Update August 7, 2020
I am watching the discussion of the mental fitness of Trump v Biden to be president Trump gets the campaign oratory award hands down. However, his cognitive skills are dangerous to national security and Biden's stuttering problems are only dangerous to his campaign oratory...Many of those briefing Trump report that his national security briefings have to boil down to one-page bullet points and his focus on any issue is limited to minutes. He cannot comprehend the written word and grasps facts he likes he hears to make his point orally. even though the "fact" he quotes time and time again has been proven false. Both claims about certain drug treatments of COVID and that kids did not get COVID has studies to the contrary and even facebook took down that BS. The recent interview of Trump by Jonathan Swan of AXIOS was a case in point when he even failed to understand the difference between total COVID cases and the numbers per 100,000 when comparing the US cases with other countries and our relative unsuccess. That well-known point seemed to be a simple analysis that was news to him. That inability to focus and grasp facts got his former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to utter the comment after attempting to brief him that he was a "f....king moron". which he never denied saying. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/trump-moron-tillerson-publicly-confirms.html
His intelligence briefers have had to hire outside consultants to help them communicate briefs to him because of his lack of focus. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/499010-intelligence-agencies-have-hired-outside-consultants-to-improve
Aug. 9, 2020; This column by Phillip Bump may be the best explanation yet of why both Biden and Trump have succeeded when they did in spite of gaffes and slips of the tongue. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/07/bidens-base-takes-his-comments-seriously-not-literally
.My take on Bump's column: It worked for Trump in 2016 and it is working for Biden in 2020. Voters took their comments seriously, but not literally. (I'd be rich if I got a dollar for every time I heard a Trump supporter say "I like what he does, but I wish he wouldn't tweet so much". ) feelings This year the shoe is on the other foot: "I know what he means and I agree with what he means if not the way he says it because I now know what Trump means and I do not like it". It was a matter of voters getting to know Trump better in 3 and a half years and that they already knew Biden for the last 40 years. The negative feelings about Trump and what he means outweigh the negative about Biden, though many voters do not like either one this year and Biden gets those votes. In 2016, Trump got the votes of those who did not like either him or Clinton. It is the lesser of two evils electorate voters who make the difference in 2016 and 2020.Per Bump:" Trump won voters who disliked both him and [Hillary] Clinton by 17 points. In recent polling, [Joe] Biden leads Trump with those who dislike both candidates by 27 points."
Familiarity either breeds contempt, admiration, or at least is the best defense. Trump's attempt to paint Biden as greedy and corrupt via Biden's son Hunter's Ukraine exploits will probably not hurt Biden much because Biden's life has not been full of wealth and the greed and money-grabbing of Trump's life history is all too well known. Recent cases in point are his recent attempts by Trump to promote his real estate interests while in the White House..from holding the G7 to a major British golf tournament at his properties. Likewise, Trump's recent attempt to paint Biden as not religious flies in the face of 40 years of Biden being one of the most devout Catholics in politics and who wears his faith on his sleeve. Trump's knowledge of the Bible and how to cite passages and even how to hold it in the photo op in Lafayette Square are writ in bold type and illustrated in looping TV videos. That Biden does not understand the African American community, or once backed some bad legislation, or committed some recent misspeaks, falls flat. That community has seen him perform at Obama's side and so far the best Trump has registered with African Americans in recent polls is 14%. Trump claims that COVID will just go away. It's a Democratic party hoax or only blue states with voters who are not his people, get it, are chickens that have come home to roost as red states spike. In this case, Trump did not look evil. He just looked like an incompetent, ignorant fool leading his supporters down a primrose path. Biden had warned of the impending COVID disaster in January and treated mask-wearing as leadership by his own example,.
August 13, 2020 The question becomes why, if this is all true, his core support is unshakeable. Here is my view to his supporters.
They look in the mirror and see Trump looking back. This is the best theory I have seen to understand how his immoral behavior, his ignorance, and lying, his hate and fear-based approach to life, can be overlooked by such devoted followers. Perhaps they also think that their own economic interests offset any of this...and once again, they mirror Trump, too. What is so strange is that the economy has tanked because of our nation's failure to handle the pandemic competently and the reason for this is because " his people" have taken his words literally and seriously, flaunting mask-wearing, congregating in large groups while sticking their middle digits at social distancing, belief in quack cures, and citing data twisted to deceive.
Posting July 20 continued:
Donald Trump's oft used trick is to call out an opponent with having the same problems those pinned on him. Psychologists call this ""projecting. To him it is a strategy: the best defense is an offensive, deceptive offense. He just crowed that he passed a simple Alzheimer's screening test and challenged Biden to do it, too. He must have been upset at recent FOX poll that shows Americans believe Biden is mentally and physically more capable than him to be president.Alzheimer's is not the only cognitive problem that should be tested. Trump's cognitive failures are a pre-existing condition. The guy cannot comprehend the written word,. He can claim he did not read the report presented to him by intelligence agencies in briefings and take responsibility for it or act on it:. It is a handy disability.,, feigned, wilful, or real. A recent example: Russia paying the Taliban bounty for killing US soldiers he claims he never heard about it, but ex-staff claim he was told. .. Bullet points on one page do not work per any number of ex-staff. Too bad not all governing problems are so simple. His ability to focus more than a few minutes on an oral briefing is legendary. He should be tested for ADHD. This is a guy who uses deductive reasoning deduced only from the facts he likes, cherry-picking them, and ignoring any body of evidence to the contrary. He has erased from his memory American history and civics..and was so amazed to learn about PearlHarbor for example. What he has done is to compensate with his oratorical skills and auditory abilities (briefings has to be orally delivered to him) Even his auditory memory and comprehension is often selective..If he does not know the answer or doesn't like the answer, he just lies....thousands and thousands of times... So much so Tom Friedman, reward-winning columnist, recommended Biden should not debate him because he would spend the whole debate just fact-checking him. Friedman recommended if Biden does debate him at least have a panel of fact-checkers to call Trump out on the spot.
Joe Scarborough used an example lately, not facts, to dismiss the great job Trump has done in taking leadership on COVID-19: and claiming an increase of virus infections are due to more testing. "So great, Europe and Canada will not let Americans in we have done such a great job.".retorted Scarborough.
The other approach, take a look at the hospital admissions with COVID positive test numbers as the bottom line. That is one general populace can grasp as a verifying truth without glazing over and getting lost in the wonky weeds.
In a debate, some words of advice from me, an old high school and collegiate debater. Biden should not be hung up on debating facts, just call Trump out on it (there you go again, inventing facts; check the fact-checkers); proceed with real facts. briefly...and move on. Fact-checking Trump is also cricket if it is done well by the debate moderator or interviewer, as Chris Wallace on FOX did recently. It is fair game to call out his fact twisting and his ignorance as a preface to a rebuttal. The danger is getting hung up on the debate over facts and get sidetracked into minor points and if Biden has the fact rebuttal at his fingertips, he just needs to say "that is not true, per....a (trusted) source or fact-checkers" and move on. By doing that, Biden can demonstrate it is he with the mental acuity he has always had and as he is already doing.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/americans-divided-mentally-and-physically-capable-of-being-president-poll
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/the-success-of-smoke-and-mirrors/533706/..examples of Trump's projection strategy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/19/us/politics/trump-fox-interview-coronavirus-race.html How Chris Wallace fact-checked Trump in real-time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6XdpDOH1JA&pp=wgIECgIIAQ%3D%3D&feature=push-fr&attr_tag=40o_c61EBuFQHNKP%3A6.
https://time.com/5518947/donald-trump-intelligence-briefings-national-security/ How security briefers have try get through to Trump
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/29/trump-received-written-briefing-on-russian-bounties-in-february.html John Bolton said Trump was briefed in 2019, as well.
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-pearl-harbor-memorial-tour-john-kelly-stable-genius-2020-1 How Trump had no idea of the significance of Pearl Harbor
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/opinion/biden-trump-debate.html Tom Friedman's column Biden should not debate Trump...unless...
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