Personally, I think that pardoning Trump for his crimes begins with the non-supporters.
Every time you say that his followers will just blindly overlook criminal activities, that’s every time that you are likewise blinding overlooking his criminal activities, because that’s just you saying to yourself that you’re going to overlook that decision and treat that person the same tomorrow as you treat them today.
Why should they blame him, when you are likewise not blaming any of his followers?
If you can’t maintain a position of reasonable and unimpeachable morality, then you should get out of this fight and clear your head. You’re not helping with anything.
Also the child sex abuse that Maga hates is effectively a dark fantasy. It’s this idea that they let their guard down for a second their pretty innocent white daughters will be physically abducted and thrown in the back of a van by a black or brown person they have never met before, and dragged away from their pleasant Republican suburb to a life of sex slavery in the evil Democratic big city
They have no interest in actually preventing real sex trafficking that doesn’t look like their fantasy, or punishing actual sex traffickers and sex criminals that don’t look like their fantasy, or helping its victims that don’t look like their daughters.
Yeah, but according to MAGA, a Democrat putting plastic film into the recyclables container is also an impeachable offense (once MAGA learns you’re not supposed to do that). MAGA already knew all of those dressing room rumors about Trump, and things he said, but none of those were quite as on the nose as being one of Epstein’s rapist clients.
Epstein was Jewish, that’s probably good enough to play into the “dark” fantasy. The whole Epstein conspiracy is a huge exoneration for MAGA/Q-anon sex conspiracy beliefs going back 20 years. They just had the wrong pizza shop.
I expect that I do agree with you. Whatever eventually ends up coming out is unlikely to cause Trump to be removed from office. My only real point is that these particular crimes hit differently for MAGA than stealing from a charity, defrauding banks, lying about your crypto, bribery, or even raping an adult.
The “hit differently” is enough for me to hold out a bit of hope this could lead to the regimes downfall.
My theory is that Trump wasn’t the beneficiary of Epstein’s trafficking, it was the other way around. Trump was the trafficker. He didn’t need to go to Epstein Island because all those girls were used merchandise from Mar-a-Lago and various other Trump properties.
I think it’s not even about Trump himself. We all know he’s in there, underage girls are involved, he’s bragged publicly about sexual assault…the dots are not hard to connect.
And it’s not about Dems. There are no doubt some in there but the Pubs are not interested in protecting them. It’s someone else..big money donors who are leaning on Trump who is leaning on Johnson to keep their names hidden. That’s my take.
Course, could be that AND photos of Trump in bed with a live boy. So many possibilities.
Yeah it’s Trump’s reaction to this that is the only thing that makes me think there may just be something to it. I am really skeptical there is anything in there. But his reaction to it seems to say differently.
There was some talk of push back, and criticism of Trump, from Maga when it first broke (uniquely amongst all the insane trump stories over the years). But I’ve not heard anything recently like that.
Let’s call it a trial balloon. Anyone who would like to know what Republicans actually believe concerning child sexual abuse can judge for themselves the Republican reaction to Gislaine Maxwell, who is now doing cushy minimum security time thanks to the Republican hero Trump, potentially seeking a commutation.
It is very likely those semi-mythical files never contained anything that would lead to the indictment of anyone, let alone trump. And, now, after they have been purified and censored by the MAGAs, there isnt anything to even embarrass trump.
Right.
Maybe, at one time, before being censored.
The only “fantasy” here is that these magical “files” contain stuff bad for trump.
I agree that the Republicans have put themselves in a tough spot but we disagree on what it is.
The Republicans, as you noted, are completely in bed with Trump. They put Trump in power and they have assisted him in his crime wave.
But that’s an easy problem to fix. As I said, all they have to do is stab Trump in the back. They have to betray Trump; letting the Democrats impeach Trump or invoking the 25th or arranging his assassination. No, the Republicans need a scenario where they can portray themselves as the champions who brought down Trump for his crimes in order to get the voters to forget that they were the ones who raised Trump up and benefitted from his crimes.
And they can make it work. All it requires is a complete lack of loyalty or morals, an ability to lie with a straight face, a friendly media they control, and the ability to outthink Donald Trump. The Republicans have the first three and everyone who isn’t wearing a MAGA hat has the fourth one.
The MAGA will be outraged. Trump’s their Beloved Leader and they’ll stand by him. But what are they going to do about it? Overthrow the government? They tried that once and we saw how incompetent they are. And it’s not like the MAGA’s are going to switch parties and vote for any Democrats. So the MAGA’s will stay home on Election Day and not vote for anybody; in other words, they’ll go back to being irrelevant the way they were before 2016.
The Republicans will be happy to go back to 2015. They’ll still be the party of evil but they’ll be quiet about it again. They’ll get back the fence sitters that Trump lost for them.
Hell, if Dick Cheney hadn’t died, he could have run as the Republican candidate in 2028.
I see where you’re coming from, but I don’t see that as an easy fix. The Republicans have the tiger by the tail and they can’t let go for fear of being devoured. Either they let go early and MAGA shuns them or they let go too late and go down with Trump.
I agree that the Republicans are going to lose a substantial part of the MAGA vote.
But the MAGA vote isn’t really all that important. As I noted, they’re not going to switch over to the Democrats. I don’t see them starting a third party because a crowd of MAGA’s would have a hard time counting that high. So they’ll mill about and complain about how things ain’t right.
By pushing the MAGA’s back into the shadows, the Republicans have a chance to restore their connection with much larger relatively mainstream conservative voter groups that were being alienated by the far right Republican/MAGA connection.
As others have said, I don’t think that there’s anything Trump could do that would turn the Republicans against Trump. They are both morally bankrupt and spineless.
Or MAGA outright kills them for betraying their cult leader. Fear of being physically attacked is one reason they are so deferential to him, after all. And…they’re bullies. They love hurting other people, but fold instantly when they are the ones under even the smallest threat.
And as was mentioned above: hurrying up to backstab Trump early enough to make a difference gets you primaried and out of the job and blamed if the seat is lost. And even the “mainstream” Republicans will bear anything to avoid losing power.
Perhaps, but it’s like that old action movie standoff. Sure, you’ve got five guys against one, but the first one to pull out his gun will get shot, even if the hero is outnumbered. Who’s gonna be the brave soul, when they can just keep riding the whirlwind of stupid?