A new perspective of the geopolitical globe

March 25, 2016 • 12:00 pm

by Grania

This explains a lot.

As I’ve said before, I don’t believe that Trump actually holds all the positions that he espouses on the podium. In fact, probably only a few politicians do: elections are all too often reduced to personality contests where the person who managed to say the things the audience most wanted to hear gets to win. The outrageous thing is not that this man says the things he does, or that this appeals to some people – it’s that people believe any of it.

62 thoughts on “A new perspective of the geopolitical globe”

    1. First thing I looked for, and yes, I’m pleased we’re Too Far! 🙂

      We used to get ‘The Apprentice’ though I never watched it. I don’t know whether it was popular. I’ve never come across anyone here who thinks he’d make a good president even if they’re so misguided as to think he’s a great businessman.

      He makes it onto our News regularly as each episode of outrageousness plays out, and of course we get CNN International, BBC World, Fox (proto-) News, Al Jazeera English, and Sky News.

      In the rest of the world, no one really believes that half the country really prefers either Trump or Cruz. It’s a bizarre black comedy and we’re not sure it’s even real. We’re all a bit bemused by the whole situation.

      We make mistakes in who we vote for too, but it’s usually because we’ve been fooled. No one has that excuse with these two.

      1. I was wondering what you thought about the situation over your countries flag. I very much liked the fern leaf design, and its a pity that it lost.

        1. I agree. I wanted a new flag and I’m disappointed at the result. I think the problem is that the situation became politicized and a lot of people voted against it because they don’t like the prime minister. Also a few wanted a change but didn’t like the new design. It wasn’t my first choice either, but it’s better than what we’ve got.

          1. Heather, you and Australia have the two best looking flags on the planet. Enjoy them.

          2. I’m not ashamed of our flag or anything like that, I’d just prefer it if it didn’t have the Union flag in the corner. We’re not a colony anymore. Unlike many who want a new flag, I don’t want to be a republic. I’m happy with the way out political system operates, but that doesn’t mean I want another country’s flag in the corner of ours.

      2. But the reality is we have to stop focusing on the show and look for the causes, the condition. Give Trump and Cruz the credit for crawling out from under their rock at the right time but the rest was created by the very poor politicians that were voted in by the people for many years before. Ask why did the people put up with it or why the media did not cover it. It is kind of a long sick story but that is sometimes what history is. The clown on stage right now is not the story, just the result.

        1. True. If politicians hadn’t promised so much they were incapable of delivering, so many wouldn’t think non-politicians were the answer. Makes you wonder what would happen though if Trump or Cruz became president and then 11 million people don’t get deported or the IRS doesn’t get shut down.

          1. Yes, and it’s not so much the promises as the actual things they did and let be done when they could have made a difference. Until Bernie and especially the lady senator in Mass. we haven’t heard what the democrats are suppose to be about for a long time. The Clinton’s, Obama and many other democrats all fell in love with the money and the money’d people and forgot about everything the party was about. They should have been trying to save the unions and they should been demanding the rich pay their share. We know the republicans don’t give a damn about the middle class but the democrats don’t care either. If Trump didn’t exist they would have invented him.

          2. Yes, many Democrats do seem to have abandoned the party. I do though wonder how much that has to do with the way campaigns are run and financed in the US. It costs a fortune to run a campaign – candidates have to have a lot of money to compete.

      3. I’ve never watched a “reality” show, at least not start to finish. I’ve seen the promos while watching a ballgame, and caught a few minutes here and there while visiting friends. That alone was enough to ensure none of those shows was ever gonna make the short-list for “appointment tv.”

  2. And Grania nails it.

    Trump is a larger than life media personality.

    He doesn’t care what he says, the Trump brand is centered around pure outrageousness.

    He appeals to people precisely because he appears not to care. He isn’t trying too hard. He isn’t trying *at all*.

    The real worry is that there are authoritarians out there who support him. That these people exist. That’s the worry.

    But Trump’s rhetoric is nothing if not overblown, and I have seen him state opinions that are not as extreme as what he presents to the American public on televised debates etc.

    In fact, he did one thing that was quite brilliant. When he said that all Muslims should be prevented from entering the USA – right before one of the big R debates – he essentially put the other candidates in the position of having to defend Muslim immigration.

    It’s a game that he is playing. He is not the next Mussolini.

    1. I love that I used the made-up word ‘outrageousness’ just like you, but before I read your comment. Speaks volumes!

    2. Repugnant though he is, Trump has been the candidate who’s done most to keep this campaign cycle interesting. Because of him, I watched nearly all the Republican debates — something I couldn’t have sat through otherwise. With Trump, there was always the existential frisson of possibly seeing him say something so outrageously stupid that he’d self-destruct on live tv (though, sadly, despite saying plenty that was outrageous and stupid, he didn’t). I was never willing to forgo the exquisite blast of schadenfreude that would’ve come with seeing him do so.

  4. I don’t think it’s relevant whether people believe him or not because he is either telling the truth and it’s a nightmare horror show or he’s lying through his teeth and you can’t trust him for anything.

    Either way he’s a piece of garbage.

    What he spews is not just unethical but he clearly has no understanding of what is ethical or he doesn’t care.

    1. Not relevant whether people believe him? I think that is the whole point and problem. If no one believed it, we would not be here talking about it and this map would not be.

      The fact that so many citizens of this country have already voted for this guy and his garbage is what needs addressing. In any so-called democracy there is no one to blame but the voters. They pretty much get what they ask for and have for many years.

      Even the democrats of the past, Clinton and Obama are in some ways to blame for this. On most issues they have both sided with and promoted the rich and the elites of the liberal left…not the common people. Just look who they filled their cabinets with and look at the policies they pushed. Do away with regulation of wall street and who gets bailed out at our expense. And who went to jail??

      1. I said it before, I’ll say it again: the US federal parties are: plutocratic and theocratic plutocratic.

        (Though what Trump is, who the heck knows?)

    2. Either way he’s a piece of garbage.

      On the understanding that the garbage can contain some pretty unpleasant and dangerous things. Use drug “works” and septic medical waste spring to mind. No, “seep to mind” sounds more … sticky.

    3. … he’s a piece of garbage.

      Garbage may have a legal cause-of-action against you for defamatory comparison.

      1. Garbage may have a legal cause-of-action against you for defamatory comparison.

        I preemptively apologise to any and all garbage everywhere, no matter how rancid, pustulant or seeping it is, for any distress caused to the garbage by a comparison with Donald Trump.
        I think I can say with confidence that such hurt to the feelings of garbage was not intended by anyone in this thread.

  6. One of the reasons Trump exploded into the primaries (besides being a well-known celebrity), is that he hired Tea Party people with an already established group of malcontents ready to go. All he had to do was throw some raw meat their way, which he did by the truck full. The real Trump steaks, if you will. So yes, some of what he says is inconsistent with his prior statements and is meant for that audience.

    One of these Tea Party activists, btw, is Katrina Pierson, who is his media spokesperson. The National Enquirer has pegged her as one of Ted Cruz’s 5 alleged mistresses. You. Can’t. Make. This. Stuff. Up. (well, you can if you’re a tabloid, but that’s yet to be seen…they were right about Edwards, Jackson and Tiger Woods, after all).

    Popcorn for everybody!!

    1. I’ve too high a regard for the distaff half of the human species to accept that any five of them would deign to engage in intimate relations with the likes of Ted Cruz.

    2. Jackson? I’d heard about his wife’s polygamy kerfuffle, but who knew The Enquirer ever broke a story about Pres. Andrew Jackson getting some strange?

  8. I also like the symbolism of the Trump tower icons, but this election had better be the last one in which people even think about the wang of a presidential candidate.

  9. Someone at the GOP should have started a Vicente Fox write-in campaign a long time ago.

  10. Any of it? Any? When Trumps slams PC about Islam it’s terrible anyone believes him? When Trump calls influence peddling pervasive and a “bad system” it’s outrageous anyone agrees?

    1. Yeah, I think Trump says enough things that are true enough – and most importantly, that the media and establishment never say – that a lot of people latch onto him as somebody willing speak truth to power. Then they just willfully ignore the boatload of bullshit…

      Everybody knows we have a corrupt political system, in which corporations and the wealthy use lobbyists and donations to bribe our elected officials. Everybody except the entire mainstream media, that is. So people latch onto those who are willing to confront this system, even if their actual policies are disastrous…

      1. That would be the large corporations that are the mainstream media and who get their income from advertising by big corporations and also in election season from politicians and their PACs, no?

    2. To be fair, Grania didn’t say it’s “terrible” that anyone believes him; she said it’s “outrageous.” And I think she meant it’s outrageous because he has clearly lied so many times about so many things that he should by now have lost all credibility with everyone. Even when he says something that is reasonable, it’s hard to know if he believes what he’s saying. Secondly, you ask “it’s outrageous anyone agrees?” Again, Grania didn’t say it’s outrageous that people *agree* with him; she said it’s outrageous that people *believe* him. I don’t know if you are misrepresenting Grania’s words on purpose (I doubt it), but your response does not actually address what she said. You are reacting to your own misinterpretation of what she said.

      1. Trump has never spoken truth to power in his life. His anti-PC posturing has to do with his desire to launch invective at minorities.

        In addition, notwithstanding his incessant braggadocio about “self-funding” his campaign, he hasn’t. His website has accepted contributions since his campaign began, and has accumulated millions. Moreover, all but a tiny fraction of the funds he has fronted his campaign have come in the form of loans, not contributions. (Despite his protestations, there is also a PAC active on his behalf, being funded by his daughter’s in-laws; several others have been registered to be used for his benefit later.)

        He has also conceded that, if he is the GOP nominee, he will engage in traditional campaign fundraising for the general election — and, indeed, he will have to, since he lacks the liquid wherewithal to mount a full-scale campaign on his own dime. Once he starts shaking money out of fat-cats, he will no doubt repay himself the loans he has advanced. He is, after all, someone who (by his own admission) has spent his adult life buying political influence with campaign cash.

        1. This comment is about his motives, not if he’s sometimes right. Those are separate things.

          1. Trump’s certainly not “right” when spewing his bogus claims about “self-funding” his campaign, and that he alone is, therefore, beyond the undue influence of the donor class.

            Any correlation between Trump’s claims and the truth is coincidental, a function of some version of the facts as they actually are aligning with his transient interests in spinning them. Trump’s mind does not function along a true/false axis, but rather along a fits-the-Trump-narrative/doesn’t-fit-the-Trump-narrative axis. Even at that, he’s constantly contradicting himself, as his interests shift, without ever even acknowledging the change, in part because he’s a public policy ignoramus who’s never thought through the most important issues a president would face and has no stable political philosophy to speak of. Most of the time, he’s just making it all up as he goes.

            What is it you think Trump’s been “right” about thus far in this misbegotten campaign of his? That the military will torture if he tells it to? That he can make Macy’s say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays”? That most undocumented Mexicans are murders and rapists, or that most Muslims are terrorists? That he’s really going to build his stupid border wall and make Mexico pay for it? That he’s going to bomb the shit out of, and otherwise make short work of, ISIS?

            That he’s going to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure and vastly increase US military spending, while lowering taxes, keeping social security and other entitlement spending at current levels, yet still somehow balance the budget? Merely by eliminating waste and making incredible deals? Or just that he’s going to be phenomenal, the greatest, the best president ever at everything — that he’s gonna win, win, win, till we’re all sick of winning, and make America great again?

            The man is a dangerous demagogue, the most profoundly unserious candidate ever to come this close to a major-party presidential nomination, and an international laughingstock. Sheesh.

      2. Not at all. She says it’s outrageous people believe any of what he says. That only makes sense if he never says anything right. It would be outrageous if they believed all he said, but that’s not what Grania wrote.

  11. “This explains a lot.”

    What, exactly, does it explain? It’s kind of funny, I guess, but I can’t see what it is supposed to explain. Maybe that was just a throw away intro line and I’m reading too much into it. Or maybe it does sort of explain a bit about Trump to non-Americans who don’t know much about him. I wouldn’t say it explains “a lot,” though.

  12. What started off as a narcissistic lark for Trump, now has him convinced he could end up being the next leader of the free world. As a result, he’s running afoul of the first rule for working a grift — never believe your own bullshit. He has the hubris of a reichsmarschall leading the blitzkrieg into Paris, and the self-control of a bonobo on Ecstasy.

      1. Yeah, mainly because the Republican Party establishment — or what there remains of it, anyway — has reacted like the Vichy French, shocked to find that the enemy has blown by its supposedly impermeable Maginot Line, while its major candidates have all retreated on the first ships to sail out of Dunkirk.

    3. Ah, the sound of all those marching, blitzkrieging feet:

      Drumpf, Drumpf, Drumpf, Drumpf, Drumpf…

  15. Is this – a personality contest – not exactly that which serves best as a distraction from the actual problems a country and its people face? Corporations and the political elite must always rejoice when people are led astray by empty words catering to delusional fears of artificially created problems. ‘Divide et impera’ at its best!

    1. Hell, yes! If the political elites want to keep us hoi polloi distracted, the least we should demand is to be fed some bread and taken to the circus.

      1. And do they ever take us to the circus with Trump. I am still waiting for my bread, though. Or has Trump changed his story mid-sentence again? Bread may only be a rumour after all…

  16. On Trump’s followers – Kierkegaard quoting Boileau (in Fear and Trembling): A fool will always find a bigger fool to admire him

  17. Your mother told us, “the reason we have gay people is because of Satan.” Since I didn’t have a “clue stick” handy to beat her severely around the head, I threw a pillow at Brenda for subjecting me to that insanity and stupidity.

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