Kinder, gentler, more thoughtful Trump 2.0 only jokes about shooting Hillary Clinton
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Remember yesterday, when everyone was amazed that Donald Trump managed to go 24 hours without saying anything in public that would normally end a presidential campaign? Well that was yesterday:
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump appeared to joke about the possibility that Hillary Clinton could be shot in remarks at a campaign rally Tuesday in Wilmington, N.C.
Trump was discussing the possibility that Clinton, the Democratic nominee, would be able to appoint liberal justices to the Supreme Court if she wins the race for the White House.
He then said that there was nothing that could be done in that scenario, before mentioning “Second Amendment folks.”
“Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment,” Trump said to boos from the crowd.
“By the way, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks,” he then added.
“Though the Second Amendment folks, maybe there is, I don’t know.”
On Twitter, a number of observers noted that it appeared that Trump was discussing the possibility, even if he were joking, that Clinton could be shot.
Trump becomes the first person with Secret Service protection to be investigated by the Secret Service.
Kind of hard to imagine this lasting to November, but a lot of things that were hard to imagine have ended up happening in the last year.
. . . in comments, Bitter Scribe flags this perceptive Wonkette piece:
I have a compulsive need to be entertaining… just like Donald Trump.
This compulsion is a keystone of Donald Trump’s personality, yet as far as I can tell, none of the far, far too many “pieces” on Trump’s mental makeup have specifically focused on this as a major reason for the beshitted state of his campaign.
Most long-range analysis of Donald Trump’s peculiar character focuses on three prominent traits: his shameless, constant lying; his Jovian ego (which likely conceals deep insecurity); and his desire for legitimacy and validation in the eyes of his betters.
These are all supposed to be impediments to his political success, but Nixon was a bipedal dozen dump trucks of these traits and they didn’t keep him from getting elected and then re-elected.
But Nixon wasn’t the class clown. Trump is. That’s a key difference. . .
Trump’s not as funny as I am, and he’s a lot richer than I am. These factors make him much more prone to bombing when trying to be funny. People laugh at rich people’s jokes because they want rich people to like them, which has given Trump a warped idea of what’s actually funny. So Trump probably makes bad jokes more often than I do, yet suffers fewer consequences thanks to his status. People pretend they weren’t hurt by the joke. Or if they protest, Trump can write them off because he doesn’t need them.
At least he could, before he ran for president. Now it’s a little different. Now his bad jokes have consequences. Now he can’t play exclusively to his audience of coddled, cloistered white males because they’re not the only ones in the room.