teachers were "on strike" only reinforces a ludicrous GOP talking point, not the reality of the situation (and let's not forget that Bevin wants to punish the teachers for exercising their right to free speech and free assembly, in addition to his inane claims that the public schools being closed due to the teachers' picketing endangered students).
4
@Joel Fair point. I should've used a better term there, picketing is a far more appropriate description
I'm curious as to whether Trump knows the Constitution has other amendments in addition to the Second. For example, if someone were to ask about the Fourteenth Amendment, would he know what's in it? Since that one is pretty well known, how about the Sixth? or the Eighth? In fact, someone should ask him, and in a public place; for example, a presidential debate. Anyone?
9
@kathleen cairns
It's easy to swear to uphold the constitution when you don't know what is it.
Plausible deniability they called it during Watergate.
3
Dear Gail,
you might write additional one million of columns but those efforts cannot change the fact that the lasting legacy of Obama Barack was Donald Trump...
How do you defend the fact that after 8 years of allegedly brilliant Obama Administration the people opted for the change and Trump?
1
@Kenan Porobic The majority of the people did not opt for trump. It was a handful of states that get extra value for their vote who gave us the mess we are in. If ever there was an in-your-face example of why we need to get rid of the electoral college system, trump is it.
7
@Norma
Trump got 50% of votes in spite of incredibly bad coverage by press. If GOP candidates and Hillary received such harsh criticism Trump would have received 80% of popular votes...
@Norma
And shouldn't the Democrats have implemented those changes many decades ago? Are you blaming Trump for the sins of other people?
Lou Dobbs: “Have a great weekend. The president makes such a thing possible for us all.”
Actually, that was the unions.
23
Since one of the most important issues in both Mississippi and Kentucky was Medicaid expansion, we learned that a majority of Mississippi voters would rather forgo health care and perhaps die than vote for a Democrat and a majority Kentucky voters would rather get health care and live. Perhaps it was not a fair test since Kentucky voters already had Medicaid expansion and had a lesson that having Republican in office will result in a loss of medical care.
6
Mississippi is well worth mention. Democrats lost their only statewide office (partly because the office holder ran for governor). The GOP swept the state. However, this is bad news for Trump. Republicans mainly won by small margins. Even the race for governor was close. Mississippi in my youth was the most racially vile state in the union, well deserving of its depiction in songs by Phil Ochs, Nina Simone and others. White racists there, now welcomed to the bosom of the Republican Party, are certainly more discreet in public, but they have not become tolerant of blacks or liberals or immigrants. They constitute a solid majority of the electorate. If Trump and his supporters can't do better than that in Mississippi, they are in trouble in battleground states, which have overall a higher level of civilization.
14
It isn't surprising that Trump is a pro at manipulating weaker minds. He has sharpened his skills and thrived over a lifetime of doing so. What is most disturbing is the enabling by those who fully understand the dangers of the short, mid and long term consequences of his actions. The Ukraine escapade was in full gear before Robert Mueller testified before Congress. I wonder what other "great deals" the White House is working on at this very moment as impeachment is unfolding.
8
The big boy is showing a little strain. The anger, shrillness and meanness, to me, displays a growing disconnect. Acolytes like Barr are peeling away from him. But, I fear there's real danger at hand. The potential for violence is out there and Trump, as he becomes more frightened, is bound to toy with it somehow. No matter his weakened political position, he still heads the entire justice, homeland security and military apparatus and knows lapdogs like Lindsay and Mitch will do nothing to stop him, regardless of harm to the country.
9
Trump suspended use of Congressionally directed federal funds for his own political ends. That is wrongful use of federal funds. Lock him up.
13
My take on the Senate Republican ‘s refusal to vote for impeachment is this: there’s a possibility Trump could win re-election. There is zero possibility that Pence could win in 2020.
And about those rallies - betcha dollars to doughnuts about half of those people behind him are paid. Just like when he descended the golden escalator.
6
So it looks like they could fit another 70 people in an otherwise packed auditorium. Because who wants to look at the back of his head the whole time. Lets compare the turn out to any Joe Biden, Liz Warren or Bernie Sanders rally. No comparison.
2
It says a lot that Republicans can't name anyone since Abraham Lincoln that they can point to with pride.
5
I’d nominate Eisenhower. Peace, prosperity and the interstates!
3
@MD Monroe - I'm guessing most right wing voters have no idea who he is and right wing politicians don't want to be reminded of politicians who actually did the job they were elected to.
2
I really hope people snap out of it and remember they are smarter than this. This man is the most obvious clear and present danger to our country we have seen since 9/11.
You can plainly see how he uses the US as his personal plaything, willing to sacrifice allies and alliances to the paranoia in his head. And how he cashes in on his position as the president of the United States for himself, his family and his "friends."
Even I'm tired of calling out his lies. It's exhausting. Is that "winning?"
10
Loving the picture showing all the empty seats. The local CBS affiliate tried to put its finger on the scale by actually broadcasting the entire campaign rally live. Glad their efforts didn’t succeed.
4
Trump is right! I, for one, did not even know Lincoln was a president. Always thought it was a car.
6
If your penultimate paragraph doesn't alarm people, it should. It demonstrates the unfettered, unbridled, un-functioning and uncontrolled mind of our nation's president. It should serve as a clarion call to all fair-minded and serious Americans.
The dude can't put a coherent sentence together. An entire paragraph? Fuhgettabout it. Not in the cards. Trump's linguistic skills begin and end with two word sentences, like "You're FIRED!"
Which is precisely what the country needs to tell Donald Trump in 2020, since hoping that the Republican-controlled Senate will do it for us, before then, seems to be out of the question.
10
Gail brings up El Paso. We all remember when Donald Trump took his thumbs-up picture with the baby whose parents were murdered as a direct result of Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric. The baby was actually brought back to the hospital specifically for Trump’s photo-op. Before that was Pittsburgh, where he held a rally the same day then showed up for a photo-op with the memorials of the 11 Jews murdered in their synagogue as a direct result of his dissemination of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
How sick does a person have to be to support this president?
13
The horror and hallmark of a Bevin type is cruelty.
Inexplicably the Supreme Court permitted governors to opt out of Obamacare/Medicaid, so Bevin types could happily deny essential medical care to fellow Americans.
Bevin was proud to do so. Most of the GOP too. Innocent people have suffered or died.
Voting for this is sadism is not acceptable, if we still want to call America a civilized country.
9
@David Henry
Kentucky ranks as the 5th highest state where federal aid comprised the largest share of general revenue. People continue to vote against their own best interests by electing Republicans who only care about the wealthy.
"I lost the governor but I saved the agriculture commissioner."
Aim low and you'll never be disappointed -- Trumpian Words of Wisdom for today.
MAGA
7
The best part about Trump rallies is you know he isn't doing anything related to governing. Please Mr. Trump. Rally away. I'm sure we can find a minor league baseball stadium to cover everyday from now to election. Pray impeachment intervenes sooner.
However, yes. These election results are relatively meaningless. Virginia has been turning blue for the last decade and it's too early to say whether Trump's endorsement is a thing of value or a badge of shame. Perhaps neither. There's a chance Trump's endorsement doesn't correlate with election results at all.
Wouldn't the President love that? "Uh, Mr. President. The data show no one cares whether you host stadium events or not. You are statistically insignificant."
Ps. Go Bears!
6
Wow. It's interesting, I've been on the comments on fox news website lately alot. Just the first few comments here where you can see the actual critical thinking and the fact that democratic supporters are nothing like what your average republican actually believes they are is mind boggling.
That's the issue with trump supporters, where democrats seem to be thinking rationally and can admit faults in their candidates republicans aren't willing to find any fault in a man that has more than can be counted
10
This is the man who addressed a roomful of guests honoring Women’s History Month and asked if any of them had ever heard of Susan B. Anthony.
The statement above perfectly describes the "stable genius" in all his self proclaimed glory.
Trump is obviously on the same medical path that took his father, Fred Trump. Fred Trump died after six years of Altzhiemers. How ironic that Donnie will pass and HE will not even know the story of the worlds greatest president EVER!
8
"O.K., the last part was sort of just to give you a taste of how his mind works." Except, his mind doesn't work; it's broken. Therein lies the rub.
5
"Still got a year to go?" Are you giving up your faith in the goodness of the Moral Majority backed crowd led by Mitch?
2
Such nonsense. Off year elections mean nothing. Very few actually vote in non presidential election years, especially the odd numbered ones. There is a zero percent chance that Trump loses Kentucky in 2020. No red state will vote for a prochoice candidate. Under Trump a record number of right wing judges have been confirmed. Evangelicals and religious groups never had it this good. As long as the economy stays strong, and the Dems or forth high tax socialist policies, Trump will win in a walk.
1
@MJG - Well yes if you think good means having your air and water poisoned and losing access to affordable health care and education.
1
Leaving aside for a moment the fact that, in this day and age, Lincoln's Republicanism would put him a tad left of the center of the Democratic Party, Trump is, as per his norm, dead wrong. Pretty much everyone who survived junior high history learned Lincoln was Republican.
Trump's travails, in his mind, dwarf those of God's favorite whipping boy, Job. The number of times Donald has declared that no president in history has been treated as badly as he is at least as high as his golf score, his waist circumference and the length of his tie (in millimeters) combined. Would he really care to join Mr. Lincoln and Presidents Garfield and McKinley, all of whose degree of mistreatment trumps Trump's? Or even Reagan, who lived to tell about it?
Poor man. If he had put just half as much effort into his job as he has given to whining, we'd still be impeaching him. It's that bad.
It's just one day after another of "poor, poor pitiful me."
And, in that, he is right. He is pitiful, a pitiful excuse for a human being, not to mention a president of this here United States.
11
You forgot J F Kennedy or did you?
Many of today’s Republican officials are not just humility- and propriety-starved, they’re also woefully deficient in a basic understanding of human nature (including its quirks).
Count Tuesday’s defeated Republican candidates who'd courted Trump to stump for them, as among the most in need of a refresher course in Psychology 101. How they did not understand that standing beside the toxic president posed a substantial danger to their chances of winning is a head-scratcher.
How they apparently poopooed Trump's destructive influence on the GOP’s 2018 Midterm disaster as unrepeatable is beyond befuddling.
Then again, so many of these Republicans are narcissists of the same Narcissist Club, whose chief membership requirement is to be in love with yourself and trapped in the juvenile belief that you're immortal: immune to defeat.
6
He declared bankruptcy six times. So how smart is he? This should become a refrain in every discussion of him, much as the dog story with Mitt Romney.
8
It was said best long ago: he is unfit.
10
Trump’s cartoon performances make his presidency looks like some David Duke/Jim Jones reunion tour.
Foaming about an impeachment triggered by his own behavior meddling in a US election and riffing on the word “stand” while practically levitating with hatred towards the 200+ year fact that America has more than one political party seem to be making the old boy’s head spin around on its axis like some horror movie.
Maybe the wheels on Trump’s weird, weird presidency will soon fall off and we can start chipping away at the trillions in debt he is leaving us as his “legacy”.
11
Maybe people are getting sick and tired of the Trump-mania. In that rebranding effort, Trump will probably run for reelection with a different VP.
My educated guess is that it will be a woman. She is Ivanka. She will perform like Palin.
Elizabeth Warren should run with Biden.
3
Trump's rallies remind me of the crowds at professional wrestling matches in the early 1960s. The wrestling fans new it was fake, as Trump's fans know he's lying. But they go along with it, loving to see their guy, Trump, beat the bad guy, Hillary. They hate Hillary, whom, for years, Rush Limbaugh et al. demonized as the quintessential limousine liberal, who, like us, looks down on them as inferior. Trump is the new Gorgeous George.
5
@goldenboy What a terrible insult to Gorgeous George!
" Hey, I lost the governor but I saved the agriculture commissioner."
That's what Roy Cohen taught him 40 years ago.
Never admit defeat.
Turn it on it's head and claim victory in a brazen, in your face falsehood manner.
I wonder if Maleina dump him and walks out, how he will spin it as a victory?
7
Well said but with any luck and people like Lindsay Graham reading transcripts, we may be able to show Trump to the exits before the election. If only...
7
Interesting how sudden disenchantment can abruplty put an end to things that were wildly popular for awhile. Disco was huge in the late 70s, and all us studio musicians in Philadelphia did great for about five years, because everybody came to Philly to record; we played the most compelling, insistent beat, and that's what propelled disco music. Then, suddenly, the world got tired of disco, and all of us musicians were out of work. So shall it be with Trump, looks like. Gail obviously had a good time writing today's column!
7
@CKent - Thanks for the muscianship and recordings, many of which I own and enjoy. But you need good songs and a human pulse. Trump grunts and grinds, hates anyone who wont dance or refuses to say He is the greatest dance. I do not need the 12 inch expanded mix!
3
@John Ryan Horse
You're very welcome, John, and thank you, sir. I agree with everything you say. There are some Disco tracks that still play, and all us sidemen get checks in the mail (great country, and a strong musicians' union). But I doubt that Trump's tweets will be collected and re-read with nostalgic affection. Howls of derisive laughter at the vapidity, viciousness and illiteracy, maybe.
1
I’ll concede when Trump has a city or state named after him.
1
@FJR - ATL That city will probably be somewhere in Russia. No one has helped our arch enemy more than trump has.
3
What I can't follow is the logic of the voters....McConnell's popularity is terrible.....because he is spending all his time helping Trump and not doing anything for the people of Kentucky. So if he says to his voters...'I will help you and not Trump. I can't do both'....he will lose? So the voters will go and vote Mitch back in. I guess so they have something to complain about. Rinse and repeat. And the laid off coal miners shoot themselves in the other foot. The first one no longer has any toes left.
5
@Walking Man
But Russia benefited from Mitch this year as did China, with the help of his wife, the Sec. of Transportation. How's the infrastructure in Kentucky these days?
Too bad Mitch McConnell doesn't read the Times. This column is exactly the news Republican leadership should be reading. Their bank accounts may be bulging, but their President will be ridden out of Washington on a rail, leaving them without the cover they will need for their own electioneering come 2020 and beyond.
...bout time.
6
As Gail’s concluding Trump quote shows again: Trump is an unfortunate dotard. The real problem is the monied malefactors backing him, the ones running Fox and nearly half of voters glued to alternative facts, deep state conspiracies, and servers with Hilary’s lost emails in the Ukraine.
5
Well, Ms. Collins, I can only assume you researched the 1940 Chicago Bears 73-0 victory or heard family stories; you surely are not old enough to remember it personally. Nevertheless it is an impressive comparison to Trump's help with another rant---oops, rally-- meant to help candidates.
Democrats, no sitting back and thinking victory is ours. The Trumpets still have chants to shout and national parks to turn into motocross sites.
Elect Democratic Women
6
A precinct-by-precinct breakdown of the vote in eastern Kentucky might be a useful predicter for Mitch McConnell's chances in next year's election. I'd bet he'd win by a nose there, lose by a lot in the west, and anybody's guess in the center of the state. If he wins big in the east, he'll probably survive, but it'll take a better forecaster than me to estimate his overall chances.
5
"Bevin himself urged the people at Trump’s rally to 'send a message … that we support the president of the United States.'"
(Soon-to-be-ex) Gov. Bevin: I firmly support the presidenCY of the United States, just not its current occupant.
I support a president who acts for the interests of the entirety of the people in our country.
I support a president who honors the agreements our country has made to the other nations of the world and the encouragement we can give to fledgling democracies.
I support a president who comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable among us.
I support a president who believes in and cherishes the Constitution on which our government is based.
I support a president who understands the criticality of careful stewardship for this, the only planet we will ever have.
I know not what others may do, but for me and my house, we will serve such a president as this and not the current simulation of one.
48
@Doug McNeill
I support a president who is chosen by the democratic process, and not by a quirk of the Constitution.
14
I'm all for Trump "helping" GOP contenderd lose re-election at their campaign rallies. He was not only booed at a world series game, he was not invited to sit with the owners of the Nats and became the first president in history never asked to toss out the opening pitch in America's national sport. He followed up that historic snub by being booed at a UFC fight in New York. Maybe he should try NASCAR next? Or at least "help" Lindsey Graham and Moscow Mitch with their re-election campaigns?
11
Trump has better teeth than George Washington's, that's about the only comparison. And Trump's thumbs are getting shorter, from hours of endless tweeting.
5
"O.K., the last part was sort of just to give you a taste of how his mind works."
Namely, it doesn't. There should be a mandatory requirement for an annual checkup for the president, both physical and mental. We would have been rid of him after his first year.
8
Unfortunately he keeps going to docs who lie and say he's in great shape. Remember when they showed him pics of animals and trump said that proved his mind functioned well?
2
@MikeH. Well Trump cant do an honest medical checkup. Remember the infamous evaluation by Dr. Borestein? Trump wrote the Dr.'s report, put Borestein in an untenable position, and later sent thugs to steal medical records from his office! And he was just beginning to flex his muscles...
I have plotted out five "adventures" in the next year. (I'm retired.) Only one is in the USA (wolf watching in Yellowstone). The others are in foreign countries, where past experience has shown that their disgust with Trump is widespread. I'd like to do a bourbon tour in Kentucky, but rubbing shoulders with Always-Trumpers is an adventure I'll have to pass on.
10
"O.K., the last part was sort of just to give you a taste of how his mind works."
But did he say it or did he not say it? It's utter gibberish, but the sad irony is that I'm not sure if you're kidding or if he actually served up that stream-of-consciousness word salad.
8
@Ron He said it. It's (18:57) in the transcript of his rally ranting.
1
@Carol
How can people even listen to this man? I experience psychological pain just trying to make sense out of his burble. He's horrible to look at, even worse to listen to.
Any state swinging Democratic will eventually pay a critical
price of regret
That Trump is fading is wishful thinking I believe since the polls still show his supporters holding steady.
I think the media is running a scare campaign by insisting Trump could still win the Electoral College. He can't and won't.
Trump will lose but only if every registered American voter is allowed to vote and not be turned away at the voting stations by Republican administrators trying to suppress minority voters.
Trump's star may be fading but to this point it still shines for millions of his ignorant supporters.
7
Just hoping that someone from the Democratic Party and the ACLU will be keeping an eye on the recount in Kentucky. Remembering Georgia and Florida last year....Republicans will try anything to keep power, as we have already witnessed.
Yesterday's Democratic victories gave me hope and lifted me up, and I will take that boost to my spirit. The countdown is underway for when we will finally have a chance to turn the ignorant, narcissistic oaf out of office. We have just seen in Kentucky that every single vote is crucial, and never will that be more so than this time next year.
At 74 I don't want to wish away what life I have left, but part of me wants to fast forward to November, 2020. I hope we will be dancing for joy in the streets election night.
19
@Diana, yes, and how republicans cheated to take the Georgia governors race from Stacey Abrams in 2018.
2
Your George Washington knew when to retreat. Keep men and material. Anything left behind -burn it. Your Donald Trump is but a mere butterfly seeking a blue bulb.
3
I just read that Bevin wants a recount but then plans to circumvent the loss by giving it to a supposedly random (hand picked?) legislative committee with will be able to throw out the election. Maybe I got it wrong. This could give Trump and another idea about loosing an election again.
17
That's the Republicans - change the message when reality hits, say "what we really meant...", give new definitions to old words, and trust in Americans' inability to remember anything.
9
"He quoted mega-compliments from 'the great Lou Dobbs,' the Fox Business talking head who recently appeared to claim Trump had invented Saturday and Sunday. ('Have a great weekend. The president makes such a thing possible for us all.')"
Hmm... and on the Seventh Day, The Donald created... weekends?
4
The big news out of Kentucky: 400,000 more people voted Tuesday than in the gubernatorial race in 2015.
Democrats win when eligible voters vote.
And Democrats win when Democrats talk and act like Democrats.
- Social Security
- Healthcare
- Public education
- Equality
- Wall Street regulation
- Collective bargaining
- Voting rights
- Environmental protection
- Immigration
- National security
- Women's health
- Infrastructure
Democrats are the party of the right ideas, implemented the right way under the Constitution. Those are the issues Democrats need to focus on, constantly, between now and November 3, 2020. Ads featuring bills the House of Representatives has passed so far this year, sitting in Mitch McConnell's trash bin, should be front and center.
21
In the beginning, I thought Trump was a joke. I found it easy to joke about him. It was fun. Then, as he gained control, the commentary I enjoyed the most came from late-night comics and their sharp team of writers. That was a howl. Now, I don't make fun of him, and I don't enjoy comedy skits or humorous writing about him, however clever they maybe. I'll lighten up when he goes out the door.
12
The song, Don't know much about history comes to mind as I read his comments. Has there ever been a president who knows so little? Can you imagine Trump being born without a wealthy father? Remember this is a man who has never worked for another company in his life. Just so sad.
12
There is no President greater than President George Washington , Father of our country and anyone who says otherwise needs to pick up a history book and read about him .Everytime I read about President Washington Im impressed, one of his principal characteristics was how humble he was and always concerned about his fellow soldiers. Also he treated everyone with respect and as a General always with his troops, and that is how he become a hero.
3
I love Collins' quote "But everything about the past comes as a huge surprise to Trump.". Truth be told, as Trump would say, Trump has a sense of history "like a dog". Save for conspiracy theories or imagined acts of self greatness, he appears to lack any object permanence. Finally, even voters from the likes of Kentucky are starting to recognize this.
5
Great commentary. I was giggling all the way through. And I wasn't even standing. :)
5
Women of every state must take a personal inventory of what matters to them................clean water, healthy food, a flourishing and sustainable environment, safe communities, social nets that protect the vulnerable, education for everyone's child, affordable healthcare and housing for all. Without that, we're done for.
14
"Remember when (45) responded to the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton by calling for new laws to allow authorities to take guns away from people who were clearly a danger to themselves and others?" Did that include the White House? and First Family?
3
It is sort of astonishing that Trump is newly aware that Lincoln was a Republican.
Admittedly, it doesn't make sense. I mean you look at the GOP today and you think "This is the Party of Jefferson Davis." And no doubt, if Lincoln were alive today, he would have dropped out of the GOP. At a minimum he would be a never Trumper.
The contracts are remarkable:
(1) Honest Abe
and
(2) Lying Trump - International Fraudster and Con Man.
8
One tiny slap-down for donald, one giant leap for democracy!
Hopefully Tuesday’s elections will inspire all those Dems who stayed home in 2016 & the independents, that showing up to vote & not wasting it on a single issue is critical.
Perhaps I’ll try to get into a trump circus to sit & boo...would I be allowed to wear body armor & a helmet to protect my free speech from the civics-challenged trumpies?
8
I can make it through another year. I am not sure about 5, and folks, the Democratic Party is looking to cement that 5.
Why is it that we can find no one who is electable across a broad demographic to run, back him or her, and send the Donald to Mar-a-Lago, to swim with the fishes in his own lobby every time it rains. (And kudos to the Donald for giving us the opportunity to remove the metaphorical meaning of "swim with the fishes" and return the literal meaning. Trump can erase any institution.)
He doesn't need to lobby for awful Republicans. He can just let the Dems shoot themselves in the foot.
There are days when I think I will just go to bed with the covers over my head for a year. And then I think, what if I woke to another four years of this corruption? So I get going and do what I can to make this year go fast by doing as much as I can so I don't have to wake up to that nightmare. Vote Vote Vote. Get people registered to vote. Let's have an overwhelming vote against the nightmare of another 4 years!
7
It's difficult to know which is worse: Trump's sense of decency, or his sense of history.
5
Yet the article didn't mention that Trump's visit did apparently help Bevin close the gap. Dems will be mistaken to not take him seriously, again. The candidates in NC and KY ran on moderate agendas that win in the suburbs. Let this be a lesson to the Warren supporters who are gloating and mocking Trump voters. Whistling past the graveyard, again.
1
@Keith: actually Bevin was polling with a five point lead before Trump came to visit...
1
Trump always fails. He didn't want to be president and he even failed to achieve that.
7
A bully can only be effective when they have perceived power. Once that power is questioned all bets are off, the bully is vulnerable and their power is no more.
You can see this starting in the impeachment testimony as more come forwarders are no longer cowered.
The tide will turn for Republicans when they determine Trump is more a liability than an asset. Politics is all about maintaining power and power is being re-elected. The fight between Trump and his party will get ugly but make no mistake, it will only do so if their chances for maintaining power is in question.
6
"Remember, we’ve still got a year to go."
Don't remind me. *shudder*
11
I have to spoil Ms. Collins's meme, but Bevin, um, was the most unpopular governor in America; all the other Republican candidates (whom Trump also supported) swept all the state offices; and Trump probably helped reduce Bevin's loss numbers.
But, by all means, tell yourself that having Trump support a candidate will hurt them in 2020. That way, you can ignore the impact of his rallies, particularly in the Rust Belt states. The only thing more comforting than a meme is an election victory -- you should try for the latter some time.
2
@Ulysses All the most unpopular governors and senators are Republicans. If that is your comfort, Trump is going to need to save a lot of people.
13
Thank you, Gail Collins ! You and Stephen Colbert are my daily 'therapy' in these dark times of the Orange One. Trump is on constant 'campaign mode' when there is so much real work left undone in our Country : the Infrastructure repair, Climate Change, jobs, health, the global economy, compassionate immigration reform, gun control, etc etc etc
24
Hopefully, Trump will show up to 'support' lots of GOP candidates in 2020, whether they like it or not.
14
I'm counting down to Trump's impeachment. He will be impeached. But will he be removed?
Since it is up to the Republicans in the Senate to uphold their oath of office to support and defend the Constitution, the answer to the question of removing Trump from office is, NO.
Sadly, Republicans don't respect their oath of office. When each senator was elected they placed their left hand on a bible, raised their right hand and swore to support and defend the Constitution. Supporting the Constitution requires them to decide whether the president acted in good faith to "...execute the Office of President of the United States" and "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Even before the House impeachment hearings are made public, it is clear that Trump withheld US military aid from an ally, desperately in need of that aid to defend itself from a Russian invasion, and demanded a "favor" from that ally to produce dirt on Joe Biden for his political advantage. In other words, Trump played a game with our foreign aid, foreign relations and national security for his personal political gain.
So the question is, How can Republican senators, in good conscience, conclude that Trump acted to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution?" The answer is they can't. But that doesn't mean that they won't find him not guilty. It just means that they have no conscience and never intended to keep their oath to the United States of America and the American people.
13
Actually, Abraham Lincoln was greater than George Washington. And George Washington was greater than Abraham Lincoln. And Donald Trump is greater than both of them. And nobody is greater than Donald Trump. And Donald Trump is greater than Nobody. Or something like that...
13
The preferred strategy for Republican pols is clear by now - invite Trump to help you in primaries, but tone it down in the general election. So the rallies are likely to increase in the coming months as primary season heats up, despite the latest general election results.
4
Will be interested to see what will happen here in KY the next State Congressional voting cycle. Until then, focused on getting rid of Moscow Mitch. Perhaps the Senate will actually start to function again if he is removed.
55
It appears Putin did not emphasize American history or grammar when programing trump.
However, the undermining of NATO, the EU, and the explosion of U.S. deficits were obviously done with elegant code.
46
You can take whatever solace you can from Andy Beshear’s tiniest win the Kentucky. He was a good candidate and would be a terrific governor for Kentuckians. The ‘other guy’ was the most hated Governor in the country. Beshear should have won by a landslide!!!!
I’m a Democrat but have often voted Republican in local elections - they are sometimes the only ones running in the same towns & cities of upstate NY. Not this election - I didn’t voted for any candidate on a Republican line yesterday.
There is no Republican Party - they are now the Party of Trump and I sure he’ll change their name if, God forbid, he’s elected for another term. After all, Lou Dobbs says Trump is a greater President than Lincoln- and yes, I did know Lincoln was the first Republican President.
Still Republicans swept most offices up here because most people just didn’t vote. Turnout was abysmal. In Gloversville, a city of 18,000, less that 1,500 voted for Mayor (pretty important office). (There was no one on the Republican line - they relied on write-ins - and the incumbent Mayor is popular). Still LESS THAN 1,500 people bothered to vote. And Republicans won the other offices.
We can chortle with Gail - and I do - but if people don’t vote, Trump will win in 2020.
59
Trump’s fans believe that Trump’s miraculous election by minus three million votes was divine intervention.
Don’t bring God into this. It is only a figment of narcissistic imaginations.
1
@Maxi
I'm surprised the NYT allowed a reality post.
Bluegrass State ranked 45th in per capita income and the GOP answer is no affordable health insurance, no affordable higher education, no infrastructure jobs, no farm product exports and no clean energy jobs.
58
Yep, and then there's Mississippi, but the good ol' boys down there LOVE their dissonant brass band of trumpets.
3
My guess is that the biggest reason Bevin lost is because he wanted to rescind the Medicaid expansion.
That will not necessarily translate to 2020.
10
Republicans want to rescind Medicare expansion everywhere. That will translate in 2020.
23
Bevin lost, in great part due to his demonization and dismantling of Kentucky’s public heath care insurance, an early success under the ACA, and additional efforts regarding public education, and unions. A truly repugnant individual, and bad public policy that hurts citizens, that translates perfect to 2020.
2
@AW
I hope you are correct.
Florida and a couple Red States never did the Medicaid Expansion.
And they still went for Trump.
On the other hand, those states didn't campaign against the Medicaid Expansion. So people never knew.
Keeping my fingers crossed.
Washington was the greatest that we know of as his role in creating the country, his staking everything on success, his character was the gold standard for what generations since have sought. Lincoln was an equal in many ways and excelled in some ways, as preserving the country was also a monumental challenge for which his life was taken.
Trump? Takes everything, gives nothing, enriches friends and family, works to undo the Constitution, attacks truth-tellers and patriots who actually have sacrificed much, and lies always where Washington lied never. Trump's equal was never in the presidency, that is true. Many equals have been in asylums and prisons.
56
@Ed Marth
It's often forgotten nowadays, but the real reason Washington was admired in his day was that, unlike most revolutionary leaders ( Cromwell, Bolivar, Napoleon) he did not make himself dictator, but resigned his power and went home. While Trump makes power grabs whenever he thinks he can get away with it.
12
@Charlesbalpha There actually was a move to make Washington king. He told his people that there should be no royalty in the new Democracy.
3
@Ed Marth
trump has no friends - only symbiotic relationships or hosts and parasites.
His motto? “Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for me.”
1
Thankful that my state of Kentucky is finally on the right side of something. Bevin has asked for a second accounting of the votes but this is not a recount. It only provides for the precincts to confirm the numbers they sent in. An actual recount must be financed by Bevin. He won't do it.
Ironic that he won his Republican primary 4 years ago by 83 votes.
44
@Johnny
Good work and congratulations for taking the Governor's office. Now can y'all do something about McConnell?
3
I'm surprised Trump didn't compare himself to Woodrow Wilson. After all, in Trumpland wouldn't having your face on a $100,000 banknote be better than appearing on a measly $1 or $5?
21
@KJ
Except that trump knows no history. Otherwise he would be happy to align himself with a racist like Wilson.
@KJ Since Wilson was notoriously racist, your drollery is rather more on point than many reading this may have realized.
MAGA? I know, that provokes a lot of eye rolling. But where else could a guy who majored in eighth grade style improv entertainment persevere to become the #1 big shot over so many other big shots?
That has inspired +/- 40% approval from opinion poll respondents who appear to be thrilled by their first taste ever of respect from the top. That doesn't qualify as "greater" by any measure of actual job performance but certain TV producers will continue to be attracted to its viewer share potential.
8
Bear in mind that although we focus on how personally unpopular Bevin is, most of the Republican congress members hold similar views to his on abortion, gun control, the environment, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, immigration and health care. So even though some of his political cohort in Congress may rate higher in likability, they still hold increasingly unpopular policy positions.
35
I believe the votes in Kentucky and Virginia show the slow turning point were people will start to vote for or against a candidate vs just for the party regardless. Seems like Bevin was a rotten Governor and got replaced even though its a very red state and Virginia decided it needed some gun laws regardless of the fact the NRA and GOP are equal.
18
“Trump had invented Saturday and Sunday. (“Have a great weekend. The president makes such a thing possible for us all.”)”
The workers who fought and sometimes died for the right to unionize and the labor rights that they won will be surprised to hear that.
You like worker safety, overtime pay, five day work weeks, vacations, and collective bargaining? Trust me, the Republicans fought all that tooth and nail as well.
145
Just watched the documentary “Harlan County, USA” about the coal miners strike for better health and safety conditions in the mines of Harlan County, Kentucky in the 1970’s which pulled our heartstrings for those poor miners and their families. Well, guess what - Harlan County voted for the Republican Bevins over Beshear by more than 2 to 1.
12
@Donald White
John Sayle had a really good film 30+ years ago that’s really wrath watching “Matewan”. Below is a description if you’re interested
DescriptionFilmed in the coal country of West Virginia, "Matewan" celebrates labor organizing in the context of a 1920s work stoppage. Union organizer, Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper), a scab named "Few Clothes" Johnson (James Earl Jones) and a sympathetic mayor and police chief heroically fight the power represented by a coal company and Matewan's vested interests so that justice and workers' rights need not take a back seat to squalid working conditions, exploitation and the bottom line.
1
One danger with having the election be all about Trump is that voters will ignore qualities in his opponents that would normally be an issue. The corrupt Democratic politician in NY (of which there are many, this being a one-party state) would love the voters to focus on Trump and ignore the mess they’ve made. I’m sure the same dynamic is at play in red states.
4
@Gary Too bad there isn't a party of rectitude to weave into that tapestry of corruption. While I don't want to paint all politicians as corrupt, they do tend to read the most damning facts in the best possible light to avoid saying no to the rich and powerful.
To restate the obvious: voting matters.
The Virginia DEMOCRATIC legislature will most likely vote to ratify the ERA amendment, making it the 38th state.
The ERA will become part of the constitution.
GOP loses one of its pet peeves.
79
@David Henry
I am not a lawyer but I believe you are incorrect.
Virginia can and may finally ratify the ERA but there has been no extension of the 1979 deadline by Congress although many have tried to do so over the years.
It's a tangled tale throughout the 1980s and for others to clarify.
9
@Fred, read this article. It goes into depth about the issue, so it might be passed still.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/will-congress-ever-ratify-equal-rights-amendment/580849/
I saw a clip of the rally. He said he'd be in the White House another five years. Maybe nine. Maybe thirteen. Maybe seventeen. And, if he's physically up to it (he'd be 94) twenty one. At some point in time (since, let's face it, he pretty much delegates all his authority as president) he might want to read the Constitution, and not just the emoluments clause). He should read the 22nd amendment (which term limits presidents). Mike Pence can read the 25th to him, the one that says the Cabinet can vote to remove a sitting president for reasons of mental infirmity.
83
Celebrate quickly then get back to work. There are still so many avenues to GOP victory next November.
62
"Except for the part where Trump encouraged his fans to think the election was all a referendum on him."
To listen to the media, they also thought the referendum was about Trump. "We (the press) intend to read as much into the results as is humanly possible".
The press hypes things up, makes things what they are not.
That's one of the reasons trump won last year. Now they are trying to do it with the Squad, a minority group in the United States. Through some miracle they have mostly stopped paying attention to the Squad.
7
The Squad got a lot of attention because they were pushing for impeachment, were right about it, and got their way. Now the focus is on impeachment itself and not the advocates for impeachment.
7
His coat tails do appear to be getting shorter. His only objective in January 2017 was to get himself reelected. He turned the running of the government over to others and spent his time campaigning. Some of the professionals like McConnell and McGhan did a very good job advancing a conservative agenda. But he made some really bad personnel choices and our people are going to pay for it. He has more than doubled the federal deficit. In any case, the people are worn out with him. If the Dems put anyone reasonable out there Mr. Trump will be a one term President and that will kill him as his' will be viewed as a failed presidency.
33
@Glenn I await his vacating the Peoples House Jan 2021 and anticipate the long arm of the law reaching into the Mar-A-Losso morass and yanking him back to NY to face the charges he has amassed over the past 4 decades. Finally.
1
George Washington's greatest strategic genius was that he knew how to retreat when he was losing, so he could fight another day. Trump has no pause button, no off mode.
36
Here's the full quote from Trump's Kentucky rally: ""Here's the story. If you win, they are going to make it like, ho hum. And if you lose, they are going to say Trump suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world. You can't let that happen to me!"
Well, they let that happen to him.
Trump, as he often does, made the election about himself, as much as Matt Bevin made the election about Trump and impeachment. Democrat Andy Beshear made the election about Kentucky, healthcare, education and so on and he won.
Democrats had better make the election about issues that affect the voters, instead of Trump. Otherwise, they'll suffer Matt Bevin's fate.
80
When will Republican candidates wake up and realize that, while Trump implausibly enjoys immense popularity in the party, his endorsements have proven disastrous for them?
11
Let’s hope they don’t.
1
My compliments to the writer! So funny and sarcastic! And also so true.
41
"But everything about the past comes as a huge surprise to Trump."
My favorite is when he became aware of Frederick Douglass, who he hailed as "an example of someone who's done an amazing job, and is being recognized more and more..."
You really can't make this stuff up.
106
Wait until President Trump finds out the two parties did an ideological trade in the 60s. Abraham Lincoln, based on the platforms found in today's GOP and Democratic Party, would effectively be a Democrat. Like most historical tidbits, the president will be astounded when he hears it.
89
@JM
he is not interested in 'historical' anything, unless his name is somehow attached to it...notice how now he claims to be greater than Lincoln----before, he 'humbly'compared himself to him
2
@JM
Oooh! There's something I like about him: his perennial sense of wonder.
Too bad it comes from memory issues and ignorance.
1
Trump supporters know what Trump is.
They know what his deficiencies and illegal behaviors are.
They are willing to accept them in exchange for
the following.
For the rich voters tax cuts for the rich and slashing of social programs and gutting of environmental and financial regulations.
For the working class Trump voters.
They want their good paying jobs [mining and manufacturing] restored.
HRC made fun of these displaced workers and called them deplorables while Trump gave them false hope and told them building a wall and restricting immigration will restore these jobs.
Trump's bigotry and hatred toward immigrants will not restore these jobs but there are programs [that do not require reviving coal or destroying the environment] that could be adopted.
HRC did not suggest them.
We could expand the EITC.
We could enact programs like FDR's New Deal
CCC/ WPA/ PWA programs.
We need to repair our infrastructure.
These programs would could provide opportunities for better paying jobs than lower wage McDonald's type jobs.
They would require modifications to capitalism that HRC was unwilling to support..
So she lost PA, WISC, OH, MICH where workers wanted their economic status restored.
Forget Ukraine or Benghai or Emails or wealth taxes.
Do not take away employer supplied health care.
Support programs to restore workers lost economic status.
Do that or Trump will be re elected.
27
The three candidates you mention may not be able to defeat Trump but unannounced moderate liberals like Sherrod Brown [Dem Senator of OHIO] or a Chris Murphy [Dem Senator of Connecticut] would be extremely strong candidates.
An Amy Klobuchar / Corey Booker ticket might defeat Trump.
The Dems must address the economic concerns of working class voters who shifted to Trump in 2016.
They will NOT address these concerns by abolishing employer supplied health insurance.
Warren and Bernie should stay in the Senate.
15
Hilary did not call displaced coal workers deplorable. She said that she would implement programs to retrain them because needed environmental regulations would put them out of their jobs. She inartfully said that with enthusiasm for the regulations that would help climate impacts and that lead people to think she was excited about them losing their jobs but she didn’t call them deplorable. Who she did call deplorable were the people who did, and still do, cheer on racist comments about immigrants, encourage hatred toward Democrats, and mock anyone with different ideas about how to address our countries problems. There is a reason so many of these folks embrace the term “ deplorable.” It is because they are proud of the distain they carry for others and they find this to be something that they admire about Trump.
102
A lot of those suggestions are excellent but Republicans would fight them tooth and nail and will continue to do so. All they want are tax cuts and perks for the coal and oil friends. Oh and conservative courts too.
5
Bevins's claims of "voting irregularities" in refusing to concede provides a preview of the strategy "the greatest president, including Washington and Lincoln" will use if he loses in 2020.
How can any person in their right mind vote for someone who says he's greater than Washington and Lincoln?
154
My district is up for votes. I'd need some help.
If I did this, I need a lot of help. I have a rough idea of things, but I need more help. Will you send me to help? I need you to send me some help.
I'm exactly what the originators of the constitution thought of when they designed the constitution. They wanted me to be a representative.
I'll do it, but I need to know you're behind me. I'd run as a Democrat. It's aweful to me, but I might have to do it.
5
I can only hope and pray Some Republicans are finally starting to realize the truly "The Emperor has No Clothes!"
34
It’s only natural for right-thinking people in America and worldwide to be shocked and astonished by the dishonesty, immorality and indecency of Republican leaders, but it shouldn’t be surprising: they are simply a perfect embodiment of their voters and supporters.
59
For 3 years I have been writing to the NY Times that Trump has frontal lobe dementia. 3 years ago he would say 1 to 2 wild things every 1 to 4 weeks. More recently he has been averaging 22 incorrect statements per day. His disease is progressing. At his rallies half of what he says is wrong and the other half is incoherent. I don't know why my peers are afraid to publicly diagnosis the condition. It's an easy diagnosis. Just listen to the man.
314
That's because he's talking directly to the media directly much more often now. His rallies and press conferences are just long incoherent rambles. Had he had the same incessant exposure 20 years ago, I shouldn't have wondered if it had been much the same. The Apprentice had to be edited around his totally irrational decisions on whom to fire in each episode.
45
My grandfather had dementia and I can see trump having the same issues as he did. (Except my grandfather was not an evil philanderer.) Trump’s cognitive decline over the past 3 years is very apparent to me, he has definitely become more detached from reality.
I just hope he doesn’t get hallucinations like my grandfathers roommate at the nursing home. That could be dangerous with a man of his...temperament.
89
@Jessica
Yes, I also had a relative with dementia. One of the symptoms is to get lost in past memories. Trump keeps acting as if Obama and Hillary Clinton were still running against him, after 3 years.
13
I'm trying to remember whether or not George Washington had bone spurs.
124
I believe he developed them at the battle of Dulles airport.
6
Comment of the day!
1
I couldn’t help but notice the empty seats in the picture. Although slowly changing, Kentucky is still a reliable red dominated state. Where are the enormous, SRO, yuge crowds of loyal supporters he brags about? Are the voters catching on to his hollow carnival barking? Maybe some people, especially it seems suburban women, have his number. It may be a pipe dream but, like a tired rock band, I look forward to the day that he can’t fill a high school gym.
83
I’d say the turnout was primarily due to the fact he held the rally in Lexington, a solidly blue city in a sea of red.
2
"O.K., the last part was sort of just to give you a taste of how his mind works." As near as I can tell, Gail, that's how Trump's mind has always worked. His businesses failed more than they succeeded because that's how his mind works. His programs on TV were clearly aimed at those who now make up his base because only they could put up with how Trump's mind works.
Somehow in 2016 enough people with minds that work like Trump's allowed him to gobble up just the right amount of electoral votes to expose the rest of us to the daily torture of of having a know-nothing Fox News groupie as president.
So I hope this 2019 election is a harbinger showing that, even in red states, enough people will be tired of the chaos and corruption, not just by Trump but his cowardly compatriots in congress, as well, and maybe by next election day they'll mostly be gone. Then we will not longer have to deal with the mind of Trump, and, as Gerald Ford said, we will see this long national nightmare end.
48
@John Woods: Only one third of the senators even have to stand for election in 2020. In New York City, there was only one contested election on Nov. 5, for Public Advocate. A set of judges ran unopposed, and there were 5 advisory ballot issues. Turnout was very low. Democracy is an illusion in the US.
7
As most people know, when Lincoln was president, the Republican Party was the *progressive* party, with many ardent abolitionists in its ranks. Over the ensuing century, the two parties reversed position.
But Trump is a complete ignoramus. In the mid 19th century, he would have belonged proudly to the nativist Know Nothing movement.
100
It would be a great job to be a speechwriter for Trump. Write one speech then use it over and over. Same speech. Just change the order of paragraphs for each rally.
Same words...
20
Those last lines you quoted, Gail, are perfect (as perfect as, you know, a certain phone call).
15
Pulled up the PBS News Hour stream of the end of the Lousiana rally. Here is what I saw: plenty of empty seats, plenty of open space in the floor, modest cheers and MAGA hat waving. Then the opening chords to the Rolling Stones "You Can't Always Get What You Want" while the crowd makes for the exits as DJT parades back and forth, back and forth along a mezzanine. Priceless.
57
Well. He’s president. You know? He really is. You know what they say about him? I’m telling you- he’s the greatest. Absolutely. You know, Lou Dobbs said so. But fake news didn’t. They said, well, fake news. Always. Like they always do, cause they’re fake. If they say it, it’s fake, because they said it, unless he likes it, in which case it isn’t. But it usually is, cause he doesn’t, so you know. That’s just what it is. All fake because he doesn’t like it. EVER! Why can’t they just see that he’s the greatest and get over it? What he does is great because, well, he does it. It couldn’t be otherwise, because, well, what he does DEFINES great because, well, he did it. It was perfect, because it was he that did it. He made it perfect, a perfect thing to do, by the act of doing it in his greatness. Always. Well sort of. You know?
63
@JG Perfect!
1
@JG
Well done - your trump word salad is coming along just “perfect”
1
Perfect
1
"...his mind works."
Well, that is an optimistic statement.
111
"Lincoln, Trump added, was a Republican. “We forgot that: Abraham Lincoln.”'
Should his supporters--especially during the rallies--urge him to be like Dear old Abe? They should tell him to end the UNCIVIL war that is raging all over. He should not miss this golden opportunity to be the greatest President of America. He can even beat Abe Lincoln! It will also help America to be great again!
( But would he listen? )
8
That final quoted paragraph of his dialog - what is he even saying? Sitting, standing, it's all so "exciting" for Mr. Trump. And it's going to get a whole lot more exciting very soon, starting next week when the impeachment hearings get started.
32
Stand up! Sit down! Fight! Fight! Fight to get the vote out!
1
"O.K., the last part was sort of just to give you a taste of how his mind works"
Except to suggest he has a mind is a bit much; see, I always figured there is nothing but empty space within that cranium atop his neck, and his severely limited abilities are due to to the base life functions imparted from the nub at the top of the brain stem, the almond sized nub which never developed into a real brain.
It will give me great pleasure during this last year of his presence, to watch as he tailspins out of our lives.
15
Recently, those rally attendees standing behind Trump have begun to look eerily like the last Berlin defenders when , at the final days of WW2 , it was clear to them that their leader had lost control and the ability to present a coherent plan for victory.
46
Actually I think the Democrats need to back off a bit. Yes, our healthcare system needs to be improved but everything in moderation. You are scaring people away.
17
@Robert
Offering healthcare is scary? Many people go bankrupt from medical problems. So we should just abandon them? In 2018 Democrats ran on providing healthcare and they won.
3
@Robert Nobody has said a peep about healthcare in Moscow. Why the need to “back off”?
Maybe we wouldn't have had a civil war if we just took tiny steps during the American revolution.
You Americans are such an amazing people. What accomplishments. Jonas Salk and the Gates brought world polio down to 33 cases. Rosa Parks and Rev. King. Leonard Bernstein. Your list of great things and people seems to have no boundary.
And Putin is already manipulating your next presidential election which will, when Trump refuses to accept adverse results, likely be decided by McConnell and Trump appointees on your Supreme Court.
It all seems like a discontinuity in your history.
49
Why pay to go to the performance? Watch the reruns from the previous rally and you will see all the highlights of tonight's show.
13
@Tom Q And watch ‘em with the TV turned off, and you’ll keep your ears, eyes, and brain from bleeding, too!
Thank you Gail Collins for always driving home some of the Orange Blossom's Greatest Hits, oldies and newbies, too. You literally make me laugh out loud, which is a blessing as it keeps me from crying or worse (I'll be turning 70 soon), hollering at my Republican neighbors' kids to get off my lawn.
18
It's not what he says, it is what Trump does. Follow that. Actions matter more than words.
For example, rather than criticize China for their weak commitment to the Paris Climate accords, Trump pulled the US out. He can enjoy big oil money for his campaign, and you taxpayers can enjoy paying for the damage from that climate change! Sure send another $billion to the gulf coast for hurricane repair and another $billion to California for widlfire repair and another $billion to Missouri for the farmland floods. Let our grandkids pay!
11
Who is greater than George Washington? Apparently the ‘Never Trump Again’ voters.
5
How a city slicker like Trump could captivate the attention of rural folks I would like to know.
18
He’s reprising the role of Professor Harold Hill visiting River City. The folks keep expecting him to make their kids into a great band.
21
@Really?
Even snake oil salesmen drew a crowd of spectators back in the day.
1
Snake oil salesman, simple as that.
It's pretty interesting that in all these proxy tests of Trump's political power, the voters are asked to be positively influenced by a numbly incompetent, vengeful, climate denying, severely mendacious, casually cruel, race bating, lawless, ally betraying, ego driven braggart,
And it does seem to work with a significant portion of the voters. Is this what is meant by "America's core values".
20
@sherm
It is certainly the core values of republicans. Have been for decades.
20
Re: "the Chicago Bears beat the Washington Redskins 73-0"
In my first year of college, our football team lost to Texas 65-0. In the school paper, our freshman QB declared: "Really, Texas wasn't as good as we thought they'd be."
24
While the president is touting his notoriety, telling everyone how great he is, the public is getting tired of his greatness that is nonexistent. All the gold never leads to all its’ glory, as the crowds grow smaller, and the lies become taller and more incoherent. Maybe, there will be a happy ending when America realizes the billionaire has lost his fortune and glory.
40
@Dennis
He lost his alleged mind as well. No great loss, though.
1
All the electoral data points seem promising. But I can't help looking at the battleground state impeachment support numbers, and fearing that Trump's re-election is all but guaranteed. In the key EC states, 50% oppose the impeachment inquiry itself, while 45% support impeachment and removal, and 5% are persuadable. Is that 50% a proxy for guaranteed pro-Trump votes? If so, the 2020 election is already decided.
7
It’s early yet, and a lot can happen in a year
There's something about my ubpringing that makes me think in unrational ways. That I could be elected to congress.
All interaction makes me sure I should run, but my social problems tell me its impossible.
3
Given that The Donald has moved on to make "Keep America Great" his mantra for reelection, can his Democratic opponent feel free to use "Make America Great Again" as his/her campaign slogan? This time it might actually make sense.
44
Don’t miss out on the fact that Trump’s presence in Kentucky brought out 200,000 more voters for the incumbent than voted for him in 2015, despite how “unpopular” he was. The democrats were able to bring out 400,000 more than voted in 2015 or else it would have been a landslide for the incumbent.
Trump voters are going to show up and vote in record numbers in 2020 no matter what happens in Washington over the next 3 months. The only real solution is to make sure that even more voters show up in the key electoral college states to pull the lever for the democrat candidate. A democrat candidate that voters cannot connect with means they stay home and vote “none of the above” like they did in 2016. This is the same as a vote for Trump.
76
@Jim Harvey --
thanks for putting these voter stats into your comment. I agree - they're hugely indicative of how things might go in Nov next year. And if the tally is for millions more to participate in elections, then it'll be a huge, amazing, people-changing result.
Here, downunder, I am just so blessed to live in a parliamentary system that includes independent electoral boundaries (based on population not politics), mandatory personal enrolment (for all citizens 18yo+) and compulsory voting - ie turning up to have your name marked off the roll at easy-to-access booths where standardised forms/rules/opening hours etc are managed by the one independent Electoral Authority. - both State and Federal.
So simple - and it works !
27
"Trump voters are going to show up and vote in record numbers in 2020 no matter what happens in Washington over the next 3 months."
Three years ago I would never have suggested that Trump supporters are bereft of intelligence, but now, after watching and experiencing what Trump has done to our once respected nation, having been given the opportunity by these rabid supporters, I believe anything resembling intelligence never ever was present.
We should start some kind of free psychiatric counseling service, available only to Trump supporters, staffed by true liberal progressives; imagine that ...
Of course the Trumpsters would have to leave their guns at home.
1
The longest year in the history of the world is coming up. Wish I could sit it out..............
But I've been standing for the last three, holding a sword and fighting. Guess I can make it a while longer.
61
Whenever I get this feeling, I recall that the patriots of the American Revolution (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783) fought courageously for 8 years, 4 months, and 15 days. Ratification wasn’t confirmed until May 12, 1784. Nearly 25,000 lost their lives in battle or due to disease. That’s commitment to an idea - democracy, yet to be realized. Keep up the good fight!
5
President Trump should not be underestimated. The 2020 election is about a year away and President Trump still has lots of time to woo voters to his campaign. Tonight in Louisiana there were thousands in attendance and as usual they were very enthusiastic. He needs to concentrate on the suburban voters especially women who can be swayed to vote Republican if they are given enough attention to their concerns. They need to be convinced that it is the Republican Party that is their friend. The Democratic Party has become too progressive for many people including women.
8
@KMW
Please explain how the Republican Party is concerned about women’s issues. Healthcare? Education? The economy? The environment?
All I see are roll backs and each department fighting to dismantle any progress that has been made in the last few years.
Sorry, but the Republican Party has nothing to offer.
177
“Too progressive”? When it has been acknowledged that most American families struggle to pay for expensive for profit health care and high interest student loans. Why can’t Americans have what citizens of every other first world nation have had for decades?
Why shouldn’t our taxes be invested in our health care and in our children’s education—instead of thrown at a bloated military industrial complex and endless wars for oil?
76
@KMW
The sheer amount of grotesque corruption in this administration couple with deafness on education, healthcare, the debt Trump ginned up- women in the suburbs will pass.
2
Flawed analysis. The Kentucky gov was disliked and trailing very badly for some time. And he barely won election in the first place. So Trump’s rally there actually made the race far closer than it had been. But this kind of flawed analysis, which springs from a truth-distorting dislike for anything connected to Trump, is not unexpected.
8
@ehillesum
What about the he-could-shoot-someone-on-Fifth-Avenue and win crowd?
Was Bevin worse than murder? Hardly.
trump lost. End of story.
14
That definitely makes sense: the Trump-emulating governor was hated, but Trump actually helped him lose by less than he would have otherwise just by showing up. Congrats, Trump supporters, on a really, really impressive moral victory.
9
So if Bevins was so unelectable it should have been easy for another republican to run against him?
2
Sit... stand... what? I'm getting so tired of the insanity.
149
A year to go, lots can happen in a year in the progress of dementia....
337
I'll bet Putin laughs himself to sleep every night since the 2016 election. If the average IQ is 100, that leaves a lot of Republicans that "aren't tall enough to get on the ride" that Trump continues to manipulate. The 2020 elections can't get here soon enough.
114
"Remember, we’ve still got a year to go."
With any luck much less.
It is possible that the Republicans may be given information about the serial bunkrupster that the only other choice to convicting maybe political harakiri.
22
GAIL GIVES ME LIFE!
111
@ManhattanWilliam
Thank you for planting an ear-worm: George Harrison's early 1970s hit "Give Me Love."
1
So, so, so happy that my fellow Pennsylvanians are starting to get an ounce of sense. Make sure yinz stay away from Guy Reschen-however-you-spell-his-last-name, and get your seasoning for the rich in bulk!
23
This time Trump won't have the Russians on his side. 2020 will be the time to show how a real loser Trump is!
16
Hello? He won’t have the Russians on his side? The evidence coming out of the intelligence community is that he already does. Boy, there seem to be an awful lot of people here writing from a completely different time zone as the ones in the United States.
1
The Russians will very much be there, sending tweets and information filled with juicy bits that are wrong. The bits will be packaged with proven attention grabbers targeting him and his followers who will fervently and blindly pick them up and amplify them across social media. In Russia, the population recognize disinformation and ignore it accordingly. In our society, where such tactics have never been used on an organized basis and where recognition of it has not been taught, it is frightening to see how easily people fall under its spell.
When the press secretary says “I worked with John Kelly, and he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great President.”, people better sit up and take notice.
1
What makes you think that?
By the way, you’re going to lose your Second Amendment if you vote with Democrats,” the president told that Lexington rally. “You think I’m kidding? … You will lose your Second Amendment as soon — I’m telling you. As sure as you’re standing here. Is anybody sitting? Nobody ever sits. You can sit if you want. No, just stand. You know what they say in the fake news? Look, you’ve been standing. Nobody sat? I don’t know, isn’t that exciting?”
Thus spaketh Donald Trump. Looks like global warming is causing his personal meltdown.
96
@BF - His speeches are a far cry from Reagan or Kennedy.
1
Yes, those SCARY Democrats. You'll lose your Second Amendment rights, but get Affordable Healthcare, a livable wage, cleaner air and water............ah, I'd rather have an Assault Rifle.
190
You have to give it to Trump, he is a consummate demagogue. And it shows. Lie after lie after lie in a most pretentious bark. Given that his mobbish base keeps applauding his every utterance, no matter how stupid, tells us that the 'cult of personality' is alive and well. Too bad that the truth and the facts are trampled upon as if there was no tomorrow. Trump allows a complete circus, with a clown in-chief repeating, over and over, pure nonsense...for misinformed folks demanding entertainment...and rewarding him with unearned applause.
86
If it makes you feel any better, a Trump rally is like a WWE event and the base is mostly retirees who can follow the circus from town to town.
5
The New York Times is an echo chamber. Gail Collins is funny, but she's too glib for my taste.
Remember the polls of 2016.
Travel around, get out of the city and note the huge TRUMP signs nailed onto decaying barns and hoisted in fields, read the comments in The Wall Street Journal (many too illiterate to belong to the elite), ride the Q train to Brighton and listen in on what people are saying.
Most of all, watch the Democrats savage one another.
Trump has a very good chance of being re-elected. And then we are in deep horse droppings.
31
I qualify for living outside of any city. Believe me: there aren’t *any* trump signs anywhere around here
67
I live in NE Ohio. There are trump signs and trump flags everywhere. Literally everywhere.
13
@B.
In 2018 though trump lost and it didn't matter how many trump signs there wer.
4
Yes Trump is an idiot. Yes Trump supporters are gullible idiots. But they VOTE. Trump is President because far too many young left leaning Democrats either did not vote at all or voted third party. OTOH, The Republicans of all persuasions voted for Trump. Listin you all, the worst Democrat is 1000 times better for American than Trump. When your house is burning down, you do not have the luxury of debated which fire extinguisher is the best, you have to put the fire out. Trumpism is the fire storm that intends to destroy American Democracy. A Democratic Party President is the one to put out the fire.
297
No, he won because GOP gerrymandering distorted the Electoral College. Trump lost the direct vote by millions. The people did not elect him.
1
@Jean Sims While gerrymandering did help Trump win, the millions of votes that Clinton would have gotten if the left leaning young had voted for her instead of unelectable 3rd party candidates or not voting at all would have put her in the White House. It is clear to me that the young leftist Democrats are all set to do it again.
2
The latest brain scan of DT:
at the left side there is nothing right
on the right side there is nothing left
220
Hugo! I just spit out my coffee laughing. You made my day. thanks.
8
You are an absolute riot Gail Collins.
16
He is talking in Louisiana right now. Members of the audience display varying interest . Yawns, cheers, out of seats, still in seats, private conversations with seat mates, people behind him kind of tired, semi interested, flat. I encourage people to look at video showing the faces of the elite members of the Louisiana crowd chosen to sit behind him. They are disinterested!
When the bloom comes off a rose, it is sudden, as it will be with Ttump.
2172
@Brian 'uninterested' A judge should be 'disinterested' in the outcome of a trial, but very interested in the testimony.
32
I believe that falls into the category of Wishful Thinking. Class meets Tuesdays at noon to help you get deeper into it.
13
@Brian I’d like to think so, but I’ve often been struck by how disengaged the people behind trump look at his rallies. Not exactly the equivalent of Beatlemania. I hesitate to read much into it though. After eighty minutes plus of listening to deranged ranting it’s maybe hard to maintain the excitement.
170
Great photo; look at all those empty seats. Time for Sharpiegate II.
1694
@LJR It's a shame that Sean Spicer wasn't still around to pad the attendance.
57
@LJR. Gee if the cherry-picking photographer or editor would have zoomed in a bit more, Trump’s enemies would claim that no one, not a single person, was at his rally. It’s particularly comical too, given the MSM’s attempts to make the seats at other events appear full—check out any WNBA game for example. Or a Biden campaign event.
@LJR Yes! Shades of January 20, 2017! Empty bleachers, that's the Trump 2020 tagline! We already know the emperor has no clothes, and so do they: just look at all those bored faces, and very few engaged or excited ones!
21
Trump is frightening for so many reasons, but perhaps the last graph of your essay is what makes him terrifying as it simply quotes his rusted gears clanking out noise and nonsense. This is the guy running the country, making "deals" and spewing dopey blather at us nearly all day and night long. Seriously, dear Republican reader, can you stand this any longer?
3015
@MATTHEW ROSE Regrettably "the dear Republican reader" will continue to stand Trump and vote in large numbers. Our only hope is that voters who sat out the last election will come out to vote Democrat in those electorial sensitive states. The mystery is not so much Trump, but those vociferous voters who continue their strong support for him and his looney ideas.
150
@MATTHEW ROSE The incoherence is simply
mind-boggling. And there's always a ridiculous, "hot-button" issue filled with red meat for the audience on-hand. Ah, yes, the 2nd Amendment. Wasn't President Obama supposed to take away everyone's guns? Still hasn't happened and Obama left peacefully three years ago. Since this was in Kentucky, I'll assume nothing was said about coal miners either. No doubt, because he hasn't thought about them at all since he visited a few years back for a photo op and made vague promises about bringing it back. My uncle died from black lung and the pollution caused by coal is staggering. We can do so much better than this, America!
123
@MATTHEW ROSE I live in Trump country, rural northern New England. As an older white guy I know and am friendly with and do business with a fair number of folks who have Trump bumper stickers and Trump yard signs from three years ago. I get to listen to what people say when they think everyone's a Trump supporter. There are four issues that bind R voters to their party and to Trump: Abortion, anti-taxes, guns, and racism. They also get vicarious pleasure from Trump's intentional cruelty, as if this were just reality TV or a (phony) wrestling match.
I've tried to carefully raise issues with my R friends and associates, some of whom would do anything to help any individual in need, regardless of party or skin color. They know he's a liar and don't care--they think all the Ds/liberals/leftists gnashing of teeth makes having Trump worth it. As long as he pokes his finger into our eyes, as long as he sticks it to Blacks and Latinos, as long as he appoints sexist judges, they will support him. They have no interest in listening to reason and the more we complain about Trump, the more they embrace and defend him.
182
Please, Louisiana Dems, be sure to show up for the Louisiana gubernatorial election on November 16 (or vote early). it's a pretty close race, and I for one don't want to hear any more of Trump's gloating.
73
Trump went all the way to Kentucky to stump for the Gov and Bevin still lost.
My schadenfreude is off the charts.
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@Little Doom Well, he did tell people that the gov had to beg for phone calls on his behalf and went on to pretend every governor should be reduced to having to beg and grovel to him then pretend that's what everyone would want in a governor.. a begging, groveling wimp.
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The one thing Trump and Bevin have in common with each other, and with their supporters, is they’re failures.
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Return of the Hanging Chads? - Recount to the Future.
The Trump Empire Never Stops Striking Back.
The bad movies never end.
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Seriously, though. George Washingtons aside, the *only* politician Trump reminds me of is Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, both for his personality and actions, as well as the actions of those around him. Congratulations, Trumpies and Mitchies. You've turned the US of A into a tin-pot dictatorship.
From Wikipedia:
As with his predecessor, a personality cult is promoted around Berdimuhamedow. According to Human Rights Watch, Berdimuhamedow, his relatives, and his associates possess unlimited power and exercise total control over all aspects of public life. He uses the honorific title Arkadag, meaning "protector".
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I'm just shaking my head at that last paragraph. Who can take this man seriously? Nobody. The people that like him do it because they enjoy the feelings he allows them to have. How craven is that?
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“Not many people know this but England used to run the United States. And they had a King. Think of that, we used to have a king. Might not be a bad idea again, huh folks. I’m just saying.”
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@AA - When did England ever run the United States of America? Good grief, we all learn this one sometime around 5th grade.
He is also talking about being around 5, 7, 11 or even 21 years from now. And the crowd cheers him on at the thought of being a dictator for life. And Mitch and Lindsay just make those pouty faces and try and excuse the man and his blatant disrespect for the Constitution.
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@tom harrison Of course I know that. I was speaking as, you know, the man who talked about planes during the Revolutionary War.
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We used to call Trump's style of speech--babbling--I think that's how young infants learn to talk.
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They make more sense
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Well, I guess Lou Dobbs would know. He's the only living "journalist" old enough to have covered the administrations of both Washington and Lincoln. :)
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Can't wait to see the spanking Kentuckians are going to deal out to McConnell . . . that will be almost as satisfying as seeing Trump finding out that the Electoral College isn't his friend after all!
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Since he joined himself to Trump at the hip, I'm waiting for Bevin to blame Ukrainian hackers for his defeat. No reason to take that out of the playbook yet.
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For those of us old enough to know, trump sounds an awful lot like Yosemite Sam on steroids. For the younger types, Peter Griffin to whom he also has a striking resemblance. He certainly knows how to play to his dumb base, the types that wear t-shirts that say things like "God, guns and trump". I'm sure that God is rolling her eyes. Vote November 2020.
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@Steve: Foghorn Leghorn
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I think he's more Foghorn Leghorn than Yosemite Sam.
@Ann Marie
I think you are right.
Where are the giants of yesteryear, inspirational leaders with vision like Washington, Jefferson, FDR and Reagan? Instead we have small and contemptible men in charge of once great powers. Venal and thuggish (Putin),or pathetic clowns (Trump and Johnson).
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@We'll always have Paris
It was Reagan who sped up our downward trend in this country!
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@Susan in NH Yes! He knew how to read a script, perfect empty suit for the tv age. Should have resigned after the horrific assassination attempt, pathetic!
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Terrific column, Ms Collins. I am totally with you.
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Anything can happen in a year. Smart Democrats won't gloat. Like Michael Corleone famously said--this isn't personal, it's business. It's the business of preserving humanity for future generations without massive environmental annihilation.......
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" ... I’m telling you. As sure as you’re standing here. Is anybody sitting? Nobody ever sits. You can sit if you want. No, just stand. You know what they say in the fake news? Look, you’ve been standing. Nobody sat? I don’t know, isn’t that exciting?” I feel sorry for Saturday Night Live writers. How are they supposed to write parodies of that? Just "rip and read"?
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Nearly everything about Trump is explained by his ignorance and malignant narcissism. Of course, he doesn't think he's ignorant, because if he doesn't know something, it doesn't exist. If he just learned about something, "nobody knew" about it. His face should appear in the dictionary under "Dunning-Kruger effect".
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Was that 20 below celsius or Fahrenheit?
It makes a big difference to how soft Kentucky is....
0C = 32F - the freezing point of water....
Minus 20C = minus 4 F getting mighty chilly. . .about the point Canadians decide to zipper up their winter coats.
Minus 28.9C = minus 20F . . . The point Canadians say to anyone who’ll stand still long enough. “Some cold, eh!” Also the point where one stops caring if it’s C or F!
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@N. Cunning
Just a note: When it's -40 C, it is, for the only time the same, -40 in Fahrenheit degrees. Cold.
The formula is C/5=(F-32)/9.
(Celius degrees are 80% larger because the metric scale begins at 32 F and 100 degrees later hits boiling. Then there's wind chill, too...)
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Could somebody please provide a translation of Trump's speeches for the benefit of those of us who's first language is English?
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@D. Knight -- Oh man, this deserves a lot more recommendations than it has. Excellent.
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@D. Knight
It’s one of those obscure languages where there is only one living speaker remaining.
In other words, we’re on our own, no Rosetta Stone is going to help us decipher this gibberish.
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@D. Knight
so, First Language English speaker, it's whose, not who's. Falls into the same category as there, their, they're and its, it's. (It's means It is, Who's means Who is.) English.
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It is absolutely insane that a sociopath is the leader of the free world. I'd bet my house that he told Bevin to protest the count in Kentucky. Could see that coming a mile away. Next he'll convince the state legislature to overturn the count. Can you imagine what he'll do if he wins in 2020?
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@Lake Can you imagine what he'll do if he LOSES in 2020?? He'll convince the supreme court to overturn the count....
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@Lake
You had me at sociopath.
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...he freely admitted that if Gov. Matt Bevin lost, the evil media would say “Trump suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world.”
No, Donald. We’re saving the greatest defeat in the history of the world just for you next year. Since you deal only in superlatives, the hugest one awaits you.
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@NM - Dancing in the streets, fireworks.
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That picture of the empty bleachers is worth a thousand words.
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@Corbin I hope its is worth many thousands of Democratic voters.
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Hey Gail...time to give the Trump snark a rest. We get it. How about going after some of his enablers: Pompeo, Pence, Nunes, McCarthy, etc. Those knuckleheads need to be aired out as well.
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@Zarathustra
Gail did her worst cabinet member poll just last week!
She's already thus spoke on it, Zarathustra.
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The last two paragraphs pretty much sums Trump up.
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Bevin proposed cutting $200 million from public education, insulted and disparaged teachers; tried to take their pensions and said they held a (one day) sick out just to get a vacation day. His suggestion was that they should protest in the summer, when school isn't in session.
Teachers and suburban parents had a lot to do with his defeat.
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@Kathleen Well said, Kathleen.
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It is darkly amusing to observe the endless avalanche of embarrassment that Trump brings to America, and all the while his supporters remain loyal.
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God is greater if He exists. We could pretend i.e., those of us who feel that this president is not the apple of our eye, that our choice for next leader is centered on the Democrat candidates only, leaving our sharp journalists the unenviable task of having to follow developments in both Parties. Wait! Maybe, it is the highlight of their career, this interminable coverage-drill of a crashing bore, whom I feel sorry for, on occasion.
On Tuesday last, this citizen got a 'I voted' tag, which was discretely hidden afterward on the back of the weekly grocery list, because there appears to be an affinity for spoiling the landscape with these metal plaques endorsing the names of politicians.
'Did you see the sign that says my house is for sale by the owner?', asked a friend and staunch Republican. I could not tell a lie, and replied that his advertising was lost in the myriad of local political ones.
Tell, there is always 'William Tell' to consider during these pop quizzes, and Achilles, the Legendary Hero of Troy, and nobody can call him a heel at the worse of times.
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Gail, I really think you should praise Kentuckians for putting up with Baby Trump (I.e., Bevin) and Papa Trump for all these years. Now they can breathe a sigh of relief and get on with the new century.
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@ASW You can't be serious? It is Kentucky which has inflicted the evil, totally immoral Mitch McConnell on to the American political landscape. Citizens of that State should hang their heads in shame - their only redemption is to remove him ASAP.
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You can’t rest now! It’s more important than ever that you — that all of us — work to Ditch Mitch.
McConnell has single handedly destroyed our democratic government. Kentucky will be able to correct that in 2020.
Trump is actually the true AntiGeorge Washington. The only two things they have in common is that they were both tall and both served as President, otherwise Washington was everything that Trump is not. Has Trump compared himself favorably with Jesus yet? That might play well with the evangelicals.
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@Ohio MD . yes, haven't you heard? he is The Chosen One
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He did say that he "was the chosen one." And that " the news loved him like the second coming of God. "
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@Thorny Trump is more like the Anti-Christ. And those white evangelicals are worshiping him like he is the Return of the King. Bet they're going to have a problem trying to get through the Pearly Gates. Matthew 19:24 -"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."
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A significant difference between the presidential candidates. trump has to "dig’’ for" dirt" regarding his competitors in the 2020 election. In doing so he has seriously exposed himself to charges of felonious activity
On the other hand his Democratic challengers have no digging to do at all. The president is blatantly up to his neck in "dirt" the stench is evident across the nation that no digging is required. Even though he surrounds himself with so called followers who chant, shout, and wave banners this will eventually not save him from criminal behavior and it’s repercussions. As has been said many times since he assumed office "no man is above the law.
Christopher Slevin
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@Christopher Slevin
Um, maybe you should ask billy barr about that. And Kavanaugh and Gorsuch and...
"O.K., the last part was sort of just to give you a taste of how his mind works. "
This is the great mystery, his mind works? The great question, is it organized, is even cogent? Most of us have no idea what his next tweet will be about, and will it have any connection to reality. I seems to be fixated on insulting someone, or giving us a look at his own facts. Where those facts come from is difficult to ascertain, they are an alternate reality.
A study of the psychological literature gives no clue as to the mental state of his so called mind, it is infected with some unknown, or undefined cognitive collection of fantasy hallucinations. He spends the early hours of his day expounding these fantasies, for the edification of those who must have the same alternative view of reality. What is disturbing is they believe him, he thrills them just like any cult leader, it is the cult of trumphonia.
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@David Underwood
It's dementia.
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One takeaway from the Bevin/Trump election yesterday in Kentucky is that the 2020 presidential election will probably result in the greatest voter turnout in American history, and not to the Republicans’ benefit. It will be interesting to see how many Republican Congressional candidates next year prefer not to have the Fake President personally pay them a campaign visit, impossibly attempting to “distance” themselves from the biggest elephant in the room. Good luck guys!
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Let's hope we can celebrate in Nov. 2020. So far the Dem's are veering so far left they'll soon be off the road and into the Iowa cornfield.
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@Horace
I dont care where thy end up, my vote is going for a democrat, because this insanity has to have an end date.
Trump is the horror show that gives continually to the whole world and we are tired of evil and insanity.
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Now let’s watch Trump, um, charm Kentucky voters by campaigning for Mitch McConnell the way he just did with Bevin. Now that would be a superlative defeat!
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"The 1940 N.F.L. championship game when the Chicago Bears beat the Washington Redskins 73-0."
Thank you, Ms. Collins, for making the news a little less unbearable once aga. I quite enjoyed what I found when I clicked the link about the Bears ancient rout of the Redskins:
"The Bears, coached by George Halas, brought a 6-2 record to their regular-season meeting with the Redskins in Washington on November 17, 1940. After Chicago lost 3-7, the Redskins owner, George Preston Marshall, told reporters that Halas and his team were “quitters” and “cry babies.” Halas used Marshall’s words to galvanize his players, and the Bears scored 78 points in their next two games to set up a showdown with the Redskins in the league’s championship game on December 8, also in Washington."
That reads like a parable for the age of Trump to me, with Marshall in the role of playground bully, and Halas as a stand-in for a yet-to-be-determined galvanizing force for the opposition.
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Gloating is not allowed. Kentucky is just one Red State that faltered. Yes, Virginia was nice. We need many more like VA before claiming an ouster of our worst Administration ever.
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Democrats won a lot of local elections in Pennsylvania too, in bodies they hadn’t controlled in many years. So I think that’s a sign- although that pendulum is slow!
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One can only hope that Bevins' defeat is just the tip of the massive iceberg that will be fully revealed in November 2020.
Emperor Trump has no clothes, his schtick isn't working any more except for his rabid base, and his base is not sufficient to get him reelected.
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