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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   2513 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 10, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Barack Obama and Donald Trump chatting away before Jimmy Carter's funeral is quite something to see:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=5cnfNgvKsoo

Does Barack humor him diplomatically like a crazy MAGA uncle at the Thanksgiving table? Maybe, but Obama coolness breaking into a chuckle is genuine, Donalds joke must have hit. At the same time Obama has literally the ear of the next President, Trump is listening intensely what he has to say. You know deep down Trump thinks Obama is cool.

Bill Clinton can't wipe the grin off his face even when he's at a funeral. Granted, if several decades with Hillary didn't affect him, then nothing will.

I saw it captioned thusly:

"Obama makes light-hearted jokes with Hitler, 11 days before he is due to take over the country, ban democracy, and establish a white nationalist dictatorship".

Of course, it was Obama that came out with heavy fear-based language against Trump not even three months ago, in a last ditch effort to sway the election to Harris.

Obama's trying to pull a reverse Carter here, sullying a once pristine reputation with his behavior as an ex-President.

Obama's trying to pull a reverse Carter here, sullying a once pristine reputation with his behavior as an ex-President.

His presidency's reputation was never "pristine" unless you were living in a particular bubble (which controlled the institutions).

When Bush walks over, Obama stands up to shake his hands like an old friend. Trump stays seated and neither he nor bush acknowledge each other. Then Obama and Trump are back to cracking jokes with each other.

What sort of history do Trump and Bush Jr have?

Trump did put a stop to the Bush dynasty by not only beating Jeb, but humiliating him so hard there is no possibility of a comeback. After Trump has his moment, Cruz can come back. DeSantis can come back. Even Little Marco can come back. Jeb is done and will never be president, ever. Jeb is the supposed big guy in the prison yard that Trump made his bitch upon arriving to send a message.

I wonder who GW was giving the thumbs up to.

Obama and Trump are both members of a very club of former POTUS. Smaller still is the club of those who ruled over the US when the power was as centralised in Washington, rather than dispersed among the states and when the US was the preeminent global power. Thus they could be said to have wielded the most power than anyone else throughout history of the world. I think this naturally forms an understanding and kinship which transcends party lines.

My theory has always been that Donald Trump doesn't care about anyone. Don't read that as "he hates everyone because he's a narcissist." He has a perfectly neutral with no priors feeling towards literally every human on earth.

Pair that with the fact that he's is, first and foremost, a walking one-on-one charisma machine. He's adopted this so deeply that it permeates his very speech. "Everyone is saying X is the best X ever, no one's ever seen anything like it!" ... "We're going to do Y and we're going to do it so well that it's the best thing that will ever happen." These are almost carnival barker levels of over-the-top flattery and positivity. The reason they exist as verbal artifacts in Trump's lexicon is because he's been practicing them day in and day out for 40+ years. It's reflexive at this point.

When he sat down next to Obama, he had some factual details in his mind about the man. Probably not many. He had, again, zero prior esteem estimations. So, he just started to plug in the few fats he knew about Obama into his CharismaLLM.exe and let it roll - because this is what he does with every single person he talks to directly. (Major caveat: Rally speeches and press conference Trump is different. Everything I am saying here only applies to one on one or maybe small group conversations).

Where it gets interesting is that Obama, the vaunted "orator" (although I think he was DRASTICALLY overrated as a speaker) was far less than charismatic one on one. He wanted to argue about policy in the way a Harvard Law professor would; dueling papers. Instead of doing the hard but necessary work of politicking - you know, the thing he was elected to do.

As much as I think Trump doesn't really care about other humans one-on-one (reread the intro paragraph!) I think Obama is deeply offended and angered by Trump's intuitive understanding of politics and people. This is quite literally the bookish nerd watching the bombastic class president shit all over his "legacy".

In short, I believe that, deep down, Obama thinks Trump is cool.

It was sort of amazing to see Obama get bullied into releasing his long form BC after years of birtherism conspiracy shilling by Trump

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