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I dunno if the "just paraphrasing [...] Fox" works as an explanation for success. It sounds like you believe he just keeps unaccountably stumbling into piles of

I dunno if the "just paraphrasing [...] Fox" works as an explanation for success. It sounds like you believe he just keeps unaccountably stumbling into piles of cash and power?

ZeroGravitas 9mo ago
Have we given up on him being a master persuader already? He was literally born into wealth before he could even stumble.
- terminalshort 9mo ago
  As were many hundreds of thousands of other men, and yet Trump is in the Oval office and they are not.
  - notahacker 9mo ago
    An ageing Biden and Dubya have also occupied that office and they don't exactly strike me as "master persuader" types either. Nobody is accusing Trump of lacking ambition or charisma, and there's also no doubt the party machine that backed him is pretty sophisticated in the arts of political campaigning. But there's a difference between being a "master persuader" able to convince almost anyone of almost anything and being a shameless braggart in front of an electorate that's unusually impressed by a celebrity's overconfidence and wealth, and also being a lot less shameless about appealing to their chauvinistic attitudes than predecessors.
  - ZeroGravitas 9mo ago
    So Joe Biden and George W Bush are also master persuaders? I feel we've cheapened the title "master persuader" if every elected politician in semi-democratic nations, even the nepo babies, gets that accolade. I'm really looking for masterful persuasion, preferably of people who haven't already poisoned themselves with a diet of misinformation.
    - terminalshort 9mo ago
      Biden was a great campaigner and speech maker. Similar to Trump in that he wasn't afraid to piss people off. Don't let the dementia addled version that you saw in his 80s fool you into thinking he wasn't a man of extreme outlier political talent to get where he was. So was W Bush. You think going up on stage and acting like the smartest guy in the room (as many who worked with Bush say he actually was) is going to win you any votes? But acting like Bush will. That's not something just anyone can do. And you think calling 3 men out of 300 million "master persuaders" cheapens it? Any player in the NBA is a master basketball player and there are hundreds of them at any given time.
      - ZeroGravitas 9mo ago
        And Scott Adams is on the record that these people and Al Gore and Romney and the Clintons all meet his criteria for master persuader? Because he clearly seemed to be building Trump up as something unique.
paulryanrogers 9mo ago
Trump was born rich to a father who taught him cruelty and insulated him from consequences. It was a golden ticket. He still managed to go bankrupt 6 times, and couldn't get financing. He had to resort to selling his name or getting money from one of the most corrupt banks in the world. He's rumored to have been despised in the NY social scene since his youth and up to the present. He's been accused of rape by his own ex-wife and SA by more than 20 others. He bought pageants so beautiful women would have to interact with him. His longest relationship is with an illegal migrant (possibly trafficked) escort whose visa he had to pay for. He gained no following during his time at the head of the Reform party. Since 2015 his political base, like Nixon's, is largely built on white grievance and fear. It's incapable of building much once in power. Now the Trump family accumulates money by selling power, hot air, and fleecing fools.
- gjm11 9mo ago
  When was he at the head of the Reform party?
  - paulryanrogers 9mo ago
    In 2000, with the help of Jesse Ventura.
    - gjm11 9mo ago
      I'm having trouble finding any evidence for that. E.g., https://web.archive.org/web/20030808111721/https://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0002/11/cf.00.html https://web.archive.org/web/20030808111721/https://edition.c... -- here's a thing from February of that year that (if I'm understanding right) reports Ventura leaving the Reform Party because he didn't like its endorsement of Pat Buchanan for president; it mentions Trump, but only as one person Ventura might have supported as a presidential nominee, and it actually quotes Trump saying to Ventura "you're the leader". Trump was never the Reform Party's nominee nor anyone else's. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_2000_presidential_campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_2000_presidential... says that "he never expanded the campaign beyond the exploratory phase".) It's not entirely clear to me that there was actually such a thing as the leader of the Reform Party, especially in early 2000 when there was a lot of infighting, but if there was one it seems to me that it might have been Ventura but certainly wasn't Trump. What am I missing?

I dunno if the "just paraphrasing [...] Fox" works as an explanation for success. It sounds like you believe he just keeps unaccountably stumbling into piles of cash and power?

ZeroGravitas 9mo ago

Have we given up on him being a master persuader already? He was literally born into wealth before he could even stumble.

terminalshort 9mo ago
As were many hundreds of thousands of other men, and yet Trump is in the Oval office and they are not.
- notahacker 9mo ago
  An ageing Biden and Dubya have also occupied that office and they don't exactly strike me as "master persuader" types either. Nobody is accusing Trump of lacking ambition or charisma, and there's also no doubt the party machine that backed him is pretty sophisticated in the arts of political campaigning. But there's a difference between being a "master persuader" able to convince almost anyone of almost anything and being a shameless braggart in front of an electorate that's unusually impressed by a celebrity's overconfidence and wealth, and also being a lot less shameless about appealing to their chauvinistic attitudes than predecessors.
- ZeroGravitas 9mo ago
  So Joe Biden and George W Bush are also master persuaders? I feel we've cheapened the title "master persuader" if every elected politician in semi-democratic nations, even the nepo babies, gets that accolade. I'm really looking for masterful persuasion, preferably of people who haven't already poisoned themselves with a diet of misinformation.
  - terminalshort 9mo ago
    Biden was a great campaigner and speech maker. Similar to Trump in that he wasn't afraid to piss people off. Don't let the dementia addled version that you saw in his 80s fool you into thinking he wasn't a man of extreme outlier political talent to get where he was. So was W Bush. You think going up on stage and acting like the smartest guy in the room (as many who worked with Bush say he actually was) is going to win you any votes? But acting like Bush will. That's not something just anyone can do. And you think calling 3 men out of 300 million "master persuaders" cheapens it? Any player in the NBA is a master basketball player and there are hundreds of them at any given time.
    - ZeroGravitas 9mo ago
      And Scott Adams is on the record that these people and Al Gore and Romney and the Clintons all meet his criteria for master persuader? Because he clearly seemed to be building Trump up as something unique.

paulryanrogers 9mo ago

Trump was born rich to a father who taught him cruelty and insulated him from consequences. It was a golden ticket. He still managed to go bankrupt 6 times, and couldn't get financing. He had to resort to selling his name or getting money from one of the most corrupt banks in the world. He's rumored to have been despised in the NY social scene since his youth and up to the present. He's been accused of rape by his own ex-wife and SA by more than 20 others. He bought pageants so beautiful women would have to interact with him. His longest relationship is with an illegal migrant (possibly trafficked) escort whose visa he had to pay for. He gained no following during his time at the head of the Reform party. Since 2015 his political base, like Nixon's, is largely built on white grievance and fear. It's incapable of building much once in power. Now the Trump family accumulates money by selling power, hot air, and fleecing fools.

gjm11 9mo ago
When was he at the head of the Reform party?
- paulryanrogers 9mo ago
  In 2000, with the help of Jesse Ventura.
  - gjm11 9mo ago
    I'm having trouble finding any evidence for that. E.g., https://web.archive.org/web/20030808111721/https://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0002/11/cf.00.html https://web.archive.org/web/20030808111721/https://edition.c... -- here's a thing from February of that year that (if I'm understanding right) reports Ventura leaving the Reform Party because he didn't like its endorsement of Pat Buchanan for president; it mentions Trump, but only as one person Ventura might have supported as a presidential nominee, and it actually quotes Trump saying to Ventura "you're the leader". Trump was never the Reform Party's nominee nor anyone else's. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_2000_presidential_campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_2000_presidential... says that "he never expanded the campaign beyond the exploratory phase".) It's not entirely clear to me that there was actually such a thing as the leader of the Reform Party, especially in early 2000 when there was a lot of infighting, but if there was one it seems to me that it might have been Ventura but certainly wasn't Trump. What am I missing?