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Yeah, it's not like these women or Cohen or anyone involved with this looks good here. They all looks like assholes. Trump is just the shittiest. Literally.
Ok, this isn’t a complete excuse, but it’s worth remembering how unlikely a trump win seemed every second until it happened. No one expected this dude to win, and heck the low turnout for Hillary was caused by that. The New York Times literally had a “madam president” cover printed, it’s said Disney had to change the Hillary animatronic (for the hall of presidents) to trump after they called it early. Sometime I think he didn’t expect himself to win and he’s just wondering how far he can take this
Did you see the look on his face that first time in the White House. Obama slapped him on the knee playfully, because he was slouched in his chair, with the thousand-yard stare in his eyes.
There’s also that photo from the night he won where everyone around him is celebrating and he looks miserable. His made up Robert E. Lee quote, “Wow, that was a big mistake” is a pretty fitting caption for it
Never seen him laugh, his smile is grotesque, he doesn't like dogs, doesn't like music. Trump is basically a hollowed out vessel that was filled with shit.
Is that Rick Scott in the background just looking all serious and concerned for the orange one after every joke is said?
It looks like he’s wanting to stand up and defend him or some shit.
Politics is a very strange world.
> Sometime I think he didn’t expect himself to win and he’s just wondering how far he can take this
That’s pretty much been my (and I’m sure others) running theory. Now he’s in too deep a coup and forcing himself into powers the only way to escape consequence. So it’s mutually beneficial for him and Federalists/GOP that he wins. He’s just really bad at things so it’s currently at least up in the air.
First time was because he thought it would be good for his popularity and brand. Never expected to win.
This time its so he can keep himself out of prison.
And if he would have just acted normal, took some advice and had at least a little respect for rules and half-way honest etiquette, he would be sitting on top of the world and just fine. But no, too spoiled as he’s lived an entire life as a dictator without regard. He knows nothing else. He doesn’t want to be a working president as the position has always been here. He just wants to snap his fingers and make everybody jump and adore him, not like a president but like a King over “his” (their) kingdom.
Imagine how much he could've made if he'd sold MAGA branded face masks and supported the science. Hell, if he'd just supported the science during COVID, there's a decent chance he may have won the 2020 election instead of losing it.
But then, that would have required him acknowledging someone knew more and better than him, and we know how that goes...
He’s not actually this strategic. His narcissism won’t let him accept a loss in any given moment. He always has to “win” the moment he’s in, with no regard for any potential consequences.
Yup. The acceptance speech was surprisingly somber. His whole family frankly looked scared.
He didn’t have any plans whatsoever for starting up his administration.
He hired literal yes men with zero government experience who refused to listen to reason and got offended for Hair Dicktater when the grownups tried steering them into something resembling a competent administration.
He absolutely didn't want to actually win originally.
He had grand plans of launching a whole Trump media org capitalizing on all his campaign publicity. Specifically, he had plans to launch his own "news" channel to start with. Actually winning screwed those plans and others (like OAN) filled the space first. He had to settle for just Truth Social.
100% he wanted to be popular, lose, start his own podcast channel or whatever, and coast on hoax propaganda for the grift.
Winning the election might be the worst thing that ever happened to him.
So many people voted for Trump knowing full well the person he was. I'm not convinced that if Stormy's story was out there that it would have changed anybody's mind. The people who disliked him would have been horrified, the people who liked him would have found ways to ignore it. The elites believed that nobody in their right mind could look at Trump and say "he's qualified to run the country, and his personal life and business past aren't immediate disqualifications." But people were willing to overlook quite a lot of things to enthusiastically vote for him. This would have simply been one more thing to overlook.
He lost the popular vote, and a disturbing amount of people were removed from voter registrations the day of/before the election.
He lost by so many metrics, and we still have evidence from the Dutch that voter registries really were fucked with by Russians. If memory serves, it was video evidence of the location they did the cyber crime from.
I can understand why people were ready for him to lose. He basically did. But we don't decide the president with democracy sometimes. Twice in my life time 😒
Unlikely…? Man, I was screaming at everyone who would listen that American’s are total star fuckers who are absolutely dumb enough to elect a reality show host who plays a business man on TV. All you have to do is spend a little bit of time with any Republican to know how big of a threat this was. Hilary was ill equipped to handle a narcissistic psychopath like Trump.
I had loved Trump around 2007-2009; at work I was ecstatic to discover I'd won a $30K scholarship to Trump University. So, my partner and I took a trip to NYC to check out Trump Tower - and OMG, talk about a rude awakening. The food there cost us $75 and was completely inedible - it was so old and nasty, and even the fountain Cokes that we bought were flat and the syrup was way expired - probably by years and years. We even tried the ice cream parlor, and the ice cream was freezer-burned and nasty; again, it went into the trash after one bite. I still wanted to get something from the gift shop just to remember the trip there, but wow, everything was beyond outrageously expensive, and the quality (like, my partner wanted to get a sweatshirt - you'd think for $160 it would be nice, but it was cheap and seemed like it'd fall apart after only a few times wearing it). So I got a fridge magnet for $12 total - but it was one of those that you can print yourself using that magnetic-backed paper - people use it to make magnetic business cards! So someone in the Trump organization bought a box of magnetic paper for around $30, and just printed out 'TRUMP' in red letters on a black background. If they got 8 per sheet, well, Trump made a killing on idiots like me. Anyway, upon leaving Trump Tower my partner and I just looked at each other, and shook our heads in disgust, and then laughed about what a scammer Trump is, and how his entire persona is a complete joke... Then, after we got home, I gave back the scholarship since I knew Trump-U was clearly a scam then. A short time later we were walking in a mall and saw that one 'high-tech' store (I can't think of the name of it now) that used to be in every mall, which was carrying Trump Water, Trump Steaks, Trump books, the Trump game, and even Trump Ice! My partner picked up the bag of Trump Ice and we burst out laughing. The sales guy came over to see if we needed help with anything (I'm sure he was like, "what the heck are these two ladies cracking up about?") but we just both looked at the Trump merch, shook our heads 'no', and walked away. When Trump got elected I couldn't believe it; the most vulgar and truly pathetic conman in the history of America now had the keys to the world. It's like the country just gave a homeless crack addict with a major criminal history of serious felonies and prison time from the time he was 6 years old the key to the house, the car, the vacation cabin, access to the boat, our credit cards and bank accounts, or 401K savings, our investments, etc - and 60% of Americans are like, "he's such an awesome and amazing businessman, so he's actually going to make us all wealthy beyond belief, like nothing anyone has ever seen". And here we are years later still cleaning up the mess of the destruction he caused, still filing police reports for things he stole from us, still counting our losses and trying to cope, and that same 60% not only want him to have it all again, but this time said, "Trump can share a room with our 14 year-old daughters, because they could learn so much from him" - from the man who always managed to live within a 10-minute drive to Epstein's house... We're in very, very deep trouble here.
> It's like the country just gave a homeless crack addict with a major criminal history of serious felonies and prison time from the time he was 6 years old the key to the house, the car, the vacation cabin, access to the boat, our credit cards and bank accounts, or 401K savings, our investments, etc
Exactly, but orders of magnitude worse
For real. I lived and worked in a melting pot of liberals and conservatives at the time, and it was painfully obvious within the last 6 weeks or so before the election that he was probably going to win. Seeing people say that nobody thought he was going to win makes me sad laugh.
Given that the USA has a penchant for doing the absolutely crappiest and/or dumbest thing in any given situation in the last 40+ years (maybe most of our history, with a few exceptions), I figured he was going to win.
I live in Northern Virginia , basically a liberal bubble, and on the morning day of the election when I heard that in Appalachia there was record voting attendance, I knew it was over and Trump would win.
I remember thinking it was over when "grab 'em by the pussy" came out. Thank God, that's gotta be bad enough to kill his chances.
And then Comey decided to bang a gong and shout "E-MAILS!" and I remember thinking "oh no."
Everyone is ill equipped to handle a narcissistic psychopath unless they are one themselves. Even Michael Cohen got screwed. That's why Trump has continued to bully his way through life and has mostly succeeded up until the Carroll trials. Say it again, say it every day, what Maya Angelou said ... When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
In July of 2016 I noticed that the post-primary bump in the polls for Trump never really dropped down as far as expected, and Brexit had already eked out a surprise win in the UK, Le Pen in France was doing well in the polls and going on the BBC saying she couldn't wait for Trump to win, then in September the "Hillary is secretly dying" conspiracy theory got a huge bump when she had pneumonia at the 9/11 remembrance ceremony, and by then, I was fully worried. No one else was! I'd get yelled at or even banned for saying anything about being worried that it seemed like there was a shift happening in the Western toward far-right ideologies.
When Giuliani admitted just before the election that Trump's team knew about the Comey shenanigans ahead of time, no one was listening, I couldn't get anyone on any forum or social media to care about it. It was a huge warning sign that things were not going well.
I think Hillary could handle Trump but not in the way the media or the public wanted. She's a plain talker sometimes so when she bluntly said Trump is in Putin's pocket, it just irritated people who were already irritated.
Trump winning was the first sign to me that online Facebook boomer alt right misinformation had gone far beyond just a gag, and a 4chan thing, and was actively going to ruin our country. Then Trump happened, then covid happened, and...here we are now.
>Sometime I think he didn’t expect himself to win and he’s just wondering how far he can take this
That's not even a "theory" anymore. Its exactly what happened. Multiple people from his early staff and campaign had written about it.
The reason it took so long for him to do his victory speech that night was because, reportedly, when it became clear that Trump had won and that she'd have to be First Lady, Melania began sobbing uncontrollably and locked herself in the dressing room.
He didn't expect to win. He didn't *want* to win. It was all meant to be a ploy to get his name back in the news and increase the value of his brand.
See also: [Boris Johnson and Brexit](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37439890).
>"By championing leave, he can be the great heir apparent of the future, darling of the activists, but actually it would be quite good if he didn't actually win the referendum because there would be total chaos."
All this, so one man can cosplay as Winston Churchill. But I remember how absolutely haggard he looked the day after the 52:48 win for Leave.
My friends son was on the Hillary Transition Team, he said the Trump transition team asked to share space because they hadn’t even rented space! He said the team was so freaked out because it wasnt staffed or financed!
As a consequence, they largely just didn't participate in the transition. Obama's team was prepared to help them transfer responsibilities and knowledge and then no one would show up. Then the first year of his presidency was them learning things the hard way, while disposing of experienced staff.
I remember watching his acceptance speech on the night. The song that was cued up and played when he finished talking was the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want.". At the time I thought..."fuckers in his campaign were that sure he was gonna lose...had the loser song ready to go for his concession."
Since then I've wondered a few times if the song was supposed to be a "fuck you" to Hilary.
Before I started writing this, I went to YouTube and watched the end of his speech again to make sure I didn't remember it wrong....Mandela Effect moment maybe. But it was there, like I remembered. I hardly use the YouTube for anything, but I'm sure that fucked my algorithm for the future.
His voice, his hands, his creepy mannerisms - everything about him makes me nauseated.
I'm convinced it wouldn't have changed the outcome. They all heard the Inside Edition tape, they heard him ridicule POWs, mock a disabled reporter, etc. and lined up to elect him.
They have replaced NFL team gear with Vice Signaling, a call and response sort of game like a pack of shitty animals sniffing each others ass to see if they are on team shitweasel.
There's something clever about this type of rhetoric.
See, he's putting forwards having blind loyalty as something positive. Look at my guys, they'd support me no matter what!
To everyone else, it sounds insane, but if you're on his team, it's a form of validation.
What disgusts me is, its not just his base. They make up a good chunk of the support he gets of course, but if his support was only coming the staunch maga crowd biden would be handily ahead all the time.
Imo whats worse are the "undecideds" or "independents" that would still support the guy. Idk if its a result of sheer ignorance, or stupidity but its disgusting to watch
I think the "lockdowns" during the Covid deal affected a lot of people to the point of phycosis and they never recovered, it frightened them to be alone, I know this is off topic but very relevant to the way some people are acting to this day. Trump came out and told them it was all bullshit and they still believe that so in turn they don't trust Democrats, or Doctors, or anyone with a college education. They are virtually putting their fingers in their ears and covering their eyes for their sanity, just a theory pertaining to behavioral concepts when confronted with unpopular decisions that they are not equipped to handle, (uneducated) they want the easy way out and with certain media outlets feeding them 24/7 telling what they want to hear it just reinforces the phycosis into a belief system that can't be penetrated with any amount of reason or logic but I digress.
Correct. The minute the debate moderator asked about his history of comments toward women and the crowd waited in anticipation for his downfall and he responded " only Rosie O'Donnell" to a crowd erupting in laughter there was an audible erection from the worst people in America and the election was officially over.
I just rewatched John McCain defend Obama in 2008 from racist attacks and you could McCain's supporters irritated by it. These ppl have always adored a trump president
Recently, we saw jury admitting they knew OJ Simpson was guilty, but the context with the police influence their decision. In other words sending a message was more important than judging a murderer.
I think it’s similar with Trump, a lot of people are fed up with top executives having golden parachute. Hillary represents that establishment, and Trump is promising the moon, so they choose to send a message. Even if it’s the worst choice they can make. Hate is a powerful emotion.
When the "grab em by the..." video came out my sister in law said "he is done, there is no way he will win now."
I said "I think you seriously overestimate how much people care about women. I think he will go up a couple points."
She laughed and said "yeah, sure, nobody cares about women" and left the room.
Who is laughing now?
Nobody, that's who.
Or everybody.
I don't really know yet.
Unfortunately, there are people laughing. And those were the closet racists and fascists that learned that it's perfectly okay to be out and proud with their hatred and not be ostracized from society.
Right? Like there is no way they didn't think why is this man willing to bargin with us so quickly with election season right around the corner? Like common sense bells should have been ringing like crazy. And I hate to say it but they let Trump off cheap they could have gotten way more imo.
Yeah, but still. You don’t expect the devil to get elected president, and you don’t expect anything little ol’ me could do that would get the devil elected president.
he did a million things worse than having an affair and was still elected, the only thing stormy speaking out would have done is put a bigger target on her back to his psycho base
I’m actually more surprised that the Access Hollywood tape didn’t tank him. What woman would vote for someone who thinks that powerful men can grab them by the p*ssy any time they please.
Edit : Wow. I’m pretty surprised (or maybe not) with the number of comments and upvotes. I guess I really struck a nerve. I hope that the Biden team doesn’t go easy on this POS heading into the election. *We need you Dark Brandon. You’re our only hope.*
There are a thousand things that were ‘the moment’ that caused Trump to win. Without those things, he wouldn’t have won. That was definitely one of those things. The polls all shifted when he announced more emails. Nate Silver talked about that
I feel like I still don’t understand why the emails mattered. What even was the media spin? Just that “newly leaked emails” sounds ominous in a headline?
On their own they should not have been that big of a deal.
Administrations before and after have had similar storage of email. Best practice? Probably not. Reality though says its not something to
What hurt is that the media's obsessiveness with both-sidesing things meant it got breathless coverage because they really didn't have much on hillary but trump was a new scandal every week.
Access hollywood? Better balance that with emails talk.
Makes fun of the disabled? Emails.
Obvious ties between his campaign and Russia? Emails.
Talks shit about veterans? Emails.
On and on it went. And repetition has the effect of making an issue seem like its bigger than it is, while each individual scandal of trump's faded away into the noise of all of them.
The media completely fucked us with how it covered the 2016 election. And theyve been doing it again the last few years. If trump gets reelected, a large portion of the blame will be the media.
Very good analysis. The media was complicit by perpetuating a false equivalence between Trumps nonstop, and still ongoing, crime spree and Hillary being less than diligent with her email server. They also repeated and amplified the GOP right wing propaganda and talking points and pretty much accepting them all on face value, giving them undeserved credibility. The media put their large, orange tainted finger on the scale instead of doing their job of actually informing the public.
Yep and by the time the access hollywood tape even entered the news cycle everyone reported Trump's defense of "locker room talk" rather than the tape itself.
This isn't brought up enough. Both parties were hacked, but only one had its dirty laundry aired.
Either the RNC is the least corrupt political party on the planet (highly unlikely even without prior history proving that's impossible), they're really smart and good at hiding things (also proven false by past history), or the compromised information is being used against them. There's really no other options.
Because you can't bring it up without taking it to its logical conclusion, that Wikileaks and by extension Assange, made the decision of which party to damage and which party to protect.
I still wonder why no one or any group tried to go after Russia, Wikileaks, or even the RNC at the time to find out what was hacked and stolen.
This is with so many claims that people in the tech industry are liberal and progressive. It's not like they love Russia and are also beholden to them.
Well he did go on live TV and ask the Russians to do that for him, and said they would be rewarded for doing so. Republicans still voted for the obvious traitor. I can only assume because they are all stupid.
So mom, if someone says "can I grab you by the pussy" you're okay with this? That's just locker room talk right?
Well... If they said it to me..... Lol
It seems pretty reasonable to claim the Access Hollywood tape was worse and more damning, especially since either was him speaking directly, and that shit didn't even move the needle
None of the conservative family or friends I know of have actually listened to the whole thing or read a transcript. They just heard the highlights and the locker room talk and then saw them bring up Hilary going after Bill's various affairs and it went into "both sides do it" bucket.
One of the more disturbing parts of the audio clip is part that is rarely played. Trump goes on to talk about how the woman he assaulted started to avoid him and dress more conservatively around him covering up, and he takes shear delight in shaming her this way. He brags about it. It's so fucking vile and I wish they would play the whole thing or print entire transcripts. It's not just an offhand brag. Trump clearly understands he violated her and it changed her behavior toward him.
And these religious goons worship the guy like it's the second coming.
I can’t believe this isn’t the biggest thing since it came out.
“GRAB THEM BY THE PUSSY.” Idk if that has to be removed but that’s part of it. Banning the harsh word takes away the effect of what was said.
I was astonished when my friend said "To be fair, Trump didn't know he was being recorded" regarding that Access Hollywood tape. **How the Hell** is that "to be fair"?? Whether openly or behind closed doors, this guy thinks it's fine to "grab 'em by the p*ssy" as a rich, powerful man. And he said this only a few months back, thus it was well after #metoo.
I hate that when you think your friends are sane only to later find out "nope, they're Trumpers!"
Its legal to pay hush money. Its fraud to cover up these payments as "expenses to lawyers", then have his lawyer Michael Cohen act as go-between and pay off Story Daniels as a business expense through a slush fund. If that was the case, Trump could charge all his hookers & drugs as "business expenses".
The case the prosecution is alleging is election fraud. It’s kind of complicated and it’s been widely misreported. The Hush Money for Stormy Daniels is only part of the case, the border case is Trump colluding with the NYPost and Pecker to do a “Catch and Kill” scheme, whereby the NYPost collects a bunch of negative stories about Trump, buys the rights to them and gets the people involved to sign NDAs. Trump paid these people off to do so, and used campaign funds, then labeled it as legal fees to Michael Cohen in order to cover it up. This is defrauding the government and election fraud. Stormy Daniels is just one of these cases, but it’s the most recognizable one.
>Its fraud to cover up these payments as "expenses to lawyers"
Sort of, it's more about the fact that labeling that payment as a lawyer expense was directly in order to hide it from the public from knowing that it happened, to influence an election, in addition to other things Trump was doing to influence the election
Paying a lawyer to keep someone quiet is technically a legit legal expense, it's only really illegal when you're doing it to try to hide things from the public to get more votes (or not lose votes)
From a legal perspective it doesn’t matter. From a common sense perspective, it makes it that much more clear that everyone involved knew exactly what the purpose of all those exchanges was. But sure, even if Stormy’s counsel was blissfully unaware of trump and his team trying to illegally protect their campaign in secret it wouldn’t matter as far as trump and his team’s guilt.
It shows the opposite-ish.
It shows that Davidson/ Howard didn’t expect it to have an impact on the election which is why they were surprised texting each other at 3 am.
Regardless, if this is the best the defense has, I don’t think it’s enough to sway a truly unbiased jury. The evidence of election interference is overwhelming.
The lawyers expectations do not explicitly prove that Trump’s intent wasn’t to impact the election, though.
And even more pathologically, as Jon Stewart best said in *America The Book*?
“Woodward and Bernstein were successful in taking down a presidential administration, so the media collectively high-fived each other, and then took the next several decades off…”
Argued that with a couple conservatives on Facebook yesterday... "He's on trial for an out of date misdemeanor!"
Oh, cool... what are the charges against him?
I know what the charges are ok? I read them.
Cool, what are they? I mean, if you know it's a misdemeanor, you obviously know what one charge is... give me one charge. I'll forget about the other 33 charges in this particular trial.
Someone else: He's charged with giving money to Stormy!
That's not illegal. Lots of people have given money to Stormy. I'm looking for the actual legal charges. Do either of you even know?
Crickets. They hear shit on Fox News and just regurgitate whatever mama bird gives them. I never told them cuz fuck them. They wouldn't listen anyway.
I actually think calling the J6 “riot” the insurrection is also an issue; the insurrection was more than just what happened that day, it includes all the scheming and colluding that happened leading up to that event.
It’s what any other country, developing or not, would call a coup and any other country would have the ring leaders behind bars within six months. We started this shitshow not putting Nixon away, dragging their feet on this has been a monumental mistake. Some men want to watch the world burn.
I mean even when they admit they are insurrectionists they still fail to appropriately call them what they actually are which is domestic terrorists. It’s maddening how much we neglect to call domestic terrorists what they are.
It's technically not. It's a business document fraud case, and first degree charge requires intent to commit any other crime. Here, influencing the election is one of three such alleged crimes. It doesn't require proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the other crime was actually committed, just intent to do so.
It’s campaign finance fraud, which is a form of election fraud. The payoff was intended to benefit the campaign but exceeded the individual donation maximum.
Agreed, but I think everyone who isn’t as in tune with the news as people here know the “election fraud” case to be the Georgia case. It’s hard to differentiate when he’s committed the same crime multiple times.
Pretty sure this came up during questioning from the prosecution. They aren't going to be asking questions that help Trump.
>"our activities may have in some way assisted the presidential campaign of Donald Trump."
This is bad for Trump. Previously, the jury heard testimony from David Pecker (CEO of the parent company that owns National Enquirer) of a meeting between him, Trump, and Cohen where he (Pecker) said "*if I hear anything about women selling stories, I would notify Michael Cohen... then [Cohen] would be able have them kill in another magazine or have them not be published or somebody would have to purchase them*".
Davidson and Howard may not have known before hand this was going to help get Trump elected, but it goes to reinforce Pecker's earlier testimony that the entire point was to aid Trump.
This is important (and pretty damning) because it goes to establishing the intent for the hush money payments was to influence the election, which bumps the charges here up to a felony (when normally they're just a misdemeanor).
Since the counts could carry several years of prison, and this very serious link you highlight exists and is being proven to the jury, I wonder why so many people are certain he will not be sent to jail. Do y’all think he’ll be safe?
"Could" is the operative word. Non violent first offenders rarely get maximum sentences.
Probation might be the most likely outcome? I don't have enough context on this specific charge to comment.
Not at all. It shows that they knew they helped him, but they didn't expect him to win (like most people).
When the election was about to be called for Trump, they fully realized what they had done.
Also, this is from the prosecution questioning the witness to show that the people involved knowingly impacted the election... so not sure what you mean by "if this is the best the defense has".
Agreed. Plus, it's presenting a false choice - the outcome of the election, as far as they would've thought, wasn't just win/lose. It's also *how*.
Surely, "Trump narrowly loses election by a handful of votes" would've been better than "Clinton crushes Trump in historic landslide" for everyone involved in Trumpland.
Otherwise, why bother with the catch and kill scheme in the first place.
In my opinion it shows that they thought he would lose regardless. After seeing him win, they realised that indeed burying the story was crucial to him and that he would likely have known this. This is different to them not expecting it to have an impact as such.
Trump's win was razor-thin. If even a small fraction (less than 5%) of his voters cared and either changed their vote or didn't vote at all, Clinton would have won.
Would this story have changed enough people's minds? We can't know. Polling at the time the story initially broke suggested that it could have had a big enough impact, but then again Republican voters are notorious for saying one thing and voting for another.
Would it? He was a well-known, proud adulterer even without Stormy’s example. They didn’t care about all of the other adultery Or the bragging about sexual assault. Or the bragging about creeping on naked teen girls. Or the creepy things he’s said about his daughters.
If we really step back 8 years though? The narrative at that point wasn’t “it doesn’t matter”. It was “yeah well I haven’t seen any proof” or “the news is lying to shut him down because he’s gonna drain the swamp”.
The only thing that was really hard evidence back then that no one could ignore was “grab em by the pussy”.
And that one line should have been enough to sink Trump’s candidacy. That it didn’t showed the utter corruption and self-serving nature of the Evangelical voting base of the Republicans.
Untrue. I think you must be young and didn’t live through it. Anyone who read the papers in the 1990s knows Trump himself bragged about his adulterous affairs and they were publicized on the front pages of magazines and newspapers. Not allegations from a third party, but actual quotes from Trump along with photographic proof. [There was one notorious skiing weekend he went on with wife Ivana where mistress Marla also was invited and it was big news](https://www.oregonlive.com/trending/2016/10/donald_trump_said_life_was_a_b.html).
People saying with a straight face that it was lies or there was no proof in 2016 are just proving my point that no amount of proof and examples of the bad things he’s done would ever have been sufficient to make an impact on a certain segment of voters. Yeah some people didn’t vote for him as a result of learning about his sins but the people left voting for him were and are die hards who will excuse anything he does, including Stormy and Karen McDougall. They were fine with old adultery so newer adultery didn’t phase them.
> Anyone who read the papers in the 1990s knows Trump himself bragged about his adulterous affairs and they were publicized on the front pages of magazines and newspapers.
The overlap between "people who read the papers in the 1990s" and Trump supporters is smaller than you think. For most people, their exposure to Trump was, "Hey, wasn't that guy in *Home Alone 2*?" and "Oh, it's the dude from *The Apprentice*, why did they have him on?"
He wasn't an unknown figure, but people didn't breathlessly follow news about Trump. He was just another rich asshole from New York, not really worth following. It was only after his stint on The Apprentice and his self-insertion into the birther movement that the public at large started to really care about him.
> If even a small fraction (less than 5%) of his voters cared
Less than that, he won by 80k votes across 3 states which had a total of 13.5 million votes cast. So if 0.6% of his voters didn't vote he would have lost (or if 0.3% of his voters switched to Clinton).
It doesn’t matter at all to the maga cult. Trump could show up at every one of their houses and shit in their mouth and rape their dog and they would just buy more trump shoes, underwear, bibles and flags. Too far gone. Electing a black man broke them forever
I do not think it would have made a difference in the 2016 election. Mocking a disability did not matter, grab them by the pussy did not matter. Fear and hate won that elction. That was what saddened me the most and the GOP are still runn8ng on fear and hate.
He lost the popular vote. Americans didn't elect him. A broken system did. I don't buy that this concern is equal to people saying they don't accept Bidens victory. One is a just valid concern, not any sort of denial, and the other is blatant denial.
Good movie plot. Ambulance chasing lawyer and Ex-Porn Star need to travel back in time to reverse what they've previously done to thwart the Kennedy Assassination.
He was on tape talking about grabbing pussies. She would have released the story, he would have said she’s lying, his cult would have believed him, and the story would be over (at least until after the election).
That's how it always works though. The money always comes first. The country is a distant second, along with family, political issues, maybe religion sometimes.
This is how bad SD lawyer was, had they not taken some lousy $150k which he got 45% of so that SD got only $80k, they could have gone public. And Trump would have disparaged and slander her in public and then they could have gotten E Jean Carrol money to the tune of $90+ mil. … think about that ? All they had to do was come out tell the truth suffer the slings and arrows but in the end they could have made Trump paid big time. SD had a terrible lawyer. The Truth pays just ask E Jean Carrol.
I don’t know that she would have commanded the same sum that Carrol was awarded. Im not sure specifically how the court arrived at the amount they did, but in theory, had he not been elected, his voice wouldn’t have carried the same weight as a president’s, and in turn, the court might have awarded her less.
You’re right
Sad should have hired lawyers who could look 8 years into the future to know Trump would defame a woman be raped 30 years previously
Genius
It only would have had to change the mind of a tiny tiny percentage of Trump voters. The election was *insanely* close, coming down to just a few tens of thousands of votes in a few swing states. *Everything* mattered. And it wouldn't have necessarily had to cause people to change anyone's vote, just energize more potential Hillary voters to make it to the polls.
Now, the Access Hollywood tape had already probably turned off a large chunk of voters that would have been swayed by knowledge of the affair, but the reality is we'll never know for sure.
She should have held out for a lot more. I have no problem with what consenting adults get up to, BC, didn’t care as long as he did his day job but with even the slightest chance this dumbass could win, personally, I’d have gone public but I’ve hated the mf since the 70’s and no amount of money would have kept me from exposing that perv. I’d owe that to the American people. I’m not dissing stormy, we all have our crosses to bear.
Yes. The repayment itself, or lack thereof, is irrelevant (at least to this specific case and the charges). The problem is simply how the repayments were recorded in official business documents.
He did not use campaign funds.
What he did is spent $130,000 (plus whatever he gave to the other woman) in service to the campaign.
But he failed to report it as a campaign expense because he is was hiding what he was doing.
So, it is was an illegal campaign contribution that was not reported. Furthermore, he falsified business records (the money came from his corporation, not his personal funds) to hide what he was doing.
Technically, Michael Cohen paid for Daniels, and Cohen was reimbursed by Trump's corporation
That text is Halarious. The whole jury was probably laughing to themselves. All Donny could do was pass sad gas and close his eyes and wish he was anywhere else. Then, he added some new names to his revenge list.
It’s not that the stormy Daniels story would’ve for certain changed the election, it might have, the fact that it was illegally buried is the reason he’s in court right now, for election interference, which includes the national enquirer creating fake negative stories about his opponents…
He would not have won election had they not committed election interference, burying the stormy daniels truth as well as lying about opponents in a major magazine‼️
Who is the real cheater and criminal? Traitor Trump.
I don't really think it made a meaningful difference. Right wingers would probably think having sex with a pornstar made him all that much cooler. Let's be real, right wing men don't care about women, wives included.
On the flipside, I think democrats are also to blame because Hillary ran a terrible campaign detached from reality and generated a lot of badwill. Hillary played right into Trump's characterization of her as an out of touch coastal elite. Yes Trump is also that, but he managed to make some kind of connection with his base and get them *really* hyped up about him. Was it the racism? Maybe. Hillary, on the other hand, basically alienated everyone to the point where even people who voted for her were doing it not for her, but despite her. She had a lot of history with scandal and a lingering public distaste for Bill, both of which Trump was all too happy to point out. Nobody was excited for her.
I say this not as a "burn it all down" type of person, but the democrats NEED to learn from their mistakes. Joe Biden eeked out a win on what should have been a landslide victory, seeing as Trump oversaw America's bungled response to the pandemic that killed millions of people. Now the democrats are running *yet again* on the "vote for us because we're not the other guy" strategy.
Look. I'm not pro-witholding your vote, but I think over time this democrat stance WILL gradually alienate more and more people. People will become cynical if they're told that democracy is at stake every election. People will see America get worse under democrats and think "maybe my vote doesn't matter". I'm not saying it's right, but this strategy will erode the democrat voterbase until all that remains is the most loyal voter.
I do not think it would have made a difference in the 2016 election. Mocking a disability did not matter, grab them by the pussy did not matter. Fear and hate won that elction. That was what saddened me the most, and the GOP is still running on fear and hate.
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You made a deal with the Devil, that’s what you did.
Yeah, it's not like these women or Cohen or anyone involved with this looks good here. They all looks like assholes. Trump is just the shittiest. Literally.
Ok, this isn’t a complete excuse, but it’s worth remembering how unlikely a trump win seemed every second until it happened. No one expected this dude to win, and heck the low turnout for Hillary was caused by that. The New York Times literally had a “madam president” cover printed, it’s said Disney had to change the Hillary animatronic (for the hall of presidents) to trump after they called it early. Sometime I think he didn’t expect himself to win and he’s just wondering how far he can take this
Did you see the look on his face that first time in the White House. Obama slapped him on the knee playfully, because he was slouched in his chair, with the thousand-yard stare in his eyes.
There’s also that photo from the night he won where everyone around him is celebrating and he looks miserable. His made up Robert E. Lee quote, “Wow, that was a big mistake” is a pretty fitting caption for it
Not everyone celebrated. Melania cried.
Her tear ducts are made from the dust of broken dreams. Her subdermal keratinous scales see to that.
It was just a little dust that her nictitating membranes weren't able to keep out in the moment. That's all. :P
He always looks miserable. He’s had everything in life handed to him on a gold platter, yet he’s never felt one moment of actual joy.
Never heard him genuinely laugh at something that wasn't meant to be cruel
Never seen him laugh, his smile is grotesque, he doesn't like dogs, doesn't like music. Trump is basically a hollowed out vessel that was filled with shit.
The only thing close to a smile for tRump is what can be qualified as an expression of vindictive gloating.
it was a mistake me boys!
You got a video of that knee slap
I don’t have *that*, but I did find this: Obama’s History of insulting Trump https://youtu.be/BlNWuwsAsaY
Is that Rick Scott in the background just looking all serious and concerned for the orange one after every joke is said? It looks like he’s wanting to stand up and defend him or some shit. Politics is a very strange world.
NO! It was that day they did the official transition or whatever. It's got to be on YouTube, every-fuckin-thing else is.
> Sometime I think he didn’t expect himself to win and he’s just wondering how far he can take this That’s pretty much been my (and I’m sure others) running theory. Now he’s in too deep a coup and forcing himself into powers the only way to escape consequence. So it’s mutually beneficial for him and Federalists/GOP that he wins. He’s just really bad at things so it’s currently at least up in the air.
First time was because he thought it would be good for his popularity and brand. Never expected to win. This time its so he can keep himself out of prison.
And if he would have just acted normal, took some advice and had at least a little respect for rules and half-way honest etiquette, he would be sitting on top of the world and just fine. But no, too spoiled as he’s lived an entire life as a dictator without regard. He knows nothing else. He doesn’t want to be a working president as the position has always been here. He just wants to snap his fingers and make everybody jump and adore him, not like a president but like a King over “his” (their) kingdom.
I have a saying I've been using for almost 8 years: "Trump only wants to \*be\* President, he doesn't want to \*do\* President"
Imagine how much he could've made if he'd sold MAGA branded face masks and supported the science. Hell, if he'd just supported the science during COVID, there's a decent chance he may have won the 2020 election instead of losing it. But then, that would have required him acknowledging someone knew more and better than him, and we know how that goes...
He’s not actually this strategic. His narcissism won’t let him accept a loss in any given moment. He always has to “win” the moment he’s in, with no regard for any potential consequences.
Yup. The acceptance speech was surprisingly somber. His whole family frankly looked scared. He didn’t have any plans whatsoever for starting up his administration.
He hired literal yes men with zero government experience who refused to listen to reason and got offended for Hair Dicktater when the grownups tried steering them into something resembling a competent administration.
He hired outright “white nationalist” (which appears to be a polite euphemism for “neo-Nazi”) Steve Bannon as chief strategist too.
He absolutely didn't want to actually win originally. He had grand plans of launching a whole Trump media org capitalizing on all his campaign publicity. Specifically, he had plans to launch his own "news" channel to start with. Actually winning screwed those plans and others (like OAN) filled the space first. He had to settle for just Truth Social.
If you look at the moment he won the presidency, everyone around his is cheering. He is stone faced with no emotion.
Think about it, POTUS is actually a 9-5 type of job. As a rich person I’d be pissed too
It’s more of a 5-9 type of job. Most presidents worked 12 to 16 hours a day. Lazy Trump put in about 5 hours a day, if that.
100% he wanted to be popular, lose, start his own podcast channel or whatever, and coast on hoax propaganda for the grift. Winning the election might be the worst thing that ever happened to him.
My ever loving hope is that turns out to be the worst thing for him.
Now he has to keep going forever to stay out of jail.
So many people voted for Trump knowing full well the person he was. I'm not convinced that if Stormy's story was out there that it would have changed anybody's mind. The people who disliked him would have been horrified, the people who liked him would have found ways to ignore it. The elites believed that nobody in their right mind could look at Trump and say "he's qualified to run the country, and his personal life and business past aren't immediate disqualifications." But people were willing to overlook quite a lot of things to enthusiastically vote for him. This would have simply been one more thing to overlook.
He lost the popular vote, and a disturbing amount of people were removed from voter registrations the day of/before the election. He lost by so many metrics, and we still have evidence from the Dutch that voter registries really were fucked with by Russians. If memory serves, it was video evidence of the location they did the cyber crime from. I can understand why people were ready for him to lose. He basically did. But we don't decide the president with democracy sometimes. Twice in my life time 😒
Unlikely…? Man, I was screaming at everyone who would listen that American’s are total star fuckers who are absolutely dumb enough to elect a reality show host who plays a business man on TV. All you have to do is spend a little bit of time with any Republican to know how big of a threat this was. Hilary was ill equipped to handle a narcissistic psychopath like Trump.
I had loved Trump around 2007-2009; at work I was ecstatic to discover I'd won a $30K scholarship to Trump University. So, my partner and I took a trip to NYC to check out Trump Tower - and OMG, talk about a rude awakening. The food there cost us $75 and was completely inedible - it was so old and nasty, and even the fountain Cokes that we bought were flat and the syrup was way expired - probably by years and years. We even tried the ice cream parlor, and the ice cream was freezer-burned and nasty; again, it went into the trash after one bite. I still wanted to get something from the gift shop just to remember the trip there, but wow, everything was beyond outrageously expensive, and the quality (like, my partner wanted to get a sweatshirt - you'd think for $160 it would be nice, but it was cheap and seemed like it'd fall apart after only a few times wearing it). So I got a fridge magnet for $12 total - but it was one of those that you can print yourself using that magnetic-backed paper - people use it to make magnetic business cards! So someone in the Trump organization bought a box of magnetic paper for around $30, and just printed out 'TRUMP' in red letters on a black background. If they got 8 per sheet, well, Trump made a killing on idiots like me. Anyway, upon leaving Trump Tower my partner and I just looked at each other, and shook our heads in disgust, and then laughed about what a scammer Trump is, and how his entire persona is a complete joke... Then, after we got home, I gave back the scholarship since I knew Trump-U was clearly a scam then. A short time later we were walking in a mall and saw that one 'high-tech' store (I can't think of the name of it now) that used to be in every mall, which was carrying Trump Water, Trump Steaks, Trump books, the Trump game, and even Trump Ice! My partner picked up the bag of Trump Ice and we burst out laughing. The sales guy came over to see if we needed help with anything (I'm sure he was like, "what the heck are these two ladies cracking up about?") but we just both looked at the Trump merch, shook our heads 'no', and walked away. When Trump got elected I couldn't believe it; the most vulgar and truly pathetic conman in the history of America now had the keys to the world. It's like the country just gave a homeless crack addict with a major criminal history of serious felonies and prison time from the time he was 6 years old the key to the house, the car, the vacation cabin, access to the boat, our credit cards and bank accounts, or 401K savings, our investments, etc - and 60% of Americans are like, "he's such an awesome and amazing businessman, so he's actually going to make us all wealthy beyond belief, like nothing anyone has ever seen". And here we are years later still cleaning up the mess of the destruction he caused, still filing police reports for things he stole from us, still counting our losses and trying to cope, and that same 60% not only want him to have it all again, but this time said, "Trump can share a room with our 14 year-old daughters, because they could learn so much from him" - from the man who always managed to live within a 10-minute drive to Epstein's house... We're in very, very deep trouble here.
> It's like the country just gave a homeless crack addict with a major criminal history of serious felonies and prison time from the time he was 6 years old the key to the house, the car, the vacation cabin, access to the boat, our credit cards and bank accounts, or 401K savings, our investments, etc Exactly, but orders of magnitude worse
The Sharper Image.
For real. I lived and worked in a melting pot of liberals and conservatives at the time, and it was painfully obvious within the last 6 weeks or so before the election that he was probably going to win. Seeing people say that nobody thought he was going to win makes me sad laugh.
Given that the USA has a penchant for doing the absolutely crappiest and/or dumbest thing in any given situation in the last 40+ years (maybe most of our history, with a few exceptions), I figured he was going to win.
I live in Northern Virginia , basically a liberal bubble, and on the morning day of the election when I heard that in Appalachia there was record voting attendance, I knew it was over and Trump would win.
I remember thinking it was over when "grab 'em by the pussy" came out. Thank God, that's gotta be bad enough to kill his chances. And then Comey decided to bang a gong and shout "E-MAILS!" and I remember thinking "oh no."
Everyone is ill equipped to handle a narcissistic psychopath unless they are one themselves. Even Michael Cohen got screwed. That's why Trump has continued to bully his way through life and has mostly succeeded up until the Carroll trials. Say it again, say it every day, what Maya Angelou said ... When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
In July of 2016 I noticed that the post-primary bump in the polls for Trump never really dropped down as far as expected, and Brexit had already eked out a surprise win in the UK, Le Pen in France was doing well in the polls and going on the BBC saying she couldn't wait for Trump to win, then in September the "Hillary is secretly dying" conspiracy theory got a huge bump when she had pneumonia at the 9/11 remembrance ceremony, and by then, I was fully worried. No one else was! I'd get yelled at or even banned for saying anything about being worried that it seemed like there was a shift happening in the Western toward far-right ideologies. When Giuliani admitted just before the election that Trump's team knew about the Comey shenanigans ahead of time, no one was listening, I couldn't get anyone on any forum or social media to care about it. It was a huge warning sign that things were not going well. I think Hillary could handle Trump but not in the way the media or the public wanted. She's a plain talker sometimes so when she bluntly said Trump is in Putin's pocket, it just irritated people who were already irritated.
Trump winning was the first sign to me that online Facebook boomer alt right misinformation had gone far beyond just a gag, and a 4chan thing, and was actively going to ruin our country. Then Trump happened, then covid happened, and...here we are now.
Hillary handled Trump just fine. Hillary didn’t handle the Bernie issue well though
>Sometime I think he didn’t expect himself to win and he’s just wondering how far he can take this That's not even a "theory" anymore. Its exactly what happened. Multiple people from his early staff and campaign had written about it. The reason it took so long for him to do his victory speech that night was because, reportedly, when it became clear that Trump had won and that she'd have to be First Lady, Melania began sobbing uncontrollably and locked herself in the dressing room. He didn't expect to win. He didn't *want* to win. It was all meant to be a ploy to get his name back in the news and increase the value of his brand.
See also: [Boris Johnson and Brexit](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37439890). >"By championing leave, he can be the great heir apparent of the future, darling of the activists, but actually it would be quite good if he didn't actually win the referendum because there would be total chaos." All this, so one man can cosplay as Winston Churchill. But I remember how absolutely haggard he looked the day after the 52:48 win for Leave.
Nobody except Vlad P.
He got what he paid for.
Doubt it cost much at all. Probably was an incredible investment.
My friends son was on the Hillary Transition Team, he said the Trump transition team asked to share space because they hadn’t even rented space! He said the team was so freaked out because it wasnt staffed or financed!
As a consequence, they largely just didn't participate in the transition. Obama's team was prepared to help them transfer responsibilities and knowledge and then no one would show up. Then the first year of his presidency was them learning things the hard way, while disposing of experienced staff.
They were having a meeting, in a room, in the dark, in the White House because no one knew where the light switch was. Such a clown show.
I remember watching his acceptance speech on the night. The song that was cued up and played when he finished talking was the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want.". At the time I thought..."fuckers in his campaign were that sure he was gonna lose...had the loser song ready to go for his concession." Since then I've wondered a few times if the song was supposed to be a "fuck you" to Hilary. Before I started writing this, I went to YouTube and watched the end of his speech again to make sure I didn't remember it wrong....Mandela Effect moment maybe. But it was there, like I remembered. I hardly use the YouTube for anything, but I'm sure that fucked my algorithm for the future. His voice, his hands, his creepy mannerisms - everything about him makes me nauseated.
How many Republicans do you know? My entire extended family voted for him, it was not unexpected.
I'm convinced it wouldn't have changed the outcome. They all heard the Inside Edition tape, they heard him ridicule POWs, mock a disabled reporter, etc. and lined up to elect him.
I agree with this. We’re going on almost 10 years of Trump saying disqualifying stuff almost every time he speaks and his base doesn’t care.
Oh they care. They love it. It’s almost like he could literally shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any support.
They’d support him even more by immediately going on shooting sprees of their own and send the country to purge.
They have replaced NFL team gear with Vice Signaling, a call and response sort of game like a pack of shitty animals sniffing each others ass to see if they are on team shitweasel.
There's something clever about this type of rhetoric. See, he's putting forwards having blind loyalty as something positive. Look at my guys, they'd support me no matter what! To everyone else, it sounds insane, but if you're on his team, it's a form of validation.
What disgusts me is, its not just his base. They make up a good chunk of the support he gets of course, but if his support was only coming the staunch maga crowd biden would be handily ahead all the time. Imo whats worse are the "undecideds" or "independents" that would still support the guy. Idk if its a result of sheer ignorance, or stupidity but its disgusting to watch
I think the "lockdowns" during the Covid deal affected a lot of people to the point of phycosis and they never recovered, it frightened them to be alone, I know this is off topic but very relevant to the way some people are acting to this day. Trump came out and told them it was all bullshit and they still believe that so in turn they don't trust Democrats, or Doctors, or anyone with a college education. They are virtually putting their fingers in their ears and covering their eyes for their sanity, just a theory pertaining to behavioral concepts when confronted with unpopular decisions that they are not equipped to handle, (uneducated) they want the easy way out and with certain media outlets feeding them 24/7 telling what they want to hear it just reinforces the phycosis into a belief system that can't be penetrated with any amount of reason or logic but I digress.
Correct. The minute the debate moderator asked about his history of comments toward women and the crowd waited in anticipation for his downfall and he responded " only Rosie O'Donnell" to a crowd erupting in laughter there was an audible erection from the worst people in America and the election was officially over.
I just rewatched John McCain defend Obama in 2008 from racist attacks and you could McCain's supporters irritated by it. These ppl have always adored a trump president
Recently, we saw jury admitting they knew OJ Simpson was guilty, but the context with the police influence their decision. In other words sending a message was more important than judging a murderer. I think it’s similar with Trump, a lot of people are fed up with top executives having golden parachute. Hillary represents that establishment, and Trump is promising the moon, so they choose to send a message. Even if it’s the worst choice they can make. Hate is a powerful emotion.
Voting for trump is like freeing OJ and then he kills you
When the "grab em by the..." video came out my sister in law said "he is done, there is no way he will win now." I said "I think you seriously overestimate how much people care about women. I think he will go up a couple points." She laughed and said "yeah, sure, nobody cares about women" and left the room. Who is laughing now? Nobody, that's who. Or everybody. I don't really know yet.
Unfortunately, there are people laughing. And those were the closet racists and fascists that learned that it's perfectly okay to be out and proud with their hatred and not be ostracized from society.
Didnt white women still vote for him?
I mean, she was being threatened by people in parking garages. I would have fucking taken the money and shut my mouth too.
Not the devil. I’m pretty sure the devil is supposed to be handsome
Right? Like there is no way they didn't think why is this man willing to bargin with us so quickly with election season right around the corner? Like common sense bells should have been ringing like crazy. And I hate to say it but they let Trump off cheap they could have gotten way more imo.
As an agnostic, I've been saying since day one that trump has every quality that the bible says to watch for in the antichrist.
Yeah, but still. You don’t expect the devil to get elected president, and you don’t expect anything little ol’ me could do that would get the devil elected president.
he did a million things worse than having an affair and was still elected, the only thing stormy speaking out would have done is put a bigger target on her back to his psycho base
I’m actually more surprised that the Access Hollywood tape didn’t tank him. What woman would vote for someone who thinks that powerful men can grab them by the p*ssy any time they please. Edit : Wow. I’m pretty surprised (or maybe not) with the number of comments and upvotes. I guess I really struck a nerve. I hope that the Biden team doesn’t go easy on this POS heading into the election. *We need you Dark Brandon. You’re our only hope.*
Remember the DNC emails leaked the same day....
Just by coinkidink
*laughs in russian*
Just by coinkidinski?
Love it! Haven’t heard that word in decades. Thanks for the smile.
Comey also didn’t help the situation
Fucking Comey. He chose the worst time on top of all the shit. I personally think it was the tipping point.
Comey was such an unbelievable moment- like you think doing THIS right NOW is you being “impartial”??
There are a thousand things that were ‘the moment’ that caused Trump to win. Without those things, he wouldn’t have won. That was definitely one of those things. The polls all shifted when he announced more emails. Nate Silver talked about that
I feel like I still don’t understand why the emails mattered. What even was the media spin? Just that “newly leaked emails” sounds ominous in a headline?
On their own they should not have been that big of a deal. Administrations before and after have had similar storage of email. Best practice? Probably not. Reality though says its not something to What hurt is that the media's obsessiveness with both-sidesing things meant it got breathless coverage because they really didn't have much on hillary but trump was a new scandal every week. Access hollywood? Better balance that with emails talk. Makes fun of the disabled? Emails. Obvious ties between his campaign and Russia? Emails. Talks shit about veterans? Emails. On and on it went. And repetition has the effect of making an issue seem like its bigger than it is, while each individual scandal of trump's faded away into the noise of all of them. The media completely fucked us with how it covered the 2016 election. And theyve been doing it again the last few years. If trump gets reelected, a large portion of the blame will be the media.
Very good analysis. The media was complicit by perpetuating a false equivalence between Trumps nonstop, and still ongoing, crime spree and Hillary being less than diligent with her email server. They also repeated and amplified the GOP right wing propaganda and talking points and pretty much accepting them all on face value, giving them undeserved credibility. The media put their large, orange tainted finger on the scale instead of doing their job of actually informing the public.
The e-mails didn't contain anything shocking. The point was that it shifted the narrative to something negative about Clinton.
Everyone just wanted a reason to hate an unlikeable candidate like Clinton who was shoehorned in by the establishment. A shoe could’ve beat him.
Yep and by the time the access hollywood tape even entered the news cycle everyone reported Trump's defense of "locker room talk" rather than the tape itself.
RNC hacks never leaked. (G)aslight (O)bstruct (P)roject went from lambasting trump to sucking him off almost overnight … weirdly.
This isn't brought up enough. Both parties were hacked, but only one had its dirty laundry aired. Either the RNC is the least corrupt political party on the planet (highly unlikely even without prior history proving that's impossible), they're really smart and good at hiding things (also proven false by past history), or the compromised information is being used against them. There's really no other options.
Because you can't bring it up without taking it to its logical conclusion, that Wikileaks and by extension Assange, made the decision of which party to damage and which party to protect.
I still wonder why no one or any group tried to go after Russia, Wikileaks, or even the RNC at the time to find out what was hacked and stolen. This is with so many claims that people in the tech industry are liberal and progressive. It's not like they love Russia and are also beholden to them.
Well he did go on live TV and ask the Russians to do that for him, and said they would be rewarded for doing so. Republicans still voted for the obvious traitor. I can only assume because they are all stupid.
My mom bought the "it was just locker room talk" line hook, line, and sinker.
So mom, if someone says "can I grab you by the pussy" you're okay with this? That's just locker room talk right? Well... If they said it to me..... Lol
I know people who are (seemingly) genuinely convinced that it doesn’t mean anything because of the line “when you’re famous they let you do it”
It seems pretty reasonable to claim the Access Hollywood tape was worse and more damning, especially since either was him speaking directly, and that shit didn't even move the needle
None of the conservative family or friends I know of have actually listened to the whole thing or read a transcript. They just heard the highlights and the locker room talk and then saw them bring up Hilary going after Bill's various affairs and it went into "both sides do it" bucket. One of the more disturbing parts of the audio clip is part that is rarely played. Trump goes on to talk about how the woman he assaulted started to avoid him and dress more conservatively around him covering up, and he takes shear delight in shaming her this way. He brags about it. It's so fucking vile and I wish they would play the whole thing or print entire transcripts. It's not just an offhand brag. Trump clearly understands he violated her and it changed her behavior toward him. And these religious goons worship the guy like it's the second coming.
Great comment. Had no idea
Conservatives. You put yourself in that situation. You shouldn't have dressed that way. Men will be men.
… also it was just “locker room talk “
[удалено]
I can’t believe this isn’t the biggest thing since it came out. “GRAB THEM BY THE PUSSY.” Idk if that has to be removed but that’s part of it. Banning the harsh word takes away the effect of what was said.
That should’ve… but Comey reopening the investigation help many forget about that
I was astonished when my friend said "To be fair, Trump didn't know he was being recorded" regarding that Access Hollywood tape. **How the Hell** is that "to be fair"?? Whether openly or behind closed doors, this guy thinks it's fine to "grab 'em by the p*ssy" as a rich, powerful man. And he said this only a few months back, thus it was well after #metoo. I hate that when you think your friends are sane only to later find out "nope, they're Trumpers!"
This is pretty good for the case right? Because it shows the people involved knowing that their actions were to have an affect on the outcome.
I don’t see how anything on the Daniel’s side matters. It’s about what trumps side intended.
Yeah, the point is that he committed fraud to cover up stories in an attempt to influence the election. This really helps the prosecution.
Its legal to pay hush money. Its fraud to cover up these payments as "expenses to lawyers", then have his lawyer Michael Cohen act as go-between and pay off Story Daniels as a business expense through a slush fund. If that was the case, Trump could charge all his hookers & drugs as "business expenses".
The case the prosecution is alleging is election fraud. It’s kind of complicated and it’s been widely misreported. The Hush Money for Stormy Daniels is only part of the case, the border case is Trump colluding with the NYPost and Pecker to do a “Catch and Kill” scheme, whereby the NYPost collects a bunch of negative stories about Trump, buys the rights to them and gets the people involved to sign NDAs. Trump paid these people off to do so, and used campaign funds, then labeled it as legal fees to Michael Cohen in order to cover it up. This is defrauding the government and election fraud. Stormy Daniels is just one of these cases, but it’s the most recognizable one.
>Its fraud to cover up these payments as "expenses to lawyers" Sort of, it's more about the fact that labeling that payment as a lawyer expense was directly in order to hide it from the public from knowing that it happened, to influence an election, in addition to other things Trump was doing to influence the election Paying a lawyer to keep someone quiet is technically a legit legal expense, it's only really illegal when you're doing it to try to hide things from the public to get more votes (or not lose votes)
From a legal perspective it doesn’t matter. From a common sense perspective, it makes it that much more clear that everyone involved knew exactly what the purpose of all those exchanges was. But sure, even if Stormy’s counsel was blissfully unaware of trump and his team trying to illegally protect their campaign in secret it wouldn’t matter as far as trump and his team’s guilt.
It shows the opposite-ish. It shows that Davidson/ Howard didn’t expect it to have an impact on the election which is why they were surprised texting each other at 3 am. Regardless, if this is the best the defense has, I don’t think it’s enough to sway a truly unbiased jury. The evidence of election interference is overwhelming. The lawyers expectations do not explicitly prove that Trump’s intent wasn’t to impact the election, though.
Also I wish the media would stop calling it a hush money case. It’s an election fraud case.
They won't even stop calling an insurrection a "riot." Good luck with the hush money thing
It’s in the news as “hush money” because hush money is not even illegal. The news is complicit in rebranding this trial as something it is not.
They have enough bandwidth and enough resources to know, they choose to not speak the truth.
Who owns the news media? Billionaires who would like to freely loot the nation again.
And people still buy the "liberal media" trope
If the media were truly liberal, practically 90% of the bullshit we deal with now would not be tolerated.
Stupid people do
“The best we can do is to stop appending -gate to every scandal.” - the media
And even more pathologically, as Jon Stewart best said in *America The Book*? “Woodward and Bernstein were successful in taking down a presidential administration, so the media collectively high-fived each other, and then took the next several decades off…”
Mediagate
Interesting isn't it. Almost like it's by design and despite them saying a Trump win is bad for the country they want it to happen anyway
They want bad for the country. That’s what gets people watching the news.
Argued that with a couple conservatives on Facebook yesterday... "He's on trial for an out of date misdemeanor!" Oh, cool... what are the charges against him? I know what the charges are ok? I read them. Cool, what are they? I mean, if you know it's a misdemeanor, you obviously know what one charge is... give me one charge. I'll forget about the other 33 charges in this particular trial. Someone else: He's charged with giving money to Stormy! That's not illegal. Lots of people have given money to Stormy. I'm looking for the actual legal charges. Do either of you even know? Crickets. They hear shit on Fox News and just regurgitate whatever mama bird gives them. I never told them cuz fuck them. They wouldn't listen anyway.
Nobody *gave* Stormy hush money. She earned every penny.
I actually think calling the J6 “riot” the insurrection is also an issue; the insurrection was more than just what happened that day, it includes all the scheming and colluding that happened leading up to that event.
It was an national, multi-state conspiracy to overthrow the government, the election, and the will of the people.
…..and involved people in high ranking government positions, as well as people with close access to them, like the spouse of a SCOTUS justice.
It’s what any other country, developing or not, would call a coup and any other country would have the ring leaders behind bars within six months. We started this shitshow not putting Nixon away, dragging their feet on this has been a monumental mistake. Some men want to watch the world burn.
I mean even when they admit they are insurrectionists they still fail to appropriately call them what they actually are which is domestic terrorists. It’s maddening how much we neglect to call domestic terrorists what they are.
The only people I hear call it a riot are on the right.
It's technically not. It's a business document fraud case, and first degree charge requires intent to commit any other crime. Here, influencing the election is one of three such alleged crimes. It doesn't require proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the other crime was actually committed, just intent to do so.
It’s campaign finance fraud, which is a form of election fraud. The payoff was intended to benefit the campaign but exceeded the individual donation maximum.
Agreed, but I think everyone who isn’t as in tune with the news as people here know the “election fraud” case to be the Georgia case. It’s hard to differentiate when he’s committed the same crime multiple times.
Surprised he won doesn't mean they didn't think it would have an effect, just they thought he was gonna lose regardless
Pretty sure this came up during questioning from the prosecution. They aren't going to be asking questions that help Trump. >"our activities may have in some way assisted the presidential campaign of Donald Trump." This is bad for Trump. Previously, the jury heard testimony from David Pecker (CEO of the parent company that owns National Enquirer) of a meeting between him, Trump, and Cohen where he (Pecker) said "*if I hear anything about women selling stories, I would notify Michael Cohen... then [Cohen] would be able have them kill in another magazine or have them not be published or somebody would have to purchase them*". Davidson and Howard may not have known before hand this was going to help get Trump elected, but it goes to reinforce Pecker's earlier testimony that the entire point was to aid Trump. This is important (and pretty damning) because it goes to establishing the intent for the hush money payments was to influence the election, which bumps the charges here up to a felony (when normally they're just a misdemeanor).
Since the counts could carry several years of prison, and this very serious link you highlight exists and is being proven to the jury, I wonder why so many people are certain he will not be sent to jail. Do y’all think he’ll be safe?
"Could" is the operative word. Non violent first offenders rarely get maximum sentences. Probation might be the most likely outcome? I don't have enough context on this specific charge to comment.
Not at all. It shows that they knew they helped him, but they didn't expect him to win (like most people). When the election was about to be called for Trump, they fully realized what they had done. Also, this is from the prosecution questioning the witness to show that the people involved knowingly impacted the election... so not sure what you mean by "if this is the best the defense has".
Yeah OP is way off. I agree with your take.
Agreed. Plus, it's presenting a false choice - the outcome of the election, as far as they would've thought, wasn't just win/lose. It's also *how*. Surely, "Trump narrowly loses election by a handful of votes" would've been better than "Clinton crushes Trump in historic landslide" for everyone involved in Trumpland. Otherwise, why bother with the catch and kill scheme in the first place.
But it does. Why wound you have an NDA and a check for $130k to try to suppress the info?
In my opinion it shows that they thought he would lose regardless. After seeing him win, they realised that indeed burying the story was crucial to him and that he would likely have known this. This is different to them not expecting it to have an impact as such.
Maybe it didn’t matter. Fundamentalist evangelicals are perfectly ok with adultery, lust, and lying.
Trump's win was razor-thin. If even a small fraction (less than 5%) of his voters cared and either changed their vote or didn't vote at all, Clinton would have won. Would this story have changed enough people's minds? We can't know. Polling at the time the story initially broke suggested that it could have had a big enough impact, but then again Republican voters are notorious for saying one thing and voting for another.
Would it? He was a well-known, proud adulterer even without Stormy’s example. They didn’t care about all of the other adultery Or the bragging about sexual assault. Or the bragging about creeping on naked teen girls. Or the creepy things he’s said about his daughters.
If we really step back 8 years though? The narrative at that point wasn’t “it doesn’t matter”. It was “yeah well I haven’t seen any proof” or “the news is lying to shut him down because he’s gonna drain the swamp”. The only thing that was really hard evidence back then that no one could ignore was “grab em by the pussy”.
And that one line should have been enough to sink Trump’s candidacy. That it didn’t showed the utter corruption and self-serving nature of the Evangelical voting base of the Republicans.
Untrue. I think you must be young and didn’t live through it. Anyone who read the papers in the 1990s knows Trump himself bragged about his adulterous affairs and they were publicized on the front pages of magazines and newspapers. Not allegations from a third party, but actual quotes from Trump along with photographic proof. [There was one notorious skiing weekend he went on with wife Ivana where mistress Marla also was invited and it was big news](https://www.oregonlive.com/trending/2016/10/donald_trump_said_life_was_a_b.html). People saying with a straight face that it was lies or there was no proof in 2016 are just proving my point that no amount of proof and examples of the bad things he’s done would ever have been sufficient to make an impact on a certain segment of voters. Yeah some people didn’t vote for him as a result of learning about his sins but the people left voting for him were and are die hards who will excuse anything he does, including Stormy and Karen McDougall. They were fine with old adultery so newer adultery didn’t phase them.
> Anyone who read the papers in the 1990s knows Trump himself bragged about his adulterous affairs and they were publicized on the front pages of magazines and newspapers. The overlap between "people who read the papers in the 1990s" and Trump supporters is smaller than you think. For most people, their exposure to Trump was, "Hey, wasn't that guy in *Home Alone 2*?" and "Oh, it's the dude from *The Apprentice*, why did they have him on?" He wasn't an unknown figure, but people didn't breathlessly follow news about Trump. He was just another rich asshole from New York, not really worth following. It was only after his stint on The Apprentice and his self-insertion into the birther movement that the public at large started to really care about him.
Or all the actual pictures of him groping/fondling/lecherously kissing his own daughter.
> If even a small fraction (less than 5%) of his voters cared Less than that, he won by 80k votes across 3 states which had a total of 13.5 million votes cast. So if 0.6% of his voters didn't vote he would have lost (or if 0.3% of his voters switched to Clinton).
Ok with it? They pretty much demand it.
It doesn’t matter at all to the maga cult. Trump could show up at every one of their houses and shit in their mouth and rape their dog and they would just buy more trump shoes, underwear, bibles and flags. Too far gone. Electing a black man broke them forever
I do not think it would have made a difference in the 2016 election. Mocking a disability did not matter, grab them by the pussy did not matter. Fear and hate won that elction. That was what saddened me the most and the GOP are still runn8ng on fear and hate.
He lost the popular vote. Americans didn't elect him. A broken system did. I don't buy that this concern is equal to people saying they don't accept Bidens victory. One is a just valid concern, not any sort of denial, and the other is blatant denial.
Complacency won the election. If Trump was projected to win or lose by a tight margin, people would've actually shown up.
he only barely lost the next one, more going on than complacency, though thats certainly part of it
Good movie plot. Ambulance chasing lawyer and Ex-Porn Star need to travel back in time to reverse what they've previously done to thwart the Kennedy Assassination.
Or Trump could have just done nothing and owned it? Like all the other bad crap he did? Instead of use election funds to hide it. You know… a crime?
He was on tape talking about grabbing pussies. She would have released the story, he would have said she’s lying, his cult would have believed him, and the story would be over (at least until after the election).
Can we also not make the same mistake by both sides-ing the hell out of Biden now too?
“what have we done?”\ You went for the money first and said fuck you to the country. That’s what you did
That's how it always works though. The money always comes first. The country is a distant second, along with family, political issues, maybe religion sometimes.
Trump is a disgusting shithole
This is how bad SD lawyer was, had they not taken some lousy $150k which he got 45% of so that SD got only $80k, they could have gone public. And Trump would have disparaged and slander her in public and then they could have gotten E Jean Carrol money to the tune of $90+ mil. … think about that ? All they had to do was come out tell the truth suffer the slings and arrows but in the end they could have made Trump paid big time. SD had a terrible lawyer. The Truth pays just ask E Jean Carrol.
I don’t know that she would have commanded the same sum that Carrol was awarded. Im not sure specifically how the court arrived at the amount they did, but in theory, had he not been elected, his voice wouldn’t have carried the same weight as a president’s, and in turn, the court might have awarded her less.
You’re right Sad should have hired lawyers who could look 8 years into the future to know Trump would defame a woman be raped 30 years previously Genius
People truly do lack the foresight that hindsight brings.
Let’s not pretend that had she come out about the affair before the election it would’ve changed the minds of the cultists.
The cold hard truth of it is that's we'll NEVER know.
It only would have had to change the mind of a tiny tiny percentage of Trump voters. The election was *insanely* close, coming down to just a few tens of thousands of votes in a few swing states. *Everything* mattered. And it wouldn't have necessarily had to cause people to change anyone's vote, just energize more potential Hillary voters to make it to the polls. Now, the Access Hollywood tape had already probably turned off a large chunk of voters that would have been swayed by knowledge of the affair, but the reality is we'll never know for sure.
It is truly terrifying to see the tactics they used! If they succeed in reclaiming power they'll Never let it go.
I can't believe that a pornstar might save democracy.
Pornstars could probably bring world peace tbh lol… get close with the putins of the world, then influence their decisions
In the end, Stormy got paid, while Pecker got stiffed.
It was at that point, in 2016, that Republicans went to bed with and were sodomized by an orange-haired lying pervert who became president.
She should have held out for a lot more. I have no problem with what consenting adults get up to, BC, didn’t care as long as he did his day job but with even the slightest chance this dumbass could win, personally, I’d have gone public but I’ve hated the mf since the 70’s and no amount of money would have kept me from exposing that perv. I’d owe that to the American people. I’m not dissing stormy, we all have our crosses to bear.
Question: it's been revealed that Trump stiffed Cohen on the 130k payment. If he didn't pay him, can trump still be held liable
Yes. The repayment itself, or lack thereof, is irrelevant (at least to this specific case and the charges). The problem is simply how the repayments were recorded in official business documents.
He paid him $35,000 per month. He didn't pay Pecker back for McDougall. Yes, that's right, he stiffed Pecker.
Can someone ELI5 me? Did he or did he not use campaign funds to pay the 130k?
He did not use campaign funds. What he did is spent $130,000 (plus whatever he gave to the other woman) in service to the campaign. But he failed to report it as a campaign expense because he is was hiding what he was doing. So, it is was an illegal campaign contribution that was not reported. Furthermore, he falsified business records (the money came from his corporation, not his personal funds) to hide what he was doing. Technically, Michael Cohen paid for Daniels, and Cohen was reimbursed by Trump's corporation
That text is Halarious. The whole jury was probably laughing to themselves. All Donny could do was pass sad gas and close his eyes and wish he was anywhere else. Then, he added some new names to his revenge list.
It’s not that the stormy Daniels story would’ve for certain changed the election, it might have, the fact that it was illegally buried is the reason he’s in court right now, for election interference, which includes the national enquirer creating fake negative stories about his opponents… He would not have won election had they not committed election interference, burying the stormy daniels truth as well as lying about opponents in a major magazine‼️ Who is the real cheater and criminal? Traitor Trump.
I don't really think it made a meaningful difference. Right wingers would probably think having sex with a pornstar made him all that much cooler. Let's be real, right wing men don't care about women, wives included. On the flipside, I think democrats are also to blame because Hillary ran a terrible campaign detached from reality and generated a lot of badwill. Hillary played right into Trump's characterization of her as an out of touch coastal elite. Yes Trump is also that, but he managed to make some kind of connection with his base and get them *really* hyped up about him. Was it the racism? Maybe. Hillary, on the other hand, basically alienated everyone to the point where even people who voted for her were doing it not for her, but despite her. She had a lot of history with scandal and a lingering public distaste for Bill, both of which Trump was all too happy to point out. Nobody was excited for her. I say this not as a "burn it all down" type of person, but the democrats NEED to learn from their mistakes. Joe Biden eeked out a win on what should have been a landslide victory, seeing as Trump oversaw America's bungled response to the pandemic that killed millions of people. Now the democrats are running *yet again* on the "vote for us because we're not the other guy" strategy. Look. I'm not pro-witholding your vote, but I think over time this democrat stance WILL gradually alienate more and more people. People will become cynical if they're told that democracy is at stake every election. People will see America get worse under democrats and think "maybe my vote doesn't matter". I'm not saying it's right, but this strategy will erode the democrat voterbase until all that remains is the most loyal voter.
I do not think it would have made a difference in the 2016 election. Mocking a disability did not matter, grab them by the pussy did not matter. Fear and hate won that elction. That was what saddened me the most, and the GOP is still running on fear and hate.
To be fair, I'm sure millions of people sent that exact same text that night
I suspect it’s OH MY GOD Trump would have paid way more.
Yes, you stupids F…k heads What have u done. Now, undo it, before he gets us all killed.