I agree that scandals and gaffes aren’t going to make one bit of difference for the Trump base. If a scandal would move the needle, it would have happened back in “grab em by the pussy”. If that wasn’t enough to turn church-going Republicans against Trump, nothing, absolutely nothing will. They’re fine with porn stars, bribing porn stars, congratulating dictators, and on and on. None of that will touch them.
So searching for the scandal tipping point is fruitless.
What can really make a difference is that Trump’s policies–as opposed to what he blathers about–are actually very unpopular.
You think tax cuts for the rich are a winning electoral formula? Yes, it’s great for the donor class, and I guess the Republicans would rather betray their base than betray the donors.
But the deplorables don’t want tax cuts for the rich. They want jobs, protectionism, and increasing social services for white people.
They support the way Trump TALKS about issues. They like it when he bashes immigrants and foreigners. They like it when he talks about draining the swamp and fighting the deep state. They like it when he talks about getting tough with China and Mexico and Europe. They like it when he talks about bringing the troops home.
But shockingly, what comes out of Trump’s cake hole and his twitter feed aren’t congruent with his actual accomplishments. His actual accomplishments are cutting taxes for the rich and gutting health care.
Focus on that and Trump’s base of deplorables will abandon him. Focus on how he pays off porn stars and trashes the constitution and they’ll shrug.
If he had just bragged about his affair with Stormy Daniels from the beginning, the GOP base would have loved it! (“See, we told you he was the sexiest man since Attila the Hun. He even has hot porn stars swooning over him!!”) Instead he tries to buy her silence and, moreover, is too cheap to spend from his own billions but probably tried to finance the hush illegally with campaign funds.
Similarly, his love affair with Putin is rather over-the-top in its blatancy. Someone might think his base would be abandoning him by now, not for his immorality or even treason, but simply for his stupidity. (Of course that “someone” would have dramatically misjudged the intellectual caliber of Trump voters.)
There is more to the Stormy affair than we’ve heard. There’s something there trump wants forever hidden. Trump has no tipping point. Any attention is something he cherishes, good, bad, whatever. So, Stormy won’t bother him, other than that one, unknown thing and of course, that’s fake news. Unless it’s something recorded. Harder to pass that off as fake news.
Our hope is that the GOP has a tipping point and that they soon reach it with him.
I’m guessing she might reveal (might even have pictures of) Donald’s kinky behavior, like him pretending to be a baby and wearing a diaper - that sort of thing.
That’s basically my theory – the Trumpoltroon base doesn’t care about a sex scandal per se, but they would be highly offended by the spectacle of their “alpha male” groveling to and being punished by Mistress Stormy (shades of the “uppity wimmin” that their hero was supposed to put in their place, and, more importantly, was supposed to give them the green light to indulge their own misogyny).
The power of “Fake news!” is far stronger than many of us had realized before 2016. For those who wish to believe so, dismissing that footage or imagery as PhotoShopped etc. will be easy.
Upon a quick skim of the last couple pages, I identify exactly* one *person making that argument. All the reasonable Bernie supporters gave up on that thread because we don’t like trolls calling us names. But congratulations on writing one of the most condescending, jerkish posts in that thread…it’s a tough competition. You are truly doing your part to divide the Democratic Party and ensure Republican victory in 2020, and a grateful nation thanks you.
I’d say there were more than one making that sort of argument, but as far as it being a bit jerkish, well, it is in the pit, where jerkishness belongs, so I appreciate the compliment, I was going for condescension.
I disagree entirely that I am doing my part to divide the party. The party is the democratic party, not the socialist party. Trying to turn it into the socialist party, and refusing to support it unless it does is what is damaging. Though, as I’ve said in this thread and others, I don’t think that there are nearly enough that are willing to harm the country in order to get what they demand.
I could be wrong. Your faction could take over the democratic party the way the tea party and alt-right has taken over the republican party. Then we are no better. If that is what you want, go for it, we’ll see how it plays out. I voted for the democratic nominee, and I plan to vote for the democratic nominee in 2020, with extremely few caveats. It is not those who voted for the democratic nominee in 2016 and plan to vote for the democratic nominee in 2020 that russia is grateful for, it is the ones who refuse to support the democratic nominee that they are giving great thanks to. But, honestly, I see your faction making up at most 5% or so of democratic voters. You’re a blip. In the last election, it hurt, since the election was so close, and your faction listened to the russian propaganda that told you to stay home or vote third party. People thought Clinton would win either way, so they thought they were just lodging a protest vote. I doubt that the purists of the party who are willing to throw the country under the bus in order to get what they demand again in 2020 will be even statistically noticeable.
Anyway, thank you for the example of the perspective of someone that is pissed off at the democratic party for not bowing to its every whim, and as such has marginalized themselves in the party. Now HD doesn’t have to go down to the pit in order to see this.
I don’t think they give a fuck. Enough of them have some kind of kink of their own, even if they won’t admit it, that they would give him a pass. But regardless, “Stormy” herself said that Trump liked boring vanilla sex.
By the way, I don’t give “Stormy” any moral high ground here; if she winds up somehow bringing down Trump, that would be great (though I don’t think it would happen) but it still means that she voluntarily (I see no indication that she was hired as an escort) palled around with Trump and validated his whole bullshit asshole persona by being his friend/mistress. I like people who don’t associate with Donald Trump at all.
What the fuck is this “my faction” bullshit? If you mean the people who aren’t going to support the Democratic nominee if the candidate isn’t sufficiently left-wing, I am not one of those people. I am one of the 90% of Bernie supporters who supported Clinton in the general election, which is just about average for the supporters of a losing primary candidate. Your assumption that every Bernie supporter (which is 42% of the Democratic party, btw, not 5% )fits your worst stereotype says more about your intellectual integrity than anything else.
My fondest wish is that Stormy tells the world that Trump has a little dick, and to prove she is wrong, he tweets out a dick pic. I’d love to see Sara Sanders spin that one.
Here’s my most likely scenario for a Trump tipping point. And it has nothing to do with who he banged.
Trump’s continued popping off causes the stock market to sink – not just a shock effect for a day or tow, but a steady erosion. CEOs get upset about shareholder value declining, and they decide Trump must go. Republican politicians are informed that they get no more contributions as long as Trump heads the ticket, and anti-Trump Republicans suddenly find their primary campaigns receiving money.
Of course the hard-core Trump base continues to support him, but the somewhat less hard-core get peeled off one by one.
This scenario requires more than just throwing money against Trump (Hillary proved that wouldn’t work by itself.) It requires using that money to seed an anti-Trump movement at all levels.
If this is the most likely scenario, I think Trump is pretty safe. I suspect most CEOs understand that the President has limited influence over the stock market, and that spending a bunch of money to replace him with someone else is hardly a guarantee of improved returns.
The president has limited influence over the course of the stock market under normal circumstances using normal tools. If Trump were a doctor, he’d be throwing out the vaccines and sphygmomanometers and punching the patient in the belly telling the patient to toughen up.
Presidents have tremendous ability to influence the stock market, as long as they’re not concerned about making that influence benevolent.