Perhaps it’s all coincidence that Trump was talking yesterday about peaceful protest and that has since morphed into ranting about “death and destruction,” and on the eve of his visit to Waco, Texas on the 30th anniversary of the infamous 51-day standoff between the ATF and David Koresh, which resulted in the deaths of 86 Branch Davidians and four federal agents. If you don’t follow Trump’s Truth Social posts, here’s his latest.
“What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former President of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting President in history, and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country? Why and who would do such a thing? Only a degenerate psychopath that truely (sic) hates the USA!”
Anybody with two brain cells functioning is seeing this for what it is. Trump is unraveling, severely and in public. Here’s George Conway’s take on it.
He's not legally insane. He's morally and legally responsible for his conduct, however irrational and immoral it may be. That said, he has severe Cluster B personality disorders and he is continuing to decompensate. https://t.co/aA5xYRhOxP
— George Conway🌻 (@gtconway3d) March 23, 2023
Here’s what Conway’s talking about.
Does the foregoing look like a job description for POTUS? Nope? I didn’t think so either.
Conway is not the only one saying that Trump is nuts.
The commentator here notes that the “Republican base doesn’t move too far away from him.” Trump can throw all the flares out there, rant and rave like a lunatic, but still, as pointed out here, he had Governor Kim Reynolds next to him when he went to Iowa. And he has the House GOPers going after his enemies. If that wasn’t the case, Trump would be gone. The GOP doesn’t want him gone.
So does that mean he’ll have GOP support at his side in Waco? Not necessarily. He may have finally crossed some invisible line that only Republicans can see. Insider:
Insider couldn’t find a single GOP official — from the Lone Star State’s entire congressional delegation to the mayor of the cult siege-marred town — who willingly planned to participate in his official 2024 campaign rollout in Waco on Saturday.
Most of the 30 GOP members contacted about Donald Trump’s inaugural visit to the site of a 30-year-old standoff between cult leader David Koresh and federal authorities did not respond to requests for comment about whether they intended to rally with the scandal-plagued candidate and perhaps say a few kind words.
The handful who told Insider they wouldn’t be able to make it, for whatever reason, include the Texas Republican who represents Waco in Congress, along with a House GOP colleague who has already endorsed Trump’s third reelection bid.
Intriguing how everybody has prior engagements this weekend.
Trump is officially rolling out his campaign tomorrow night but it may not be the big pyrotechnic and explosive thing that he is cueing people up for. We will tune in and see, as well you know.
I guess an awful lot of GOPer politicos will be “washing their hair” tomorrow. Meaning a lot, a LOT of hair clogging up the drain. Meaning even worse, the sewer will be backed up with shat out chunks of Trump’s undigested “hamberders.”
For me the takeaway is that if Waco goes south, nobody wants to be there. That’s obvious. And clearly the likes of Pete Sessions, the local House rep, and the freaking mayor of Waco are worried that things are going to go south. Even Troy Nehls, who endorsed Trump, is one of these guys with a “prior engagement.”
We will see what happens. We always do.
If this rally is a flop, after his hostage-taking announcement was a flop, will this finally signal an end to his political career?
I’m not connecting with what you’re saying about a hostage-taking announcement. Which one of his crazy posts was that?
If this rally is a flop, like Tulsa was in 2020, it’s not going to be a good sign. What will finally end Trump’s political career is anybody’s guess. As stated almost every day around here lately, this is political terra incognita. We’ve never seen a GOP candidate with this set of circumstances before. Nobody knows.
The hostage taking was at his reelection announcement at Merde-Lago, right after the mid-terms,when they locked the doors and kept everyone inside the room for the 90 minute plus rant.
The Branch Davidians (yes, they’re still around and in the Waco area) are fine with the former guy, though.
I would venture to say that they would be.
Maybe the GOPers whose calendars are filled with “prior engagements” recognize how hard it is to reconcile their claims of the queers (especially the drag queens) with being “groomers” when David Koresh was, by all accounts, doing some “grooming” of his own; I mean, one of the government’s accusations against Koresh involved child abuse–and, it turned out that many of the children HAD been sexually abused (it’s not clear if Koresh himself was responsible, in part or solely, but he was “interested” in “creating” new world leaders).
If I recall correctly, Koresh had a number of “wives” and some of them were as young as 13.
He did raise a good question: who and why would anyone do such a thing? Like have an event where McVeigh personally witnessed Waco, and then blew up the federal building, killing hundreds. He also answered his question: only a degenerate psychopath who hates the USA! That’s a perfect self assessment.
Assessing the arc of Trump’s political influence and standing, historians will mark this date March 25th 2023 as the unmistakable point where his popularity and appeal will begin to plunge. The decision to hold a rally in Waco Texas, combined with his call for “ death and destruction” if he is indicted, reveals the full potential extent of the danger he poses to the United States. He is evil, emotionally imbalanced and unwilling to relinquish political power and therefore determined to preserve power by any means at his disposal. Even his most ardent supporters will jump ship if he incites any further violence.
He got more votes than any sitting president?
I thought that 81 million was more than 74 million but maybe that’s the new math in Trumpland
Even Hillary had more votes than he did
But Pastor Pace said that “Donald Trump is the anointed of God.”
NY Times, 3/24 :
“In the chapel at Mount Carmel, the longtime home of the Branch Davidian sect outside Waco, Texas, the pastor preaches about the coming apocalypse, as the sect’s doomed charismatic leader David Koresh did three decades ago.
But the prophecies offered by the pastor, Charles Pace, are different from Mr. Koresh’s. For one thing, they involve Donald J. Trump.
“Donald Trump is the anointed of God,” Mr. Pace said in an interview. “He is the battering ram that God is using to bring down the Deep State of Babylon.”
Mr. Pace said he believed it was “a statement — that he was sieged by the F.B.I. at Mar-a-Lago and that they were accusing him of different things that aren’t really true, just like David Koresh was accused by the F.B.I. when they sieged him.”
He’s still going to be the nominee. But hopefully that will means the end of De Santis and the whole steaming shit pile known as the Republican Party.
Daithi,
Yes, Biden’s 81,283,501 was a lot higher than Trump’s 74,223,975. But Trump’s was higher than any previous candidate; the highest vote tally before being that of Obama in 2008 : 69,498,516.
I think what Trump meant was that Biden was not yet a “sitting” president, with the implication that he (Trump) would do everything he could to prevent him from taking office. When that didn’t work, Trump decided that he was still president anyway, so Biden’s vote didn’t count because it was obviously rigged. So you see the logic there.