What’s it gonna take to get this through America’s thick skull?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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For a lot of Americans, politics is like sports.
(most) Ravens fans didn’t turn on Ray Lewis
(most) Steelers fans didn’t turn on Ben Roethlisberger
(most) Lakers fans didn’t turn on Kobe Bryant
etc. etc.
When seen through that light, Trump’s unwavering support can be comprehended.
The answer to your title question is right there in the article;
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Some New York real-estate experts, like Joel Ross, a long-established investment banker in Manhattan, say this devil-may-care attitude is typical in the industry, and critics are overreacting in tying Trump’s business ties to his presidential policies. Though Ross says he’s “no fan” of Trump, he added that the key point is that the big 2016 Moscow negotiation went nowhere, and there is no evidence that Trump is currently basing his policies toward Russia on his business dealings. In truth, Trump’s several forays into Russia in search of possible deals is standard in big-time real estate, Ross said. And the majority of negotiations don’t pan out.
“As to any other deals, what they may earn on a management contract is not enough to get him to change foreign policy,” Ross wrote FP in an email. “This is not as serious an issue as you seem to imagine. You guys in the media have no understanding of how real estate works and how unserious these things are. Trump is not much different than most of the NY real estate developers. Obnoxious, liar, screws people, impossible to trust, etc, but in NY real estate-not unusual.”
Ross added: “None of any of that is proof of anything other than Trump was considered a bad guy who nobody trusted to do business with in the US banking world. That is far from any proof he did anything wrong as to collusion which there was none.”
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Never is the answer.
.
In other words … replace “real estate” with “gun running” or “coke dealing” and see if these statements still make sense.
Framing is everything! “Explains”, in some bizarro sense of the word explain, how he got away with it for ever in NYC and environs.
Don’t think it is safe to assume all the Russian money laundering stopped when the donald became president. It is out there that the Saudis brought 300 rooms in the DC Trump hotel…how many did the Russians buy and when? How many Mar a Lago memberships have been purchased? Apartments in Trump buildings? The list is endless. But, I want to know who paid for the $15,000 a month rental Ivanka and Jared stayed in last 2 years?
Would you rather we ditch capitalism then? Does Goldman Sachs and any other big business do business in Russia? Saudi Arabia? You bet. Hell, a number of banks, including JP Morgan, have been fined through the years for circumventing sanctions on Iran. The big banks aren’t going to give up the fees they can take from oil oligarchs and others. How are you going to restrict capital flows?
Playing stupid is a bad look.
Who says it’s an act?
You’re the dumb one. Capitalism is like Agent Smith in The Matrix movies.
Sorry, guess you weren’t playing.
Maybe never. But many folks ignored or liked the mob bosses during
prohibition and after, sort of quaint especially since they never bothered me. In fact business is good. In the end though we came to understand they were evil people and had to be stoppped . Trump is a crime family boss and some admire him. But I think the party leaders will come to believe he does not represent them. When? I have no idea, maybe never or maybe next week.
What’s it gonna take for the idiot 40% to recognize that Damp Old Runt and his band of Republiclowns are undermining their practical security?
(For many in the 60%, I suspect that the contents of the article are old news.)
…and stealing their tax money and cutting off their social security, medicare and other government services?
History says it’s not going to happen.
The dictionary says idiot = a stupid person
Stupid = lacking intelligence or common sense
Some of the 40% are just ignorant – so we may be able to educate them. But that’s why Republicans demonize teachers and gut public schools…
It will take a media campaign of the same intensity and repetition that make Hillary’s e-mails a reason to vote against her.
And it couldn’t hurt if Rupert Murdoch exposed Fox News as manipulative liars.
It’s never been about the pee tapes. It’s always been about the money and the promise of more money.
One word, Rosneft.
40% of America, and even more of the America that turns out to vote, doesn’t care, because if you rank-order things, Beating That Bitch came out on top, before anything else — economic self-interest, alleged patriotism, concern for fiscal prudence, management ability, the basic tenets of Christianity.
Beat the Bitch.
My nation cannot be turned over to a governing coalition dominated by colored people and women.
Any means necessary. Any means.
It’s enlightening to read about the South’s reaction to the election of Lincoln and a Republican house after the 1860 vote. Much sounds familiar.
Keep in mind that 54% voted against Trump in the 2016 election and his popularity has only dropped since then.
Millions have marched in the streets against him starting the day after his inauguration.
He just led his party to the worst mid-term defeat in decades. This despite extensive gerrymandering, and vote theft.
More than 60% believe he’s lying about his dealings with Russia.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/poll-62-percent-say-trump-isn-t-telling-truth-russia
-n948226
America seems pretty clear-eyed about this.
America still won’t give him less than 43.5% of the popular vote when he runs for re-election.
Concentrated in the right places, with the help of a few governors, judges, and secretaries of state, that could be enough for a second term.
We also have to factor in what the media will do to the eventual Democratic nominee. They will set their scandal meters very high, simply to keep their `both sides have to be the same, for fairness sake’ golden rule activated.
Teaming up with the Russians to subvert democracy will be the same as getting a DNA test.
How many times do we need to see this play out, before we accept it as reality?
.
I suspect more Americans might get it if Trump’s tax returns are released, but I wouldn’t count on it. There is little in this story that is new; most of it was reported on in some respects leading to the 2016 election. Trump’s penchant for self-promotion were such that, regarding his bankruptcies, the spotlight was shined on them. More people than not knew about them, but they won’t get it because they’ve been conditioned not to get it. Trump was star of “The Apprentice” so he must be a “good businessman.”
Trump’s story can be said to be the ballad of being rich in America. Where, unlike the rest of us plebes, you can be a deadbeat on bills, run businesses into the ground, skip out on taxes, con customers out of their money, all legally, and be worshiped for being rich and successful. But let a working person lose a job, fall behind on bills, and then try to collect unemployment, and society paints you as a degenerate on the wrong side of morality. But these same people will worship the rich, and excuse them of the same transgressions “society” slams the rest of us for.
This is a country that champions lavishing fortunes on “executives” of failing companies in the form of “golden parachutes.” You have health care executives being paid literally billions a year, and these stupid MFers are running around repeating the really stupid shit they’ve been told, that “health care is too expensive” and rather you do your duty and die first before we not subsidize these wealthy crooks as opposed to our own health care.
America’s collective skull is not just thick, its rock solid. These are not people who are going to be able to figure out, en masse, that, Trump’s a crook, let alone someone who is likely beholden to foreign interests and is selling the country out right before our eyes.
Most people simply do not pay attention to this stuff. So long as they themselves are doing okay, they will forgive a great deal. Many people argue that it was the economy that saved Clinton during the Lewinsky affair, for example.
That 40% will care the second they start losing jobs and getting pay cuts. And then they will care A LOT.