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.

  • badgermurphy@lemmy.world
    1·
    11 hours ago

    That may be the plan, but that amount of money is not significant to even the poor for more than perhaps a month or so.

    A bribe is a transaction–I pay you this, and you let me get away with that. If I want to continue getting away with things, I have to continue to pay, since I am the one continually putting myself in a compromising position. The second I stop paying, the ride ends.

    Also, promising payments at some point in the future may fool 3rd party onlookers into thinking you’re helping them out, but I can’t imagine the people who were promised the money are going to just not notice that they were welched on, even if they love the person that stiffed them.