Yes.
It’s distressing to still hear pundits ask (themselves): “Why would Trump want an audit in Texas, where he won?”
Duh. Thanks so much for making the point : - )
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No doubt he doesn’t. To the degree he’s rich, he’s a thief. I don’t think he’s a particularly good thief.
His fortune is to have a deep psychosis under circumstances where he starts life with a lot of money, and uses it to generate notoriety and “cooler-talk”. The Presidency is the ultimate platform for him. He can command presence on virtually every platform throughout a big chunk of the world pretty much whenever he says, “Boo.”
On top of that, add the support he wants or needs for his Talk-O-The-Hour, from a huge chunk of other platforms under his control, and a huge number of still other mediums provided by Russia.
He can’t generate the media power on his own.
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He was always, always, always a fake. According to Rick Wilson, a hedge-fund guy once said of him, “He’s not a billionaire. I’m a billionaire. Trump’s a clown, living on credit.” The only thing he was ever really successful at was his TV show, because what he’s good at is pretending to be rich and powerful. Billionaires don’t sell steaks and bottled water. I would bet a considerable part of my own modest means that he doesn’t have anywhere near a positive net worth. It’s all a house of cards. That’s not a good place for a windbag to live.
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He who dies with the biggest debt wins.
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It’s a house of cards but he’s still sitting on something like 200 million in PAC money that AFAIK can’t be touched in personal civil lawsuits and he can spend on himself with very few limitations. From the look of his recent rallies at cheapskate venues like fairgrounds, he’s not spending much of it. Might even be breaking even or better by grifting off his cut of the merch sales.
We’ll know he’s in serious financial trouble when he starts selling off the major real estate assets like the golf resorts and hotels (the ones where he hasn’t just licensed the name). That hasn’t happened yet.
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I didn’t hear “He has a positive net worth” in there.
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He’s been trying. No takers. Perhaps you mean when we start seeing capitulation-type deals happening? But some properties are just turkeys, money-losing “alligators” in real estate wheeler-dealer speak. Those can’t be sold unless there’s something else in the deal, such as mending relations with an angry neighbor country threatening to dump their nuclear waste on your border.
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Hey, I wouldn’t be surprised if his whole “empire” collapsed tomorrow. Thing is, I’ve been hearing about how he’s bankrupt and about to land in debtor’s prison for years now, and yet he’s still flying in his Citation bizjet to rallies, and keeping the lights on at Mar a Lago and his resorts.
That $200 million in his PAC is nothing to sneeze at either, and he has the entire RNC and Trump campaign mailing list for grifting donations to his PAC. That’s not going away tomorrow unless he spends it all.
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I think it’s certainly fair to say he has plenty of experience at robbing Peter to pay Paul and just generally staying afloat. And I’m curious why he’s being so, uh, thrifty with all that PAC money. It must drive him nuts to be going to these cheesy fairgrounds out in the sticks instead of the big arenas he used to. Why does he do it, then? I’m not predicting his imminent collapse, certainly. I don’t have any idea how much money he has to spend. I’m just figuring he’s lived all his life by making bad decisions and borrowing to stay in the game.
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Helps that every time he rolls over a loan someone gets a commission on the new loan. Works great as long as you’re lending other people’s money™.
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Even the TV show wasn’t really his success. Pretty much every “inside” story made it clear that he spouted a bunch of random crap that got turned into something resembling a sensible narrative by heroic editing and lots of B-roll.
He’s good at pretending to be what a certain kind of resentment-filled person thinks they would want to be like if they were rich and powerful.
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It has to be because the narcissism needs feeding at regular intervals. He needs those adoring crowds. And I’ll bet he’s close to breaking even on merch sales at these cheapskate events. He doesn’t let his name be used anywhere without a cut of the sales.
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I did a quick search and the Georgia rally this weekend was estimated at around 8,000 people, so not exactly a tiny crowd, just a cheap venue. Also, while general admission was free, he’s grifting on VIP attendees:
A copy of the invitation obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said that donors could purchase individual tickets for $1,500 or couples tickets priced at $2,500 to the “unique and exclusive” event.
Tickets will include private bathrooms. reserved parking, expedited entry, food and beverage in an air-conditioned tent and admittance to a pre-rally reception with Perdue.
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Well, from the rules of English (i.e. “Anything Goes”) It actually is a word now! 
)
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Yebbut, I hear the message coming through pretty loud and clear that the reason to get rid of her is only because she’s dragging down the rest of the Republican’ts–NOT because there’s anything inherently wrong w/ wrongdoing.
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Yes I agree, there is very little common ground, even with a sane R.
But I wasn’t speaking so much to this guy’s worldview as he actually used the word GRIFT.
I mean, we just watched world-class grifting for 5+ years, flowing from the top of our govt. and The Presidency. And somehow they managed to never use the word. Talk about denial.
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I think it’s likely. Portland.
And I mean honestly. Ask yourself. At what point do get sick of being threatened? I’m sick of it. Tell them it’s time to Put up or shut up. Trump is all hat no cattle. We’ve seen that. What about his moronic lackeys?
No one is threatening me. No one will in a political sense. I live in a big city though, ymmv.
It’s a complicated country but a dumbass Bundy making a spectacle of himself in Idaho doesn’t affect my actuality beyond point and laugh.
We are at a point where repugs are pretty much disregarding the “rules” thinking that if they make new ones WE will follow them. Our current congressional representation is desperate to follow “the rules” to legitimatize what they would like to achieve.
Those rules are for a different game.
Stoplights are optional now. Look both ways.
Good luck.