Trump Is Scared (The Atlantic)

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text: Jeffrey Goldberg
@JeffreyGoldberg
"What’s been driving him in the final stretch of the campaign isn’t a medication that messes with his mood. It’s dread, people who’ve worked with him throughout the years told me." -- @PeterAtlantic:

Trump Is Scared
Americans who’ve speculated that Trump’s COVID-19 treatment altered his judgment misunderstand the president.
theatlantic.com

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/10/why-trump-keeps-lashing-out-election-approaches/616733/

He seemed as if he might be delirious. He blasted out bewildering tweets in all caps. Sick and infectious, he circled the perimeter of the hospital in an armored SUV, waving to supporters. He demanded the arrest of his opponents.

After doctors treated Donald Trump with a steroid last week, following his COVID-19 diagnosis, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, other Trump critics, and national-security experts questioned whether the drug had warped his judgment. “Roid rage” started trending on Twitter. His condition revived talk about invoking the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. A Stanford University law professor who had taken the same drug tweeted that she couldn’t be “president of my cat” when under its influence.

Those suspicions miss the point: Trump is belligerent when sick, just as he’s hostile when well. He sees plots when he’s dosed with dexamethasone and conspiracies when he’s gulping Diet Coke behind the Resolute desk. Days have passed since he apparently stopped taking the drug, and he sounds every bit as unmoored.

What’s been driving him in the final stretch of the campaign isn’t a medication that messes with his mood. It’s dread, people who’ve worked with him throughout the years told me. There are less than three weeks to go in a campaign that appears to be heading the wrong way. “He’s down and he’s likely to lose,” a former White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to talk more freely, told me. “This is fear.”

*snip*

[StClone]

1. He can start making things better by resigning

[Raster]

2. Abso-fucking-lutely!

Resign! Resign! Resign!

[misanthrope]

8. I'm of two minds on that option

On one hand, I would like to see him out of the corridors of official power, where his potential damage to the nation is lessened.

On the other, I think the damage he would do to the Republican Party will only be enhanced with his behavior surrounding a losing election bid. It would provide better opportunity for realignment and for the GOP to be replaced with something better for our nation in the long run.

Bottom line is that we will have at least a two-party system here. That's just the system Americans will fall back on and I would rather the one on the right be composed of something more rational than what it is right now.

[StClone]

9. You make good points

I hope he lives long, falls hard and shrivels up into a pile of dust covered coprolite.

[PJMcK]

3. Last night's TV ratings must make Trump pissed off! (n/t)

[Shermann]

12. Yeah that was the upside to the competing town halls

Screw the polls and the pundits, you can unambiguously compare the ratings and declare a winner.

Winner: BIDEN
Loser: TRUMP

[Statistical]

4. VOTE! HIM! OUT! VOTE! HIM! OUT! VOTE! HIM! OUT! VOTE! HIM! OUT!

[moonscape]

5. For someone who 'craves adulation', he

does absolutely nothing to achieve that. Well, except pay for it, strong-arm for it. Once he's out of office, very few will be around to feed that bottomless pit.

Thinking of him being scared fills my heart with joy.

[Cicada]

6. He faces a serious risk of prosecution

Leona Helmsley was sentenced to jail for deducting about $2 million in personal expenses as business expenses. So she reported a $57 million tax liability instead of the correct $58 million. From public documents we know Trump used different financial statements on the same buildings to get loans or insurance, where a high value helped, compared to property tax assessments, where a low value helped. He reported a higher occupancy rate on 40 Wall Street for the loan than he reported for the assessment, with dates only five weeks apart. It appears he lied on at least one. That is a felony, and New York prosecutors can seek jail time if they want. Manhattan jurors may not include Trump supporters.

[mnmoderatedem]

7. mnmoderatedem is glad

aren't we all.

[Ms. Toad]

10. The author of the article seems to have a funadamental misunderstanding of steroids.

They intensify whatever the user is feeling - they don't create it.

Yes, he is terrified of losing - AND - being on steroids intensifies that experience.
Yes, he has never been able to control his rage - AND being on steroids intensifies that experience

So no one (with any experience with steroids) is saying he was fine before, but not now. But the steroids have taken his native toddler like intensity of feelings, need for instant gratificatino, need to be adored, etc - and intensified them.

[ProfessorGAC]

11. "Days have passed since he apparently stopped taking the drug, ..."

"...and he sounds every bit as unmoored."
Seems a big presumption.
How can the author be sure PINO is still being given dex?
When i did the 6 day Solumedrol treatments, I was put on oral doses for a weening process that lasted nearly 5 weeks.
And, I was half way through the weening process before I felt normal.
I'm guessing the author has never had this sort of treatment.