Kamala Harris gets it. Yes, we should fear Trump—but we should also mock him mercilessly, because it drives him nuts.

Donald Trump is in free-fall. Read this description from Sunday’s Washington Post of how the GOP nominee spent last week: “[A]ides did not want a situation where he was watching the convention every night, getting angry, and then just golfing all day and stewing, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private interactions. Trump also had grown annoyed with the news coverage that depicted him as not working as hard as his opponent, one person who talked to him said.”

If you didn’t know that the article was about Trump and you just read it cold without knowledge of the context, you might think it was a description of parents trying to figure out how to handle an ungovernable four-year-old. So they convinced Trump to get out of Bedminster and hit the road, trading suck-ups with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In the past, Trump has called Kennedy the “dumbest member” of the Kennedy family and a “radical left lunatic.” Kennedy has calledTrump a “terrible human being” and “probably a sociopath.”

  • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Mockery is a bad thing except maybe against actual totalitarian dictators (but then maybe their danger should be shown honestly, not mocked). Mocking people overrides rational arguments.

    Also they mock whole nations when those are under threat. A lot of Nazi propaganda was mockery. A lot of Azeri propaganda is mockery of Armenians (when it’s Azeri-bought Russian and Ukrainian media, direct Azeri propaganda is more about threats and gloating than mockery).

    A two-edged sword. In a situation where Trump can’t win an election, maybe they shouldn’t use such poisonous means.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Trump’s output is just sewage, which makes it less harmful than something which is interpreted and repeated by rather intelligent people.

        Let’s please remember that the Republican party was responsible for a pole of actually valid ideologies (something like “RFK minus mental impairment”), the worst effect they have is that those ideologies are not represented by anyone practically electable. What they replace them with is the second worst effect.

        Mockery by its essence may very easily spill at those ideas.

        Discourse in politics should be respectful. Even if it’s not that now. That’s not touching upon the possibility of degrading into a single-party system, seeing how GOP is sinking.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        What’s failing? Polls tell us otherwise.

        And by the way, maybe they are competent. Maybe they are just fine with Dems winning the election.

        • theVerdantOrange@reddthat.com
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          2 months ago

          Back in 2016 it was “Trump is dumb, and there’s no way Republicans would vote for him”. We mocked him while underestimating his dumbass fanbase. Now we need to directly mock Trump’s policies and attitude toward the presidency and those who support them, and not make them appear as some powerful threat (even though they are).

          • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            There was an unaccounted fanbase, yes.

            What catalyzed it was them not being welcome anywhere they could blow off steam.

            So maybe, again, mocking them is not the way, but on the contrary, almost a repetition of that.