December 5: A Field Guide to MAGA Excuses for the Toddler President
Don’t know if this post from New York about Trump’s immaturity will get me onto the White House list of enemy media, but there’s a chance.
Veteran political journalist Jonathan Martin has a new rant at Politico Magazine with the self-explanatory headline: “The President Who Never Grew Up.” Nothing he said is the least bit revelatory; it’s all about things we know Donald Trump has done and said but lined up in a way that illustrates how very much the president resembles a child, and a not-very-well-behaved child at that. A sample:
Trump is living his best life in this second and final turn in the White House. Coming up on one year back in power, he’s turned the office into an adult fantasy camp, a Tom Hanks-in-Big, ice-cream-for-dinner escapade posing as a presidency.
The brazen corruption, near-daily vulgarity and handing out pardons like lollipops is impossible to ignore and deserves the scorn of history. Yet how the president is spending much of his time reveals his flippant attitude toward his second term. This is free-range Trump. And the country has never seen such an indulgent head of state.
Yes, he’s one-part Viktor Orbán, making a mockery of the rule of law and wielding state power to reward friends and punish foes while eroding institutions.
But he’s also a 12-year-old boy: There’s fun trips, lots of screen time, playing with toys, reliable kids’ menus and cool gifts under the tree — no socks or trapper keepers.
Martin is just scratching the surface here. He doesn’t even mention the president’s inability to admit or accept responsibility for mistakes, which is reminiscent of an excuse-making child, or his tendency to fabricate his own set of “facts” like an incessant daydreamer bored by kindergarten. Now to be clear, the essentially juvenile nature of many of Trump’s preoccupations and impulses has struck just about everybody who’s forced to watch him closely and isn’t inclined by party or ideology to jump into the sandbox with him to share the fun. But since he’s the president, it’s more seemly for critics to focus on problems deeper than immaturity. There are the many worrisome “isms” he is prone to embrace or reflect (nativism, racism, sexism, authoritarianism, jingoism, cronyism, nepotism). And there’s also his habit of surrounding himself with cartoon villains like Pete Hegseth, Kristi Noem, Kash Patel, Stephen Miller, and J.D. Vance who are the stuff of grown-up nightmares.
But still, I find myself wondering regularly how Trump’s own followers process his rather blatant lack of seriousness about the most serious job on the planet. If there’s such a thing as negative gravitas, the toddler president has it in abundance. So what are the excuses MAGA folk make for him? There are five major rationalizations that come to mind:
Whenever he says something especially outrageous or embarrassing, we are quickly told by his defenders that he’s just having an enormous joke at the expense of humorless liberals. This dates back to pro-Trump journalist Salena Zito’s famous 2016 dictum that his followers “take him seriously but not literally.” Where you draw the line between the stuff he means and the stuff he’s just kidding about can obviously be adjusted to cover any lapses in taste or honesty he might betray. The “he’s just trolling the libs” defense is a useful bit of jiujitsu as it happens. It turns the self-righteousness of his critics into foolishness while neutering any fears that whatever nasty or malicious thing Trump has said reflects his true nature and inclinations. You see this tactic a lot with Trumpworld social-media takes on mass deportation that exhibit what some have called “performative cruelty” in depicting ICE violence against immigrants, which predictably shock liberals who are then mocked for not understanding it’s all a shuck. Meanwhile, the most radical of Trump’s MAGA fans bask in the administration’s appropriation of their worst impulses.
A second rationalization you hear from Trump’s defenders, particularly when he says or does something that makes no sense, is to argue that he’s operating on multiple levels that include some higher strategies his critics simply don’t have the mental bandwidth to grasp. If, for example, he insults a foreign leader, he may secretly be setting off a diplomatic chain reaction that results in foreign-policy gains somewhere else. Similarly, if he defames federal judges, Democratic elected officials, or mainstream journalists, he may simply be trying to manipulate public opinion in a sophisticated way to overcome those who thwart or undermine his substantive agenda. Trump himself set the template for the “chess not checkers” theory by telling us his most incoherent speeches and statements reflect a novel rhetorical style he calls “the weave.” You do have to admire his chutzpah in telling people they simply aren’t smart enough to follow him as he fails to complete thoughts and sentences.
An even more common excuse for Trump’s worst traits is that he is focused on communicating with the people, not the media or other snooty elites. If he’s crude or impulsive or irrational, so, too, are the people. As one liberal writer ruefully admitted of Trump circa 2016:
He liked fast food and sports and, most importantly, he shared all their gripes and complaints and articulated them in the same terms some used themselves. For all his crowing about his money and showing off, he really didn’t put on airs. He was just like them.
And he behaved just like they would if they were given a billion dollars and unlimited power. Thus his childishness and even his cruelty could be construed as efforts to meld minds with the sovereign public or, at least, key parts of it. This became most explicit in 2024 when Trump’s crudeness and fury about diversity were transformed into a shrew pitch for the support of the “manosphere” and the masses of politically volatile younger men who spend much of their lives there. It could even serve as an excuse for his destruction of the White House as we’ve known it. Gold plating of everything in sight and the construction of a huge, garish ballroom might disgust aesthetes and history buffs with postgraduate degrees and no common sense. But with the White House set to become a venue for UFC fights, why not go big and loud? Nobody elected architecture experts to run the country, did they?
A parallel excuse for Trump’s uncouthness is that transgressions are central to his mission. He’s there to overturn the Establishment, not respect its silly rules of what’s appropriate for presidents. His distractors ruined the country, so who are they to complain when it requires someone unconventional to set things aright? Trump campaigned in 2016, 2020, and 2024 as a disrupter and thrilled his followers by refusing to be domesticated in office. When returned to power most recently, he hit Washington like a gale-force wind defying all precedents and expressing an exasperated public’s disgust with the status quo and the people who led it. So why would anyone expect this Robespierre to play by the rules of Versailles? That’s not who he is and not what he was elected to do.
The president himself has best articulated the standard by which he judges himself and expects to be judged by his followers, and by history, in a Truth Social post this past February: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” From the MAGA point of view, the 47th president is bending history, reversing a long trend toward national decline, and raising the economic aspirations and moral values of America to heights thought to be long lost. Perhaps the most powerful rationalization for Trump’s many excesses ever written was the famous 2016 essay by Michael Anton comparing those supporting Trump’s challenge to Hillary Clinton to the desperate and self-sacrificing passengers of the hijacked September 11 flight that brought the plane down by rushing the terrorists in the cockpit:
[I]f you don’t try, death is certain. To compound the metaphor: a Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances.
It’s Trump, warts and all, or the abyss, to many Trump fans, today as in 2016. So if he wants to have some boyish fun while he’s saving America, and perhaps civilization, who are we to deny him?
Sure enough, Rasmussen’s noon update today has W’s lead back down to 0.6, the lowest it’s been since the RNC.
I think the Rasmussen 3-day tracking poll will show Kerry making a big gain tonight. The reason is that Bush probably had an especially big day of pollinig on the 8th that took his rating from 48.4 to 49.6. This day’s polling is due to drop off tonight. The other reason could be that a good day for Kerry dropped off the 3-day track, but actually, looking at the figures it doesn’t seem like that.
It’s possible, that the Rasmussen poll shows Bush running stronger, but even if this is so, tonight’s figure for Bush will be below 49% and Kerry’s will be stronger than 45%.
Rasmussen article:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=20112
Scott wrote it just before the 2000 election. He seemed sooo sure of himself …… only to have history make him look like complete failure.
A bit off subject but–does anyone know how the Senate races are likey to come out? Is there a good site with summaries from all states? We’re going to send a Democrat from Washington. The Repubs have pulled their money our of their candidate’s Senatorial race.
Any chance of a Democrat or Democrat/independent majority?
pollchaser-
More info would be great. Thanks. I’m seeing what Dan Andrews is seeing.
dan andrews — what u saw is what i saw at realclear politics (a good source for a wide range of news, altho the people who run it are hopelessly conservative).
But even those gallup poll figures are significant. Note especially the two-point gain in RVs–closing a gap into a tie. That’s crucial momentum in a close race if it’s accurate, and suggests that 2d prez debate helped. I thought Kerry came off definitely stronger, but still failed on some key points where he could have scored a knockout. With the Republicans insisting on a win and the Democrats equivocal and the polls close, it looked like it might be a wash, which worried me. If that didn’t help Kerry, that’s a bad sign. But indications are that his support continues to solidify.
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I still think the machine agenda is the best predictor, but the polls and the campaign suggest that Bush is really struggling. Not only Noam Chomsky and Julianne Malveaux but TH Kerry have apparently suggested the possibility of an Osama surprise. Why can’t she be MORE CAREFUL for goodness sakes? No one defends me if I “speak my mind” and I’m not the wife of a major party
candidate in a closely contested election. Maybe there’s some strategic notion of bringing out the hostility to focus on her rather than the candidate, a function many felt Hillary performed for Bill (until Monicagate).
Get a load of this – today’s WaPost tracking poll has Bush up by six among LVs (51-45), but RACE IS TIED 47-47 among RVs (Kerry gaining). A LV-RV gap that large this close to the election just doesn’t seem right, esp. with interest and intensity running so high.
Jody,
I have immediate family members in Florida doing same, and they report similarly. They have been canvassing nonstop for a month.
The polls are simply missing a lot of voters.
Pollchaser, I hope that I am wrong and not you.
I thought the lastest Gallup showed Kerry 49 and Bush 48 among LVs and the race 48 to 48 among RVs?
I haven’t seen that Gallup poll, but Zogby (at the RealClearPolitics website) shows Kerry pulling into a slight edge lead. Given Zogby’s reliability I was wondering about comments.
I suspect that, now that Kerry won’t have a chance to talk more about Iraq and correct the nonsense about N Korea, Kerry will need to make VERY CLEAR what has happened in the economy. It was very dismaying that he — despite a still-better-than-Bush on substance AND style performance in the second debate — didn’t take more care with the job stats. He doesn’t need to exaggerate them at all, only ELABORATE them a little:
With nearly 1.6 million private sector jobs lost, all job growth has been in the public sector under Bush; and this is a Republican. I suspect most job growth in public sector related to Iraq war.
1.9 million jobs in ONLY year of job growth, after a loss of 3 million jobs, may sound like a large number, but AVERAGE job growth over 8 years of Clinton was higher. Clinton averaged nearly 3 million growth per year, while this past year doesn’t even keep pace with growth of working age population. Percentage of working age population has declined by 2% under Bush, equal to 4.5 million jobs short of keeping up with society’s requirements. This has eaten up almost all the job growth OVER the expansion of the labor market during the Clinton years. Bush has done with jobs as he has with the deficit, eviscerating Clinton’s surplus. IS THAT WHAT WE WANT FOUR MORE YEARS OF?
Then there’s the issue of the Bush blame game. First he blames a recession as held over from Clinton years. Under Clinton, economy was slowing down a number of times, and big crisis was suspected with SE Asia and Russia crises in 1998. These didn’t happen. After mild recession, Bush blames 9-11. Then the press for printing ‘march to war’ from fall 2002 to March 2003, as well as corporate sleaze scandals. His record after three years of recovery is terrible, but all the public gets is excuses as rosy scenarios.
If Kerry lays this out in the domestic debate, and avoids wordiness like in the abortion funding answer, and keeps up carefulness in substance and style, he should be able gain further.
But I still feel that the weathervane of the machine (as in my comments about press and Kerry campaign silence on the flipflop spin, until the issue forced in the 2d debate — too little too late, as with Dukakis) is the most reliable predictor of the next president. Note also the NY Times column — pooh poohed by Garry Trudeau — by a graphic designer about the Kerry/Edwards logo conveying weakness and confusion predictably. You mean the Democrats, with their millions, don’t have a sophisticated graphic designer? It fits in with the flipflop pattern, together with press derriere couvrance for the cognoscenti
Hey All,
In the good old days it was “It is the economy, stupid.” Now I think we need to remember “It is Zogby, stupid.” I do not mean that as an insult.
Similar to many of you I am an information freak. It is best to select a poll or three and stay with those and not try to reconcile all the contradictions.
As I mentioned yesterday I am working on GOTV. I did door-to-door yesterday in an upscale area. Here are the unscientific results:
Lean Kerry 7
Strong Kerry 16
Lean Bush 5
Strong Bush 11
Undecideds 13
Of particular note – I interviewed a fellow (young with a young family) recently returned from a fourteen month tour in Iraq. He was quiet, respectful and determined in his support for Kerry.
And for what it is worth I do not believe all the undecideds are really undecided. One of the folks I was with for GOTV suggested that Kerry supporters many hold their vote close for fear of neighborly reprisals.
Jody
While I agree with most of pdb’s comments about Rasmussen, he IS a Republican pollster, and he knows which side his bread is buttered on.
While he has consistently overrated Bush’s position, he has tended further that direction since the Republican convention, after which he caught hell from Republicans for NOT getting on board with the post convention juggernaut to name Bush emperor and the election over.
As for his current numbers, on holiday weekends phone polls get more conservative respondents than usual because liberals and moderates have more fun and don’t answer the phone as much.
It’s official:
kerry 52
bush 46
Bush JA 47
Gallup poll at 6 P.M.
More on Rasmussen.
Charlie Cook was on the Washington Post’s “Live chat today.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15752-2004Oct7.html?nav=headlines
He said don’t take stock in any poll, incl Rasmussen (he called it out by name) that uses automated questioning and not real people.
There was an article that someone linked to over the weekend, it was Scott Rasmussen, writing on Worldnet Daily, on the eve of the 2000 election.
The whole article centered on Rasmussen’s frustration that the media was saying the race was still close. Rasmussen wrote that the sum of the evidence …incl. his tracking poll over time (Bush by 4%!) … clearly demonstrated that Bush was well up on Gore and that Bush was going to win easily.
Don’t put too much stock in Rasmussen.
I’ll post the link when I get home tonight.
Let me bring together some observations I’ve posted on a couple of other threads.
1 Rasmussen came to my attention in the Spring when Kerry first became the probable nominee, and Rasmussen was the only pollster who didn’t show a sudden major surge of support to Kerry over Bush; most other polls gave him a big lead, Ras still gave Bush a small one.
2) In the months since, Ras has generally had the smallest leads for either side, and the smallest movements in either direction. Which is why some of us were _attracted_ to Rasmussen when other polls were showing Bush up >10%. The relative stability of Ras’ results is more consistent than his favoring Bush.
3) At one point I did a google and dug up a column or interview that said that in 2000 Ras consistently showed enormous Bush leads, and that he subsequently revised his party-weighting methodology because his results had been so wrong. (Some republicans do admit error!)
This is all I know. Someone please tell me more.
Can you offer a comment on the Rasmussen daily tracking poll? Does it have a credible track record? It seems to be in line with the Wash Post tracking poll in that it shows Bush gaining strength and Kerry losing support, just as most other polls show the opposite. I’m just wondering about whether Rasmussen has a solid reputation. Thanks.
OT: Does anyone have any idea about the effectiveness of events such as this being prepared by the Republicans?
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As a Volunteer, you probably have plans to go door-to-door in the final days, and make sure your neighbors vote. We’re asking you to start a little earlier.
http://www.GeorgeWBush.com/Walk
On October 16 and 17, tens of thousands of Volunteers will gather in thousands of homes all across America and carry out the largest door-to-door contact program ever assembled – the Walk the Vote Weekend. Will your house be one of them?
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