One of my favorite words is “sophistry.” It means “the use of fallacious (untrue) arguments, especially with the intention of deceiving.” If you want to see a prima facie example of sophistry, I can think of nothing to surpass Rich Lowry’s guest essay in today’s New York Times, entitled “Trump Can Win On Character.”It is classic sophistry, so much so that it borders on parody with its sonorous seriousness on the flimsiest of propositions. (Ex. “Ms. Harris was too weak to win the Democratic primary contest.”) Weak is the operant word here. Lowry’s contention is that the election is between a weak woman (and shapeshifting opportunist) v. a strongman god — and he says it with a straight face, which raises his essay from sophistry to sheer farce.
Lowry is the editor in chief of the National Review, which was founded by none other than William F. Buckley, so you know we are at the mother lode of regressive Republican thinking. Couple that mindset with having to explain how and why the reality TV trust fund baby convicted felon is a better choice than the sitting vice president prosecutor self made woman and we are back to the stone age now. Man stronger than woman, ugh, bash woman with club, drag back to cave by hair. Ugh.
When you finish reading this you will understand why the GOP and Donald Trump deserve one another. Trump represents the Republican id and his MAGAs are the fringes of the GOP that used to be in the shadows, in the Before Times. Now the inmates are running the asylum with the biggest freak of all leading them. Here’s how Trump is going to win on *character*. And who knows? Maybe Chris LaCivita is reading this to Donald as we speak.
The Obama team hammered Mitt Romney on the issues in 2012, but pretty much every policy argument went back to the core contention that he was a heartless, out-of-touch capitalist who valued the bottom line more than people. That ended up being the winning argument of the campaign.
By the same token, Mr. Trump isn’t going to beat Ms. Harris by scoring points in the debate over price controls or the border.
Everything has to be connected to the deeper case that Ms. Harris is weak, a phony, and doesn’t truly care about the country or the middle class. The scattershot Trump attacks on Harris need to be refocused on these character attributes.
Let us review, class: Harris is the phony here, whereas Trump is a genuine person. Righto. Could somebody tell me, is it phony to lie about your wealth? In my book it is. And slathering oneself with burnt sienna makeup to cover up a pale, sallow face is phony. As is the elaborate floofy combover and the corset. Let’s see his campaign sell Trump’s *authenticity” to the American people. Bobblehead dolls and talking fish are now measures of authenticity?
As to Trump’s “strength” vs. Harris’s “weakness” this is an air raid siren for men are superior to women. That’s a no brainer. But it’s the last one, that the faux billonaire trust fund baby with the gold toilet cares far more about the middle class than the woman born into that class who started her legal career helping the underdog which is the real howler. And Lowry has specific suggestions for Donald.
Mr. Trump isn’t ever going to become a buttoned-up campaigner who sticks closely to script. There will inevitably be lots of static and wasted time and opportunities. But there’s plenty of room for Mr. Trump, as he insists he must, to do it his way, and still get a better handle on the campaign.
One of his talents as a communicator is sheer repetition, which, when he’s on to something that works, attains a certain power. Everyone knew in 2016 that he wanted to build a wall and have Mexico pay for it. It would be quite natural for him, if he settled on this approach, to call Ms. Harris “weak” 50 times a day.
He has also, in the past, been able to pithily and memorably nail core weaknesses of his opponents. His nicknaming may be a schoolyard tactic, yet it has often been an effective tool, whether it was “Crooked Hillary” (underlining Hillary Clinton’s ethical lapses) or “Little Marco” (diminishing a young primary opponent who lacked gravity). Even people who don’t like Mr. Trump or his nicknames would end up using these sobriquets.
You see where we’re going America? Trump should get on Truth Social (while it’s still there) and repeat 50 times a day that Kamala is weak. Why are you getting a sense of deja vu? No, it’s not a glitch in the matrix, it’s because that’s the campaign tactic that they were using on Joe Biden. That’s all they’ve got is this strongman dictator persona of Trump’s and everybody else is weak by comparison.
It doesn’t seem to have crossed Lowry’s mind that maybe people don’t see Trump as a strongman, safe Republican daddy figure as much as they see him as a straight up textbook sociopath and a lunatic. That is the change in the electorate that we are seeing here. That’s why the donations are rolling into the Harris/Walz campaign and the rallies are packed to the rafters. People don’t want to go back. And even Lowry admits that he sees what a self-destructive loose cannon Trump is.
Mr. Trump’s campaign has been shrewd to begin to hold smaller, thematic-focused events rather than just set him loose at rallies, where there is the most opportunity for self-sabotaging riffs.
Mr. Trump has said he wants to do to his opponents what they are doing to him. At the end of the day, what they are undertaking is a focused, intelligently designed campaign to disqualify him. Responding in kind doesn’t mean lashing out in Truth Social posts, but crafting a comprehensive anti-Harris argument that implicates, in turn, her unsuitability for the highest office in the land.
And saying she’s weak 50 times a day is going to get Trump where he needs to go. That and finding the right sobriquet that will stick. I said earlier that the National Review was founded by William F. Buckley, one of the *giants* of conservative thought. This is where conservative *thought* has devolved to: find the right schoolyard taunt and say weak 50 times a day and we quote.
The GOP is already dead but these are the galvanic responses of its autonomic nervous system, its last twitches before it goes cold forever. What a pathetic joke the Republican party is in the year 2024.
Rich Lowry is working from an old playbook. He remembers how the Swiftboaters weakened John Kerry back in 2004 by attacking him on what seemed to be one of his strongest qualifications: his war record and combat medals. So they want the voter to picture tough, competent former prosecutor as weak and stupid. Fortunately, Kamala is in a much better position to retaliate than Kerry was, or for that matter than Hillary was in responding to Trump’s bullying. Lowry’s advice is just another indication that the Trump forces are panicking. They’ve f***ed around, and now they’re going to find out.
I sincerely cannot BELIEVE that this is being said with a straight face. Just say Kamala’s weak 50 times a day. I hope Trump takes this advice. This is flat out pathetic.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this piece of “journalistic” shit is that it was published by the NYT. Looks like Trump was right all along when he called it “failing.”
It blew me away. I wish everybody in America would read this essay in the Times and have a good laugh. This is a level of pathetic that I haven’t never seen in American politics before.
I wouldn’t wipe my ass with the fascist supported NY Times. My stool deserves better. They are a monument to WHAT’S WRONG with this phucking country. The rich run it. The elite support it. Then they pretend it’s all about journalistic ‘integrity’. We are a nation of deluded cowards, supported by the barely educated, being sold the ‘dream’ of becoming rich. They catch fish with bait. We are a nation chasing the bait.
Granted, it’s an opinion piece. If it was the editorial board of the Times that would be a different story. But it’s still so lame and off the walls. The title “Trump Can Win On Character” is straight out either The Simpsons or MAD Magazine.
“Everything has to be connected to the deeper case that Ms. Harris is weak, a phony, and doesn’t truly care about the country or the middle class.”
Risible.
That comment only reads as true if you substitute Trump for Harris.
Everything has to be connected to the deeper case that Mr Trump is weak, a phony, and doesn’t truly care about the country or the middle class.
Goebbels’ quote about lying is almost never quoted fully,
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
You need to have more than the lie, you need to have some actual power enforcing it, there is a part of the quote that is true ,
” for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie”
With Trump there is no authority supporting him and his lies except what is left of the republican party – and they now have no credibility left. The truth, (and all the actual facts) are now on the other side, and truth wins.
All he has is lies.
There is now too much truth around for his lies to prevail.
We are left with sophistry, and everyone can see it for that, his ‘power’ is gone.
He is a loser pushing empty lies.
And you remember Goebbels’ fate: His wife killed their six kids, then he shot his wife and shot himself.
I will vote for a woman with superior mental and cognitive strength over a man with slightly more muscular strength any day of the week. Trump is mentally weak.
Trump is mentally weak. Trump is mentally weak. Trump is mentally weak. Keep on repeating it.
As old and flabby as Trump is right now, Kamala is his physical superior as well.
And, Trump was too weak to win against a Biden/Harris ticket. So, I guess he is weak. Might this be projection?
What I know for a fact is that Team Trump had a slogan on the wall about Biden being “weak” and “failed.” So that’s what they need to attach to Kamala. Unfortunately, they can’t seem to pain that tail on this particular blue donkey.
Trump’s main strength, over Harris, or anyone for that matter, is he’s a grifting sienna coated “… reality TV trust fund baby convicted felon …”. Nobody can take that, or remove the truth of that stain from him – not even himself, his comrades in arms, his adorers, his backers, his friendly press, and the supportive but fading Wallerian degenerative twitches of the dying GOP. Harris has nothing to worry about on these factual matters, but cannot afford to drop her guard. God speed, Harris!
I take great pleasure in knowing that Trump is scared shitless to debate Kamala. I wonder if he’ll do it. He keeps saying it’s not necessary but I don’t know if he’ll have the guts to actually avoid the debate like he avoided the Republican primary debates.
Agree, Ursula. Well said. He has no intestinal fortitude – never has – only bluff, bluster and bastardised thuggery.
:…Mr. Trump’s campaign has been shrewd to begin to hold smaller, thematic-focused events…”
There’s a zinger if I’ve ever read one. Nobody shows up so he’s shrewd to hold smaller events?!? Excuse me while I go barf!!!
And wasn’t his “Economic Themed Speech” just another Hannibal Lechter Boat Batteries/Shark Love-In?
YES! That’s part of the comedy of this guest essay. Trump can’t STAY on theme. What Trump is memorable for is pouring vitriol onto a topic and nowadays he’s not even doing that. He’s bored and hence he’s bor-ing.
..”weak, a phony, and doesn’t truly care about the country or the middle class..” ?!? I’m sorry but what planet is that writer currently living on? Weak? V.P. Harris is a woman of accomplishment but also a very successful prosecutor–hardly any intelligent person’s definition of “weak”. A phony? In what way has she demonstrated anything behavior or uttered any statement that would lend itself to such description? The woman was f*cking ELECTED to go balls to the walls on criminals in the state of CA f.f.s. She was elected to be a U.S. Senator. Became a V.P. of the U.S. All this from a lady brought into this world by immigrant parents-isn’t this supposed to be the American Dream? So, what makes her a “phony”? And the last one is the easiest to put down as bullshit: one does not serve as a prosecuting attorney, serve in the Senate, nor as V.P. of the U.S. without actually caring about the nation and the people in it. There are ways to make money, and a lot of it, in the legal profession that require MUCH less time/work. People who are prosecuting attorneys for whatever jurisdiction they represent are doing so because they CARE. You don’t do that shit for the money-you do it to make the citizens safe. That is an almost textbook example of caring for the nation and/or the people in it.
I guess what really puts this a-hole in the lowest possible category of writer is that he is making up this shit about V.P. Harris and NOT von shitzinpants. There has never BEEN a weaker person running for (and embarrassingly enough getting elected to ) high public office NEVER. Von shitzinpants is SUCH a phony he claims to be a businessman and is a total failure at…wait for it…running a business (which includes CASINOS-how in the f*ck can you even make that a losing proposition). He is such a phony he cakes on, badly of course, orange make-up so he looks (or so he thinks) tan. And von shitzi has never cared for anyone other than himself. This can be seen in everything he says and does and was on FULL display ever since came down that schlokey escalator.
Making “small venues” a selling point when the mango moron can’t fill larger venues is just f*cking stupid. This boy is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. This much is certain.
Oh, and lowry, when von shitzinpants says he wants to do to his opponents what they are doing to him, he isn’t speaking about the election. He is railing against the fact that his crimes caught up to him and he might just have to suffer the consequences of his actions. He however wants to make up crimes to throw at people who made him pitch his little, whiny, temper tantrums. He COMMITTED crimes. He wants to arrest/investigate people who did NOT commit crimes. There is a big difference here dumbass. You probably don’t understand this right now but maybe someone will sit you down and explain it to you in one syllable words.
You’re right. If all Kamala wanted was money she could have made a lot more in private practice as a contracts lawyer, whatever, than she made as a public servant. Trump was never a public servant for one day. He just positioned himself to rob the public coffers — and the GOP is just fine with it. He’s raided their coffers and they can’t give him the run of the place fast enough.
May Good Win Over Evil!