The Trump Two-Step: Once you recognize the pattern, you’ll see it everywhere.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/04/trump-two-step-bloodbath-2024-election/677966/
The Trump Two-Step: Once you recognize the pattern, you’ll see it everywhere.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/04/trump-two-step-bloodbath-2024-election/677966/
42 comments
> One of his most effective tools is what we might call the Trump Two-Step, in which the former president says something outrageous, backs away from it in the face of criticism, and then fully embraces it. The goal here is to create a veneer of deniability. It doesn’t even need to be plausible; it just needs to muddy the waters a bit.
Yeah, we’ve noticed
All I ever see is the Trump shit-step.
What about the MAGA three step: Trump lies, his followers believe him, then they don’t believe the evidence that comes out proving he lied.
An interesting read – and you can catch it [outside of the paywall here.](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-trump-two-step/ar-BB1l4ORm)
>And he has made the two-step a big part of his reelection strategy. In December, Sean Hannity teed Trump up with a softball question, asking him to affirm that he wouldn’t abuse his power if elected. Trump declined, saying he wanted to be a dictator on day one, but only on day one. (Cold comfort!) When the remark drew horror, Trump said he’d just been kidding around, suggesting that people needed to lighten up. Then, a few days later, he once again said that he planned to be a dictator on his first day in office.
For Trump “the truth”, as it is commonly understood, is worthless in public performance. What he does with the truth in the public arena is more like what [professional wrestling](https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=You+tube+Trump+wrestling&mid=3FFCE7E51869E85772C53FFCE7E51869E85772C5&FORM=VIRE) does with it. And the audiences love it.
I guess the phrase the “Trump Two-Pump” was already taken.
>”It doesn’t even need to be plausible; it just needs to muddy the waters a bit.”
It works. And it’s not mud, either.
I just assume he means what he says and he’ll lie about it. That logic hasn’t failed me yet. I just wish people who keep denying how serious Trump is would listen for once. Like you’ve been wrong over and over for years about the severity of the damage Trump will inflict, while we’ve been right. So why would I listen to anyone still defending Trump?
Meh.. the “Trump Two Step” sounds dumb..
I prefer calling it the ” Stupid Shuffle “..
Close, but no. I am a from birth NYer and a registered Republican. Donald floats something he wants to do, but as most Narcissist are. Under their outward rough veneer are really snowflakes in private and very insecure. If he receives overwhelming push back, he plays it off as he was joking, and just busting the libs asses. If not, or minimal pushback, then full steam ahead. Remember wanting to drop nuclear bombs on incoming hurricanes? Or injecting bleach? Or he only hires the best people? etc. Who now almost all are testifying against him currently. For instance: a lot of people voted for him versus Clinton in 2016 thinking there were guardrails in place to coral him so to speak. And for the first 2 years in office, the Republicans did. They had the House, Senate and Presidency yet none of what he ran on was accomplished. Lyndsey Graham when asked in that time frame about the “Wall” he replied ” We aren’t going to build a wall, its an obsolete method and a waste of money. So they didn’t. They were going to repeal and replace Obamacare but didn’t even have a plan themselves after 10 years bitching and fund raising off of it. No plan whatsoever. Thats why John McCain literally on his death bed got dressed and voted against repealing it. He is a grifter, from a long line of grifters. On his 3rd year in some in the house were up for reelection and he backed candidates to primary his enemies in the Republican party. Remember Sanford? After a couple candidates lost to who he backed. They have been running like scared sheep ever since.
Once you recognize it, you’ll realize that Trump lives totally in the moment, saying whatever will get him through the next 10 seconds. There’s no strategy, just pure instinct. You want to know what he’s thinking? He’s thinking “TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP” on an endless loop while spraying a firehose of bullshit. He’s the simplest person who ever lived, motivated solely by malignant narcissism.
– Trump says something outrageous
– “He didn’t actually mean it”
– “Ok he meant X, not Y. Typical libs taking him out of context!”
– “Ok he did mean everything he said, but what about (insert literally anything, doesn’t have to be related at all)?!?!
– “We don’t care, we support Trump’s original statement and always have”
I’m getting to the point where I don’t want to up-tick any article that even mentions the name of Trump, no matter how revealingly negative it is about the orange madman… and I’ve only been on Reddit for two weeks.
Earlier today I wanted to ban myself for accidentally clicking onto a Fox news link and reading the first paragraph before quickly realizing I was consuming garbage!
Two weeks!
Have you noticed his replace the process with a person game?
People are so much easier to attack than processes.
It isn’t the system of law that is prosecuting him, it’s these wacky people that are persecuting him
Sales tactic.
I assume if it about money it is a lie and if it is about people it is projection.
It is not just Trump, it is the whole Conservative party including judges, congress, media, anyone who profits off the hardships or unhappiness of the population
he accused President Biden of using cocaine
There’s also the false Trump promises that’ll come in a week or two. He promises something (Obama’s birth certificates, A new healthcare plan, evidence that he’s innocent, etc.) says he’ll provide this in a week or two and “it’s amazing, you won’t believe it, it’s undeniable, etc”, and then fails to deliver, having moved on to something else but leaving his mindless believers with the idea that there actually was plenty of evidence because he said there was even though he never provides it.
Just vote the fucker out of oblivion,end of story ffs.
From the first time I saw him speaking running for President he would throw out a question or remark and would clearly wait for what got the biggest cheer. This is how he acquired his platform.
No one of his “caliber” (read: mental infirmities) should ever hold high office with unlimited power.
It usually stems from his rallies. At first he will just ramble on, but when something he says is a “hit” with his crowd and elicits cheers, he learns how to turn that into a routine on news outlets and other rallies. That’s how the pundits are able to create reels of him saying the same exact things in the same exact delivery and tone. Very similar to how comedians test their jokes over a series of shows to focus their timing and delivery. Trump does the same with this hate speech. He is constantly testing the waters to see what he can get away with from his base, and then once he knows it was a hit, he leans into it fully.
Nine years.
it took nine years of him being in the political public eye.
Nine years.
lol I thought this was about his gait
He’s certainly adept at one thing: LYING.
Yeah some of us recognized it in 2015 and are still waiting for legitimate press to recognize it.
Is this article from 2016, or is the author just that slow?
Guys, you’ll never believe this! I just figured out one of Trump’s patterns of behavior that literally half the country already knew for the last 8 years! Stop the presses!
He mastered click bait to stay in the headlines. Ignore him.
It’s the “I’m sorry. Or am I?” move from WWE.
This has been Trump’s modus operandi for quite literally decades.
If you had TFG call a coin flip, he would 100% go “Heads….Tails” while the coin was in the air, and whatever side it landed on he’d claim he was right. Like the cheap, lying, two-bit schmuck he is.
Trump will literally say something ridiculous today. Then when you ask him about it tomorrow, he’ll say he never said that and it’s the media spreading fake news. Then Republican talking heads who actually have to be on screen while footage is played of him saying it will explain what he actually meant or will outright say Trump just says shit he doesn’t mean all the time.
Oh the right loves to bring up that next day low coverage footage of trump saying well ACTUALLY after his “good people on both sides”. Like 3 blogs covered it and it was too late even still he made it the most obvious he was reading from a teleprompter so his base can say he was forced but also say “look he’s not racist”. Same with Muslim ban they will argue he didn’t say when we have footage.
>he continues to be just as adept as ever at running circles around the press and public.
Because the press and the public are full of idiots who constantly get bamboozled by another idiot. “Don’t Look Up” was right about the press and the public.
The thing thats increasingly bothering me is that this shit is not really that genius or devious. It’s what a middle school might think is clever.
It works because we have an entire media and political apparatus that enables it. This is the original sin of the media from back in 2016. Now media types are like well of course we have to report (and legitimize it) because half the country fully believes it and we can’t just disenfranchise them.
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Stream of *unconsciousness*…
He A B Tests. He is a marketer after all.
This is a trick that narcissists use. They say both A and not A, so that either way they can call you wrong.
The Trump-dance is more like a Square Dance, where he do-si-dos and allemandes-left and allemandes-right, depending who is talking nicely to him.
People criticised John Kerry for “being for some thing before he was against the very same thing.”
Trump has turned this into an entire political platform and the GOP doesn’t bat an eye. In fact, Republicans have completely embraced Political Hypocrisy as a basic tenet of its ideology.
Everyone has figured trump out. The question is why we accept him and continue to let him continue as a candidate. Media loves him or loves to hate him. He’s an easy story and easy money. People want see him fail, people want to see him succeed that’s the story, but it’s an empty story. It’s not the real story the reality of what’s going on in front of our own eyes. He’s news but for more nefarious reasons. It’s how one man is above the law while using our democracy to make himself a dictator, and how and why no one person or organization can or will stop him,not to mention those in authority that enable him. I’m amazed when media discusses what it will be like if he’s president. That should never even be a point of discussion. The discussion should be why how and who would even entertain allowing a person like this to even be allowed over better qualified people to have an opportunity or authority over a country like the USA.