Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

also I'm curious what this means for his biggest fans

The people whose hearts beat with MAGA Kool-Aid are just ratcheting up their attacks and tired conspiracy theories about Biden.

I was surprised at how upset some GOPers got about this, then someone pointed out that psychologically for them, it's important to control what type of person gets labeled a criminal, so this matters to them in a way to Carroll case didn't.

how upset some GOPers got about this

theatrics are required with that bunch

that emptywheel person is a nightmare

this seems like a winning message

https://i.imgur.com/JZF0Ah8.png

2coups once again accordion waves away rules for the poors. lock her up!

I guess one of the smoking guns that really swayed the jury was Cohen's 'invoice' with an accountant's handwritten note instructing to round up the payment because he would be taxed on legal services provide (income tax) while he was just seeking reimbursement for the Stormy payment

Trump's team never even attempted to question its veracity

theatrics are required with that bunch

sure but they're making a much bigger deal about this than prior verdicts

Well it IS a criminal case rather than a civil one, so.

that emptywheel person is a nightmare

― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Friday, May 31, 2024 5:33 PM (thirty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

saw her melting down last night and my god its still ongoing

https://i.imgur.com/CDbmwLL.png

many replies later

https://i.imgur.com/3xCV1hH.png

yeesh

We don't need another asshole

my god

https://i.imgur.com/AQo7QVm.png

Haha

I wasn't paying attention because other, funnier stuff was going on, but apparently Truth Social lost 20% of its value when the verdict came down?

Great!

well look at that

Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (TMTG), trading under the moniker DJT, plunged on Friday, a day after the company's majority shareholder former president Donald Trump was found guilty of falsifying business records.

The company's share price declined 5.30 percent by close of trading on Friday which amounted to a $314 million loss in value for Trump's shares

https://i.imgur.com/Ble9k7N.png

damn, emptywheel as in Marcy Wheeler? She used to be good on nat'l security matters.

this is a goldmine for him

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/31/us/politics/trump-fundraising-verdict.html

which he's going to spend on legal fees, as he has been doing all along, because he can legally due to loopholes.

hence why between Biden and him, he's the one that's been too chickenshit to report 'cash in hand'

When the unlikable sports boor podcast crowd are landing haymakers like this you’re in trouble

https://bsky.app/profile/noelmu.bsky.social/post/3ktueo6mmok2m

Black voters, especially Black men, have slipped away from Mr. Biden over the last four years, but 27 percent of Black voters who backed Mr. Trump told pollsters from The New York Times and Siena College before the verdict that a conviction would flip them to Mr. Biden, compared with just 5 percent of white respondents who said that.

Daryl Jones, 49, who is Black, made it clear that he remained a fan of Mr. Trump’s as he cut hair at the busy Universal Barber Shop in Des Moines on Thursday evening. Yet when it came to the former president’s convictions, Mr. Jones was resolute.

“Well, you do the crime, you’ve got to do the time,” he said. “So, at the same time, if he’s wrong, he’s wrong. And he was wrong.”

Kourtney Thomas, 31, a coordinator at a Racine homeless shelter, was conflicted. In a lengthy conversation in the city’s downtown, she was visibly torn. She favors abortion rights, she said, and did not like how Mr. Trump had approached L.G.B.T.Q. issues in his term in office. She liked the former president’s much tougher policies at the border, however, an issue she said the current president had badly fumbled.

As the conversation swung back to Mr. Trump’s convictions, Ms. Thomas showed she understood chapter and verse what the former president had been convicted of, and she expressed anger at the way that the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., Fani T. Willis, a Black woman like her, had been treated by Mr. Trump and his allies as she pursued her efforts to prosecute the former president for subverting the 2020 election. She is leaning toward Mr. Biden.

“No one is above the law,” Ms. Thomas concluded. “He should go to jail.”

We really need some sort of documentary or movie or something - a public thing - exploring the life experiences that lead minorities to support someone like Trump.

Do you think that for some people there’s just an assumption that powerful white guys are all racist anyway, so that Trump’s more overt racism isn’t as disqualifying as it seems like it should be?

In the same way some people write off his legal issues because “eh, they’re all crooks”?

there are tons people of color who hold generally conservative views, republicans just wont allow them in the tent due to racism, trump might hold more appeal by being not your typical establishment republican

Tipsy, I think those points are probably part of it.

There’s also, maybe, a sort of - if we think about family/community/nation/world, people are way more family and MAYBE community. Like “how does my life change either way” in strictly economic terms, not thinking about or paying attention to the dictator shit.

I do want to find and read the article Alfred quoted from.

That’s a fair point, L. But why are the percentages shifting?

The bootstraps myth exerts a powerful pull. I live this shit. "I work hard, these illegals are leeching off the system, Donald Trump is strong," etc.

cause biden sucks prob xp

I've been steeped in Cuban butthurtness for decades.

I grew up with two black parents who were exceptionally politically aware, and left leaning, but there’s always been a bit of bootstraps built in. Maybe the bootstraps aspect is bigger for others.

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cf26plxwia7dxpm6plry3sj2/bafkreia4o6627ohx2iukituw2heytjc5nd4uctqwqohfthbqtgfmjxonhm@jpeg

but if he doesnt, theyll vote for him, right

A lot of people seem to have the “surely Trump will step aside as things get worse” perspective, which makes me laugh. That won’t happen unless he dies or has a stroke or something. This is his Republican Party, and his ego may be bigger than that - which will (fingers crossed) crater the GOP in November.

Hopefully this is the last time I paste this into an ILE politics thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVDH3MX4MYI

Trump won't even drop out of he dies

I've been asked in my dad's hometown why I vote Democratic when it's against my interests as a white guy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuqr22c990s

https://i.imgur.com/9jxOzBk.png

I actually was saying DON'T lock her up! I'm a feminist!

Not going to try to look it up, but I assume he means it was Michael Flynn at the GOP convention and then all of his crowds who just kept chanting it. It's possible there isn't any individual instance of Trump himself saying it, even though he encouraged and gloried in it. (But Trump being Trump, it's also very possible that he did say it and is just lying.)

he did say it out loud himself, and he actually told Hillary he was going to appoint a special counsel to investigate her if he won.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-denies-ever-saying-lock-151844115.html

he said it a ton!!

quelle surprise

norm eisen is on pbs and something i didn't know is that he and other people sitting in the courtroom had binoculars to look at the jury! imagine being in that jury and seeing all these people just sitting there staring at you with binoculars for 6 weeks.

Extremely good piece from Epner:

https://mitchellepner.substack.com/p/on-the-meaning-of-even-one-day-in

this is the best discussion and analysis that i have seen yet about trump, the verdict, the past via Nixon, and trump's appeal and legacy. especially his last points. the glass half full/half dark & sad metaphor will stick with me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NT9iWsCyTM

The point Naftali makes that has the most immediate relevance is that the Republican Party and its leaders all up and down the line now have a deep vested interest in convincing at least 50% of the nation's voters that the justice system in the USA is thoroughly corrupt and that the Democratic Party is to blame for this and therefore is a corrupt and evil influence on the nation. All through the coming election they will hammer at this theme, because the alternative is to say that they have become so corrupted that they've nominated a criminal to lead the country. That kind of rhetoric is going to be devastating to an already ugly political climate.

Thanks, Obama.