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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 21, 2024

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I haven't listened to anything long form and uninterrupted from Trump in a while (I watched most of the debates and some Trump clips), so what instantly struck me was just how fake the "Trump is old and incoherent just like Biden was" narrative is. I already thought it was a bad narrative and this really cemented that thought in my head. Trump is aware of the way he goes on conversational detours and actually says it is one of his strengths, so he clearly does it intentionally unlike with Biden's gaffes. He called it "the weave" and says it's the mark of a good speaker if they can weave multiple different things together but still come back home at the end. I found this all amusing to listen to even if I didn't 100% agree about the weave being the mark of good oration.

I also watched the recent Theo-Vance podcast and what I found notable was Vance on the election. When asked, Vance says the biggest problem in 2020 was big tech bias and the Hunter Biden laptop story, but that he still thinks voting is fair. When Trump was asked, he "weaved" together an answer that involved various vote by mail problems and law changes he thinks were done wrong, date changes, voter ID, or just outright ballot box stuffing alongside the Vance answer of an unfair big tech.

Back to Trump, I really liked the mini deregulation theme with environmental review and permitting. I also really enjoyed when he looked off to the side and stopped himself from saying something with a big smirk on his face (maybe a slight mark against the Ezra Klein disinhibition theory?), like when he said "You know, my uncle, I had a great uncle who was a great genius just like (pause, look to the side and smile while clearly holding back a specific name of someone he was about to say) other members of my family but he was a professor at..." or when he said "I only believe them if [the polls are] good (chuckle). No, ..." all with a huge smirk knowing what he said is ridiculous.

He called it "the weave" and says it's the mark of a good speaker if they can weave multiple different things together but still come back home at the end.

Again has someone who has never heard him talk at length I was really impressed by the answer about a thing, shove in a random campaign talking point in a reasonableish way, go back to the thing.

He's clearly still very with it.

He's clearly still very with it.

This is what I've been saying for months, but there are people here who firmly insist that he's losing his grip. It's like the Shiri's scissor of this sub. Not only do I disagree with the people who say he's senile, I just can't understand where they're coming from at all. It just seems self-evident to me that Trump is still very present and energetic.

Maybe not "energetic" but agree that he's very much "with it" and so clearly so that i find it difficult to understand where the people who are calling him "rambling and incoherent" are coming from.

He even speaks in the interview about how he believes that part of being a good orator/negotiator is being able "to weave" multiple tangents together to create a desired mental/emotional state and then he goes and does it.

Are people's brains here litterally so rotten from exposure to TikTok Instagram and chat-GPT that they can't process a "brick joke" or any argument that isn't in the form of a soundbite?

The media blitz on this front has been very strong, it's tough to consistently completely disregard "experts."

My single encounter with his speeches (as I generally can't stand video/chatter content) has been a live stream of some recent rally that I only tuned into because I randomly entertained the thought of playing the Polymarket "will Trump say Border more than 25 times" game, and my immediate first impression was that he really just sounded shockingly old and tired. I don't think I got a sense of mental decline beyond what is a necessary consequence of old age, and he sounded way sharper than I remember Biden doing in the one video I saw of his fatal debate, but he certainly didn't come across as either spry or quick-witted. I don't think I have any particularly negative emotions towards him nor that he has declined to a point that would be extraordinary for a head of state, but it did seem to me like those who claim that he currently presents a picture of rhetorical brilliance and strength must be suffering from a case of reverse TDS.