Biden Laid the Trap. Trump Walked Into It.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
In 2016, Hillary Clinton warned that Donald Trump was a fool who could be baited with a tweet. This past Thursday night, in Philadelphia, Joe Biden upped the ante by asking, in effect: What idiot thing might the former president do if baited with a whole speech? On Saturday night, the world got its answer.
For the 2022 election cycle, smart Republicans had a clear and simple plan: Don’t let the election be about Trump. Make it about gas prices, or crime, or the border, or race, or sex education, or anything—anything but Trump. Trump lost the popular vote in 2016. He lost control of the House in 2018. He lost the presidency in 2020. He lost both Senate seats in Georgia in 2021. Republicans had good reason to dread the havoc he’d create if he joined the fight in 2022.
So they pleaded with Trump to keep out of the 2022 race. A Republican lawmaker in a close contest told CNN on August 19, “I don’t say his name, ever.”
Maybe the pleas were always doomed to fail. Show Trump a spotlight, and he’s going to step into it. But Republicans pinned their hopes on the chance that Trump might muster some self-discipline this one time, some regard for the interests and wishes of his partners and allies.
David Frum: The justification for Biden’s speech
One of the purposes of Biden’s Philadelphia attack on Trump’s faction within the Republican Party was surely to goad Trump. It worked.
Yesterday, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Trump addressed a rally supposedly in support of Republican candidates in the state: Mehmet Oz for the Senate; the January 6 apologist Doug Mastriano for governor. This was not Trump’s first 2022 rally speech. He spoke in Arizona in July. But this one was different: so extreme, strident, and ugly—and so obviously provoked by Biden’s speech that this was what led local news: “Donald Trump Blasts Philadelphia, President Biden During Rally for Doug Mastriano, Dr. Oz in Wilkes-Barre.”
Yes, you read that right: Campaigning in Pennsylvania, the ex-president denounced the state’s largest city. “I think Philadelphia was a great choice to make this speech of hatred and anger. [Biden’s] speech was hatred and anger,” Trump declared last night. “Last year, the city set an all-time murder record with 560 homicides, and it’s on track to shatter that record again in 2022. Numbers that nobody’s ever seen other than in some other Democrat-run cities.”
Trump spoke at length about the FBI search of his house for stolen government documents. He lashed out at the FBI, attacking the bureau and the Department of Justice as “vicious monsters.” He complained about the FBI searching his closets for stolen government documents, inadvertently reminding everyone that the FBI had actually found stolen government documents in his closet—and in his bathroom too. Trump called Biden an “enemy of the state.” He abused his party’s leader in the U.S. Senate as someone who “should be ashamed.” He claimed to have won the popular vote in the state of Pennsylvania, which, in fact, he lost by more than 80,000 votes.
The rally format allowed time for only brief remarks by the two candidates actually on the ballot, Oz and Mastriano. Its message was otherwise all Trump, Trump, Trump. A Republican vote is a Trump vote. A Republican vote is a vote to endorse lies about the 2020 presidential election.
On and on it went, in a protracted display of narcissistic injury that was exactly the behavior that Biden’s Philadelphia speech had been designed to elicit.
Every day since the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago has brought new proof that Trump still dominates the Republican Party. He has extracted support even from would-be rivals like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis— rituals of submission within a party hierarchy that respects only acts of domination.
Republican congressional leaders desperately but hopelessly tried to avert the risk that this next election would become yet another national referendum on Trump’s leadership. Despite Trump’s lying and boasting, politicians who can count to 50 and 218—the respective numbers needed for a majority in the Senate and House—have to reckon with the real-world costs of Trump’s defeats. But Biden understood their man’s psychology too well.
Biden came to Philadelphia to deliver a wound to Trump’s boundless yet fragile ego. Trump obliged with a monstrously self-involved meltdown 48 hours later. And now his party has nowhere to hide. Trump has overwritten his name on every Republican line of every ballot in 2022.
Biden dangled the bait. Trump took it—and put his whole party on the hook with him. Republican leaders are left with little choice but to pretend to like it.
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Meh, David Frum might be a real conservative (he is) but he's a RINO and a Canuck to boot ... @!@
I don't see anything wrong with being a Canadian - at least It's more likely to be objective about American politics.
Other than you speak funny, drive on the wrong side of the road, sort of spell correctly occasionally and are always behind us...
Nope no probs with you mob at all and the other "Southerners"....🤣🤣🤣🐨🦘
I was always told calling a Canadian a Canuck was an insult...
Canadians speak quite well, clearly and distinctly without accents that make it hard to understand them (except maybe for Newfies). Imagine what would happen on the roads if we drove on the left like you and the Brits when the Americans drive here. What do you mean "sort of" spell correctly? We spell British English no different than you, but we may use American language for certain things - our cars don't have boots, they have trunks, and there are no lorries, only trucks. I guess the word Canuck is no more an insult than the word Yankee.
Evening..
Don't have lorries here either..only trucks and road trains...no accent..🤣🤣
Tyre, cheque and centre.. spring to mind...
Wouldn't use Yankee either...big no no these days..
Cheque, centre, okay, but tire, not tyre. I think we've been over the spelling stuff already, like using the "u" in labour, neighbour, honour, etc (wow look at those red underlines, LOL)
Biden gave Trump a stadium full of oxygen when he thumbed his nose at all the parents who paid off PLUS loans at 8/9%.
Thanks, your best work is when you just copy n' paste. Much better than when you try to write something original. Keep it up.
Those foolish people really believe that their tax dollars are providing student loan relief? Aren't we just going to borrow the money to pay for it?
If you're not pissed about the President's speech, then you are a Fascist out to destroy country.
Because only a complete and utter fascist would support a President that just threatened half the country with the military.
Der Fuhrer and Brandon are now kindred spirits.
“Der Fuhrer and Brandon are now kindred spirits.”
Is that you, Q? Can you tell us which missing kid ‘Brandon’ ate for breakfast? Get a grip, man.
Trumps attacks on the FBI and others were simply nutty but nothing new for him.
They whaaaaaaat????
An accurate summary of Trump's speech (at least the first ½ before I left in disgust).
This article by Frum is the most brilliant take on Biden's speech that I have read.
He was, after all, a presidential speech writer for George W Bush, and who else would better understand the thinking behind such a speech?
Wish I could read it - unfortunately The Atlantic is blocked here.
Do you not see the complete text as part of the seeder's supplied text?
I don't see any quotation marks or any other way to tell what might be quoted from what Frum said/wrote from the rest of the seed. All I see is this link: David Frum: The justification for Biden’s speech
Oh, I get it. The whole seed is authored by David Frum. Okay. Then why did it bother to show the link?
Do you see several paragraphs that start with this one?
Because the whole article is supplied here.
Seeders here on NT probably should not be quoting entire articles. Back on Newsvine if you supplied more than around three quick paragraphs one of the mods would take it down.
My fault. I plead guilty. I was being careless, and thanks for setting me straight.
Thankfully we can post the whole seeds here. Personally I'm at a loss when only part of a seed is posted with a message to continue reading the original article, if the original article is one I'm unable to open.
It's not like anybody is really going to care about what goes on in a chatroom of this size. But it's a good habit to click-through to the actual articles and give the original sites the traffic they deserve.
I have to confess I never thought of it that way, and you're right that every click counts these days, but that doesn't solve the specific problem I have.
In 2016, during the campaign, seeing how Trump was creating a "deplorable" following, I made the observation that eventually Trump's followers would be a bigger problem for America than Trump himself. In my opinion we are there and have been there for a while.
IF his followers turned on him or gave up on him , Trump would in fact fade away for lack of support. But as it is he is able to see himself as seemingly strong as ever. After all his rallies fill up with standing room only, and he continues to dominate Republican polling. Right wing media still strongly supports him too, he complains a little about Fox from time to time, but from what I have seen Fox News is still very favorable to Donald Trump. Given all that, why should he "learn his lesson"?
None of this will end until Republican voters and MAGA enthusiasts denounce and ostracize Trump. Lets not hold our breaths.
If you listen to some of the conservatives here on NT it must be liberals and progressives going to his rallies because conservatives have really "moved on" and its only liberals complaining about him that gives him any "oxygen".
Those are the conservatives with enough brain cells to see that Trump is a serious threat to this country, but not enough brain cells to have discouraged their party from trying to ride a mentally ill tiger in the first place. The ones at the rallies are a subhuman species of the latter.
[removed] [,] how would you have discouraged their party?
Good question, but not my problem as it is not my party. Perhaps the party leaders should have done a better job of identifying just how horribly bad Trump was as a political candidate. Instead, they embraced his celebrity and glorified his Teflon history as a positive thing.
Perhaps if the media hadn't given him such a disproportion amount of free publicity. Trump was able to tap into the discontent of many like Bernie Sanders was able to do on the other end of the spectrum. In the rust belt, there is real anger, insecurity, fear and frustration and Trump played to that. In the South and the West, they enjoyed seeing someone that farted on the establishment and elites.