April 30, 2017

So what exactly did this stupidity achieve last night?

According to David Gergen, former adviser to Ronald Reagan, just more divisiveness:

Gergen said on a CNN panel following Trump’s speech that bringing “your campaign speech into the presidency is something presidents rarely do.” He added: “I think this is the most divisive speech I’ve ever heard from a sitting American president.”

He “played to his base,” Gergen added. “He treated his other listeners — the rest of the people who have been disturbed about him or oppose him — he treated them basically as, ‘I don’t care, I don’t give a damn what you think because you’re, frankly, the enemy.’”

Sure, it played well with his base. But that base is dwindling, even if Trump doesn't want you to believe it. Despite his claims that the arena was at capacity and there were people waiting disappointed outside, a journalist showed that wasn't the truth.

And this is the thing I don't get: that was clearly a lie. You could think that Trump is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but if he's telling you that this is the biggest crowd ever and your eyes are showing you empty seats all over, at what point does the cognitive dissonance kick in?

Trump can defensively provide journalists with maps of his Electoral College victory to make his fragile ego feel better, ignoring that people not landmass vote and his Electoral College victory was one of the narrowest in history.

Trump is marking his 100th Day anniversary with one of the lowest approval ratings of any president in modern history. And historically, that number is only going to go lower as time goes on. I'm unclear, for the sake of his re-election purposes (the ostensible excuse behind the Harrisburg rally), how talking to his dwindling base helps. He needs to expand it, and demonizing anyone and everyone outside of that rally works.

Contrast that, if you will, with the attendance for the Climate March earlier that day.
170429135215-climate-march-washington-0429-overhead-2-exlarge-169_0.jpg
That was Washington DC alone. Similar marches happened all over the country, with similar turnouts. Keep in mind that this is something like the 12th organized protest/march since Trump took office, with no sign that the resistance is dwindling.

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