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Home » Donald Trump: at face value

Donald Trump: at face value

The New Neo Posted on by

Is it really such a good idea to make fun of a rival candidate’s looks?

It doesn’t matter if it’s a man or a woman being mocked, or a man or a woman doing the mocking. It’s always an extremely juvenile way to go.

And yet Donald Trump went there, about Carly Fiorina:

The [Rolling Stone] profile contains Trump saying of Fiorina, while watching her on TV, “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?! I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not s’posedta say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?”

Silly, mean-spirited, petulant, sophomoric (and that’s high school sophomore, not college). I’m not even sure what he’s referring to, since I happen to think Fiorina’s an attractive, well-groomed, well-dressed 61-year-old woman. I’d guess she’s had some “work” done on her face, but certainly not enough to be grotesque in any way. Here’s her response to Trump’s comments:

Trump himself is a 69-year old man whose face has seen better days (as have the faces of all of us of “a certain age”). All the more reason he shouldn’t go there. He’s had his share of ribbing about his supposed toupee, too, although not from me. I couldn’t care less if he wears a toupee or not, but I’ve never perceived him as wearing one. I’ve always thought he just has an unusual head of hair or sports an odd combover.

One thing I do think is that Trump, who appears to be another narcissist (I’m a bit tired of that these days, after all the years of Obama), is getting more and more full of himself now that his campaign has been so successful. Always confident and brash, he’s even more confident and brash than before. Flush with his own cleverness and PC-flaunting brilliance, he could be tempted to be just a little more outrageous as time goes on. Trump will either get hold of himself and rein it back a bit (just a bit, because if he reined it back too much, Trump wouldn’t be Trump), or this sort of juvenile trash-talking will escalate until he alienates more and more people.

All this talk about faces, though, makes me think of these songs, all of which are about reacting to a person’s face. They all have the word “face” in the title, too.

Enjoy:

I think maybe I wrote the part of the post about Trump and Fiorina just to have an excuse for the songs.

[ADDENDUM: Trump tries to walk back his comment by saying that when he said “Look at that face!” he didn’t actually mean Fiorina’s face, he meant her persona.

I don’t know about you, but to me there’s no way that “face” means “persona.” And “Look at that face!” means “look at that face.” There’s nothing metaphorical there.]

Comments

Donald Trump: at face value — 68 Comments

  1. Carly Fiorina is a pretty and fit woman who looks serious when she’s serious and happy when she’s laughing, and she doesn’t go off-message. That rubs Trump the wrong way. She’s an outsider who and talks much better than he.

  5. I am glad to see Trump “take it to” the journalists and to blast away at “political correctness.” He is opening up the dialogue, and America is responding.

    But, Trump ridicules Megan Kelly, essentially calling her a bimbo, because she’s attractive. Trump criticizes Carly Fiorina, who is certainly not a bimbo, because . . . she doesn’t look like a bimbo.

    He needs to get hold of himself.

    However, to the extent Carly attracts support simply by virtue of being a woman, this won’t hurt her at all.

  6. I really feel this Junior High level comment revealed the tip of the iceberg that is Donald Trump. I honestly can’t think of anything a Trump supporter could say to gloss over this childish, uncalled for comment. Combine this with his stupid comment about letting Syrians come here and I think he is going to start tripping all over himself. Yes, it is fun to see him give it back to the Obama supporters who call themselves journalists, but really, he looks and sounds like an idiot when he starts commenting on a person’s looks! Especially looking like he looks!

  7. About Trump’s comment: many, many people will think yet again “out of the mouth of babes Trump.”

    Trump knows how to use personalizing tactics as good as any good leftist. When it comes to Fiorina, who knows how many people and for how long will be talking or thinking about her face?

    Some conservatives advocate using these Gramscian/Alinsky tactics.

    This is what they look like.

  8. See “Beauty Myth” by Naomi Wolfe

    Drink a bottle of a young red wine and then drink a bottle or good aged red wine. Now tell me the difference.

    This is why I don’t think women or men need to change their features with cosmetic work.
    It makes them fake. It takes away the realness of the person. (What are they hiding?)

  9. OT, I know, but this is the opposite of the Trump style – – Cruz yesterday on Iran deal.

    http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=youtube+cruz+speech+on+iran&FORM=VIRE11#view=detail&mid=541F5F9A62C89DB937E0541F5F9A62C89DB937E0

    The man apparently does this without script or teleprompter (although I could be wrong).

    This is a valuable skill acquired as an appellate lawyer, organizing your thoughts to be able to give a protracted, coherent, argument “extemporaneously.”

  11. Trump is wrong. Fiorina is an attractive woman. And she is very bright. She unlike Trump can give a coherent conservative speech.

    This is clearly a mistake by Trump. No doubt he will get away with it, but come on Trump, this isn’t junior high school.

  13. Peripeheral to faces, this brings to mind (my mind) another song, Joel Gray’s If You Could See Her Through My Eyes.

    Perhaps Trump sees Carly thus.

    How smart is it to ‘go there’ when there are no votes to be had there. Kind of sets off disambiguation alarms as to just what kind of nimrod Mr Trump is. OTOH, it is all too human to see as one sees (for whatever reason). Just as an example, there are some — many — who see BHO not as his sycophants do but just so.

  15. O and R @ 10:28 – –

    Love your comparison to Kramer (the id on Seinfeld).

    There were a couple of relevant episodes I recall.

    There was the one where Jerry and Elaine do not want to tell a friend how old-fashioned and out-of-it her hair style was, but they figure Kramer will do that for them. In a Seinfeld switcheroo, Kramer as predicted does notice her hair style but loves it. This is what conservatives might get.

    In the other, he tells a woman to get a nose job.

    Trump is operating somewhere on that level, but I believe his spontaneity and truth-telling are shrewder and more calculated.

    And he can get away with it because of how phony our world has become – – the colored ribbon society.

  16. Carly’s response is why I’m supporting her. Instead of falling back on the tired old female whining about Trump being a sexist (he probably is) She basically pushed back that she must be getting under his skin. Which is probably true. Trump is using the Democrat tactic to attack the person, if you can’t attack their political message. Maybe he really is a Democrat.

    We don’t need a playboy centerfold as a President. Lord knows Margaret Thacher and Golda Meir weren’t beauties, but they were strong leaders. Something this nation needs after 8 years of the Super-Narcissist Obama.

    My position as a 67 year old man is that yes it’s time we had a woman as president… just not Hillary.

    “Hillary for Prison in 2016”

  17. He ought not to have made that remark about Carly. He could – if he wanted to indulge a vicious streak – have saved something like it for Hillary who is the real enemy.

    A little while back I Googled Carly Fiorina, and after being surprised that she was nee’ Sneed, and from Texas, as you pointed out, I went to images.

    She now looks nothing like herself 20 years ago – even aged. My personal opinion is that absent some medical reason, she had better left well enough alone.

    Note: just now in search of somewhat older images, I came across this image from 2010. http://www.norcalblogs.com/postscripts/files/import/3698-carly_fiorina231.jpg

    Apparently she has had some very serious health issues to deal with.

  18. I’m also a 67 year old man who thinks Carly is our best choice.based on competence and electability. As far as looks go, the more she speaks the more she appeals. I’ve heard many “hot” babes for whom the opposite is true.

  19. Yeah, this is just the sort of behavior that will do him in. There’s a difference between taking to the opponent and mean-spirited.

  20. I think Trump has a motormouth problem. That was not wise. However, he is right in that candidates have been making fun of his hair (including a Trump logo put out by Rand Paul, I believe). Also, Carly herself was caught on a hot mic dissing Barbara Boxer’s looks/hair when she ran for Senate.

    Everyone thinks these kinds of things…and many people will say this kind of stuff in private with people whom they trust. Trump was just dumb enough and egotistical enough to say it in front of a reporter. Not smart.

  22. God, I hope this knocks Trump out of the race. I’m horrified by him. He’s the Return of the Repressed, after years of stifling PC, a real-life monster.

  23. God, I hope this knocks Trump out of the race. I’m horrified by him.
    OMG! Trump was mean!

    We are amusing ourselves to death!

  24. Every time Trump critics say, “Trump really went over the line this time,” or something to that effect about whatever the latest thing is he’s said, his approval ratings go even higher. It’s amazing.

  28. vanderleun Says:
    September 10th, 2015 at 12:20 pm
    What makes you think we are not amusing ourselves to death already?
    Yup!

  29. Immature frat boy remark by Trump. Yep, he reminds me of some of the spoiled, narcissistic frat boys of my era. I often cringe when recalling some of the things I said and did as an immature frat boy.

    This may play well in some segments of the population. Old geezers like me, not so much.

    That said, Trump, with his 24/7 media presence, is pumping up the audience fro the 9/16 debate. Not a bad thing. We shall see if Carly can slice and dice her detractors then. I’m looking forward to it.

  30. This is Trump’s best and worst quality: he’s out there saying whatever pops in his head, and he says things in a way that most people do, not in the PC, poll-tested and scripted manner we get from most other politicians. You can’t have the glorious zingers without missteps like the Carly comment.

    However, spare me the media “outrage” over this. After all they’ve said about Palin, and their cute trick of re-broadcasting clips from SNL & The Daily Show during news programs (to broadcast “humor” that says what they can’t say themselves), they have zero credibility.

  32. you left out roy orbison…

    and what your reading is how the cool kids in high school bully the other kids into following them. which shows what a juvinile mind leftist have given that debate lost to such things in high school.

    whats missing is the cigarette hanging and the blase i dont care attitude with one leg up on the wall..

  34. Trump . . . is getting more and more full of himself now that his campaign has been so successful. Always confident and brash, he’s even more confident and brash than before. Flush with his own cleverness and PC-flaunting brilliance, he could be tempted to be just a little more outrageous as time goes on. [Neoneocon]

    Denny Crane!

  35. He’s been interesting and has served a purpose but, he’s acting like a real jerk here. I’ve understood his appeal although not the depth of it.
    Just heard part of Jindal’s speech re: Trump. Sounds like he nailed it.
    Thanks, Obama. And Lord help us.

  36. I both support Trump and Carly. I also find her attractive and impeccably well groomed ( although I’ll leave to neo to be a better arbiter).
    Trump needs to dial down a bit and should be able to walk back his Carly critique.
    Because she is so attractive for her age , he should be able to walk it back.

  37. G6loq:

    Trump can spin it whatever way he wants, but unless he is denying he ever said that quote, the quote makes it crystal clear: he was talking about her face.

  38. This captures the essence of why I not only oppose Trump; I actively dislike him.

    He is a pampered bully who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. I can only imagine what the little rich boy was like in the sand box when he actually fit in there. He has obviously outgrown the sand box without maturing noticeably.

    Presidential? My daughter has two African Pygmy goats who would fit the image just as well; her Great Pyrennees would out shine this clown.

    Final thought. Look at the images of Trump’s perpetually petulant face, and you have to wonder why he would even bring up that subject. His notion of a “tough guy” look needs some serious work.

  39. My take on Trump has always been that it’s not that people are “for” him so much – despite their protestations – but rather they’re desperately against the GOP “establishment” and their disdain of – and lies to – their base voters, and have seized on him to deliver that message: Change or Die.)

    And I can’t find fault with “I’m pretty tired of [megalomaniac] narcissists in office” bit …me too.

    …but y’know? – I am at the point in politics where I’m thinking I won’t have a dog in this race.

    Don’t like Democrats in general …let’s face it, they lie AND they’re immorally and intransigently stupid.

    Don’t like the Republicans …they lie stupidly WHICH IS stupid in immoral ways (yeah: subtle distinction, but I can sum it up with “they suck too” in a Trumpism).

    Just. Fire. Them. All.

    New party?

    Is there a box for “Other” or maybe “None”?

    …though maybe what we really need is new voters. The current ones seem like utter dunderheads and/or self-absorbed asses to me.

    I’ve been inclined to drop out since the 2012’s (were voters really that blind and stupid), and that tendency seems to be accelerating.

    Maybe it really is the End Times.

  40. BTW, just to play devil’s advocate, is it possible everyone is projecting when they assume Trump was talking about the attractiveness of CF’s face?

    Have not we all throughout our lives noted certain characteristics of a person’s face unrelated to physical appeal and made comments or judgments?

    Personally, I love the various photos of Hillary’s face which relate to phoniness, cluelessness, vacuity etc. It’s all there on her face. I look at Hillary’s face and I do think “How could she be president?”

    We have to be careful about what our assumptions say about us.

  41. Tonawana:

    If he wasn’t talking about her attractiveness, then he doesn’t know how to speak English and properly convey a thought. That he was talking about attractivenss was the logical conclusion to draw from what he said, and if he meant something else that he has a serious inability to express himself.

  42. What’s even more disgusting are the yahoos cheering on Trump’s pointless, uncalled for and ugly comments, as if they were an important victory against political correctness. As if this is the truth about Fiorina everyone thinks but has been afraid to speak. These extreme Trump supporters have reached a point of accepting his personal opinions as truisms precisely because they are vulgar and precisely because he has spoken them. Getting dangerously close to cult dynamics here.

    I personally find Fiorina one of the most stylish, attractive and well-spoken figures in the public forum, male or female. If I were her I’d try to stay well away from the Kelly/Trump Punch and Judy show. Though Kelly didn’t give her much of choice.

  43. Like John Dough, I wondered what Trump would say about Thatcher and Meir. I also wonder whether he even knows who they were.
    I personally find him ugly, both physically and characterwise.

  44. Jenna:

    I agree.

    I also would add something I’ve been thinking since the “face” remark, and that’s this—

    In the last ten years I’ve seen the growth of blogs and discussion groups online, as well as comments, from men who talk about women as “10s” or lesser numbers, rating them in terms of their f***ability and talking about either their own conquests of women, or how rotten many women are for not wanting them. These groups can get really really nasty and vulgar and filled with hatred, but one of their main occupations is, as I said, rating women.

    I’ve also noticed that their standards for what’s a “9” or “10” (the only acceptable numbers) are rather high. For example, if a woman isn’t under 35 (and preferably under 30) she is almost automatically old, worn-out, a has-been, out of the sexual running.

    We don’t see what these men look like themselves—after all, on the internet no one knows you’re a dog 🙂 . But an older woman is generally anathema to them.

    Another thing they hate, positively hate, are woman who have slightly-masculine features (accent on the “slightly”). No one would ever mistake these women for men, but they tend to have slightly larger jaws and longer faces than the woman the men lust after. The latter tend to have faces with more childish characteristics, such as smaller jaws and big wide eyes. Carly Fiorina is not only an older woman, but she has a face that is more the former type than the latter type, and thus is considered ripe for mocking.

    I believe Donald Trump is playing to this group of men. They also very much admire the so-called “alpha male,” and think themselves to be alpha men, too. They almost certainly see Trump as the quintessential alpha man.

    Is he aware of all of this and consciously playing to it? I don’t know. Possibly.

  45. I don’t remember, but did we jump all over Romney here after his 47% remark? People being people, we will all say stupid and sometimes vulgar things.

    We need to find a little humility and stop complaining about Trump’s “vulgarity”.

    Romney was not vulgar. See where that got us as anti-Dems?

  46. The guy just doesn’t have the right instincts — how many fathers would consciously think or say this, as he did in 2006:

    Trump and Ivanka, a vice president of real estate development at the Trump Organization, appeared Monday on ABC’s The View to promote her five-episode stint as a boardroom adviser on The Apprentice.

    When asked how he would react if Ivanka, a former teen model, posed for Playboy, Trump replied, “It would be really disappointing – not really – but it would depend on what’s inside the magazine.”

    He added: “I don’t think Ivanka would do that, although she does have a very nice figure. I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”

    His comments drew laughs from the audience, and prompted View co-host Joy Behar to crack, “Who are you, Woody Allen?”

  47. néo-neocon Says:
    September 10th, 2015 at 2:20 pm
    G6loq:

    Trump can spin it whatever way he wants, but unless he is denying he ever said that quote, the quote makes it crystal clear: he was talking about her face.
    Yo!
    Of course he was! Literally.
    But the Donald doesn’t do literal.
    The effect? Everyone’s talking about him!
    Basic game.

    That is life in business, walk in the room full of oxygen sucking wannabes, poseurs, tap dancers and assorted eloquent sharp tongued promoters that won’t know what to do if they catch the car. Just like the proverbial dog.
    Question is: who can execute without screwing up… Hmmm … Hi Carly!

    Watch what Cruz does. Cruz knows.

  48. Frog:

    Actually, as soon as I heard the 47% remark I felt a sinking in the pit of my stomach and was afraid Romney might be finished. He was already the nominee, so there was no turning back, and if he was finished then Obama would be re-elected.

    However, I make a big distinction between something Romney said to donors when he thought he was off the record (that was the context for the 47% remark, although Romney should have known that there might be a spy there recording it, which there was) and something a candidate says to a reporter on the record, which is what happened with Trump re the “face” remark.

    Trump showed astoundingly bad judgement in that respect.

  49. G6loq:

    Are you suggesting that Trump’s remark about Carly’s face was a strategic and calculated move to garner more attention? He certainly sometimes does that, but I don’t happen to think that remark was that—except, of course, that his entire persona (not his face; his persona) is geared towards that end, and this is part of his brash, “I don’t care what you think of me,” persona.

    That’s why I wrote in my most recent post:

    he is a loose cannon, and he gets off on that and thinks many of his followers will get off on it, as well.

    I think he is correct in that estimation. But I don’t think it’s true of quite as many of his followers as he thinks, and I think it repels at least as many if not more. I guess we’ll see.

    In other words, Trump definitely thinks that remarks such as his about Fiorina are part of the reason his followers love him, and that’s probably true of many of them. I just don’t know how many. We’ll see.

  50. Well, a trump biden contest would be a gaffe a minute election, lots of revenue for the msm. From the perspective of the left its a win-win affair, at least a democrat would retain control of the Oval Office.

  51. I’ve meet Carly twice and I have pictures to prove it. She is very attractive. I, too, have seen pictures of the younger Carly and I doubt she has had any facial plastic surgery. She did have breast cancer and I don’t know those details. She has, however, lost some weight in her face and neck; not unusual for a 61 year old woman.

    The only value in discussing this is that this latest comment disqualifies Trump for me. And no way does he win the nomination. A large number of women will not vote for Trump under any circumstances.

  53. neo-neocon Says:
    September 10th, 2015 at 4:09 pm
    G6loq:

    Are you suggesting that Trump’s remark about Carly’s face was a strategic and calculated move to garner more attention?
    Yes, part of a flow so to speak.
    He’s working on his name recognition and a such there is no bad publicity… Jujitsu+Alinsky of sort.
    The guy is an operator.

    As to the tenor of most of the comments on your Trump threads today … What did Middle Class Respectability do for Romney?
    Good man, brings home the bacon, community minded and …. the chicks voted for the twit and put him over the top. TWICE!

    Trump knows.
    Watch Cruze. Cruze knows.

  54. This in the Middle Class Respectability piece by Ace made me laugh:
    He is 69 years old. He has lived in a bubble of validation and Yes-Men all his life.

    He is no longer capable of learning.
    Says who! Ace?
    What has Ace ever ran/managed over a … period of time?

    Meanwhile the twit said far worse things with his mouth or his middle finger….
    Middle Class Respectability … another way to say Country Club Republicans?

  55. G6loq:

    Note that middle class respectability is not my concern.

    I’m writing about Trump’s inner character (or lack thereof), which is a different thing than the trappings of “middle-class respectability.” I wrote more about this in this post today.

  56. Inner character? Actually he checks out pretty well…
    Stayed in business, nicely achieved progeny, his colleagues speak highly of him … etc.
    Although some of the positive utterances could be PR, hard to know. After all he’s a main street operator …

    He’s brash on purpose and as to his talking freshly to the females, you’ve come a long way baby!

    If he’s not of a nice inner character, this piece comes to mind.

    Watch Cruz. Cruz knows. Palin knows.
    I think Carson knows.

  57. G6loq:

    I’m a good judge of character most of the time. I think he has enormous character flaws that would make him a bad president. I’ve made that clear in many posts.

    People have many facets, and Trump has some good character traits, too. He has apparently been a good father, for example (as has Obama, apparently). Trump’s been unfaithful to many wives, but seems to be able remain friendly with his wives. I’m sure he has some other good traits. That’s not the issue. He has some very bad traits that in my judgment would make him a bad president. So did Obama, and I certainly was right about that.

  59. sdferr Says:
    September 10th, 2015 at 6:56 pm
    Trump is by type Meno the Thessalian. Mark it.
    Libtard type casual demonization….

    Néo,
    We’ll see. He has been more than humongously useful to the cause. He broke the Repubics’ dialectic hangups ….

    For me, Cruz, Carson, Trump … there is a long slog ahead…

    If they give the apocalyptic Mullahs $150 billions….
    Who knows!

  61. Seems to me if trump is *threatened* by a woman he has to immediately find a way to belittle her.
    Looks are not the actual issue because he felt threatened by Megyn Kelly & he had to attack & knew he could not take the *looks* angle so he went after something uniquely female *her monthly cycle*.
    Just a way for Trump to think he could get an upper hand. With CF he had to do the *look at that face* bit because again it was a way to belittle a female that he feels threatened by. As others have said very immature bordering on hateful & disturbing when you realize this man has daughters of his own, & no surprise that he has had so many marriages. yuk !

  62. sdferr Says:
    September 10th, 2015 at 7:52 pm
    Casual? Ha.

    Libtard? Boffo!
    Yeah libtard likely hogging the computer at the public library.
    Meno♩♪ the Thessalian♫♬ and a linky how effete!

  64. G6loq…….. hmmmm
    guess you feel threatened by certain women too
    La Kelly ???? Really ? Just plain Kelly would have
    worked just fine !

  65. guess you feel threatened by certain women too La Kelly ????
    Hey! She’s doing the bullying … can’t take the heat.
    Equality!

  67. Btw, the executioners are usually the worst ones to seize power, due to 1. bad precedent and 2. lack of moderation and diplomacy skills.

    So the ones that come into power is some pacifist that the executioners back. That’s normally how a revolution smoothly transitions into peace time, as Washington did. Although he was pushed into the leadership role and tried to limit it via term limits, which surprisingly held up over the centuries even without a law for it.

    But the French Revolution and Mao’s Cultural killings are the worst ways to do things.

  68. Seems to me if trump is *threatened* by a woman he has to immediately find a way to belittle her.

    No, that’s how he behaves against anyone he thinks insulted him or stepped out of line. Krauthammer was treated about the same.

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