US election 2020

[David]

[pietillidie]

^Huh? Did you miss the bit about malignant narcissism and world record lying? That's not conspiratorial in the slightest; it's historical fact and precisely what his psychiatry would do to try to reset the game and maintain control. Remember: has always been a malignant narcissist and compulsive liar, will always be, and will be at his absolute worst when he's under pressure.

It might be true. It might not be. Are you saying you think Trump's claims don't need to be independently verified?

Each time he lies we all want to believe him to maintain a sense of universal order and coherence; he is literally the most powerful person on earth, after all.

But don't fool yourself into thinking you're peering into anything but the dark recesses of a sick mind here. I don't think you genuinely get the depth of his psychopathology — just moments after all of his bizarre, longstanding financial lies and delusions were revealed, no less.

None of us know whether truth or deceit falls from his mouth at any one moment because he purposefully employs an Orwellian chaos approach to make nothing believable/unbelievable to maintain control. What we do know is that the only thing that motivates him is receiving adoration, and punishing those who challenge his fantasies. It's textbook narcissism-driven psychopathy.

Pin the incredulity on the right donkey — the notorious malignant narcissist and compulsive liar whose behaviour hasn't been anything else for decades, and whose stock in trade is making nothing believable or unbelievable. Again, it might be true, but that's nothing more than a guess, and in any case he will simply embed it in other lies and use it to manipulate others for his own ends.

Truth and falsehood are an academic question at this dangerous level of mental illness.

[David]

I don’t pretend to be the Trump Whisperer or anything, but we know enough about the man by now to be able to have a rough clue about when he’s lying and when he isn’t. He lies out of convenience and in the moment when confronted over something he’s said or done; the idea that he’s even capable of competently pulling a long-game ruse like this is tin-foil hat stuff that fails its own internal logic, the mirror image of the "Trump is playing 5D chess" rhetoric from the Qanon crowd (somehow he gets to be both a moron and an evil genius). Why waste your time even entertaining such a silly conspiracy theory?

Anyway, if nothing else, this does lend weight to my suspicion that disconnection with reality has become a thoroughly bipartisan phenomenon in the US. I think everyone needs to take a break and switch off from the 24/7 news media / social media churn, me included!

[pietillidie]

[Tannin]

[Tannin]

OK, the fact of a lie from Trump shouldn't surprise anyone. But as you say, David, the style of the lie is a bit odd. (Or it might actually be truth, which would also be a bit odd.)

Now, consider the peculiar sequence of events. First, his flunky announced that she had it. Then - only hours afterwards - Trump owns up to it, with the unspoken implication that he caught it from her.

In reality, we know that Covid typically takes several days or a week to go from one person to another. (The tiny first virus load has to breed up to a more substantial amount before the person becomes infectious.)

So try it this way around. Trump, the least responsible, most ignorant person in the entourage, catches Covid. He infects others around him (his wife, his valet, his other flunkies). Realising that announcing these facts would look very, very bad, Trump's campaign managers get one of the people he infected (senior flunky Hope Hicks) to go first and take the heat.

That is a much more typical Trump lie. I'm not saying that's the real lie here - we may never know the truth - but it is a very typical style of Trumpian lie.

[watt price tully]

If it is true that Trump has Coronavirus then this aptly described as shaudenfreude unmasked 😉

[Pies4shaw]

It would be terrible if Trump and Pence both became incapacitated. If you've watched your West Wing, Season 4 closely, you'll know that Nancy Pelosi (or John Goodman) is next in the chain of command.

Looking further ahead, if Trump and Pence were both to die (and we do, of course, all pray for their speedy recovery), perhaps Arnie Vinick will step up and contest the election.

[stui magpie]

Loving all the conspiracy theories and comments, truly hilarious, I'm only surprised that more hasn't been made of The Donald being infected by Hope.

[David]

[watt price tully]

Perhaps it’s his way of avoiding another debate which was about to have rules for grown-ups.

I still maintain an induced coma for 6 weeks as an excellent treatment regime for Trump’s narcissistic and sociopathic personality disorder.

[Jezza]

[watt price tully]

[pietillidie]

[Pies4shaw]

Yes, that’s my position. I expect that he’s actually got COVID - but he is an habitual liar, so it’s a bit like the Tale of Peter and the Wolf, really.