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Trump the Bully Hits a Wall
The Politico ^ | January 15, 2016 | Jack Shafer

Posted on 01/16/2016 6:49:21 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

It's worked on one opponent after another. Here's why he's met his match with Cruz.

As every verbal bully can tell you, simply slathering your adversary with insult is never enough to drive him publicly, humiliatingly into the ditch. If you're going to wound, the insults have to contain some truth--often just a seed of truth, enough to nurture injury's bitter fruit. So in calling Jeb Bush "low energy" again and again and again and again, Donald Trump is not dishing a random taunt at his opponent. The insult works because Bush does look low-energy, perhaps because the rapid loss of 40 pounds has left him looking wan and feeble, like a skinny guy sloshing around in a fat man's skin.

Besides containing its seed of truth, the low-energy insult sticks because Bush can't really refute it. What's he going to do--drop down and give the press corps 50 push-ups? Release his schedule as Florida governor to show he works like a lab rat on amphetamines? Having bored a hole through Bush's skull with the gibe, Trump soon repurposed it by calling Ben Carson "lower energy than Bush." Truthwise, this one had more than a seed: Not since man encountered the first three-toed sloth and realized it was actually alive has such an observation been more appropriate. Carson is a human tortoise, a creature with the metabolism of a jar of molasses on a freezing day, an elderly starfish scraping through the sand with a walker. If the United States were attacked with a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile, it would take Carson a week to walk over to the nuclear football to execute the counterattack codes.....

(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...


TOPICS: Campaign News; Issues; Parties
KEYWORDS: 1stcanadiansenator; cruz; lol; tds; tedcruz; trump
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1 posted on 01/16/2016 6:49:21 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

What if Trump was from Texas and Cruz had $8 billion?


2 posted on 01/16/2016 6:51:21 PM PST by Daniel Ramsey (Trump to win! He wins, we win, the nation wins!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Jack is on reds?


3 posted on 01/16/2016 6:52:02 PM PST by Paladin2
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Politico Impressive! /s


4 posted on 01/16/2016 6:52:15 PM PST by stocksthatgoup (Trump Cruz "Can't we all just get along?" lol)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Politico, the GOPe rag, has been going in overdrive trying to create the narrative that Trump is over since Thursday night.

The polls will tell.


5 posted on 01/16/2016 6:54:24 PM PST by SteveSCH
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

This is too rich. Schafer decries Trump’s insults then goes nuclear with his own.

EPIC FAIL


6 posted on 01/16/2016 6:55:08 PM PST by sauropod (I am His and He is mine.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

No Jack, Donald Trump has met Mr. Haney from Green Acres.


7 posted on 01/16/2016 6:57:09 PM PST by TornadoAlley3 (I like Trump and Cruz. Leave me the heck alone.)
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To: SteveSCH

The polls should tell. The guy’s a meatball who took the pages right out of the Obama Chicago thug playbook.

It’s getting tiresome, like a retread that’s been slapping against the pavement for a good 20,000 miles. People thought he actually changed his spots. How gullible a breed Americans are.


8 posted on 01/16/2016 6:57:46 PM PST by Up Yours Marxists
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To: Paladin2

This proves my point, no one at Politico has a brain worth taking seriously. “My point is that Politico is a front for the Rats, their intent is not truthful news reporting with integrity, but to promulgate anything that bolsters the left. Sure they may throw a few bones to keep the useful idiots believing they mean what they say, but they are liars. The Politico should be mocked at every turn, laughed at with the scorn they deserve for purveying leftist propaganda disguised as journalism.” From a previous post. “To thine own heart be true.” Guess where Politico’s “heart” resides? Nowhere near reality.


9 posted on 01/16/2016 7:00:28 PM PST by Fungi
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Ted’s attacks on Trump at the tea party event today were sad, and didn’t fire up the crowd at all. The response was tepid. I actually felt sorry for him.


10 posted on 01/16/2016 7:01:28 PM PST by dynoman (Objectivity is the essence of intelligence. - Marylin vos Savant)
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To: TornadoAlley3

I think Trump would be a perfect Oliver or possibly Arnold.


11 posted on 01/16/2016 7:03:45 PM PST by corbe (mystified)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Actually, this is a great article.

Trump has met his match. He is a bully and Cruz is unflappable.

I would like you all to remember what it must have been like for Cruz to be nearly the only one standing up for us and our values against the Republican establishment.

He has trained himself to ward off the arrows that are slung at him.

Trump is a first class bully with loads of money and a Twitter account.

Cruz has very deep knowledge about our American principles.

Cruz has read Trump correctly.

12 posted on 01/16/2016 7:04:32 PM PST by Slyfox (Ted Cruz does not need the presidency - the presidency needs Ted Cruz)
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To: SteveSCH

Polls. LOL


13 posted on 01/16/2016 7:06:24 PM PST by FourPeas (Chocolate, sugar and lots of caffeine. Hard to beat that.)
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To: Fungi

Yes.

Politico is a Dem operative place, written by Dem operatives for Dem operatives. Supposedly a lot of DC and elsewhere reads it.

But it’s obvious.


14 posted on 01/16/2016 7:07:59 PM PST by combat_boots (The Lion of Judah cometh. Hallelujah. Gloria Patri, Filio et Spiritui Sancto!)
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To: combat_boots

Merci beaucoup.


15 posted on 01/16/2016 7:10:10 PM PST by Fungi
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Good read.


16 posted on 01/16/2016 7:12:50 PM PST by wmfights (a stranger in a hostile and foreign land that used to be my home)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Elmer Gantry Cruz is not going to catch on in a way that will make hi electable in the general. Reagan was a staunch conservative who connected with people on a visceral level. Cruz tries, but he doesn’t have the charisma to pull it off. Trump is the one who is connecting with broad groups of people. He’s not the conservative Cruz is, but he has the force of personality to bring the fight to his opponents.


17 posted on 01/16/2016 7:14:23 PM PST by CASchack
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To: Slyfox
Great summary!

I think the voters will swing over to Cruz and we will see it in the SEC primaries. The more Trump attempts to bully Cruz the greater the scrutiny of what Trump's NY values really are will be.

18 posted on 01/16/2016 7:19:14 PM PST by wmfights (a stranger in a hostile and foreign land that used to be my home)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The way you deal with verbal bullies is best alluding to their deceipt, contrast facts about them that are contrarian and make your own case, differentiating and distinguishing yourself, never mentioning “Brand X”


19 posted on 01/16/2016 7:20:47 PM PST by Vendome (Don't take life so seriously-you won't live through it anyway - "Enjoy Yourself" ala Louis Prima)
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To: wmfights
Yes, that is why we need for Trump to keep his yap open.

The more he says the more people find out how much substance he does not have and how much of a blowhard he really is.

20 posted on 01/16/2016 7:24:35 PM PST by Slyfox (Ted Cruz does not need the presidency - the presidency needs Ted Cruz)
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