General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat Frame of Mind Is Trump In Right Now?
I can't create polls because I'm not a super secret level 42 wizard star member but I want to poll the DU anyway.
I want know where you fine folks think Donald Trump's frame of mind is right now. I'm sure it will be a combination of a few of these but what is the dominant reason that Trump is doing so poorly in the general election?
A. He is like a deer in the headlights and has no clue what to do
B. He is lost in his own narcissistic bubble and can't see that his world is burning around him
C. He is sitting around with his thumb up his butt because he doesn't really care/isn't motivated to actually win
D. He is a secret Democratic Party double agent that is destroying the Republican party from the inside
Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)Doctor Jack
(3,072 posts)But option A is also tempting. However, I think for option A to be true he needs to have at least some self awareness and that doesn't seem like Trump's strong suit.
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)BlueMTexpat
(15,374 posts)gwheezie
(3,580 posts)And gets more incendiary. His faith and freeloaders speech was a dud. He can't pull off teleprompter and his rally in Richmond was a dud. Barely got a couple 1000 onto a 12k venue. He did a rambling gossipy speech in Richmond trying to fire up the crowd. He's going to revert back to his schtick. I'm betting after Richmond, his handlers are still getting spanked. He listened to them and he's not going to listen to them again.
Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)Trump is too cocksure to have a doubt in his tiny handed awesomeness.
joshcryer
(62,287 posts)He will never see how badly he's doing.
Doctor Jack
(3,072 posts)He is fucking up badly and if he sees no reason to change anything, all the better
MFM008
(19,834 posts)Hes like the snake that started eating himself.
AgadorSparticus
(7,963 posts)Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Rincewind
(1,207 posts)He thinks he is the smartest person ever, his speech are always at least 50% bragging how rich, smart, and wonderful he is. He thinks he will continue to get lots of free air time, and can just insult hie way into the White house.
JustAnotherGen
(32,025 posts)BlueMTexpat
(15,374 posts)what I am going with.
There is also a certain charm to the suggested E.
Arkansas Granny
(31,540 posts)He's getting more attention now than he's ever had before. It feeds his ego and validates his own, over inflated opinion of himself.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Rachel Maddow pointed out that Democrats are enjoying viewing Trump like a cartoon character and that's a mistake.
Even if the man's judgement and ability to be interested in anything but himself are badly affected by his personality disorder--so that he constantly does stupid things and is astonishingly ignorant--that doesn't mean he can't be very smart and experienced too.
From what I'm hearing, he's trying to alter his...selling style? That selling to a national audience is very different from primary is something he would understand perfectly well. Reading from the teleprompter, etc. He'll get better at that, and also learn to extemporaneously rattle off long streams of well written campaign sentences with something like his winning style.
Our side will be trying to entice him off script as often as possible, of course. Warren's, or Pocahontas's as he now likes to call her, stream of attack tweets has already returned the new "presidential walk" to the usual pumpkin on a roll.
PJMcK
(22,069 posts)I'm not sure that she's correct. I'm confident that Secretary Clinton's campaign has a devastating arsenal accumulating in their opposition research vaults. Donald Trump has led his life in public for decades and there is so much dirt to be found. Accordingly, I think her campaign takes him very seriously.
Voters could be another matter because Mr. Trump has been so entertaining. But as this campaign develops, his lack of a coherent strategy will cause him to go off the rails repeatedly. As the general public focuses on the election, his behavior and life will be spotlighted. This attention won't help him.
Having wrote that, this election is very serious and Democrats need to win every race from president down to every local office.
Mike Nelson
(9,984 posts)...don't believe "D" at all, although I've seen that in DU threads (the theory that Trump is working with the Clintons). There may be a little bit of "A" and "C" also. To me, he sees the new voters and crowds. It's true the new voters and turnout were driven by Trump (our turnout was down and we need to be mindful). But, those people may go to rallies for fun, but have little interest in voting for him. When you have crowds and "fans" it goes to your head. You think you're a Beatle.
beachbum bob
(10,437 posts)this is going to be enjoyable to watch
nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)Why would he change tactics if his current tactics won the primaries?
What he's missing is that he was in a very different ballgame; his Republican rivals were reluctant to take him on because they either didn't want to alienate his supporters and/or didn't actually disagree with him to any great degree. Besides, his opponents were busy trying to destroy each other in an effort to become the Anybody But Trump candidate. The Democrats have no such qualms.
I'll add just a note of caution, though. I've become so accustomed to hearing about Trump's impending implosion that I've become rather skeptical about the whole concept. I do think Clinton will win, and by a comfortable margin, but I doubt I'm going to see the kind of landslide for which I'm hoping.
Scientific
(314 posts)One factor in the mix is that is that Trump's act - while outrageous and sometimes amusing - is stale.
He's kind of a one-trick pony: carnival barker ego & outrage. Gets tiresome having your spleen kicked all the time. I do think lots of people are tired of his sick schtick.
Squinch
(51,083 posts)I suspect that this campaign is the result of rage at Obama.
Obama used him, a number of times, as the butt of very, very good jokes about the birthers. He did it publicly and overtly and fabulously. I particularly remember the time Obama told Trump, I think it was at a correspondents' dinner, that Trump should go back to his reality show, because Obama had real work to do.
We should not underestimate the rage that a through-and-through racist would feel when publicly humiliated by a black man who everyone else loves.
I think this whole campaign is an effort to be able to say things like, "I got more votes than Obama," or "I did this thing that Obama failed to do." He's too stupid to see that he CAN'T measure up to Obama in anything.
Of your options, I think A fits best because he has no idea what to do, but I don't think Trump himself is going to bow out, no matter how frightened he is in the middle of the night about the tiger whose tail he has found in his hand. He will never admit that he couldn't do what Obama did well.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)That angered Trump enormously. He was seething that night. And frankly that's a bit symptomatic. I do think that's what set him off on this path to what is really self destruction.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)is organized enough to have a frame.
Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)etherealtruth
(22,165 posts)The short fingered vulgarian is perpetually lost in his own narcissism
Zippyzagnut
(77 posts)Dude is clearly whacked out on ego
JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,379 posts)... You would be AMAZED at how great his frame of mind is.
And he is surrounded by HIS PEOPLE who tell him how great his frame of mind is. Even his African-American would say how great his frame of mind is.
Ok, there's that "Pocahontas" chick, but other than that, just a HUGE frame of mind.
JHB
(37,166 posts)RKP5637
(67,112 posts)of his feelgood rallies and still not get the rest of the US is laughing at him as a self-promoted clueless loser.
skip fox
(19,360 posts)We're mixtures of thing over time and even at the same time. So
10% C
20% B
60% A
10% Rat on fire.