So nice when Xmas presents are paired, don’t you think? Getting a lovely gift of wine is that much lovelier when a few crystal glasses come with it. Or a fine wheel of cheese. Good things are meant to come in twos. That’s why the next clip that you’re about to see, an ad from Republican Accountability, is so perfectly timed, breaking less than 24 hours before the Lincoln Project’s latest opus. You must see the two together. And if we’re lucky, Donald Trump will and blow a gasket.
Here’s the beauty of the situation: Everybody is out to get Trump right now. Freaking everybody. Of course the Democrats are, first and foremost. But the intelligentsia in the Republican party, the Never Trumpers, are out in force as never before. And the late-stage converts, yes, Liz Cheney, we’re talking about you, are likewise amassed to get him. And finally, there’s the MAGA-influencer crowd and they’re talking about him being on track for assassination. And in truth, it might benefit that crowd if he were and that’s why they’re talking about it. But before we go off on that tangent, take a look at this opus which the family will be seeing when they watch holiday favorites on the Hallmark Channel.
— Brian M Downing (@BrianMDowning1) December 22, 2023
Next week these ads will be concentrated in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Wisconsin. They aren’t airing on Nevada. Interesting. Maybe since the indictment of the slate of fake electors in that state, including the state GOP chairman, Michael McDonald, last week, it’s thought that Nevada isn’t in the same swing state category now. I am purely speculating. It could simply be a budgetary matter and there was only enough money to concentrate on the states that they did place the ads in.
The ad needs to run EVERYWHERE from now until election day! We need EVERYONE to REGISTER, VERIFY YOU'RE STILL REGISTERED AND THEN #VoteBlueToSaveAmerica while we STILL can vote! If people in those previously Democratic countries had a DO OVER what do you think THEY'D DO! FIGHT! pic.twitter.com/RJ4pOZOXcc
— ejrios 💙🌊🏳️🌈 (@EJRIOS2006) December 22, 2023
It’s interesting the way things are shaping up. Trump, as well you know, is a creation of television. He knows television and he’s suited to television. That’s his one achievement in life, his one natural gift, is that he’s good on TV. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, never was good on TV. There’s an “it” quality that some people have and some people don’t and most of us don’t have it. The majority of people don’t play well on screen. TV does something for some people but not most.
As talk show host Dick Cavett opined back in the 70’s, “the camera always lies, either for you or against you.” He’s right. Barbara Bush noted that the camera did a strange thing to H.W. “It makes him smaller,” she said. I completely believe the woman. I met the actor Michael Ironside one time and the camera makes him smaller, too. It does the same for Rod Stewart, who I was in the same restaurant with once. Most people the camera makes bigger, but in Ironside’s, Stewart’s and Bush’s case, it made them look smaller.
Nobody understands this. Nobody has ever understood this phenomenon. All that is known is that since the days of photography, since the invention of cinema, the camera has a love affair with certain people and not with others.
I’ll tell you somebody else the camera loves. Vanna White. She and I worked on a grade Z picture called Graduation Day back in 1980. She’s lovely, of course, tremendous bone structure, great body, but that’s not what I’m talking about. The camera gives her some dimension. It expands her personality somehow, it makes her sparkle. She might have only been twirling letters but she did it with pizzazz. The camera doesn’t do that for everybody.
The camera likes Donald Trump. It imparts a kind of charisma to him as well, a veneer of credibility. And that’s why the Last Days Of Trump are going to be so amazing to watch. Because television made him and now television is going to break him into tiny pieces and then throw the pieces away. Trump has lived by the tube and prospered by the tube and now he’s going to perish by the tube.
Trump will finally flame out publicly and live, in living color, on television. And what a spectacle it will be. Trump, himself, has created a pride of lions which are all after him. Their names are Jack, Fani, Letitia, E. Jean, Merrick, Alvin, Stormy, Arthur, Tanya, we can keep naming them all day. They are legion. And television is the coliseum where Trump will be exposed for who and what he is, and a big thumbs down will emanate from the crowd. And then you know what the lions will do. And it’s not the lions doing it, it’s Trump unleashing the lions on himself. His actions are finally going to have consequences and what consequences.
And you and I will watch it all on television. I don’t know if the fat lady sings at the end but the fat orange man will go down with a thud and a shudder, a spray-tanned, gelatinous mass of blubber, hairspray, and French fries. Not a brain in his head, no skills to his name, other than he was great on TV. Until he wasn’t.
From someone whose hair is starting to look like like Nursing Home Rod Stewart, I approve your message.
The great and powerful Oz didn’t seem so great or powerful once toto pulled back the curtain.
Speaking of the wizard…
Your second last paragraph is sweet! Applause. Applause. Applause.
I don’t believe, for a second, that the “camera loves Trump.” Even with the sound off, Donald Trump is an ugly man on television when you watch his speeches.
His time on “The Apprentice” was pure TV trickery and editing. Lighting was set to be as flattering as possible, he had makeup artists to cover any of the many skin issues that come with aging, like age spots and purpura and “dark bags” (you can damn well be sure that Trump’s orange face started showing up around that time–pictures of Trump, even around the early 2000s, lack the, um, “color” in his face that he’s been sporting for the past decade at least) and those makeup artists most certainly were able to help with his hair.
But now, in the real world–without all that trickery and post-filming editing–Trump’s real appearance is nothing more than a (pardon the phrase) pale reflection of what those TV pros did for him. We know Trump’s too cheap to afford the professionals who could make him look great for the cameras (I wouldn’t be surprised if, when he was filming “The Apprentice,” he asked those professionals for some of their “tricks” he could use if he wanted to “step out on the town” or he just watched what they were doing and he’s now doing the work himself–just imagine the kind of NDA someone would be expected to sign before they got hired as a “special assistant” after being asked a lot of questions about their comfort in dealing with hair and makeup in the middle of other seemingly more important issues).
This is a replay of “A Face in the Crowd” with Andy Griffith. Television built him up and television is bringing him down. I hope TFG enjoys the ride!
The camera likes drumpf? Well, if by “like” you mean “makes him look like a goofball” then yes, it truly loves him. I can only recall one picture of drumpf looking like a regular human and it was the one taken when he had gotten off the plane (helicopter?), his tie is undone as is the collar of his shirt. It was taken after some rally or something that was quite a bit less spectacular than usual. In this picture he looks like an ordinary man actually thinking about something. This picture was so unusual it just kind of stuck with me. He wasn’t making asinine faces, saying stupid shit, etc. It was completely out of character for him but made him look almost, dare I say, presidential.