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Twice in a month....

Xelor

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The SOTU speech matter is one thing and one thing only: sending messages, and not trivial ones about a damn venue or speech.
  • Nancy Pelosi subtly demonstrated -- not told, showed -- Trump that he is now in her "ocean." What is that ocean? Nothing other than the "roaring forties, furious fifties and the screaming sixties" of the "Southern Ocean" that is the maelstrom of adversarial politics in Washington, waters Trump has, until now, never seen or "sailed."

    Look at the sequence of events pertaining to the SOTU address' venue, which in and of itself was is no major thing (he doesn't actually have to deliver it in person or in the House chamber, but delivering it so is an opportunity a POTUS would be stupid to spurn):
    • The set-up, one might even call it a "bow shot" or the "bait":
      • She rescinds the invitation to speak before the House.
      • She stated the real reason, the shutdown -- which makes sense because how does one talk about what one's government is going to do when that very government is not operating by one's own hand -- and she included an overtly Quixotic political "windmill," the remarks about security concerns, to see whether he'd tilt at it (He/his Administration did.)
        • How does one know she put the security thing out there as a false flag? Because this is her second time round as Speaker. There's no way she's naive to the capabilities of the Capitol Police (CP), which is the organization responsible for the SOTU's immediate security, and the FBI, SS, and other agencies that collaborate with the CP for SOTU security. She also knew Trump's Admin would underestimate her by thinking her as "new" as they are.
    • Camp Trump's response was the usual blustery and benightedly transactional BS. (Notably, McConnell, who is as capable in the "big league" as Pelosi and seeing the writing on the wall, pretty much extricated himself from the whole of the shutdown imbroglio.)
    • Pelosi's response to that --> She didn't dignify the Admin. response and "echo chamber" prattle with a substantive response. Strategically speaking, it'd have been absurd for her to do so because she already had the initiative. She'd gain nothing by responding to Team Trump's response to her own false flag.
    • Otiosely, Trump and his people spent about a week floundering about looking for an alternative besides the House chamber. Of course, Nance and other savvy strategic thinkers knew damn well there is none. The SOTU delivered in the House chamber is the only setting in which a POTUS' elected opposers may appear deferentially respectful to him.

      Accordingly, Trump opted to defer his SOTU speech.
      • Strategically speaking, I think his doing so is another blunder for it leaves "cards" in Pelosi's hand, whereas simply delivering his SOTU from the Oval or in writing (as she suggested) -- "cutting bait," as it were -- would close the matter and deny Pelosi the chance to land even more shots, whereas he's go no ammo at all. After all, she orchestrated this logomachy when she suggested the deferral.
Pelosi's astute observers know her threats veiled as advice is unmitigated "subtlety on steroids." (She's hardly the only patrician politician who does that; it's merely that Trump doesn't get it because his only tricks are those of the playground bully.) Her SOTU suggestions to Trump represented the second time she quietly gave Trump good advice, and, to his great chagrin, he rejected it.

In the December 2018 "Chuck and Nancy" meeting she warned Trump to dismiss the press. He refused her admonition: "I don’t think we should have a debate in front of the press on this." And what happened? Schumer converted what would have been private politicking into a public blow from which Trump has yet to recover: "I am proud to shut down the government." (That particular diction -- "proud to" -- was even more than they'd hoped for.)

Why did that happen that way? Because then as now, Trump thinks it's about "playing" the press. Pelosi and Schumer know it's not about "playing the press; it's about "playing" one's political opponent, maneuvering him into a position from which there is no return. The pressmen merely report what they're told and what they see.

So, now twice in about a month's time, Trump has been hoist by the petard of his own ego.

With that all said, let's get to what's most troubling about Trump's ego having been so facilely played: it shows us just how easy it is to do. Think about that in terms of Trump's interactions with Putin, MBS, KJU, and Xi. If you think they don't play Trump like a fiddle, you're sorely mistaken.
 
To this day I remain astounded that not everyone has the basic common-sense-tool-kit to see through Trumps con-game veneer.

Perhaps the most apt comparison I can manage is that the Trump administration is uncomfortably similar to the Church of Scientology.

A cult which requires deprogramming to escape from its tenacious clutches.
 
See ~3:40 in the video below.

 
The SOTU speech matter is one thing and one thing only: sending messages, and not trivial ones about a damn venue or speech.
  • Nancy Pelosi subtly demonstrated -- not told, showed -- Trump that he is now in her "ocean." What is that ocean? Nothing other than the "roaring forties, furious fifties and the screaming sixties" of the "Southern Ocean" that is the maelstrom of adversarial politics in Washington, waters Trump has, until now, never seen or "sailed."

    Look at the sequence of events pertaining to the SOTU address' venue, which in and of itself was is no major thing (he doesn't actually have to deliver it in person or in the House chamber, but delivering it so is an opportunity a POTUS would be stupid to spurn):
    • The set-up, one might even call it a "bow shot" or the "bait":
      • She rescinds the invitation to speak before the House.
      • She stated the real reason, the shutdown -- which makes sense because how does one talk about what one's government is going to do when that very government is not operating by one's own hand -- and she included an overtly Quixotic political "windmill," the remarks about security concerns, to see whether he'd tilt at it (He/his Administration did.)
        • How does one know she put the security thing out there as a false flag? Because this is her second time round as Speaker. There's no way she's naive to the capabilities of the Capitol Police (CP), which is the organization responsible for the SOTU's immediate security, and the FBI, SS, and other agencies that collaborate with the CP for SOTU security. She also knew Trump's Admin would underestimate her by thinking her as "new" as they are.
    • Camp Trump's response was the usual blustery and benightedly transactional BS. (Notably, McConnell, who is as capable in the "big league" as Pelosi and seeing the writing on the wall, pretty much extricated himself from the whole of the shutdown imbroglio.)
    • Pelosi's response to that --> She didn't dignify the Admin. response and "echo chamber" prattle with a substantive response. Strategically speaking, it'd have been absurd for her to do so because she already had the initiative. She'd gain nothing by responding to Team Trump's response to her own false flag.
    • Otiosely, Trump and his people spent about a week floundering about looking for an alternative besides the House chamber. Of course, Nance and other savvy strategic thinkers knew damn well there is none. The SOTU delivered in the House chamber is the only setting in which a POTUS' elected opposers may appear deferentially respectful to him.

      Accordingly, Trump opted to defer his SOTU speech.
      • Strategically speaking, I think his doing so is another blunder for it leaves "cards" in Pelosi's hand, whereas simply delivering his SOTU from the Oval or in writing (as she suggested) -- "cutting bait," as it were -- would close the matter and deny Pelosi the chance to land even more shots, whereas he's go no ammo at all. After all, she orchestrated this logomachy when she suggested the deferral.

<shortened for brevity>

Why did that happen that way? Because then as now, Trump thinks it's about "playing" the press. Pelosi and Schumer know it's not about "playing the press; it's about "playing" one's political opponent, maneuvering him into a position from which there is no return. The pressmen merely report what they're told and what they see.

So, now twice in about a month's time, Trump has been hoist by the petard of his own ego.

With that all said, let's get to what's most troubling about Trump's ego having been so facilely played: it shows us just how easy it is to do. Think about that in terms of Trump's interactions with Putin, MBS, KJU, and Xi. If you think they don't play Trump like a fiddle, you're sorely mistaken.
I think the bolded is a great observation, and a great statement. I agree.

It was reported that Trump was taken-back unprepared for Pelosi's quick actions in rescinding the SOTU in response to his recent statement that he was coming. And that in effect started the unravel that got the government open 48 hours later.

This and other actions by him is telling me that he is a tactician, not a strategist. And unfortunately for him, his tactics are leaving him a bit wanting these days, with no strategy to bail himself out.
 
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