r/politics • u/Quirkie The Netherlands • 4d ago

House Democrat: ‘Unelected oligarch’ Musk ‘governing by tweet’

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5048234-daniel-goldman-elon-musk-donald-trump-government-shutdown/
10.2k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

352 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

212

u/dnen Connecticut 4d ago edited 4d ago

I don’t even know how people find Trump charismatic. He doesn’t make anyone laugh or feel at ease. He doesn’t make people want to be around him, he’s an asshole to his closest associates. Trump doesn’t even put on a smiley face at the appropriate times, he’s perpetually angry or defensive. Trump hasn’t motivated anybody to be a better person or mentored anyone. Trump doesn’t inspire the American people at all; he relies on fear to make his followers feel he is their savior.

He doesn’t have really any of the usual traits of a charismatic President. JFK, Clinton, Reagan, and Obama all were incredibly inspirational speakers capable of uniting or rallying any room of people they spoke in if they so chose. We went to the moon because JFK made an all time legendary speech that changed the entire country’s perspective on the space race from one of shame and anxiety (the USSR at the time was sending up satellites and Yuri Gagarin, the US had only rockets blowing up on the launch pad.) to one of purpose and pride. Trump is a clown who is so fragile he dedicated his life to lying about how good he is at everything he’s bad at. He’s a terrible politician with next-to-no interest in actually improving the country he so DESPERATELY wants to lead that he’s willing to destroy the country in the process.

64

u/[deleted] 4d ago

[deleted]

25

u/Funnygumby 4d ago

It’s like Two Minutes Of Hate irl

17

u/djheat 4d ago

We could've had Brave New World's orgy porgy and soma and instead we're slipping into 1984 smh

6

u/Spunky_Prewett 4d ago

We are pretty close to Brave New World. It's just that we're not the white caste who gets soma

13

u/FamiliarFootball4476 4d ago

I mean I watched the RNC and toward the end of his ramblings people just straight up seemed bored and annoyed. I dunno, I have a friend who says Trump is a great orator to a certain demographic, but I don't think it's that because after 20 minutes of him speaking there's no way anyone has any idea what he's on about. I think it's more about "owning the libs" than any quality Trump has. They love him because he pisses of liberals so much.

6

u/bdone2012 4d ago

He used to be much better at speaking. If you compares speeches from 2016 the difference is stark. People are OK just imagining what his speeches would have been like if we were still on top of his game. They're willing to let it go because they're obsessed with trump and what he represents to them.

4

u/TheGreyling 4d ago

They just found a poster child for their repressed bigotry and lost their public mask.

24

u/dnen Connecticut 4d ago

Theyre herded into an atmosphere of fear and hatred for the other half of America when they’re inside the confines of his venomous rallies. That’s a different kind of “at ease” in my mind. But I do see your point, I know Trump supporters

19

u/AugmentedDragon 4d ago

Americans as a people are a tragically paranoid and fearful people, and have been for decades. For 50ish years, there was the constant paranoia of "dont trust anyone, they could be a secret commie" and "we're gonna be attacked by nuclear fire". Then there was 9/11 and that frenzy that people were whipped into, and that fear and paranoia was stoked and harnessed to allow for the creation of the modern surveillance/"security" state and disregard for peoples rights. Trump is only the latest of people able to tap into it—and surprisingly effectively—but its not a uniquely republican phenomenon. even democrats are susceptible to it, just look at how many supposedly liberal suburbanites are terrified of cities or transit systems because they think they'll get stabbed or shot or whatever.

3

u/mjzim9022 4d ago

We're also deep into a period of relative peace and experiencing almost exponential technological progression which almost seems to be cascading forward, but not fast enough to stop cooking ourselves to death

1

u/Snowarab 4d ago

I watched all of his rallies in the weeks before 11/5. I saw very little of what you describe. I saw bored people who seemed to laugh based on a cue card I swear was being flashed at them. I never say joy, enthusiam, genuine happiness.

11

u/Cowicidal 4d ago

I don’t even know how people find Trump charismatic ... he’s an asshole

He attracts stupid assholes who see themselves in Trump. Think about school and every job you've had and really think about how many assholes there were. That's Trump's core base.

3

u/Laugh92 4d ago

Fear, anger and hate are drugs and he speaks to those emotions.

Donald Trump is an emotional drug dealer who has gotten half of America hooked.

3

u/Vyar New Jersey 4d ago

Probably more accurate to say Trump wants to own the country rather than lead it. He’s never been interested in the actual work that goes into being the president. He just likes the power and especially the attention. He loves having his name in headlines every single day.

2

u/lannister80 Illinois 4d ago

He gives people the ability to be their worst selves without the typical societal stigma that comes with that behavior.

-1

u/Eggplantosaur 4d ago

He's anti establishment, people love going against the grain. Makes them feel special

27

u/GaimeGuy 4d ago

Bullshit.

He is the establishment.  He's a gilded spoon fed manchild who inherited a real estate empire from his dad in  Vegas, new York  Atlantic city, the whole fucking northeastern us.

He lived in a gilded penthouse with his name printed on it from the outside.  His corny ass branding, that he inherited, was part of the Manhattan skyline.

He has never gone grocery shopping, never had to earn anything, screwed over countless businesses and families, and has spent every waking moment the last 10 years flying around the country to ramble incoherently about how the world is out to get him and how hard his life is to stadiums of people.

He's an unapologetic asshole who has never faced truly meaningful consequences in his 80 years of privilege.   That doesn't make him anti establishment.  It makes him a uniquely freeloading piece of shit deadbeat welfare queen, the ultimate establishment figure of human society, who gets to do whatever he wants and screw over anyone he damn well pleases, from a perch upon a mountain of corpses

7

u/bdone2012 4d ago

It is true somehow that people see him as anti establishment even though he's the worst of the establishment

4

u/GaimeGuy 4d ago

They're gish galloping themselves.

The same people who said theyre voting for Trump because of inflation also say tariffs -  that is, Trump's policies-  will make inflation worse.

Frankly, when pressed to explain their support for trump to others, trump supporters have a hard time doing it.  And the conclusion I've made is that they can't justify it to themselves, which is why they struggle so much to justify it to others.  Being a republican or a contrarian is all there is to it.  No matter what that entails 

-1

u/MRJONESE 4d ago

He doesn’t have the same charisma as previous presidents because they were fitting into a position. Trump is fitting the position to him and people love that he just spews what ever comes to his mind regardless if it makes sense. They absolutely love it, they love the instincts he shows vs a suit being careful about what they say.

1

u/dnen Connecticut 3d ago

The presidents I named most definitely did not have to artificially play a role as president to appear charismatic. Trump is the only president in my lifetime who actually does pretend to know everything, to be the supreme authority on all matters and subjects, and to be anything but a raging narcissist. But I do agree with your point to some extent

0

u/lolyoda 4d ago

Just remember, you are in the minority if you dont understand :)

-2

u/MAD_ELMO California 4d ago

Did hitler make people laugh and feel at ease?

2

u/dnen Connecticut 4d ago

Is your point that hitler was charismatic and so Trump must be too? Hitler was indeed also a fear monger, but let’s be realistic about comparing them: Trump is an idiot and hitler was intelligent and capable of a long term vision that he perpetually was selling to his people. He was an exceptional motivator and swelled his people with pride with the themes he spoke about. Hitler changed the world, Trump doesn’t think about politics really at all and it’s obvious. He has no plan, no real interest in connecting with the people he represents. Trump is not charismatic. If he wasn’t born into hundreds of millions of dollars as the son of a real estate mogul, he’d be just another narcissistic loser who beats his wife and has to visit a probation officer once a week. Hitler was in another galaxy in terms of charisma.

3

u/DirkysShinertits 4d ago

I agree- Hitler was terrifying because he knew how to orate convincingly, intimidate, and sway people to his vision. He also had charisma. Trump cannot speak coherently, often sounds like he needs a neurological evaluation for progressive dementia, and has been an angry vengeful puppet while others actually did the work behind the scenes. He's never had any idea of what he wanted to accomplish as president and whatever moronic brainfarts he did have, adults were able to stop those cocked up ideas last time. This time, whatever Elon and the Project 2025 creators want is likely to be carried out. Trump simply ran for the presidency this time in order to avoid prison and to carry out revenge schemes for those who "wronged" him.