Some insightful commentary from various people:
Paul Waldman, Trump isn’t the solution to the “crisis of manhood,” he’s the problem.
Spot on. Just a sample: “And men suffer because the messages they get from the right are so contradictory. Is a man supposed to be strong and stoic, or such a whiny, insecure baby that the mere sight of a transgender woman sends him running to get his AR-15 to pump some lead into a bunch of beer cans?”
Paul Krugman, Trump Plays the Carnage Card. Krugman wants news media to clearly say Trump is lying about a rise in crime. Good luck with that.
Related — this is something to watch. Rachel Maddow explains why Trump doesn’t give a hoo-haw about crime.
Chris Hedges, The Rule of Idiots.
“The last days of dying empires are dominated by idiots. The Roman, Mayan, French, Habsburg, Ottoman, Romanoff, Iranian and Soviet dynasties crumbled under the stupidity of their decadent rulers who absented themselves from reality, plundered their nations and retreated into echo chambers where fact and fiction were indistinguishable.”
Hmm, sounds like … ?
"crisis of manhood" I've always found it amazing that people in this country look to Stump as some sort of model of masculinity. He's never had a real job, drove a car, changed a tire, cut the grass, the man dyes his hair, wears makeup and has his finger nails done, diaper Don is basically a walking talking drag queen in a three piece suit?
Essentially, someone who is completely empty inside. Worse, a predator, programmed by his father to kill or be killed.
Thanks for the link to Chris Hedges. Glad to have rediscovered him (on susbstack).
Macho to macho man to man talks at the Half-baked Alaska Summit Conference with lowered expectations and little to no transparency or prior planning to prevent piss poor performance. How stunning is that image with the Chris Hedges Report, and one that depicts the self-actualized ideal of the fearless leader himself. No Putin puppet though that one can identify or at least I can't. Is that because Putin shares the same ideal?
No one writes about the translators, just assuming that a meeting with translators is just as good as a meeting between two people fluent with a common language. That is so bogus. Not a chance. Been there done that.
First things first. Fearless leader is not a great communicator or a speaker of his native language. It is not unusual for journalists to differ on their English translations from his rambling Trump-speech. So what is the translation Putin is going to get? Then fearless leader will need to grasp what Putin's translator is saying back to him. As fearless leader is well known as a poor listener also, the chances for much mutual understanding go down the drain fast.
Even if I was fluent in Russian I would never even try to translate Trump-speak. How could I? I would need to understand him first and that I find impossible to do.
The best I could do is say in Russian…He said a bunch of lies and nonsense as best as I can tell…in my hypothetical Russian to Putin. That's pretty normal for him. Then perhaps ask Putin's translator to try to explain what I meant by that if he/she could. Awkward and dangerous at best. I would probably end up looking like one of those puppets in that image leading the Chris Hedges Report.