Hot tip
Time was, presidents didn’t promote wack conspiracy theories out in the open where everyone could see. Now, however…
Trump shared a tweet and video from conservative comedian Terrence Williams that claimed without evidence that former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — Trump’s 2016 presidential election rival — were responsible for Epstein’s death. The Federal Bureau of Prisons and Attorney General Bill Barr said Epstein died in an “apparent suicide” while in federal custody.
As a result of Trump’s retweet, the video received more than 3 million views on Twitter by Sunday morning — more than triple Williams’ most recent videos. Both Trump and Bill Clinton were friendly with Epstein in previous decades, but Trump seized on the conspiracy theory Saturday in his latest dig at the Clintons.
Because something something the base something deplorables.
Trump’s tweet promoting the conspiracy theory came about an hour after Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio warned of the dangers of spreading partisan conspiracy theories about Epstein’s death.
“Scrutiny of how #Epstein was able to commit suicide is warranted,” Rubio tweeted. “But the immediate rush to spread conspiracy theories about someone on the ‘other side’ of partisan divide having him killed illustrates why our society is so vulnerable to foreign disinformation & influence efforts.”
White House senior counselor Kellyanne Conway appeared on Fox News Sunday defending the President. “I think the President just wants everything to be investigated,” Conway said when asked about Trump’s controversial retweet.
Right, uh huh, yes, that’s the way to make sure everything is investigated – retweeting a wild claim by a comedian. I’m sure the FBI is pursuing that hot lead at this very moment. Thanks, Mister President!
Trump doesn’t want everything to be investigated. He doesn’t want Trump to be investigated. He is constantly trying to draw attention to other real or imagined cases of corruption on ‘the other side’ to draw attention from his own corrupt practices. He will stop at nothing to promote Trump.
In Trumplandia, it is all Trump all the time, but only if it is nice about Trump, flatters Trump, and makes Trump richer. That is a dictatorship, and that is what he strives for, yearns for, aches for. Those who say Trump has no feelings are wrong. He feels greed, envy, entitlement, and ego. He is deeply, passionately, completely in love with Donald J. Trump.
Time for the Founding Fathers to be interred?
After all, who needs a justice system when there’s Twitter..?
And why ‘deplorables’ could be the most unfortunate and consequential word in US history to date.
With each passing day, it becomes more and more evident that no present or future historian will be able to come near to fully plumbing the dumbfounding, multi-faceted, raw-sewage depths of the Trump Creature’s unabashed rottenness.
Especially with so much of this rottenness and its dire effects continuing to loom over the nation for at least the next year and a half…
But even if the Creature and the part of the American public that has drunk many 55-gallon drums of its Kool-Aid and never stops clamoring for more gets driven from power as a result of the 2020 presidential election…
…unfortunately, even it the Creature gets evicted from the White House and transferred to a prison cell, the damage it has done to the US, a worthy nation despite all its failures pre-Trump Creature to live up to its professed lofty ideals, may be terminal.
Such an outcome, if it happens, would not be beneficial to the rest of the world, either.
How often does Trump project his own faults, failings and criminal behaviour onto others? Constantly. It’s automatic, and transparent. Well Donnie, who’s going to have a greater chance of arranging for an untimely end to Mr. Epstein? Bill Clinton, who hasn’t been in office for decades? Hillary Clinton, who has been out of any office for years? How about the current occupant of the Oval Office, who operates under the assumption that the Justice Department and the FBI work for him personally? The guy who hires people who believe that nothing the President does can possibly be illegal? Who has the ear of a certain Russian head of state who has a track record of killing people he finds inconvenient? Who’s the likeliest suspect of these three?
Heaping dirt on the Clintons to draw attention away from yourself is exactly what many people would expect you to do if you were guilty, because you’re too stupid to stay quiet about pretty much anything at all.
So how’s that grab you as a conspiracy theory Mr. Trump?
I’d be amazed if someone like Epstein did not keep records to be used for protection and insurance. Maybe that’s how he got off so lightly the first time. I hope the investigators keep digging, so that Epstein’s accomplices and enablers are prosecuted, even if he is not.
Can we drop this now, please? I’m sick of everyone blaming this one comment for Donald Trump. That’s right, blame the woman (who told the truth, and was much too kind) for the shit that is being done. Don’t look any deeper, at the deep misogyny of the middle part of the country, which is where she lost because the electoral college elevates their votes above those of everyone else. Don’t ever notice that she got more votes than her opponent and in fact more votes than any other presidential candidate with the exception of the 2008 election. The number of people who voted for her that exceeded those that voted for Trump could fill my state nearly 2x over…but my state has more power per person than California or Texas, because…well, we’re the honest, open, valuable, and trustworthy rural agrarian part of the nation.
The thing is, what does that mean? It means…we are white than the rest of the nation. Why are rural people seen as being better? More honest? More authentic? More American? Because we are less diverse. We are WHITE.
And you can’t convince me that she lost because of “basket of deplorables” when her opponent was using much worse, about everybody, and people were eating it up. Yes, a different group of voters. Yes, a different “base”. Still…
Trump got more press than Hillary. His press was front page above the fold. He was news non-stop, 24/7, plus the internet. Constant, constant coverage. Hillary was called old. Shrill. Unlikable. Too weak. Too strong. Too ambitious. Too masculine. Too feminine. Too…too.
Fuck that shit. The press cost her the election. If they had taken her “basket of deplorables” comment and reported on it honestly, by detailing the crap that was happening, maybe the Democrats who voted for Jill Stein (they voted for a woman, so not misogynist, see? Oh, the woman they voted for had no chance of winning? Doesn’t matter) would have grasped the enormity of what was happening. Maybe the Dems who said “no difference between them” and didn’t vote for president would have grasped the enormity of what was happening. Maybe the Dems who stayed home that day and washed their hair instead of voting would have grasped the enormity of what was happening.
A handful of votes in a handful of states turned a strong win into a loss. And NO ONE ever seems to register the reality. There were more people that voted for Hillary than voted for Trump. The majority is suffering from the tyranny of the minority because of a stupid, archaic rule…that was designed to do exactly what it did. Give the election to the rich, property owning, white male.
What YNNB said. Trump is so wrapped up in himself, even when he tries to insult someone he just ends up listing either his own faults and crimes, or (what he imagines to be) his good qualities. If he says the Clintons had Epstein assassinated, the only thing I’m not sure about is whether Trump did it, or just wishes he had thought of it.
Iknklast,@#6: I never said that the contest was fair.
In my experience, the liberal-left side of politics in the Anglophone world ALWAYS enters political contests at a disadvantage visa vis the anti-liberal and conservative right; female candidates more so, and the last US election was no exception. Captain Bonespurs Trump had the dice loaded in his favour from the outset, and I agree that the electoral college system appears to favour the conservative side of US politics and the voters in the rust-belt states. But for years after 1776, America and its constitution were a lighthouse for the rest of the world, and were a model for some Australian institutions. (A proposal from a leading conservative and explorer that New South Wales create a colonial peerage and a House of Lords was the subject of much contemporary ribald humour, and it fell flat on its face.) Australia finished up with a Senate at federal level and a High Court, both on the US models.
The Federal Senate was intended by our Founding Fathers to be a states’ house, but it has become instead yet another arena for party politics. All the same, federation of the colonies was in 1901, and women got the vote in 1902, six years before my own mother was born.
HOWEVER while the gloves usually come off early in terms of what candidates say about one another in election campaigns, I have never witnessed an attack by any candidate in any Anglophone election on any section of the voting population before. So, correct me if I am wrong, but Clinton’s ‘deplorables’ remark seems from here to have been a world first, and she played right into her opponents’ hands. There is no way of telling of course, but that one remark could have cost her the election and the Presidency.
Needless to add, I would have voted for her if I was a US citizen, and have relatives in the US who not only did so, but themselves worked for her campaign as volunteers, and got to have their photo taken with her, of which they are very proud.
I have never stood as a candidate in any Australian state or federal or local government election, but I take it that for the sake of acknowledging a human dignity and open-mindedness on the part of every voter receiving a candidate’s political message, the wisest course is for that candidate to treat all voters as if their minds are not already made up, even if they most likely are, and the candidate believes so.
Well, let me repeat: I never said the contest was fair. But I missed that aspect of the Bonespurs campaign amidst all his rhetoric of “make America great again.” Could you provide a link? I only followed it here in Australia on the local TV News.
(For what it is worth, I have studied American History at tertiary level to a greater extent than most tertiary-educated Australians and was once invited to go for a Masters degree in it or higher by a leading Australian academy. But family responsibilities prevented that.)
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/behind-trumps-victory-divisions-by-race-gender-education/
Excuse me, but candidates on the right have been dissing liberals for a long time. Perhaps not at the presidential level, because they usually let their lower level flunkies do it for them. But seriously? Yes. Sometimes subtle, sometimes not, but still there…usually references to communists and socialists, but in our society, those words are regarded similar with “deplorables”.
Noted. But ‘dissing liberals’ is their way of carrying on a philosophical/religious/political debate; in the American context.
Clinton had the choice of saying something like “I think Trump is a fascist’ vs what she did say, which was in effect: ‘I think all you Trump supporters out there are a bunch of fascists’, when people can be Trump supporters for a variety of reasons, not all of which are necessarily bad. A lot of them appear to be genuinely worried about their futures and the future for their kids, and are being suckered by a demagogue and invited to turn their hostilities and resentments away from his own political and economic base. So in trying to justify Clinton’s remark, you to play right into the demagogue’s hands.
IMHO.
Omar, Clinton was over several weeks clearly concerned about the growing cancer of the alt-right within and adjacent to Trump’s campaign. But she didn’t imply the basket of deplorables were fascists. What she actually said was that they were “…racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic – Islamophobic – you name it.” That was accurate then and clearly accurate now. Whether it was a good move? I doubt it actually cost her votes. In the context of her speech she gave plenty of opportunity for Republicans and Independents to self identify as deplorables or not “…that “other” basket of people are people who feel the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures; and they’re just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from. They don’t buy everything he says, but — he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they’re in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.”
Rob: who are you actually quoting there, in those outer parentheses? Was that follow-up from Clinton?
The Trump camp treated Clinton’s ‘deplorables’ statement like manna from Heaven; which from their point of view, it was. So they quoted it and replayed the TV coverage of it so repeatedly, hardly anyone in America or the rest of the Anglophone world could not have seen it, read of it, or heard it in conversation.
And of course, stating what the outcome would have been had she not said it is a counterfactual good as any other in the market; and completely unknowable.
Not the follow-up – the actual speech. The text is online in multiple locations.
Of course the small segment “basket of deplorables” stripped of it’s original context and given another was a gift to Trump supporters (and Hillary haters – a non-exclusive set to be sure). So what? I very much doubt the whole controversy actually made anyone who was a Democratic Party voter instead vote for Trump. Lets remember that even the Republican’s who couldn’t stomach Trump didn’t vote Clinton, they just didn’t vote for President or where their States allowed used write-ins.
I think in the main the whole thing was a gift wrapped controversy for the media to ohh and ahh over and pontificate as to whether Clinton had exercised good judgement – all while ignoring the much more substantial context and qualification her speech offered, or placing any reference to it right at the end of the story. I think the actual impact of the whole thing was pretty negligible, although who can say with certainty. The cynic in me wonders if a male candidate had said the same thing, how many articles would have taken the view that it was a strong and aggressive campaign strategy to rally decent people. I bet there would have been a whole lot less hand wringing.
Omar, I don’t think it was basket of deplorables that cost her the election for a number of reasons, one being that she remained on top in the polls for a long time (up to the election, in fact) and her real loss appeared to follow Comey’s “reveal”.
I know a lot of people in the Midwest (I live in the Midwest), and I never heard a single one of them that said aught about her “basket of deplorables” comment. What did I hear? “Her e-mails” “Her pantsuits” “She’s ambitious” “She’s weak” “She’s a harpy” “She’s old”. Not one single person that I know ever credited their dislike of Hillary to basket of deplorables. She may have lost some votes over it, but I doubt she lost a significant enough amount of votes to cost her the election…and every excuse I heard, every Hillary hate I heard from a liberal or moderate voter was a red flag for “she’s a woman”.
Comey? Misogyny? Deplorables? I think one of these things is stronger than the others in the American psyche, and people will latch onto any possible excuse they can to pretend that is not what it is. The pundits have danced themselves into a Twister-style pretzel to avoid discussing the role of misogyny in this election, and each week make it about something else.
And I don’t know where you are from, or what your history is, but I have certainly heard plenty of candidates that refer to liberal voters as stupid. So, yeah, they do say nasty things about the voters that are not just a philosophical/religious/political debate.
Interestingly, in the last couple of years I’ve seen a marked upswing of National Party (conservative) supporters here in New Zealand describing the Labour Party as communists. I haven’t seen red scare politics like that here since the 1970’s. It’s also very far from the truth since there is not a single policy Labour hold that even slightly resembles a communist policy. Like most western democratic political movements they are best described as democratic socialists. They are socially slightly left of centre, whereas the National Party are socially slightly right of centre. Both parties adhere to a voluntary code best described as budget responsibility, which actually makes both parties slightly right of centre economically.
Still, never let facts get in the way of a good othering.
“Deplorable” is such an f*ing mild objection. I think there’s an “egghead elite” yuckster prejudice operating because she used a word many people may not be familiar with. I agree that the press are at fault a lot. Don’t focus on the soundbite “basket of deplorables.” Focus on the substance: racism, xenophobia, misogyny, bullying, lying, etc., that were front and center in DJT’s campaign and among his supporters. If the dangers had been reported as socially unacceptable and actual dangers, instead of ratings-boosting clown jokes, people mightn’t have felt so emboldened to act on their prejudices.
Maddog:
The trouble with politics the world over, is that it is politics. If his advisors thought it would win him votes, Trump would not just let the crowd have a tornado of verbal bullshit; he would use the real stuff. Instead. As well. Whatever worked.