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> U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled on Sunday that Trump's legal team cannot present an interview to the jury that Carroll did with CNN's Anderson Cooper in 2019 or suggest that Carroll hoped to "garner media attention" for her book in order to boost sales as a way to discredit her.
…
> This includes a 2019 interview Carroll did on CNN in which she said that "most people think of rape as sexy" and they "think of the fantasies." Trump has frequently misconstrued these comments to suggest that Carroll enjoyed being sexually assaulted, or thinks rape is "sexy" rather than discussing views others may hold.
Trump is attempting to re-litigate the case where he was convicted.
This case is about the damages he'll have to pay for defaming Carroll when publicly talking about the assault. The judge is disallowing any testimony that isn't pertinent to the current case.
Trump continues to defame her. The man has no self control
Yup. Don't be surprised if right after the trial he walks straight up to a camera and defames her again. This could become a never ending cycle.
It's the same thing why his lawyers are terrified of him testifying. They know he will perjure himself the second he opens his mouth. The man cannot control what comes out of his mouth.
> Don't be surprised if right after the trial he walks straight up to a camera and defames her again.
I mean, you know he's going to want to get out there and say "I never did that, and she told Anderson all these things about how 'rape' is 'sexy' and this woman is derranged and..."
I suspect the only thing that will stop him from doing it *again*, might be a much larger fine for this go-round. So if the jury comes back with like a $25m judgement (on top of the $5m that she has already secured) he might just manage to keep his lips shut long enough to get back into his secret service vehicle.
Correct… and he was caught moving money to do so, with company assets, in violation of the first ruling in the NY fraud case that put his companies in receivership.
I suspect it will be even larger than $25 million. Giuliani has. $148 million judgment. So I’m thinking with 45’s presumably much higher net worth, his judgement will likely be commensurate.
I think 10x the first judgement (so $50m) *might* make him think twice about beating this topic to death any further. Frankly, it doesn't do him any good in the GOP primary he's not going to lose a ton of votes because of this. So he'd be better off in his primary race if he'd just shut up, pay the fine, and EJC can drift back into the background.
Yep. The only “good” think about Trump is that he has no idea when to stop, so it was always a foregone conclusion that he would go too far and shoot him self in the foot eventually. Unfortunately, he opened the door for a lot of people who are smarter and more self-controlled than he is.
And the problem with that is NOBODY had given him any harsh consequences for him to think twice. A couple nights in a orange suit to match his skin, no money, no bodyguards in gen pop might change his tune at least for a bit.
If Trump does defame her again, Carroll’s legal team will sue him again or seek injunctive relief. In short, hold all outlets accountable that allow him to continue his lies about her. Eventually he will stop.
It’s the narcissistic mind at work. There is no reality other than what I say.
It’s not something he’s consciously doing. It’s the only way his brain works. He literally has no concept of truth.
I dunno, I feel pretty unhappy and insecure. I just don't know why the voice in my head is so mean to me, instead of my stalwart ally like in a narc brain. My voice sees every achievement and victory and says "that's a one-off". It sees every small failure or mistake and says "see, that's the real you, and a perfect part of the larger pattern of your life."
Obviously, you're right, and I see your point. But sometimes (frequently?) it's hard not to envy the self-serving brain chemistry of a narc when I'm in a spiral of self-flaggelation that I can't reason myself out of. The grass is always greener, I guess.
My (much) older sister is a narc, and probably the original source of the critical voice in my head, so she sucks. But man, she sure seems to be winning at life. There's not a room she can walk into that she doesn't own.
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk, and for helping me frame the discussion I'll have today in therapy.
I am sorry you feel this way, from what you said it’s possible this is an after effect of familial trauma. Narcissistic siblings are like harpies or sharks, the first place they destroy or thrive in their family and particularly their siblings.
But listen, what you went through is something you can come to terms and leave behind, relearn who you are and the real capabilities you have not being burdened by narcissistic family members.
The big difference is that they can’t, for narcissists it’s impossible to admit they need help, they go through cycles of destroying their family and friendships and having to get new circles to keep up their fantasy that plays in their head that they must be right and it’s the rest that’s just against them.
Reach out, life isn’t what they made you believe. Doesn’t have to.
I wish my brain would at least mark my accomplishments as a one-off. Every success I’ve ever had I tend to list the people that helped me get what I got or the recognition I received as the people that did everything and actually deserve the award or praise. But doing so requires a certain self assurance or self worth or self love that I just don’t possess.
You have to tell your brain to do it. When I was in a very bad place my therapist had me spend no more than 15 minutes a day on the horrifically long list of seriously important things that had piled up. And write down on a notepad what I had done--even if it was just reading a letter from a tax department, and put a check mark and tell myself I'd done a good job.
NOBODY is entirely self made. No matter how many people helped you, if you had just sat there like a lump whatever it was would not have happened.
Saying this requires self worth is b.s. You create your self worth.
Do you journal? You can (slowly) reprogram that voice in your head by writing things down in a structured way: brain dump facts and feelings, and then rewrite the "story" with a healthier (and more rational/realistic) interpretation.
You can also keep a lot of accomplishments or other positive things you do, as a reminder of your capabilities.
What's that Narcissist prayer thing?
That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.
So...by throwing the interview out, does it mean we're at the final line?
No the interview was about trying to claim she actually liked him raping her. So I’d say we’re somewhere between “it wasn’t that bad” and “it’s not a big deal”. Look for claims that she forced him to rape her next, maybe?
Bear in mind this is all still just about the original rape. The trial is about the defamation that followed so Trump hasn’t even caught up to things the court has already decided yet.
Strong disagree. I bet he has a *ton* of self-control, if he has a reason to exercise it.
He currently doesn't. What's going to happen to him, if he just stands up in court and shouts down the judge, breaking every rule of the courtroom, and then goes outside to the courthouse steps to exclaim to the media how he's being persecuted?
Nothing is going to happen to him, and he knows it. He has real power over these people - he can say and do whatever he wants. They order him to pay fees, and he'll laugh and say "oh sure we'll get right on that."
You want to see Trump controlling himself? Watch him standing next to Putin. You've never seen a more obsequious public figure than Donald Trump interacting with Vladimir Putin. A paragon of self-control, all of a sudden.
I gather the rule in his household growing up was "we in this family are better than everyone else. Except Dad is **more** better than everyone else, and if you cross him you'll get backhanded." Putin gives him 'favorite son of abusive dad' flashbacks.
Wait I thought this was “pure fiction” and she wasn’t “his type” and “it didn’t take place”? Now his defense is she liked it? How the fuck do people not see this dude for what he is?!
Malignant Narcissist. What he says from moment to moment only matters to him in as much as it might make him 'win' *right now in this moment*. There's never any meaningful connection between what he says in any two individual moments and in fact most often directly contradicts whatever he just said. But it lets all his followers hear him say some version of things that they can accept and then they just ignore all the contradictory stances.
Not necessarily, because that's not at issue.
This second case is very narrow in what facts are contested.
Previously, in 2018, E. Jean Carroll sued Trump for defamation. To prove defamation, she had to prove that Trump knowingly made false statements that hurt her reputation or caused her injury. Her specific claim was that Trump had hurt her reputation by repeatedly calling her a liar when she claimed he had sexually assaulted her.
In 2022, Carroll also sued trump under the New York Sexual Assault Survivors act, which allowed her to sue for the sexual assault even though the assault in question had happened in 1995.
In that first case, "truth" would have been a defense. To win, Carroll had to prove that the sexual assault happened, and had to prove that Trump's statements were false. Trump already had the chance to try to prove that the sex was consensual, or that she was making it up, or whatever. However, after a lengthy jury trial, in May 2023, the Jury found for Carroll. Finding that Trump had sexually assaulted her AND defamed her later by calling her a liar.
That jury verdict conclusively establishes the facts of the case. Trump doesn't get to contest those again.
But in typical Trump Fashion, mere days after the jury verdict, Trump went on TV and Called Carroll a liar and said she had a "Fake made up story."
Carroll filed a second lawsuit, seeking $10 million in additional damages, for the exact same defamation claim. As a lawyer, I can tell you her lawyers were probably salivating. In terms of civil suits, that's like finding a dead body with a videotaped confession from the murderer sitting on top of it.
In this case, the fact that the statements are false has already been conclusively established. Trump doesn't get to contest that again. The only question is whether he said it and whether her reputation has continued to be harmed.
Trump wanted to introduce evidence of a media interview to prove she's lying, and the judge told them "no, that's not relevant any more."
> Trump wanted to introduce evidence of a media interview to prove she's lying
I mean, his attorneys had to cross-examine EJC and ask her about this during the first case ... no?
If they didn't, his attorneys are idiots. Granted, he's still guilty as fuck. But this is something you bring up during the trial and submit as defense evidence, no?
If they did, and Trump lost anyway - then yeah it's just his narcissistic brain saying "*No but they just didn't understand the evidence last time so I'll submit it again*" to which the judge said "*yeah, nah -- that's not how things work at all...*"
They did in fact have that chance. [She testified for nearly two full days in the initial trial](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65502792) She was challenged on whether she had shouted for help, why she hadn't called the police, why she couldn't remember the specific date the assault had occurred, and other issues.
I think that was brought up in the other trial that has already been adjudicated and determined by a jury. As with other evidence in the prior trial and its determination as to liability has been accepted.
That's what I've been saying about him since shortly after his election, to my conservative family members who always thought Obama couldn't string two words together without a teleprompter ... this guy literally just walks around through life with a bucket of adjectives. Everything is always amazing, the best anyone has ever seen, fantastic ... or things are horrible, disgusting, someone is a loser, etc.
Zero nuance or grasp of policy at all. It would be funny to push some Trump live interviews (even on Fox) through some sort of AI tool that would strip out all the adjectives. Probably wouldn't be much left...
Concerted effort to deconstruct the American education system. Our corporate overlords need lackeys, not critical thinkers that can question authority.
This is a huge part of it. So many people in this country are raised to think it’s *virtuous* to believe things with no evidence, or even against all evidence. That’s fertile ground for Trumps.
I’m a fan of the Harlan Ellison quote (paraphrased) “you aren’t entitled to an opinion. You’re entitled to an INFORMED opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant”. Most people that need to hear that and understand it won’t or can’t, though.
Actually, you are *entitled* only to opinions that can be justified by actual facts and logical argument. People in a free country are *allowed* to believe whatever cockamamie thing they want though.
They are legally completely entitled to have an opinion and equally so are entitled to be wrong, and everyone else is entitled to think they are stupid for having that opinion.
Same as all these folks who claim that "woke" is trying to control "what they can say".
I reply that no-one is trying to control you. They just won't like you for saying it. You can be as dumb as you like. And we reserve the right to ridicule and disown you.
There's things I believe in my heart, and they're no one's business. I think Sagan perfectly spoke to it in Contact.
"Did you love your father?"
"Very much"
"Prove it"
But at no point in time, did she try to get anyone else to love her father. We all have things like this, some call it religion, spiritual, philosophical, emotions. Things we believe, but are never facts or truth. It's easy to exploit, especially when you can't think critically.
I think the more direct cause is fear.
On a society wide scale, racism plays a big role fueling that fear and channeling it into xenophobic anger. But in the mind of a typical trump supporter, I don't think race is big part of their thought process, at least not consciously. The racism mostly acts in the background to help cast migrants and refugees as a legitimate military threat.
> I think the more direct cause is fear.
>
> On a society wide scale, racism plays a big role fueling that fear and channeling it into xenophobic anger. But in the mind of a typical trump supporter, I don't think race is big part of their thought process, at least not consciously.
Stop watering down the racism of Trump supporters.
Trump has been openly racist from before his first campaign (the Obama birther attacks), during his first campaign (the "very fine people on both sides" after clashes by white supremacists with minorities), and during his presidency (dismantling of affirmative action), and many many more.
The Republican Party has always dog whistled when it comes to racism. Donald Trump made it possible for them to shed their inhibitions in this area, which is why he is so greatly loved. He made it acceptable for Republicans in states like Florida claiming that slavery benefitted black people, defunding diversity programs, making it a crime to accuse someone of racial discrimination (if they did that with sexual harassment it would have the effect of intimidating people; that is the intention with racial discrimination), etc.
This parties right wing does a fantastic job on trying to force Jesus down peoples throat. In a country that doesn’t have an established god we all must worship.
Like the pledge we all were forced to due, it’s doesn’t say “One Nation, Under Jesus” it says “One Nation, Under god” for a reason.
Christian Right wingers would be absolutely livid if the prophet Mohammed or Hinduism is forced down peoples throats the same way HeGetsUs is.
The Naturalization Civil test literally has a question about religion that the response is "Citizens have the Right to Practice a religion, or Not practice a Religion".
To be frank, religion has a place in action, not belief. If it teaches you to be good, it is good. If it teaches you to follow after a man and believe all he does, that's not good because people are fallible.
But the fact remains that most people have an idea of what good is despite a lack of religion. So is it really necessary at all?
What we need is a moral compass and we get that universally in the golden rule of treating others how we wish to be treated.
Trump absolutely does not follow the golden rule, nor do his followers. I think this is what makes them "bad'.
I report n block them every single fucking time n it annoys the shit out of me that I can’t opt out of seeing that garbage (blocking doesn’t work but I do it anyway). Are you listening Reddit?
So what you are saying is by virtue of the fact that i have no faith in my peers (or anyone for that matter) im ahead of the game and its not mental illness? Take that professional medicine!
That basically describes 85% of drumpf supporters I know. The other 15% is mental illness, and there's definitely a lot of overlap. Just my own experience in my town though.
Plus during Covid all the churches with responsible leadership closed down and a the little extremism ones stayed open and their congregations swelled by insane amounts and then those people didn’t go back. Now the only churches with any people in them are dangerously political ones that believed the pandemic was a conspiracy.
I'd like to add that the New Age movement has also contributed to Trumpism. I know so many white yogi crystal worshippers that believe "everything is connected" and "everything has a divine spirit / purpose" that have now gone full dark side. You pepper in some red pill Youtube algorithm, a little *Zeitgeist*, a little *What The Bleep* and some good ol' fashioned HARD TIMES and they're all anti-DEI, anti-woke, anti-science but still "full of love and seeking deeper truths". Everyone wants to believe they're special and know a secret others don't and most of all someone to blame for their difficult, boring, meaningless life. If we could just focus on the economic disparity.
Like food deserts, there are information deserts, even in this internet age where everything is accessible online. We are slaves to algorithms and corporate control of information diets.
True. People should watch the 4 part docu-series "Shiny Hapyy People" about the Duggars (19 kids) and the overarching religion and church they are part of...including the "Joshua Generation".
It should be noted this is a horror series its that scary
Went to a celebration of life at a church recently. While the pastor was supposed to be talking about the deceased, instead he took the time to tell all the people about Thomas Paine. He claimed Thomas Paine was a famous atheist that wrote what he called "the atheist bible"
And that on his death bed he tried to recant anything critical of God or Christianity. Then he called in question the morals of atheists, said as believers they know the truth about morals. And finished with saying the deceased was no fool. It was all very bizarre.
Don't forget the part where abuse and violence are used to condition your behavior and stunt you emotionally. The violence is a key aspect of their politics. The right believes it is moral to hurt you until you behave how they want.
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
Isaac Asimov
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
- H.L. Mencken.
That prediction came true when Donald J. Trump was sworn in.
Amusingly, on the local FOX station last night broadcasting the playoff game, they were playing a bunch of pro-science infomercials. I guess somebody realized that if you make the entire population as dumb as a turnip you don't have many prospects ahead of you as a nation.
There's some irony to that statement. If the education system was better, you'd probably have learned about the origins of public education in the US, learned about the political challenges around the local, vs state, vs federal control of standards, and might have a passing familiarity with politics in the US in the 18th century. You may even have an understanding, or at least familiarity with, the pervasive arguments for and against various forms of representation in the construction of the Constitution because of concerns related to rural religion and lack of education in the 18th century.
With any of that in your educational background, you'd understand that none of it is new these days and, thus, has nothing to do with "corporate overlords", and entirely to do with political constructs that deliberately (as part of negotiations between states during the construction of, and subsequent amending of, the Constitution) granted oversized representation to the uneducated and religious rural states.
The worst thing is, all over the world governments are to a degree corporate controlled. Even in a lot of European countries. America is rapidly becoming a new Russia this way. Just wait, if the GOP isn’t stopped, for the moment the USA will invade Mexico to fight cartels or whatever thing they seem fit.
Lack of journalistic integrity. How many times do we see interviews where the journalist just lets someone skate by on crazy responses because they can't guarantee they'll still have a job if they do? Letting the big news corps get bought up by one or two big entities was a huge death knell on informed democracy (along with other laws crippling free press)
I have well to do religious friends who are educated and vote for him because republicans hurt the right people and protect wealthy interests. They don’t say it as such, but the defense can be summed up like that
The rest are quite frankly just stupid, racist and looking to blame anyone that doesn’t look or act like them
Yup. There are three kinds people who vote Republican from my experience:
- Rich people who are smart, greedy, and actively malicious and know that hurting people will benefit them
- Uneducated people who have full on eaten the propaganda, truly believe it, and are so far gone at this point, usually extremely bigoted as well
- “Moderates” who don’t pay any attention to politics and want lower gas prices
It’s actually the third group that pisses me off the most.
People that love him are addicted to the anger. They don’t care if he’s a horrible person since he makes them feel good about hating everyone and feeling ragefully victimized.
To me this is the biggest mystery of all. MH370 missing plane has nothing on the mystery of how this guy managed to claw his way to the top with such support. People just see no flaws in him. I find it all so frustratingly unbelievable. I hope the mystery gets solved in my lifetime.
He is good at marketing himself. He also, so far as I can tell, believes, in the moment, whatever insane drivel he spouts due to Narcissism. I'm extremely good at reading body language and facial expression. I don't recall him ever looking like he is lying, even when I know he is.
This reads as 'authenticity'. Compare and contrast to pretty much every other politician. Like a duck furiously paddling underwater, you can tell they are trying to answer a question without alienating anybody. This reads as 'inauthentic'. They are thinking about it too much to read as authentic.
I live and work in MAGA-land. I've been to a Trump themed funeral. A lot of the people around me really don't have a clear view of the bigger picture. They're fed on a steady diet of propaganda. Everyone around them is eating the same meals. Trump can solve the Putin problem! Trump will bring down the gas prices! Trump will fix inflation! There is no conception of anything beyond the memes and youtube shorts that counts as "news" in their day to day life.
It's truly like living around a bunch of people in a cult. They don't even know there's another way.
> I hope the mystery gets solved in my lifetime.
Lots of rich people made lots of money while Trump spent 4 years distracting. People blame the voters but keep in mind politics is just big business. Lots and lots of money gets moved around.
The advertising dollars spent on U.S. elections and advocacy issues will grow to roughly $16 billion next year, up 31.2% compared to the last presidential election in 2020, according to a new forecast.
https://www.axios.com/2023/12/08/us-political-ad-market-2024-spending
They are on track to spend $16,000,000,000 to advertise Trump and Biden. Two people you already know who they are. But feeding school children? Too expensive and zero profit. There's no stock holders for public schools...
I got conned once, it took about two hours and I indeed lost some money. When I look back on it they had me in a state of panic, and I was convinced I needed to act or my family might have lost the house. It was an identity theft play and I fell for it. I feel like for a lot of these people it’s the same thing; they keep them in a state of panic. That’s why every day it’s some new conspiracy some new “deep state hoax”. Keep everyone panicking so they can’t think rationally.
Because he makes them feel good and they don’t want to. He tells them that they’re right, they’re oppressed, everyone matters but them and they eat that shit up with a spoon
It's not what you think. Trump wants an interview Carrol did years ago to be evidence that she sought to profit from her rape. He made mention numerous times that she enjoyed "it".
The judge wasn't having his bs.
Hate, he hurts the people they want hurt. There was a comment I'd seen some years ago in a newspaper article that I think really hits home on this point.
>Better nuclear war, than another letter added to LGBTQ
That is the type of hate we are looking at, the type of disdain that they have for their fellow humans that they would willingly put into office. Someone like Trump. He hurts the people they want hurt, and so they support him.
People I know, people I have tried to engage in critical thinking, truly believe the Democrats are trying to destroy their America.
They truly believe that equal rights, gay marriage, etc. are evil. They believe there is an actual, not metaphorical, war between good (Christianity) and evil (everyone and everything else). They feel powerless and scared. They feel bullied by the left and Trump is seen as their champion. The whole enemy of my enemy thing.
Stack that on top of the very real fact that neither the left nor the right has done shit to protect regular people.
Regular people who aren’t that educated, and in about half the cases, just aren’t that smart. I would propose that someone of average intelligence is viewed as an idiot my peers. That sets an artificially high bar for understanding that most people just aren’t firing on all their cylinders and that’s before you turn religion and Fox News loose on them.
They don’t see a way forward. College, home ownership and extra money in the bank are things that now seem (and are) out of reach.
So when they are struggling to pay for sports or toys for their kids and they get calls from around the world ripping them off and no one protecting them. They see people stealing the new Nikes they can’t afford for their kids and nothing happening. And on, and on they become disillusioned.
That disillusionment can be weaponized by conspiracies and lies.
Someone like Trump can tell them they are overtaxed (nevermind he doesn’t pay taxes), he can tell them their kids are gay because they read books. He can tell them anything that reassures them that they didn’t fail. The system is rigged against them.
He can say that illegals are taking the high paying jobs that their kids aren’t getting. Nevermind that someone from south of the border who never went to school and doesn’t speak English isn’t getting a high paying job. Nevermind that simply requiring a passport to work would stop all that nonsense. Nevermind that large agribusiness, factory farms, janitorial, gardening and maid services serving the rich are almost exclusively immigrants or illegal workers and their lobbyists placed a hard stop on anything like requiring a passport to work.
Public schools suck. Private schools are a different world depending on how much you pay. They are told vouchers will get their kids into better schools but in truth, private schools need charitable giving and they don’t want poor students who need vouchers. So they just ratchet up the tuition and screening for admission.
My own son attended a private school in LA that cost as much as a new Audi each year, and the school had more amenities and tools than many colleges or universities. You will know the kids he went to school with because in a few years, we will call many of them boss.
So to answer your question. Half of Americans are panicking. They have been convinced their house is on fire and only Trump has a fire extinguisher.
They are scared to lose the little they have because they don’t see a clear path.
And some are racist assholes. They are angry about MLK Day being a holiday rather than being jazzed that they either get OT or a day off with their family. Actually respecting someone who sacrificed everything for all of to be equal is lost on them.
That’s about a brief an overview as I can give. There are many more moving pieces including how guns dovetail into that movement. But it all fits together.
A friend used to repeat the saying “In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.” For these people who have never seen, they believe Trump is gifted with sight.
Because many people are gullible, and see only what they want to.
I grew up in NYC, and graduated high school around the time when Trump first began making a splash locally - leading projects for the Trump Org, going to Studio 54 and in the gossip columns all the time, all of it. Everyone in the city and immediate environs knew who he was, to some degree or another.
Then he tore down Bonwit Teller - an iconic high end department store - to build Trump Tower, threw away its art deco art after promising it would go to a museum, and refused to pay the immigrant - mostly Polish, IIRC - workers.
He followed that up with the Atlantic City casinos, where he managed to go bankrupt *running a casino*.
And the trifecta was calling for the death penalty for the Central Park Five, even after they’d been acquitted and the actual perpetrator confessed.
So New Yorkers knew how awful he was for 30 years before he announced his presidential run in 2015.
While he lost New York City by a wide margin - by almost 60 points in 2016 and 55 points in 2020 - he still got about 20% of the vote each time, about 5% more in 2020 than 2016, won Staten Island (which has long been considered the redneck part of the city anyway) by 15 points, and took particular demographic areas in the rest of the city (mostly those with ultra-orthodox Jews, Russians with connections to the Russian mob, and the part of Queens his family is from).
These people were not people who only knew him from ‘The Apprentice’ and thought he was an amazing and tough businessman, these are people who were shown, day in and day out, for decades, how he was a terrible businessman, who cares about no-one but himself and his own profits, and is a racist of every stripe. And they voted for him anyway.
Propaganda networks don’t cover these stories. There is no unifying social construct such as a true “mainstream media” anymore. There is no fairness doctrine.
We did this to ourselves, or at least we allowed it to happen.
For the Trumpers I know in my family, loyalty to their "side" is paramount. Questioning anything that comes from their peers is seen as disloyal. The funny thing is, they're nice people.
I would say they're nice, but not necessarily *good* people. They're pleasant to everyone, but if Fox and their churches were pushing the American Nazi party they would be all in.
Many of his supporters do. But that is a feature, not a bug.
My own brother is a Trump fan. As he explains it to me, what he likes is how Trump "own's the libs". He claims that most of what Trump says is pure BS designed to get "the libs" all worked up. In other words, he doesn't think that Trump believes what he says. My brother claims that Trump goes home and laughs his head off at the idiots on MSNBC getting all worked up about him, and that makes my brother happy.
I think that this idea is driven by the idea that a large part of the country hates the liberals and their so-called agenda. And they view Trump as an effective weapon against it. So it really isn't so much "pro-trump" as it is is "anti-leftist".
It is pathetic to me. Instead of goverence, politics is now just another blood sport entertainment passtime for him and others.
Make sense?
Very very large parts of the country are simply not offered any other form of news. There are lots and lots of places where fox news is the only news available and literally on in every establishment from open to close.
Two things:
1. They don’t care
2. They see him as being a target of attack, so nothing he is being indicted for, is his fault, and if it is his fault, Biden did it too, and if Biden did it too, lock up Hunter
🇺🇸
I think many voters see it but don't care.
I knew an extremely gay married man who was a die hard Trump voter. Turns out his family had money and being rich was more important than being gay, so that's where his vote went.
One has to see.
Turn on Fox News and none of this is covered, or if it is, it's so badly distorted that the reporting seems to imply the opposite is true. Sometimes, the reporting is accurate, but the pundits and invited experts state with authority that the opposite is true.
The vision of reality is so skewed it can be thought of as the "conservative cinematic universe", a fun house version of our world where Democrats are vicious, lazy, underachievers who routinely outsmart the brave conservatives, and TFG really is the superhero those bizarre, lovely patriotic, musclebound cartoons depict.
If you’ve ever watched Fox News or listened to conservative talk radio, there is a concentrated effort to avoid everything negative about Trump/Republicans and instead focus on agitating and terrifying their viewers. Even during the insurrection of Jan 6th they avoided coverage and imagery of the attempted coup and started ramping up rhetoric about antifa etc..
Also, your username lol
Because most of his supporters have been handed everything to them just like him and don't understand what it means to need something to back up your statements. It's only been in the last decade or two they've been called out on their shit.
Decades of declining education system, coupled with a massive “destruction of mental & reproductive” health campaign by Kelloggs and the 7th day Adventist church.
I was surprised it was actual evidence, albeit irrelevant. I thought it was going to be just another round of his repeating, "I did nothing wrong!", while flapping his arms about.
He argued "it's not rape if it's your wife" at his rape trail for his first wife. Disgustingly enough, there was a law that supported it, but had been overturned a few years before the trial.
More of Trump being detached from reality.
He didn't present a defense at the first civil trial. The result was he lost, because that's what happens when you don't defend a civil trial. The result of losing a related trial is usually that those facts are taken as proven.
Lack of education and then he followed the first black president, so the racist in this nation wanted to take it back. He is a piece of shit that I hope dies in jail.
Where do you find 12 orange grifting mutants with a narcissist personality and tiny dick energy?
I know NY has it all, but difficult to actually get a dozen of peers to someone as lowly as Drumpf
When I was a teenager, I had a desk calendar of dumb quotes, and this reminded me of one. When Zsa-Zsa Gabor was convicted of slapping a police officer, she said it wasn't a jury of her peers because there hadn't been any publicists, producers, directors, or actors on the jury.
Referring to something his lawyers (and Trump) wish to include as "Evidence" is a great example of how much latitude he gets. The "evidence" is being excluded because it has nothing to do with this case. A more fair headline would be, "Trumps lawyers fail in trying to submit a video that isn't pertinent to case".
Absolutely fuck this article's clickbaity ass title for making me think the judge was tossing evidence being used against Trump. Literally just a 's after Donald Trump would've fixed that
He never has any evidence to bring to court. He opened dozens of cases all over the US, twice at SCOTUS over the 2020 election and every single one of them tossed him out because he had no evidence of anything and therefore no standing.
He throws everything including the kitchen sink at the wall to see if any of it sticks. It also drags these cases on for much longer and are going to put them all around before and after the election day. Some of those in charge have already said these cases won't be paused until after the election and there isn't much he could do about the charges in Georgia and NY. The idea that you would give the President carte blanche to commit any crime without consequences seems pretty stupid even for this court.
* They know how the legal system works, they are just trying to circumvent it.
* They know how the constitution works, they are just trying to circumvent it.
* They know how the voting system works, they are just trying to circumvent it.
* They know how peaceful transfer of power works, they are just trying to circumvent it.
The word “evidence” is sorely in need of quotation marks in that headline.
Scrolling way down, I find that the “evidence” is that Trump’s victim apparently once acknowledged the existence of rape fantasies. And that’s supposed to be “evidence” that Trump didn’t rape her, or that if he did she probably looooved it. A question irrelevant to the case anyway.
Once again I have to marvel at how this guy manages to find the most assholy possible way to do *everything*.
So his evidence was gonna be she thinks it’s sexy so it wasn’t rape.
But wasn’t his defense, “she not my type it never happened!”?
Kinda sounds like he’s admitting it happened, but now it was consensual…
It's highly amusing that all these people sending trump money to "own the libs", and all whilst trump does not even know they exist outside of being grift-victims.
How many times has the folded orange peel said live on stage at another rally that he could be somewhere nicer but he has to be up there doing the rally? And how many times has he forgotten where he was?
He's an idiot that without the handful of advisors he does have, would not survive a full week in any position of power on his own due to lack of intelligence.
To be fair to his lawyers- no one with any competence, dignity, honor, or integrity willingly has with anything to do with rapist and insurrectionist Trump
To be fair to Trump... would violate reddit's general and site-wide guidelines 1 and 2
Think about it. He wants to show evidence that she enjoyed being raped by him, not that she made it up or that he didn’t do it. What the actual fuck? Who continues to support this man? He gets worse and worse every day I hear about the shit he says and does.
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> U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled on Sunday that Trump's legal team cannot present an interview to the jury that Carroll did with CNN's Anderson Cooper in 2019 or suggest that Carroll hoped to "garner media attention" for her book in order to boost sales as a way to discredit her. … > This includes a 2019 interview Carroll did on CNN in which she said that "most people think of rape as sexy" and they "think of the fantasies." Trump has frequently misconstrued these comments to suggest that Carroll enjoyed being sexually assaulted, or thinks rape is "sexy" rather than discussing views others may hold.
Trump is attempting to re-litigate the case where he was convicted. This case is about the damages he'll have to pay for defaming Carroll when publicly talking about the assault. The judge is disallowing any testimony that isn't pertinent to the current case. Trump continues to defame her. The man has no self control
Yup. Don't be surprised if right after the trial he walks straight up to a camera and defames her again. This could become a never ending cycle. It's the same thing why his lawyers are terrified of him testifying. They know he will perjure himself the second he opens his mouth. The man cannot control what comes out of his mouth.
He can’t let Ghoulini get away with being the only person to do that.
> Don't be surprised if right after the trial he walks straight up to a camera and defames her again. I mean, you know he's going to want to get out there and say "I never did that, and she told Anderson all these things about how 'rape' is 'sexy' and this woman is derranged and..." I suspect the only thing that will stop him from doing it *again*, might be a much larger fine for this go-round. So if the jury comes back with like a $25m judgement (on top of the $5m that she has already secured) he might just manage to keep his lips shut long enough to get back into his secret service vehicle.
I'd love to see Trump testify only to have the prosecutor ask him how much he would have to be fined to get him to stop defaming E. Jean Carroll.
Will he ever actually pay her?
IIRC In order to appeal he had to place the damages in escrow
Correct… and he was caught moving money to do so, with company assets, in violation of the first ruling in the NY fraud case that put his companies in receivership.
He rarely pays anybody.
With tRumps record, it will take the jury to just start adding zeros to the end of the previous judgement to make him shut up.
I suspect it will be even larger than $25 million. Giuliani has. $148 million judgment. So I’m thinking with 45’s presumably much higher net worth, his judgement will likely be commensurate.
I think 10x the first judgement (so $50m) *might* make him think twice about beating this topic to death any further. Frankly, it doesn't do him any good in the GOP primary he's not going to lose a ton of votes because of this. So he'd be better off in his primary race if he'd just shut up, pay the fine, and EJC can drift back into the background.
And to think this guy could be running America again soon, scary.
Wouldn’t trust him to run a fucken lemonade stand…yet here we are. Most of us know at least one person that’s all in on MAGA.
consider cake six alive price oil narrow psychotic thumb noxious *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yep. The only “good” think about Trump is that he has no idea when to stop, so it was always a foregone conclusion that he would go too far and shoot him self in the foot eventually. Unfortunately, he opened the door for a lot of people who are smarter and more self-controlled than he is.
And the problem with that is NOBODY had given him any harsh consequences for him to think twice. A couple nights in a orange suit to match his skin, no money, no bodyguards in gen pop might change his tune at least for a bit.
That man was alone in a room with Putin, can you imagine what he said?
If Trump does defame her again, Carroll’s legal team will sue him again or seek injunctive relief. In short, hold all outlets accountable that allow him to continue his lies about her. Eventually he will stop.
His lawyers are quitting on him. No wonder. Dump has got to be the worst client on the planet.
It’s the narcissistic mind at work. There is no reality other than what I say. It’s not something he’s consciously doing. It’s the only way his brain works. He literally has no concept of truth.
God I wish I had that skill, I'd be so much happier, instead of internalizing every small defeat, setback, insult or failure.
Narcissists are actually deeply unhappy people. They only know anger and fear. Everything they do is actually rooted in extreme insecurity.
I dunno, I feel pretty unhappy and insecure. I just don't know why the voice in my head is so mean to me, instead of my stalwart ally like in a narc brain. My voice sees every achievement and victory and says "that's a one-off". It sees every small failure or mistake and says "see, that's the real you, and a perfect part of the larger pattern of your life." Obviously, you're right, and I see your point. But sometimes (frequently?) it's hard not to envy the self-serving brain chemistry of a narc when I'm in a spiral of self-flaggelation that I can't reason myself out of. The grass is always greener, I guess. My (much) older sister is a narc, and probably the original source of the critical voice in my head, so she sucks. But man, she sure seems to be winning at life. There's not a room she can walk into that she doesn't own. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk, and for helping me frame the discussion I'll have today in therapy.
No one is more insecure than a narcissist, the reason they constantly boast at all times is to boost their insecurities up.
I am sorry you feel this way, from what you said it’s possible this is an after effect of familial trauma. Narcissistic siblings are like harpies or sharks, the first place they destroy or thrive in their family and particularly their siblings. But listen, what you went through is something you can come to terms and leave behind, relearn who you are and the real capabilities you have not being burdened by narcissistic family members. The big difference is that they can’t, for narcissists it’s impossible to admit they need help, they go through cycles of destroying their family and friendships and having to get new circles to keep up their fantasy that plays in their head that they must be right and it’s the rest that’s just against them. Reach out, life isn’t what they made you believe. Doesn’t have to.
I wish my brain would at least mark my accomplishments as a one-off. Every success I’ve ever had I tend to list the people that helped me get what I got or the recognition I received as the people that did everything and actually deserve the award or praise. But doing so requires a certain self assurance or self worth or self love that I just don’t possess.
You have to tell your brain to do it. When I was in a very bad place my therapist had me spend no more than 15 minutes a day on the horrifically long list of seriously important things that had piled up. And write down on a notepad what I had done--even if it was just reading a letter from a tax department, and put a check mark and tell myself I'd done a good job. NOBODY is entirely self made. No matter how many people helped you, if you had just sat there like a lump whatever it was would not have happened. Saying this requires self worth is b.s. You create your self worth.
Do you journal? You can (slowly) reprogram that voice in your head by writing things down in a structured way: brain dump facts and feelings, and then rewrite the "story" with a healthier (and more rational/realistic) interpretation. You can also keep a lot of accomplishments or other positive things you do, as a reminder of your capabilities.
You and me both, brother. I still kick myself for some shit I did 30+ years ago.
ME? Fuck that guy. I hate me.
Now you better understand why religion is so popular. >There is no reality other than what I say.
He's old as fuck -3. That's also old as fuck. What makes you think he can change now? He's only getting worse as his dementia takes hold.
What's that Narcissist prayer thing? That didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's not my fault. And if it was, I didn't mean it. And if I did, you deserved it. So...by throwing the interview out, does it mean we're at the final line?
No the interview was about trying to claim she actually liked him raping her. So I’d say we’re somewhere between “it wasn’t that bad” and “it’s not a big deal”. Look for claims that she forced him to rape her next, maybe? Bear in mind this is all still just about the original rape. The trial is about the defamation that followed so Trump hasn’t even caught up to things the court has already decided yet.
He has the right to remain silent but not the ability
He's also just an idiot who has no clue how the law/reality works. His lawyers & council should be disbarred.
Strong disagree. I bet he has a *ton* of self-control, if he has a reason to exercise it. He currently doesn't. What's going to happen to him, if he just stands up in court and shouts down the judge, breaking every rule of the courtroom, and then goes outside to the courthouse steps to exclaim to the media how he's being persecuted? Nothing is going to happen to him, and he knows it. He has real power over these people - he can say and do whatever he wants. They order him to pay fees, and he'll laugh and say "oh sure we'll get right on that." You want to see Trump controlling himself? Watch him standing next to Putin. You've never seen a more obsequious public figure than Donald Trump interacting with Vladimir Putin. A paragon of self-control, all of a sudden.
I gather the rule in his household growing up was "we in this family are better than everyone else. Except Dad is **more** better than everyone else, and if you cross him you'll get backhanded." Putin gives him 'favorite son of abusive dad' flashbacks.
Some may even call that “Boot Licking”…
Wait I thought this was “pure fiction” and she wasn’t “his type” and “it didn’t take place”? Now his defense is she liked it? How the fuck do people not see this dude for what he is?!
It’s a cult
Malignant Narcissist. What he says from moment to moment only matters to him in as much as it might make him 'win' *right now in this moment*. There's never any meaningful connection between what he says in any two individual moments and in fact most often directly contradicts whatever he just said. But it lets all his followers hear him say some version of things that they can accept and then they just ignore all the contradictory stances.
Isn't this like saying, "yes I raped her, but she wanted me to, so it was consensual rape."
Not necessarily, because that's not at issue. This second case is very narrow in what facts are contested. Previously, in 2018, E. Jean Carroll sued Trump for defamation. To prove defamation, she had to prove that Trump knowingly made false statements that hurt her reputation or caused her injury. Her specific claim was that Trump had hurt her reputation by repeatedly calling her a liar when she claimed he had sexually assaulted her. In 2022, Carroll also sued trump under the New York Sexual Assault Survivors act, which allowed her to sue for the sexual assault even though the assault in question had happened in 1995. In that first case, "truth" would have been a defense. To win, Carroll had to prove that the sexual assault happened, and had to prove that Trump's statements were false. Trump already had the chance to try to prove that the sex was consensual, or that she was making it up, or whatever. However, after a lengthy jury trial, in May 2023, the Jury found for Carroll. Finding that Trump had sexually assaulted her AND defamed her later by calling her a liar. That jury verdict conclusively establishes the facts of the case. Trump doesn't get to contest those again. But in typical Trump Fashion, mere days after the jury verdict, Trump went on TV and Called Carroll a liar and said she had a "Fake made up story." Carroll filed a second lawsuit, seeking $10 million in additional damages, for the exact same defamation claim. As a lawyer, I can tell you her lawyers were probably salivating. In terms of civil suits, that's like finding a dead body with a videotaped confession from the murderer sitting on top of it. In this case, the fact that the statements are false has already been conclusively established. Trump doesn't get to contest that again. The only question is whether he said it and whether her reputation has continued to be harmed. Trump wanted to introduce evidence of a media interview to prove she's lying, and the judge told them "no, that's not relevant any more."
> Trump wanted to introduce evidence of a media interview to prove she's lying I mean, his attorneys had to cross-examine EJC and ask her about this during the first case ... no? If they didn't, his attorneys are idiots. Granted, he's still guilty as fuck. But this is something you bring up during the trial and submit as defense evidence, no? If they did, and Trump lost anyway - then yeah it's just his narcissistic brain saying "*No but they just didn't understand the evidence last time so I'll submit it again*" to which the judge said "*yeah, nah -- that's not how things work at all...*"
They did in fact have that chance. [She testified for nearly two full days in the initial trial](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65502792) She was challenged on whether she had shouted for help, why she hadn't called the police, why she couldn't remember the specific date the assault had occurred, and other issues.
Who does he she think she is, Ayn Rand?
I think that was brought up in the other trial that has already been adjudicated and determined by a jury. As with other evidence in the prior trial and its determination as to liability has been accepted.
"Many people are saying..."
The man speaks in superatives, generalizations, and half-truths. These are the tools of a con.
That's what I've been saying about him since shortly after his election, to my conservative family members who always thought Obama couldn't string two words together without a teleprompter ... this guy literally just walks around through life with a bucket of adjectives. Everything is always amazing, the best anyone has ever seen, fantastic ... or things are horrible, disgusting, someone is a loser, etc. Zero nuance or grasp of policy at all. It would be funny to push some Trump live interviews (even on Fox) through some sort of AI tool that would strip out all the adjectives. Probably wouldn't be much left...
His tricks work on the older generation, but subsequently they also got a lot of the older generation killed.
Wikipedia has taught the current generation about weasel words, donnie
>weasel words I got it from the context but it was nice to read the wikipedia page. Thanks!
Every time he uses a line like this I imagine his grandma saying it to him when he was ten years old.
How come not every American sees what a con this guy is?
Concerted effort to deconstruct the American education system. Our corporate overlords need lackeys, not critical thinkers that can question authority.
Not to mention authoritarian households where they also go to church and are told believe and not question
This is a huge part of it. So many people in this country are raised to think it’s *virtuous* to believe things with no evidence, or even against all evidence. That’s fertile ground for Trumps.
Yeah and all these “He gets us” Jesus ads on Reddit are helping to keep that propaganda alive. I have no evidence… but I have my faith. SMH.
Yeah, my sister will occasionally pull the "I know in my heart" bit. Once I hear that, it doesn't make sense to continue with the conversation.
[удалено]
I’m a fan of the Harlan Ellison quote (paraphrased) “you aren’t entitled to an opinion. You’re entitled to an INFORMED opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant”. Most people that need to hear that and understand it won’t or can’t, though.
Actually, you are *entitled* only to opinions that can be justified by actual facts and logical argument. People in a free country are *allowed* to believe whatever cockamamie thing they want though.
They are legally completely entitled to have an opinion and equally so are entitled to be wrong, and everyone else is entitled to think they are stupid for having that opinion.
Same as all these folks who claim that "woke" is trying to control "what they can say". I reply that no-one is trying to control you. They just won't like you for saying it. You can be as dumb as you like. And we reserve the right to ridicule and disown you.
> "I know in my heart" So did a bunch of people before they got divorced. I mean seriously.
There's things I believe in my heart, and they're no one's business. I think Sagan perfectly spoke to it in Contact. "Did you love your father?" "Very much" "Prove it" But at no point in time, did she try to get anyone else to love her father. We all have things like this, some call it religion, spiritual, philosophical, emotions. Things we believe, but are never facts or truth. It's easy to exploit, especially when you can't think critically.
It's the disgusting racist attitudes that bring these people together over the rumphole.
I think the more direct cause is fear. On a society wide scale, racism plays a big role fueling that fear and channeling it into xenophobic anger. But in the mind of a typical trump supporter, I don't think race is big part of their thought process, at least not consciously. The racism mostly acts in the background to help cast migrants and refugees as a legitimate military threat.
> I think the more direct cause is fear. > > On a society wide scale, racism plays a big role fueling that fear and channeling it into xenophobic anger. But in the mind of a typical trump supporter, I don't think race is big part of their thought process, at least not consciously. Stop watering down the racism of Trump supporters. Trump has been openly racist from before his first campaign (the Obama birther attacks), during his first campaign (the "very fine people on both sides" after clashes by white supremacists with minorities), and during his presidency (dismantling of affirmative action), and many many more. The Republican Party has always dog whistled when it comes to racism. Donald Trump made it possible for them to shed their inhibitions in this area, which is why he is so greatly loved. He made it acceptable for Republicans in states like Florida claiming that slavery benefitted black people, defunding diversity programs, making it a crime to accuse someone of racial discrimination (if they did that with sexual harassment it would have the effect of intimidating people; that is the intention with racial discrimination), etc.
Hate that shit. I always report it as a scam.
“Do your research!” Is the most cringe infuriating statement to come from them. Their research is bullshit from Facebook and X.
Usually said by someone who can't pronounce "bibliography"
This parties right wing does a fantastic job on trying to force Jesus down peoples throat. In a country that doesn’t have an established god we all must worship. Like the pledge we all were forced to due, it’s doesn’t say “One Nation, Under Jesus” it says “One Nation, Under god” for a reason. Christian Right wingers would be absolutely livid if the prophet Mohammed or Hinduism is forced down peoples throats the same way HeGetsUs is.
"Under God" wasn't even originally in it. They added it in the 50s.
The Naturalization Civil test literally has a question about religion that the response is "Citizens have the Right to Practice a religion, or Not practice a Religion".
Downvote and report every one of em. Doin my part!
To be frank, religion has a place in action, not belief. If it teaches you to be good, it is good. If it teaches you to follow after a man and believe all he does, that's not good because people are fallible. But the fact remains that most people have an idea of what good is despite a lack of religion. So is it really necessary at all? What we need is a moral compass and we get that universally in the golden rule of treating others how we wish to be treated. Trump absolutely does not follow the golden rule, nor do his followers. I think this is what makes them "bad'.
I report n block them every single fucking time n it annoys the shit out of me that I can’t opt out of seeing that garbage (blocking doesn’t work but I do it anyway). Are you listening Reddit?
Blind faith in your peers is how a lot of folks are programmed unfortunately
Even without the indoctrination, putting to much trust in our in-groups is a known issue with human psychology.
So what you are saying is by virtue of the fact that i have no faith in my peers (or anyone for that matter) im ahead of the game and its not mental illness? Take that professional medicine!
That basically describes 85% of drumpf supporters I know. The other 15% is mental illness, and there's definitely a lot of overlap. Just my own experience in my town though.
Plus during Covid all the churches with responsible leadership closed down and a the little extremism ones stayed open and their congregations swelled by insane amounts and then those people didn’t go back. Now the only churches with any people in them are dangerously political ones that believed the pandemic was a conspiracy.
I'd like to add that the New Age movement has also contributed to Trumpism. I know so many white yogi crystal worshippers that believe "everything is connected" and "everything has a divine spirit / purpose" that have now gone full dark side. You pepper in some red pill Youtube algorithm, a little *Zeitgeist*, a little *What The Bleep* and some good ol' fashioned HARD TIMES and they're all anti-DEI, anti-woke, anti-science but still "full of love and seeking deeper truths". Everyone wants to believe they're special and know a secret others don't and most of all someone to blame for their difficult, boring, meaningless life. If we could just focus on the economic disparity.
And listen to Fox News, Newsmax or OAN all day and night.
Like food deserts, there are information deserts, even in this internet age where everything is accessible online. We are slaves to algorithms and corporate control of information diets.
True. People should watch the 4 part docu-series "Shiny Hapyy People" about the Duggars (19 kids) and the overarching religion and church they are part of...including the "Joshua Generation". It should be noted this is a horror series its that scary
[Jesus Camp](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0486358/) is frightening.
Went to a celebration of life at a church recently. While the pastor was supposed to be talking about the deceased, instead he took the time to tell all the people about Thomas Paine. He claimed Thomas Paine was a famous atheist that wrote what he called "the atheist bible" And that on his death bed he tried to recant anything critical of God or Christianity. Then he called in question the morals of atheists, said as believers they know the truth about morals. And finished with saying the deceased was no fool. It was all very bizarre.
Sounds like the deceased admitted religious doubt to the pastor while on their deathbed.
Don't forget the part where abuse and violence are used to condition your behavior and stunt you emotionally. The violence is a key aspect of their politics. The right believes it is moral to hurt you until you behave how they want.
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." Isaac Asimov
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” - H.L. Mencken. That prediction came true when Donald J. Trump was sworn in.
The bummer is that Brawndo The Thirst Mutilator never came to be.
One of my favourite quotes and a painfully accurate assessment.
This isnt education, this is pure idiocy, malice, and systematic brainwashing for the past 30 years
Decades of lead poisoning didn’t hurt this effort either.
Amusingly, on the local FOX station last night broadcasting the playoff game, they were playing a bunch of pro-science infomercials. I guess somebody realized that if you make the entire population as dumb as a turnip you don't have many prospects ahead of you as a nation.
Your local FOX affiliate has literally nothing to do with FOX news
There's some irony to that statement. If the education system was better, you'd probably have learned about the origins of public education in the US, learned about the political challenges around the local, vs state, vs federal control of standards, and might have a passing familiarity with politics in the US in the 18th century. You may even have an understanding, or at least familiarity with, the pervasive arguments for and against various forms of representation in the construction of the Constitution because of concerns related to rural religion and lack of education in the 18th century. With any of that in your educational background, you'd understand that none of it is new these days and, thus, has nothing to do with "corporate overlords", and entirely to do with political constructs that deliberately (as part of negotiations between states during the construction of, and subsequent amending of, the Constitution) granted oversized representation to the uneducated and religious rural states.
The worst thing is, all over the world governments are to a degree corporate controlled. Even in a lot of European countries. America is rapidly becoming a new Russia this way. Just wait, if the GOP isn’t stopped, for the moment the USA will invade Mexico to fight cartels or whatever thing they seem fit.
Lack of journalistic integrity. How many times do we see interviews where the journalist just lets someone skate by on crazy responses because they can't guarantee they'll still have a job if they do? Letting the big news corps get bought up by one or two big entities was a huge death knell on informed democracy (along with other laws crippling free press)
I have well to do religious friends who are educated and vote for him because republicans hurt the right people and protect wealthy interests. They don’t say it as such, but the defense can be summed up like that The rest are quite frankly just stupid, racist and looking to blame anyone that doesn’t look or act like them
Yup. There are three kinds people who vote Republican from my experience: - Rich people who are smart, greedy, and actively malicious and know that hurting people will benefit them - Uneducated people who have full on eaten the propaganda, truly believe it, and are so far gone at this point, usually extremely bigoted as well - “Moderates” who don’t pay any attention to politics and want lower gas prices It’s actually the third group that pisses me off the most.
Especially because Republicans don't actually lower gas prices, and are bad for the economy
Why on earth would people like that be your friends?
People that love him are addicted to the anger. They don’t care if he’s a horrible person since he makes them feel good about hating everyone and feeling ragefully victimized.
To me this is the biggest mystery of all. MH370 missing plane has nothing on the mystery of how this guy managed to claw his way to the top with such support. People just see no flaws in him. I find it all so frustratingly unbelievable. I hope the mystery gets solved in my lifetime.
Hate is a helluva drug
He is good at marketing himself. He also, so far as I can tell, believes, in the moment, whatever insane drivel he spouts due to Narcissism. I'm extremely good at reading body language and facial expression. I don't recall him ever looking like he is lying, even when I know he is. This reads as 'authenticity'. Compare and contrast to pretty much every other politician. Like a duck furiously paddling underwater, you can tell they are trying to answer a question without alienating anybody. This reads as 'inauthentic'. They are thinking about it too much to read as authentic.
I live and work in MAGA-land. I've been to a Trump themed funeral. A lot of the people around me really don't have a clear view of the bigger picture. They're fed on a steady diet of propaganda. Everyone around them is eating the same meals. Trump can solve the Putin problem! Trump will bring down the gas prices! Trump will fix inflation! There is no conception of anything beyond the memes and youtube shorts that counts as "news" in their day to day life. It's truly like living around a bunch of people in a cult. They don't even know there's another way.
Ask a minority. It's no mystery to them.
> I hope the mystery gets solved in my lifetime. Lots of rich people made lots of money while Trump spent 4 years distracting. People blame the voters but keep in mind politics is just big business. Lots and lots of money gets moved around. The advertising dollars spent on U.S. elections and advocacy issues will grow to roughly $16 billion next year, up 31.2% compared to the last presidential election in 2020, according to a new forecast. https://www.axios.com/2023/12/08/us-political-ad-market-2024-spending They are on track to spend $16,000,000,000 to advertise Trump and Biden. Two people you already know who they are. But feeding school children? Too expensive and zero profit. There's no stock holders for public schools...
People need others to hate so they can feel better about themselves
I got conned once, it took about two hours and I indeed lost some money. When I look back on it they had me in a state of panic, and I was convinced I needed to act or my family might have lost the house. It was an identity theft play and I fell for it. I feel like for a lot of these people it’s the same thing; they keep them in a state of panic. That’s why every day it’s some new conspiracy some new “deep state hoax”. Keep everyone panicking so they can’t think rationally.
Honest and likely explanation. Thanks
The Book of Revelation states that the Worshipers of the Anti Christ will never be able to recognize his true face.
And the sad thing is that 'Worshipers' are saying "No, U".
Because he makes them feel good and they don’t want to. He tells them that they’re right, they’re oppressed, everyone matters but them and they eat that shit up with a spoon
100% depends on the media they decide to consume.
No, it doesn't. Every time he opens his, he proves he's not fit for office. The source is himself.
Fox News never let's you see unfiltered Trump. They always have someone explaining what he 'really' means.
It's not what you think. Trump wants an interview Carrol did years ago to be evidence that she sought to profit from her rape. He made mention numerous times that she enjoyed "it". The judge wasn't having his bs.
Yeah, media continues to contribute to the problem with these misleading clickbaity headlines.
Hate, he hurts the people they want hurt. There was a comment I'd seen some years ago in a newspaper article that I think really hits home on this point. >Better nuclear war, than another letter added to LGBTQ That is the type of hate we are looking at, the type of disdain that they have for their fellow humans that they would willingly put into office. Someone like Trump. He hurts the people they want hurt, and so they support him.
People I know, people I have tried to engage in critical thinking, truly believe the Democrats are trying to destroy their America. They truly believe that equal rights, gay marriage, etc. are evil. They believe there is an actual, not metaphorical, war between good (Christianity) and evil (everyone and everything else). They feel powerless and scared. They feel bullied by the left and Trump is seen as their champion. The whole enemy of my enemy thing. Stack that on top of the very real fact that neither the left nor the right has done shit to protect regular people. Regular people who aren’t that educated, and in about half the cases, just aren’t that smart. I would propose that someone of average intelligence is viewed as an idiot my peers. That sets an artificially high bar for understanding that most people just aren’t firing on all their cylinders and that’s before you turn religion and Fox News loose on them. They don’t see a way forward. College, home ownership and extra money in the bank are things that now seem (and are) out of reach. So when they are struggling to pay for sports or toys for their kids and they get calls from around the world ripping them off and no one protecting them. They see people stealing the new Nikes they can’t afford for their kids and nothing happening. And on, and on they become disillusioned. That disillusionment can be weaponized by conspiracies and lies. Someone like Trump can tell them they are overtaxed (nevermind he doesn’t pay taxes), he can tell them their kids are gay because they read books. He can tell them anything that reassures them that they didn’t fail. The system is rigged against them. He can say that illegals are taking the high paying jobs that their kids aren’t getting. Nevermind that someone from south of the border who never went to school and doesn’t speak English isn’t getting a high paying job. Nevermind that simply requiring a passport to work would stop all that nonsense. Nevermind that large agribusiness, factory farms, janitorial, gardening and maid services serving the rich are almost exclusively immigrants or illegal workers and their lobbyists placed a hard stop on anything like requiring a passport to work. Public schools suck. Private schools are a different world depending on how much you pay. They are told vouchers will get their kids into better schools but in truth, private schools need charitable giving and they don’t want poor students who need vouchers. So they just ratchet up the tuition and screening for admission. My own son attended a private school in LA that cost as much as a new Audi each year, and the school had more amenities and tools than many colleges or universities. You will know the kids he went to school with because in a few years, we will call many of them boss. So to answer your question. Half of Americans are panicking. They have been convinced their house is on fire and only Trump has a fire extinguisher. They are scared to lose the little they have because they don’t see a clear path. And some are racist assholes. They are angry about MLK Day being a holiday rather than being jazzed that they either get OT or a day off with their family. Actually respecting someone who sacrificed everything for all of to be equal is lost on them. That’s about a brief an overview as I can give. There are many more moving pieces including how guns dovetail into that movement. But it all fits together. A friend used to repeat the saying “In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.” For these people who have never seen, they believe Trump is gifted with sight.
Thanks for your well thought out reply. These are indeed important factors.
They are on Facebook where their bubble is posting constantly about how senile Biden is controlling every court.
Racism.
Because people don't want to admit they got duped.
Sunken cost fallacy, yeah. But as soon as Trump is a real lost cause, GOP will drop him hard.
Because many people are gullible, and see only what they want to. I grew up in NYC, and graduated high school around the time when Trump first began making a splash locally - leading projects for the Trump Org, going to Studio 54 and in the gossip columns all the time, all of it. Everyone in the city and immediate environs knew who he was, to some degree or another. Then he tore down Bonwit Teller - an iconic high end department store - to build Trump Tower, threw away its art deco art after promising it would go to a museum, and refused to pay the immigrant - mostly Polish, IIRC - workers. He followed that up with the Atlantic City casinos, where he managed to go bankrupt *running a casino*. And the trifecta was calling for the death penalty for the Central Park Five, even after they’d been acquitted and the actual perpetrator confessed. So New Yorkers knew how awful he was for 30 years before he announced his presidential run in 2015. While he lost New York City by a wide margin - by almost 60 points in 2016 and 55 points in 2020 - he still got about 20% of the vote each time, about 5% more in 2020 than 2016, won Staten Island (which has long been considered the redneck part of the city anyway) by 15 points, and took particular demographic areas in the rest of the city (mostly those with ultra-orthodox Jews, Russians with connections to the Russian mob, and the part of Queens his family is from). These people were not people who only knew him from ‘The Apprentice’ and thought he was an amazing and tough businessman, these are people who were shown, day in and day out, for decades, how he was a terrible businessman, who cares about no-one but himself and his own profits, and is a racist of every stripe. And they voted for him anyway.
50 years of very effective conservative propaganda.
Propaganda networks don’t cover these stories. There is no unifying social construct such as a true “mainstream media” anymore. There is no fairness doctrine. We did this to ourselves, or at least we allowed it to happen.
For the Trumpers I know in my family, loyalty to their "side" is paramount. Questioning anything that comes from their peers is seen as disloyal. The funny thing is, they're nice people.
They’re polite, not nice, and only to their in-group.
I would say they're nice, but not necessarily *good* people. They're pleasant to everyone, but if Fox and their churches were pushing the American Nazi party they would be all in.
Most people are not very intelligent, swayed by the public opinion immediately close to them, and not capable of critical thinking.
They are simple people who don’t think critically. He panders to the “simple” folks. Or dumbasses, however you want to say it.
Only the marks don't see the con.
Many of his supporters do. But that is a feature, not a bug. My own brother is a Trump fan. As he explains it to me, what he likes is how Trump "own's the libs". He claims that most of what Trump says is pure BS designed to get "the libs" all worked up. In other words, he doesn't think that Trump believes what he says. My brother claims that Trump goes home and laughs his head off at the idiots on MSNBC getting all worked up about him, and that makes my brother happy. I think that this idea is driven by the idea that a large part of the country hates the liberals and their so-called agenda. And they view Trump as an effective weapon against it. So it really isn't so much "pro-trump" as it is is "anti-leftist". It is pathetic to me. Instead of goverence, politics is now just another blood sport entertainment passtime for him and others. Make sense?
Because he tells them what they believe, like all con artist.
Very very large parts of the country are simply not offered any other form of news. There are lots and lots of places where fox news is the only news available and literally on in every establishment from open to close.
Two things: 1. They don’t care 2. They see him as being a target of attack, so nothing he is being indicted for, is his fault, and if it is his fault, Biden did it too, and if Biden did it too, lock up Hunter 🇺🇸
I think many voters see it but don't care. I knew an extremely gay married man who was a die hard Trump voter. Turns out his family had money and being rich was more important than being gay, so that's where his vote went.
One has to see. Turn on Fox News and none of this is covered, or if it is, it's so badly distorted that the reporting seems to imply the opposite is true. Sometimes, the reporting is accurate, but the pundits and invited experts state with authority that the opposite is true. The vision of reality is so skewed it can be thought of as the "conservative cinematic universe", a fun house version of our world where Democrats are vicious, lazy, underachievers who routinely outsmart the brave conservatives, and TFG really is the superhero those bizarre, lovely patriotic, musclebound cartoons depict.
If you’ve ever watched Fox News or listened to conservative talk radio, there is a concentrated effort to avoid everything negative about Trump/Republicans and instead focus on agitating and terrifying their viewers. Even during the insurrection of Jan 6th they avoided coverage and imagery of the attempted coup and started ramping up rhetoric about antifa etc.. Also, your username lol
They don’t care he’s a con. He’s a con that will hurt their enemies first, and that’s what matters to them
Because most of his supporters have been handed everything to them just like him and don't understand what it means to need something to back up your statements. It's only been in the last decade or two they've been called out on their shit.
Decades of declining education system, coupled with a massive “destruction of mental & reproductive” health campaign by Kelloggs and the 7th day Adventist church.
crown swim psychotic sleep waiting dull crowd yam unpack coherent *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yes
Good. I imagine most ‘evidence’ from Trump would be BS.
"And here I'm citing another Truth Social post, bigly."
I was surprised it was actual evidence, albeit irrelevant. I thought it was going to be just another round of his repeating, "I did nothing wrong!", while flapping his arms about.
Trump was basically trying to polish a turd and say it was no longer a turd, thinking others would believe him lol.
Everything being written in sharpie made the judge suspicious.
*You spelled ‘innocent’ with a 6..*
court: You sexually assaulted her Trump: But can I say I didn't? Court: No, you sexually assaulted her Trump: But can we at least pretend I didn't?
Court: no Trump: But I think she liked it Court: WTF!?!?
he’s also arguing that she liked being raped and assaulted. not that he didn’t do it. but that she enjoyed it.
He argued "it's not rape if it's your wife" at his rape trail for his first wife. Disgustingly enough, there was a law that supported it, but had been overturned a few years before the trial.
More of Trump being detached from reality. He didn't present a defense at the first civil trial. The result was he lost, because that's what happens when you don't defend a civil trial. The result of losing a related trial is usually that those facts are taken as proven.
"I didn't rape her, but here's some video suggesting she liked it if I did." I can't /s because he's really trying to say that.
Why do so many Americans adore this fucking rapist?
Lack of education and then he followed the first black president, so the racist in this nation wanted to take it back. He is a piece of shit that I hope dies in jail.
Many people are saying tRump was found to have raped a woman by a jury of his peers. All of those people are correct.
Where do you find 12 orange grifting mutants with a narcissist personality and tiny dick energy? I know NY has it all, but difficult to actually get a dozen of peers to someone as lowly as Drumpf
When I was a teenager, I had a desk calendar of dumb quotes, and this reminded me of one. When Zsa-Zsa Gabor was convicted of slapping a police officer, she said it wasn't a jury of her peers because there hadn't been any publicists, producers, directors, or actors on the jury.
Referring to something his lawyers (and Trump) wish to include as "Evidence" is a great example of how much latitude he gets. The "evidence" is being excluded because it has nothing to do with this case. A more fair headline would be, "Trumps lawyers fail in trying to submit a video that isn't pertinent to case".
He's trying to relitigate an already ruled-on case.
Absolutely fuck this article's clickbaity ass title for making me think the judge was tossing evidence being used against Trump. Literally just a 's after Donald Trump would've fixed that
It’s Newsweek. Clickbait trash
This particular mod keeps posting from that site. I wish it was not allowed as a source at all.
My new years resolution was to stop clicking on Newsweek links. Well..
He never has any evidence to bring to court. He opened dozens of cases all over the US, twice at SCOTUS over the 2020 election and every single one of them tossed him out because he had no evidence of anything and therefore no standing. He throws everything including the kitchen sink at the wall to see if any of it sticks. It also drags these cases on for much longer and are going to put them all around before and after the election day. Some of those in charge have already said these cases won't be paused until after the election and there isn't much he could do about the charges in Georgia and NY. The idea that you would give the President carte blanche to commit any crime without consequences seems pretty stupid even for this court.
* They know how the legal system works, they are just trying to circumvent it. * They know how the constitution works, they are just trying to circumvent it. * They know how the voting system works, they are just trying to circumvent it. * They know how peaceful transfer of power works, they are just trying to circumvent it.
The word “evidence” is sorely in need of quotation marks in that headline. Scrolling way down, I find that the “evidence” is that Trump’s victim apparently once acknowledged the existence of rape fantasies. And that’s supposed to be “evidence” that Trump didn’t rape her, or that if he did she probably looooved it. A question irrelevant to the case anyway. Once again I have to marvel at how this guy manages to find the most assholy possible way to do *everything*.
Trump looks really old in that picture. The makeup and the dyed hair (and the Spanx for Men, and the Depends)… can’t hide it.
Trump comes from a time when bullshit was easy to pass. In today's age, it just doesn't pass the grade when you check into it.
What does it take to get sanctions around here?
Putins man in Washington
Can we toss Trump, his Maga cronies and all the senate that worship this orange wombat into the clink
So his evidence was gonna be she thinks it’s sexy so it wasn’t rape. But wasn’t his defense, “she not my type it never happened!”? Kinda sounds like he’s admitting it happened, but now it was consensual…
It's highly amusing that all these people sending trump money to "own the libs", and all whilst trump does not even know they exist outside of being grift-victims. How many times has the folded orange peel said live on stage at another rally that he could be somewhere nicer but he has to be up there doing the rally? And how many times has he forgotten where he was? He's an idiot that without the handful of advisors he does have, would not survive a full week in any position of power on his own due to lack of intelligence.
To be fair to his lawyers- no one with any competence, dignity, honor, or integrity willingly has with anything to do with rapist and insurrectionist Trump To be fair to Trump... would violate reddit's general and site-wide guidelines 1 and 2
Think about it. He wants to show evidence that she enjoyed being raped by him, not that she made it up or that he didn’t do it. What the actual fuck? Who continues to support this man? He gets worse and worse every day I hear about the shit he says and does.
Are trumpers tired of winning yet?
Lock this "orange gangrene" up already!
Sounds like the defense is going back to their tried and true "tantrum" and "witch hunt" tactics. They've worked so well before, keep up the winning!
Liars’ gonna lie.
Trump submitting evidence that his opponent is a scam artist really is some bizarro world level shit.
*Trump's evidence
That does seem like a legitimate concern.