For some reason it occurred to me a couple of days ago to think about the sheer number of cranks and crackpots who roamed the White House and bent Donald Trump's ear about election fraud in late 2020 and early 2021. I don't mean people who are just a little conspiracy minded; I mean out-and-out loons like these:
- Michael Flynn
- Rudy Giuliani
- Sidney Powell
- Mike Lindell (aka "pillow guy")
- John Eastman
That's off the top of my head. Who am I missing?
This is why I've always wondered: Was Trump lying when he said the election was stolen? Or did he really believe it? Trump is capable of talking himself into almost anything, and after marinating in this crackpot circus for a while I wouldn't be surprised if Trump's id had truly convinced him that Democrats had schemed (successfully!) to steal the vote in thousands of precincts nationwide.
So maybe Trump isn't a congenital liar. But if he isn't, he's a mentally deranged lunatic. Take your pick.
NY Times email at 2:04 PM EDT today
BREAKING NEWS
Donald Trump’s aides testified, one after another, that they told him claims of a stolen election were bogus, but that he pushed them anyway.
Monday, June 13, 2022 2:03 PM ET
Jan. 6 committee members used video testimony from some of Mr. Trump’s closest advisers — including blunt comments from former Attorney General Bill Barr — to show that the president must have known that his claims were baseless.
This. He had a ton of people telling him it was bullshit but he decided to ignore it.
Peter Navarro is right up there.
absolutely
Don’t forget Scott Atlas. Then again, has anyone ever seen Scott Atlas and Peter Navarro together?
+100!
????????????
Seconding Peter Navarro. Until recently, I thought he was play-acting as at being totally bananas.
I don't think he was play-acting any more. He was asking for his case to be held before the Supreme Court at a bail hearing, for God's sake, representing himself. And testimony before the Jan. 6 committee from others in the room indicate he actually took the Dominion fairy tales as credible.
He's 100% B.A.N.A.N.A.S
But for some reason the PBS News Hour had him on regularly spouting nonsense. I guess Judy Woodruff isn’t so sharp after all.
Hard to know. He’s widely reported to have long running problems with various recreational pharmaceuticals, which might account for some of his seemingly irrational behavior. I wonder if pre-trial services will make him pee in a bottle.
The other thing is that he’s from a class of people who believe that they are inherently law abiding and that whatever they do is right. The long arm of the law is for the plebs and the darker people. It’s just incomprehensible to him that he should be treated as a criminal.
Petey Navz was bogarting Kudlow's stash,
I always discounted the talk about Navarro. He really didn’t seem like the type. A crank, yes, but I had doubts about dope until now. I really think it would be interesting if pre-trial services made him pee in a bottle without warning.
Don’t have those doubts about Larry “Cocaine” Kudlow. Whenever I hear the name Kudlow, Eric Clapton’s “Cocaine” starts playing in my head. Also a man who inexplicably got a security clearance in the Trump administration.
https://buffalonews.com/news/economist-kudlow-on-a-cocaine-binge-wife-says/article_53c3d99f-a9e1-5bb2-9fa0-26c032858bd3.html
Please, Mitch. Don't you mean "J.J. Cale's 'Cocaine'?"
Yeah Mitch there were a bunch of junkies on staff for Trump, but did you hear HUNTER BIDEN SAID HE WASNT A DRUG USER ON HIS GUN LICENSE APPLICATION???!??!!
No, no, forget the fact that he has no official or unofficial position in the government. More importantly did you know his last name is Biden?
Also, forget about all the Trump era loons pretty please. And the loon in chief too, forget everything he did. Just focus on Hunter Biden, thanks
But at least Hunter Biden will always have a friend in Sean Hannity.
Tucker.
It was Tucker C who asked Hunter to write Yung Buckley a letter of recommendation in 2013 when the Carlson child was applying to Georgetown.
Even Hunter Biden can have more than one friend.
https://news.yahoo.com/furious-conservatives-turn-sean-hannity-095953250.html
Steve Miller...
Evil, but perhaps not insane.
yeah...that's worse
The musician?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WCFUGCOLLU
if only....
I had forgot about them...
Both. It's not like he was just surrounded by loons. As we saw today he got plenty of honest assessments from those close to him telling him point blank that his fraud claims were bullshit. He knew he was lying when he made those. At the same time, because he is a mentally deranged lunatic, his ego couldn't process that he was a loser so he decided to instead follow the advice of the other loons around him when he had to decide how to proceed. Not because he thought they were telling him the truth, or he thought that his claims were true, but because for his deranged mind it was easier to process and live in that fantasy.
Trump was never a great businessman, but he is a great salesman. The mark of a great salesman has always been the ability to believe in one’s own bullshit.
This is key.
Trump is a 100% lier, and doesn't believe any of the foxshit he is telling.
He is successful in bamboozling people, and being able to totally believe something that he knows is a lie is part of it. He perfected the skill from young age.
"totally believe " -> "pretend to totally believe"
I don’t know. He’s got serious, serious mental problems, to put it lightly. And being that way for 70+ years, basically unchallenged and incentivized by loads of money to play the part of a “successful dealmaker”, wouldn’t be surprised if he believed it
Not that any of that absolves him of being a treasonous criminal. I just think he’s a mental weakling to boot
Trump much like Amber Heard had narcissistic borderline disorder. Maybe President's with certain medical conditions should not be allowed to run for President. Of course, with his frontal lobe dementia, he is more confused than ever.
With Republicans, the question is always: liar/moron/both?
I say both, definitely.
Yeah I thought we had it bad with Mitt and the “classic conservatives”. This time we got a moronic liar who didn’t give a damn about the country or the people in it. The third one is the killer
Trump is a sociopath who does not recognize any inherent value in “truth.” He no doubt considers people who value truth as suckers and losers.
The value of a statement is judged solely on whether it is advantageous to him.
To ask him whether something is true or not would be like asking him whether something was said in the morning or the afternoon. What difference does it make? Who cares?
“He no doubt considers people who value truth as suckers and losers”
He has made it work for him. The true suckers are those that believe in him. The losers are everyone besides Donald and his spawn.
Why can't it be both?
I think it is real simple, and Agent Orange said it repeatably throughout the campaign, that he will either win or it has to be fraud. He is a malignant narcissist, and can not acknowledge his own failures, and loosing the election would be the ultimate failure in his twisted mind.
As far as other crackpots, here is a vote for Dr Scott Atlas (aka the Angle of Death), his covid advisor who had no infectious disease or public health credentials. Touting herd immunity as the key to ending the pandemic, and spreading misinformation just for the fun of it.
No one could stay in the administration without being a total sycophant, and telling lies that the president wanted to hear was vital to their survival. Being a racist like Stephen Miller was also a helpful attribute for longevity. Perhaps Ben Carson stayed as long as he did because he slept walked for 4 years
I think narcissists at this level always believe they are right and that anyone who disagrees with them is simply "weak" and lacking in "courage". My experience with this kind of person in the business world is they believe they have some special insight and understanding which others do not have -- after all, that's how they rose to their level of leadership and authority, they tell themselves. Thus they believe an important part of their role as a leader is to push the generally not-accepted point of view until it is finally accepted as the truth.
Truth is, this is a problem for any form of government based on rationality, such as voting to achieve compromise. It's always going to be the case that the crazies really believe what they believe. If that's an excuse in your system, then you have to live with crazies among you.
The good news is that that kind of narcissism doesn't produce good results -- narcissist leader guy lets a real virus spread, for instance, because you think it's just the "flu" and all the scientists must be wrong -- and good results are ultimately what people vote for. Alas, in a system like ours that gives an extra affirmative action push to the angry white minority, we're stuck with them sometimes winning battles they'd otherwise lose, because electoral college.
I think an implication of this point of view, if you buy it, is that Georgia's case against Trump is more likely to hold up in court and be convincing. It's one thing to believe sincerely you won. It's another to be calling election officials asking them to "find" more votes for you. Even if you think you won, that's straight up illegal.
Oh, a small correction: "narcissist leader guy lets a real virus spread, for instance, because HE thinks it's just the "flu""...
My personal opinion is I hope all of this bad publicity for Trump emboldens the IRS to finally knock him for $500 million in back taxes. Seems to me a far worse fate for DT to spend the next 15 years fighting that in court than 1 or 2 years sitting in Club Fed sending out fundraising emails.
That seems unlikely. In the absence of something along the lines of the theories used by the government in Operation Greylord (oversimplification but essentially that corrupt judges, etc preventing justice essentially tolled the statute of limitations) my guess is that the statute has long since run on his tax frauds. Plus, the weirdness of the IRS simply missing the biggest, longest-running tax fraud in history suggests the the reason the IRS never went after Trump is that it would've been too embarrassing.
The other point that's worth considering is that Trump's been given total impunity by the DOJ—and not the the current bunch, either. Long predating his politics career, he's very likely been openly committing crimes like fraud and money laundering in the SDNY for decades without ever being investigated which suggests that the DOJ has been well and truly nobbled for decades.
Good point on the IRS. We have certainly seen in the past the IRS can be intimidated effectively, as by the Scientologists.
As I recall, it's been reported the IRS has been negotiating for many years over the use of some real estate tax deductions worth (I'm guessing) $100 million. As you note, it may be far too late to get him for the tax fraud the New York Times reported on.
Based on what came out during the campaign, I think Trump was forgiven a lot of underwater loans on the casinos and whatnot but instead of recognizing the forgiven portions of the loans as taxable income, he took them as deductible losses. If that’s so, we’re talking possibly something in the neighborhood of $1 billion which, I believe is the biggest tax fraud in history.
To which one must add the stuff starting with Fred Trump and continuing after his death which is one of the frauds you mentioned (probably in excess of $100 million).
To which must the added what appears to have been blatant money laundering (especially the interactions with DB and the huge but mysterious amounts of cash used for financing the golf courses (especially in Scotland). So he’s basically been committing crimes pretty much openly for at least 30 years.
The other interesting thing is the the when the Democrats regained the House and White House they were too timid and intimidated to seriously investigate any of this. They still don’t have Trump’s tax returns (and apparently don’t want really want them).
Assuming the GJ returns a true bill, I think it would be very difficult to get Trump’s state of mind before the jury at trial. Either expert testimony about his sociopathic narcissistic personality or he’s got to testify, in which case
the question is whether Georgia has a “willful indifference” instruction,
Intent is a jury question. It can be inferred from evidence.
The point of the “willful indifference” instruction such as 5.8 (deliberate ignorance) in the 9th circuit make it more difficult for the jury to accept a proclaimed subjective belief that’s at variance with objective reality. It doesn’t completely negate a sincerely held but irrational actual belief but it does make it more difficult.
I think that I misunderstood your response. Sorry. It is a jury question and then again, it isn't.
If Trump doesn't testify, his lawyers would have to find a way to get his subjective belief before the jury. I'm not sure there's a good way for them to do that unless the state somehow opens the door. I don't know any Georgia law but my impression is that the crimes being considered don't require proof of specific intent.
Assuming he's charged with a general intent crime, it's not clear to me that his claimed lack of intent is coming in during the prosecution's case. My assumption is that unless there's some kind of diminished capacity defense, Trump would have to testify to establish his actual belief that he believed he'd actually been cheated. Cross would be interesting since he also has claimed that the election he won was tainted by millions of Mexicans illegally being allowed to vote in California and, of course, the fact that he didn't ask the Georgia to establish the fraud but rather to "find" the votes necessary for him to win.
If there's a Georgia criminal lawyer out there, I'd been interested in hearing about the evidence law and what crimes are discussible.
"Was Trump lying when he said the election was stolen? Or did he really believe it?"
That question has gone round and round. I think the answer is, there's just no difference. Trump (like quite a lot of his followers) chooses what to believe based on how it benefits him. I don't think if you dig deep enough you ever get to a part of his mind that's like "I know this is bullshit, but I'm going to insist it's true anyway." That critical thinking step appears to be gone. It's very much "This is what I want to believe, so this is what I will believe."
Very well stated. This answer makes the most sense to me. The absence of a critical thinking step means his behavior is instinctive. Worse than instinctive. Even animals without critical thinking know when to back off when necessary.
Trump = Narcissism + Instinct.
"So maybe Trump isn't a congenital liar. But if he isn't, he's a mentally deranged lunatic."
Poh tay toe, poh tah toe.
"Was Trump lying when he said the election was stolen? Or did he really believe it?"
Several comments have teased this, but I think a good way to dissect it with the distinction between lying and bullshitting. https://www.google.com/search?q=on+bullshit&rlz=1C1SQJL_enUS875US875&oq=on+bullshit&aqs=chrome..69i57.2495j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
The liar knows he's lying; the BS'er doesn't care. And with Trump, the malignancy is so deep that the question looses any meaning. The narcissism doesn't allow the possibility that what he wants to be true may not be true. For him, what he wants to be true is true. Hard for many to intuit how this feels, but perhaps one establishes the habit of despairing that truth can be ascertained, and falling back -- conveniently -- on one's wishes.
Think of a second-century Christian. "Jesus rose from the dead." In a pre-scientific age, there is no known way to ascertain long-ago events, to apply reason and likelihood to the question. We can never know, so we might as well say whatever we prefer. The unknown is so unknown that we develop no habit of comparing and ascertaining likelihood. For someone of Trump's character, it comes down to power and assertion. And if everyone around me comes to believe it, that feels a lot like it is true. "Truth" is largely socially-determined.
Trump and his acolytes inhabit a pre-scientific mental world. Truth is a different quality to them than to the readers of this blog. How often have I heard the assertion, "I know in my heart the election was stolen." What's the heart got to do with it? Sounds like BS.
"The liar knows he's lying; the BS'er doesn't care. And with Trump, the malignancy is so deep that the question looses any meaning. The narcissism doesn't allow the possibility that what he wants to be true may not be true. "
Thet is plainly false. A person that have a very good grasp of reality will not succeed to get to be the president of the United States of America. Trump has a very good grasp of reality, and a very good talent of convincing other peopel that he doesn't , as well as misleading them in many other ways.
His ability to make other people underestimate his skills his of his main skills.
This is a common interpretation of Trump and I think it's dead wrong. Having your go-to genius move always be to act like a raging a-hole/imbecile when you are not really a raging a-hole/imbecile just does not seem likely to me. As Hilary said, there is no other Donald Trump.
The fact is that it worked for him. If it wasn't based on good grasp of reality, it wouldn't have worked. just ignoring this point doesn't make it go away.
An just to make clear: he is certainly evil. But he is not an idiot.
His perceptions and abilities in the social realm are at genius level. He knows how to read people and manipulate them, including large numbers of people over time, and thus he reads and influences "culture". This is a large part of "reality". But there is another aspect of reality that is discernible only through the application of what can loosely be called the scientific method, that is not intuitive or social, but rather objective and even mathematical. Two different meanings of the concept of "truth" inhere to these two ways of being.
Josh Marshall, over at Talking Points Memo, has a good discussion of this. In short, Trump "believes" nothing. There's only one thing for him: getting what he wants. And he will say whatever it takes to get it. He believes NOTHING.
Enough people told and retold and told again, and the courts backed up the fact that Trump lost. He clearly "knew" it, by various statements he made over the course of the runup to the election and thereafter, but chose to try to hoodwink the system and his minions and followers.
Plus, he fleeced a good $250 MILLION out of his low-dollar donor flock, supposedly for his "Election Integrity Fund" -- which never existed. The money went right into his own pocket.
Don't waste any pity on a "potentially senile old man".
I don' t think it matters. Who cares whether Trump is a deranged lunatic narcissist cannot face the truth or a deranged lunatic narcissist liar who doesn't care about the truth or a bit of both ?
The questions that concern me are:
Are there many people who will change their minds after all these hearings ? I think some but enough ? I don't know.
AND
How did the Republican Party become so corrupted and debased that most of their leaders are sitting back and pretending that Adam Kinzinger and Lynn Cheney are the betrayers ?
The Democrats (not on the committee) and the media need to be going after McConnell and McCarthy and all the other weasels in the GOP. Make them answer.
"How did the Republican Party become so corrupted and debased that most of their leaders are sitting back and pretending that Adam Kinzinger and Lynn Cheney are the betrayers ?"
I lay a lot of the blame on the both-sides news media. Even now, they act as though the Republicans are not lying at every turn and that both parties operate in good faith to achieve what is best for the nation.
Republicans make an entirely rational choice when they realize that they can say and do anything they want and get away with it with the press. Because the press will treat them as a legitimate half of a two party system and will refuse to take sides against their criminality.
Who am I missing?
Lin Wood was just outed as a flat earther.
Wasn't Lin Wood so batshit crazy that even Trump and the rest of the looney bin crowd eventually tried to put distance between them and her, arguing she was working on her own and not as part of Trump's team?
My bad, was thinking of Sydney Powell.
Heh. The J6 Committee had a number of wackadoo statements by Sydney Powell, then quoted her at her subsequent trial stating that obviously, none of these statements were at all believable: people should have known better.
Your perspective is rational-normative. Today that perspective is a category error. The people whom you are talking about -- not only Trump and the people whose company he seeks out because they validate him, but also many others -- are consumers, tellers, and critics of stories. Stories are neither true nor false; neither sane nor insane. They float alongside reality, now amplifying it, now compensating for it, now completely disconnected from it. It is idle to try to bring stories into collision with rational discourse in the hope that they will be discredited. Ask the feudal landlords of medieval Europe, who were dispossessed by stories -- they were the "ogres". Today we, the rational-normative, are the ogres; and the next age is not ours.
I like the liar v. BSer distinction.
Because the real question, usually "assumed" and not often asked, is what are you (or anyone) willing to BS "about?"
What subjects are you required to be truthful about, even if it is to your own detriment?
Most politicians are routinely accused of BSing their constituents, but until Trump that was really more of what I suppose you could categorize as "estimates" ("under this bill, we will make a serious dent in homelessness" oh really? What do you mean by "serious?" And what exactly is a "dent" in the context of a given number of unhoused people?). And those accusations are correct.
Trump has very few things he is unwilling to BS about. So by the time this train wreck played out (and we all watched it play out), it could come as no surprise the the result of an election would be somehow included in the category of "things Donald Trump takes seriously enough to not BS about."
I mean, once you don't even give a crap about billions of dollars to build a wall across the southern border, what else is left?
Having listened to today's testimony, note that Trump is not even interested in the actual facts at all. He's only interested in the various theories as to how the election was stolen.
If someone would have told him that if Mike Pence got a big zit on his forehead that that would result in him being certified over Biden he would have gone with that.
He. Just. Does. Not. Give. A. Crap.
He will get around to defining "stolen" when he gets facts.
As to proposed question, one should be open to the idea that he is both congenital liar (of that there is extensive long running evidence) and deranged lunatic at this stage (as mentally unable to handle public humiliation of loss -in his view).
I didn't read through the comments so I may be repeating someone else, but Trump's niece, Mary, said that on one level Trump understands he lost but on another that narcissist's ego won't let him admit it out loud.
Plus there's no money in admitting he lost.
Trump's intent was always to take back power. Only if the ends justify the means, does his state of mind matter. Short of that, he conspired with a group of supporters to take back power, but fell short of his goal because the conspiracy did not include key people like Mike Pence and General Milley.
But Lord, if SCOTUS makes a determination that mens rea matters in the prosecution of sedition and insurrection, we will not have a democracy after 2024. Having provided the instructions on how to get away with murder, SCOTUS will have allowed murder and democracy will be moot.
To be clear, whether or not he lied or bullshitted is beside the point: His goal was still the same, regardless of his sincerity.
Any sleazy wheeler dealer would act the same way Trump does. Asking questions about what such a person believes is beside the point. I recently watched a pretty good movie called War Dogs where Jonah Hill plays a raging con man/arms dealer. His behavior in any given situation is basically indistinguishable from Trump's.
He is a practitioner of “creative reality”.he can’t abide losing or being proven wrong…so he just denies it happened and submits another version of events..that makes him right. It has worked all his life…he just doesn’t acknowledge the facts. He is nuts.
I have been thinking for a while about whether he knew he lost or really believed the Big Lie. After the hearing today, I don't think it matters. IANAL, but I think it should be assumed he knew, he was told by enough people that he lost, and he should be charged/prosecuted for trying to overthrow the government. If he wants to claim incompetence, insanity, etc, he can bring it up himself. I am really bothered though, by the number of people who knew he lost, who questioned his mental state, but who kept quiet--at least until they published their books, or were subpoenaed.
Don't forget, "The Big Lie" was a cash cow...
These legal quibblings will probably be irrelevant to the verdict in a jury trial. The main requirement for conviction will be to get a jury without a die-hard Trump supporter - it only takes one to prevent a guilty verdict. The best chance will be to have the trial in Washington DC, where Trump got only 5.4% of the vote in 2020. If the jury pool is the same as the voters, the probability of excluding all Trump supporters is 0.946^12 = 0.51. Woo-hoo, better than a coin flip. Would all Trump supporters ignore evidence to vote for acquittal? Remember that they ignored a lot of evidence of his criminality to vote for him.
If he is convicted then there would presumably be the further barrier of the Supreme court, eventually. But the Republican Justices can come up with a rationale for acquittal, no matter the logic or what Trump's state of mind was.
The main problem is threats of violence against the jury, and also agaist the court and prosecuter and in general. That is the main impediment to all legal actions.
Jenna Ellis can be included in the crazy camp. She's just been appointed senior legal advisor to Doug Mastriano, which will be useful if he ever has to beat a dangerous driving charge. Mad Marge Greene was also in the inner circle after the election, along with Roger Stone and Bernard Kerik.