He Got Away With It
Photo by Liam Enea, CC BY-SA 2.0
There are many, many takes to be had on the re-election of Donald Trump. And there many many takes on why it is bad for the country. I don’t particularly disagree with any of them. Putting aside policy differences, the danger of re-electing a man who attempted a coup and is now unbound by either law or Congress shouldn’t have to be explained (although apparently it does). It is a danger to the Republic to reward a movement that has created an entire alternate universe where up is down, right is wrong and grass is blue if Donald Trump says it is. And it is unhealthy to elect a man who is the political equivalent of the Devil, always encouraging people to be their worst selves.
However, I’ve sometimes been told that my animosity toward Trump and Trumpism verges on the irrational — “Trump Derangement Syndrome”, as his most ardent defenders call it. I will admit there is much that offends me about the man on a personal level. And one of those levels is this:
He got away with it. All of it. He will go to his grave having never been held accountable for a lifetime of misdeeds and wicked behavior.
Let’s walk a bit.
Throughout his life, Donald J. Trump has used his wealth and fame to evade responsibility for almost every awful thing he had done. Over two dozen women have now accused him of sexual assault.1 A jury decided that there was sufficient evidence that he sexually assaulted E. Jean Carrol to enter a civil judgement against him. He has boasted about bursting in on teen beauty pageant contestants while they were dressing and they’ve confirmed that he did it. On a video tape, he infamously boasted about grabbing women by the pussy in exactly the way his accusers say he did.
All of that is known. But what people don’t put together is that for anyone who wasn’t rich and famous, even one accusation would turn their life upside down. People have lost jobs, people have been booted out of college, people have lost custody of kids, people have been abandoned by families over single accusations that don’t have nearly the supporting evidence of Trump’s accusations. I personally know people whose lives have been wrecked this way.2 And yet, his only punishment has been a judgement that is less than 1% of his wealth. And he has now been re-elected to the most powerful position in the world where he can assault women with impunity.
Trump has a long history of ripping off business partners and not paying contractors. He was found to have engaged in massive fraud in his business dealings, profiting to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. He is no longer allowed to run charities because he was stealing from them.
For most people, even one of these misdeeds would be ruinous. They’d be bankrupted if not in prison. For Trump … a fine, that may be reduced on appeal and which the Courts may intervene to obviate anyway.
For most people, bigoted comments can cost them their jobs. For Trump, it meant a few more points in the polls and the sycophantic parroting of those comments by Right Wing grifters.
For most people, having an open bribery scheme like the DJT stock would mean criminal charges. For Trump, it means billions of dollars shoved directly into his wallet.
For most people, one felony conviction can completely wreck their lives. Hell, even a felony charge can cause them to lose jobs, flop security clearances and fail background checks. For Trump, 34 felony convictions is just something for SCOTUS to over-ride. And all the crimes he committed in trying to overturn the election and steal classified documents will now go away. And before you say, “oh, that’s just Biden lawfare”, remember that Trump has never claimed to be innocent; his defense has always been that he is above the law. And now, between his re-election, SCOTUS’s re-writing of the Constitution and nakedly partisan delays by SCOTUS and Judge Cannon, he is.3
In fact, Trump’s criminal behavior before, during and after his Presidency may end up profiting him. This summer, Trump filed a ridiculous $100 million lawsuit against the DOJ for the Mar-A-Lago raid. Such lawsuits are almost always dismissed, especially in the context of legally executed warrant. But he can now order the DOJ to settle the case and have the American people just give him $100 million. So ultimately the penalty for all his law-breaking may be … a fat check at the expense of the people who voted for him.
I have no hope to give here. No solace. The American people have looked at the totality of what Donald Trump has done, the wreckage he has left in people’s lives and fortunes, the damage he has done to the Rule of Law and Constitutional Order and said, “more please”. We have given him more power, more money and less accountability than we fought King George for. His re-election means that justice will never be served for a lifetime of sexual abuse, corruption, fraud and, in his last decade of life, abuse of power. All of which culminated in a horrific act of treason4 on January 6, an event soon to be hallowed like the Beer Hall Putsch.
To quote Mike Royko, I have long known that life isn’t fair. But it shouldn’t cheat that much. Donald Trump has long been the embodiment of privilege: a man born into wealth in the most prosperous country in the world who has succeeded despite have the business acumen of a dung beetle and the business ethics of a garbage scow. A man who has married three beautiful women and cheated on all three without consequence. A man who has never had to sacrifice anything for anyone but still spends much of his day tweeting about how unfair life is to him. And while millions of Americans who have a done hundredth of what he has done are in prison or in poverty or both, he will end his life ensconced in privilege, protected from any consequences of his misdeeds by a spineless party, a corrupt Court system and 80 million voters.
But hey … at least the mean tweets are back.
- Maybe you don’t believe all of them. I’m reminded of Dave Chapelle’s joke about Bill Cosby: “Man … he probably only raped, like, twelve of those people.”
- And, needless to say, people whose lives have been wrecked by being victims.
- Trump won’t be able to kill the Georgia case, but that is on indefinite hold due to Fani Willis’s idiocy and will almost certainly not come to trial before the end of a second Trump term, assuming it ever does. I would bet that the case gets dropped eventually.
- In the colloquial not legal sense.
I can’t argue, except to say that he is what America – and in particular American men – aspire to be. He is firmly protected but not bound by the law. And if he can game it this way, maybe they can too.
That and inflation. Which when it roars back under his tariffs he won’t be held accountable for either.
The Georgia case will be interesting to watch, since Willis got handily reelected.
Though I do hope the judge in new York has a clear conscience. Because not sentencing him was a mistake.Report
Philip I have written the darkest essay I’ve ever written in my life and I’m not going to post it here because it’s just too goddamn dark. I’ll let Mike’s OP essay here stand for a fraction of what I think about Trump, and what his re-election says about America as a culture and Americans as a people, and why it makes me hold my hard-earned license to practice law cheaply.Report
Yep.
We had four years to handle this decisively, and we didn’t. We’ve known who and what he was for decades; he was parodied as a villain on Sesame Street in 1988 as Ronald Grump (the character returned as a human played by Joe Pesci in 1994); the Biff Tannen of Back to the Future II (1989) was a very-thinly-veiled DJT riff, right down to the abusive rapiness.
America’s had his number all along, and we’ve enabled him and excused him and rewarded him every step of the way, straight to the top, twice.
I know using stronger language here is frowned upon so I’ll just say this is deeply embarrassing and shameful and unjust in ways that make Nixon and Watergate look quaint, and America fully a different country. Nixon’s crimes were lesser, and he did, eventually, have the decency to leave (after sufficient pressure was applied, which we seem to lack the will to impose).Report
The boss posted this earlier and I agree with it 100%:
Report
Yep.Report
So, consensual adultery is equivalent to rape? Is that your position? While ignoring the whole coup business, not to mention how he handled government documents. What did Bill Clinton do that was equivalent to that. If it had just been about Stormy Daniels, you’d have a point.
I said it then, I’ll say it now. Having consensual extramarital sex is not disqualifying for president. Breaking one’s oath of office is, and Trump did it repeatedly. I’m really disappointed that you would even bring this up.Report
Man, I really feel rebuked for saying that I agreed with something. I will try to do better in the future.
I’m trying to learn and do the work!
No. Wait. Wait a second.
You’re a moral scold and I don’t recognize your moral authority. Would you like to try again, without scolding me? Maybe we can have an actual conversation.Report
Ok. Let me try this another way. That statement seemed pretty shocking. I didn’t then, nor do I now, think that consensual adultery was disqualifying. Gavin Newsom, by the way, has engaged in this as well, and probably will again. I don’t like him, but I would vote for him for Governor based on his policy and stewardship of the office.
Meanwhile, Trump has committed crimes, proven in court, or in abundant evidence. Felonies. I don’t see the equivalence. Trump has also violated his oath of office, in plain sight. This touches his fitness to serve in a way that a consensual blowjob doesn’t. I don’t see the connection.
AND, I think the fingers in the ears about his crimes doesn’t trace back to Clinton. I think it attributes far more to how Trump manages to get people to place their aspirations on him, and believe things about him because they need to believe those things. He’s probably like Huey Long in this regard, to choose a non-Godwin example.Report
…consensual adultery…
He didn’t get disbarred for the adultery. He got disbarred and his license suspended for lying under oath.
We also have a long list of other issues, including selling pardons and having a “charity” which collected money from entities which his wife dealt with professionally as Secretary of State. Money which vanished the moment they lost power.Report
Wasn’t there supposed to be “an actual conversation” next?Report
Lemme know when one shows up.Report
Your rules, your move.Report
Oh, and by the way, Andrew’s statement sure hit me like it was moral scolding, which you endorsed.Report
You felt scolded? Were you one of the people who was arguing that Clinton’s foibles didn’t matter and, as such, felt called out by Andrew?Report
Are we just going to memory hole the dozen or so sexual harassment / assault allegations made against Clinton spanning decades ?
Oh right, not one of them credible. Nor the the 26 flights to Epstein Island.
My God. Listen to yourself.Report
I’m not going to defend the ethics of Clinton, Bill. I do think there’s some serious revisionist history about how all of that played back in the 90s. Past was a different country of course.
I also think Andrew’s comment is pretty weak. Even if we concede the absolute worst about Clinton we’ve had 3 administrations since then, 2 of them D, without anything approaching those kinds of issues. And if we’re only measuring pre 2016 it’s not like Obama was riddled with ethics and/or sex scandals. Really the opposite.Report
The National Organization of Women and all of feminism in the year of Lord 1996 knew that the man was a sexual predator and endorsed his second term anyway. 1996 wasn’t 1896, so if the past is a foreign country, 30 years ago is one with a common language.
You’d have a better argument in the 2nd graph if the Clintons just went away with the 1990s. They didn’t. They were the power center of the Democratic party as recently as Mrs Clinton running for office a mere 8 years ago. If things went to plan, they’d STILL be in the WH today.
We obviously don’t care about the character of candidates anymore. And yes, Bill Clinton enabled that one giant leap in this new national mindset.Report
Ah come on man. The National Organization of Women? That was not and has never been the barometer for public attitudes about these things. His approval ratings were sky high compared to what prevails currently. There were times where it got into the 70s. That’s because people didn’t see it as a breach of ethics they were tolerating, they saw it as mostly trumped up by what was then a much more religiously conservative opposition. Would it be seen that way today? Probably not, but that’s just presentism, not a trend.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_image_of_Bill_Clinton
As for center of gravity I just don’t know about that either. Obama clearly came to some kind of arrangement with Hilary Clinton but she was the secretary of state who then promptly lost for the reasons we’ve been over a million times here. I don’t see how the Clinton’s could be the center of gravity when someone else was president.
Now, I’ll agree with you that personal character has clearly declined as a consideration
However it’s hard to say by how much when our increasingly venal candidates are constantly floating at historically terrible approval levels along with every other institution in America.Report
I don’t understand your point about Bill Clinton’s high approval/ popularity in 96. It is irrelevant to NOW’s mission. NOW was (is?) the largest and most influential feminist organization in the US. and they endorsed a sexual predator for a 2nd term. That’s just a fact. If ever there was a time for them to stand on principal and NOT endorse a D candidate for POTUS, it was in 1996. The guy was going to win anyway. NOW would have gotten the policies they wanted and not damage their credibility.
And while Bill Clinton would not be the center of gravity in a Hilary administration, is she not complicit in his very survival? I mean, she was every bit that character in the Tammy Wynette song, despite her protests to the contrary.
The Clintons are not decent people. Trump is not a decent person. These are just avatars to wielding political power. Everyone realizes this now. Ethics don’t really matter. The only thing people care about is if a candidate is more likely to accomplish what they want done. That’s it.
Bill Clinton walked so that Donald Trump can run.Report
I’m saying very few people outside of highly politically engaged conservatives believed that he was a sexual predator. A philanderer sure, but not a rapist. I think his approval ratings would have been very different if they did, including in the 90s where there was just less sensitivity generally (and to the extent there was it was more likely to be religion based than feminism based). Even now, at least as I understand it, the allegations remain disputed, and in the realm of he said she said kinds of things. Doesnt mean they didnt happen but because no one really knows for sure the argument is a classical begging the question fallacy. We know some things about Trump we don’t and will probably never know about Clinton.
Beyond that though we may be talking passed each other. If we want to look at things that happened during the Clinton years that set the stage for Trump NAFTA and granting MFN status to China probably have a lot more to do with it than the sex scandals. It got another good kick along the way by the collapse of the credibility of mainstream conservatism during the Bush years, and the maturation of right wing newstainment. I like Andrew and think he’s an insightful guy overall, but am not seeing it on this one.Report
We will have to agree to disagree on who and how many people think Bill Clinton is a sexual predator. I do know a lot of highly engaged democrats refuse to believe it. That’s clear.Report
Makes perfect sense. In the entire realm of politics, Democrats are the only ones with any sort of agency. Republicans and conservative media certainly had no part in it whatsoever. It was those darned Democrats.Report
The “Look What You Made Us Do” theory of politics. “We had no choice but to vote for the absolute worst person we could find. What else could we have done, really? You left us no options.”Report
Our current political process punishes people who are uncomfortable with slime being thrown at them and doesn’t reward morality.
Trump is a lot more comfortable and experienced with this than most. The reason he’s comfortable with it is because he is really slimy.
If we want people with super ethical images to be president then we need to figure out away for that to be an advantage and not a disadvantage.Report
I don’t need super-ethical. I’m fine with moderately-ethical, or just not-spectacularly-and-unashamedly-unethical, but I guess we can’t even clear that low bar.
This normalizes and endorses and encourages all kinds of behavior we should discourage and treat as aberrant and unacceptable. There are worse things than hypocrisy in a leader, and we’re about to see what that looks like, again.
This isn’t the same as an OJ getting away with it, not by a long shot. OJ didn’t represent anyone but OJ. This, is on us all. And I have no intention of being less upset about it any time soon. It’s not normal, not here. Or it shouldn’t be and we shouldn’t blithely accept it as such.Report
I guess we can’t even clear that low bar.
The incentives are wrong.
Whoever runs for President will face Na.zi/rape/etc allegations. The team of the people making those allegations will (pretend to) believe them and there will be zero consequences for them being spurious.
Someone who is reasonably ethical has probably never faced those sorts of claims. If they need to be experienced + skilled + indifferent to those claims, then that says a lot about them.
So… how to change this.
1) We could go to a Parliamentary system where we don’t vote for the leader at all.
2) We could punish people who are making up stuff about Trump
3) Blue & Red could be willing to vote for the other side because of their ethics.
However as long as they disagree on what ethics is I’m not sure that works. Reasonable people can disagree on Gaza, Trans, Taxes, Equality, and so on.
Insisting that [your issue] is so important that anyone who doesn’t back it is a na.zi is also claiming that you’re being ethical by saying anything to stop them from being in charge.Report
Seems to me the only candidate who’s had those allegations thrown at them, is the one who’s had plausible allegations made against them, such as those made by Ivana Trump and John Kelly and E. Jean Carroll, to name a few.
I don’t recall such allegations being made against John McCain or Mitt Romney or Nikki Haley or Mike Pence or you get the idea.
I find the idea that simply no potential candidate’s hands are ever clean enough that such charges wouldn’t be able to gain any widespread political traction whatsoever to be…questionable. Yes, other candidates have had lesser slime thrown at them but the idea that the psychological damage from that slime (to which The Donald is admittedly uniquely impervious) is what knocked them out of the game also doesn’t ring true.
Mud-flinging to see what sticks is not some new phenomenon in American politics and anyone playing the game has always known it. And yet here we are, with this.Report
I don’t recall such allegations being made against John McCain or Mitt Romney or Nikki Haley or Mike Pence
Romney campaign tells Obama to ‘rein in his supporters’ on Na.zi comments. https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/124572-romney-campaign-tells-obama-to-rein-in-his-supporters-on-nazi-comments/
Nikki Haley being compared to Eva Braun (Hit.ler’s girlfriend)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2012/09/05/romney-ally-to-dems-stop-trivializing-nazism/
Mike Pence being compared to Hit.ler
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/whoopi-goldbery-mike-pence-nazi-lgbt-rights-row-us-vice-president-a8212516.html
John McCain being compared to Hit.ler
https://rac.org/press-room/madonnas-hitler-mccain-analogy-deplorableReport
OK, look, right off the bat – freakin’ Madonna, and freakin’ Whoopi Goldberg of all people, have said a LOT of things over the years. I don’t believe THOSE two particularly representative of widespread sentiment; and, their comments appear to have been duly condemned, as they should have been.
Still, in the interest of fairness, not only have you succeeded in providing a few examples, I also DO recall, during the Bush II era, a semi-popular portmanteau that used the last letter of George’s family name to lead into the first name of the infamous Austrian painter in question.
SO: yes, fine: the “left”, broadly, have sometimes been, uh….overzealous and inaccurate in their charges. Fair enough.
I am fully onboard with the idea that the Dems erroneously cried “Wolf!” frequently enough that when the Wolf was finally, actually at the door, they lacked the appropriately-publicly-alarming names to apply to that Wolf. That’s a valid lesson IMO, and I hope it’s taken to heart, if it’s not too late to matter.
But you still need to demonstrate that these nasty-namecalling incidents are actually what knocked any of these aforenamed (R) pols out of the game, or are currently keeping better (R) candidates than the one we got out of the game; because to me it’s pretty clear that’s not why any of these (R) folks were knocked out of the game at all.
I agree that slime shouldn’t have been hurled at them; but that slime is, IMO, largely irrelevant to the slime we actually got.
They were knocked out of the game because they did not demonstrate the characteristics that whatever the “GOP”/GOP-voter is today, appears to want.
They (and Kinzinger, and the rest) were not driven from the Republican party or the political arena because someone on the left called them a nasty name that did not apply to them.
They were driven from the party and political life because a certain populist demagogue from their own party – who has used nasty epithets himself, phrases like “vermin” and “the enemy from within” and “poisoning the blood of our country” – and his supporters, exploited cracks in political coalitions and gave enough voters a scapegoat to blame for their problems that he marginalized and defeated all of other Republican contenders, and has now been duly elected the leader of a sharply-divided democracy that has seen extremely-rapid recent social and technological change, economic turmoil, and a worldwide pandemic in recent years.
I wonder if we can think of anyone else like that. No, Trump is not LITERALLY an n-word (you know, the other n-word), because say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, at least it’s an ethos; and his own ethos is, as always, to enact his vengeance on his enemies, line his pockets, and gratify his ego. What we’re gonna get is clearly gonna play out somewhat differently than what Germany sleepwalked into, and hopefully it will be less catastrophic than I and many fear.
But the alarm being sounded, was being sounded for a reason in this case.Report
But you still need to demonstrate…
No I don’t. My claim is that everyone who runs for office needs to expect this sort of thing. Ergo we’re selecting for people who deal with it well. Almost by definition that works against very ethical people.
Trump manages this sort of thing very well because he’s had so much practice. The way he’s gotten so much practice is he’s been an unethical scandal ridden slime for decades.
Another side effect is the electorate is conditioned to expect and ignore it. Which means the truth of the allegations matters very little, it’s more about how they’re handled.Report
Flubbed this sentence: should read “last letter of George’s family name to lead into the first letter of the family name of the infamous Austrian painter in question.”Report
The Philly Inquirer interviewed a bunch of Trump voters and asked them “why are you a Trump voter?” and the story ends with this absolutely insane interview:
I have to say to all of the people who did a great job of comparing Trump to Hitler: Congrats. This is where that got us.Report
Prior to Trump’s first election, I sat down and talked to my Dad over burgers and a beer one day. My folks had been Democrats when younger, but had gone all in on the Republicans with Reagan and had never looked back; and I was worried that they were not seeing what I was seeing here.
To my immense relief, my father – who’s read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich more than once – said that Trump reminded him of A.H. – that he was a similar populist demagogue, a modern analogue.
Whew, I thought. OK. They DO see what I see here. Maybe enough people see through this thing and we’ll be OK.
Well, guess who my folks voted for ANYWAY?
And since then I have refused to discuss politics with them whatsoever except briefly on a couple rare occasions, because I do not trust my ability to sufficiently bite my tongue; and I don’t want these last few years with my parents to be nothing but arguing and violent resentment for the mess they’ve helped leave for their grandchildren.
But I did – once – ask him HOW? How could you POSSIBLY do this, after you told me that DJT reminded you of THE 20th Century’s go-to villain? Please, help me to understand; I cannot.
And he said well, he agreed with some of DJT’s policy proposals.
And that STILL doesn’t add up to me, at all.
Because even if you think that A.H. or a candidate you see as a modern parallel had some good ideas or policy proposals, everything ELSE about that comparison should remain an automatic, immediate disqualifier.
It’s a real “Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln” situation, right? The minute I hear “Reminds me of Der Führer”, to me that sentence should trigger an immediately-disqualifying Hard No, Shut It Down, Start Over response.
A villain, clearly can’t be trusted to do what they promise / you hope anyway.
A person of known, proudly-declared low character and observably erratic behavior (my mother readily concedes that Trump is “crazier than a shithouse rat”) should not be allowed anywhere near the levers of power. Character still matters. Temperament still matters. Hell, COMPETENCE/SUCCESS should matter, since the predecessor in this comparison ultimately succeeded in securing another royal ass-whupping for his country, and ultimately accomplished the only lasting good he ever did when he shot and killed the German chancellor.
In some ways I fear I will never understand any of this.Report
“How?”
This isn’t a left/right thing. It’s an elitism/populism thing.
Trump made *HUGE* inroads with pretty much every single ethnic group out there. Black males? Yep. LatinX females? Yep. Jews? Yep. Muslims? Yep.
How?
He’s a populist.
One of the main things that the elitists had, until somewhat recently, was an Élite in charge of it. Say what you will about the Élite but they were, at least, Élite.
And now they ain’t.Report
What must it be like to think that all the scientists, and all the economists, and all the historians, and all the people who’ve spent their lives studying and enacting policy and governance, and all the people who worked most closely with DJT in his last administration and know him best and refused to endorse him, are ALL wrong; are ALL lying; are ALL nefariously working against you?
I guess the only possible answer is to retreat into treating real life like it’s a Slobs vs. Snobs movie. Maybe that will work out well.Report
The economists said that inflation was transitory. “Look at this graph!”
The historians said that crime was at historic lows. “Look at this graph!”
All of the people who have spent their lives studying and enacting policy and governance explained that shoplifting wasn’t a big deal. “Look at this graph!”
Nefariously working against you? Nah.
Merely mediocre. The Élite were no longer élite.Report
Excellent. I have been tempted on more than one occasion to ask a Musk-admirer of a certain sort, “How do you think he made his billions?”
He paid people with graduate degrees to design stuff. He paid people with regular degrees to figure out how to implement the designs. He paid people with two-year degrees or equivalent to execute those implementation plans. For the most part, he doesn’t employee people that don’t have some sort of degree.Report
Musk might be for-real élite. He might actually deserve the diacritic.Report
This reminds me of Sam Kriss’ take. Guy isn’t for everyone but I thoroughly enjoy his writing.
https://samkriss.substack.com/p/i-told-you-so
The crescendo for those without the time to read it:
Trump will be bad. He probably won’t be as bad as his enemies keep screeching, but he’ll be bad. This is your fault. Once, when the kings of Israel sinned, God sent terrible empires to sack the holy city of Jerusalem, carry away its temple goods, massacre its people, and sell the survivors into slavery. Things have changed, but not that much. Now, he sends the king of the morons. You have sinned, and Trump is your punishment: whatever happens next, you will deserve it. You did not learn! The last eight years have taught you absolutely nothing: we’ve gone nowhere, we’re trapped in the same stupid loop, and now I’m writing essentially the same post all over again. You should have listened to the voice of the prophet, wailing in the wilderness, in the deserts and the unclean places, gibbering with the fury of the Lord. But you didn’t, and there’s not much left to say. Just that I told you so. I told you so. I told you so.Report
Holy crap. That’s a wonderful essay.Report
There’s also this one.
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/finally-the-elites-have-been-defeated-by-the-billionairesReport
Trump isn’t particularly élite, for a billionaire. He’s tacky, gaudy, and tasteless. He’s fat, has bad hair, and small hands.
And he’s populist.Report
Now do Elon!Report
He’s a successful engineer.Report
Someday, probably in the reasonably near future, someone’s going to write a book about the year 2017 in the American left, and there will be paragraphs in it about Kriss, because he’s representative of one one of the dynamics of the 2017 upheaval.
Anyway, he represents a segment of the left that we heard very little from between 2018 and 2024, but will probably hear a lot more of between 2025 and 2028, and both the tone and content of that essay is pretty representative.
For other examples, might I recommend Catherine Liu, the BungaCast and What’s Left of Philosophy podcasts, and if you’re truly brave, Sublation Media.Report
Reading about why Sam Kriss disappeared for a while is… well, we’re going to need more than paragraphs. We’re going to need a chapter.Report
I mean, it’s pretty straightforward: he was accused of sexual assault and harassment; he admitted the bad behavior (without, necessarily, agreeing that it was assault), apologized, and went underground. What’s interesting to me, and why I think it would be in the book, is that it’s the sort of behavior that, had it occurred a year earlier, probably wouldn’t have had any consequences for him on the left, even short term.
Things changed so much over the course of 2017 that, two years later, the ISO, a popular and reasonably effective far left group , was destroyed by its poor handling of similar accusations against one of its handling of a sexual assault accusation against one of its leaders from 2013 (notably pre-2017 changes).Report
Is Kriss officially “back”?
I mean, does anyone who isn’t into reading kompromat anyway read him?Report
There was one candidate in this election who didn’t, as far as I can recall, have any personal ethical challenges. She lost by 3 and a half million votes.Report
She had a handful but they were more of interest to wokies/libertarian types prior to her being the nominee.Report
I was not aware of these. I daresay you wouldn’t be able to find a prosecutor in these United States that didn’t have the same record.Report
Yes. No serious negatives. No serious positives.
You can’t beat something with nothing.Report
Alas, not. I really want to not care which party is in power in this country.Report
I’d say that the Republicans have recently shown a *LOT* of agency in the last ten years.
That’s one of the big complaints about them!Report
Hoosegow Flask is not saying Republicans do not, in fact, have agency. He’s repeating a common internet meme that Republicans — falsely — disclaim agency for their own choices, hiding behind the “look what you made me do” defense.
But you probably know that.Report
Unusually bad take from Andrew.
Like, you argue it after Trump’s first impeachment [1] and it makes sense in that context. It’s not a slam dunk argument but it’s colorable.
After Trump’s second impeachment, though? Nah bro.
Senate Republicans weren’t conserving political gains, he wasn’t popular at that point like at all, he’d just sent a mob to murder them, etc.
[1] People barely even remember that the motherfisher was impeached twice, do they?Report
If 10 more Republicans in the Senate had shown a glimmer of a backbone in January of 2021, we’d be fighting about President-elect Haley right now.Report
Impeaching the unelectable ex-President seemed like political pain for no gain.Report
The gain is that he doesn’t get to run again.
The pain is an election two years down the line.Report
The flaw in the reasoning was in the “unelectable” part. Nixon and various others simply left. Trump had his empire to amuse himself with, it should have worked.Report
If you really believe that you weren’t and still aren’t paying attention. He was and still is a symptom, and the GOP sacrificed themselves to him to achieve objectives they have been working towards since the 1960’s.Report
I remember that he was impeached twice.
I asked that he be impeached a third time.
But here we are. And now it looks like both impeachments were temper tantrums.
Anyway, I hope he does well in his 2nd term and that everything is okay. Maybe we can cut back on some of the… “excesses” of the past 8ish years on the part of his opposition.Report
As craven as most of the Senate GOP was in 2021, I don’t think it counts as a “temper tantrum on the part of the opposition” when there were 7 votes for conviction with “(R)” after their names.Report
Eh, I kinda see “the opposition” as being more than is contained in the parenthesis.
Cheney provides an excellent example of “the opposition” and there’s nobody (R)er.Report
Can you be specific as to who you think was throwing a tantrum during the second impeachment, and why you think it qualifies as a tantrum?Report
Who *I* think? Or that I think that, with fuzzy hindsight, that’s how it looks?
Because if I do very much think that that’s how it looks.
Allow me to quote you: “People barely even remember that the motherfisher was impeached twice, do they?”Report
I can see how the first impeachment would look that way, with (or even without!) the benefit of hindsight, fuzzy or sharp. It is an opinion that a sensible and well-informed person could have.
I do not believe that a sensible and reasonably well-informed person could have that opinion about the second impeachment.
It’s self-refuting: “The anti-Trump opposition was throwing a temper tantrum because, um, they had just beaten him in a Presidential election!”Report
Sure they could! All they have to do is barely remember it.Report
And in such a case I am confident that I could remind a sensible and reasonably well-informed person of critical details about the second impeachment (such as when it happened) and they’d feel a touch sheepish about being misled by their fuzzy recollections.
Whereas if I reminded them of the details of the first impeachment, I would be unsurprised if their opinion didn’t change a whit.Report
So the question then becomes: Why didn’t people care?
Was Kamala even less attractive than the guy who ought to have gotten impeached?
Were things *SO* bad that it was reasonable to vote for Trump?
Should there have been *ANYTHING* done differently in the runup?
Or is even asking such a question appealing to Murc’s Law?Report
Yes. I’ve actually given one example: ten more Republicans should have voted to convict Trump during 2021’s impeachment trial.
There are other examples I can think of but they’re a good deal less certain. Merrick Garland should have been more aggressive in pursuing Trump for his role in January 6. Fani Willis should have been less of a spectacular idiot.
Then there’s stuff even less certain than that. Like, maybe if Biden had decided not to run in 2019, the ensuing primary would have gotten us a better candidate or the same candidate with a better message. But maybe not.
No, but I think dismissing my answer and implicitly excluding Senate Republicans who voted to acquit Trump from the people who had a responsibility to act differently–that does seem to be well in line with Murc’s Law.
EDIT to add: I think the problem is the assumption that it’s just 100% fine to rely on what voters find “attractive” to keep the likes of Trump out of office.Report
Maybe we could push for faithless electors. If we could get California and New York to give their votes to Rick Perry, maybe we could get Texas and Florida to do the same.Report
That wasn’t a coup.Report
The Rise and Return of Trump is a tragedy born of many parents. Andrew is right that this is one of them.
Bill Clinton was Monica Lewinsky’s boss. The power imbalance between them was huge. It’s not a black-and-white issue; Lewinsky admits that at the time she had a “crush” on the President. But I hope that we’ve matured enough in the intervening (checks notes) nearly 27 years since the scandal broke to put the power imbalance in that picture.
Andrew is right, however, that Democrats who closed ranks around Clinton dirtied their hands, and did so for strictly partisan motives. This taught Republicans a lesson that they’ve taken very much to heart since, and it wasn’t a good one.
Meanwhile, Democrats learned the right lesson. When Al Franken’s scandal broke in 2017, he found himself quickly with zero friends anywhere — no Republican friends because he was a Democrat, and no Democratic friends because Democrats had learned a lesson by then too. I’d venture to say that Franken’s conduct was, while very far from admirable, not nearly as severe as Clinton’s.
Or Trump’s.Report
Was the lesson to be sure to make a show of consistent moral judgment when there’s nothing on the line? Franken resigned and was replaced by another Democrat, who was appointed by the sitting Democratic governor. Whatever else it is, it’s not an example of Democrats demonstrating their commitment to enforcing their moral values even at the price of political power.Report
I don’t recall a lot of discussion about Franken’s likely successor or the safety of his seat, but it’s true that was a safe Democratic seat then and that’s a fair critique.
I was a Californian then and didn’t fully appreciate how large some of the names in Our Tod’s polemic against Democrats running cover for Men Behaving Awfully loom in politics here. Neal Goldschmidt is still talked about as if the White House had been in his future (n.b., I do not think the White House was in his future, but maybe the Senate). The events Tod rightly complained of and the “Hey, think of the big picture, not your silly principles,” kind of thinking party loyalists urged upon people to urge lining up behind David Wu, happened about ten years after Clinton and seven years before Franken and it feels a lot like what was used for Clinton.
But I’ll stand pat on “Franken found himself with zero friends.”Report
Here’s what I said at the time:
Report
RE: Monica
If memory serves, Monica was young for her age and sex obsessed. In a different context we’d call her a groupie. She was also wondering if Bill would divorce HRC and marry her which makes me wonder what he told her.
My CEO was fired over less than this. Considering Bill stepping down would have meant his (competent) VP stepping in, there is a strong argument Team Blue should have made him step down.
BTW that’s a different world where it’s thought that the VP is less than competent which has also happened multiple times.
RE: Franken
There was no investigation, this was a moral panic, he was never allowed to give his side of the story.
It’s not clear that he did anything. As a comedian, he had a skit where he’d be a sex manic doctor. He did this act for years. None of the other females who played in it reported problems. That’s not, they didn’t step forward, that’s they were called up and asked since it was a small enough number.
The accuser’s description of the events seem to be of his skit and his character’s behavior during that skit. She also is a professional publicity seeker. A handful of women reported behavior they felt was inappropriate during photo ops, but that’s out of tens of thousands and it seems Al did a lot of these in character.
In the best case, Al’s behavior was clean for someone who professionally does raunchy sex comedies that cross lines.Report
We discussed the Al Franken thing here on the site back in 2017. (Ironically, in a post talking about the need to have a Clinton reckoning.)
I linked to a comment from around when the 5th Franken accuser stepped forward.
By my recollection, the argument defending Franken, at the time, was something to the effect of “sure, this behavior was inexcusable *BUT* he only did it once! Give him a pass.”
And then more accusers started popping up.
This made it difficult to pivot to “Well, there is a department in the Senate set up to deal with stuff like this and we should follow the process”.Report
Useful to remember that this was the reaction to Monica Lewinsky talking about the matter before the 2016 election.Report
Trump employs a “lie first” strategy. (it didn’t originate with him) He accuses opponents of doing pretty much what he is doing. In this way, when he is accused it sounds to many like a lie, like it’s payback, and nothing real.
It’s nasty, and it’s effective.Report
First, last, and also in the middle.Report
“elderly man with poor memory” got away with it.
news at 10Report
Who are we talking about?Report
Trump got away with it. Same as OJ. My ex-wife too. I’m sure that’s not a short list if we go down it.
Sometimes there is little justice. It’s annoying, but I’m going to let it go and try to not have it be upsetting.Report
https://www.npr.org/2020/04/29/847840765/new-information-emerges-around-biden-sexual-assault-allegationReport
Constantly changing story. Coworkers say what she is claiming is probably impossible. Multiple claims of other assaults from various other people. Long history of lying under oath multiple times in multiple courts. Defected to Russia in 2023. Multiple times she has claimed in court to be an “expert witness” on domestic violence but apparently isn’t.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden_sexual_assault_allegation#
There are a ton of mental health red flags here. My read is she’s attention seeking and doesn’t understand that they’re lying even though their statements are not correct.
I’ve had personal contact with two people like that over the decades. I’ve had multiple conversations with other people who have a lot of experience with them where we try to figure out if they know that they’re lying. Far as I can tell that’s the wrong question. IMHO their definition of “truth” and “lies” doesn’t match the mainstream nor reality. They think they should be able to make stuff up and not get called on it.
If you don’t understand that people like that exist then you have been very fortunate.Report
Jean Carrol: All her assults against her are published in her book. Or I’m guessing she published them all, including Les Moonves trapping her in an elevator. Public claim about Trump comes out right before the book. Like Reade, Carrol claims multiple instances where she’s assaulted. Reade lied about a degree. She did work for domestic violence or volunteered at the very least. Carrol claims she was part of the silent generation and just went on with life as the reason for not reporting (or screaming in the store). I’m guessing because people would call her crazy. Reade apparently is the same for being silent? Maybe she figured people would call her crazy? I guess sanity depends on who you accuse, not who your are. To note, I think Trump is a prick, and I’m sure he’s done some handsy groping no doubt, but Biden is in the same boat with claims by multiple women. I do agree with your other assessment in this thread that the system as of today doesn’t not encourage decent people to run. Their life will be ruined.
Also, what do you think about the accusations against Kavanagh? Do you believe those ones? Especially Ford, where she gives a vivid description of a layout of just about every two story house in America?
https://www.vulture.com/2019/06/les-moonves-sexual-assault-e-jean-carroll-accusation.htmlReport
Sexual assault is a real thing and a real problem.
False accusations are also a real thing and a real problem.
Biden’s accuser has a lot of red flags that we see with false claims. Carrol managed to prove hers in a court of law.Report
She didn’t prove, it was her word against his in a civil trial. The jury went with it. I just showed you Carroll had a bunch of flags too. Keep in mind there’s been a big push to keep Trump away at any cost. Why not be the hero, both accuser and Jury (in a highly leftist location)? Seriously, if this was some regular dude and you were on the jury would you be fine with this judgement?
I’m pretty sure that Reade (and I agree her accusations are questionable) would not have had the opportunity to go to court due to limitations and where it occurred at the time. So not a fair comparison limiting this to court outcomes. As an academic, you should understand that.
Also, just read your pope hat article about the elections. Interesting, because many of us on the right feel the same way about your behavior. Censor who you don’t like by calling it fascist and racist and immediately shut the conversations down. Have the DOJ go after parents concerned about their kids and how they are taught. Divide the country more with stories that were clever in leaving out the race of the perp when hate crimes occur unless they are white. Remember all those Asian attacks? Wasn’t whitey for the most part, but the media sure wanted to make it look that way. How about all those nooses that turned out to be BS? Excuse any falsehoods that have come from the established media. Be fine with 50 or so government intel people spreading BS about Hunter’s laptop likely being a Russian ploy to brush it under the rug last election. Probably the same morons that got us in the Iraq war to find those weapons. Funny how the left who want to save America and Democracy constantly trash its past and present. I mean when did any of you actually like this Country? Maybe name the two weeks where you thought it was decent. And lastly, if you’re going to agree for the pope hat call to violence, which there was plenty from you guys beginning on inauguration day back in 2016 (attacking civilians and people minding their own business, or just trying to drive home), be prepared for people fighting back this time. In the meantime, keep posting about how killing Gazans (UN says 3/4 are women and children so far) is perfectly ok to protect your Jewish state, while lamenting that anything other than agreeing with the far left, and white people not being in constant appology for the crap hole American supposedly is, makes them racist or phobist or whatever in this awful America. Hypocrite.Report
RE: Carroll & Trump
1) There is a long list of women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct.
2) She is also one of 13 women who have accused Moonves.
3) Two other people have said she confided in them shortly after the incident.
4) Trump claimed they’d never met. This might put this into “famous people attract this sort of thing” except that there are photos of them together.
5) On May 9, 2023, a jury of six men and three women found Trump liable for sexual abuse, battery and defamation. (wiki)
In a July 19, 2023, memorandum opinion, Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the trial, demonstrated Trump “raped” Carroll in the plain sense of the word(wiki)
IMHO after we’ve proven something in a court of law the burden for disproving it is much higher. So muttering something about media bias, or left leaning, needs to get a lot more specific.Report
1) There is also a list for Biden. Not just one person, including grabbing, kissing on the forehead after grabbing and putting hands on thighs. Not to mention the creepy hair sniffing.
2) She’s also made claims she’s been assaulted by far better men (plural) Apparently Trump is number 20 of the list according to the link below.
3) Reade has also told people about her incident not long after.
4) I’m sure there are more people in photos with Trump than all the people posting here combined. A famous person getting their picture taken with a bunch of people over the years is not uncommon. Doesn’t mean the “met”
5) That’s already know. My point is was the jury really weighing the evidence or not. I ask you do you think it was enough evidience yes or no?
6) Judge’s comment come after the rulling of the Jury. Irrelevent.
My statements had nothing to do with bias after the fact. It had to do with bias and motivation during the trial. I don’t have proof, just maybe the location of the trial, and the fact that people were hell bent on out to get Trump.
From the article
“Carroll admits that there is no proof—only her memory, sometimes faulty, sometimes vivid—but, as has been said before, who would make up such a thing?”
I don’t know Hal, why would someone like Reade make up such a thing since Carrol didn’t?
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/comma-queen/theres-a-lot-more-to-e-jean-carrolls-book-than-trumpReport
RE: She’s also made claims she’s been assaulted by far better men (plural)
I think she’s making a difference between “assaulted” and “sexually assaulted”.
RE: Reade has also told people about her incident not long after.
In my experience with the mentally unstable they claim everyone not in the room as backing them up. In this case Reade told her (now dead) mother (no, you can’t talk to her), and various other people who in person say she was vague and didn’t give names.
What really stands out is the following: According to a summary within an Associated Press investigative piece based on interviews with over a dozen of Reade’s acquaintances, Reade used “her charm and flair for drama to manipulate those supporting her until their goodwill [ran] out”, and “some people who dealt with her found her duplicitous and deceitful, while others found her a heroic survivor.”
Add to that her repeated lies in court on various subjects, her constantly changing story, and imho we’re in “sympathy vampire” territory.
The thing about personality disorders is she will have been doing this for decades.Report
One of her friends says she mentioned him by name. As far as constantly changing do you mean when she down toned it to complain about Biden? Maybe that’s because she could get some retrobution without being attacked for putting out the full story? I don’t know.
Anyhoo, again, if you were on a jury with just a regular guy and it was her word against his (even if he’s a known a-hole in general), it was years later, she was promoting the story for money, like a book for instance, and also continued to praise the guy after the supposed assault took place, would you find the guy guilty. Is that all the evidence you need.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/02/politics/tara-reade-allegation-joe-biden/#:~:text=In%201993%2C%20when%20the%20friend%20was%20back%20in,against%20filing%20a%20police%20report%20at%20the%20time.Report
No answer to my question above about you being on the jury? How about Biden showering with is daughter. Yes or no? Do you shower with your daughter? If you find the question offensive when applied to you and your daughter, I’m happy to hear this. What about Joe though? OK or not?Report
if you were on a jury with just a regular guy and it was her word against his
We have already run that experiment. We had a real jury with a real conviction. They spent many hours listening to evidence and no, it wasn’t just “her word against his”. I’m not going to spend minutes trying to repeat that.
For Biden, I seriously doubt it makes it to a jury because the case is so bad the legal system would filter it out before it gets there.
For Trump, he gets convicted. Not because “he’s Trump”, the legal system is designed to prevent that kind of emotional thinking. He gets convicted because not caring about the rules or about what other people think means he has no problems crossing lines or doing crimes.Report
If we’re going to go there, Trump was repeatedly accused of sexual misconduct before he ran for office.
Various women filed lawsuits against him. This is in the context of him always counter suing them and turning it into a legal mess.
He accidently admitted they were correct during the campaign when talking into a mic he didn’t realize was on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_sexual_misconduct_allegationsReport
Yeah.
I’ve talked about this before. At a certain point, someone’s personality becomes clear. And no one here has mentioned this:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/24/documenting-trumps-abuse-of-women
Now, Ivana since has said she didn’t mean it was rape in a ‘ literal or criminal sense’, which…firstly, it actually _does_ sound like that, but secondly…she not disputing the actual events, just asserting it is not legally rape. And I don’t know if it is or not, it sounds like it legally is to _me_, but fundamentally, it doesn’t matter.
What matters is that is how he treats women. He has an incredibly obvious pattern of treating women as prizes, at objects, as mere tokens. He’s cheated on three wives, and, yes, that’s not illegal and shouldn’t be, but still. (And it’s not the sort of cheating that might be understandable or sympathetic, like falling in love with someone else, a huge chunk of it is literally just prostitutes.)
Honestly, and people need to internalize this more: A huge chunk of the wealthy are functionally sociopaths. They have never experienced any consequences or even societal pushback for anything they’ve ever done. The only real difference is how much they think that in the open vs. keep it hid.Report
I just asked for a yes or no on the answer, I wasn’t asking for you to devote minutes. If you want to believe he did the act, I’m fine with that. If it was a regular person with this same evidence and you would convict, I’m fine with that. And if you want to ignore the allegations against Biden, and there are plenty of others alleging inappropriate behavior toward women including showering with his own daughter, I’m fine with that too. It’s your moral compass, not mine.Report
I see no reason to treat the “allegations” against Biden seriously because there are so many red flags on the accuser.
Not only is the legal system not taking her seriously but it likely shouldn’t. If she wants to change that she can submit her claims to investigation, but my expectation is that’s the last thing she wants.
Similarly I see no reason to disbelieve the court’s verdict(s) against Trump. Trump has many red flags and a many decade pattern of this sort of thing. At some point we need to believe the dozens of women who have said there are problems.
Trump being bad doesn’t mean whoever he’s running against must be as bad, nor does it mean that we can’t look past that and vote for him anyway.
I have one vote, that implies I can have one priority.Report
RE: Kavanagh
4 of the 5 accusers have admitted their claims are false. The 5th (Ford) has a ton of major red flags, including the problem that she swears she can trivially back date her accusations but refused to actually do so.Report
Also, Carroll praised Trump years later. Fear or insanity? Again I guess it’s who you accuse and not who your are?
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trumps-defense-grills-e-jean-carroll-old-social-media-posts-trial-rape-rcna82254Report
You don’t know many sexual assault survivors do you?Report
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/womens-event-biden-navigates-lingering-sexual-assault-allegation/story?id=70403703Report
We are in “The Democrats would have won if they did all these things which coincidentally happen to align with my ideological priors” season.Report
If they had only come out against the ghost runner.Report
Better than “Harris was as flawless as Clinton, we don’t need to change” season.Report
Obviously the real solution is to lament the moral shortcomings of various demographic groups that combine for more than 80% of the population. That’s what makes sense. In a democracy.Report
I think the answer is more likely:
1. It’s inflation, stupid. The same thing that has toppled most governments, left or right, in elections since 2021.
2. Lots of people neither take Trump seriously or literally based on numerous articles I have read. Or 2024 might the F around and find out election for a lot of people.
3. Trump’s coattails are remarkably small to non-existent.Report
I think it was mostly inflation and immigration. Plus a large part of the public didn’t want o hear about Trump’s misdeeds. You don’t usually have to go spelunking to figure out why people vote the way they do.Report
Doesn’t #3 hinge on whether the assumption was that the Dems were going to lose those senate seats and those house seats anyway?
Because if the guess was that the Dems were going to pick up a senate seat and some house seats, then Trump actually has some coattails to the tune of 4 senate seats and more than a couple of house seats.Report
FWIW, it looks like Trump is not winning a majority but a plurality.
The final vote account according to Silver appears to be this:
1. Trump = 78.5 million votes (49.9 %)
2. Harris= 76.2 million votes (48.4 %)
3. Other = 2.6 million votes (1.5%)
Total turnout 157.3m votes (about 1.3 million less than 2020)
Trump Margin = 1.5 percent
Turning point state: PA (+2.1 %)
Notably, PA is the only swing state where a Republican won their Senate race. No one ever seriously thought that Montana, Ohio, or West Virginia would go for Harris and there is an entirely plausible scenario where Harris wins the election but Tester and Brown lose their reelection bods.Report
Group number 3 needs a hit in the privates and smack on the head.Report
Maybe Harris should have done a better job of appealing to #3.Report
It could also be that we just have a very polarized electorate with no ideological center.Report
(Where are you seeing these numbers? Wikipedia says 50.42% and The New York Times says 50.5%.)Report
https://x.com/NateSilver538/status/1855608085571580169?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1855608085571580169%7Ctwgr%5E4cb579babd391fc75989b35520707dd6414ef5f2%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com%2F2024%2F11%2Fthe-emerging-pictureReport
I went to the site that Wikipedia used to update its numbers and The Green Papers says that it’s 50.4%.Report
I remember when GWB took office and he presented his legislative agenda with a comment that he had political capital to spend. DJT is making the same claim, in essence. Both guys claim a mandate with barely more than half the electorate voting for them.Report
Make of this what you will but:
1. Harris received more votes in Nevada than Rosen;
2. Rosen is going to win reelection because about 70K people showed up to vote for Trump and did not vote for Sam Brown for Senate.
3. The same thing apparently happened in elections for the House of Reps and State Legislature because Democrats easily one their three seats in the House again and appear on track to keeping their supermajorities in the Nevada State LegislatureReport
More evidence for people voting for Trump and no one else includes:
North Carolina. Trump’s margin of victory above Harris was about 2 percent. On the other hand, Democrats swept the major state wide races (Gov, AG, Sos, Lt. Gov) and appear to be on track to break the GOP supermajority in the State Legislature.Report
Kinda sucks that this was the last election we’re ever gonna have. Those would be some good indicators for 2026 (which would have been the most important election of our lifetimes).Report
LOL! Look at your old man Joe Biden. He’s been engaged in shady foreign business deals, showered with his daughter according to her own diary, and sexually assaulted Tara Reade. Not to mention, has weaponized the FBI and Justice Department to go after his political opponents. And yet, he’s never been held accountable for his own misdeeds. Mr. Biden is the most privileged man that has ever held office!Report
Well, putting aside that most of that didn’t happen, his son was prosecuted and convicted and the GOP’s own investigation found nothing on Biden himself.
I also think there’s a huge difference between:
-vague allegations of influence peddling in Ukraine vs. openly taking millions in bribes
-one allegation by Reade vs. 28 and a civil judgement
But you do you.Report
Remember, it’s not a cult.Report
The stupid it burns. AOC asked people in her district who voted for her and Trump why and got a range of responses, most of which provoke a headdesk in me: https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/1goup3n/americans_are_just_dumb_as_hell/?share_id=xnTBX3ZXvRY85Itt_hjqZ&utm_content=1&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1&rdt=49778
The short version is this:
– They DON’T believe Harris would have delivered on promises that they DO like (eg home health care funding, ending taxes on tips, first-time home buyer assistance, protecting reproductive rights)
– They DO believe Harris would have delivered on promises that they DON’T like (eg supporting Israel & Ukraine)
– They DON’T believe Trump will deliver on promises that they DON’T like (eg deporting millions, rounding up political opponents, ending environmental accords & programs, replacing progressive taxation with regressive taxes & tariffs, adding more far-right judges to the federal bench)
– They DO believe Trump will deliver on promises that they DO like (eg ending war everywhere with a phone call, ending taxes on tips(!)Report
So Trump has credibility with these idiots but Harris doesn’t?
We obviously need a Democrat Joe Rogan!Report
So does AOC. We do need someone who can speak bro.
But I suspect a lot of people are going to be shocked when the leopards eat their facesReport
Joe Rogan certainly was.Report