Tag: Ron DeSantis

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The David Fallacy — Why (some) zealots support Trump

The David Fallacy

Why (some) zealots support Trump

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

January 16th, 2024

www.zeppscommentaries.online

They held the Iowa caucuses yesterday, and I don’t regard the results as being of any particular importance, given how unrepresentative they are of the country as a whole. (Mike Huckabee won in 2008, Rick Santorum won in 2012, and Ted Cruz in 2016.) The only reason Trump won in 2020 was that he ran unopposed, about the only way he can actually win an election.

He essentially ran unopposed this time, since the only other significant candidates were a pair of “me-too” clingers who ran as Trump-lite: Ron DeSantis and Nicki Haley. Those two dead-enders managed to get 40% of the Republican vote, which shows just how weak Trump really is.

Haley’s birth-name was Nimarata Nikki Randhawa, and MSNBC actually showed one voter opining that it wouldn’t be right for a “Hin-doo” to be president. Despite that, Haley was mad because MSNBC was “dividing us by race” for simply pointing out that country white evangelicals aren’t going to strongly support Haley because of her skin color. Haley, MSNBC didn’t create those bigoted clowns. And trust me, they weren’t watching Joy Reid anyway. She’s not one of the ‘good ones’ in their books.

DeSantis was already a bad joke, between his elevator clown boots and picking a fight with a cartoon mouse and losing. He wasn’t as big on god-flogging as Trump, so wasn’t seen as sufficiently godly.

So Trump fetched up with 51% of the vote. I was expecting him to get 60% or more, between the high number of fools in the GOP and the weak field arrayed against him. So even if the ratings-driving media is trying to hype his chances, the results show his fundamental weakness.

MSNBC devoted five full hours to this non-story, and I managed to miss most of it so I could play Solitaire and watch an animated movie. (I would point out that while I didn’t do so good playing Solitaire, the movie, Maboroshi, on Netflix, was pretty damned good).

But I did catch one gem that made MSNBC’s entire wasted night worth a glance. Barely able to contain their laughter, Joy and Rachel Maddow explained “The King David Hypothesis.”

King David lived around 1,000 BCE, and yes, there is evidence that he actually did exist, although outside of notoriously unreliable holy writ, little is known about him.

But the religious accounts are satisfyingly florid. A simple shepherd, he killed the giant Goliath with a slingshot, and got noticed by the reigning king, Saul. Saul took him in to the palace, but then expelled him when he decided David was plotting to kill him and steal his throne. But before then, Saul has made David rich for killing the giant, and among other marriages, David marries Saul’s younger daughter, Michael. The dowery is 100 Philistinian heads, although accounts differ as to whether that was cranial-type heads or the other kind, foreskins. Either way, it made a lot of Philistines very unhappy. He’s also got about eight other wives and unknown numbers of concubines of varying gender, something that’s always fun to point out to bigoted morons who want America to observe “biblical marriage” only.

Jehovah gets annoyed at Saul for failing to commit genocide (the Amalekites, look it up) and sends the angel Samuel to name David king. After various intrigues and production of a family lineage that makes it apt as well as physically likely that he was the father of the Abrahamic religions, he becomes King, and is sufficiently murderous and Machiavellian enough to keep even Jehovah happy. Between the smiting and the slutting, David made Trump look restrained and faithful.

All right, so intellectually, morally, and romantically, David was a hot mess. (For his wives and concubines, “consent” was not an option.) But he’s “beloved by God” and the father of the true religions, all 15,000 of them that we know about. What to do, what to do? Zealots hate ethical quandaries.

Thus was born the King David Hypothesis. God chose David because he was flawed, and the fact that he was flawed showed that God could make David have a good heart and be a great king despite all the murdering and raping and conniving. Because of God, David was great because God made him so and his flaws just showed how good God was at his job.

Thus and so, the reasoning goes, even though Trump is flawed (the polite way of saying “a hot mess”), God has chosen him to be Der Leader to show that God can take even the vilest spittoon of a person and make him great. So even though Trump is about as Christian as a rabid pig, Christians are duty bound to support him because God wants him to be great.

Ah, the religious mind! The wonder of it all!

Meanwhile, the portion of America that isn’t religiously insane continue to watch Trump slide. He went on to claim this was his third, and greatest win in Iowa (neither statement was true), and his main lawyers in the trials about tax fraud and defamation of E. Jean Carroll, Joe Tacopina and his two partners, Chad Seigel and Matthew DeOreo, up and quit the same day of the caucuses, showing his continued inability to keep lawyers for any length of time. Even lawyers have standards, even if the standard is only “Fuck you, pay me.”

Meanwhile, Trump continues his mastery of the religiously gullible. The morning after his win in the caucuses, he posted “President Trump: Suspend my campaign?” The grift is if he doesn’t get a million donations, he’ll drop out of the race.

Fortunately, the religiously insane are actually a small part of the population. Even amongst the GOP ultra-committed who turned out in -30F wind chills to caucus, he only managed half the vote against a nothing field.

So don’t let these nuts alarm you. He’s going down.

 

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The Indictment — Individual One meets his fate

The Indictment

Individual One meets his fate

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

March 30th, 2023

www.zeppscommentaries.online

After tossing a nasty curve yesterday by announcing the Grand Jury would be taking most of April off, Alvin Bragg put a scorcher right over the plate, announcing that the jury had found grounds to indict and the indictment would be issued. While nearly everyone was expecting an indictment, the timing took most people by surprise – including, critically, Trump and his minions.

According to CNN, Trump “faces more than 30 counts related to business fraud in an indictment from a Manhattan grand jury, according to two sources familiar with the case – the first time in American history that a current or former president has faced criminal charges.” Nobody knows what the exact counts are, so anyone declaiming that the indictment was “a miscarriage of justice” or “upholds the rule of law” is blowing smoke out their asses. I’m guessing that evidence to back the charges is likely to be pretty solid but that’s all it is; a guess. We’ll know more along about Monday or Tuesday.

Ron DeSantis, the ridiculous governor of Florida, already announced that he would not allow New York to extradite Trump. Given the constitutional mandate in such manners, DeSantis just placed one of his dainty white elevator boots on the wrong side of insurrection. That he didn’t even bother with learning what Trump has been charged with makes him look silly, futile and weak. But he has to play up to his anti-American base, the same clowns who are banning books, destroying education, and trying to outlaw entire lifestyles, philosophies and political opinions. When you are speaking for trash, it’s hard to sound classy, or even sane.

Trump is expected to turn himself in voluntarily for processing – fingerprinting, getting his Miranda, all that. He has tried to rile up his base by demanding he be cuffed and perp-walked, but unless he pulls some kind of stunt, he will not be, since the charges, while in some cases are likely serious felonies, are all non-violent and first offenses. American cops are notoriously deferential to wealthy white people, especially if there isn’t cause to break a few windows to play up to the public. I did suggest that if Trump did pull something that required him to be cuffed (unlikely, I admit, since Trump isn’t the sort to defy someone with a gun) that some fuzzy pink handcuffs of the sort people use on bondage-play sex games be used. The dignity of the occasion must be observed, you know.

The rest of the GOP circus are obediently lining up to defend their lord and master, of course. In a party as thoroughly sold-out and cowardly, did anyone expect anything else? Most still don’t dare defy Trump; some are doubtlessly hoping the indictment will give Trump a boost in the polls and thus shine some light on them for supporting him.

That notion may seem odd, but there is historical precedent: when the Republican GOP impeached Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky thing, his ratings climbed. In fact, the day the Senate acquitted him, his rating were the highest he reached in two terms.

The two situations aren’t the same, though. People – including many of the people who wanted Clinton disgraced and forced from office – knew that the impeachment was purely a political animal, and that the charges – lying about getting a blow job from a consenting adult – just weren’t that serious.

When the charges are released, you’ll note that “banging a porn star” won’t be among the charges. Stormy Daniels is an adult, and nobody disputes that she gave consent. Thus, it isn’t a crime.

Had Bill Clinton taken a hundred thousand dollars and had his lawyer pay Monica for her silence, and then misrepresented where the funds came from and what they were for subsequently, he would have been convicted by the Senate, expelled from office, and might even have done some jail time, since those, unlike casual sex, are felonies. White collar crime, to be sure, but still felonies. That’s the big difference between what Clinton was facing and what Trump is facing. Clinton was guilty of indiscretion. That’s not even a misdemeanor. It doesn’t even rise to the level of a parking ticket.

When the counts are enumerated, any ‘bounce’ Trump may enjoy over the weekend should dissipate fairly rapidly. If CNN is right and there are more than thirty counts pending, that should make a pretty daunting array of legal instruments brought to bear against Donald.

Also keep in mind that indictments in the Georgia vote-tampering case and the events of January 6th are still pending. That’s a bigger pair of avalanches looming over Trump.

I also think the open racism and threats that some of Trump’s supporters are making will undermine him, as well. Describing Alvin Bragg, the DA, as “George Soros funded” is not only untrue, but is a dog whistle. Anyone saying that is actually saying “dirty joos that secretly run the world are controlling a puppet DA.” It’s shabby, it’s tawdry, it’s disgraceful, and most people are better than that. The threats – including the white powder sent to the DA office will put a lot of people off.

And Faux News, historically Trump’s biggest promoter, have self-negated their cause with the evidence showing their dishonesty and hypocrisy regarding Trump. So I don’t see anything more than a ripple of support from the general public, one quelled by the tsunami of fake rage, threats, and general viciousness from the performance artists of the right. Their act is deader than Vaudeville but they haven’t realized it yet.

But they’ll do what damage they can, oblivious to the fact that most of the damage will be against Trump.

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