Republicans worry Trump is having a ‘public nervous breakdown’ - eviltoast

‘Donald Trump is losing his marbles,’ former Congressman and Republican Adam Kinzinger said

Republicans are concerned that party leader Donald Trump is having a “public nervous breakdown” after he made a series of offensive outbursts about Vice President Kamala Harris as he slips behind her in the polls.

The former president has made a number of  insulting personal attacks against his Democratic rival since she moved to the top of the ticket. Last week, Trump questioned Harris’s racial identity  at the National Association of Black Journalists conference. Over the weekend, he accused Harris of having a “low IQ.”

New polls indicate Trump is slipping behind the vice president in the popular vote and races are tightening in battleground states.

“This is what you would call a public nervous breakdown,” Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist and former Trump state department appointee, told Politico.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    3 months ago

    “When they go low, we go high” almost never works in politics. So good luck telling people that they’re smearing poor J.D. Vance with a terrible lie.

    • expr@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      3 months ago

      I’m not saying we go high. By all means, rip into them. The Harris campaign is doing a great job of that, using the truth. There’s so much ammunition that the lies are just a drop in the bucket and serve no real purpose other than distortion. It’s just pretty pointless.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        3 months ago

        and serve no real purpose other than distortion.

        Dude, I just showed you that Jesse Watters devoted airtime to getting upset about it. So that’s demonstrably untrue.

        • borf@lemmynsfw.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          3 months ago

          Also, it creates social media engagement much like this thread, so that whether or not somebody believes the truth (that JD personally documented the experience of losing his virginity to a musty piece of furniture) they’re still engaging with the idea the whole time they read and respond. That’s called memetic fitness.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            3 months ago

            And every moment spent by Republicans defending Vance against this rumor is a moment not spent on campaigning for Trump.

        • Optional@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          3 months ago

          I hear what expr is saying though - several Democratic-voting people I know actually thought it was real in the initial scrum of the meme. That part I’m not so big on. Everyone going wink-wink-nudge dude fucked a couch is fine.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            3 months ago

            What difference does it make if they think it’s real? I don’t see how that makes a difference in the grand scheme of things. People believe much sillier things that aren’t true all the time.

            • Optional@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              3 months ago

              I’d prefer my own political party to believe truthful things. Despite the wild success the reverse has shown in other parties.

              Call it a quirk.

              • ChadCMulligan@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                3 months ago

                Well, put your mind at ease. The Democratic Party doesn’t think jd Vance fucked a couch.

                • Optional@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  ·
                  3 months ago

                  Which members? Because 100% for sure some of them believe it. When I heard it “was in the first edition of the book” part I was sorely tempted myself.

                  It’s a trifle. Not important, and barely a whisper of a shadow of the simplest lie the republiQans tell on an hourly basis. But for the record, there absolutely are Democrats voting for Kamala that believe it to be true. That’s just how media works. Especially when it’s so plausible.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                3 months ago

                Well then wake me up when they stop deifying JFK. Otherwise I’m not too concerned about a couch-fucking rumor.

                • Optional@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  3 months ago

                  When Democrats stop deifying JFK?

                  Well, I guess you’d have to specify. For one thing that was six decades ago.

                  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    ·
                    3 months ago

                    And yet Democrats believe all sorts of myths about him anyway. And ignore things like how he stalled civil rights legislation and got the U.S. into Vietnam.

      • Kaput@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        3 months ago

        The rest of the world can’t do shit about your elections. And it’s scary as hell. So please keep throwing shit around it make the train wreck more entertaining.