donald trump is a human

[cliffs]

President Donald Trump berated his former national security adviser Michael Flynn and other senior staff members for holding off on arranging a phone call with the Russian president in January 2017, according to a new book.



"Are you kidding me? Vladimir Putin tried to call me, and you didn't put him through? What the hell were you thinking?" Trump said in the middle of a meeting with the UK's prime minister, his first White House meeting with a foreign leader.



"Well, sir, you know, you have a lot of calls coming in, and we're trying to manage who you talk to," Flynn responded.



"What kind of bulls--- is this? How is it possible that Putin calls me and you don't put the call through? I don't know what you guys are doing," Trump later told his senior staff members.

[gregfordyce]

Trump Announces He Will Cut Medicare, Social Security When Re-Elected

How many of his dumb-ass cultists would you be willing to bet would still vote for him, knowing this? I'd say in the 100% range. And how many of those dumb-ass cultists would STILL worship the orange fuck even AFTER their own Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid got cut by Trump? I'd say in the 99% range. And how many of those dumb-ass cultists would blame the "traitorous un-American socialist Democrats" for cutting their (socialist) SS and Medicare?

LOL you can't make this shit up.

[gregfordyce]

I'd like to share something I got from my The Bulwark daily email today. Makes a lot of (sad) sense.

"In a moment of weakness and jet-lagged naivete, I found myself musing that maybe, possibly, the new revelations about Trump's fleecing of taxpayers by charging the Secret Service exorbitant rates might make a difference with some of Trump's base.  When I said this aloud, a younger and wiser colleague lowered his eyes and shook his head. I think he was embarassed for me.

Because of course it wouldn't matter.

Just like the evidence about Trump's meddling in Ukraine didn't matter, or last week's dual meltdowns at the Prayer Breakfast and in the East Room didn't matter. You think the new budget and deficit numbers will move the needle? Or the fallout from the trade war? Or the 15,000-plus false statements he's made since taking office? The probability of any of this mattering to Trump's base ranges from "impossible" to "no effing way."

Because we know that Trump has benefitted from an alternative-reality bubble that has effectively isolated many of his supporters from inconvenient information. "The American Right," Matthew Sheffield wrote back in 2016, "has become willfully disengaged from its fellow citizens thanks to a wonderful virtual-reality machine in which conservatives, both elite and grassroots, can believe anything they wish, no matter how at odds with reality."

This is the explanation for one of the central and immutable facts of our politics: Trump's approval rating has been remarkably durable and nearly immune to the shocks and jolts of the news cycle. How does this work? Two emails I received this week highlight the challenges of breaking through the "Trumpian bubble."

The first message came from a long time reader from New Berlin, Wisconsin. He had been talking to a number of colleagues and friends. These are not stupid people. But they were remarkably uninformed and resistant to negative information about Trump. They had internalized many of the Trumpian talking points, and seemed to get much of their information not from traditional outlets, but from Facebook primarily. Here's the email:

I will also point out that the same people who were extremely knowledgeable about what was going on during the Obama years amazingly have very little knowledge of what's going on day-to-day in the Trump administration and frankly they tell me they don't want to know. Out of 3 people, not one watched the East Room performance on Thursday, nor did they read about it or hear anything about his tirade.

There is definitely a marked regression in knowledge of what's going on politically during the Trump administration. Out of mind, out of sight. It was difficult to challenge their points of view or even have an informed discussion because anything I said they had no knowledge of it occurring. Very much short on facts. They had all of the repeated Trumpisms down pat - Witch Hunt, hoax, fake news, etc. But if you try to drill down a little deeper, you didn't hit home.

Another reader from Seattle read his email, which I included in my newsletter yesterday. This is what she wrote:

I had the exact same experience on Friday. We are having electrical work done and our electrician asked me, since we are recently moved from Seattle,what we think of Trump. I pled the 5th; he went on to tell me he didn't like some of the things Trump tweeted but he liked what he has done for the country. I swear I am not making this up: Doug thinks Trump has saved the taxpayers money. Leeches and layabouts are no longer "stealing from us." I think I looked a little confused about who, exactly, was doing the thieving; He either couldn't or wouldn't articulate who "they" are. This is one of the biggest agricultural areas in the country, so in general people are pretty pro-Mexican, and if anything they didn't like Obama's making it harder to hire people to work on farms.