Matt Taibbi - How America Made Donald Trump Unstoppable (Rolling Stone)

[Lodestar]

Matt Taibbi (Twitter) -
After a trip following Trump I was convinced that he will win the nomination for sure and likely the presidency.


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The first thing you notice at Donald Trump's rallies is the confidence. Amateur psychologists have wishfully diagnosed him from afar as insecure, but in person the notion seems absurd.

Donald Trump, insecure? We should all have such problems.
At the Verizon Giganto-Center in Manchester the night before the New Hampshire primary, Trump bounds onstage to raucous applause and the booming riffs of the Lennon-McCartney anthem "Revolution." The song is, hilariously, a cautionary tale about the perils of false prophets peddling mindless revolts, but Trump floats in on its grooves like it means the opposite. When you win as much as he does, who the hell cares what anything means?

He steps to the lectern and does his Mussolini routine, which he's perfected over the past months. It's a nodding wave, a grin, a half-sneer, and a little U.S. Open-style applause back in the direction of the audience, his face the whole time a mask of pure self-satisfaction.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-america-made-donald-trump-unstoppable-20160224#ixzz416EKx6IB
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[bemildred]

1. A real showman will humiliate the fakes every time. nt

[SHRED]

2. I'm very concerned about him

This isn't a joke anymore.

[bemildred]

4. He will destroy Clinton, she will not be able to handle him.

She gets mad. She gets offended. She shows it.

I'd like to get Bernie and Trump in the same room, see how that goes.

[SHRED]

9. You and me both and many more

[DinahMoeHum]

3. Love this passage. . .Matt Taibbi never disappoints. . .

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-america-made-donald-trump-unstoppable-20160224?page=2

(Boldface emphasis is mine - DMH)

(snip)
President Donald Trump.

A thousand ridiculous accidents needed to happen in the unlikeliest of sequences for it to be possible, but absent a dramatic turn of events – an early primary catastrophe, Mike Bloomberg ego-crashing the race, etc. – this boorish, monosyllabic TV tyrant with the attention span of an Xbox-playing 11-year-old really is set to lay waste to the most impenetrable oligarchy the Western world ever devised.

It turns out we let our electoral process devolve into something so fake and dysfunctional that any half-bright con man with the stones to try it could walk right through the front door and tear it to shreds on the first go.

And Trump is no half-bright con man, either. He's way better than average.
(snip)

[bemildred]

5. It turns out we let our electoral process devolve into something so fake and dysfunctional that

any half-bright con man with the stones to try it could walk right through the front door and tear it to shreds on the first go.

Word.

[hedda_foil]

6. This passage spells out what many of us are very worried about. Please read it.

You will find union members scattered at almost all of Trump's speeches. And there have been rumors of unions nationally considering endorsing Trump. SEIU president Mary Kay Henry even admitted in January that Trump appeals to members because of the "terrible anxiety" they feel about jobs.

"I know guys, union guys, who talk about Trump," says Rand Wilson, an activist from the Labor for Bernie organization. "I try to tell them about Sanders, and they don't know who he is. Or they've just heard he's a socialist. Trump they've heard of."

This is part of a gigantic subplot to the Trump story, which is that many of his critiques of the process are the same ones being made by Bernie Sanders. The two men, of course, are polar opposites in just about every way – Sanders worries about the poor, while Trump would eat a child in a lifeboat – but both are laser-focused on the corrupting role of money in politics.

Both propose "revolutions" to solve the problem, the difference being that Trump's is an authoritarian revolt, while Sanders proposes a democratic one. If it comes down to a Sanders-Trump general election, the matter will probably be decided by which candidate the national press turns on first: the flatulent narcissist with cattle-car fantasies or the Democrat who gently admires Scandinavia. Would you bet your children on that process playing out sensibly?

[wcast]

7. Great Article!!

What I found most interesting is how the destruction of the middle class is splitting both parties. I didn't know, until I read this article, that Trump was taking such a populist stand with jobs and industry. Not that I believe he would follow through. After reading this I am more convinced that Sanders is the person that can beat Trump as while their messages may seem similar, Bernie's message is genuine. I think he could take all of Trump's negatives and throw them in his face as Trump is a walking contradiction.

My only question is can Hilary, or her advisors, not really see what the electorate on both sides is clamoring for? Is the party so entrenched in Wall st and big business that it really can't let go, no matter the outcome? I think this shows that, outside of the corporate elite, Americans are finally ready to get behind a party that is willing to fight for their interests. I hope the Democratic candidate is just such a person.

[Lodestar]

8. If we put billionaires (or puppets of billionaires) in power

we will have fulfilled the quest of the 1% and shown ourselves to be easy pawns.
Actually I think the system is so corrupt that the outcome is already determined
and we only have the illusion of choice. The ONLY thing that might change that
is if Americans resolve to take back power and the government.

[Volaris]

10. This was an outstanding read.

once again, Matt doesn't dissapoint.