President Trump has found a new obsession to justify his efforts to pressure a foreign country to probe his political rival: corruption.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1253793
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1253793
Trump’s New Defense: Projection
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Of course everything is about corruption, everybody’s corruption but his and his family. That is because a lot of Americans are disgusted by the perceived corruption of most of the players in Washington and have been for generations. Whether the corruption is real or significant should be determined on a case by case basis, but corruption as a theme sells. Don’t believe me ask Bernie Sanders or Liz Warren. They are building their campaigns over stopping public corruption.
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As I said on another thread, Donnie’s sudden focus on corruption might mean something if he had ever in his entire life been concerned about corruption— except when he thinks making the accusation against a competitor will help him personally. Like he did with the Native American casinos. Then the DNC and Hillary.
He could not care less about the rampant corruption in Russia with his friend Vlad and his minions. Nor did Donnie give a whit about the corruption of his friend MBS when he cut up a Washington Post columnist because Khashoggi called out Saudi corruption.
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Now trump brags about his corruption. It’s an effort to normalize it so nobody cares.
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“I don’t care about politics, I don’t care about anything! I care about corruption!”
He’s a regular Joan of Arc, he is, and Gandhi, too, rolled into one.
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Someone should ask him to define the word. Watching him stammer and prevaricate like a broken robot would be entertaining.
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It would be awesome if reporters took mirrors with them so the next time Trump says he’s looking for corruption they could help him find it.
When the history of all this is written, I think people will have a hard time believing that it was this stupid and lasted this long…you couldn’t make a movie with this a plot this outlandish. Hopefully we’re on the way to the end credits.
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“The only people refusing to admire the emperor’s new clothes are the corrupt media!!!”
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Trump says "i did it and waddya gonna do about it?
Quid pro quo? Pffftt, everybody does it. Elections? I already have won 2020 or so the Russians tell me. So what?
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He “cares” about corruption…unless he’s getting his cut.
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Oh, another point…Warren has been absolutely hammering this home in her campaign, so I suspect someone in the WH decided to try to get ahead of her since she’s looking more and more like the eventual nominee. They figure that they can undercut her by trying to portray everything Trump is doing as fighting corruption…the entire Qanon crap is based on this idea, so he won’t lose his base if he’s pursuing it (and they will look at attacks on him as the corruption fighting back). The average person will hear both messages, and hopefully realize that Trump is full of it, but we’ll see about that.
It’s about the only play they have, say everything is a fight against corruption in a hypocritical attempt to cover their corruption and hope they can fool enough people like in 2016.
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Today, he takes on corruption. Tomorrow, it’s pussy-grabbing, and the next day, racism, homophobia and climate change! He’s a one man progressive muckracker!
Seriously, though, he’s either stone cold nuts, in deep denial and at the same time full meltdown panic and flinging everything he’s got at the wall, or else he has good reason to believe that he’ll survive this intact and be reelected and this is mostly about public image and saving face.
Even tyrants want good PR.
An aside, I’m liking Adam Schiff as the next house speaker, since Pelosi’s going to have to step down reasonably soon, within the next few election cycles, if not this one. Among Dems I’ve found him to be the most consistently impressive and commanding, and I can’t think of a better replacement who’d have a chance at the job. Is there chatter on this?
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Trump used the corruption theme to great effect in 2016. For a long time one of the major Republican propaganda projects was convincing voters that the Clintons weren’t the virtuous couple many of us saw, but they and their Foundation were corrupt to the core. They had allies in the media.
Claiming the other side is corrupt really plays well out in states that have watched corrupt companies strip them of their oil, natural gas and other minerals, or have moved their plants to China.
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My thoughts, exactly!!!
Corruption is as corruption does as corruption projects. He threatened to withhold $400,000 from Ukraine because he insisted they address corruption in their government. So much for that idea. Now, they’re not corrupt enough.
Oh, Donny! You do have a hard time thinking, don’t you!
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“Trump International Cess Pools - Stirring Up the Shit Worldwide”
This fucker is like an orange entropy enhancement module.
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“Meet the new defense - Same as the old defense”
“A lot will get fooled again”
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The very definition of corruption.
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