Because someone made a tweet and Donald threw a hissy fit over it.

Because it's the best excuse in the last day or two to bitch about the unfairness of their treatment by the media. That it was acknowledged and corrected almost immediately is insulting to even point out, because it detracts from the total criminality of their portrayal. When all media becomes locked down and state-controlled, that one historic tweet will be mentioned in the legislation.

Honestly, I think there's a greater danger in this tendency the left has to read some kind of evil master plan into every stupid thing Trump does. If we keep overthinking shit and keep accusing all his actions of being distractions from all his other actions, we're going to end up paralyzed.

I don't think Trump has any sort of plan. I think he's a petty child who can't stand being contradicted and can't handle being perceived as smaller than his enemies. We need to stop assuming that these outbursts are part of some sort of scheme and keep treating them like the dangerous, unhinged ramblings they are. These are all opportunities for the left to define Trump as an unstable, self-obsessed wimp. And he's doing nothing to contradict that impression.

(as for the copied cake, the story has a happy ending: https://goo.gl/78zgUB )

Xenocide, while I think your point is generally right, I think you are failing to take into account Bannon's agenda and is expertise as a propagandist. This isn't about Trump so much as it is about Bannon reshaping political discourse. Do take time if you haven't yet already to read up on Bannon.

I know! That's why I've been so reluctant to admit it! Also, it's *not* Trump, he's not that clever - it's his advisors. Specifically Bannon. It's 100% deliberate. Make the left look easily outraged, conspiracy-obsessed, not focused on 'the real issues'. The left *love* mocking the right for their stupidity, now the right is using it against them.

^ Beaten. Yup, that's what I meant - it's Bannon.

I generally am worried the media will cover the trumpertantrums more than how he and the republicans are gutting the social safety net, letting companies pollute when they feel like, giving themselves and other billionaires yuge tax cuts, etc, etc.

Like today trump had a meeting with netenyahoo and they probably discussed how israel can freely annex the rest of Palestine, but that wont get much coverage.

My solution: When you see shit like this, quietly observe, and ask yourself: 'what am I expected to do? What do they want me to do?' and then just don't do it. Either A) don't feed the trolls, or B) humiliate them in a way they didn't expect - preferably quickly and effortlessly and more seriously than they thought you could. Surprise them - do something they didn't think you would. That's how you skin alt-right trolls online, in my experience - theory holds for Bannon & crew.

Your concerns are well founded, SolRo and poorwill. But it's not mutually exclusive: they're doing this AND building up a portfolio of excuses to attack our favorite amendment.

My concern is that the 'when they go low..' approach from those outside of the trump cult has so far done absolutely nothing to stop his ascendancy, whereas the constant pillorying of his fragile ego has actually made him flinch more than once and ultimately pushed him to make an even bigger cunt of himself.

Shitebart are gonna post vile propaganda regardless, so all the principled work and 'chase him on the issues' -while still 100% valuable and important- will be for naught if it's not also coupled with just constant, unceasing nibbling away at his legitimacy which is something that truly gets to him and then you create a situation where his many lackeys have to constantly firefight the latest tantrum and the public responses to it, rather than being given the time to continue the busywork of stripmining the republic.

I think that sort of two-pronged approach could ultimately be his undoing.

You guys raise a good point about Bannon. He's just getting started, of course, but I could see him becoming pretty good at filtering Trump's tantrums into something palatable.

But I think Bawbag has hit on the right method for countering that. Sure, engage on the issues, but always, always, mock, belittle, and delegitimatize this garbage fire of a human being and his scumbag cronies.

If "When they go low, we go high" means that we stay faithful to the facts, I'm in. The only thing I can really control is whether I wind up a mean, cynical, reality-indifferent Republican.

I never thought Trump could win, so go ahead and take it with a grain of salt, but I still don't think this is going to work for him in the long term. It's lying. Obvious petty lying, for no good reason, other than Trump can't tell a humbling t truth. That's a huge moral failing, and it's going to color everything he does. It gets attention because it's simple, and stark, and incontrovertable. It sticks in the mind, which will distract from some important issues, but sticking in the mind will not be a good thing for Trump. Petty lying will become Trump's thing, the way hornyness was Bill Clinton's thing. It'll hurt him. His supporters were a minority to begin with, and some of them were merely Hillary haters. He's lost a lot of them aready.

It worked for him before because for some people "at least he's not crooked Hillary Clinton". But that's all over now. There's no crooked Hillary to hide behind now, just "HONEST" DONALD TRUMP.

He's 70 years old, he sleeps 3 hours a night. There is no coherent plan. He keeps his aides at a state of perpetual rivalry, he sends out contradictory orders to people who are already jumpy, and he only respects slavish loyalty.

This is not a sustainable system. Either he just drops dead one night from exhaustion (most likely scenario in my mind) or he has a stroke and we never hear about it until he's dead and out of office in a decade. There's a strong likelihood of a Woodrow Wilson scenario happening where we just won't really know what's going on until it's all over.

Lol some of you have actually convinced yourselves that leaving snarky messages on the internet is a form of meaningful political action.

K.

idk what you're talking about Two Jar Slave but it sounds dumb and wrong

Actually, scratch that, this is my real reply: I think you just misunderstood my last post. It was kinda badly conveyed so my fault. I just meant that Bannon is using online troll tactics in a real, serious, political capacity, and I was just wondering aloud/spitballing about what you could do to counter that. I was making a comparison/contrast with dealing with online trolls, not saying dealing with online trolls is some grand heroic political action.

@poorwill, that makes more sense. Thanks for elaborating.

Apologies for my own bullshit tone. I shouldn't post before 6:30am.

I'm just a bit frustrated to see my peers--people whose voices and thoughts I respect--spending their time coming up with cutting put-downs on Facebook that no Trump supporter, let alone the man himself, is likely to read or be bothered by. So much of it is just self-indulgence.

If they're also doing meaningful work on the side, and this is just how they unwind, great, but online trash talk can't be allowed to be considered a useful service, especially if, as JHM points out, it veers away from the facts. Snark is just not convincing enough. And unless it's carefully phrased, a lot of it can alienate the silent majority of readers who are more moderate in their views, and perhaps undecided in their politics.

"Lol some of you have actually convinced yourselves that leaving snarky messages on the internet is a form of meaningful political action."

I wasn't referring to the internet specifically but yeah, even just on that the twitter crazy president has already proven massively susceptible to twitter/FB haranguing. It should -I hasten to add- also be done IRL at every opportunity for the reasons I outlined above.

There's also no reason to bring lies into it as JHM implies, his legitimacy -is- very much in question and again, it is a surefire way of chipping away at him but also the reps in congress who can actually do something about him when they start to feel the ship sinking and realise their feet are to the fire come mid-terms.

Is that supposed to be a 'funny joke'? It's almost as fucktarded as your actual opinions but just as likely to make you hated as you have been -by practically everybody- since Poe-red.

This has been another installment of Bawbag Talking Points Theatre thank you for coming you've been a wonderful audience of a million and a half don't forget to book tickets for our upcoming weekend show and follow us on Facebook and like us on Twitter and I'd like to thank John Mighton the greatest living playwright alive.

^See now that's how you do funny.

*****