Primetime speech – delivered with shouty spirit but no cheer – betrayed a figure dogged by a cost of living crisis and the looming release of the Epstein files

It will go down in history as the “Bah! Humbug!” address.

But this was not an address by a self-confident man dishing out Christmas presents to the nation. It smacked of desperation from one who can feel the December windchill of opinion polls – a Reuters/ Ipsos poll on Tuesday showed just 33% of US adults approve of how Trump has handled the economy – dissent in his own Republican ranks and the Jeffrey Epstein files looming on Friday.

The speech also revealed Trump’s need for a reliable foil. Over the years Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been useful nemeses for a man and movement defined less by what they are for than what they are against.

    • ameancow@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      18 hours ago

      No he won’t, he has ZERO political capital. Yes he has Thiel behind him, but every politician at a high level has some evil oligarch behind them.

      You still can’t do shit without political currency, and in Trump’s case it’s his cult-of-personality that neither the right nor the left even fully understand yet and keep trying to feebly copy in different personalities.

      Trump isn’t honest but he’s genuine. Exit polling from across the country reinforced this perception, that people are so burned-out on politics and personalities, that they don’t see a difference between candidates, and just saw Trump as the only human candidate, and if you can back up from the circus you you realize that people rather vote in a hateful, angry, dour old sack of lies who is honest about how they feel than another establishment politician.

      JD has tried over and over to capture the attention of the MAGA horde. The MAGA horde is raw political power, they are the band of armed, flag-carrying patriots who will follow their leader no matter what, this has been the kind force that has toppled empires and created nations for thousands of years.

      And they cannot stand Vance. He talks like a politician, he drones on and plays it safe and over-acts and gets more traction with his “babyface” memes than he does with policy discussion. He doesn’t get what “authenticity” means and when he tries to be like Trump he just falls flat, like with the recent speech about hating turkey… completely tone-deaf to what his base wants to hear and why.

      Vance is still going to be a problem for our country, but nowhere NEAR as bad as Trumpism. He will be a lame-duck for the remaining time he spends in office, and he won’t be immune the same way Trump is. He will be targeted as a scapegoat by both sides because he just doesn’t have the power behind him to move policy, and a LOT of other people want the iron throne.