Trump “compromising information” story will amount to nothing
I don’t know if it is pure cynicism on my part or merely realism, but this “Trump is compromised” story is going nowhere. Here’s why:
1) There will be no popular uprising. All information about Trump is compromising. More information about how much more compromised he is brings nothing new to the table. Trump lovers will say it is liberal propaganda, and Trump haters can’t be any more outraged than they already are.
2) There will be no political uprising. Democrats have no will to fight Trump. that is a simple fact. For this to go anywhere, it would require somebody to prosecute the case. The Dems are in their comfortable fetal positions, rocking back and forth gently hoping this all blows over (which it will).
3) There will be no Republican awaking. Even if the Dems had some willingness to fight, the Republicans are solid in their support of Trump and that is unshakeable. They control 2 branches and they will simply say, what comprising information? The press will eventually get the picture and move along.
MOSCOW — The Russian government denied unverified reports that it has compromising information about Donald Trump, dismissing the claims as a “total hoax” on Wednesday.
Two U.S. officials told NBC News that briefing materials prepared for Trump included damaging allegations, which have not been verified by American intelligence agencies, about his dealings with Russians.
A dossier published by BuzzFeed includes claims that the Russian government has been cultivating, supporting and assisting Trump for five years — even obtaining compromising information in an effort to blackmail him. The document has not been authenticated by BuzzFeed or NBC News and contains obvious errors.
So glad to see the media/political campaign against fake news is going so well.
That reminds me of bullet point #4 – There will be no “watergate” style investigative journalism heroics to crack the case and make Trump’s malfeasance undeniable. Not happening.
The only way it goes anywhere is if the “smoking gun” comes out. I doubt it’ll happen.
Smoking guns don’t even have the firepower they used to. Empirical evidence is very 1995. People are all too willing to believe what they want to believe and be done with it.
This is maybe the fifth iteration of “He can’t be president because __________” since the election.
Bet the “smoking gun” is video! 🙂
Russia/Putin didn’t only hack Dems. No way. No how. What they have is open to debate. The fact they have it is not.
Didn’t you hear President Obama last night? It isn’t helpful to be cynical. It is helpful to be involved. As citizens we all need to take a stand, get more involved with our legislators and speak up for what we believe is right. Should any allegations about “he who shall not be named” come around then the American people need to be willing to ask for more information and hold folks accountable. Right?
This event taking him down relies on him and others being ashamed of the behavior. I’m not sure that there is any suggestion that he has done anything illegal, just immoral. Morality no longer has any role in public life when the subject and his supporters are shameless.
Most of his supporters think that this sort of behavior what you get to engage in when you’re a billionaire. Perhaps it’s why they want to be rich.
Democrats have no will to fight Trump. that is a simple fact.
You’re partly right here, but only partly. The last several years have seen people like Steve Bannon create and perfect a form of asymmetrical information warfare. While I agree with you about the will to fight, even those who have that will have no understanding of how to defeat there enemy in this new (*also old) form of warfare. Until somebody of the heft of a George Lakoff or Noam Chomsky (who’s probably a bit old for this) or some real young Turks do the critical theoretical groundwork, and until somebody starts spending the 2-3 years necessary to lay the foundations for meaningful “hearts and minds” opposition, not much will come of it.
The regular mechanisms of politics and media will still produce results, but they won’t be predictable results. Bannon has created a chaotic, nonlinear system.
However, the reason I also checked “old” above is that what Trump and company intend to achieve is from the old populist/authoritarian handbook, and both Robert Reich and Paul Krugman are laying that out accurately on a weekly basis. Their only weakness is that they don’t really understand how to fight it, either, but at least they are trying to open people’s eyes to Bannon’s objectives.
And make no mistake–from a process standpoint these are Bannon’s objectives. Repealing ACA, the Mexican Wall, etc. etc., none of these are his objectives, they are only means to his end which is the installation of easily manipulated populist authoritarianism of a really nationalist stripe as the default in American politics and society.
Bodies in the streets–as Anonymous argues for–will work, but only if people are willing to take casualties ala the early Civil Rights Movement, because the new administration will quickly get around to either engaging in, or encouraging, suppression of physical protest with violence.
There are plenty of people paying attention to politics, appointments, and twitter, plenty of people thinking they are fighting back when they aren’t, because they are using old WW1 tactics to fight Desert Storm. Study process, not current politics if you want the lever that will remove them from power.
I guess Pandora and El Som are like the rest of the Libs who threatened to leave when things did not go their way. Never gonna happen.
@RobberBaron–make up shit much? So show me where pandora, el som, or more than about a dozen or so of the 72 million people who voted against Trump have ever said they intended to leave the US. Or STFU.
Weaponized fake news is now part of politics. Whether it’s true or not, “Trump is compromised” has now taken root and is hopefully one of many more such stories. Keep ’em coming until we can all stand in a stadium and chant – “Lock him up!!”
“Morality no longer has any role in public life when the subject and his supporters are shameless.”
This LG observation is true and perhaps identifies a #5 on my list above – There will be no recognition by Trump that any of this matters.
For at least the past 20 years, Democrats have been expecting Republicans to police themselves. They (we) keep expecting Republicans to come up to a line of decency and decorum that they could not cross. There is no line of decency or decorum they will not cross.
I listened to Obama last night. Believing in the “good faith” of the Republicans was his fatal flaw, and he still has not learned that lesson.
When dealing with Republicans, one needs to assume bad faith and increase one’s cynicism.
Looks like you just got trolled again.
Lock him up, lock him up, lock him up..LOL this is kind of fun
I get so confused with all this fake news that I sometimes don’t even know what is real any longer …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXEH5xDQ_wY
Will anything come of the famed dossier? Probably not, but admit it, you can imagine Trump doing whatever is detailed in it. Does it serve a purpose? Yep, delegitimizing Trump and his regime. This is just the beginning with much more fun to come. Never to early to practice up on “Impeach Him! Impeach Him!”… Or Lock Him Up if you prefer.