Donald Trump the road that might not lead to the White House - Redux 2024 thread.

[story]

The post should contain the essential content of the tweet. I often spoiler it, or put it in quotes.
The link to the tweet itself is a reference. If you want to check my references, that's fine but it's on you to figure it out.

So, empty posts with embedded tweets should be abhorred. At least summarise it, unless it's the Bandwidth thread.
By the same token, if the poster has taken the time and effort to do that then they shouldn't also have the onus of putting their references into a convenient format for everyone else. If you're aware that X/Daily Telegraph/whatever else scrapers exist then you can use them yourself.

That's my thoughts on it.

I’ll do the scraping if I can access the original piece but I can’t do that in this instance without jointing twitter.

 

[Calamity1971]

Bad day for Rudy

 

[VivaE]

I’ll do the scraping if I can access the original piece but I can’t do that in this instance without jointing twitter.

This is one of the links -



derek guy

@dieworkwear

It's unlikely that Trump is wearing the same suits from the 1980s. Two reasons: his body has changed and the suits are visibly different in terms of silhouettes (see pics 1 and 2 below). Secondly, not all suits are made with shoulder pads. Many are made with a single layer of canvas across the shoulder. In fact, that's one of the most common construction techniques today in ready-to-wear, as tailoring has become softer and more casual to accommodate a more dressed-down (and warmer) America. Lastly, the issue is less about the presence of shoulder pads and more about how such pads are made and shaped. Just as most jackets will be made with a shell cloth, canvas, and haircloth—which can be cut, sewn, and shaped in many ways to create distinctive silhouettes—shoulder pads can also be made to create different forms. Trump's tailoring is unique in that he wears a very extended shoulder to create the impression of a v-shaped silhouette (as his body doesn't naturally have this shape). Many tailored jackets will have a shoulder seam that are intended to sit off the bone in some way, but few are as extended. The more extension you put into the shoulder line, the more structure you need. Hence why you see this massive pad when he sits down with his shoulders hunched forward. This effect is absent in softer forms of tailoring. The fourth photo shows a jacket with less padding, but many jackets—such as those made by Ring Jacket in Japan—are even softer and will have even less of this effect.

 

[Lotte]

Although my initial reaction to the Trump campaign's legal action against Labour was mirth at the sheer hypocrisy from Trump, and the naive arrogance from Labour, I now have my head in my hands. The truth of it never matters in stories like this, so it doesn't matter if it was simple cackhandedness this side of the pond that falls far short of illegality - it's how it can be spun by Trump's campaign: Look! The Brits are interfering in our election! Trump's supporters are never going to look beyond that headline.

That's the thing with right-wingers, the deck is stacked. They hold the cards. They make the rules. And the left have to play by them because they're held to a much higher standard.

 

[andysays]

They've been doing this for years -- I remember at least one Labour wannabe candidate going on about working on Obama's campaign, for example. I'm really surprised people weren't aware of it.

I have a feeling Tory members have done the same for the Republicans, though maybe not recently for the presidential elections because of Trump.

Fair enough.

I remember the Guardian asking its readers (some of whom are US residents themselves) to write to US voters in a previous Presidential election, but don't remember previous Labour Party involvement.

Still seems to me like something which could do more harm than good.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Bad day for Rudy

Is he endorsing Trump again this time around?

 

[Wilf]

The far-left Labour Party!

To be fair, they are just 'far left', not 'far left lunatics'. Kieth's too sensible to be that.

 

[Wilf]

I wouldn't recommend getting an account here, TBH.

'You can scramble your password any time you like, but you can never leave'.

 

[cupid_stunt]

'You can scramble your password any time you like, but you can never leave'.

As I discovered last year, when I needed a break, and various urbs phoned to check on me.

 

[iona]

AnnO'Neemus
I'm very interested to read what is said in those threads but I can't because I'm not on Twitter. I've never signed up for Twitter, and I really don't want to.

If at all possible, could you please either summarise what is said?

Or maybe you or someone else would be kind enough to unfurl the thread please.

Things like clothes are an important signifier to people who do not read the papers or pay attention tion to editorials etc. The posts I made last night were about the people who might read Trumps clothes and form opinions based on his appearance. So I'm particularly interested to know what a style expert might have to say in the subject.

I find it interesting that Trump is being parsed in so many different ways. The mystery of his success is obliging everyone to seek a variety of different ways to understand what's going on.

Usually it's women's clothes that are under scrutiny. A man in a badly fitted suit is drawing similar close examination. I'm interested to know what's being said about a man in a suit.

I did it without a twitter account, by clicking "copy link to post" at the bottom of the embedded tweet and then pasting the URL I'd copied into

Read and Share Twitter Threads easily!

Thread Reader helps you read and share the best of Twitter Threads

threadreaderapp.com

Agree it should definitely be on the people posting twitter threads to do that, though.

Thread from first tweet in that post (Trump working in McD's)

Second thread from a few days earlier ("what's going on with his pants?")

 

[story]

I did it without a twitter account, by clicking "copy link to post" at the bottom of the embedded tweet and then pasting the URL I'd copied into

Read and Share Twitter Threads easily!

Thread Reader helps you read and share the best of Twitter Threads

threadreaderapp.com

Agree it should definitely be on the people posting twitter threads to do that, though.

Thread from first tweet in that post (Trump working in McD's)

Second thread from a few days earlier ("what's going on with his pants?")

Thanks for doing that iona
I appreciate it, and also the info.

As a person who always declines cookies, I now have to go through the manage consent form to click everything off. I’m familiar with this particular form and it takes ages. I don’t think I’ll bother, at least not right now.

 

[story]

dp

 

[elbows]

The whole of the UK can be fit into some states. The vastness of the USA means that many small local communities are almost invisible, and overlooked or ignored for the entire lifetime of several generations worth of people. They may each be small but their populations make up a large number of the electorate.

Yeah. I became much more aware of some of those places when I started watching US storm chasers live youtube channels. And when tornados hit or threatened tiny places, I started using google streetview to study those places. Various signs of isolation, poverty and being left behind are highly visible at every turn. And there are an incredible number of these places.

To have any idea about what’s going on, you have to stop thinking like a person who has a decent education, reads books, knows about history and current affairs outside your own region, and has options. They’re not dumb, they’ve been ignored and overlooked and so they’ve turned inward.

The gap between what people assume about American voters and the reality seems to be getting wider.

I don’t share the surprise people are expressing about Trump’s success. I hate and fear it but I’m not surprised at all.

Yes. And making the same sort of claim using more overtly political terms often leads me to stuff like: The rise of right wing populism is an inevitable consequence of many decades of failure of the mainstream neoliberal stuff. And the neoliberals dont often come up with some meaningful sense of hope or of modifying their ways when faced with this threat. They dont promise people something different, they just turn the right wing populist threat into a hollow reason for people to back them as the only alternative, even though that alternative only offers more of the same old shit, with no new offer, no compromise of the agenda that got everyone into this state in the first place. They raise the spectre of populist right-wing bogeymen like Trump and then use it for their own purposes, with decidedly mixed results. I dont know for how long this particular dodgy balancing act will persist, it could carry on for decades or something more dramatic may happen at some point that ends this particular status quo. Of course other possible responses to the stale, corrosive neoliberalism are possible too, other than right wing populism. But when those other possibilities have been marginalised and crushed for decades, with many battles on that front lost many decades ago now, when they dont even feature in news narratives, arent positioned as a credible alternative that could actually get into power, arent perceived by marginalised rural etc communities as being on their side or having anything to offer them, arent aligned with the socially conservative values that dominate a lot of these small places, dont have visible charismatic figureheads, dont have the support of any billionaires and corporations, its no surprise those dont seem like any kind of relevant force for change.

 

[iona]

story I can see if urban will let me upload the unrolled threads as pdfs if you want?

 

[chandlerp]

Giuliani's son is claiming all the sports memorabilia was gifted to him so can't be used to settle his father's debts. Jog on fucko.

 

[story]

story I can see if urban will let me upload the unrolled threads as pdfs if you want?

That would be great Iona. Thank you.

I had a look at what VivaE posted but it looks like I have to download and register for an app to do that, and then find the post in question in the thread which they linked to.



I hope and trust the info is worth all this trouble! How many people are involved in this project now?!

 

[Puddy_Tat]

and the Grauniad because I don't pay for it.

with the guardian website, you can just click on the 'i'll do it later' bit and you get the article. there doesn't seem to be any limit to how long you can keep doing that (i think it's different if you use the app, you do get a ration, and it may help if you clear cookies / cache now and then)

like so

 

[Zapp Brannigan]

Giuliani's son is claiming all the sports memorabilia was gifted to him so can't be used to settle his father's debts. Jog on fucko.

Should be easy enough to determine, assuming that Sr and Jr don't live together. Whose contents insurance were they listed on?

 

[_Russ_]

I see you went to charm school.

Same one?

 

[gentlegreen]

with the guardian website, you can just click on the 'i'll do it later' bit and you get the article. there doesn't seem to be any limit to how long you can keep doing that (i think it's different if you use the app, you do get a ration, and it may help if you clear cookies / cache now and then)

like so

doesn't make it right though...

 

[pbsmooth]

 

[tommers]

doesn't make it right though...

People who post Guardian links should make you pay them 5p every time you look at them. I don't agree with the international banking system though, so can you drop it round to my house? Thanks. 5ps only, none of that copper. Cheers.

 

[story]

Yeah. I became much more aware of some of those places when I started watching US storm chasers live youtube channels. And when tornados hit or threatened tiny places, I started using google streetview to study those places. Various signs of isolation, poverty and being left behind are highly visible at every turn. And there are an incredible number of these places.



Yes. And making the same sort of claim using more overtly political terms often leads me to stuff like: The rise of right wing populism is an inevitable consequence of many decades of failure of the mainstream neoliberal stuff. And the neoliberals dont often come up with some meaningful sense of hope or of modifying their ways when faced with this threat. They dont promise people something different, they just turn the right wing populist threat into a hollow reason for people to back them as the only alternative, even though that alternative only offers more of the same old shit, with no new offer, no compromise of the agenda that got everyone into this state in the first place. They raise the spectre of populist right-wing bogeymen like Trump and then use it for their own purposes, with decidedly mixed results. I dont know for how long this particular dodgy balancing act will persist, it could carry on for decades or something more dramatic may happen at some point that ends this particular status quo. Of course other possible responses to the stale, corrosive neoliberalism are possible too, other than right wing populism. But when those other possibilities have been marginalised and crushed for decades, with many battles on that front lost many decades ago now, when they dont even feature in news narratives, arent positioned as a credible alternative that could actually get into power, arent perceived by marginalised rural etc communities as being on their side or having anything to offer them, arent aligned with the socially conservative values that dominate a lot of these small places, dont have visible charismatic figureheads, dont have the support of any billionaires and corporations, its no surprise those dont seem like any kind of relevant force for change.

This further illustrates the point I was making about how invisible and overlooked this demographic really is.
It’s not that they’re ignored. They’re more than ignored, they’re invisible, or if seen at all dismissed as irrelevant, meaningless.



Those tiny towns are pretty invisible even when you drive through them.

And the church is sometimes the only option for socialising outside the home, often a significant drive away.

And those towns where the church and the feed store and movie theatre are, they’re also pretty small.

Schools that serve these districts are often out in the middle of nowhere, with no off site local amenities. Essentially captive. If Project 2025 comes in and the schools are given back to the states, they’ll become even more isolated.



Your second larger point is the important bit. Ignoring them is increasingly dangerous. It’s amongst this group that we see the more extreme dropping-out and self sufficiency coming from. Not the ones who will raise arms and wage war against the establishment, they’re more motivated by current events as they read them. These small town folk will just disappear further, hunker down further, and if they do vote at all, will vote to support and protect their own immediate needs.

If the USA breaks up, it won’t break into city states revolving around existing cities, it will break into communities made up of smaller communities like these. People from elsewhere will migrate in and swell their number.



Obviously not all of America is like this. There are also towns and small cities with theatres, art galleries, transport links, parks, even down town areas and independent shops. But if you do an elbows and look at small town America with Google Earth, you’ll see a significant number of medium sized towns with no transport links other than the roads, and big distances between them and anywhere else.

The scenario I’ve outlined above is similar (albeit on a different scale and expressed differently) in these larger places.

Very insular.

If everyone you talk with and everything you see in the local news pretty much aligns one way, and you were born and raised here, you’re a rare rebel to go the other way.

If libraries aren’t allowed to stock certain books things get shut down even further

With the internet, it’s possible to explore other ideas, and some do. But not everyone.

If Trump wins, we may yet see efforts to curtail the internet too.

 

[story]

If the USA breaks up, it won’t break into city states revolving around existing cities, it will break into communities made up of smaller communities like these. People from elsewhere will migrate in and swell their number.

I don’t know how this might happen.

But I see a tension between the possibility that we may be moving towards the break up of the US, and it being highly unlikely that separate states will secede simply because cities wouldn’t want to.

Even if it were possible I can’t think of a state that would really want to separate from the US. Even Texas.
But it does feel like something that is in the air.

 

[iona]

That would be great Iona. Thank you.

I had a look at what VivaE posted but it looks like I have to download and register for an app to do that, and then find the post in question in the thread which they linked to.



I hope and trust the info is worth all this trouble! How many people are involved in this project now?!

No sorry, wants me to make an account to download stuff.

 

[story]

No sorry, wants me to make an account to download stuff.

Yup. That’s stopped me too.

Oh well.

Thank you for trying anyway.

I’m sure it’s not world stopping stuff. I was just curious to know his read on Trump’s sartorial choices.

 

[Wilf]

Vaguely related to the last few pages, here's Robert Reich expressing bemusement as to why it's neck and neck. I only skim read the piece, but he first of all bigs himself up, then gets into the horrors of Trump2 and then pretty much says he can't understand what has gone on to get to this point (give or take media effects). Seems like a perfect example of a member of the elite sending out a warning about Trump - quite justifiably - which won't be heard by most of those planning to vote for Trump. Which in turn takes us back to all the people story has mentioned, people trying to make sense of the shit in their own lives, people who Reich genuinely doesn't seem to get (at least in that piece). He gives a parade of likely villains, but doesn't seem to get the way people actually think about who they are and how they relate to politics and elites.

Trump and Harris are neck-and-neck. This is a five-alarm fire | Robert Reich

No American who cares about the future of this country can afford to remain a mere spectator to our own democracy

www.theguardian.com

 

[VivaE]

Yup. That’s stopped me too.

Oh well.

Thank you for trying anyway.

I’m sure it’s not world stopping stuff. I was just curious to know his read on Trump’s sartorial choices.

It was a good read (and DG knows and is very entertaining re his sartorial stuff) but if you're wondering if he looked at the impact trump's style of dressing and his presentation of himself sartorially might have on the viewer/voter, then no, he didn't go down that route, other than saying that Trump "dresses as a flashy businessman and entertainer. His suits are heavily padded to create an imposing, authoritative figure. His bright red tie is a matter of branding.. "

Derek Guy's focus was on the 'technical' reasons why trump's suits are so badly fitting, so prone to creasing, so oddly tailored, so shoulder pad heavy and so not, as some of his more delusional supporters try to claim, indicative of an aristocratic or patrician style of dress.

 

[Calamity1971]

Is he endorsing Trump again this time around?

As of march he was?
Heaven? Bit more toasty the destination for him.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Shit almighty! The man has lost everything, and he had a fair old bit, now all gone, all the material shit he'd gained in life and his reputation, and yet he's prepared to come back for more. It really is a fucking cult.

Like the advert below his face, no Rudy, no £1500 credit limit card for you pal.