I went for a walk yesterday and, like a virus, TFG and his legal troubles popped into my head. What I came to realize is that TFG has never really been held accountable for anything in his life. Sure, he's lost lawsuits--including the recent one against E Jean Caroll -- but that was just about money. When Trump left office, I think he re…
I went for a walk yesterday and, like a virus, TFG and his legal troubles popped into my head. What I came to realize is that TFG has never really been held accountable for anything in his life. Sure, he's lost lawsuits--including the recent one against E Jean Caroll -- but that was just about money. When Trump left office, I think he really believed he could never be held accountable for anything, that he was above the law. He clearly still thinks that way and truly does not understand why all of this matters. He just knows he is getting loads of publicity and can grift off of it. Even if they carted him off to jail after a guilty verdict, it would take days for him to actually understand the gravity of the situation.
What Donald Trump didn't count on is that Jack Smith is just how he looks in the pictures you see of him: a badass. Trump likes to play act that he is one, but he is not. The real badass is coming for the phony badass. I very much like the look and feel of that scenario.
Trump makes it very clear in his own words that he believes that anything he does is "perfect" by a law of nature, because he is without fault or blemish, and whatever he does is the best it could ever be done by anyone. What normal person would keep insisting "I made a perfect phone call"? or claim never to have done anything that required forgiveness?
Even when he halfway admits that something is wrong by some standard -- as on the tape where he's almost saying that what he's waving around is "highly confidential" etc. -- he probably believes it's not wrong when he does it, because he's doing it for his own reasons, which cannot possibly be wrong.
When he loudly protests his innocence, most of MAGA-world probably thinks he must be innocent of wrongdoing because how else could he be so emphatic and say it with such conviction? He routinely lies with a brazen assurance that most people can't muster, so his fans think he must be the most honest man in America.
But it's really because he doesn't have a normal conscience. He might recognize some things as morally wrong in the abstract, or in other people -- it's wrong to be a liar or to be "nasty." But for him, the higher law is "Nothing I do can ever be wrong."
I can't say if he really, truly believes that, but he gives every indication that he does.
He has no conscience and never has had one, thanks in large measure to Fred I assume. His genetics were tainted to begin with and his environment was geared to create exactly what he is. Unfortunately, television propelled him to celebrity and got him millions of votes based on the fictional "reality" show... and his carnival barker abilities.
What you just described is a textbook psychopath/sociopath. They believe they are inherently perfect, it’s everyone’s fault but their own, zero empathy for anyone but themselves.
EXACTLY. And the corollary is that anyone who does anything bad to TFG is morally bad. Evil. His morality is that me good, anyone who doesn’t love me is bad.
Trump keeps telling us that whatever is done against him is the worst thing ever done against anyone -- "the greatest Witch Hunt of all time" -- "like we've never seen before in our Country!"
It is so abnormal. But MAGAs manage to turn all of Trump's pathologies into the marks of surpassing greatness.
I'm typically not one to blame the parents for how someone turns out but damn! Fred & Mary raised one seriously F*&#d up monster. You are absolutely right, he's never been held accountable and he's throwing a world class temper tantrum as a result.
Donald Trump should be the example to parents everywhere of "this is what happens when you don't say 'no' to your kids."
Niece Mary Trump's book is revelatory regarding what created TFG. Looks like Fred was a psychopath as well as a Nazi and Mary was a depressive alcoholic (who was distant and mean). Their eldest son (niece's dad) disappointed them by being human so they moved on to TFG who didn't disappoint. But it is no excuse or justification, just explanation.
In reading the indictment, you know Trump was the kid who had the Playboy magazine in middle school and told his friends, “I’m not supposed to have this but I do. Let me show you” and when his dad found out they shared a laugh and Fred slapped him on the back for being the cool son.
I've been saying this all along ... without absolving Donald Trump for his many sins, his father must have done a real number on him as a kid. I can't think of a worse role model to have turned his child into such a defective human life form. I feel a nearly uncontrollable urge to go piss on his grave for all that he helped to unleash on the rest of us.
Well, you had to send me into Google land. Unfortunately, 1) I’m not male, so not easy for me to do and 2) Queens is PITA to get to (maybe one more reason why 45 always wanted to be associated with Manhattan instead)
Many thanks, Kathy. I will make sure to drink at least a few fermented malt beverages before I make the journey, so that I am sufficiently capable of leaving my mark for posterity.
There's lots of lit in the psych world about abusers having parents who abused, who had parents who were abused, back through many generations in western societies. Children need both firmness AND love from their parents. Parents who were damaged as children can't show love to their own children unless they get therapeutic care to heal the wounds of their childhood.
Every Trump supporter I know would never tolerate his behavior from their own children. He’s the embodiment of every naughty childhood behavior, in human form. I read about his “charisma” and it’s like a different planet. To me he’s 100% revolting.
It's charisma to people who were abused by their own parents, are stuck in pre-adolescent rebellion stage, always wanted to stick it to them, and now they feel like they are. All that yelling and investigation and name-calling--middle-school assholes.
Wow, thanks for this link! I almost didn’t see it. I didn’t realize how desperate I was for answers/explanations about Trump’s followers - even though, thankfully, I don’t have any in my immediate circle.
Removing exposure seems to be the only answer to breaking the dysfunctional link between the mentally ill leader and his followers; hopefully soon? With Trump campaigning it feels like a very fragile hope. Maybe we are too deferential to our political process; what was intended to protect us seems more likely to harm us.
Yes, how indeed? I don’t think prison would do it. Not even death, probably. It feels like we are sliding towards a martyr cult. Maybe some unrelated national catastrophe will change the subject. How unfortunate. But Biden is working diligently on mitigating inequality, by ginning up manufacturing jobs for people without a college degree, which she identifies as a cause in his supporters being so fragile. I just downloaded her book on Kindle.
Yes, Biden IS working on addressing the economic causes as in the bipartisan Infrastructure bill he signed. I hope those jobs start coming through and soon and Dems make the most of it in their messaging.
However, the social cause is the change in our culture - the acceptance of sexual deviants, as their Bible paints them, whites becoming a minority, and women outpacing men in achievement. Why does that make them anxious? My theory - they know how minorities and women in the US have been treated.
It would take a herculean effort on the part of the center right and center left Dems to convince them they Blacks and recent immigrants are Americans because they believe in the Constitution. That's what makes us Americans, not our color.
Another theory: Allowing non-whites into the US economy makes their chances for success less. Especially legal immigrants. It is well known that legal immigrants are job makers in the economy. And the less educated whites are not.
Thanks for that video link; I got a message to try again later, so hopefully it’s just temporarily unavailable.
Yeah, the problem with making big changes, like ramping up manufacturing, is that there’s a significant time lag, and Americans are very impatient. That’s a big problem from so many perspectives - we’d never get the interstate highway system built today.
The trajectory for whites to become a minority is a huge factor. I remember when I first heard that projection over 20 years ago, I felt unmoored, and I’m in a family with a lot of intermarriage. Now I think it can’t happen soon enough!
Immigrants are tough competition, partly because they hustle! About 15 years ago I had a prefabricated shed added to my property and one of the workers lamented that too many “locals” (whites) couldn’t pass drug tests which is required by insurance because they come on your property. And I’m amazed at their entrepreneurship; I’m too scared to start a business, and imagine doing it in a strange country!
Women outpacing men is huge. It’s alarming to see the misogyny, especially online, that feels almost mainstream now.
All those disruptions to white male dominance were analyzed in the book “Deaths of Despair”. It was so interesting, I was highlighting almost every word!
Ah yes, the listening tour. I did my own small scale version by getting to know a couple who were Trump supporters, who temporarily hosted in our local park. One takeaway was that they didn’t really believe all the baloney they regurgitated; one mildly delivered rebuttal by me and they instantly dropped it. They were poorly educated and debate wasn’t in their skill set - just repetition. It ended badly, but that was due to lurking mental illness in one of them from a very rough childhood. And they did have a lot of honorable traits; very dedicated to family and community. But overall it soured me on trying to understand MAGAs.
The misogyny explains why they were so hellbent on overturning “Roe”, and now they’re going after birth control. It explains why they hate Hillary so much.
His father was a piece of work from what I have read. And when you give your kids everything on a silver platter, it doesn’t go well. Look at TFG’s brother; he clearly had serious issues too.
It was worse than that. Fred didn't spoil his son, he taught him that the world is divided into winners and losers, and that there is nothing worse than being a loser.
Indeed, Fred sent Donald to military school on purpose to toughen (many would say brutalize) him further. Physical abuse there was rampant, and Trump loved and excelled at it.
But only Donald was sent to military school, not his two brothers. I know I have read several times about Trump’s violence in school (punched a teacher, I am pretty sure). I thought he was sent to military school for a similar reason as many boys in those days-to “teach” him discipline.
That's the only way to explain his brazen retention of the documents and defiance of subpoenas. If you've never faced accountability for your sociopathy before, then you begin to believe you never will.
He's a narcissistic sociopath. His parents enabled his behavior and so has everyone he has surrounded himself with all his life. Look on the bright side, his criminal indictment and subsequent arraignment will be in Miami. Not NY or DC where he could claim he'd get an unfair trial and try to move the venue. Here he's been indicted in his own back yard, by a grand jury of his peers.
Sociopathy being the key word. America elected a sociopath with no redeeming human qualities and we will be paying the price for that for a very long time. I'm not sure we'll ever wash the stink off, especially not with a good chunk of Americans cheering his sociopathy.
They ain't raining on my parade. I've got the marching bands, the ladies twirling batons, a float festooned with gorgeous flowers, all following a banner that reads Rule of Law in the USA! ( In my head.)
When I saw Charlie's headline, the Peaches & Herb song came into mind, but with a twist: "Twice indicted and it feels so good." Luckily, "thrice" will fit in there nicely once we get there too.
I once had a client who, upon being convicted of a drug distribution offense, got "off" with only six months. The prosecutor later told me that, on his way to the lock-up, my client allegedly said, "If they think this is going to keep me off the stuff, they're crazy". Funny how stuff like that pops up in your head decades later....
I'm sure you've heard this before, but I have to acknowledge that, presumably based on your statement, you are/were an attorney with the last name of 'Court'.
Years ago my congregation included a Sheriff's Deputy named Crook. He once related the confused response of of a caller to the jail when he answered the phone, 'Crook here' -- "May I please speak to one of the officers?"
For him it was just the cost of doing business. Trump has the same attitude about all of the civil litigation (e.g., the Carroll case); it's just money. I really don't think the difference with criminal cases has penetrated his head yet.
I’m sure there’s a nice country club, white collar prison available for him. Too bad some secret service agents may have to serve his sentence with him.
This is spot on. When you hear reports of the stress and tension as the indictments are prepared and at hand, it’s just a glimmer of the penetration that is to come. Karma!!
One of the few French words I remember :-) - Fr high school was a long, long, long time ago. One of the curses of getting old is that time flies at warp speed. It CAN'T be June already - New Year's was only a few weeks ago!
I went for a walk yesterday and, like a virus, TFG and his legal troubles popped into my head. What I came to realize is that TFG has never really been held accountable for anything in his life. Sure, he's lost lawsuits--including the recent one against E Jean Caroll -- but that was just about money. When Trump left office, I think he really believed he could never be held accountable for anything, that he was above the law. He clearly still thinks that way and truly does not understand why all of this matters. He just knows he is getting loads of publicity and can grift off of it. Even if they carted him off to jail after a guilty verdict, it would take days for him to actually understand the gravity of the situation.
He’s mentally ill and no one loves him enough to sideline him.
He never would. He would just ask supporters to give him money. He has never not gotten his way in life. Fat, spoiled baby.
What Donald Trump didn't count on is that Jack Smith is just how he looks in the pictures you see of him: a badass. Trump likes to play act that he is one, but he is not. The real badass is coming for the phony badass. I very much like the look and feel of that scenario.
Double like!!!
Trump makes it very clear in his own words that he believes that anything he does is "perfect" by a law of nature, because he is without fault or blemish, and whatever he does is the best it could ever be done by anyone. What normal person would keep insisting "I made a perfect phone call"? or claim never to have done anything that required forgiveness?
Even when he halfway admits that something is wrong by some standard -- as on the tape where he's almost saying that what he's waving around is "highly confidential" etc. -- he probably believes it's not wrong when he does it, because he's doing it for his own reasons, which cannot possibly be wrong.
When he loudly protests his innocence, most of MAGA-world probably thinks he must be innocent of wrongdoing because how else could he be so emphatic and say it with such conviction? He routinely lies with a brazen assurance that most people can't muster, so his fans think he must be the most honest man in America.
But it's really because he doesn't have a normal conscience. He might recognize some things as morally wrong in the abstract, or in other people -- it's wrong to be a liar or to be "nasty." But for him, the higher law is "Nothing I do can ever be wrong."
I can't say if he really, truly believes that, but he gives every indication that he does.
He has no conscience and never has had one, thanks in large measure to Fred I assume. His genetics were tainted to begin with and his environment was geared to create exactly what he is. Unfortunately, television propelled him to celebrity and got him millions of votes based on the fictional "reality" show... and his carnival barker abilities.
What you just described is a textbook psychopath/sociopath. They believe they are inherently perfect, it’s everyone’s fault but their own, zero empathy for anyone but themselves.
EXACTLY. And the corollary is that anyone who does anything bad to TFG is morally bad. Evil. His morality is that me good, anyone who doesn’t love me is bad.
Trump keeps telling us that whatever is done against him is the worst thing ever done against anyone -- "the greatest Witch Hunt of all time" -- "like we've never seen before in our Country!"
It is so abnormal. But MAGAs manage to turn all of Trump's pathologies into the marks of surpassing greatness.
I'm typically not one to blame the parents for how someone turns out but damn! Fred & Mary raised one seriously F*&#d up monster. You are absolutely right, he's never been held accountable and he's throwing a world class temper tantrum as a result.
Donald Trump should be the example to parents everywhere of "this is what happens when you don't say 'no' to your kids."
Niece Mary Trump's book is revelatory regarding what created TFG. Looks like Fred was a psychopath as well as a Nazi and Mary was a depressive alcoholic (who was distant and mean). Their eldest son (niece's dad) disappointed them by being human so they moved on to TFG who didn't disappoint. But it is no excuse or justification, just explanation.
In reading the indictment, you know Trump was the kid who had the Playboy magazine in middle school and told his friends, “I’m not supposed to have this but I do. Let me show you” and when his dad found out they shared a laugh and Fred slapped him on the back for being the cool son.
I've been saying this all along ... without absolving Donald Trump for his many sins, his father must have done a real number on him as a kid. I can't think of a worse role model to have turned his child into such a defective human life form. I feel a nearly uncontrollable urge to go piss on his grave for all that he helped to unleash on the rest of us.
Well, you had to send me into Google land. Unfortunately, 1) I’m not male, so not easy for me to do and 2) Queens is PITA to get to (maybe one more reason why 45 always wanted to be associated with Manhattan instead)
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/40736522/frederick-christ-trump
Many thanks, Kathy. I will make sure to drink at least a few fermented malt beverages before I make the journey, so that I am sufficiently capable of leaving my mark for posterity.
His father made him a millionaire at 5 yrs old. I'm sure his father told him he could anything he wanted.
It seems to me that poor parenting has been the cause of much misery inflicted on humanity. Putin's parents were pretty awful as well.
Amen! Can't be said often enough or loud enough. I love the "they did their best" refrain that is often times offered in defense of shitty parents.
I think it can be argued that the vast majority of parents "do their best", I think it can also argued that many peoples' best is really quite shitty.
There's lots of lit in the psych world about abusers having parents who abused, who had parents who were abused, back through many generations in western societies. Children need both firmness AND love from their parents. Parents who were damaged as children can't show love to their own children unless they get therapeutic care to heal the wounds of their childhood.
So many abusers were abused. But many abused did not become abusers. No justification for what TFG is.
Not a justification, but an explanation.
Every Trump supporter I know would never tolerate his behavior from their own children. He’s the embodiment of every naughty childhood behavior, in human form. I read about his “charisma” and it’s like a different planet. To me he’s 100% revolting.
It's charisma to people who were abused by their own parents, are stuck in pre-adolescent rebellion stage, always wanted to stick it to them, and now they feel like they are. All that yelling and investigation and name-calling--middle-school assholes.
Well said! Take a look at "The ‘Shared Psychosis’ of Donald Trump and His Loyalists" (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-shared-psychosis-of-donald-trump-and-his-loyalists/) by forensic psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee. She says exactly that.
Wow, thanks for this link! I almost didn’t see it. I didn’t realize how desperate I was for answers/explanations about Trump’s followers - even though, thankfully, I don’t have any in my immediate circle.
Removing exposure seems to be the only answer to breaking the dysfunctional link between the mentally ill leader and his followers; hopefully soon? With Trump campaigning it feels like a very fragile hope. Maybe we are too deferential to our political process; what was intended to protect us seems more likely to harm us.
You are welcome. I came across it a few months ago. Explains a lot!
How is removing exposure to be done?
Yes, how indeed? I don’t think prison would do it. Not even death, probably. It feels like we are sliding towards a martyr cult. Maybe some unrelated national catastrophe will change the subject. How unfortunate. But Biden is working diligently on mitigating inequality, by ginning up manufacturing jobs for people without a college degree, which she identifies as a cause in his supporters being so fragile. I just downloaded her book on Kindle.
Yes, Biden IS working on addressing the economic causes as in the bipartisan Infrastructure bill he signed. I hope those jobs start coming through and soon and Dems make the most of it in their messaging.
However, the social cause is the change in our culture - the acceptance of sexual deviants, as their Bible paints them, whites becoming a minority, and women outpacing men in achievement. Why does that make them anxious? My theory - they know how minorities and women in the US have been treated.
It would take a herculean effort on the part of the center right and center left Dems to convince them they Blacks and recent immigrants are Americans because they believe in the Constitution. That's what makes us Americans, not our color.
Another theory: Allowing non-whites into the US economy makes their chances for success less. Especially legal immigrants. It is well known that legal immigrants are job makers in the economy. And the less educated whites are not.
When Trump was first elected, I had the idea that American liberals and progressives needed to go on a listening tour. Van Jones tried. See https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2016/12/06/exp-van-jones-special-cnntv.cnn. It didn't make a dent. It needs to be a wide-spread effort.
Thanks for that video link; I got a message to try again later, so hopefully it’s just temporarily unavailable.
Yeah, the problem with making big changes, like ramping up manufacturing, is that there’s a significant time lag, and Americans are very impatient. That’s a big problem from so many perspectives - we’d never get the interstate highway system built today.
The trajectory for whites to become a minority is a huge factor. I remember when I first heard that projection over 20 years ago, I felt unmoored, and I’m in a family with a lot of intermarriage. Now I think it can’t happen soon enough!
Immigrants are tough competition, partly because they hustle! About 15 years ago I had a prefabricated shed added to my property and one of the workers lamented that too many “locals” (whites) couldn’t pass drug tests which is required by insurance because they come on your property. And I’m amazed at their entrepreneurship; I’m too scared to start a business, and imagine doing it in a strange country!
Women outpacing men is huge. It’s alarming to see the misogyny, especially online, that feels almost mainstream now.
All those disruptions to white male dominance were analyzed in the book “Deaths of Despair”. It was so interesting, I was highlighting almost every word!
Ah yes, the listening tour. I did my own small scale version by getting to know a couple who were Trump supporters, who temporarily hosted in our local park. One takeaway was that they didn’t really believe all the baloney they regurgitated; one mildly delivered rebuttal by me and they instantly dropped it. They were poorly educated and debate wasn’t in their skill set - just repetition. It ended badly, but that was due to lurking mental illness in one of them from a very rough childhood. And they did have a lot of honorable traits; very dedicated to family and community. But overall it soured me on trying to understand MAGAs.
Well, it’s going to be an interesting summer!
The misogyny explains why they were so hellbent on overturning “Roe”, and now they’re going after birth control. It explains why they hate Hillary so much.
“That uppity woman just don’t know her place!”
His father was a piece of work from what I have read. And when you give your kids everything on a silver platter, it doesn’t go well. Look at TFG’s brother; he clearly had serious issues too.
It was worse than that. Fred didn't spoil his son, he taught him that the world is divided into winners and losers, and that there is nothing worse than being a loser.
Indeed, Fred sent Donald to military school on purpose to toughen (many would say brutalize) him further. Physical abuse there was rampant, and Trump loved and excelled at it.
But only Donald was sent to military school, not his two brothers. I know I have read several times about Trump’s violence in school (punched a teacher, I am pretty sure). I thought he was sent to military school for a similar reason as many boys in those days-to “teach” him discipline.
That's the only way to explain his brazen retention of the documents and defiance of subpoenas. If you've never faced accountability for your sociopathy before, then you begin to believe you never will.
He's a narcissistic sociopath. His parents enabled his behavior and so has everyone he has surrounded himself with all his life. Look on the bright side, his criminal indictment and subsequent arraignment will be in Miami. Not NY or DC where he could claim he'd get an unfair trial and try to move the venue. Here he's been indicted in his own back yard, by a grand jury of his peers.
Sociopathy being the key word. America elected a sociopath with no redeeming human qualities and we will be paying the price for that for a very long time. I'm not sure we'll ever wash the stink off, especially not with a good chunk of Americans cheering his sociopathy.
Aided and abetted by the "law and order" party.
Trump is a known common criminal without honor. But so many Americans too? They know he’s guilty.
They ain't raining on my parade. I've got the marching bands, the ladies twirling batons, a float festooned with gorgeous flowers, all following a banner that reads Rule of Law in the USA! ( In my head.)
When I saw Charlie's headline, the Peaches & Herb song came into mind, but with a twist: "Twice indicted and it feels so good." Luckily, "thrice" will fit in there nicely once we get there too.
Can't say I didn't indulge in a few shouts of "lock him up!" last night.
I once had a client who, upon being convicted of a drug distribution offense, got "off" with only six months. The prosecutor later told me that, on his way to the lock-up, my client allegedly said, "If they think this is going to keep me off the stuff, they're crazy". Funny how stuff like that pops up in your head decades later....
I'm sure you've heard this before, but I have to acknowledge that, presumably based on your statement, you are/were an attorney with the last name of 'Court'.
Guilty.
(I see what you did there....)
Years ago my congregation included a Sheriff's Deputy named Crook. He once related the confused response of of a caller to the jail when he answered the phone, 'Crook here' -- "May I please speak to one of the officers?"
Hopefully you were never found in contempt of yourself.
It could be a pseudonym, or nom de plume. Judge William Wayne Justice, however, was real, as was a Judge Feloni in Cambridge.
As was Justice Learned Hand.
Reminds me of Arrested Development's 'Mock Trial with J. Reinhold' starring Judge Reinhold.
For him it was just the cost of doing business. Trump has the same attitude about all of the civil litigation (e.g., the Carroll case); it's just money. I really don't think the difference with criminal cases has penetrated his head yet.
And he cheats everyone who has ever worked for him. He's notorious for not paying contractors and other contract employees.
He probably thinks he’s only going to have to pay a fine convicted.
Did you check out the prison sentences that go with each of the indictments?
I’m sure there’s a nice country club, white collar prison available for him. Too bad some secret service agents may have to serve his sentence with him.
That is actually a good point, and funny. Does he still get protection in prison?
I hope not!
This is spot on. When you hear reports of the stress and tension as the indictments are prepared and at hand, it’s just a glimmer of the penetration that is to come. Karma!!
I dunno, his freakouts on Cheaptwitter seem to demonstrate some awareness.
He does that for everything that doesn’t go his way. Look up petulant in the dictionary. There is his picture.
And if it did penetrate, what is there to find in a vacuum?
The RNC is suffering from battered spouse syndrom.
The fund raising off this is well underway!
Good. Donny Many Crimes doesn't share, so all that money pouring in to him isn't available to others up and down the line.
Quell surprise! Not. Everything Trump does is about money.
Eva, totally off topic, but brought back splendid memory of FR.lang. studying daughter remarking Quelle dommage! in mock grievance many times.
One of the few French words I remember :-) - Fr high school was a long, long, long time ago. One of the curses of getting old is that time flies at warp speed. It CAN'T be June already - New Year's was only a few weeks ago!
Again:
"Life is like a roll of toilet paper. It goes faster at the end."
-- A. E. Neuman