Trump always comes out of meetings agreeing with the last person he talked to. He has no mind if his own any more, if he ever had one to begin with.
Why don't all of the left leaning politicians then make it a point to just continually schedule 1 on 1 meetings with him?
The stench probably.
Trump was a Democrat back when he was handing out BJ's. Probably got his anger from a scorned lover situation.
Anyway, I think Republicans all have a carry card that says "Trump meeting rules: 1: kiss his ass. 2: tell him to never meet alone with cheating Democrats"
Over the years he forgot that cheating was about his male lover and thinks it's about elections.
A lot of people really, really don't know how to read others and how to manage a character like Trump.
For Mamdani it was a fucking dog-walk, because he knows people, he's emotionally intelligent, he's very, very crafty too. Don't let the sometimes goofy charm fool you, he's extremely focused and sharp and careful about everything he says. He just has it down so it looks natural.
Not saying he's not a genuine person, but he also knows the game like he was born to it.
For the rest of the Dems? I mean... there are a few people who have a lot of spirit and fire, but that's not how to make Trump bend the knee, you have to really understand his buttons and you can't meet his obstinance and stupidity with force.
I think a few who were good at working trump in his first administration did do this too - but as you say, there's fewer than you'd think; and I think when his handlers figured out this was happening, they started scheduling Republicans to meet him right after to "correct" his mindset.
The face paint looks a bit lighter also
He's had an epiphany. He's going to come out as bi any day now and defect to the Greens and by executive order make the stripes in the US flag rainbow coloured and he's going to rule as a just, benevolent dictator.
Oh a benevolent dictator? Well, that's just great! Benevolent dictators get the guillotines with a cushion on them.
Mamdani cast Charm Person, and even though Trump was rolling with advantage, his WIS score was poor even in his best years. Hasn't worn off yet.
It's been 9 years since he started politics and I never understood why anyone ever backed him.
He matches their hateful energy.
They believe he will hurt the right people (to them); marginalized people.
They are largely happy that he is, and many are completely willing to accept massive sacrifice to get this.
They believe he will hurt the right people (to them); marginalized people.
This is incorrect.
People backed Donald in 2016 because, at that time, they'd had enough of the disappointment and impoverishment brought to them by Obama's politics and the promise that those politics would continue under Clinton. It was the same under Biden/Harris, where consumers watched their basic needs double and triple in cost and their response was 'just be joyful about it'.
Donald, in both cases, was the change candidate, and the majority wanted change more than anything else.
There is a smaller contingent that, yes, did back him because of his hateful energy, but not the majority. The majority just want to be able to pay their bills without having to work 100 hours a week.
Nah to any of this. His rhetoric was clear. Birthirism, build a wall, eat the dogs, sending their rapists, black jobs.
Especially for his second term, not a soul could possibly believe he would bring about positive change economically.
Its also extremely dumb for the next to nobody who voted for him for not bigotry to think choosing the worse option would somehow make things better as opposed to participating in primaries more.
Yes. It was shortsighted and naive of them, but while there are some people who voted for mass deportations because they hate immigrants, far more people voted for mass deportations because he told them that they are the reason for the affordability crisis.
Populism. He convinced everyone he was a billionaire outsider not beholden to anyone. The whole thing started from a fake rally to help him gain ratings for The Apprentice.
But like, his credibility is (and always was) total shit. How can there be 75 million people that gullible? To me, it couldn't have been more obvious he was lying if his pants had literally been on fire.
Trump didn’t create the grift. The system that enabled it was built long before he arrived.
Starting with Nixon’s “Southern strategy,” the Republican Party began reshaping political identity around grievance. After the Fairness Doctrine was repealed in 1987, partisan media like talk radio and Fox News grew without the obligation to present balanced perspectives. The Citizens United ruling in 2010 then opened the door to unlimited political spending, allowing well-funded groups to amplify fear-based messaging at scale. The Tea Party movement reinforced the idea that the threat came from within, not just from ideological opponents.
Over time, this narrative produced an ever-shifting villain: sometimes “liberals,” sometimes “socialists,” often just “them.” Orwell captured the mechanism in Animal Farm: “Whenever anything went wrong it became usual to attribute it to Snowball.”
Trump didn’t invent that scapegoat. He inherited it, and then he turned the volume up.
To us, the grift is obvious. But for many, decades of messaging eroded trust in institutions and made the fear feel real. The lie works not because it persuades, but because it offers comfort.
Understanding that history doesn’t excuse it. It reminds us the machinery was built before Trump and will remain if we only confront the man instead of the system that produced him.
Fuck he almost looks human
The sad part is, I actually pity him. I have seen that look, I have seen it on my father's face. And I pitied him too. Doesn't excuse their actions. Mine neither, let that be for the record. But this got fucking dark. I'll go home now.
He’s basically cosplaying as Senator Palpatine. We all know what comes next.
The attempt on his life did leave him scarred and deformed.
Nah, he looked like that before too.
What, no, look at his ear, it's totally scarred, it's mangled, barely even anything left of it. /s
Borderline personality disorder is what
Literally this. My dad had all the symptoms of BPD and was almost a clone of Trump, but an alcoholic version.
He was also a flagship example of "Last Person He Talked To" syndrome like Trump, where if he met someone who charmed him, he would fawn all over that person and even start talking like them for days or weeks after. It just betrays a deep sense of insecurity about one's own identity.
The flip side of this is if Trump meets with someone else with an opposing viewpoint or condemnation for Mamdani even a day later, it will flip back the opposite direction, because in the mind of someone like this, social approval is more valuable than idolizing someone and feelings change like the weather and dictate the entire narrative.
Simple, Mamdani probably just knows how to handle a narcissist. All you gotta do is stroke their ego, and it's not too difficult to get them on your side; the hardest part making them think that your ideas were their own, but even that's not too difficult, either, because in typical narcissistic fashion, they'll just steal your ideas and then claim them as their own.
Trump is doing a bit, he knows the fix is in to destroy Mamdani, but doesn't want to take the heat for it. He's making it look like he really likes Zohran, but he knows Zohran's life is about to become a living hell. Trump and his millionaire and billionaire allies in New York are planning to discredit socialism as an ideology, by making it look publicly like he had no hand in meddling with Mamdani's administration.
I don't doubt that there's going to be a big effort to discredit Mamdani, but why would Trump care if he looks clean? He's never cared before about that kind of thing.
Because it has to look like socialism failed completely on its own, because of policy, or else it will create some sort of backlash. If socialism is seen to fail without public meddling from his admin then they can say, "well that's socialism, it always fails," the implication being on its own.
It also makes Mamdani look bad to certain crank liberals and certain crank radical leftists if Trump is seen approving of Mamdani. As a member of DSA I can't overstate the effect of his win, we went from 80k to 85k members in one day.
Making socialism look bad to all those people in the middle to whose opinion of socialism and social democratic policies is starting to trend much more positive, has always been a top priority for the ruling capitalist class. If you're seen fighting something that people think is good and practical, you look like a villain, which angers people into wanting to act.
Unfortunately a lot of those people in the middle are under the influence of illusions about capitalism. Maintaining those illusions is a multi-trillion dollar industry. Even when middle class people have positive opinions, they aren't doing practical organizing. Basically they are more split on these issues than a lot of polling suggests. Keeping those people in a state where they will believe that the status quo is still better for them than the struggle for democratic socialism and liberation, is the ur-policy of the ruling class, and has been since FDR.
You are giving this slavering demented moron far too much credit.
Nothing has to look like anything. They just make up facts about whatever reality they want
My money's on this. But: tldr; if city workers know he's trying to do good, and find out old money is fucking with him, his support will strengthen in a way we've not seen in a long time.
So, having worked for the city years ago, I also know it's a system full of people he was directly talking to with affordability. They're on-board with him, if he starts delivering the goods in a public way. Ways to get good food for cheap for everyone, raising wages, getting a cap on crime and helping the homeless. That's all people want.
With that in mind, if it is revealed that even a couple of billionaires is working to trash those efforts in a coordinated manner, suddenly the people of NYC have both a guy trying to do right by them, and a powerful enemy to rally against. There aren't enough cops to deal with people dropping bricks off rooftops, every street becomes a potential 'interaction'.. think a version of "the warriors", but it's regular folks vs the recognized billionaires. Heh, one can dream, anyway.
What'll happen, ultimately? I dunno. But the ingredients for something special are in place.
He looks like JJ Abrams tried to create a new villain for Star Wars (that serves on the Jedi council) but when he looks in the mirror, he secretly cackles.
It will always be a mystery to me why US citizens always place so much importance on appearances instead of focusing on the important things.
Here's an example from the last election campaign: the Democrats were somehow more successful in portraying Trump as "old and strange" than in portraying him as how he really is: corrupt and criminal.
Well, now organized crime rules the US – but somehow it's still all about how Trump dresses, how he is old and weird. Yes, that's true, I mean, the guy has been orange since the 90s, but it's by no means the biggest problem with this administration — not even close.
I have a family member that liked what Bernie had to say back in 2015 but said they couldn't get past his teeth. I had no response.
Imagine having such an eroded sense of self you cling to what you deem is a strong man and have to emulate him. All While being the president of the US
I still get amazed at how absolutely stupid MAGA are.
I’m starting to see shades of a relative I have in trump. Mind you, this person is very nice and I’m not trying to disparage them at all. They’re ADHD and probably in the early stages of dementia. They eat like shit. Using hocus-pocus dietary supplements because they know they eat like shit and think these are a fix. Constantly shifting what the latest great thing is - doesn’t matter what it is, food, clothing, a bit of tech, supplements, a media source… and thanks to their declining mental state it’s like the worst aspects are amplified. Wide emotional swings. Focusing on anything difficult like logical steps to return a purchased item via mail are super difficult.
While my relative’s swings are anti-trump if the subject comes up and the anger is focused on trump’s and the reich wing’s stupidity, it sure mirrors trump’s wild swings on everything, his raging about whatever, and his focus on what the latest interest is. Fixing anything like the Economy is too hard and too many steps, so he relies on whatever clueless mumbo-jumbo others tell him. Even the hocus-pocus health fix by using a snake oil salesman like Kennedy.
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
No AI generated content.
Content posted must not be created by AI with the intent to mimic the style of existing images
