A post election update. So far I have been completely unsurprised by Trump's cabinet picks and his statements after the election. Biden approving the use of most US military equipment to target Russian forces within Russia has been the most surprising and ballsy political development of the last month. Trump has been busy but hasn't done anything out of step with his prior patterns of behavior, stated goals and ambitions. He's been repaying his biggest surrogates and supporters with choice cabinet positions. He made a few unpopular cabinet choices that were expected to dominate the news cycle but I doubt many people were actually surprised by them. Vivek and Elon are doing Vivek and Elon things and unsurprisingly Trump is letting them do it because he's too old and uninterested in bureaucratic mechanizations to do it himself. Trump stating he wants to use the military to round up immigrants is also wholly unsurprising because of his fascist tendencies and his prior attempts to use the military to build his wall and manage his deportation efforts. Appointing sexual predators to cabinet positions seems normal for Trump (as long as they're white). Naming a Russian apologist to DNI is on-brand. I expect more of the same through the end of the year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCbfTN-caFI&t=666s

I don't feel like I've ever heard him say "I lost" referring to the 2020 election. If it's not corrected by the campaign, I found this at least a little bit surprising.

@Thorr "by a whisker". He spent around 10 minutes of that 40 minute interview talking about how the election was stolen from him. He even calls his loss a coup. To clarify, I don't think Trump is delusional in every sense. He believes the electoral college system has vulnerabilities candidates can exploit in a close election, because it does. He thinks his supporters are stupid enough to send him money to fight a "stolen election" fantasy, because they are.

He's not generally a good liar and slips enough that I didn't find this admission surprising.

I thought this interview might resolve "Speaking for 30 minutes without rambling" but it's clearly heavily edited and he does sneak in some rambling. The tangent cascade after being asked about the next debate was significant.

https://x.com/EndTribalism/status/1828129491631382887 Do you find this admission surprising?

x.com

No.

Dying is not surprising, just to be clear.

His age and diet alone would make dying of natural causes or an overdose of stimulants unsurprising but death by suicide would be surprising.

That's fair.

Do you count surprisingly bad behaviour too? What are some minimum examples of that which would qualify for your standards?

Yes, I count any surprising behavior or language, good or bad.

I have only been genuinely surprised by Trump once. When he used the words "enemy of the people" to describe the press in his first week as president. I interpreted his previous attacks on the press as vanity and interpreted all future attacks as ambition for dictatorial power. Under that framing, most of his language and behavior has been unsurprising and almost boringly predictable because while he is a student of historical and contemporary dictators he's not a very creative person.

It would surprise me if he decided, at any point before the election, to coordinate his militia forces and launch a first strike attack against the federal government, unless it looked like he had very little chance to win the election. I would consider a first strike attack either a second attempt to take Washington or the support of a secessionist state. If he loses the election, any of this behavior will not surprise me.

I expect his language to contain subtle to overt misogyny and racism. I expect him to continue to verbally attack the press, the federal government, immigrants and minorities.

Thanks, would you be surprised if he started routinely using racist / sexist / homophobic slurs or openly called for his supporters to murder someone?

No.

How about if he sexually assaulted someone or beat someone bloody with his bare hands while on camera? There are various terrible things I've been worried he might escalate to ever since he rose to prominence but the fact he hasn't done any of them this past decade kinda makes me wonder if my fears are overblown lol

Yes, beating someone bloody with his bare hands would surprise me because I don't think he has the physical strength to kill most people with his bare hands and because he has shown that he's disgusted by the sight of other people's blood.

I think he's capable of killing but he seems to be more comfortable with other people killing for him.

Wait, he's disgusted by blood? When did that happen?

Damn lol maybe this is the one thing that's been stopping him from enacting a reign of terror already

He's not Vlad the Impaler.

He's not Vlad the Impaler

Citation needed /s