Are Trump’s Transgressions Always Worse?

 

I do not like the president. I have never liked the president. I will never like the president. Yet I am confused by statements about the president that seem to bolster his political opponents per a game of degrees that I honestly do not understand.

Today I heard two examples of this.

First, I was listening to an old episode of the Joe Rogan show. An attorney who works with the Innocence Project was discussing Kamala Harris’s criminal justice record per the possibility that she would be chosen as Biden’s VP candidate. Before saying anything else, Josh Dubin carefully held out the caveat that anyone running for office would be better than the current administration.

Then he described how Harris had fought to stop men he believed she knew to be innocent from exploring DNA evidence that might clear their names and get them out of prison. He detailed the cases of men on death row–death row–whom he believed were being denied justice by Kamala Harris. He talked about the disparate impact of Harris’s approach on minority communities. He discussed a case on which he had worked that had robbed a client of literally decades of his life per the type of zealousness that he saw in the now VP candidate when she was the lead prosecutor in California.

At some point in the conversation, Jason Flom, another advocate for the wrongfully convicted, added from another microphone that he would certainly vote for a Biden/Harris ticket despite misgivings about Harris’s record because he believes we are in an “existential crisis” with our current White House. And I smacked my head because I seriously don’t understand the logic.

Donald Trump is a blowhard. He is not a guy I want to have over for dinner. He rubs me the wrong way. I think there is plenty of evidence to show he is a narcissist and was a horrible business partner. He bilked people out of money at various times in his career. Some of these people were rather vulnerable such as the students who signed up for a Trump University degree. Per what I think I know about his history, I would not loan the president a dollar. But did he stop someone on death row from making a case for his innocence?

Actually, he signed the First Step Act to begin criminal justice reform. He signed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, which should have been a law all the way back when Theodore Roosevelt was president.

There seems to me to be some intellectual dissonance that I just can’t process.

Being a blowhard is as bad as keeping men behind bars to advance one’s own career?

How is saying dumb stuff worse than destroying real people via the criminal justice system?

How do these things balance on the “transgression scales?”

I add the caveat that I do not know the basis for these men’s hate of the president. Still, I do know they feel Kamala Harris worked in a material way against the missions to which they’ve dedicated their lives, and I can’t imagine why that isn’t worse than anything I can think of Donald Trump doing, and I have no problem saying he’s an idiot.

Then I turned on the Commentary podcast earlier today. This is one of my favorites! I often feel I am of like mind to these presenters, and I even wonder if any of them will reluctantly vote for Donald Trump in November. I’m not in the mind-reading business. Still, I can say this crew has no problems calling Donald Trump a clown when he acts like one, but they are never silent about the real successes of the administration either. In other words, unlike most of the media, they strike me as fair, which is why I keep listening to them.

Yet, yet, yet, I am baffled by one thing Monday morning.

John Podhoretz says that President Trump is in a poor position to attack influence peddling a la Hunter Biden per the positions of his children, and I have long accepted this per face value as true. I, too, have a cultural bias against nepotism, and it seems to me as if the whole Trump family is engaged in the White House. What does Jared Kushner really know about the Middle East? Why is Ivanka heading up a task force looking at cold case killings of indigenous children? Surely these people are only where they are because of who they know???? It’s so distasteful.

But, but, but… is that really the same thing as peddling influence to a government currently hosting concentration camps? Putting a drug-addled child on a board of a corrupt company in a foreign country?

Isn’t it more like grooming your own kid to be the editor of your own magazine, a position that many other people would want, because you trust he’ll do a good job?

(Oh, my God! Am I becoming a deplorable with blinders on per that comment?)

Let me tell you. I understand the deep skepticism of the Trump family, but in the end, Jared did a good job in the Middle East, didn’t he? Is Ivanka rolling in the dough because of her various tasks organizing people to look into the dead or whatever other committees she’s fronted?

Let me digress for just a moment while I make a weird admission.

Before Covid hit, I saw the cutest dress at, I think, Neiman Marcus. It was pricey, but it was on sale. I wanted to try it on until I saw the label: Ivanka Trump. I’m not proud to say it, but I put that little blue number with the pearl collar back on the rack like it was a hot potato because I just couldn’t face the cashier.

Is that an example of Ivanka Trump benefitting from being the president’s daughter?

Weren’t Jared and Ivanka already pretty rich before Trump gained his office?

What exactly did they gain?

Power as King and Queen of Pariahs?

Now, I have no idea if anything in the current Hunter Biden scandal is true or not true. I no longer know what is really happening in the world. There are too many conflicting stories, too many different narratives. I’m not even allowed to read the story per various forums, so who can say what is real? Still, Donald Trump didn’t destroy the media for me with his cries of “fake news.” My trust was blown up a long time ago by scandals in coverage over events like Benghazi. At this point, it’s mostly just noise for me, as I think about planting mums in an autumn garden…..

Yet, yet, yet, I can clearly see there are people working on the Innocence Project who will vote for someone they think knowingly prosecuted innocent people for the sake of ambition simply because she isn’t Donald Trump, and that frightens me. I can see myself accept a narrative that the president doesn’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to appearances of impropriety and family in a knee jerk way until I wonder aloud is there a memo involving Tiffany or Barron or Don Jr. or whoever that says the “big guy gets 10” on the Trump side of the ledger? From China? I mean, I seem to recall something floating back somewhere about a golf course in Scotland, but I can’t remember the details anymore, and the loan sharks from Russia don’t seem to be real, so can anyone tell me the deal to which I’d apply equivalency?

By the way, I’ll be shocked if Donald Trump wins re-election with the media thumb so firmly on Biden’s scale, but I won’t be surprised, if that makes sense. Either way, I’ll vote for him in 2020 because the Bidens and Harris don’t seem to be an improvement in any department that I can measure. At least Donald Trump acts like a Catholic when it comes to saving the babies, and I really do care quite a bit about saving innocent lives.

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  1. PHCheese Inactive
    PHCheese
    @PHCheese

    We spent last week putting hardwood floors in our master bedroom. At one point we needed to take our king size bed apart. We spent one miserable night in our guest room. Nothing like that king size mattress. We bought it on sale about 7 years ago.  Putting it back together we saw the Trump label. We had forgotten that we had a Trump mattress. It’s great but I bought it because it was on sale. However unlike Biden I don’t think Trump dispute all his nuances is for sale and that is HUGE.

    • #1
  2. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    PHCheese (View Comment):

    We spent last week putting hardwood floors in our master bedroom. At one point we needed to take our king size bed apart. We spent one miserable night in our guest room. Nothing like that king size mattress. We bought it on sale about 7 years ago. Putting it back together we saw the Trump label. We had forgotten that we had a Trump mattress. It’s great but I bought it because it was on sale. However unlike Biden I don’t think Trump dispute all his nuances is for sale and that is HUGE.

    Wow!  Donald Trump really has sold just about everything!  I’m glad the bed is comfortable.  :)

    Also, I should have bought Ivanka’s dress.  It was adorable.

    • #2
  3. OmegaPaladin Moderator
    OmegaPaladin
    @OmegaPaladin

    Lois Lane: Oh, my God!!! Am I becoming a deplorable with blinders on per that comment????

    Come on over to the Orange side, Lois.  We have cookies!  (And we don’t bite – except for commies of course )

    I think the President is immoral, but I believe he respects moral people.  It’s like me watching soldiers & marines running PT.  I don’t think I could do that to save my life, but I really respect it.

    • #3
  4. Kephalithos Member
    Kephalithos
    @Kephalithos

    It’s all about aesthetics. Donald Trump looks very, very bad. Kamala Harris looks good — or, at least, she looks like an ordinary politician. It turns out that corruption with a veneer of respectability sells, especially among people for whom voting is mostly a matter of status-signaling.

    I have a relative who’s considering voting for Biden. He said, recently, that he agrees more frequently with Trump than Biden. Yet vote for Biden he must, since Trump is an existential threat . . . and yadda-yadda-yadda. He could easily sit the election out — and he should sit the election out, if neither candidate meets his criteria. But, no, he insists that he’s morally obliged to pull the D lever, despite his generally classically liberal political outlook.

    When such people say, “I must vote for Biden! Trump is an existential threat!” they often mean, “Donald Trump is gross and has cooties, and I hate having to listen to him. If I vote against him (as opposed to not voting at all), I can prove how much I hate him to all my cool friends, and they’ll give me high-fives.”

    • #4
  5. David Foster Member
    David Foster
    @DavidFoster

    “I’m not proud to say it, but I put that little blue number with the pearl collar back on the rack like it was a hot potato because I just couldn’t face the cashier.”

    In the last week, I’ve had the following conversations:

    –a woman of about 25, who mentioned that she has a Trump hate, but “isn’t brave enough” to wear it in public.

    –a woman of about 60, who *does* wear a Trump face mask (never saw one of those before)…she said she was driving to a Trump rally and waving a Trump flag out the window, when some guy in another car screamed at her:  “I spit on you.”

    –a guy in a pickup truck, appeared to be a tradesman of some sort, said he was a strong Trump supporter but would worry about being beaten up if he showed it.

    In the United States of America.  This is terrifying, and if things are like this *now*, can you imagine what they’d be like if the Democrats gain control of the Presidency, possibly also with the Senate?

     

    • #5
  6. philo Member
    philo
    @philo

    Lois Lane: …It’s so distasteful.

    With all due respect, over 1300 words to rationalize a decision that really isn’t all that hard? Well, that is your right.

    But it was this short little sentence the really bugged me. If you have paid attention to American politics over (at least) the last 20 years you may have noticed a Ruling Class that slowly just decided they didn’t care to…or didn’t need to…hide the corruption anymore. I’ll start with Hillary’s seat in the Senate and move quickly to the Clinton Foundation (the most blatantly transparent criminal scheme never noticed by any authorities)…then Harry Reid and so many others banking scores of millions while never earning salaries of more than $200K / year…and others funneling similar or greater sums through spouses businesses…and others through insider trading (right under the nose and with approval from the House / Senate Ethics Committees). The whole damn beltway has been unseemly and corrupt to the core for years. I’ll even throw in a R for good measure…go look into Thad Cochran, who (allegedly) put his wife in a home, hired his girlfriend onto his staff so she could travel with him on our dime and attend all the high society events on his arm, then rented a “room” in her million dollar home as a DC residence (Yea, a room, right). But, now, Trump is the distasteful one?

    Again, as is your right, rationalize away….

    • #6
  7. Joshua Bissey Inactive
    Joshua Bissey
    @TheSockMonkey

    I hope that a part of what’s happening is that people are making the noises they think they have to make, although once in the booth, they’ll vote Trump. Sadly, though, the media machine and other social pressures have a huge hold on people.

    • #7
  8. Gossamer Cat Coolidge
    Gossamer Cat
    @GossamerCat

    Kephalithos (View Comment):
    When such people say, “I must vote for Biden! Trump is an existential threat!” they often mean, “Donald Trump is gross and has cooties, and I hate having to listen to him. If I vote against him (as opposed to not voting at all), I can prove how much I hate him to all my cool friends, and they’ll give me high-fives.”

    That’s pretty much it. Next time they say he is an existential threat, ask them what that means and why if he is a threat to our very existence, we are still here after 4 years of him.

    • #8
  9. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    OmegaPaladin (View Comment):

    Lois Lane: Oh, my God!!! Am I becoming a deplorable with blinders on per that comment????

    Come on over to the Orange side, Lois. We have cookies! (And we don’t bite – except for commies of course )

    I think the President is immoral, but I believe he respects moral people. It’s like me watching soldiers & marines running PT. I don’t think I could do that to save my life, but I really respect it.

    Unless something very strange happens before election day–I have always voted on the day with none of this early mail-in stuff for me!!!–I have made my decision based on the various policy positions put forth.  My reasoning for 2020 looks a lot like Ben Shapiro’s reasoning.   The truth is that I think the Democrats have lost their minds while letting their emotional elephants trample all over the country for quite some time now, and I think that’s been more damaging than anything Donald Trump has ever done. 

    Of course you might ask me what would I consider strange in 2020?????

    Someone pulling a Jeffry Toobin during a Zoom meeting???  (Ewwwwww!!!!)

    A debate performance like that poor VP guy in the Navy back in the H. W. years????  (Though I’ll admit… I’d like Trump to shut up some in Nashville and let Biden look like that ol’ fellow this time around.)

    A random dropping of a nuclear bomb on Delaware???

    Of course, if Donald Trump randomly bit Xi Jingping on camera, that might make me fall in love with him.  (I’d certainly laugh.)

    Anyway, I’d like some sugar cookies, please.  (Is that a violation of some law?  Baked goods for votes????)

    Nom, nom, nom, nommmmm…. 

    • #9
  10. Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw Member
    Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw
    @MattBalzer

    Lois Lane:

    John Podhoretz says that President Trump is in a poor position to attack influence peddling a la Hunter Biden per the positions of his children, and I have long accepted this per face value as true. I, too, have a cultural bias against nepotism, and it seems to me as if the whole Trump family is engaged in the White House. What does Jared Kushner really know about the Middle East? Why is Ivanka heading up a task force looking at cold case killings of indigenous children? Surely these people are only where they are because of who they know???? It’s so distasteful.

    I hadn’t really thought about it before, but consider the number of people who would normally be in a Republican administration who’ve refused to work for Trump. He has to fill those positions with someone.

    Lois Lane:

    But, but, but… is that really the same thing as peddling influence to a government currently hosting concentration camps? Putting a drug addled child on a board of a corrupt company in a foreign country?

    Isn’t it more like grooming your own kid to be the editor of your own magazine, a position that many other people would want, because you trust he’ll do a good job?

    (Oh, my God!!! Am I becoming a deplorable with blinders on per that comment????)

    Let me tell you. I understand the deep skepticism of the Trump family, but in the end, Jared did a good job in the Middle East, didn’t he? Is Ivanka rolling in the dough because of her various tasks organizing people to look into the dead or whatever other committees she’s fronted?

    Let me digress for just a moment while I make a weird admission. 

    Before Covid hit, I saw the cutest dress at, I think, Neiman Marcus. It was pricey, but it was on sale. I wanted to try it on until I saw the label: Ivanka Trump. I’m not proud to say it, but I put that little blue number with the pearl collar back on the rack like it was a hot potato because I just couldn’t face the cashier.

    Is that an example of Ivanka Trump benefitting from being the president’s daughter? 

    Weren’t Jared and Ivanka already pretty rich before Trump gained his office? 

    What exactly did they gain?

    Power as King and Queen of Pariahs?

    I’d have to look it up again, but I read that Trump dropped about a hundred spots on the Forbes 400. Now granted a lot of that is probably in a trust or something but if he’s setting out to profit from the office he’s not doing very well at it.

     

    • #10
  11. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    philo (View Comment):
    But, now, Trump is the distasteful one?

    To be fair to me, I was recognizing how this was silly.  I was saying this is an incorrect perception.  I thought I made that clear in context.  

    Of course, I have followed politics for much longer than 20 years.  

    Perhaps my skills as a writer have failed me there.  

    • #11
  12. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw (View Comment):
    I hadn’t really thought about it before, but consider the number of people who would normally be in a Republican administration who’ve refused to work for Trump. He has to fill those positions with someone.

    I think that I was much too uncritical of my own knee jerk acceptance of the impropriety of the family enterprise.  There have been other presidents who have had family members in positions of high power and no one has blinked too much of an eye.  RFK is the most obvious example.  

    I think the Hunter Biden thing made me reconsider this.  

    If John was insisting that President Trump couldn’t really attack Joe Biden for possibly having an affair with Jill before she divorced, as I believe Jill Biden’s first husband said in an article he wrote for the WSJ, then I’d go… yeah.  Nope.  He could not.  

    But the one thing that my parents have always insisted about Trump is that his kids actually seem to be squared away, and they have proven to be fairly competent in their roles, even though people make fun of them.  

    I really can’t think of an instance where they have profited in a manner that looks similar to the Hunter thing, though I don’t keep up with every scandal.  (According to the media, there’s one every second on the Republican side.)

     

    • #12
  13. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    Kephalithos (View Comment):
    When such people say, “I must vote for Biden! Trump is an existential threat!” they often mean, “Donald Trump is gross and has cooties, and I hate having to listen to him. If I vote against him (as opposed to not voting at all), I can prove how much I hate him to all my cool friends, and they’ll give me high-fives.”

    I really wish the guy on Joe Rogan had explained what he meant.  It really was a startling moment for me.  I don’t even know enough about Kamala Harris’s record in CA to say that she is as horrible as they painted her, but they thought she was as horrible as they painted her. 

    Donald Trump has sued the pants off people in ways I find distasteful, but I don’t think he’s ever thrown them into a dungeon and tossed away the key.  

    It would be like me being a pro-life advocate, detailing how a candidate performed abortions in her garage, and then deciding to still vote for her because the other guy was… ?????

     

    • #13
  14. Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw Member
    Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw
    @MattBalzer

    Lois Lane (View Comment):

    I really can’t think of an instance where they have profited in a manner that looks similar to the Hunter thing, though I don’t keep up with every scandal. (According to the media, there’s one every second on the Republican side.)

    At this point if there was a legit scandal it’d be hard to tell or care.

    • #14
  15. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    David Foster (View Comment):
    This is terrifying

    Yes.  This is another reason I decided to cast my lot with Trump.  I cannot abide this sort of intimidation.  It really is Maoist.  

    • #15
  16. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw (View Comment):

    Lois Lane (View Comment):

    I really can’t think of an instance where they have profited in a manner that looks similar to the Hunter thing, though I don’t keep up with every scandal. (According to the media, there’s one every second on the Republican side.)

    At this point if there was a legit scandal it’d be hard to tell or care.

    That is absolutely true.  When you start with prostitutes peeing on presidents, nothing really feels that “real” anymore.  I thought he probably owed money to Russians because of bad credit, but it seems the illegal release of his tax returns cleared that one up, right?  

    I did convince a friend of mine who was absolutely going to vote for Biden no matter what to at least split his ticket.  

    That’s my go to now for Democrats.  

    They aren’t completely blind to their own crazy.  

    My biggest fear at this point is to lose the presidency and the Senate.  

    • #16
  17. Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo… Coolidge
    Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo…
    @GumbyMark

    Lois Lane (View Comment):

    Kephalithos (View Comment):
    When such people say, “I must vote for Biden! Trump is an existential threat!” they often mean, “Donald Trump is gross and has cooties, and I hate having to listen to him. If I vote against him (as opposed to not voting at all), I can prove how much I hate him to all my cool friends, and they’ll give me high-fives.”

    I really wish the guy on Joe Rogan had explained what he meant. It really was a startling moment for me. I don’t even know enough about Kamala Harris’s record in CA to say that she is as horrible as they painted her, but they thought she was as horrible as they painted her.

    Donald Trump has sued the pants off people in ways I find distasteful, but I don’t think he’s ever thrown them into a dungeon and tossed away the key.

    It would be like me being a pro-life advocate, detailing how a candidate performed abortions in her garage, and then deciding to still vote for her because the other guy was… ?????

    It is a reflex for many liberals who have sense enough to know something is wrong with the crazy direction of their party, but always default to “of course Trump is a threat to democracy” or “Trump is authoritarian”.   If you ask them to explain it is hard for them to do so in a concrete way but they think it must be true because everyone else they talk to, everything they read, and everything they watch says the same thing.

    I’ve recently read two recent pieces by progressives Andrew Sullivan and Bari Weiss and one from last year by George Packer.  Sullivan, who is very forceful in denouncing Woke ideology nonetheless is hoping for a Biden landslide for what seem to me to be incomprehensible reasons mostly due to Orange Man Bad.  Weiss also wrote a piece about the danger of Woke ideology to democracy.  Packer, a New Yorker, wrote about placing his children in public school and then being horrified by the failures of the educational system due to identity politics but, in the end, Orange Man Bad.  They all seem unable to draw the logical conclusions from their own observations.  It is very frustrating to see many people like this have enough insight to see the real problem yet default to Trump is the problem.

     

    • #17
  18. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    Lois Lane: Isn’t it more like grooming your own kid to be the editor of your own magazine, a position that many other people would want, because you trust he’ll do a good job?

    JPod should read this sentence and feel instant shame. But unfortunately, I don’t think he’s humble enough to read anything less than his own writing nor self-aware enough to know this is him.

    • #18
  19. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    Stina (View Comment):

    Lois Lane: Isn’t it more like grooming your own kid to be the editor of your own magazine, a position that many other people would want, because you trust he’ll do a good job?

    JPod should read this sentence and feel instant shame. But unfortunately, I don’t think he’s humble enough to read anything less than his own writing nor self-aware enough to know this is him.

    Well, I like JPod a lot per how much you can like a person you know only through writing and podcasts, but I admit… I was poking a little there.  ;) 

    • #19
  20. EDISONPARKS Member
    EDISONPARKS
    @user_54742

    My comeback to acquaintances who claim they would never vote for Trump because he is liar and of low character is:

    And Joe Biden is your solution?

    My favorite Joe Biden low character liar story is the one where Biden gave speeches and told the tale about his own wife and child’s accidental death in a tragic automobile accident and for no discernible reason Biden slanders the truck driver involved in the accident by saying the truck driver was drunk and that’s what caused the death of his wife and child.  Not only was the truck driver not drunk but the State Police investigating the fatality accident determined the truck driver was not even at fault.

    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/03/19/bidens_memory_isnt_the_only_problem_its_his_lies_142706.html

    What would even be the point of telling such an unnecessary lie other than Joe Biden is a low character pathological liar and just can’t help himself no matter who he slanders in the lie.

    • #20
  21. Weeping Inactive
    Weeping
    @Weeping

    David Foster (View Comment):

    “I’m not proud to say it, but I put that little blue number with the pearl collar back on the rack like it was a hot potato because I just couldn’t face the cashier.”

    In the last week, I’ve had the following conversations:

    –a woman of about 25, who mentioned that she has a Trump hate, but “isn’t brave enough” to wear it in public.

    –a woman of about 60, who *does* wear a Trump face mask (never saw one of those before)…she said she was driving to a Trump rally and waving a Trump flag out the window, when some guy in another car screamed at her: “I spit on you.”

    –a guy in a pickup truck, appeared to be a tradesman of some sort, said he was a strong Trump supporter but would worry about being beaten up if he showed it.

    In the United States of America. This is terrifying, and if things are like this *now*, can you imagine what they’d be like if the Democrats gain control of the Presidency, possibly also with the Senate?

    And yet it’s Trump who’s the threat to America as we know it. Sigh.

     

     

    • #21
  22. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo… (View Comment):
    They all seem unable to draw the logical conclusions from their own observations. It is very frustrating to see many people like this have enough insight to see the real problem yet default to Trump is the problem.

    That would require that they admit that the ideology they espouse is wrong, and that therefore, they’ve been mistaken.

    • #22
  23. Marjorie Reynolds Coolidge
    Marjorie Reynolds
    @MarjorieReynolds

    Lois Lane (View Comment):

    philo (View Comment):
    But, now, Trump is the distasteful one?

    To be fair to me, I was recognizing how this was silly. I was saying this is an incorrect perception. I thought I made that clear in context.

    Of course, I have followed politics for much longer than 20 years.

    Perhaps my skills as a writer have failed me there.

    No I got it Lois. 

    • #23
  24. Marjorie Reynolds Coolidge
    Marjorie Reynolds
    @MarjorieReynolds

    Lois Lane (View Comment):

    Kephalithos (View Comment):
    When such people say, “I must vote for Biden! Trump is an existential threat!” they often mean, “Donald Trump is gross and has cooties, and I hate having to listen to him. If I vote against him (as opposed to not voting at all), I can prove how much I hate him to all my cool friends, and they’ll give me high-fives.”

    I really wish the guy on Joe Rogan had explained what he meant. It really was a startling moment for me. I don’t even know enough about Kamala Harris’s record in CA to say that she is as horrible as they painted her, but they thought she was as horrible as they painted her.

    Donald Trump has sued the pants off people in ways I find distasteful, but I don’t think he’s ever thrown them into a dungeon and tossed away the key.

    It would be like me being a pro-life advocate, detailing how a candidate performed abortions in her garage, and then deciding to still vote for her because the other guy was… ?????

     

    He should have been asked what he meant. Existential threat has become just another overused phrase for people too lazy to think.

    • #24
  25. Vectorman Inactive
    Vectorman
    @Vectorman

    Lois Lane (View Comment):
    Donald Trump has sued the pants off people in ways I find distasteful, but I don’t think he’s ever thrown them into a dungeon and tossed away the key.

    If he was using the lawsuit as “Lawfare” to bankrupt someone with lawyer bills, then you are correct.

    If he won the suit “fair and square” based on the merits, then he was justified.

    If the suit led to a negotiation, that might just be the Trump way to survive in New York. 

    • #25
  26. Raxxalan Member
    Raxxalan
    @Raxxalan

    Lois Lane: Let me tell you. I understand the deep skepticism of the Trump family, but in the end, Jared did a good job in the Middle East, didn’t he? Is Ivanka rolling in the dough because of her various tasks organizing people to look into the dead or whatever other committees she’s fronted?

    I have to admit the idea that Jared was going to be the lead on Middle East peace seemed to me to be totally implausible and dumb.  A make work job for a son-in-law.   I have to say in the end it turned out to be a brilliant move.  I owe both Trump and Jared an apology for that one.  I’ll take that kind of nepotism. Gladly.

    • #26
  27. Raxxalan Member
    Raxxalan
    @Raxxalan

    Trump is an existential threat.  Just not to the Republic.  He is an existential threat to the old order.   The comfortable lie that nothing can be done to reverse decline.  That America’s best days are behind it.  That threatens the comfortable world of the elites.  It makes it possible that there are still pathways that could be used to replace them.  He is an existential threat to the Democratic party, because if African Americans, and Latino’s start voting like Italian Americans or German Americans they loose forever.  That is why he has to be a racist to prevent that from happening.   He is an existential threat to the bureaucracy the little fiefdoms that have been built up over years to extract rents and block paths of access for ordinary people to power.  The walls that keep elites in power.   I think he really is an existential threat to these people.  This is a good thing. 

    • #27
  28. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    Vectorman (View Comment):

    Lois Lane (View Comment):
    Donald Trump has sued the pants off people in ways I find distasteful, but I don’t think he’s ever thrown them into a dungeon and tossed away the key.

    If he was using the lawsuit as “Lawfare” to bankrupt someone with lawyer bills, then you are correct.

    If he won the suit “fair and square” based on the merits, then he was justified.

    If the suit led to a negotiation, that might just be the Trump way to survive in New York.

    Some of his suits were definitely garbage… aimed at very small businesses.  I remember one that was just a small mom/pop shop that used the word “Trump” in their business predating his brand.  That lawsuit wasn’t about *his* company’s survival.

     But again.  

    Even in that case which struck at the livelihoods of others who had fewer resources to defend themselves—not a small foist in my mind—he didn’t use the law to imprison the little people because it made him bigger.  

    That is my giant problem.  

    I can see Trump’s… failings.  I don’t think morality is run by “whataboutisms.”  

    But, but, but…. he smashes an ant like a petulant child; someone else flays the neighbor’s dog, and people point to the dead ant as if *that* is the crime of monsters.

    • #28
  29. David Foster Member
    David Foster
    @DavidFoster

    Lois Lane (View Comment):
    I remember one that was just a small mom/pop shop that used the word “Trump” in their business predating his brand.

    Institutions of all kinds do this sort of thing to ‘protect their trademark.’  I remember some years, Emory University threatened a lawsuit against a local business called the Emory Dry Cleaners.

    Often, I suspect, such actions are initiated by a legal organization operating on autopilot, and not a very good autopilot at that.

    • #29
  30. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Lois Lane: I, too, have a cultural bias against nepotism, and it seems to me as if the whole Trump family is engaged in the White House. What does Jared Kushner really know about the Middle East? Why is Ivanka heading up a task force looking at cold case killings of indigenous children? Surely these people are only where they are because of who they know???? It’s so distasteful.

    Without saying your position stated here is without merit, I do find it far from persuasive. Do you consider what has been presented in the NY Post articles and related items relating to the Hunter Biden laptop, without denial by those implicated, to be nepotism? I can think of some more severe wording for what I think I see. I do agree that, whatever political roles members of the Trump family are performing, they are there because of who they know. Would you describe most Washington political assignments any differently? Since we know this is the case, maybe we should focus more on the distortions resulting from so many of these political selections coming from networks supplied by a handful of universities’ output, mostly from the northeast and west coast.

    • #30
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