12-01-2016, 12:28 PM
(12-01-2016, 11:47 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(12-01-2016, 11:04 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:(12-01-2016, 06:29 AM)Galen Wrote: What evidence do you have that Trump can be blackmailed?
What do people get blackmailed on?
1. Sex.
Been there. Done that. What seems like a horrible thing when the other guys do it is entirely forgivable when one's own guy does it. The red faction is entirely good with the sort of person Trump is, and elected him with the full knowledge.
(12-01-2016, 06:29 AM)Galen Wrote: 2. Crime.
Everyone knew he ran an illegal charity. There may or may not be worse things in his past, and I'm sure folks will be digging.
(12-01-2016, 06:29 AM)Galen Wrote: 3. Business.
His bankruptcies and fraud based businesses were well known at the time of the election.
In the current extreme partisan environment, the red faction will forgive all of the above and sincerely claim that Hillary was worse. Trump has proven himself the sort of person who can be accused of all sorts of stuff, thumb his nose at the accuser, launch personal attacks against the accuser, and lie about his guilt. No shame. No impact on his political clout.
It was said at the time that Nixon wasn't impeached for the Watergate break in or the cover up. He was impeached and forced to resign because he made the Republicans defending him in congress look really really bad. When they could no longer support him he resigned. In a similar way, I don't anticipate Trump being confronted without a smoking gun the size of a coal generator plant smokestack. He shrugs off ordinary sized smoking guns. Bill Clinton was called the teflon president as he could shrug off scandals without losing his popularity on the blue side or his ability to govern. Trump seems to be able to shrug off scandal to a similar degree.
It is ironic; had Richard Nixon avoided the Dirty Tricks he had the perfect situation for pushing his legislative agenda. Conservative Democrats of the South were on his side ideologically. But they did protect their Party from the dirty tricks. In the end it was indeed when Nixon's misconduct looked as bad as it was that Republicans had to protect themselves. It would have taken Republican votes to impeach and convict, but those seemed to be developing by the day.
Authoritarian right-wingers can tolerate all sorts of bad behavior, including hypocrisy, from their leaders so long as those leaders tell what those authoritarian right-wingers want to hear. When rational people attack the delusion, the authoritarians double down on the defense of their clay-footed idol, whether that idol be Benito Mussolini, Agosto Pinochet, Ion Antonescu, Satan Hussein, or Der Phooey. Left-wing extremism becomes reactionary very fast, so also Stalin, Mao, Castro, and any three of the "socialist" Kim Dynasty in North Korea.
I have my prediction on what sort of leader Donald Trump will be, and it isn't pretty. He is going to make Dubya look like a model of integrity and political astuteness by contrast. Dubya could be very wrong, but he usually had benign intentions. Donald Trump makes me think of foreign models -- and I don't mean Sara Sampaio. Or a Bentley. I mean Robert Mugabe, Hugo Chavez, or his favorite "strong leaders" which somehow ignored Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.
Reality has an unnerving habit of catching up to even the cleverest and most dedicated liars. A heritage of 200 years of competitive politics and far more of rule of law Let us remember that the American Revolution occurred as the British King tried to cut corners on the Rule of Law in the Colonies, violating the sensibilities of such conservatives as John Adams.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.