Greg, of all the people writing about Trump, and there are many, and many I admire greatly, you are the best. You sum up his fundamental weirdness, yes, but even more, his fundamental indecency and really inhumanity and his total lack of empathy or any other positive human quality. He is a broken, sick, perverse old man, and yet somehow is the idol and beloved of millions of otherwise sane(at least many of them) cult members.
I will NEVER understand these past nine years as long as I live. The only rational explanation I can come up with, is hating people I hate, and talking about those “others” in the most cruel, demeaning and humiliating way possible, is the way to power. And to see the pride in his followers in championing such a horrible person, not just from the people you knew were cruel themselves, but from friends you thought were NOT they way, has been incredibly disconcerting and shocking. Greg, your writer’s gift has helped me make sense of a clearly nonsensical age.
IMHO the people that like thump are the religious &/or old fashioned racists. They believe (thanks to the media) that the country is overrun with “those people” & they think whites will lose their special place. In other words, the country is “going to hell in a hand basket”
They are in a bubble exasperated by social media, cable tv, & a limited circle of acquaintances; ie unhappy & afraid. (Of course there’s also the very well to do that are manipulating them to get themselves some more tax cuts/reduced regulations on their businesses. ) Mankind is unfortunately too susceptible to peer pressure & propaganda.
I’m so happy to see that Repubs have become weirder & weirder. It’s becoming hard to miss even for the above mentioned folk. I think Kamala will win in a landslide. 🤞🤞🤞
I mean, a lot of the Germans of the 1930s were cool with the Nazis, even after the fact. It's scary. I hate reading the polls now that show it so even, or the columnists who say she's an underdog. I just can't fathom that. I expect her numbers will go up the more she goes along. The way she hit it out of the gate speaks well of her leadership abilities, seems to me...
I can't explain it either. Probably there are a hundred different reasons all coalescing. And maybe that's an idea for a future piece: a sort of taxonomy of Trump voters.
Amen to all of that. Something they would say applies to them in this case: if they don't like the country so much, they are welcome to leave. Russia needs people.
That's an option. How can we be sure The Wealthy, and I mean billionaires aren't playing this long game, for a prize bet between them? No Taxes and something ridiculous only the eccentric could think of, with all that power they possess. Trump of course gets a prize too, a lifeline.
The hard on for America is real. Let's bring America down on her knees those Americans need a catastrophe
Leaving Americans no rights and high costs to live daily.
Here we are. Yes, they can leave, exposure of the Weak minded is what we are left with. It's coming from within The Republican party.
They are blatant about their end of our shared Democracy. The Gull to separate the people and for some Americans to join up is sickening in the stomach. How can this be? Propaganda from all sides, a war with words! The beginning.
The end they seek, they risk many lives, is that the point?
Finishing up Rough Beast, and what a great compendium of a criminal losers life! I’m a New Yorker and grew up knowing about the Orange Cockroach and his weird family, but back then they were just comical entertainment, not threats to our way of life, ahh the good old days. The Orange Abcess and his infection collection are going to be crushed in November - I can hardly wait
I think we passed weird some time ago. It's been more like psychological terrorism. The RNC looked like a Kotex convention of the functionally illiterate.
The voters that support him project their failures on the rest of us. Humans struggle with taking responsibility for their own actions. Our basic need is to belong and feel validated. Agent Orange validates their rage. Life's a bitch for many us. Control is an illusion. For most of us, we pick up the pieces and solider on. It's not easy by a long shot. However, we do the best we can given the circumstances. That's courage. Something that is missing in politics.
MAGA thinks Trump showed courage by endangering the Secret Service by getting his stupid glamor shot, and then yelling FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT as he pumped his arm like he'd just won at roulette. I don't understand it, but breaking the brains of people like us is what they're trying to do, I guess...
Isn't it amazing that at the very time he asked the crowd to look at the chart, the so called "bullet" whizzed by. What a set-up. Martyr tactic worked like a charm, but he didn't figure on a fireman taking the bullet for him(?)
It’s telling that his only manner of physically relating to anything/anyone is to fondle it. His ability to interact even in the physical is limited to his requirement that it provide him pleasure. If he weren’t still a threat it would be fascinating. I look forward to post-November media encounters with his diminished person in the circumference of the many courtrooms he will haunt for the rest of his incredibly meaningless existence.
Totally. He's a predator to the core. Incapable of intimacy. Views other people, whether vape victims or FBI agents investigating him, as disposable, and can only see them in the context of his own needs. I want him in prison so badly, but I wonder if Mother Nature will have had enough before that can happen.
I suspect the global pov is mostly just wanting to never hear of him—anything at all to do with him and/or his offspring/fellow maladroits—again. Which we won’t get, at least not at first. Somehow the people in charge of the mouthpieces have yet to discern the societal exhaustion of this one specific topic. It boggles the mind.
Greg, AMAZING analysis of Trump, Trump's speech, and the general weirdness of not only his campaign, but of the many Republicans that still bow down and lick his shoes for their moment in his grotesque spotlight. Ugh, they sicken me!
Back when I was in Catholic middle school, just after The Flood, one of the worst things you could say to a fellow student to cut him down was, "You're a weirdo!" When I got to public high school, it became the more sophisticated, "You're a fucking weirdo!" That ended in the mid-70s, and I've really had no reason to call anybody that since then, until NOW. Yes, these people are truly weird, and act and talk like they come from another planet and are trying to fit in on Earth, having only LEAVE IT TO BEAVER, and old episodes of THE 700 CLUB to refer to. It's insane what comes out of some of their mouths.
I'm completely on the side of people who believe that Trump is, once again, using someone's else's misfortune, and in this case, death, to enhance his own cheap gold-plated image. Here's another victim of Trump's lunacy in the form of a dead firefighter who he now uses for his own ends. I wish a reporter would ask him if he remembers the name of the woman killed at the Capitol on January 6th, because I would bet good money that he doesn't. Mr. Comperatore (Edited to add, per another poster and CBS, that the name on the jacket in the picture is spelled wrong!) is now another one his "never forgotten" people that will swiftly move into the black memory hole.
"On my right ear. I said to myself, “Wow, what was that? It can only be a bullet.” Let me spell it out for those who pay no attention to internet acronyms: What The Actual Fuck? I've seen that footage more times than I've ever seen the Zapruder film, and although I've never had a bullet "whizz" by me and hit the top of my ear, I feel safe in saying that neither has Trump. Ever. Yes, there was a shooting, and bullets were flying, but none of them hit Trump in any way, only two of his followers, and Mr. Comperatore, who was killed. If, when he left office, he was at 30K+ lies told in four years, how many lies are there in that tally now? Yes, that's a fifth-grade story problem, easily solved.
The very BEST part about all of this is coming out on the other side with Kamala Harris as our candidate. She will beat Trump like a big, fat timpani in November. Where I didn't even watch "The Debate," with Joe Biden, I will make fresh theater-level popcorn for a debate with Trump. I can't wait to see her rip him limb from limb like she did all of his stupid hires in his dumbass administration when she was in the Senate. Kamala will prevail the fuck out of this election! But, of course, and it goes without saying even though I feel compelled to say it anyway, we must VOTE to make that happen. And then we'll vote again in 2026, 2028, 2030, 2032 and beyond. (What WAS that, "you'll never have to vote again" bullshit from Trump anyway? Fucking weirdo!) Now, I can once again, just LAUGH at Trump, and JD Vance. They're dumb weirdos who are going to find out what a LANDSLIDE actually looks like!
Thanks, Steve. I took to calling Leonard Leo and his radical Catholic chums "weirdos," because the word is wonderfully subjective and also describes them perfectly. I am enjoying its application to Trump and Couchboy and the rest of the MAGA weirdos.
As for the rally shooting, I resent having to think about it at all. Had the fireman not died, the rhetoric would be much more scathing, I think. That poor man is shielding Trump from greater scrutiny and opprobrium.
Trump may not show up to debate Kamala. Because she will make sweet timpani music out of him, as you suggest. He is, above all else, a big fucking coward.
Apparently, I found out last night, the "weird/weirdo" moniker is sticking to the whole R party, and they're quite upset about it. Yes, and WE'RE all the snowflakes. JFC!
Maybe some day this country will be mature enough to realize that what made sense in the eighteenth century needs to be rethought; that the Constitution accordingly needs some amendments; and that the requirements of a presidential candidate should be more restrictive than age and birthplace—like maybe considering character and criminal history. I suppose trying to limit weirdness might get a little subjective.
The Electoral College is undemocratic and stupid and only exists because of slavery. The filibuster is disgusting. And it's insane that there are two Senators in Wyoming and also two in Texas or California. Change those three things, and much good will happen.
What is odd is that Republicans are taking such umbrage at being called weird. The Oxford English Dictionary defines weird as "suggesting something supernatural; unearthly. The informal as very strange; bizarre".
Project 2025 and Republican embrace of it, touting it as their platform, makes them very dangerous, an existential threat to everything we hold dear. They then try to distance themselves from it, perhaps weird? Based upon recent reporting it appears they believe their biggest counter to the Harris ? candidacy is immigration, the southern border. A simple retort, you at the behest of dipshit 45 tanked legislation that addressed the border issue. Bitching about an issue you made worse, that's weird. Their other option, pick on the guy no longer your opponent, also weird. Didn't see Kamala coming and picked JD for veep, very weird.
Okay, maybe now I understand taking offense at the tag weird. For Republicans weird = we fucked up royally!
Noah Smith wrote a column on this this morning. For GOP, "weird" means "outlier," and they are terrified of not being members in good standing of the group -- even if the group is one of fascists who support a rapist would-be dictator. That's not just weird; it's also very, very stupid.
"MAGAmania" is pretty genius too. It sounds like something they might stage in a large swath of Montana. Several stages with Trump, Trump impersonators, Kid Rock (sometimes known as Bob), outdoor live events hosted by the likes of Candace Owens, Sean Hannity, Roger Stone, and a whole stage dedicated to the musings of Alex Jones. Fun for all! Free Kool-Aid! Bring the kids!
I loved this, Greg, and I also loved these comments. When I think of "weird" I am reminded of the fondling of the American flag at another event. For some strange reason the term "couch potato" comes to mind - I supposed in reference to JD's escapades and to the weird guy's experience with mashed potatoes on his head.
Thanks, Ellen! As Deborah said in the comments, Trump can't not fondle. He doesn't know how to behave like a normal person. It would be sad, if he weren't so evil and the cause of so much misery.
Your writing is very clever, Greg. Beginning with the title of this post, I appreciate your witty take on our current weirdness.
Me too!
Thanks, Steven!
Thank you, Katharine!
Greg, of all the people writing about Trump, and there are many, and many I admire greatly, you are the best. You sum up his fundamental weirdness, yes, but even more, his fundamental indecency and really inhumanity and his total lack of empathy or any other positive human quality. He is a broken, sick, perverse old man, and yet somehow is the idol and beloved of millions of otherwise sane(at least many of them) cult members.
I will NEVER understand these past nine years as long as I live. The only rational explanation I can come up with, is hating people I hate, and talking about those “others” in the most cruel, demeaning and humiliating way possible, is the way to power. And to see the pride in his followers in championing such a horrible person, not just from the people you knew were cruel themselves, but from friends you thought were NOT they way, has been incredibly disconcerting and shocking. Greg, your writer’s gift has helped me make sense of a clearly nonsensical age.
IMHO the people that like thump are the religious &/or old fashioned racists. They believe (thanks to the media) that the country is overrun with “those people” & they think whites will lose their special place. In other words, the country is “going to hell in a hand basket”
They are in a bubble exasperated by social media, cable tv, & a limited circle of acquaintances; ie unhappy & afraid. (Of course there’s also the very well to do that are manipulating them to get themselves some more tax cuts/reduced regulations on their businesses. ) Mankind is unfortunately too susceptible to peer pressure & propaganda.
I’m so happy to see that Repubs have become weirder & weirder. It’s becoming hard to miss even for the above mentioned folk. I think Kamala will win in a landslide. 🤞🤞🤞
I mean, a lot of the Germans of the 1930s were cool with the Nazis, even after the fact. It's scary. I hate reading the polls now that show it so even, or the columnists who say she's an underdog. I just can't fathom that. I expect her numbers will go up the more she goes along. The way she hit it out of the gate speaks well of her leadership abilities, seems to me...
I’ve heard talk that youngsters who didn’t follow politics before are enthusiastic about voting this time around - & voting for Kamala. 🤞🤞
Thanks, Rick. I very much appreciate that.
I can't explain it either. Probably there are a hundred different reasons all coalescing. And maybe that's an idea for a future piece: a sort of taxonomy of Trump voters.
Their hate for Americans is real, that in itself is the weirdest shit.
They tell their base they are lazy and they won't ever have to vote after this year ever again.
Thinking their base won't understand what's implicated in his speech.
SMH It's a cult only if they still vote for this pair of Cons!
The SCOTUS is implicated as well.
Forgiving a traitor to the United States shared Democracy these last 248 years.
NO THANK YOU WEIRDOS in the Republican party!
YOUR PLANS TO SCREW OVER AMERICANS IS CLEAR!
Amen to all of that. Something they would say applies to them in this case: if they don't like the country so much, they are welcome to leave. Russia needs people.
That's an option. How can we be sure The Wealthy, and I mean billionaires aren't playing this long game, for a prize bet between them? No Taxes and something ridiculous only the eccentric could think of, with all that power they possess. Trump of course gets a prize too, a lifeline.
The hard on for America is real. Let's bring America down on her knees those Americans need a catastrophe
Leaving Americans no rights and high costs to live daily.
Here we are. Yes, they can leave, exposure of the Weak minded is what we are left with. It's coming from within The Republican party.
They are blatant about their end of our shared Democracy. The Gull to separate the people and for some Americans to join up is sickening in the stomach. How can this be? Propaganda from all sides, a war with words! The beginning.
The end they seek, they risk many lives, is that the point?
Finishing up Rough Beast, and what a great compendium of a criminal losers life! I’m a New Yorker and grew up knowing about the Orange Cockroach and his weird family, but back then they were just comical entertainment, not threats to our way of life, ahh the good old days. The Orange Abcess and his infection collection are going to be crushed in November - I can hardly wait
Thanks, Richard. I appreciate you reading it.
November can't come fast enough. This could be the best Thanksgiving ever.
I think we passed weird some time ago. It's been more like psychological terrorism. The RNC looked like a Kotex convention of the functionally illiterate.
The voters that support him project their failures on the rest of us. Humans struggle with taking responsibility for their own actions. Our basic need is to belong and feel validated. Agent Orange validates their rage. Life's a bitch for many us. Control is an illusion. For most of us, we pick up the pieces and solider on. It's not easy by a long shot. However, we do the best we can given the circumstances. That's courage. Something that is missing in politics.
You're right, it is psychological terrorism.
MAGA thinks Trump showed courage by endangering the Secret Service by getting his stupid glamor shot, and then yelling FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT as he pumped his arm like he'd just won at roulette. I don't understand it, but breaking the brains of people like us is what they're trying to do, I guess...
That man is so tiresome.
I too find him tiresome. I wish the press would ignore his temper tantrums. The man is a toddler in the body of a 77 year old man!
He turned 78 in June. : )
(I made the same mistake a few weeks ago...he's well into his 79th year.)
Well put.
Isn't it amazing that at the very time he asked the crowd to look at the chart, the so called "bullet" whizzed by. What a set-up. Martyr tactic worked like a charm, but he didn't figure on a fireman taking the bullet for him(?)
You sure?
WEIRD is right!
Oh, I think the bullet was real...although there's a lot of weird stuff about the gunman coming out. Thank god he managed to get his shoes, though.
Do his shoes have lifts?
Why on earth would anyone in the public arena take his shoes off?
Shoes that would carry him off the stage if he had to run?!
This makes no since.
Proper walking shoes are a must.
Why didn't the people flee?
Did anyone else notice that the slain man's name was misspelled on his fire jacket?
OMG! I even used that spelling in my post, and it's Comperatore! Is that a FAKE fireman uniform? Nothing surprises me anymore.
It’s due to the amount of space on the jacket. The name is shortened.
OK. Makes sense. My understanding is now updated.
See Sally's comment below.
It must be the real jacket. One would think.
It’s telling that his only manner of physically relating to anything/anyone is to fondle it. His ability to interact even in the physical is limited to his requirement that it provide him pleasure. If he weren’t still a threat it would be fascinating. I look forward to post-November media encounters with his diminished person in the circumference of the many courtrooms he will haunt for the rest of his incredibly meaningless existence.
Totally. He's a predator to the core. Incapable of intimacy. Views other people, whether vape victims or FBI agents investigating him, as disposable, and can only see them in the context of his own needs. I want him in prison so badly, but I wonder if Mother Nature will have had enough before that can happen.
I suspect the global pov is mostly just wanting to never hear of him—anything at all to do with him and/or his offspring/fellow maladroits—again. Which we won’t get, at least not at first. Somehow the people in charge of the mouthpieces have yet to discern the societal exhaustion of this one specific topic. It boggles the mind.
Greg, AMAZING analysis of Trump, Trump's speech, and the general weirdness of not only his campaign, but of the many Republicans that still bow down and lick his shoes for their moment in his grotesque spotlight. Ugh, they sicken me!
Back when I was in Catholic middle school, just after The Flood, one of the worst things you could say to a fellow student to cut him down was, "You're a weirdo!" When I got to public high school, it became the more sophisticated, "You're a fucking weirdo!" That ended in the mid-70s, and I've really had no reason to call anybody that since then, until NOW. Yes, these people are truly weird, and act and talk like they come from another planet and are trying to fit in on Earth, having only LEAVE IT TO BEAVER, and old episodes of THE 700 CLUB to refer to. It's insane what comes out of some of their mouths.
I'm completely on the side of people who believe that Trump is, once again, using someone's else's misfortune, and in this case, death, to enhance his own cheap gold-plated image. Here's another victim of Trump's lunacy in the form of a dead firefighter who he now uses for his own ends. I wish a reporter would ask him if he remembers the name of the woman killed at the Capitol on January 6th, because I would bet good money that he doesn't. Mr. Comperatore (Edited to add, per another poster and CBS, that the name on the jacket in the picture is spelled wrong!) is now another one his "never forgotten" people that will swiftly move into the black memory hole.
"On my right ear. I said to myself, “Wow, what was that? It can only be a bullet.” Let me spell it out for those who pay no attention to internet acronyms: What The Actual Fuck? I've seen that footage more times than I've ever seen the Zapruder film, and although I've never had a bullet "whizz" by me and hit the top of my ear, I feel safe in saying that neither has Trump. Ever. Yes, there was a shooting, and bullets were flying, but none of them hit Trump in any way, only two of his followers, and Mr. Comperatore, who was killed. If, when he left office, he was at 30K+ lies told in four years, how many lies are there in that tally now? Yes, that's a fifth-grade story problem, easily solved.
The very BEST part about all of this is coming out on the other side with Kamala Harris as our candidate. She will beat Trump like a big, fat timpani in November. Where I didn't even watch "The Debate," with Joe Biden, I will make fresh theater-level popcorn for a debate with Trump. I can't wait to see her rip him limb from limb like she did all of his stupid hires in his dumbass administration when she was in the Senate. Kamala will prevail the fuck out of this election! But, of course, and it goes without saying even though I feel compelled to say it anyway, we must VOTE to make that happen. And then we'll vote again in 2026, 2028, 2030, 2032 and beyond. (What WAS that, "you'll never have to vote again" bullshit from Trump anyway? Fucking weirdo!) Now, I can once again, just LAUGH at Trump, and JD Vance. They're dumb weirdos who are going to find out what a LANDSLIDE actually looks like!
Thanks, Steve. I took to calling Leonard Leo and his radical Catholic chums "weirdos," because the word is wonderfully subjective and also describes them perfectly. I am enjoying its application to Trump and Couchboy and the rest of the MAGA weirdos.
As for the rally shooting, I resent having to think about it at all. Had the fireman not died, the rhetoric would be much more scathing, I think. That poor man is shielding Trump from greater scrutiny and opprobrium.
Trump may not show up to debate Kamala. Because she will make sweet timpani music out of him, as you suggest. He is, above all else, a big fucking coward.
Apparently, I found out last night, the "weird/weirdo" moniker is sticking to the whole R party, and they're quite upset about it. Yes, and WE'RE all the snowflakes. JFC!
Has Weird Al Yankovic finally been replaced? Say it isn't so, Greg!
😀😆
Al, my childhood idol, was smart enough to put "Weird" in quotes. ; )
Maybe some day this country will be mature enough to realize that what made sense in the eighteenth century needs to be rethought; that the Constitution accordingly needs some amendments; and that the requirements of a presidential candidate should be more restrictive than age and birthplace—like maybe considering character and criminal history. I suppose trying to limit weirdness might get a little subjective.
Did it even make sense in the 18th century? Ha.
The Electoral College is undemocratic and stupid and only exists because of slavery. The filibuster is disgusting. And it's insane that there are two Senators in Wyoming and also two in Texas or California. Change those three things, and much good will happen.
Your best! (But I think that every time, only this time you have really really outdone yourself!)
Thank you, Gwen!
I'm clearly very mad at the bullet business.
What is odd is that Republicans are taking such umbrage at being called weird. The Oxford English Dictionary defines weird as "suggesting something supernatural; unearthly. The informal as very strange; bizarre".
Project 2025 and Republican embrace of it, touting it as their platform, makes them very dangerous, an existential threat to everything we hold dear. They then try to distance themselves from it, perhaps weird? Based upon recent reporting it appears they believe their biggest counter to the Harris ? candidacy is immigration, the southern border. A simple retort, you at the behest of dipshit 45 tanked legislation that addressed the border issue. Bitching about an issue you made worse, that's weird. Their other option, pick on the guy no longer your opponent, also weird. Didn't see Kamala coming and picked JD for veep, very weird.
Okay, maybe now I understand taking offense at the tag weird. For Republicans weird = we fucked up royally!
Noah Smith wrote a column on this this morning. For GOP, "weird" means "outlier," and they are terrified of not being members in good standing of the group -- even if the group is one of fascists who support a rapist would-be dictator. That's not just weird; it's also very, very stupid.
MAGAmania is the cult of xenophobia. All that repressed "othering" eventually manifests as "weirdness". The devotees are weird-blind.
"Weird-blind" is genius, Rick.
"MAGAmania" is pretty genius too. It sounds like something they might stage in a large swath of Montana. Several stages with Trump, Trump impersonators, Kid Rock (sometimes known as Bob), outdoor live events hosted by the likes of Candace Owens, Sean Hannity, Roger Stone, and a whole stage dedicated to the musings of Alex Jones. Fun for all! Free Kool-Aid! Bring the kids!
I loved this, Greg, and I also loved these comments. When I think of "weird" I am reminded of the fondling of the American flag at another event. For some strange reason the term "couch potato" comes to mind - I supposed in reference to JD's escapades and to the weird guy's experience with mashed potatoes on his head.
Thanks, Ellen! As Deborah said in the comments, Trump can't not fondle. He doesn't know how to behave like a normal person. It would be sad, if he weren't so evil and the cause of so much misery.