Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/AridPresentFeline-size_restricted.gif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXtBsikiY50

there's a group called the New York Young Republican Club. here's what they have to say

“President Trump embodies the American people — our psyche from id to super-ego — as does no other figure; his soul is totally bonded with our core values and emotions, and he is our total and indisputable champion,” the statement reads. “This tremendous connection threatens the established order.”

this shit he's doing doesn't really work!

point taken. what's truly remarkable is the fact that it worked as well as it did for decades. after all, he was able to move up from grifting his way through a whole series of borderline or outright fraudulent business ventures, from failed casinos, to selling Trump-branded steaks, water, 'college diplomas' and golf resorts, to becoming a successful reality show host, then he hit the BONANZA and won the 2016 election while getting three million fewer votes than his opponent, being impeached by the House and acquitted by the Senate, twice.

all this has taught him that he can ride the back of the tiger forever and never have to dismount and be eaten by it. he'll never ever change his modus operandi. he trusts it to deliver because so often it has.

The New York Young Republican Club also wished to share a special message with Trump himself

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EOdbPlbKU4

he was impeached once and every single person on FOX News (and several on ILX!) claimed it basically guaranteed his re-election. then he was impeached again and the same people argued it was only gonna make him stronger. instead he lost re-election and the entire MAGA movement got embarrased in the midterms. t

This is what I have to tell the Dems down here with their croakings of doom.

always amazing to remember he bankrupted a business where "the house always wins"

see also: Elon Musk, where public perception went from "he's a supergenius and visionary" to "ok he's kinda weird but must still be good at some things" to "wait how fucked up is this country"

he was right about being arraigned on tuesday.

"we impeached him, now we just gave him the White House in 2020"

this talking point is so fucking dumb. literally zero people who weren't going to vote for Trump will vote for him now as a reaction to the impeachment. absolute fuckin zero. I guess you could argue some people who might have stayed home will be motivated to vote but I really, really doubt it.

More than a week after Donald Trump had angrily predicted — incorrectly and with no specific evidence — that he would be arrested, the former president had grown cautiously optimistic.

Advisers had counseled him that a possible indictment by a Manhattan grand jury involving hush-money payments to an adult-film star would not come for some time — if at all — and Trump had even begun joking about “golden handcuffs,” said one person who spoke with him in recent days.

...But when the indictment came, Trump and his advisers were caught off guard.

“It was a surprise to everybody,” said David Urban, a longtime Trump adviser who is not working on his 2024 presidential campaign.

Some of his lawyers had been preparing to take a few days off, not expecting any movement for several weeks, said two people familiar with the matter who, like many in Trump’s orbit, spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly share details of private discussions. Some Trump aides — including adviser Boris Epshteyn, who is taking a leading role on Trump’s legal team — had even begun telling the former president that he would not be indicted at all, people familiar with the comments said.

is this story true, or is someone just lying for reasons i can't understand? and if it is true, .....wtf, how do these people get in these positions of power without knowing anything at all, ever

were they telling him he wouldn't be indicted just to make him stop whining like a fucking baby?

power of positive thinking, etc

it has probably been said on the thread already, but if the thing that brings this fucker down is illegally claiming a payoff to a porn star as a campaign expense then that would be just perfect.

sorry, no offense to people on this thread who never thought he would be indicted. i understand the frustration with how he always evades any accountability whatsoever for his actions, and it wouldn't surprise me if he is found not guilty or it's a mistrial or some other bullshit, with the stormy daniels stuff. the atlanta case is much, much stronger for many reasons. but that he would be indicted here was not really in question iirc

i dunno i guess we all have to wait and see what he is actually charged with, but it is not hard to imagine that people might be persuaded to vote if they don't buy bragg's alleged "novel legal theory" (kristoff) and think this is a political hit job.

I want to know what changed in NY. Remember when those two top prosecutors reportedly resigned in protest when Bragg wouldn't act? And then many weeks/months later, I guess a switch got flipped and he did?

yes and one of the prosecutors who resigned wrote a book outlining his own labyrinthene novel legal theory.

Though iirc, maybe it had something to do with not getting in the way of James' own state investigation?

Even a potential guilty verdict would not disqualify Trump’s bid for the White House, according to Anna G. Cominsky, a professor at New York Law School, or keep him from serving if he was elected.

of course you can be President while not being able to vote

at a 1000-ft level, do we want to be seen as the party that thinks it's cool if presidential elections hinge on whether or not a candidate once had consensual sex ten years ago?

countdown to not my party

Was that the only thing that happened?

but as for the democratic party, it just doesn't fucking matter what they're "seen" as. no one left of a republican is going to see the democrats like that, and republicans already refer to democrats as marxists with seemingly zero awareness of what words mean. it just doesn't matter

I want to know what changed in NY. Remember when those two top prosecutors reportedly resigned in protest when Bragg wouldn't act? And then many weeks/months later, I guess a switch got flipped and he did?

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, March 31, 2023 3:57 PM (thirty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

thought this was a broader investigation into the Trump org and separate from the Stormy Daniels thing

Don't know why

Trump is an indicted guy

Stormy weather

at a 1000-ft level, do we want to be seen as the party that thinks it's cool if presidential elections hinge on whether or not a candidate once had consensual sex ten years ago?

most of the charges are about business fraud:

JUST IN: Donald Trump faces more than 30 counts related to business fraud in an indictment from a Manhattan grand jury, sources say https://t.co/GMfu9870dQ

— CNN (@CNN) March 31, 2023

Of course the GOP is going to find an angle (Stormy Daniels in this case) where they think they can get a rhetorical edge. They're going to do that for anything the other side does, world without end, amen. So what?

at a 1000-ft level, do we want to be seen as the party that thinks it's cool if presidential elections hinge on whether or not a candidate once had consensual sex ten years ago?

― Thus Sang Freud, Friday, March 31, 2023 5:16 PM bookmarkflaglink

Lol GTFO with this, that's not what he was indicted for.

Can we declare a moratorium on further discussion on how bullshit the charges are until THEY'RE UNSEALED???

Lukas otm

need I remind you the 2016 election literally hinged on Anthony Weiner sexting teenagers

And emails

Tbf I don't know if there are naked people in the emails

please

peemails

at a 1000-ft level, do we want to be seen as the party that thinks it's cool if presidential elections hinge on whether or not a candidate once had consensual sex ten years ago?

The two modern Presidents this would have cost us are Trump and Bill Clinton so... yeah, cool.

I can't believe I have to point this out but the crime is the misuse of funds, not the consensual sex

do we want to be seen as the party that thinks it's cool if presidential elections hinge on whether or not a candidate once had consensual sex ten years ago?

this needs some clarification. just for starters, who are the "we" being addressed, are "we" really a "party", how do "we" as a party have the thoughts you attribute to us, and who is doing the seeing of us. Later we can get into the hermaneutics of what is cool and the whole sex aspect of your rather maze-like query.

xp There are 30+ charges to address, Stormy payment may be the absolute least of them. And agreed, until the charges are made public prognostication is useless.

will be pretty funny if theres some very bad shit in there

we being the left-leaning folks who populate ilx, and who i think it's safe to assume largely vote for democrats vice republicans. as for who is doing the seeing i think it's mostly the swing voters i have in mind -- i.e. the few who swing elections one way or another. the relatively sane ones, in particular. the ones whos party affiliations aren't etched in stone. but to escape from the maze, what i am really saying is: if all those 30 counts of fraud turn out to be misdemeanor-like efforts to hide his payment of extortion money, those relatively sane swing voters might reasonably think that's a.o.k. behavior if the alternative is yet another sordid and trivial sidetrack from actual important election issues. like, is "rule of law" in this case the be-all and end-all? i would think, rather, that ensuring trump doesn't get reelected should be the be-all and end-all. in which case (and this, seemingly, is my opinion and no one else's here, but so be it) this court case is a really, really stupid way to go about it. i could be totally proved wrong on tuesday when he reveals his airtight case, but that's the way it looks to me at the moment.

swing voters!

xp you seem to have forgotten the other court cases

You heard it here, because of swing voters laws no longer exist

i have not forgotten them. i am talking about this one in specific.

Jon Stewart said it best recently

“He could become president anyway. Fareed, we either have the rule of law or we have no rule of law,” Stewart said. “The rule of law does not take into account if that might make you a martyr to somebody.”

we certainly do not have the rule of law but its worth trying idk

The only way to guarantee no Trump presidency at this point is for him to drop dead, and no actions taken should be done so with WHAT ABOUT THE UNDECIDED VOTERS in mind

Xpost

what i am really saying is: if all those 30 counts of fraud turn out to be misdemeanor-like efforts to hide his payment of extortion money, those relatively sane swing voters might reasonably think that's a.o.k. behavior if the alternative is yet another sordid and trivial sidetrack from actual important election issues.

we have no idea what's really in those 30+ indictments. your concerns are, at this point, entirely imaginary. but I think it is a near certainty that however all this plays out, the opinions espoused on ilx will have no measurable effect of the outcome of the next US presidential election. so, rest easy.

haha well that's true, but also remember this is a public forum so if the "others" want a good view of how "we" think they just have to look here.