I’m just amazed that anyone thinks that doing things like firing promising early career medical researchers is a good idea. And buddying up to Vladimir Putin while turning your back on your European allies.
In general, it would be difficult to find a more apt punishment for America for opposing and sanctioning Russia’s invasions of Ukraine than Trump’s own stated political platform.
He’s almost certainly done things during his life that have made him good blackmail fodder. Without knowing what those things are and what evidence exists about them, it’s difficult to know how much shame he’s likely to feel and, consequently, what he’d be willing to trade for them. I’d venture to guess that the money that MAGA has raked in has regularly been split up and sent out to a wide number of recipients to keep quiet.
Whether activities like abandoning the Kurds are also entangled, I can’t say, but I can say that Trump and Mike Flynn’s behavior towards Turkey has been suspicious in various ways. Likewise, the intensity of his interest in selling US arms to Saudi Arabia - without any obvious personal gain, since he’s purportedly anti-war and doesn’t seem to be a big investor in the defense industry - also seems quite suspicious.
But even if we clear the guy on all of the above we can say things like:
- He fired his Republican FBI lead for investigating his acquaintances. In response, he allowed Chris Christie and the Republican party to choose a new FBI director - and that person continued on investigating and arresting his acquaintances.
- Likewise, in four years he continued to expand the budget for the FBI - the people who were arresting his acquaintances. Musk came in to consult and suddenly he’s finally figured out that he’s the President and has the power to fire people in bulk, at will.
- Trump really really wanted to tariff everyone and after four years of trying, barely squeezed a few tariffs in, that had delayed start dates, and were tightly targeted to have minimal impact on anything.
In general, he seemed to be easily manipulated by people like Mitch McConnel, Chris Christie, Lindsey Graham, etc. to not do almost everything that he wanted to do. His whole first term was a steady stream of Trump incompetently handicapping himself, being easily talked down from self-destruction, and rerouted towards fluff and nonsense instead of anything practical.
My impression of McConnel and Pelosi’s views of Trump was that he was an easily dealt with moron, who was unfathomably brilliant at knowing how to rile everyone up and get them to fork over loads of cash to the two parties.
The downside of that is, of course, that Trump isn’t just Congress’ moron to control, he’s pretty much everyone’s moron to control - including our adversaries.
To the extent that Trump isn’t deeply compromised, he’s still just easily mislead and rerouted in any possible random direction by almost anyone who understands his basic psychology. Erdogan called him up, asked him to move US troops out of the way of Turkey’s freedom to kill some Kurds, and Trump complied - despite having just weeks earlier slapped sanctions on Erdogan for buying Russian missiles and arresting a Christian priest.
Even if someone liked Trump’s political platform, he’s still the worst person to have lead that effort.
This opened my eyes a couple of weeks ago: I give you Marc Andreessen, who believes among other inanities:
- Middle class/rich kids get radicalized at Harvard, join silicon valley companies, don’t want a career, do want to destroy said company from inside, this 20% poison the minds of 60% of go along get along employees.
- Biden admin said they would highly regulate crypto. As in, no rationale government wants to turn over control of money supply and interest rates to billionaires. But wah wah wah.
- Making money is maybe #5 on the list. We just want to be adored and loved for helping the human race.
there was more, but the above gives a flavor. It also seems that Peter Thiel, Zuckerberg, Musk, Andreesen, et al seem to get together at dinner parties and lament why they are not allowed to be robber barons. 'Splains a lot of what is happening in front of our eyes. This ain’t no constitutional crisis, Musk is leading a coup.
Musk does own Neurolink.
Has Trump made any visits to the hospital lately?
(Kidding)
Musk is the Toxoplasma gondii of Trump. A controlling parasite.
The crazy thing is that tech oligarchs are entirely dependent on the existence of a functioning economy, absent that they’ll be flattened by the industrialist oligarchs. Tech is meaningless if you can’t extract the raw materials, or produce the base level of goods that your tech company needs to function. In a techno-feudal future its not the robot maker who’s in charge, its the man who supplies the steel, copper and other vital components that has the final say.
Or of course they all lose power to the first person willing to use extreme violence, your techbro capabilities do nothing to stop the warlord with his gun to your head.
When I went to (a conservative christian) school in the 80’s, I was taught that someone just like Turmp, who would be secretly (to him) raised to be loyal to the USSR would do exactly what he is doing as part of a plot of the USSR to destroy our government. This person would be raised in a way that they don’t even realize they have such loyalties. And we needed to be vigilant to be on guard to stand up for our nation. The only real difference between what I was taught back then is they said such a person would most likely come through the left. Another factor in that is that there would be disruptions from the USSR within our nation, things like power grid problems and other forms of sabotages.
While that may or may not be true what is, AFAICT, true is that she’s been groomed for high political office by the Science of Identity Foundation an offshoot of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (AKA the Hare Krishnas) since childhood.
She is as close to a literal Manchurian Candidate as you can get.
For Putin, this seems like a much cheaper and simpler way to wreak havoc on the US than some elaborate plot needed to install an actual Manchurian Candidate.
A few dollars spent on manipulating the US electorate via social media and knowing how to manipulate Trump with kompromat, flattery, and/or money made a great investment for Putin.
The Joker: “You see, I’m a guy of simple taste. I enjoy dynamite, and gunpowder, and gasoline! And you know the thing they have in common? They’re cheap.”
Trump has been a destructive explosion in the center of the US government and has increased the acrimony in American society. Some percentage of Americans think Trump is the greatest thing to ever happen to this country, some think he’s the worst, and some aren’t even paying much attention or think there’s nothing to be done or that all politicians are the same.
Unlike Trump, Putin apparently knows how to make an investment that pays off. Trump was probably just a one-of-many, cheap, long-shot gambles over the years to fuck with the US that paid off spectacularly for Putin.
I don’t know… I think the point was that if fascism does come, it would be wrapped up in a package of things many Americans hold dear, namely patriotism and religion. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing - how is “Make America Great Again” not wrapping it in the flag?
And if you think MAGA doesn’t have a really religious slant, you haven’t been paying attention. There’s a HUGE religious slant to his candidacy and presidency.
The Americans who think Trump is anointed by God
Christian TV evangelicals fire up Trump support with messianic message | Reuters
Trump the Anointed | Westar Institute
Donald Trump Suggests He Was Literally Anointed by God | Vanity Fair
I don’t believe he’s a Manchurian candidate.
This is what I do believe:
The reason Trump seems so beholden to Putin is that he sees how Putin took control of Russia, and how he created the oligarchs around him, and wants to do the same thing here.
I really believe he’s telling all his newfound billionaire friends “Back me and I’ll make you master of a whole swath of the economy.”
IMO, Trump simply wants a smaller Federal government and that is not necessarily a bad thing. The problem is that he has no clue how to do that and still keep the Federal government functioning serving the role it is supposed to have.
I keep seeing people say that that there’s kompromat on Trump. What exactly could they hold over him that he couldn’t spin away and that MAGA wouldn’t ignore?
Yeah, I just don’t see Melania as the “brains” behind anything, tempting as it may be to regard Trump as the Moscovian Candidate…
I might buy that if it weren’t for Trump’s open corruption. Trump stands for nothing except for what’s good for Trump. He doesn’t care about abortion, the deficit, the size of the government, transgender people, etc., etc. He doesn’t even care about his constituents only for their votes. “I don’t care about you, I just care about your votes,” is something Trump actually said to his people at a rally.
What is it about this corrupt, venal, worm-ridden piece of filth that makes you think he’s acting in good faith and simply wants to reduce the size of the government? From where I’m sitting, he’s acting with malice and forethought. He knows he’s hurting the country but it’s lining his pockets so he’s fine with it. After all, Trump only stands for Trump.
The one under whose first Presidency the national debt grew the most of any President, and who quite recently threw a tantrum over not getting an effectively infinite increase in the debt ceiling before he took office?
Maybe don’t take his words so literally?
The best we can say right now is that at some point to some person he may have said he wanted a smaller Federal government.
Given his known record of statements, it would not be shocking if he said the opposite at some other point to some other person (or even the same person later in the same conversation). Nor shocking if he has not really given any thought to it and said at that moment what he thought people wanted to hear. Those are all things he has been known to do.
Video of Trump in bed with a dead girl or live boy?
I’m sure Trump’s always admired Putin as a strongman even before becoming President. But Trump’s met with Putin without a translator or notetaker. Who knows what was said. I’m sure the Russians have documentation, though.
Imagine Putin on video orally (or even physically) bitch-slapping Trump and telling him what to do and Trump taking just taking it like a beta cuck. I think even MAGAs would have issue with that (and probably then call it a Deep State Deep Fake produced by George Soros). This would be a fantastic senario, but why does Trump meet with Putin with no US witnesses?
Nitpick: ‘Malice aforethought’.
Trump has never wanted a smaller government, he’s always promised a bigger government. That’s why even when I was conservative I didn’t support him. He’s not a conservative.
What’s small government about building a giant wall?
What’s small government about putting together a huge force to deport millions and millions of people?
It’s not that he doesn’t know how to achieve it, he doesn’t want it. He loves a huge, powerful federal government as long as he’s in charge.
This is the guy who has been a champion of eminent domain for decades, and it doesn’t get more “big government” than someone taking your property away for the greater good.
I don’t recall him even pretending that he’s trying to shrink the government. He uses different terminology like “waste” and “fraud”. I was a conservative most of my life and I know what it sounds like when a politician wants to shrink the government, and that’s not at all what Trump has said.
In his campaign for the 2016 presidential election he talked frequently about “draining the swamp”, which many people interpreted as being in favor of smaller government (never mind that he immediately appointed billionaires, petroleum company executives, and investment bankers to his cabinet and advisor roles), but as you note, what Trump wasn’t isn’t a smaller government per se, but one that is innately subservient to him; fewer regulations and independent oversight, more loyalists and people willing to say, “Yes, sir!” to orders like persecuting political enemies or gunning down protesters. And when Trump talks about “waste, abuse, and fraud” what he really means is anything he doesn’t like, while fully endorsing actual fraud and abuse that enriches him.
In other words, Trump uses normal English language terms in ways that are often completely antithetical to the standard dictionary definitions, hence why (as his devotees often repeat) you can’t take him “literally”.
Stranger