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This analogy makes sense for me, right up until last week. How is staging the most incompetent coup ever demonstrating anything except that he actually doesn’t

This analogy makes sense for me, right up until last week. How is staging the most incompetent coup ever demonstrating anything except that he actually doesn’t think ahead and just does whatever in the moment to further his own personal whims?

rebuilder 6y ago
Well, there's Trump and there's Trump's planners. The latter probably have some skill at strategy. I agree, though, that recent events seem to have finally answered the question of whether or not Trump has a plan. It seems not, but you can get very far by just falling forward and refusing to admit defeat, ever. The sheer cognitive dissonance of the idea that a US president could be so far off his rocker and still be highly popular forces us to look for any explanation, however contrived, that means there's some master plan behind it all. But nope, it's been option A all along: A charismatic manipulator really was elected president despite never knowing what he was going to do with the position when he got there, and despite being constitutionally unable to take advice from people who do understand strategy.
tachyonbeam 6y ago
He's a narcissist and he wants power and admiration, I think that explains most of his actions. If he had won, he would have praised the amazing American democracy. Now that he's lost, there's been talk about a "Trump TV" channel. Something like Fox News, but more radical. He will probably do whatever he can to stay in the spotlight and keep getting attention, keep his following.
- duxup 6y ago
  No question about it, when he thought he might lose the first election, he already complained that the result would be fraudulent, before it even happened ;) But after he won he didn't mention it again.
letitbeirie 6y ago
> most incompetent coup ever An angry mob sacked the Capitol. If #ZipTieGuy and friends had arrived mere minutes earlier, they'd have walked into a joint session of Congress containing every member of succession to the President that he did not appoint himself. It's easy to call it incompetent now that it failed but we might have just avoided a revolution by the skin of our teeth.
- chronofar 6y ago
  I don’t understand this. So you’re thinking if they hold or execute members of Congress that’s all it takes to overthrow the government? This seems ludicrous and yet I’ve seen multiple people espouse such a thing, so I’m wondering if I’m not understanding some kind of checkmate that comes with such a move.
  - closeparen 6y ago
    Until the conclusion of the ceremony that they disrupted, Joe Biden is legally just some guy. If Congress had been more seriously disrupted, it's possible the ceremony would have continued as normal sometime before the inauguration. Also possible it would have been postponed indefinitely for "the security situation in DC" and "investigations into voter fraud." On January 20th it would be Vice President Pence sworn in. Not checkmate by itself, but very scary.
    - chronofar 6y ago
      I guess a can’t refute your hypothetical here, but the process it describes is ridiculously brittle. It seems utterly unbelievable to think all it takes to overthrow the US government is disrupting a single ceremonious formality. That surely cannot be expected to withstand the test of time on merely goodwill and tradition.
      - soco 6y ago
        I'm afraid the founding fathers didn't imagine mobs holding the congress hostage on confirmation day a probable event... and neither did we, actually.

rebuilder 6y ago

Well, there's Trump and there's Trump's planners. The latter probably have some skill at strategy. I agree, though, that recent events seem to have finally answered the question of whether or not Trump has a plan. It seems not, but you can get very far by just falling forward and refusing to admit defeat, ever. The sheer cognitive dissonance of the idea that a US president could be so far off his rocker and still be highly popular forces us to look for any explanation, however contrived, that means there's some master plan behind it all. But nope, it's been option A all along: A charismatic manipulator really was elected president despite never knowing what he was going to do with the position when he got there, and despite being constitutionally unable to take advice from people who do understand strategy.

tachyonbeam 6y ago

He's a narcissist and he wants power and admiration, I think that explains most of his actions. If he had won, he would have praised the amazing American democracy. Now that he's lost, there's been talk about a "Trump TV" channel. Something like Fox News, but more radical. He will probably do whatever he can to stay in the spotlight and keep getting attention, keep his following.

duxup 6y ago
No question about it, when he thought he might lose the first election, he already complained that the result would be fraudulent, before it even happened ;) But after he won he didn't mention it again.

letitbeirie 6y ago

> most incompetent coup ever An angry mob sacked the Capitol. If #ZipTieGuy and friends had arrived mere minutes earlier, they'd have walked into a joint session of Congress containing every member of succession to the President that he did not appoint himself. It's easy to call it incompetent now that it failed but we might have just avoided a revolution by the skin of our teeth.

chronofar 6y ago
I don’t understand this. So you’re thinking if they hold or execute members of Congress that’s all it takes to overthrow the government? This seems ludicrous and yet I’ve seen multiple people espouse such a thing, so I’m wondering if I’m not understanding some kind of checkmate that comes with such a move.
- closeparen 6y ago
  Until the conclusion of the ceremony that they disrupted, Joe Biden is legally just some guy. If Congress had been more seriously disrupted, it's possible the ceremony would have continued as normal sometime before the inauguration. Also possible it would have been postponed indefinitely for "the security situation in DC" and "investigations into voter fraud." On January 20th it would be Vice President Pence sworn in. Not checkmate by itself, but very scary.
  - chronofar 6y ago
    I guess a can’t refute your hypothetical here, but the process it describes is ridiculously brittle. It seems utterly unbelievable to think all it takes to overthrow the US government is disrupting a single ceremonious formality. That surely cannot be expected to withstand the test of time on merely goodwill and tradition.
    - soco 6y ago
      I'm afraid the founding fathers didn't imagine mobs holding the congress hostage on confirmation day a probable event... and neither did we, actually.