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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
You forget that a lot of Trump's voters are anti-establishment. You really think they're just gonna instantly side with the evil establishment who betrayed and ruined the man who was about to drain the swamp and make America great again? After all, if he'd been given just a bit more time, he would've proved all those damn liberals wrong, but no, those rich bastard politicians didn't want him rocking the boat, so they impeached him on overblown bullshit charges.
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That's making the rather large assumption that the propaganda outlets favored by the GOP base will ever turn against Trump themselves.
More likely is that, no matter what happens, they'll sing Trump's praises for every little thing that goes right (e.g. rising stock prices, the sun coming up in the morning) and blame every little thing that goes wrong (e.g. a crap economy, natural disasters) on the Democrats. The GOP has effectively planted the seeds of the Big Brother cult and the accompanying Two Minutes Hate.
edited 13th Jun '17 9:54:54 AM by TrashJack
"Cynic, n. — A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be." - The Devil's DictionaryI still think Trump's a patsy. I don't think he knowingly colluded with Russia, but I do think a lot of people under him did, and he's committed a lot of federal crimes in the pursuit of covering it up for them because he's an idiot and an egomaniac. The very suggestion that he might not be fully responsible for his success in 2016, which he cannot shut the f*ck up about for five seconds even when meeting with foreign dignitaries, is unconscionable to him.
From the start, this has been an ego trip for him. He wanted to become President so that everyone would fall to their knees and go, "Congratulations! You won at life! Everyone loves you and will praise you forever! Here is a solid gold statue to your greatness! We're erecting them in every nation! Would you like your electoral map framed?" The reality of being President has been pissing him off for months because instead of becoming above criticism, the President is even more heavily criticized.
Putin, meanwhile, is sitting in Moscow laughing maniacally to himself because he got exactly what he wanted. This was never about installing a puppet ruler. It was always about destabilizing the U.S. and delegitimizing our democracy. Mission f*cking accomplished. No matter what happens with Trump, whether he makes it eight years or gets impeached, the damage is done. Putin's already won this round.
Which, again, is why I don't think we're ever going to find anything that directly connects Trump to Moscow. Putin didn't put him into power to be Moscow's hand in America. He put him into power to be a malevolent idiot and inject massive amounts of self-destructive stupidity into the leadership of the most powerful nation in the world.
EDIT: I wouldn't be surprised if the whole thing started as a joke. Like Putin was sitting around with his advisors in 2013 going,
- Putin: Hey guys, I just got the best idea. What would happen if a dumbass like Kim Jong-Un became America's President?
- Advisor: That would be hilarious and wonderful for us, but where would we find such a dumbass that people will actually vote for/
- Putin: I know just the place: American celebrity culture.
edited 13th Jun '17 9:58:10 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Trump is an easily manipulated idiot. The Russians likely compromised a few people close to him that's been leading to him making all these questionable appointments.
I guess Trump really is just that stupid.
edited 13th Jun '17 10:34:23 AM by MadSkillz
That strikes me as the less likely explanation, though- like there isn't anything in particular pointing to Sessions being compromised before he started working for Trump. Isn't 'Trump owes Russia money' a much simpler explanation than 'several people in Trump's inner circle were compromised, and they manipulated Trump into appointing a bunch of other people who had secretly been compromised as some point during their decades long careers'?
Secretary Zink supports reducing Bears Ears. He even says the tribes who consider it to be a sacred place are ok with it. (Hint: they're not.)
https://www.nrdc.org/experts/nrdc/bears-ears-falls-victim-trumps-attack-monuments?utm_
Secretary Zink, you are a disgrace to the Department of the Interior.
edited 13th Jun '17 11:52:28 AM by megaeliz
No, it's not, because it assumes Trump cares about paying back his debts. He doesn't even pay his contractors and he's filed bankruptcy so many times that nobody's even sure if he has any money. Even if he does owe money to Russia, what are they going to do? Send an invasion force to foreclose on America?
Similarly, "Trump is being blackmailed by Putin" assumes that Trump gives two shits about scandals. There's a reason they're calling him Teflon Don. Trump paid hookers to pee on a bed! SCANDAL! Clearly that's much worse than him eagerly endorsing sexual assault on tape!
If there's one thing that's never really been in question, it's that Trump is thoroughly convinced of his own invulnerability.
edited 13th Jun '17 11:53:43 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.He cares about being made to look bad, being humiliated, laughed at. He doesn't give a damn about impropriety, illegality, or the appearances thereof; he just cannot stand negative public portrayals of himself.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Yes. Because he's an idiot and a bully, and the investigation is undermining the basic narrative he wants for his administration: Trump won all by himself because Trump is so awesome, he did it all by himself, with his own hands, and won't you please be in awe of how awesome he is?
And he's doing a shitty job of burying it because he's an idiot and a bully. Do you think Putin, former KGB Agent and master spy, told him to fire Comey and then go on TV bragging about how he's totally buried the investigation? Did Putin tell him to boast about how he wants to bring Flynn back even though everyone knows he's crooked with the Russians? The others around Trump make some effort to disguise their involvement with the Russians, but he does it all openly and visibly like an idiot and then, once caught, brags about it on camera. Trump would be the shittiest spy.
To me, the question of, "Why are so many people around Trump involved with the Russians," is pretty simple to answer. It answers itself. Those people are around Trump because they helped him get elected and kissed his ass into appointing them. He's an egomaniacal moron. Manipulating him is child's play, and we've heard countless times out of the White House that he's basically the rope in a tug-of-war of influence.
edited 13th Jun '17 12:06:08 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Weren't you just arguing that he can't be blackmailed because of how little he gives a shit? Am I the only one who sees how these two things are kind of incompatible positions? Someone who cares deeply about controlling the narrative someone who's extremely vulnerable to blackmail.
And, I mean, no, that doesn't answer the question of why those people are involved with the Russians. It answers the question of why they're involved with Trump, but if Russia was just in it to spread chaos, why is there continuing fuckery now that that goal is achieved? If to so far-fetch'd to imagine that the answer is that Trump, is, in fact, a really shitty spy who keeps doing stupid things on his own initiative?
edited 13th Jun '17 12:18:34 PM by Gilphon
Trump has shown that he's far too narcissistic and unreliable to make an effective agent. It cannot all be an act. It's far more likely that he's a useful idiot whom the Russians helped manipulate into power so they could take advantage of the resulting weakness in U.S. governance.
This is not to say that other members of Trump's inner circle might not have been compromised. But really, why should the Russians take that risk when they can get everything they want by feeding them encouragement and fake news and letting them tear the country apart by themselves?
edited 13th Jun '17 12:26:50 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I don't see why that fact that he'd be laughably incompetent at being a spy is a significant counter-argument, considering he's a laughably incompetent businessman who became a laughably incompetent president.
I would, additionally, argue that the appeal of making somebody compromised into the president might well be strong enough to override any concerns Putin may have about his competency.
That Trump isn't afraid of being blackmailed doesn't mean he's not a narcissistic man-baby. That's the thing. If you went to him and were like, "I have this tape of you in a compromising position," he'd take that as a challenge. His ego demands it. And if you released it, he'd make a bunch of statements about how it's fake news made up to discredit him by people with very small penises and then move on.
And then he'd keep it circulating in the news by continuing to make statements for months about how awful it is that people keep talking about it, because that's the kind of idiot he is. But he'd also be sure to mention in each of those interviews how he totally won and "everyone knows" his story is right.
You know. The thing he's doing right now.
As for why not compromise him: to put it bluntly: because Putin's smarter than that. Same reason he hasn't tampered with actual votes. Trump's cabinet being full of Russian shills means he has people in place who can influence Trump the way he needs, and every time one's found out, there's a long process to try and remove them and Trump's PR gets a little bit weaker, but at the end of the day, Trump is still President.
Trump being discovered to be a Russian shill would undermine his entire Presidency in exactly the same way that evidence of votes being altered in 2016 would. It would create short-term havoc as the system is crippled by Constitutional Crisis, but once that's resolved, the nation would be stronger for it. Trump would be out of power, there may even be a re-election, and steps would be taken to ensure this never happens again. Russia would openly be declared an enemy of the U.S. once more and Putin's influence over Western Civilization would die right then and there.
Compromising Trump is the stupidest possible thing Putin could have done. A useful, untouchable fool can be far more useful than a spy whose cover may be blown at any moment.
edited 13th Jun '17 1:07:06 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.![]()
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Loophole Abuse at its finest - he recused himself from the investigation, not from the outcome of the investigation.
edited 13th Jun '17 1:09:22 PM by ironballs16
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"

I don't know that it is that much of an opportunity. Because the majority of the republican voters are still with Trump. Backstabbing Trump meaning risking pissing them off, and it's doubtful the democratic voters would be willing to give any republicans the benefit of the doubt directly after Trump.
It's risking trading a polarized country for bipartisan opposition.