During today’s White House press conference held by newly-minted press secretary Sean Spicer, two new ideas were unfurled on an unsuspecting American public. The first is that a belief you have held for a while (#abeliefIhaveheldforawhile) has some kind of special standing. So, the president’s belief that he only lost the popular vote by millions of votes because many millions more ineligible people voted for his opponent than for him…that’s not news. That’s not subject to scrutiny or discussion. If it were a new belief, maybe that would be different. But, since it’s not a new belief, it is somehow uncontroversial and truthier.
It doesn’t matter what kind of cheese the moon is made out of as long as you bring your own crackers. #abeliefIhaveheldforawhile
— Martin Longman (@BooMan23) January 24, 2017
The second new idea is that the president can justify holding flatly false beliefs by appealing to “studies and evidence that have been presented to him” (#basedonstudiesandevidencepeoplehavepresentedtome) even if no one else has seen those studies and evidence or those studies and evidence are fake or comically flawed.
#basedonstudiesandevidencepeoplehavepresentedtome I am the most attractive man in Pennsylvania.
— Martin Longman (@BooMan23) January 24, 2017
Clearly, Sean Spicer was not prepared to say that he shared the president’s bizarre and false belief that millions of ineligible voters threw the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, but neither was he willing to express any personal doubt about the myth or to imply that the president might simply be crazy.
As you might imagine, this basically spoiled what otherwise might have been considered a competent press briefing.
I don’t believe Spicer’s going to last too long as Press Secretary; I think he’s going to implode under the strain of keeping up with the craziness in the face of the press corps’s overtly incredulous contempt.
You mean this is him acting more or less normally? Can’t wait.
Had the same thought. He’s asked to be Bagdad Bob only credible. Kelly Ann can at least manage to look like she means half the bullshit she says.
They might as well just spare us all the suspense and take down the picture of the White House that graces the wall behind the podium and replace it with this.
Since no one has disputed my uncommon handsomeness, it is now an established fact.
Handsome? You are adorable!
No, BooMan, you need us as liberals to oppose your claim of State-leading handsomeness. That will cause The Movement In Power to circle the wagons and fiercely defend your extreme pulchritude.
If the President tweets out support for your assertion of attractiveness and is attacked by us liberals and corrected by the fact-checking press, he will be made to feel Sad! and his right to “enjoy” the Presidency will be denied.
So, let me stake our position publicly: you are not the most attractive man in Pennsylvania.
You’re welcome.
Trump does not seem to be aware that, while he has certain powers as POTUS, they are not extensive. He must persuade.
If you have no credibility, the power of persuasion is not high.
How much credibility does he have? He started with a small amount. Every day, he is chipping away. I’d give him to the end of January to pretty much hit bottom.
Depends on how many dives the MSM and Democrats take. Both took big dives on Mr. Trump in 2015 because there was no way he could beat Clinton. Best laid plans and all — oops.
commuter observed yesterday – some NY business person standing in front of some cnn discussion about the voter fraud claim – that T is setting up for more voting restrictions.
Anyone that is buying into this crap is stupid and ignorant. Trump just can’t stand it that the left coast voters loathed him more than Clinton. Or that left coast Hispanic eligible voters were repulsed by his “yuuge wall.” Or that many left coast conservative leaning voters either didn’t turn out or didn’t vote for him.
CA turnout
2008 – 79.4%
2016 – 75.3%
TX turnout (to registered voters) was similar in both elections, 59.5 to 59.38 respectively. But Trump’s margin was only 800 thousand votes compared to Romney’s 1.25 million and McCain’s 950 thousand. Is Mr. Trump claiming that there was voter fraud in the GOP dominated state of Texas?
Or the GOP dominated state of AZ? Turnout 74.17
91 thousand vote margin; Clinton did receive approximately 130 thousand more votes than Obama, but there was little difference in the number of votes for McCain, Romney, and Trump.
no, you misunderstand. He was some NY business guy, probably didn’t vote for T though i guess it’s possible. the point we were discussing was why T is going on about this when what he’s saying is a lie – yes, everything posted here about his thin skinned narcissism is correct, but the function of repeating this lie on and on is to set up more voter discrimination laws, or at least prevent any voter rights. doesn’t matter what’s true, the R congress and states will pass more voter discrimination laws and the new SCOTUS will wave it on by. it’s what fladem writes about ppl underestimating T.
California NEEDS to see this shit happening to the rest of the continent. Poisoned water in Flint, no democracy in N.C., Kansas (that says enough). The CA people will go … do we want this shit to happen to us? What’s to stop it? Oh yeah, I get it. Do it, Donnie Boy, do it !
North Carolina now has a Democratic governor and Democratic attorney general. Not a thriving vibrant democracy but at least putting up a fight.
How did that happen with all the voter suppression efforts?
My guess is that it was a micro-version of what happened in CA during this century. The Republican politicians became so extreme and loathsome that more moderate people began pulling away from them.
Democrats make the mistake of reading that as a win for them as long they toe some center-moderate line. As contrasted with an opportunity to shift left and put those “moderates” in a box where they can vote loathsome, rational left-of-center Democrat, third party, or not at all. How easily they have forgotten that in ’08 Obama ran left-of-center in the general election and how well that worked. Whether subsequently he and the party became more honest about their true inclinations or they shifted rightward is irrelevant. It had resulted in losses.
Oh, come on. He’s gonna get NOTHING. They hamstrung him prior to assuming office. The Legislature has veto-proof majorities. The GOSNC has little power and won’t do much but slow stuff down.
From the Huffington Post 1/3/17
by Adam Hamze
Yes, TarheelDem, you should be very proud. Just stay out of California !
Oh, the old “if you tell a big lie often enough, people will begin to believe it?”
It was done after 2012 in NC and WI. Turnout in NC was higher in 2016 and Clinton still received a few more votes than Obama did in 2012, but most of the gains were for GOP and third party. A 2012 “red state” remained red. So, it’s difficult to posit that voter suppression made any difference.
WI is somewhat more complicated. Total number of voters down a hundred thousand. Increase third party 140 thousand. Decrease GOP two thousand. Decrease Dem 240 thousand. Thus, voter suppression may have hurt Clinton, but the two parties lost more to third parties than to voter suppression.
As long as the pool of eligible voters that don’t turn out remains large, voter suppression only helps the GOP in the margins. It doesn’t explain the huge collapse in IA and OH and that should be the more compelling issue for liberals than worrying about additional scumbag GOP voter suppression efforts.
It’s not about anyone believing it, it’s about cover for what he will do. read Tarheel’s comments.
and that was the commuter guys point as well. or read fladem’s comment in photo discussion. all T needs to happen is for gov to go along with his unreality. at least the msm is already pushing back.
Precisely. And this point of credibility in order to persuade is why, in my opinion, it’s not a trivial distraction to keep him stewing and yakking and tweeting about nonsense like the crowd size at the inauguration and losing the popular vote; it’s minor in the grand scheme of the harm he’s done, is doing, and will continue to do, but it serves to remind everyone but his Crazification Factor base that he is, in fact, a thin-skinned narcissistic liar who can’t let go of a grudge and wouldn’t recognize objective reality when it’s spitting in his face. This diminishes him; it saps his ability to get anyone sane to take him seriously. To the extent that he demands his minions repeat his ludicrous falsehoods and try to defend them, he diminishes their credibility as well.
Plus, it’s a small-minded but nonetheless delicious treat to watch a man raised so high flinging himself repeatedly into such a pointless cesspool, raging as he goes so low. Can’t be doing his blood pressure any good, eh?
I agree,because the crazier he behaves, the more he damages not only himself but the Republican brand.
If he has credibility with the GOP in the House and the Senate, his power is legion.
I am kind of amazed people are still underestimating him.
The power to create a separate reality and intimidate the opposition into capitulate into it is the power to persuade. Repetition and gnawing on an irrelevant theme is part of the manipulation.
Credibility with whom? He only needs credibility with the folks he needs to act at particular moments on his specific instructions to get stuff done. For the Senate, that’s 50 people. For the House, that’s 218. For the military, that’s Gen. Mattis. For the executive branch that’s the political commissars tasked with keeping the civil servants in line.
What is happening is that he is bringing the GOP into his frame of reference with his mind-boggling (never mind how he boggles) success. The GOP establishment are riding a tiger that they don’t know how to get off at the moment. The test will be the appropriations (likely there won’t be a budget like there has for 4 decades). If Trump does what Ryan can’t and McConnell falls in line, the juggernaut will be underway. Resistance, if it is to appear, must be effective by the start of the next fiscal year; it will show up as an appropriations bill that departs from what Trump wants.
At the moment, the GOP trust that their base and constituents are right behind the Trumpster’s actions. The GOP propaganda mill won’t tell them otherwise. When Rush bails like Kristol has, then Trump might be in trouble–just might be.
Bring on the staged 9/11 style attack and the show is over … or finally begins. Can’t wait till he starts using those neutron bombs we heard all about. Destroy living matter … leave the goodies untouched. Fabulous !
He’ll have to restart the neutron bomb program. That technology was someone’s grift that Carter shut down.
And according to the inventor of the concept, the W-70 was far from leaving infrastructure intact.
Let’s start with the term “grift”; from dictionary.com
So, some kind of fraud involved, huh? Love to know your source … sounds like bullshit to me.
Check out wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb
No mention of infrastructure damage on my brief scan.
So, in the future, I promise to ignore ALL your posts because you’re just a bullshit artist. There must be a job opening for you with the Emperor, assuming you’re not already in his pay.
Steve King has already given the game away with respect to what this is all about:
link
Right, they “don’t understand” the “language” but they go and vote. And for some reason each of these people is an eye-rolling “darkie” caricature from a black-and-white 1930s movie in bib overalls.
Increased voter restrictions and suppression are/will be popular in all Trump states.
The question is whether there is a legal means by which the federal Congress can prohibit states from using “motor voter” registration schemes. States are in charge of actual registration. So I’m not sure that King can really get at, for example, CA’s voter registration regime. Are they to require state elections officials to identify those voters who registered under state “motor voter” law and then disallow their participation in a federal election? But perhaps merely getting motor voter prohibited in Repub-controlled states is sufficient.
I do agree that the Repub Congress will attempt to pass a new national voting law aimed at restricting and suppressing voting–that is a critical priority for them, especially as a means to get a second term for Der Trumper. The filibuster will simply have to go before the 2020 election.
This is intentional, as noted up-thread it is paving the way for further voter restrictions and the absurdity of the lie is matched by our surprise that no one, not the media, nor the Democrats nor the press secretary himself, acknowledging it as a ‘belief’ of the president he refuses to otherwise defend, is going to make it go away. It will stand and we in the ‘reality-based’ community will not get it.
It is a ruse and the Trump supporters are in on it; Republicans have been gas-lighting America on this topic for a long time. #lookintomyeyes The shocker is that it is a racially inspired policy intended to lead to the fantasy of white nationalists; race-restricted voting.
Trumpkins aren’t stupid on this point, we are. We are experiencing a white supremacist putsch with mysogyny and Dominionism thrown in for good measure.
“Lo das, lo das, tu jour lo das.”
In 2003 I ran across people registering voters on Madison Ave. in NYC. I registered at my brother’s Manhattan address, was not required to show any identification but wasn’t really planning to vote anyway because I live elsewhere. Maybe I would have had to show proof of residency if I turned up at the voting station. A year later my brother got a letter calling me for jury duty. You can guess for yourself what a pain that turned out to be. Finally I explained the situation—I signed up at a whim to burn the Evil Bush to extinction. In Democratic NYC that would be a valid reason to break the law. You might say I was indeed registered illegally. I know neither how registration is supposed to be done on the street! nor who the activists were. Curious. I could have been deported, imagine that.
why are you telling us this. you’re nuts