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Gift Article: Has Anyone Noticed That Trump Is Really Old?
(www.theatlantic.com)
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this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
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politics
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Y’all I can’t go through this anti Trump circlejerk anymore. It’s exhausting. Imprison him or something but god I don’t give a fuck about this shit anymore.
Unfortunately the pro Trump propaganda is strong. If the opposition isn't reminding people how horrible he is he'll get free advertising again and win.
If you don't want to see it either block all political communities or get off social media.
Trump is old, but he appears energetic. He's boisterous and aggressive, both traits appeal to his base. They don't care if he gaffs or gets countries wrong.
Edit: based on people's reactions, somehow you seem to think I'm endorsing him or like him. I do not.
To be clear, I'm trying to honestly assess why he might have a chance at winning. Our republic is fucked if he wins.
Have you seen his latest rallies? He has nowhere near the energy he did in 2016. He rambles about the dumbest shit, loses the plot, can't tell countries and world leaders apart, just an overall mess. His previous attacks were pretty stupid but focused and determined. Now all he does is whine about how unfair the judges in his cases are. It's low energy. Sad. Yeah, a lot of his base won't care, but Maga Republicans have been getting absolutely bitch slapped at the voting booth.
I legit cannot tell if you mean now or in the past.
Yeah he's definitely always done this, but now it's even worse and extremely low energy.
The endless torrent of lawsuits is wearing him down, or at least I hope.
Both? Trump has never actually understood what he says if it wasn't about himself.
Pretending like he doesn't have a chance is what got him in power the first time. I don't typically love polling, but you should look at the numbers. If Trump wins again, our republic is done.
Not sure why you're being downvoted, you're not wrong. He absolutely does give off the impression that he's young and energetic to his voterbase, purely because of what you said.
Before anyone gets upset with me as well, consider how Trump's cult, and America in general, views traits like boisterousness or aggressiveness. To them, those are young/middle-age traits, not dementia-addled senior citizen traits.
Nuance gets lost. I don't know why.
The bigger your audience, the more nuance is lost. People in large groups are bad at thinking because the group energy takes over. Which I think explains Trump's success. Individual Republicans think he's dumb as a box of rocks but get them all together in one place and they start chanting death to libs while he conducts the symphony. All nuance about specific facts or policies are thrown out the window and it reverts to pure tribalism. When everyone around you is shouting hatred, that isn't the time to interrupt and point out that maybe the enemy isn't that bad.
I'm not dumb enough to think that doesn't happen on the left as well to an extent, but currently at least it seems a much bigger problem on the right. I hope once Trump is out of the way, no one else is quite able to capture that spark again.
Yeah when people try and pretend like Trump can't speak to a crowd or isn't charismatic I feel like I'm being gaslighted, it's like they really don't want admit he can be good at it for some reason. Being dumb af or evil is a separate thing than charisma, and if anything they're infamously associated traits. He's totally phoning it in a lot of the times now sure, but he can still turn it on when needed.
Trump and Biden are both historically disliked party leaders, so pretending people have unanimous respect for every aspect of one or the other is really strange to me. I remember in 2016 people trying to convince themselves Hillary was cool and could give some "fierce" comebacks to Trump if only given the chance, and I was just fuck stop doing this to yourselves this is sad. If Hillary wins it will not be because she's a good speaker.... I still lose it at her robot voice being like, "I first came to awareness of you, through the Cardi B WAP!"
Trump and Biden are some of the most unpopular candidates ever to run for president but neither party seems able or willing to put someone more likeable up. Dems wholly rejected the candidate who had every chance of beating Trump in the general, in favor of the one more friendly to donor interests and had a pretty likely chance of losing. This is basically the death spiral of the system producing these results right now ad infinitum.
Unpopular to you. They are popular in America.
Neither Biden or Trump have exceeded low 50% approval ratings at their best, mostly both hover around 40%, with a constant 50-55% disapproval rating.
It's accurate that other presidents over the last half century have tanked harder than this, but no president in this timeframe aside from Truman potentially, has had a consistent approval rating this low, or a disapproval rating this high, and this applies to both Trump and Biden.
Nah bruv, we have to take this shitcunt seriously and grind him into a fine orange dust.
For me taking Trump seriously and coverage like "let's talk about how old Trump is" are completely separate things.
I wish we could. God, I wish we could. The cult's too strong though, so everyone has to use the "premature baby gloves" when they're handling him.
It's giving me flashbacks to early 2016 when I first realized this ornery duffer could actually be elected president, right when major news outlets started to cover him as a frontrunner, every tweet was analyzed as breaking news for the morning segments, it was just the Trump show 24/7. Himbo news presenters looking vaguely shocked through the layers of makeup and botox, in effect just crafting the brand he needed.
I generally like the Atlantic too, but I find them and New Republic have been on the extra-Trump editorializing lately. IE taking things known about Trump and re-emphasizing them with "it's official now," as if it wasn't before, or as if something significant has developed. Jacobin has been really good at steering clear of this sort of pedestrian approach and it's been nice to have them around the last few years.
Are you seriously making an argument for complacence?
Is it complacency or just raw genitals? There isn't any debate to be had here. At this point nobody is going to read this thread and go, "oh, yeah, these are some good points. I guess Trump really isn't someone I should be supporting."
It's just a bunch of people standing in a circle jerking it and that can be fun... for awhile, but eventually you just need a break.
Especially articles like this. Like yes, he's old. Congrats. He's been old for at least a decade. Do we... do we need this article?
I think this article was written because republicans always say Biden is too old. He is, but so is Trump
In every respect except for actual years, Trump is "older". He's not as mentally agile as Biden. He's not as physically healthy as Biden. He very likely has fewer years left than Biden. When people talk about age, it's these things that they are concerned about, but in this case, you can just look at these factors directly.
I remember when Jack LaLanne started promoting juicers, and he was on TV in his 80s. If you looked at him, you just knew he had a long time left. And he lived to be 96. Physical age is a very useful statistic, but it's not the only statistic.
Headlines with layers of qualifiers to say the same thing with more emphasis, seems like a lot of Trump articles do this now.
It's Definitely Really Official Now, Trump is Actually Officially Old
I'll never understand "circlejerk" being an accepted term for what it supposedly means
A bunch of people metaphorically standing around masturbating each other to a particular topic doesn't seem a relevant allegory to you? It's a bit overused, but I think it gets the point across very clearly.
It's gross and weird and no, I don't find agreement to equal cock stroking.
You are taking it far too literally. It means deriving pleasure from the pointless stroking of each other's egos to no productive end. The metaphor substitutes penis for ego, which is already a fairly closely related concept for a lot of guys in the first place.
That said, you're right. Both kinds of circle jerk are gross and weird.