What Donald Trump Could Learn From South Park

Remember the episode with the gnomes?

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With the Republican National Convention under way, it seems as though a big chunk of President Donald Trump’s re-election strategy has been crafted by the gnomes on the cartoon South Park. He should change that, if he wants to win.

In a now-famous South Park episode that originally aired in 1998 (but, conveniently, is now familiar to the younger generation as a meme), the gnomes offer a three-phase business plan: “gather the underpants,” followed by a question mark, and then, “profit.”

Trump’s team is pointing to his past economic success (call it Phase I) and arguing that he is uniquely qualified to lead a “Great American Comeback” once the pandemic has passed and that we will all profit. But he’s still got a great big question mark on the second phase of the plan: a strategy to actually defeat the pandemic.

Throughout this crisis, President Trump has failed to grapple effectively with the substance of an effective pandemic response. He has been loath to embrace social distancing, mask wearing, massive increases in COVID testing, contact tracing, and other techniques. 

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  1. Avatar photo
    Mike B

    "... and the discipline to follow through on them."

    Aye, there's the rub.

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  2. Avatar photo
    Scarlette Tarte

    Lol, He doesn't have a plan and never did. The economy was growing because of Obama's policies. He helped it along by getting rid of some regulations.

    We live in a "down the rabbit hole" world, where the stock market does well, while the rest of us suffer. That should tell you all you need to know about who benefits from the "way things are" in this country. Only the very, very wealthy. Those whose money makes them money.

    Not the little guy. Not anymore. It will take years to pull out of this. There is no quick fix, because it is not tied to futures, banking regulations, anything like that that can be manipulated into profit. It is mom and pop businesses, places with little real capital, no fairy dust to turn into gold.

    Trump is terribly unqualified for this. He and his team of grifters have no idea what to do, but continue the con. "Just tell everyone everything is okay and maybe they will buy into that", IS their plan.

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  3. deathtomcmansions

    We won't know if convalescent plasma works until good science is done. By pushing it before well-designed studies are done, he just screws up the whole process (as well as diverting resources towards other needed covid research.) If it's not effective, it's one more reason not to trust him re covid.

    https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/does-convalescent-plasma-work-against-covid-19-who-knows/

    Good info in the comments at the linked article.

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  4. Avatar photo
    cheerio

    From The Hill:
    GOP convention's first night draws fewer viewers than Democratic kickoff
    "The Republican National Convention averaged 15.9 million viewers on its opening night, falling short of the 18.7 million who tuned in for the beginning of last week's Democratic convention, according to Nielsen Media Research figures released Tuesday.

    Viewership on Monday evening was down 30 percent from the first night of the 2016 GOP convention, similar to the 28 percent decline from four years ago for Democrats."

    I am sure Trump will insist that the surplus Democrats were watching illegally.

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  5. PM

    South Park is too adult for me...but probably apropos of you know who.

    If Helen launched a thousand ships, he couldn't get his boat out of the harbor.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Earl King

    So blow your reputation as a conservative and vote for Biden...when Biden is President are you going to criticize his policies? If you do MSNBC will dump you. Try and get a job with a conservative publication....good luck..Oh The Dispatch will hire you...as you have proved you can rant about Trump....but they and you will become irrelevant.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Dave

      Some of us don't think trillion dollar deficits, poor leadership, incompetence, incoherence, corruption, tax increases, or fraud are any better when administered by a Republican President than when administered by a Democratic one.

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    2. Avatar photo
      Scarlette Tarte

      Earl, you are a one note wonder. The Dispatch has taken a critical look at Biden policies, and a look at his policies they think will do some good. That is fair.

      You are too worried about protecting your conservative "bona fides" instead of actually looking fairly at Biden, or any Democrat. The DISPATCH is trying to move away from hating on one party JUST because they are the opposition party, and trying to move the country back to being fair to each other. You should help in that.

      The Dispatch is not worried about being on MSNBC NOR FOX. That is good. That is how it should be.

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    3. Avatar photo
      cheerio

      Or, conversely--the Republican Party will become irrelevant.

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  7. Avatar photo
    SusanC

    “Yet, you don’t get dessert without eating your vegetables.“, or, per Pink Floyd:

    "If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you
    have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?"

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  8. Avatar photo
    Pat Riot

    "Yet, you don’t get dessert without eating your vegetables. There will be no opportunity for a “Great American Comeback” until and unless we get the virus under control."

    What blows my mind is that the Republicans *still* don't get this. They still talk as though opening the economy up is just a matter of *deciding* to do so.

    And this refusal to understand has left our country with 170k dead, hundreds of thousands more severely and permanently sickened, trillions in outlays and lost GDP, and our leadership position in the world, making us the laughing stock of every other country on Earth.

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  9. Avatar photo
    Jordan

    The "low hanging fruit > ? > profit" strategy is a good description of the way Trump approaches almost everything. What has been frustrating in the last 4+ years is to see how often that strategy has broken in his political favor, regardless of the practical results for the people and our institutions.

    COVID-19 has been one major exception to that long series of lucky breaks, to our great expense. Hopefully the South Park Gnome strategy will fail Trump to our collective benefit in November.

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  10. Avatar photo
    Bill Nelson

    I think Trump is a serious South Park fan:
    YOU WILL RESPECT MY AUTHOR-I-TIE

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    1. Avatar photo
      Scarlette Tarte

      He is very much Cartman. And just like Cartman, he gets his gang (all of us) into trouble all the time with his shenanigans.

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