Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

that's my guy

Just in: Trump’s gag order in the New York criminal case expanded to cover relatives of the presiding judge and the Manhattan DA after Trump last week went after the judge’s daughter

— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) April 2, 2024

He's posted that bond, BTW -- notably not through the Chubb folks again. (The fact that it took him a week is enough of a tell.)

it is pretty impressive that he seems to be meme stocking his way out of the civil judgment. the guy is like a greased pig, you can't get em.

Isn't the stock price plunging?

still pretty high for a worthless company and people are buying on the dip. i hope it plunges, obviously, but it seems like the kind of stupid thing that will save his ass.

it is pretty impressive that he seems to be meme stocking his way out of the civil judgment.

That's not what's happening at all. He hasn't been granted the waiver that would allow him to sell his shares before six months have elapsed, and the stock has lost a quarter of its "value" in the last 24 hours, so by the time he gets his hands on the money he ought to be able to get lunch at Subway out of it, assuming he's got a full punch card to redeem at the same time.

idk maybe

even if the price held until he was allowed to sell hed have a hard time cashing much in without driving it down

i think he has some sort of scheme running, or someone else does, that will allow this stock to stay high for a long enough time. he has more power behind him now than he did in 2016, as seen in things like project 2025.

if people want to prop the price up they might as well just give him the money it amounts to the same thing, which shows the problem with him selling hundreds of millions of dollars of it, is there hundreds of millions of dollars out there willing to be transferred to his account

hmm is there anything happening in about 6 months time that might affect the value of stock in $DJT?

The first presidential debates uh wait

Anyway per Forbes via a Bluesky summary:

NEW: Trump secured his $175 million bond with a combination of cash and investment-grade bonds, per Don Hankey, chair of Knight Insurance and the "little-known king of subprime car loans." A supporter of Jeb Bush and then Trump, Hankey says he reached out to Trump with the offer.

i consider myself a bit of a little-known king of subprime car loans too

Elevated circles!

i consider myself a bit of a little-known king of subprime car loans too

"Duke of Saxony" feeling pretty shabby rn

MR. HANKEY

Abe Froman passed on the opportunity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQML0_YASCI

Apparently not "anything."

John Ganz, who I find worthwhile even when I don't totally agree with him, has an interesting post up about a new collection of essays debating the "Is Trump Fascist" question. Ganz is more on the side of "yes" — calling Trump semi- or proto-fascist — but is mostly writing about how dug in some of the liberal intellectuals in the "No he isn't" camp are, and why.

https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/what-happened-here

I've never been sure how much this debate really matters, since I think the actual facts of Trump are pretty plain for everyone to see, whatever you call them. Ganz otm here: "The simple fact is this: Trump would be dictator if he could, but it’s not that easy, and he probably won’t be able to become one. I don’t think anybody can honestly say, 'No, he really doesn’t have that aspiration or will at all.'”

I think Trump is very used to having his word be law in his companies, however much of a sham they are. No doubt, he would like the government be the same way. I can't think of a more obvious example, in this country at least, of someone letting the power of the presidency go to his head.

I think he's clearly a fascist, but not like other fascists in history, for example I think he would without a doubt sell out the entire Republican party if it meant ridding him of his legal issues

Perlstein has a related thread:

I said no more, but I think it might be a useful contribution to expand upon a criticism I've had on @coreyrobin's classic everyone has to read, The Reactionary Mind, since it became such a powerful influence on me upon first reading. It ends making the argument that...

— Rick Perlstein (@rickperlstein) March 31, 2024

...the gist of which is that just because Trump isn't Hitler or Mussolini doesn't mean he isn't a fascist.

Americans keep expecting their fascism to be of that of a Golan-Globus movie villain, which is the only reason they deny he's a fascist

"if he was a fascist, he'd tell us!"

just like when Lindsay Graham was saying "it wasn't a quid pro quo, he didn't announce he was doing a crime"

I wonder if Right Wing intellectuals are arguing right now about whether Biden is really a commie or not.

right wing intellectuals kinda contradicting itself there

"He told the protestors to go to the Capitol peacefully!"

Robert O. Paxton got it right:

– A sense of overwhelming crisis beyond the reach of any traditional solutions;

– The primacy of the group, toward which one has duties superior to every right, whether individual or universal, and the subordination of the individual to it;

– The belief that one’s group is a victim, a sentiment that justifies any action, without legal or moral limits, against its enemies, both internal and external;

– Dread of the group’s decline under the corrosive effects of individualistic liberalism, class conflict, and alien influences;

– The need for closer integration of a purer community, by consent if possible, or by exclusionary violence if necessary;

– The need for authority by natural chiefs (always male), culminating in a national chieftain who alone is capable of incarnating the group’s historical destiny;

– The superiority of the leader’s instincts over abstract and universal reason;

– The beauty of violence and the efficacy of will, when they are devoted to the group’s success;

– The right of the chosen people to dominate others without restraint from any kind of human or divine law, right being decided by the sole criterion of the group’s prowess within a Darwinian struggle.

P

- Anything is possible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PytXN5guhFw

the is he a fascist debate is fun cause no one can agree what fascism is the only thing they can agree on is its a hard thing to pin down, i do think hes a fascist fwiw hes just low energy

He’s a lazy fascist

if he were younger and smarter he would be scarier but he's still scary as far as the damage he can inflict.

waterface beat me to it

hes already done a lot of harm and lord knows what hell get up to if hes elected again

also his fascist-friendly masterminds like stephen miller and bannon aren't exactly geniuses. which also helps.

i just think a swifter scary guy - if they had won in 2016 - would have had a complete 4 year plan drawn up and be ready to go. trump's team famously couldn't really figure out how to destroy big government too speedily. luckily. it isn't as easy at it looks in the movies.

fascists tend not to be the sharpest most competent guys but they have some insight into power at all costs and riling people up which sometimes is enough

they did their worst though! they definitely broke some of the china. credit where credit is due.

tbf america has a pretty robust government its some teetering rinky dink state

*not some

it's what barely got us through 2020

having outside forces help you with your *let's wreck america* campaign helps a lot too and i don't see that happening? even people as evil as koch brothers aren't supporting him. he doesn't have a company like IBM like Hitler did. willing to go along with his crazy crap and help him achieve his goals. right wing billionaires just want tax breaks. not death camps. i think...i hope....

hes def got his rich guy supporters, and i think generally corporate america is fine with him, but ultimately theyd rather just have a regular predictable politician in there cause they already had a good thing going, but make no mistake if america goes fascist theyll be right there along for the ride with the nytimes et al

what's the little-known king of subprime car loans getting in return though?

oh no...

TRUMP-HANKEY 2024

RFK Jr. got the ball rolling, let's just go full-bore into presidential candidates automatically naming their biggest donors as their VP picks, why not, we still have a long way to go before we reach peak cynicism

so sad that a kennedy needed some tech arriviste to pay for stuff