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Notes -
Trump's interview with Joe Rogan is out. I think it should be mandatory viewing, as someone who has read a lot about both of them but never heard either speak at length I had some interesting surprises.
I spotted a few major pieces of culture war fodder.
Joe apparently didn't want to do this because he was worried it would end up being fluff or making Trump look good.
I do think it makes Trump look good. It's the beer test, implemented, and for all to see. Many people have the instant opposite visceral opinion. As with everything about this, that's interesting.
Most here have concerns about legacy media, I think this adroitly makes the case against legacy media - as does Joe himself explicitly multiple times during the interview.
I've polled some Kamala supporters and they all think she'd have done just as well, but I highly doubt that.
Trump gets asked about election stealing...and some of his answer kinda matches some of the "best" answers we see here (complaining about procedural changes and so on).
At time of this posting it's at 18 million views in the same number of hours.
I watched all of it, and the interview was highly inconsistent with the narratives that either Trump is Hitler or Trump is senile. The interview made Trump seem joyful. Funny to think back to the TV show NewsRadio (yes, I'm old) and consider that the actor playing the station mechanic played a key role in an US presidential election by interviewing Donald Trump.
This is the key thing. There’s no way to reconcile the presentation on here with any mainstream narratives about him unless he’s also the world’s greatest and most restrained actor as well.
Trumps not hitler. Trumps not a wannabe dictator (sorry @Amadan). Trumps not senile. Trumps not a dimwitted lazy slob whose world view comes from watching cable news all day. Trumps not a paper thin egotist who doesn’t really like America or hold policy positions. Trumps not a phony fake executive who can’t actually think business.
But also Trumps not a genius. Trumps not a conservative. Trumps not a particularly visionary thinker or populist leader.
That leads to the obvious question: What is Trump?
He’s a showman and a patriot.
He’s the reincarnation of PT Barnum, running a rally at Barnum’s own Madison Square Garden. He’s a dealmaker from Queens. He’s someone who took the silver spoon he was given and made the most of it. He’s the average non-ideological American who never really thought about partisan politics until it started affecting him.
He’s a husband and father whose family saw him almost get killed several months ago.
He’s a political moderate who came in as an outsider at a time when Americans wanted an outsider and Bernie had been taken down by the ultimate insider, “Crooked Hillary” Clinton. He’s an anti-woke political moderate who’s seen the beast from the inside, and wants another stab at its blackened heart. He’s the kind of man who believes in strength and power and expects to be lauded for using them for common-sense win-win goals. He’s the kind of American the founders imagined standing next to kings and holding his own.
When everyone else is playing chess, he’s prepping a pro-wrestling move that’ll knock the board over. If Ted Cruz is Batman, Trump is Superman.
I don't think among the superheroes Trump is a Superman. Superman is a Lawful Good with both qualities dialed to 11. Trump is more like Chaotic Good.
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