I’m not trying to absolve him, I’m just saying I don’t think there’s any secret document out there detailing Trump raping minors, because I think there’s a pretty high chance he didn’t do that. He might have; I’d put it at like 20/80. But assuming he didn’t, I think anyone who looks the other way while someone powerless is being abused is deserving of scorn. Especially when he had and has so much influence to do something about it. But also, like, add it to the enormous pile of reasons he’s a terrible person and a bad President.
Sure, but you’re 1 out of how many?
Most people see Trump as the guy who is ending the illegal practice of employing illegal workers, and stopping trans people from convincing kids to cut off their wee-wee.
It’s basically arcane knowledge that Trump has multiple acquaintances who were involved with sex peddling of underaged children, is trying to keep TikTok legal by straight-up ignoring Congress because TikTok (a Chinese owned propaganda machine under the thumb of Xi Jinping) convinced him that they’d helped him to win the election, that he pardoned the EV guy for a payout, that he ran a scheme to replace the popular vote with the vote of a group of his friends, etc.
Most people talk about Trump’s actions pro and con of Political Correctness. Everything else is just noise.
Epstein just happens to be the one element of noise to finally get a bit of attention and, personally, I’d say that it’s the opportunity to start pushing all of the other stuff, while people are being receptive.
Trump was responsible for both. He definitely tried, in multiple ways, to influence the tally of both individual votes and Electoral College results that were certified by states. He also went before an unruly crowd and encouraged them to go to the Capitol with the following words:
And Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us, and if he doesn’t, that will be a, a sad day for our country because you’re sworn to uphold our Constitution.
Now, it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. And after this, we’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you, we’re going to walk down, we’re going to walk down.
Anyone you want, but I think right here, we’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.
Even if his specific intent wasn’t to incite an insurrection when he gave the speech, his inaction for nearly four hours after the crowd of his supporters advanced toward the Capitol Building, and over three hours after they started to siege the building, including not speaking to his supporters to discourage violence, refusing to order reinforcements for the security forces protecting the Capitol Building, and purportedly displaying indifference to the physical risks that insurrectionists posed to Congresspeople and even his own Vice President for not overturning the Electoral College count, indicates that he supported the activities of his supporters.
All of this, of course, should have been sufficient evidence of “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” to justify impeachment and removal (even if you somehow feel that he didn’t meet the criteria the first time he was impeached), assuring that he could not legally run for federal office again.
The Epstein Files likely aren’t going to reveal anything about Donald Trump that we don’t already know, and event it did present evidence of sexual exploitation of minors his adulators would either ignore it or claim that it was fraudulent. They only care about those issues when they pertain to Democrat or non-MAGA Republicans, and even the few exceptions will rationalize it somehow. Trump could get caught in bed with a live boy and a dead girl and it wouldn’t matter to them, nor is the Republican-dominated Congress going to impeach Trump just when the leaders are getting exactly what they want. Mike Johnson would never let an impeachment vote come to the floor and John Thune wouldn’t instigate a trial for removal.
This isn’t an argument for the Department of Justice not disclosing all files pertaining to the Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and associated investigations so the public can see who is referenced in them (although that probably won’t happen given the number of prominent people who were in Epstein’s orbit and known to have spent time on his private island and ‘Lolita Express’), but it’s not going to dethrone Trump and whatever is in there probably won’t even hurt Trump’s ‘polling numbers’ that Chuck Schumer, et al are tracking as if it really means anything at this point.
Stranger
I’m okay with it being a continued thorn in his side, though.
Part of me very cynically doesn’t care if they get released anyway, since no one will be brought to justice, and perhaps they can be used to irritate the MAGA base and their putrid baboon of a leader.
My prediction is there is nothing in these “files” that will lead to trump being indicted or impeached. Maybe embrangling and maybe lose a few popularity points.
Bold prediction.
To be clear, I’m giving the counter opinion to help you understand it - as I feel like that this is very on the OP topic of “why did A stick and B didn’t?”
First, let’s point out that the average person is a sports fanatic who looks at cases where fans of competitive sports teams get into a brawl as, “Fighting the good fight.”
Likewise, a significant number of people believe in what I’ll call the 2nd Amendment “immunity” interpretation. When it comes to the Bill of Rights, and it’s the government itself who is acting illegally then there’s no recourse against unconstitutional activity except violence. Thereby, we are allowed to maintain the means of the violence, we are expected to use that violence to enforce the Constitution on the government, and we couldn’t be held liable for that.
Overall, if Trump actually believes in the idea that Biden and the Democrats stole the election then an amount of active unrest is fair and proper.
So you can’t start any such discussion, without first establishing that Trump didn’t believe what he was selling.
I’ve done that: How to Secure an Election « Reason for a New Age
In general, that question is never asked by anyone. Each side makes its own a priori assumption and runs forward as though it’s proven, without putting together nor putting forth any evidentiary backing.
Likewise, with your viewpoint that everyone shares your innate understanding that, “People got rowdy. Everyone should panic and hate the very thought of rowdiness!” There’s the much stronger argument about all of that, which doesn’t rely on that world view:
If you use the weakest form of an argument, based purely on a largely unshared world view, you won’t gain much traction. It’s like a vegetarian being caught off-guard over and over again that no one else ever seems to understand how evil eating meat is. At some point, you need to cotton on that you live in the land of the 2nd Amendment. Most people don’t read news about, for example, a shooting and immediately rush to “Oh my god! We have to ban guns!” Among those who do, yes, events like the riot are unthinkable and immediately disqualifying. You don’t need to go any further, if that’s your audience, but why do you expect that to be your audience?
You need to start from the presumption of a cave man as your audience, not some barista from Wicker Park, when you’re trying to sell your case on the open market.
Embarrassing.
Just a minor disagreement with this. It’s possibly “shooting himself in the foot” as seen by Democrats and like-leaning groups. It may be a minor issue for the remnants of the former Republican party who still don’t like saying the “quiet” part out loud. It’s probably a BENEFIT to a large chunk of MAGA who LOVE him when he never backs down, especially among the most reprehensible groups who hate being told what to do, what to say, anti-woke/anti-empathy types. Never backing down supports their right to do what they want, to the people they want to hurt/control even if they lack the money/power/influence to get away with it as flagrantly.
There was ZERO evidence that the election was stolen. Trump planted that seed, watered it and cultivated it to an insurrection.
He is responsible for trying to overthrow the government. Of course he had help, those people belong in prison too.
Now maybe Trump himself believed it was stolen. He also believes he is the most fantastic person to ever live. It does not matter what he believes. Not one bit.
Any normal, reasonable person sees right through Trumps bullshit, but, “There’s a sucker born every minute”
Why “maybe”? If he did believe it, then he was - at least in some sense - justified in supporting the rioters and justified in pardoning them. Your “maybe” is a straight up endorsement to everyone that you talk to, for Trump’s actions that day.
Plastering over the question and letting it hang as a maybe, when it’s a question that we pretty thoroughly can answer factually and which is really dang relevant to how we should view Trump, is like arguing over whether penguins live in the North pole, and both you and the other guy simply refuse to Google it cause, well what’s the fun then? It’s just more exciting to live in a world where maybe penguins do live with Santa! (Maybe Santa exists, too!)
Personally, I’m tired of all the fun. I’d rather have healthy lunches for kids and health care, than exciting headlines. I can get excitement by watching fictional TV shows. If that’s not enough for you and the people you know, and we all need to drag our pretendering and maybe’ering into discussions about reality, then you can’t really complain that others aren’t responding to reality like they should.
Bolding mine.
The hell it is.
I don’t give a shit what Trump or his supporters believe. And it sure isn’t an endorsement. And does not excuse the actions that day.
I will gladly tell that to any MAGA that that is not the case. It does not matter what he believed, he was WRONG, clearly and obviously wrong. And his so called remedy was pure bullshit.
And so, that’s why you’re not convincing them.