re: #1 Charles Johnson

I’m sticking to this: our president is using the rhetorical tactics used by domestic abusers.

Everybody is more guilty, or guilty first, so nobody can accuse him.

It’s not dementia, it’s not stupid (nor is it smart): it’s bottom barrel emotional manipulation by someone who really can’t imagine they could be wrong…both in the sense of veracity and morality.

Thing is, he has an audience that likes this style, which in some ways make him the kind of “populist tyrant” the Romans used to fear…directly addressing the crowd, whipping people up with flourishes such that procedure and proof don’t matter. Which, grossly, dovetails with the whole gaslights/ why’d you make me do that style.