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Notes -
Normalizing Donald Trump.
I just watched this video in which golfer Bryson DeChambeau plays best ball with Donald Trump to see if they can shoot under 50 on the short tees in an 18 hole golf course.
First of all, for those people who think Donald Trump sucks at golf, you're wrong and you have TDS. He's an extremely good golfer. Actually, ridiculously good. Multiple times, the duo used his shot over Bryson's. Combined, they shot 22 under par. Even if you think he's literally Hitler, he's extremely good at golf. If you don't think so, it might be worthwhile to examine why you think that. Watch the video and update your priors.
But the bigger CW angle is how a mainstream celebrity (Bryson is maybe the biggest golf player today) played a round with Donald, gave him a lot of respect, and just treated him as a normal, chill dude. And Donald reciprocated in kind. Bryson isn't overtly political and he said he'd be happy to play with Biden (lol) too.
https://x.com/b_dechambeau/status/1815447305467970034
There has been a massive effort to delegitimize Trump as a candidate, to make voting for him beyond the pale even if you mostly agree with his platform. But videos like this completely obliterate those efforts. He becomes human. Maybe if you have 12 piercings and purple hair Trump would seem unappealing in this video. But to a normal person, he just seems like a decent hang who is remarkably, extraordinarily good at golf.
The stigma is no longer there. People are coming out of the closet. And I think when it comes down to it, Trump is just way cooler than Kamala, even if he's old. It's said that the more charismatic candidate always wins. In 2020, there were some unique circumstances that made this not true. But if the Democrats cannot maintain the cordon sanitaire around Trump, it's over. He's just too likeable.
I suspect you live in an extremely Trump-biased media bubble. In my Kamala-biased media bubble vibes are at an all time high and people are convinced that JD Vance is going to get fired and are non-stop fucking a couch memes. Both of us are too online to evaluate how any of this plays with normies.
What?
At the time of writing, a /pol/ thread claims that this passage, in which Vance admits to masturbating with the lubed interior of a rubber glove held between two couch cushions, was in the first edition of his book, but was deleted from later editions.
I'm... kinda impressed by how bad that is. I get that no one reads the original text, but good lords, you couldn't get a sharper tonal or stylistic mismatch from Elligy's writing style with a steel blade and a whetstone.
The man wouldn't use the word 'lush' unless held hostage, and I think 'chambers of manhood' would by only work Red Triber frameworks as a testes joke.
EDIT: for contrast, the portion where a lot of the words he would use was lifted from.
The more outrageous a lie you can get your followers to believe, the deeper you buy them into your team
Insofar as such half-joke-half-smear claims go, "JD Vance had sex with a couch" is rather benign compared to, say, "Big Mike Obama" or the implications of "I have information leading to the arrest of Hillary Clinton" and the like.
The things happening around Clinton were highly dubious and she is obviously corrupt, in a sleazy eastern European way (improbable futures/stock trading etc), not the polished American one (speaking fees etc).
And seeing as how Epstein died - and he was heavily associated with Clinton, who flew Lolita express numerous times, apparently 26 times - I don't have a hard time imagining she has been at times involved in someone getting killed outside of her official government work. (Where she infamously asked "Why don't we just drone Assange ?"..
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Why are the other ones worse than this one? Also, is this the final verdict on whether this sort of thing is ok? No one is going to flip out anymore, if you pin that sort of thing on a left-winger?
"Big Mike Obama" - ie. the idea that Michelle Obama is trans, if taken seriously, implies there's been a decades-long conspiracy to cover up this fact, including, presumably, everything related to make people believe she has naturally birthed Sasha and Malia. The Hillary thing implies she's a mass murderer who kills everyone who opposes her. Vance having sex with a (lubricated glove stuck in a) couch, while embarrassing, would not be a completely expectional thing for a young-ish man to do.
The point is that right-wingers crying foul over this while not crying foul over similar but worse jokes from their own side.
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