As I’ve mentioned at various points in recent months, when stupid things happen in politics many people are tempted to believe that looks are somehow deceiving and that what looks stupid, ill-prepared or desperate is actually canny, intended or ingenious. We should all resist this temptation.
When things look stupid or ridiculous, they generally are.
We have a significant move in The TPM Electoral Scoreboard, which moves today to Clinton 323, Trump 197. For the moment, only Ohio is in the Toss Up category where Trump has a razor thing .6 percentage point lead.
Check out the latest addition to TPM’s merch store: a Trump’s Razor shirt and mug! The items feature a custom illustration of “Trump’s razor” and the definition of the phrase Josh popularized — both are printed on high-quality materials. Buy them here and get ready to explain Trump’s latest antics by pointing at your shirt or mug!
I mentioned this on Twitter a short time ago. Now I’m seeing others who know much more about this saying similar things. Here’s my thought. After thinking over the Times revelation, I wonder whether there’s a much, much bigger story here that the Times didn’t put together or more likely did see but couldn’t prove.
In any case, here’s what I’m thinking.
As you’ve no doubt seen, we have a blockbuster story on the Trump tax returns front. In 1995, Trump declared almost $1 billion in business losses – generally tied to the implosion of his Atlantic City casino empire – and those losses have likely allowed him to avoid paying any income taxes for almost 20 years. Here’s the Times exclusive; here’s the version of the story at TPM. There are many moving parts of this story. But I thought I’d share some thoughts on parts I have some knowledge about.
In case you’ve missed the news, The New York Times was leaked a small shred of Donald Trump’s 1995 tax returns. But even with that small shred, they were able to determine that when Trump’s highly leveraged Atlantic City casino empire imploded in the early 90s he was able to generate almost $1 billion dollars in business losses which have likely enabled him to avoid paying income taxes for the intervening 20 years.
In a totally unexpected development, we learn today that back in the early 90s Donald Trump pressured his then-girlfriend, future wife and futurer ex-wife to pose nude in Playboy. Trump even negotiated a mega payday for the nude photo shoot. In the end, Maples refused.
Is Donald Trump’s downfall with Alicia Machado tied to not having her shackled with the standard Trump non-disclosure agreement? TPM Reader GP writes in with what seems like some pretty solid inferences about the backstory of Trump’s relationship with Machado, which has been bad and public for 20 years.
Because of bonds of culture, language and governmental systems it’s been standard for decades for British Tories and American Republicans to collaborate informally on political campaigns, just as Labour and Democrats have done the same. So it’s not terribly surprising that racist, nationalist ‘Brexit’ leader Nigel Farage is working with American racist, nationalist leader Donald Trump, even going to so far as to appear with him at a campaign event in Mississippi in August. But after Trump’s Monday debate face-plant, Farage is making an emergency visit to the US to prep Trump for the next debate on October 9th.
“She’s nasty, but I can be nastier than she ever can be.”
That’s the takeaway quote from a disturbing article in the Times out tonight, describing an agitated, febrile Donald Trump, off the high of his overnight Twitter rampage but settled into a steady rage over a week of humiliations and electoral reverses. Trump’s biggest liability and weakness through his eighteen months as a politician has been his inability to focus or rule his emotions. He goes off on jags in which he seems to forget what he’s at least notionally trying to do: win an election. In the quotation above, his rage against Clinton and Alicia Machado appears to have deluded him into believing that the election is a contest to see who can be the bigger monster. There is little basis to believe that this is how most voters judge the race.