Trump

[Leo]

 

[Leo]

not sure about the flow in that chorus but their hearts are in the right place.

 

[Leo]

somewhat sparse crowd in front of the stage tonight in Tulsa, more than half-empty arena. there are photos of the "overflow area" in the parking lot outside and there's literally one standing guy there. pence was supposed to address the outside overflow crowd and he cancelled. trump, of course, blaming the protesters for scaring away crowds, yet there really aren't hardly any protesters there.

still way too much time between now and Election Day but this has to be a bit of a sobering night for the campaign. even people in okla-fucking-homa seem to be tiring of his schtick and understand that COVID is real.

 

[Leo]

All this Tulsa rally hoopla also a distraction from Barr's Friday night firing of Geoffrey Berman, the US attorney in charge of the Southern District of NY, who's office has investigated the Trump organization and his cohorts. Good to know some people are still independent and committed to justice: Berman is a registered Republican who even donated to Trumps 2016 campaign, yet has been pretty focused on investigating wrongdoing.

 

[IdleRich]

Yeah... it was a farce where he refused to leave at first (Barr can't sack him, Trump has to do it I believe, and yet at first Trump was claiming not to be involved).
Funny that for the rally the fire marshal has said there were 6,200 people there, surely that can't be right - apparently the venue holds about 19k and it looked more like 2/3 full from what I saw - but whatever it seems some way short of the million they had assured us wanted to go...

 

[IdleRich]

I reckon the fire marshal is definitely deep state.

 

[Leo]

from politico on Tulsa rally numbers:

About 1.1 million people registered to attend, forcing aides to begin making plans to stage an added outdoor event. Aides knew the 1.1 million figure was inflated: After sorting through the sign-ups — a process that included looking at registrants' voting histories — they determined that about 300,000 were fake.

To winnow down the likely audience further, advisers estimated that only between 200,000 and 300,000 people lived within immediate driving distance. Worst-case scenario, they concluded, was an audience of about 60,000.

and 6,000 show up.

 

[IdleRich]

Don't forget the (almost) two hundred though.

 

[droid]

Like I said on the other thread, this is about the worst thing that could happen to him. Devastating in all kinds of ways on a personal level.

 

[Leo]

like a band who's first album was a big hit, then they tour four years later for the sophomore LP and book the same large arenas as last time but the fan base has moved on. should have started the new tour in smaller venues to gauge reaction and build momentum, then expand back to larger arenas if there's enough demand.

 

[IdleRich]

Things is, if you're a band in that situation you can scale back a bit, maybe sell the beach house in Malibu or whatever, adjust to the new reality and make a life for yourself in the second (and then probably third or fourth tier), but with the election it doesn't work that way. You win and take it all or you lose and disappear - and possibly go to jail in this case.

 

[IdleRich]

The president, who had been warned aboard Air Force One that the crowds at the arena were smaller than expected, was stunned, and he yelled at aides backstage while looking at the endless rows of empty blue seats in the upper bowl of the stadium, according to four people familiar with what took place.

Would have been good to be a fly on that wall.

 

[version]

I wonder if what ultimately brings him down - if anything does - is him turning on his base.

 

[Leo]

heard someone offer a scenario: second wave of COVID arrives, economy tanks further, poll numbers continue to decline to the point that trump decides he's getting out of the race, thrusts pence to the top of the ticket. Trump is so obsessed with winning that he literally can't deal with the prospect of losing and would rather drop out so Pence gets "the loss" in the history books.

not gonna happen, but one care dream.

 

[luka]

feels like the consequences of installing `someone like Trump as president are becoming too obvious and too damamging to ignore. it was a mad experiement and it's caused a big explosion. does our Craner still think he'll win the election though or has he changed his mind?

 

[version]

He feeds on energy, both the energy of his supporters and of his detractors, and everyone's fatigued. It'd be interesting if he just fizzled out.

 

[luka]

He feeds on energy, both the energy of his supporters and of his detractors, and everyone's fatigued. It'd be interesting if he just fizzled out.

the 'Jose Mourinho hypothesis'

 

[Leo]

He feeds on energy, both the energy of his supporters and of his detractors, and everyone's fatigued. It'd be interesting if he just fizzled out.

good point, about both the supporters and detractors.

 

[version]

The thing is, if he does lose, the GOP still exists. The people who facilitated him aren't going anywhere. The donors aren't going anywhere.

 

[luka]

are you proposing some kind of mass extermination?