‘Now he’s seen as a symbol’: Republicans rally around Trump

Politico ^ | 6/01/24 | Shia Kapos, Lisa Kashinsky

[Libloather]

PEORIA, Illinois — House Speaker Mike Johnson intensified his defense of Donald Trump before headlining a party fundraiser in Illinois on Saturday, as even this deep blue state’s Republicans seized on a Manhattan jury’s guilty verdict as a rallying cry for the former president.

“Terrible,” Frank Hernandez, a retiree from Caterpillar, said of the verdict while waiting for Johnson to speak at the dinner. “The prosecutors, the judge, Biden — they were all in cahoots.”

**SNIP**

And after an army of online donors poured a staggering $53 million into Trump’s presidential campaign, Johnson said it wasn’t just Trump raising money off the verdict.

House Republicans, too, he said, had a “record fundraising day in the first 24 hours after that verdict,” though he did not provide a figure.

Trump, Johnson said, “is not just our nominee, not just an individual running for president. I think now he’s seen as a symbol, a symbol of one who is willing to fight back against that corruption, the deep state and all the rest.”

The full effect of the verdict on the presidential campaign may not be clear for months. Both parties were scrambling Saturday to gain a better read on the electorate, while pollsters were rushing to conduct fast — and, for that reason and others — likely unreliable polls.

**SNIP**

And among the GOP grassroots, the trial — and the verdict — is serving as a call to arms.

“He’s a f------ criminal,” said former Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh, who unsuccessfully challenged Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2020. “But he will not pay a price for this. In fact, this one will help him. This verdict is going to completely help him.”

[personalaccts]

Unfortunately there’s only a very few me,hers in Congress that have balls to fight

[bray]

So when is mini-Mike going to fight back? How about investigating this sham trial?

[Gnome1949]

Trump IS NOT A CRIMINAL. This was a lawless lynch mob who could not cite a felony law Trump violated.

[dforest]

LOL, Trump is everything they are not. If the GOP were more like Trump they wouldn’t have to be seen as the mealy mouthed cucks that they truly are. Most are losers who turn their backs on the people who elected them because they are weak.

His strength in the face of some of the most horrible persecution and evil he is always put through is a profile in courage and not giving up. He takes the worst crap from these people and still stands with a smile even though we know how deeply tired he must be of it.

He isn’t perfect, but he has qualities most of those weak scoundrels in the GOP could only hope to possess.

Instead of hating on him they need to do some self examination and take on some of Trumps fighter instincts in order to take this country back from the current demons in charge.

[sauropod]

Micturate on former Rep. Joe Walsh.

Yes I mean it.

[In_Iowa_not_from]

Polutico is a regime mouthpiece like the sHILL and Bullsh*t Insider.

[Ezekiel]

‘Now he’s seen as a symbol’:

"Now"? Heh...

The name TRUMP has been an epic example not only for name recognition, but for "product placement". From above:

TRUMP -- it's the proper name located at the very top of the towers of lawful business success -- in Gotham no less - - yet the Dark Side (the side of corruption, wealth and power by ill-gotten gain, DEI) never thought to consult a dictionary for the real action/messaging (verb) involved?

It's pretty much how the seemingly pointless vignettes in the Megillah (scroll, roll) slip right on past Haman & Sons because there's nothing to see in all of those "random" details. Nothing to see here, just move along..

NOW everyone knows that '34' means guilty on all counts..

G-D is even famous for being "nowhere" in the Purim story, which is even funnier in this particular context because 3 and 4 are the letters Gimel and Dalet respectively, contiguously. Touching but not touching,

The rich man, chasing after the poor man in order to give him charity.

Wheel of Fortune's key decipherment-assist code phrase: "I'd like to buy a vowel."

It goes on..

"GD" -- a blessing, or a curse.

... the General Dynamics of the whole megillah.

BTW, I learned from Wikipedia (horrible place) that in Hebrew, the equivalent phrase for "Product Placement" is "covert advertising":

פרסום סמוי

I couldn't help but notice that 'covert advertising' (the word for 'covert' is rooted in blindness) adds up to 502, which is a well-known value in Purim commentaries for the key phrases that = 502:

"Cursed be Haman"
"Blessed be Mordecai"

🍷

Ironic, isn't it? The man doesn't even drink.

[mund1011]

I certainly wasn't trying to be rude to you. If your choice in music steered you away from rock, then it makes perfect sense that you wouldn't know about Van Halen. Anyway, DoodleBob posted the initial VH information, I was just agreeing with him.

Off to church to listen to some church music. Have a great day.

[Texas Fossil]

Yes.

[DoodleBob]

I saw VH in the DLR era and Sammy era (sorry…I passed on the Gary Cherone era).

Dave is second to none as a frontman. But good grief, shaddap and let the band play a song all the way through! By the 1983 tour, it literally felt like Dave was bringing the band down every third song after the bridge so he could tell some stupid story. It became unbearable.

In many ways, this was Trump 1.0; it was glorious seeing him own the media and give leftists a syndrome, but he could have done so much more from a policy and leadership perspective if he picked some competent personnel and backed off the twitter feed. Just like Dave at the end of VH 1.0, his shtick was unhelpful in 2020. I’m not saying he lost the election fair and square and under him the economy was mighty and we got 3 good SCOTUS picks and no wars. However, the aggregate downside of terrible personnel choices and focus on flair vs anticipating ballot harvesting didn’t help.

Eddie, Michael Anthony, and Alex AS A UNIT was smoking hot every time I saw them. Alex is an ok drummer - he’s no Carl Palmer or Stewart Copeland - and Michael Anthony’s ok bass playing is more than made up for with his superior backing vocals. Eddie, of course, re-launched the guitar as an instrument of mass destruction. As a band, they are like the American people…consistently productive, stupendous, and can blow any other country out of the water regardless of who’s the President.

Van Hagar was polished, streamlined, and in 1986 a little forced. Sammy is a quality singer and guitarist. But it was like DeSantis…a very, VERY effective governor of Florida but nothing like the full-on concert event like when Dave fronted the band.

I also caught Dave on the Eat ‘em and Smile Tour. Now, in some ways THAT combo exceeded Van Halen 1980-1983. Dave, perhaps realizing he needed to STFU and, perhaps, realizing he had a technically superior band, rapped to the audience less. Gregg Bissonette is the tightest drummer I ever saw - he was like a nuclear clock. Steve Vai may be the best guitarist alive along every dimension. And Billy Sheehan is like a lead guitarist on bass. Personally, I hope we get that version of Dave, erm, Trump this time around.

Extreme is an outstanding band with better rockers in their catalog vs the syrupy hits they had. The REAL secret to that band is guitar whiz Nuno Bettencourt, and a rhythm section that is criminally unappreciated. Fun fact: their song Rest in Peace is a sort of anti anti-war song. Quoth Nuno: “Lyrically, there was a lot of stuff going on: we were in the Gulf War at that time, and would watch people with signs outside the White House that said “MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR.” We thought that war is not that simple. Nobody wants war until somebody is invading their country. So we thought about the statement “Make Love, Not War.” We know that America is going into different countries and certain areas, but you hope and have faith that it’s for the right reasons. And when there are genocides and things like that going on, that’s what inspired that period of the Gulf War. We don’t love war - we definitely love “love” more. But it was just saying, “It’s really not that simple.”

Gary Cheron was good in that band…sort of like how Bidet in the early days wasn’t an awful senator (prescinding from the groper bits). But there is nothing from Van Halen 3.0 on peoples music list. That’s Bidet: middle-stage dementia, lost, but able to get animated in the politically-expedient moments (Cherone-Extreme; Bidet: angry and coherent without drugs when talking about guns or conservatives) that appeals to people who detest Diamond Dave-ism and hope and pray that the Extreme version of Gary is still in there, somewhere.

Thus, Trump will get more voters with this “conviction” because the public doesn’t want a Reagan, or Kennedy, or Ike. They aren’t interested in what is written by Thomas Sowell or in Reason or the Federalist Papers. They want a Lead Singer, a Frontman of the United States that is most like David Lee Roth. In that contest - assuming no fraud - Bidet will get trashed because he’s Gary Cheron in Van Halen-utterly forgettable but with a residual fan base from Extreme.

Your mileage may vary.

[MayflowerMadam]

“I certainly wasn’t trying to be rude to you.”

I didn’t take it that way at all.

[MayflowerMadam]

“I certainly wasn’t trying to be rude to you.”

I didn’t take it that way at all.

[TBP]

Even a lot of Never Trumpers are rallying around him on this flimsy case.

[dfwgator]

You have to separate Trump the Man, from Trump the Phenomenon.

And the fact is, Trump, just by being who he is, has done more to illuminate just what our government is, than anyone else possibly could have.

[MayflowerMadam]

“I certainly wasn’t trying to be rude to you.”

Actually, I was laughing at myself while reading that post. The words were in English, but was almost like another language to me. It occurred to me that I had missed a huge chunk of culture during those years.

[Golden Eagle]

Trump, Johnson said, “is not just our nominee, not just an individual running for president. I think now he’s seen as a symbol, a symbol of one who is willing to fight back against that corruption, the deep state and all the rest.”

Well we’ve actually been forced into this. Actually pigeonholed, if you’re not or no longer a big supporter of Trump.

So, we better hope he somehow wins. But I don’t like this feeling of us all being herded into one basket, with only one supposed hope. Especially not by Mike Johnson.

[Golden Eagle]

I own every VH album (several in multiple copies/formats) and have seen them several times live. Their albums with DLR were much more raw and powerful, but their albums with Sammy were much more commercially successful. I like the raw emotion and live feel of the original albums, but it didn’t translate to the widest audience, many of whom found it offensive. Same with Trump. And, Sammy could still deliver live. This video of Van Halen performing a Hagar song beats anything else I’ve seen recorded by the band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2qaYdYIuvI

[Golden Eagle]

Check the video in post 37 to get a crash course. Hope you can make it to the end. If you can, listen a few more times, and you might eventually even start to like it, or at least appreciate the talent/effort.

As for Trump, the rock star mentality is a good analogy, even down to the point of his last few album releases not really selling like the old ones. We’ll see if he’s got what it takes in 2024 or not soon.

[MayflowerMadam]

Well, made it about 30 seconds. Screaming guitars ... Not my cup of tea. That was Van Halen? Is that the group David Lee Roth was in?

Did he do “Jump”? I like that. Also “Just A Gigolo”. But I have always liked that song. My grandmother had that original sheet music from maybe the ‘30s, and I used to play it on the piano when I was little.

[Cold_Red_Steel]

So was Jesus, Moses, Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubman, Spartacus,...

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I like to point out the Democrats convicted Martin Luther King Jr., too!