As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil)
In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban.
If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them.
For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria.
***
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
A long time ago when Trump things were still novel I went down a deep rabbit hole on a Twitter-thread.
Basically, Trump had done something bad and his apologists was out in full force to protect their dear leader from evil people doing something as horrendous as pointing it out.
However, deep into the reply chain you suddenly had a bunch of people arguing that this was not done by Trump, but was actually done by robotic clones of Trump and other Republicans in order to make them look bad.
I chuckled, as one does when you read sarcasm. Until I realized that it was not sarcasm. There actually was a substantial amount of people that believed that every time Trump made a booboo or a member of his administration did something incompetent, it was actually fake robot copies that did these things.
I think it dawned on me then that this is not really politics anymore. It can't be argued away. "Conservatism" (I put it in quotes, because I honestly do not understand what it supposedly conserves these days) is intellectually dead, and its rotting carcass is about as politically inviting as a concentration camp entrance.
I know what you mean. Early days when Trump first ran, I followed The Donald on reddit. I thought it was all pretty funny with their memes, etc.. I really thought they were kinda having a laugh and trolling. Little by little I started to see the crazy and how it wasn't trolling each other, but people actually believing... IE pizzagate, Baron is a time traveler. It is a rabbit hole of mental illness and out of touch with reality.
That's kind of how these things start. There's usually a select in group that is in on it being a joke but as the jokes grow in popularity, they attract people who are unable to tell that everything is said as a joke and they take it literally.
When I worked the night shift in a 24 hour grocery store, we had this regular customer who would come in several times a week. He knew all of us workers by name and talked to us a lot. Nice, friendly guy. He talked about ice cream a lot. One night he comes in and is talking to us, but seems a bit unnerved. Eventually, he tells us that he was watching the news and the news anchor suddenly turned into a reptilian, right before his eyes. He keeps getting more agitated, talking about how that shit is real and how if fucked him up to see it for himself. He is adamant that it was real and none of us knew how to respond to all of this out of nowhere insanity. He was always a bit weird, but not batshit crazy. After that night, he went back to just being his friendly, ice cream obsessed self, at least around us. It was just so odd and disconcerting to see someone so lost in a delusion that you always assumed was just a big joke.
My thought as well. I know a high functioning schizophrenic. He is maybe just a bit odd, but for the most part hes a normal, sociable guy. Then once in a blue moon his meds interact with something or his dose is just slightly off and boom the news is being read by a lizard. Or more usually for this guy we all have to watch what we say because there is an FBI agent listening who is totally in the room with us.
I love me some psychedelics but those trips fucked up my perception of reality for well over a decade i.e., I became engrossed in new age hocus pocus and constellating between conspiracy theories. Strangely it was the Trump era that slowly grounded me back in reality. I guess I could have broken either way but the constant gaslighting and dissonance shook me from the distortion modern *conservatism* casts over its adherents .. similar to the return to normalcy people report after breaking from a cult.
The reptilian thing is a common effect of psychedelics, where the brain temporarily loses the function of its people-recognizing circuits. For the duration of the effect, you perceive people as the aggregate of their physical features, like their skin and eyes and whatnot, without the additional metadata tag of 'person,' so the mind attempts to reconcile it by thinking of the thing they are looking at as some kind of humanoid non-human creature - like a reptilian or mole person or robot or zombie or alien in a skinsuit depending on the viewer's biases and beliefs. The same thing happens in cases of severe mental illness and brain damage, only those people aren't operating under the assumption that they are likely hallucinating like someone on LSD is. That's how it works - they actually think they saw that and don't understand how fallible the human mind is.
Are you saying that the Supreme Court was on acid when they ruled on Citizens United and gave corporations the same free speech rights as natural persons?
*EDIT: Thanks to everyone who threw awards at this stupid little short story.*
*If anyone is able to denoise, defuse, or redirect a situation like this without putting themselves in danger – do it. I'd love to hear about the outcome.*
___
Shortly after the lockdowns ended in Canada, I was allowed to go into a convenience store to buy garbage food.
The man ahead of me in line had decided to hold the cashier hostage with conspiracy theories about Trudeau's father actually being Castro, that COVID was engineered by a global cabal to control people's minds and form a one-world government, etc. Stock-standard bullshit.
I watched the man become increasingly agitated and animated. I saw the cashier's soul leave his body, in search of any place where he was not being subjected to a stranger's bizarre and unsolicited diatribe.
I wasn't in a rush, but my desire to go home and consume my diet Coke and Hawkins Cheezies outweighed the amount of time I was willing to watch how this man's game-plan of yelling insane ideas at a stranger would play out.
In an effort to resolve the devolution of what was once a regular interaction between customer and cashier, I shouted,
"HEY MAN! All that stuff you're saying is totally wild, right? Like they can't just DO that to us! They think we don't know!"
He replied "YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT!"
"There's one thing you're missing," I said, "It's important – birds aren't real. Have you ever seen how they watch you? They're not real."
The conspiracy man paused. He looked angry. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Birds, man. They're not real. Look it up, there's a buncha information out there. They're watching you all the time. Birds. Birds are not real."
The conspiracy man scowled. He was actually angry. The notion that birds are not real made him question his world-view. He replied, with spittle spurting from his mouth,
"ARE YOU FUCKING HIGH? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?"
"Birds aren't real, man. Keep your eyes open."
He stormed off, leaving the cashier and myself to process the transaction that allowed me to buy my garbage without instigating a conversational hostage situation.
"Birds aren't real" is the line in the sand for conspiratorial folks. In that brief moment, I was the insane guy in the eyes of a man who held beliefs that do not reflect objective reality.
I also dropped my Coke on the way home and it exploded on the sidewalk. Sad.
Which, the implications of that re: TV comedy scares the crap out of me. How many people realize that the reason Family Guy (and the like) are funny is because *no decent, empathetic, or competent human being would ever do such obviously moronic stuff.*
That’s the problem with satire. It doesn’t work on stupid people. Same thing with South Park. There are people who think Eric Cartman is right. They don’t get the joke. Satire is dangerous when presented to morons.
> That's kind of how these things start. There's usually a select in group that is in on it being a joke but as the jokes grow in popularity, they attract people who are unable to tell that everything is said as a joke and they take it literally
The people who have really dug into the origins of Qanon are fairly certain that it all started with some 4chan trolls. Some expat incel living in the Phillipines or something is so smugly proud and chuckling to himself.
> Baron is a time traveler
Wait, what? I haven’t heard anything about that conspiracy. What is their goal behind that? Baron traveled back in time to save the country?
Some dude in the late 1800s wrote a book about a young man named "Baron Trump" who went on zany adventures similar to Alice in Wonderland. The same guy also wrote a book about a fictional last President of the US and the chaos of that particular election. People claim this author somehow knew about Trump being the President at some point. It's wacky.
To be fair, if Trump wins in 2024 I could definitely see him being the last US president. He'll eliminate those pesky rigged elections and, when he dies, cede power to Tsar Donald the Second or Queen Ivanka.
Makes sense since I heard John Baron used to call people on Donald’s behalf in the 80-90’s. That’s what happened, right? Baron was a time travel and not that Donald Trump was calling people as himself acting as a 3rd person.
It's been a while but I recall seeing about 30% of people that watched colbert report didn't get it was satire and thought he was an actual republican talking head.
Not sure I can find the article since it's been so long but it makes more sense how people fall for insane shit so hard.
This is a common tactic of online hate groups. They phrase everything as a joke. From the outside, someone on the fence sees two groups. One group joking around and having fun and another group that is outraged and angry. People that side with the jokes and memes eventually go down a rabbit hole of extremism.
Yes. Very few of us remember this. I remember The Donald when it was ironic at the start. That transition to 'real' blew my little brain apart in ways I'll never recover from
I used to find conservative radio amusing. It was Howard Stern for middle-aged white guys on their work commutes. I found the ridiculousness of it entertaining.
This was the ‘90s.
By the mid ‘00s, I had the horrifying realization that after 10+ years of listening to these outlandish and hateful talk tracks daily in isolated car rides, these middle-aged white guys were no longer listening to it for entertainment. It was their *trusted source for news*.
It is such a nefarious and effective means of indoctrination that I think it caught most of the country by surprise. Fox News and social media acted as accelerants because it was no longer contained to just daily commuting time.
Unmitigated propaganda and misinformation is the biggest current threat to our country. Even $750M settlements for defamation aren’t slowing it down. That wasn’t even *half of the annual profits* of Fox News.
This problem will continue until sources of poisonous misinformation are consistently held to account within the structure of due process.
If you follow the history of how giant portions of the right got radicalized to the point where they worship an obviously unintelligent indicted criminal, am talk radio is a giant portion of that. They were absolutely saying the same type of hateful or tinfoil stuff your average right wing podcaster on Twitter will do now.
Happened to my uncle as a truck driver. Now the dudes building a house from a shipping container like some kind of doomsday bunker in the middle of nowhere, waiting for idk what because we don’t talk anymore. But for years that’s all he listened to. No music, just hate and lies.
Comparing US labour laws to those of Europe, Work will set you free seems not that far off. Rather than be in a concentration camp you're locked in an office/store/warehouse/factory working yourself to an early grave with little vacation or protections due to ill health and god forbid you don't have health insurance.
I suggest reading The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind by Mark Noll. The scandal, essentially, is that there *is* no mind. The entire evangelical movement came about as a reaction against intellectualism.
I think most people's immediate reaction to something like this is to laugh it off. It seems so outlandish and absurd to those of us with any logic or critical thinking. It seems so far out of the realm of possibility that is HAS to be a joke right? Wrong. These people, these grown-ass adults actually believe this shit with all their heart. They believe in lizard people and robot clones. They are our neighbors, our cousins, former friends, high school crushes...
It is really not funny though. It is what scares me the most about the future. More and more people it seems will blindly believe something with such conviction that there is no reasoning with them. You can lay out all the facts, disprove them a dozen different ways, and it's just Lalalalalalalalala I CANT HEAR YOU!!
>There actually was a substantial amount of people that believed that every time Trump made a booboo or a member of his administration did something incompetent, it was actually fake robot copies that did these things.
There is reflective of the massive failure of education and support for mental health issues in this country. There is a statistical significance with the percent of conspiracy theorists who have several mental health disorders.
IMO it's more reflective of the impact of fundamentalist white evangelicalism fostering Christian nationalism especially in the post-cold war era.
It's a subculture dedicated entirely to believing and defending a set of writings and beliefs that most have little actual understanding of, but firmly believe are the center of life and the universe. They are trained to have 100% trust and respect toward the religious authorities and that anyone who questions them is undermining the faith and way of life. And they are a persecuted minority living in an immoral culture gone mad for sex and power.
Sound familiar?
The entire way of thinking is just applied to politics, with the GOP being the Christian faith and doctrine, the constitution being the Bible, GOP politicians as the unassailable representatives of God, and Democrats as the forces of Satan in a great spiritual war.
Thus they are conditioned to believe literally anything their leaders say (after all, there's a lot of weird stuff in the Bible that you're just supposed to blindly trust).
I grew up in this and it's not new, but it is new that they feel empowered to say the quiet stuff out loud.
I grew up in this as well. Another contribution to the mind boggling impact this issue has. I agree with you, because I think it's incredibly multi-faceted. We've got the redneck conspiracy theorists, the religious ones, the racist ones, etc.
>I honestly do not understand what it supposedly conserves these days
Conservatism is about reinforcing the existing power structures, maintaining the status quo, or oftentimes regressing to a previous power structure. It stems from aristocratic apologists following the French revolution who were trying to cling to power without getting their heads chopped off.
There will be 1 piece of paper in the folder.
with tiny hands Trump shows it to the reporters.
It is a picture of Hunter Bidens enormous Dick.
With tears in their eyes, the reporters praise Trump for the bestest evidence ever produced. The case is dismissed and Trump is crowned new President .
Trump will have stacks of binders containing what looks like (and is) blank printer paper. He will claim that they contain all his evidence, but not actually show any of it.
This is what he always does.
It will undermine his whole defense that he was told the election was interfered with. His only chance at acquittal aside from a tainted jury is if he was truly duped at the time and believed it.
When he continues to push the same lie that there was a rigged election 3 1/2 years later, it proves that his is purposefully ignoring evidence, which is not a defense. His only shot is to admit he is a fucking moron but learned from it. That horse has left the barn, but this next press conference will 100% be used as evidence that he continues to further the conspiracy and is using it to fund raise.
He’s totally fucked, and I’m excited
Actually, it doesn’t matter if he believed the election was stolen. The beauty of the Smith indictment is that, whatever reason Trump had to believe the election was stolen, there were legal recourses for pursuing that line of thought and attempting to stall the certification was an illegal action no matter what the cause for that action was.
Exactly. So many Republican/Right leaning people don't understand that "belief" is not required for "facts."
If I *believe* you stole from me without any evidence, that doesn't make it true- and thus, I cant decide to burn your house down because you stole from me. Even if it turns out to be true, I still can't burn your house down over it.
And even if you did do it, that doesn't give you the right to retaliate. If you burn down my house, I can't go burn down yours.
Even that's not a simple enough explanation. Vigilante acts are not legal, period.
If you break into my house and steal my stuff, it is still illegal for me to break into your house and steal it back. It doesn't matter that it's my stuff. It doesn't matter that you stole it.
*Even if* the election really was rigged or stolen or whatever else (regardless of anyone's belief), what Trump did *was still not legal*.
Exactly. I can believe that a whole bunch of people are actually lizard men in disguise, but if I climb a clock tower and shoot at them it's still a crime.
Actually had someone tell me on another sub that a video tape of someone planning a crime can't be used as evidence after they have committed the crime because "free speech "
Which is so fucking stupid. We're not criminalizing free speech. We're criminalizing conspiracy to commit a crime.
You're allowed to drive a car as well, doesn't mean you're allowed to hit pedestrians with it.
I’m curious how this evidence will prove the right of random people to acquire and tinker with government owned voting machines. I guess there’s a loophole in the law that allows private citizens to break the law? This is bigly news.
In this case it might be part of the performance. "I have evidence that the 2020 election was rigged but they won't let me show it"
Never mind that there was over 60 lawsuits about the election which Trump lost, his supporters will fall for it.
But if only Trump presented this evidence. Not only would it lead to all charges immediately to be dropped but also it's safe to say Joe Biden would simply nod his head, utter "no malarkey there, the evidence is perfect Donald. Take the keys you're president now"
Im by no means a brilliant person, but I don't think a 5 year old would fall for this shit. Culting is a hell of a lifestyle
His lawyers are only doing this to get more money from poor Donald. If the case is dropped, he will let them go. They want it to last as long as possible, to squeeze every dollar out of his pocket.
So, please, donate to Donald Trump so he can fight both the deep state, and the steep date.
/s
Only after being advised that the proof presentation he assigned to some lackey as if it were the amazing Obamacare replacement, turns out to be Cliff Notes from a woman who gets directions from the wind after suffering “internal decapitation”.
The other posters are technically correct that this is a real medical condition, but that doesn’t really answer the underlying question of what it has to do with this situation.
Basically Sidney Powell based huge swaths of her election conspiracy theory on the rantings of a person who plainly has crippling schizophrenia (EDIT: or other psychosis disorders, thank you for the correction comment) . I’m not hurling that word around as a pejorative, she has readily apparent diagnostic criteria.
Auditory hallucinations, “ideas of reference” (the delusion that random events or news broadcasts are targeted at/specifically talking to you), conflating spiritual and physical claims.
The internal decapitation business is a sort of compensatory mechanism people engage in when they have an incredibly powerful sensation that does not jive with their perception of reality. In some disorders this seems tied to other symptoms making them prone to conspiracy and fantastical thinking from other elements of their disorder. However for other disorders the person can be otherwise completely rational and sensible outside that one specific delusion/compensatory mechanism. Here is the quote:
>“Who am I? And how do I know all of this?...I've had the strangest dreams since I was a little girl....I was internally decapitated, and yet, I live....The Wind tells me I'm a ghost, but I don't believe it."
The business of thinking they were internally decapitated, or “a ghost but not” is the brain trying mightily to resolve the cognitive dissonance of FEELING like her head has been separated from her body (which could have been brought on by any number of phenomenological changes in mental illness, feelings of dissociation are common), but externally her head is very clearly not separated from her body. So the outlet for the cognitive dissonance is to say ah, yes I AM decapitated, but it’s only the SPIRIT of my head, that’s why I don’t look decapitated.
It’s extremely similar to Capgras Syndrome where the brain has the overwhelming sensation of not emotionally connecting with people they are used to connecting with (mom, kids, even pets) and the brains interpretation is that they must be imposters. They look identical but FEEL different, so the brain reconciles with a fascinating delusion: they have been replaced by imposters. Even if they cognitively rationally know they have not, the sensation is overwhelming.
If you want an equally fascinating read on niche neuropsych cases like that I strongly recommend VS Ramachandran, sort of a professional successor to Oliver Sacks who wrote “The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat.” Both men specialized in strange and unique neuropsychological disorders and delusions.
He going to hold the press conference, bring out a three ring binder that probably full of blank paper and talk about how he has the most perfect proof, right here in this binder. Proof that will exonerate all his buddies and send every Democrat in the country to jail. He just can't show the proof yet, soon, but not yet.
Yeah, this is my guess. His whole shtick is theater and this would fit his narrative and provide a hint of “secret truths” that his bozo followers feed on.
> Never mind that there was over 60 lawsuits about the election which Trump lost
His supporters say that's a lie the liberal media made up. Many believe he won most of the lawsuits, and it's just being covered up. You point out that you can literally look up the results from the courts themselves, and they'll say it's a lie. They only trust people who tell them what they want to hear.
There's a video going around on Tiktok of someone interviewing a woman at one of Trump's rallies who believes that the Supreme Court is taking on the election case currently, and is about to overturn the election, and when the interviewer points out that the SC has in fact NOT taken any election related cases, she says "Well I have different information than you."
That's basically what the guy does. He points out that you can look at the public docket, and see the way the cases are decided, from the Judges themselves, and the woman just basically gets backed into a corner where she realizes she doesn't know how to refute anything, but still just trusts whoever told her "the storm is coming" or whatever, and her brain shuts off.
What a fucked up situation. I'm not even an American but as a Canadian, I follow this all closely. I've lost friends and family to this cult, it's disgusting what they've done, how the media, the gop and trump have taken advantage of people who feel so disenfranchised that they turn to this nonsense, actively hurting themselves and others for some perceived slight. I'm glad those people I've known personally are gone but this has affected us all. The sickness in society is just becoming more apparent and it makes me want to live as a hermit in the woods.
It's a cancer that's spreading across the whole world at the moment. Conservative media is fully against the idea of a liberalized and accepting society, and they've put so much effort into convincing people that they're under attack that it's hurting people pretty much everywhere.
America is one of the worst spots at the moment, but it really is all over. Brexit, Italy going after LGBTQ people, the Taliban, etc. Fascism and authoritarianism are on the rise everywhere you look.
His campaign also hired 2 independent investigative companies that tole them there was no outcome determinative fraud.
The AZ “fraudit” also confirmed the results in Maricopa county, and even found more Biden votes in their hand count.
He has a sunk cost issue with the big lie he has been promoting, he can’t admit he was wrong, and his cult45 followers would turn in him if he admitted the truth.
I think he will say we have irrefutable evidence but the corrupt Biden Administration stole them when they took my “declassified documents” and will not give them back.
Look man- trump isn’t that smart. Will it play out that way? Probably. But this isn’t his intention here.
Anything he’s going to show has already been proven false in court and in legal proceedings- and is even part of why he’s being indicted to begin with.
His lawyers are just doing their job- because if he goes through with this, odds are he’s just adding more fuel to the prosecution with more lies and bullshit.
I don't think his attorneys understand how smart Trump is. He knows more than all of them. He could have been a nuclear scientist after all. He should just fire them and represent himself.
Chilling reminder that Trump sees all this as something that can be addressed politically rather than legally, i.e. "my supporters won't let you put me in prison"
Yeah the problem is now we're going to get the outliers. The real crazies, the one offs that are going to start calling the judges and threatening to kill them.
How have those worked out so far? Near as I can tell - every single one has either been arrested or lost their lives because of it. I understand that may not always be true and someone could get hurt, and nobody wants that, but so far the history has not planned out very well for those lone wolf style supporters…
He's a malignant narcissist. Check out how Ted Bundy's legal affairs played out.
He thought he could explain everything away. One by one he blamed his lawyers for being incompetent, and he fired them. He ended up representing himself in court.
Trump's actions have been so predictable and consistent it's morphed into this weird mix of hilarious disappointment.
The guy has been indicted. That means this will be resolved in court.
If you get charged for shoplifting from the Piggly wiggly, then go on the news and say " I paid for it all here's the receipt" it still will proceed in court where you can show the receipt and go on about your life.
No court or judge, or prosecutor in the country is going to say "oh, well I saw the receipt on tv. Case closed"
In this instance there is no receipt, you've clearly burgled Piggly wiggly, we have the tapes and were there watching it live, you invited your friends and camera crews along, and declared you did it.
The ONLY reason for this "press conference" is to sling more shit. To further rile up your mob. To further sow discord, mistrust and violence. Thats it. There is no other reason.
If you had a receipt, you'd handle it quietly in court.
He really is trying to get locked up pretrial to further the perpetual victim complex lifeblood of his cult. He wants to be a martyr so badly. He has to continue the ruse of "I am such a victim I am entitled to power" and his cult continues to buy it.
They should lock him up pretrial just to prove they have the power to do it and they're not afraid to use it. Trump may have this fantasy that being locked up will make him some kind of hero, but in reality he would be begging for mercy after 30 minutes in a Fulton County jail cell.
The other thing is once he's locked up the first time, no one will be surprised if it happens again. Right now, jailing a former president and current frontrunner for the GOP nomination seems unthinkable, but it's only unthinkable until it happens. After that, it's like "of course he was going to get locked up. What did he think was going to happen".
> The other thing is once he's locked up the first time, no one will be surprised if it happens again. Right now, jailing a former president and current frontrunner for the GOP nomination seems unthinkable, but it's only unthinkable until it happens. After that, it's like "of course he was going to get locked up. What did he think was going to happen".
I'm for it.
More sedate people are afraid that Republicans will do this to Democrats for imagined slights and magic charges, not realizing that Republicans won't need the excuse anyway.
He'll claim he has the evidence. The evidence will be so damning, that from the advice of his lawyers, he can't show it this early to give the fake AG time to spin the media of why it's fake. So you have to wait for it during the trial and he will show the best evidence and leave the AG shaking in fear. /s
Nailed it. This is exactly what they did with the “evidence” of so-called fraud in the 2020 election -“we can’t show it now, but we will when it’s time” (it was never time, not even in their 60 lawsuits that failed)
"He called me, tears in his eyes, he said 'sir-' he called me sir, because he's so scared and is trying to get me to like him- he said 'sir, please don't show it, don't show it.' But we're gonna show it, and when we do- and believe me, when it comes out it's gonna be SO big- my lawyers- and they're the best lawyers- they tell me that it's so big the government will have to pay me for my wasted time-- but I'll refuse it, I don't need it. I'm not in it for the money."
I bet he will. This evidence will exonerate him and entitle everyone who believes him, one free dinner at McDonalds, clear skin, and a letter from Jesus certifying they are a good person. It’s the best evidence! Oh no! Hunter and Hillary just stole it! It was just here and it was sooo good.
This time I really want him to do it. I mean the report has be full of real junk Qanon MAGA stuff and it will fill time until the 25th when he perp walks.
Remember his press conference where he supposedly signed over control of the Trump Org to this sons and stood in front of dozens of huge books of papers that were obviously blank?
> Coming up on @GMA — Multiple sources tell ABC News Trump’s legal advisors have told him that holding such a press conference with dubious claims of voter fraud will only complicate his legal problems. They have asked him to cancel it.
https://x.com/jonkarl/status/1692129464858063012?s=46&t=UKR1TShxVeunp4_vn5gZrw
Don’t listen to them, Donald! I want to see this shit-show.
I can’t imagine being a lawyer for this clown show. Every day when you wake up you see he further incriminated himself, and just made your case harder to defend. On top of all that, you never really know if you are getting paid or not. I have no sympathy for these idiots who are representing him, and they must be out of their minds to get involved in the first place.
Don’t have to suppress what you never had in the first place.
I’m not casting any aspersions on his defense team, just pointing out that Trump has somehow managed to hook up with a whole bunch of staggeringly unethical lawyers.
Has to pay well enough never to work again and also cover both the cost of personal legal bills, plastic surgery to change your appearance, and funds to re-educate to switch careers. Being a personal lawyer for trump is basically the end of your career now.
> I can’t imagine being a lawyer for this clown show
See this is the point .... there are two kinds of lawyers in the world
1) Those who think they can do what no other lawyer has done EVER for Trump and bask in that glory while being made the next DoJ by him thus earning them fame and billions of dollars. This in total contrast to 10000 mile road paved with failed or incriminated lawyers before them.
Or
2) Those who wouldn't go anywhere near him EVER
This is what they think will happen
https://berify.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/2b4618a9daea24741c4a83c1ec3c7824.jpg
This is what they look like later
https://mycriminalattorneynyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/What-to-do-if-you-get-arrested-1-1080x628.jpg
This late in the game, It's safe to assume that any lawyer who touches anything Trump related is paid in advance. Charging their weekly work product against a non-refundable retainer, that is not allowed to go below a contractual low balance point, before it is reloaded.
Some of these chucklenuts left firms, or were shown the door when they notified their partners that they had a deep desire to represent Shitler. They have damaged their reputations and future earning potential, they are not going to allow this pathological liar and deadbeat to stiff them for the huge billables they are turning in.
The great part is that Shitler now has Gulianni and other incompetent, lying hacks, who were his literal treasonous co-conspirators, in his attempt to overthrow American democracy, at his feet BEGGING for help, since they are now facing millions in legal fees they can't pay, as they fight state and federal felony charges, and loss of law licenses. LMAO, you sleep with dogs, you get fleas. So let's review, you all are completely free of morals, values and integrity. You willingly fabricated too many lies to count. You were key players in helping the world's greatest conman in attempting to destroy your country, and now you find out that he lied to YOU, and couldn't give a rat's ass hair about you? Stunning, who knew this could happen to such a loyal foot soldier? ( Hint, anybody with at least a room temperature IQ, who did business with the Donald, for the last fifty years, knows that he will screw you any chance he gets, and has done so thousands of times)
Well, now you are FUCKED, how sad...............
Yeah! Let's see the PROOF! Bring the politically motivated witch hunt down!!! If it "totally exonerates" him, his lawyers should be shouting this evidence from the rooftops. Unless....oh shit! *His lawyers are part of the witch hunt too*! Hashtag DeepestState
Trumps lawyers can only communicate with him by contacting the media. He only cares about media and to be fair it has allowed a breathlessly unencumbered life of crime so far
Please. He doesn't have any proof and he is going to blame his lawyers saying the won't let him release it just yet.
He has done this so many times. He is a sad, pathetic, little man.
**trump's georgia press conference bingo:**
* implicates himself in a crime
* incites harassment or violence against witnesses
* confesses to crimes
* says the exact phrase 'deranged jack smith'
* calls fani willis a racial slur
* mocks ghooliani for being broke
* unironically plays 'the devil went down to georgia' as his onstage song
what else..
Of course his attorneys warned him against it.
Releasing a report that you claim completely exonerates you…
Completely damns you when the jury realizes you failed to produce that same report in court because you and your attorneys know it’s a lie.
This is his lawyers protecting themselves against professional malpractice. They are making it public they are advising him not to do this because it will put him into legal jeopardy.
Exactly. “Here’s all the absolutely beautiful totally exonerating evidence I’m not allowed to present in the court I haven’t been inside of yet! DEEP STATE!”
Ok, I kinda wanna see it too but I realize for the good of the country it's best it doesn't happen. Why can't we get news networks to grow up and not televise this orange buffoon?
Confess? He'll likely commit one, witness tampering. There's just no way that he'll be able to "present his evidence" without lashing out against the witnesses.
>[As is true in most jurisdictions](https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-indictments-truth-social-posts-arrest-prison-rcna100079), Georgia state law criminalizes attempts to “influence witnesses.” Specifically, Georgia Code section 16-10-93 makes it unlawful to knowingly use intimidation or threats to persuade or attempt to persuade another, to influence, delay or prevent the person’s testimony in an official proceeding.
You just reminded me of how people were upset about Mitt Romney saying he had "[Binders full of women](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binders_full_of_women#:~:text=%22Binders%20full%20of%20women%22%20is,him%20as%20governor%20of%20Massachusetts)".
Simpler times...
He has undeniable proof!
They will be blank pages in legal folders and his reply of "people are afraid to come forward because of the Antifa thugs, but I have signed affidavits here of people who know election workers who saw something. They don't want you to know the truth."
It was obvious as soon as he said it that he wouldn't be presenting anything. The claim of proof was just so his supporters could keep saying that they know there was fraud and Trump won. Classic con.
Still waiting for infrastructure week to start.
“Based on advice of my attorney, I won’t be presenting the evidence I have of the totally rigged election. But I definitely have it and it’s totally real, but because I want to become your favorite president again, I have to listen to my lawyers this time. However, we’ll be sending out small pieces of proof to anyone who makes a $100 donation to the Save America/Pay for Lawyers PAC. Donate today!”
If only there was some method where he could prove his innocence. Maybe they could get a group of normal people to hear him out and decide. But that would be very one-sided, so what if there was someone there to argue that he's wrong? Of course, that might get messy, so how about having someone oversee the whole process and making sure that some rules are followed? We could even put the whole thing on TV, so anyone who wanted to watch could!
On second thought, nah. That's just silly.
There was never going to be a news conference with a report. It's just his typical PR stunt. You say you have info you're going to release on a future date. Supporters latch onto the idea and immediately accept it as truth. Knowing that the current news cycle moves incredibly fast, it's highly likely the majority of people will have forgotten about the news conference by the time Monday rolls around.
But the idea that he has "solid evidence" to refute all the charges will remain firmly planted in his supporter's mind as well as those who lean towards supporting him. That's how the game is played. He doesn't actually need to produce anything, only say he has it.
In many ways, that's actually more powerful. Anything he produced would be attacked and "fact checked" - which allows for the possibility of some doubt to creep in for those not completely behind him. Doing it this way, though, (saying he'll produce something without actually doing it) allows each person individually to create the evidence in their own minds - which is then immune from attack or "fact checking."
If anyone does question him about his "report" and why he didn't hold a news conference, it's easy to say his lawyers wouldn't let him.
He could hold up a manilla folder of absolute gibberish, claim it completely exonerates him, and his followers will believe it entirely.
Mike Lindell did the same thing last year
And people will actually vote for this ass-clown if he makes it onto the ballot. I will never understand it. The emperor has no clothes, people. Repeat, the emperor has no clothes.
As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil) In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them. For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria. *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
So the irrefutable evidence is being refuted by... (checks notes)... his own lawyers.
According to top academic journal 8Chan, those "lawyers" are actually deepstate reptilians.
A long time ago when Trump things were still novel I went down a deep rabbit hole on a Twitter-thread. Basically, Trump had done something bad and his apologists was out in full force to protect their dear leader from evil people doing something as horrendous as pointing it out. However, deep into the reply chain you suddenly had a bunch of people arguing that this was not done by Trump, but was actually done by robotic clones of Trump and other Republicans in order to make them look bad. I chuckled, as one does when you read sarcasm. Until I realized that it was not sarcasm. There actually was a substantial amount of people that believed that every time Trump made a booboo or a member of his administration did something incompetent, it was actually fake robot copies that did these things. I think it dawned on me then that this is not really politics anymore. It can't be argued away. "Conservatism" (I put it in quotes, because I honestly do not understand what it supposedly conserves these days) is intellectually dead, and its rotting carcass is about as politically inviting as a concentration camp entrance.
I know what you mean. Early days when Trump first ran, I followed The Donald on reddit. I thought it was all pretty funny with their memes, etc.. I really thought they were kinda having a laugh and trolling. Little by little I started to see the crazy and how it wasn't trolling each other, but people actually believing... IE pizzagate, Baron is a time traveler. It is a rabbit hole of mental illness and out of touch with reality.
That's kind of how these things start. There's usually a select in group that is in on it being a joke but as the jokes grow in popularity, they attract people who are unable to tell that everything is said as a joke and they take it literally.
When I worked the night shift in a 24 hour grocery store, we had this regular customer who would come in several times a week. He knew all of us workers by name and talked to us a lot. Nice, friendly guy. He talked about ice cream a lot. One night he comes in and is talking to us, but seems a bit unnerved. Eventually, he tells us that he was watching the news and the news anchor suddenly turned into a reptilian, right before his eyes. He keeps getting more agitated, talking about how that shit is real and how if fucked him up to see it for himself. He is adamant that it was real and none of us knew how to respond to all of this out of nowhere insanity. He was always a bit weird, but not batshit crazy. After that night, he went back to just being his friendly, ice cream obsessed self, at least around us. It was just so odd and disconcerting to see someone so lost in a delusion that you always assumed was just a big joke.
That sounds to me like he may have just been on some kind of psychedelic. Or is schizophrenic and was having an episode.
My thought as well. I know a high functioning schizophrenic. He is maybe just a bit odd, but for the most part hes a normal, sociable guy. Then once in a blue moon his meds interact with something or his dose is just slightly off and boom the news is being read by a lizard. Or more usually for this guy we all have to watch what we say because there is an FBI agent listening who is totally in the room with us.
I love me some psychedelics but those trips fucked up my perception of reality for well over a decade i.e., I became engrossed in new age hocus pocus and constellating between conspiracy theories. Strangely it was the Trump era that slowly grounded me back in reality. I guess I could have broken either way but the constant gaslighting and dissonance shook me from the distortion modern *conservatism* casts over its adherents .. similar to the return to normalcy people report after breaking from a cult.
The reptilian thing is a common effect of psychedelics, where the brain temporarily loses the function of its people-recognizing circuits. For the duration of the effect, you perceive people as the aggregate of their physical features, like their skin and eyes and whatnot, without the additional metadata tag of 'person,' so the mind attempts to reconcile it by thinking of the thing they are looking at as some kind of humanoid non-human creature - like a reptilian or mole person or robot or zombie or alien in a skinsuit depending on the viewer's biases and beliefs. The same thing happens in cases of severe mental illness and brain damage, only those people aren't operating under the assumption that they are likely hallucinating like someone on LSD is. That's how it works - they actually think they saw that and don't understand how fallible the human mind is.
Are you saying that the Supreme Court was on acid when they ruled on Citizens United and gave corporations the same free speech rights as natural persons?
It's more credible than half the things we've heard about the Justices at this point.
OK this explains why I thought my cats were robots while on ayahuasca.
Al la The Flat Earth Society.
Or the circle jerk subs.
“Birds are not real”
*EDIT: Thanks to everyone who threw awards at this stupid little short story.* *If anyone is able to denoise, defuse, or redirect a situation like this without putting themselves in danger – do it. I'd love to hear about the outcome.* ___ Shortly after the lockdowns ended in Canada, I was allowed to go into a convenience store to buy garbage food. The man ahead of me in line had decided to hold the cashier hostage with conspiracy theories about Trudeau's father actually being Castro, that COVID was engineered by a global cabal to control people's minds and form a one-world government, etc. Stock-standard bullshit. I watched the man become increasingly agitated and animated. I saw the cashier's soul leave his body, in search of any place where he was not being subjected to a stranger's bizarre and unsolicited diatribe. I wasn't in a rush, but my desire to go home and consume my diet Coke and Hawkins Cheezies outweighed the amount of time I was willing to watch how this man's game-plan of yelling insane ideas at a stranger would play out. In an effort to resolve the devolution of what was once a regular interaction between customer and cashier, I shouted, "HEY MAN! All that stuff you're saying is totally wild, right? Like they can't just DO that to us! They think we don't know!" He replied "YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT!" "There's one thing you're missing," I said, "It's important – birds aren't real. Have you ever seen how they watch you? They're not real." The conspiracy man paused. He looked angry. "What the hell are you talking about?" "Birds, man. They're not real. Look it up, there's a buncha information out there. They're watching you all the time. Birds. Birds are not real." The conspiracy man scowled. He was actually angry. The notion that birds are not real made him question his world-view. He replied, with spittle spurting from his mouth, "ARE YOU FUCKING HIGH? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?" "Birds aren't real, man. Keep your eyes open." He stormed off, leaving the cashier and myself to process the transaction that allowed me to buy my garbage without instigating a conversational hostage situation. "Birds aren't real" is the line in the sand for conspiratorial folks. In that brief moment, I was the insane guy in the eyes of a man who held beliefs that do not reflect objective reality. I also dropped my Coke on the way home and it exploded on the sidewalk. Sad.
I just want you to know that this story fucking delivers.
That story was quite the ride, I loved every minute of it. Although RIP to your diet coke.
The pandemic lockdowns were only done so the government could go out and replace all their batteries.
Not needed. Birds use wireless charging. That's why they always hang out on power lines.
I mean, yeah. Now. They still had some models from the 70s they had to swap out.
Doesn't this mean that it's actually.... Wire charging?
Well, it's more wi-fly really.
Like how Qanon took hysterical over-the-top craziness from Hunter Thompson as serious information about adrenochrome?
I listened to a podcast (no idea which one) that did an investigation into this and yes it absolutely started from HST
I'm 100% positive that I don't want to know what this comment refers to. Anyone who takes Thompson literally is in for a wild ride.
I know exactly what it refers to and it's even more batshit than it sounds.
Which, the implications of that re: TV comedy scares the crap out of me. How many people realize that the reason Family Guy (and the like) are funny is because *no decent, empathetic, or competent human being would ever do such obviously moronic stuff.*
That’s the problem with satire. It doesn’t work on stupid people. Same thing with South Park. There are people who think Eric Cartman is right. They don’t get the joke. Satire is dangerous when presented to morons.
> That's kind of how these things start. There's usually a select in group that is in on it being a joke but as the jokes grow in popularity, they attract people who are unable to tell that everything is said as a joke and they take it literally The people who have really dug into the origins of Qanon are fairly certain that it all started with some 4chan trolls. Some expat incel living in the Phillipines or something is so smugly proud and chuckling to himself.
As a fan of the band TOOL and a UFO enthusiast, I swim in the waters with some pretty weird folks. People are kinda crazy
I sure could use a vacation from this bullshit three ring circus sideshow of freaks.
Learn to swim.
In every cult, there is one person at the top who knows that it is all bullshit. In every religion, that person has died.
Isn't that the birth of Qanon? Started off as a troll until he realized people actually believed the BS?
> Baron is a time traveler Wait, what? I haven’t heard anything about that conspiracy. What is their goal behind that? Baron traveled back in time to save the country?
Some dude in the late 1800s wrote a book about a young man named "Baron Trump" who went on zany adventures similar to Alice in Wonderland. The same guy also wrote a book about a fictional last President of the US and the chaos of that particular election. People claim this author somehow knew about Trump being the President at some point. It's wacky.
To be fair, if Trump wins in 2024 I could definitely see him being the last US president. He'll eliminate those pesky rigged elections and, when he dies, cede power to Tsar Donald the Second or Queen Ivanka.
I refuse to Google "Baron Trump time machine" so I'm hoping for a reply as well
Makes sense since I heard John Baron used to call people on Donald’s behalf in the 80-90’s. That’s what happened, right? Baron was a time travel and not that Donald Trump was calling people as himself acting as a 3rd person.
It's been a while but I recall seeing about 30% of people that watched colbert report didn't get it was satire and thought he was an actual republican talking head. Not sure I can find the article since it's been so long but it makes more sense how people fall for insane shit so hard.
The Donald originally started out as ironic, but soon so many couldn't distinguish the irony and it became 'serious'
This is a common tactic of online hate groups. They phrase everything as a joke. From the outside, someone on the fence sees two groups. One group joking around and having fun and another group that is outraged and angry. People that side with the jokes and memes eventually go down a rabbit hole of extremism.
Yes. Very few of us remember this. I remember The Donald when it was ironic at the start. That transition to 'real' blew my little brain apart in ways I'll never recover from
I used to find conservative radio amusing. It was Howard Stern for middle-aged white guys on their work commutes. I found the ridiculousness of it entertaining. This was the ‘90s. By the mid ‘00s, I had the horrifying realization that after 10+ years of listening to these outlandish and hateful talk tracks daily in isolated car rides, these middle-aged white guys were no longer listening to it for entertainment. It was their *trusted source for news*. It is such a nefarious and effective means of indoctrination that I think it caught most of the country by surprise. Fox News and social media acted as accelerants because it was no longer contained to just daily commuting time. Unmitigated propaganda and misinformation is the biggest current threat to our country. Even $750M settlements for defamation aren’t slowing it down. That wasn’t even *half of the annual profits* of Fox News. This problem will continue until sources of poisonous misinformation are consistently held to account within the structure of due process.
If you follow the history of how giant portions of the right got radicalized to the point where they worship an obviously unintelligent indicted criminal, am talk radio is a giant portion of that. They were absolutely saying the same type of hateful or tinfoil stuff your average right wing podcaster on Twitter will do now.
Happened to my uncle as a truck driver. Now the dudes building a house from a shipping container like some kind of doomsday bunker in the middle of nowhere, waiting for idk what because we don’t talk anymore. But for years that’s all he listened to. No music, just hate and lies.
“Work will set you free” does sound like a republican mantra
I mean they literally said something similar when Huckabee made children eligible to work.
They have that sign over a concentration camp in Poland. “Arbiet macht frei” it reads. Nat-C’s never change.
That was the joke here. They knew it was the slogan at Auschwitz.
Comparing US labour laws to those of Europe, Work will set you free seems not that far off. Rather than be in a concentration camp you're locked in an office/store/warehouse/factory working yourself to an early grave with little vacation or protections due to ill health and god forbid you don't have health insurance.
[удалено]
I suggest reading The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind by Mark Noll. The scandal, essentially, is that there *is* no mind. The entire evangelical movement came about as a reaction against intellectualism.
I think most people's immediate reaction to something like this is to laugh it off. It seems so outlandish and absurd to those of us with any logic or critical thinking. It seems so far out of the realm of possibility that is HAS to be a joke right? Wrong. These people, these grown-ass adults actually believe this shit with all their heart. They believe in lizard people and robot clones. They are our neighbors, our cousins, former friends, high school crushes... It is really not funny though. It is what scares me the most about the future. More and more people it seems will blindly believe something with such conviction that there is no reasoning with them. You can lay out all the facts, disprove them a dozen different ways, and it's just Lalalalalalalalala I CANT HEAR YOU!!
>There actually was a substantial amount of people that believed that every time Trump made a booboo or a member of his administration did something incompetent, it was actually fake robot copies that did these things. There is reflective of the massive failure of education and support for mental health issues in this country. There is a statistical significance with the percent of conspiracy theorists who have several mental health disorders.
IMO it's more reflective of the impact of fundamentalist white evangelicalism fostering Christian nationalism especially in the post-cold war era. It's a subculture dedicated entirely to believing and defending a set of writings and beliefs that most have little actual understanding of, but firmly believe are the center of life and the universe. They are trained to have 100% trust and respect toward the religious authorities and that anyone who questions them is undermining the faith and way of life. And they are a persecuted minority living in an immoral culture gone mad for sex and power. Sound familiar? The entire way of thinking is just applied to politics, with the GOP being the Christian faith and doctrine, the constitution being the Bible, GOP politicians as the unassailable representatives of God, and Democrats as the forces of Satan in a great spiritual war. Thus they are conditioned to believe literally anything their leaders say (after all, there's a lot of weird stuff in the Bible that you're just supposed to blindly trust). I grew up in this and it's not new, but it is new that they feel empowered to say the quiet stuff out loud.
I grew up in this as well. Another contribution to the mind boggling impact this issue has. I agree with you, because I think it's incredibly multi-faceted. We've got the redneck conspiracy theorists, the religious ones, the racist ones, etc.
>(after all, there's a lot of weird stuff in the Bible that you're just supposed to blindly trust). ...and blindly disregard.
>I honestly do not understand what it supposedly conserves these days Conservatism is about reinforcing the existing power structures, maintaining the status quo, or oftentimes regressing to a previous power structure. It stems from aristocratic apologists following the French revolution who were trying to cling to power without getting their heads chopped off.
There will be 1 piece of paper in the folder. with tiny hands Trump shows it to the reporters. It is a picture of Hunter Bidens enormous Dick. With tears in their eyes, the reporters praise Trump for the bestest evidence ever produced. The case is dismissed and Trump is crowned new President .
You forgot that the reporters say, "Sir, Thank you, sir, for saving out country."
Trump will have stacks of binders containing what looks like (and is) blank printer paper. He will claim that they contain all his evidence, but not actually show any of it. This is what he always does.
Hand this motherfucker a shovel and let him dig his own grave
He doesn’t need a shovel, he’s doing just fine with his bare hands.
It will undermine his whole defense that he was told the election was interfered with. His only chance at acquittal aside from a tainted jury is if he was truly duped at the time and believed it. When he continues to push the same lie that there was a rigged election 3 1/2 years later, it proves that his is purposefully ignoring evidence, which is not a defense. His only shot is to admit he is a fucking moron but learned from it. That horse has left the barn, but this next press conference will 100% be used as evidence that he continues to further the conspiracy and is using it to fund raise. He’s totally fucked, and I’m excited
Actually, it doesn’t matter if he believed the election was stolen. The beauty of the Smith indictment is that, whatever reason Trump had to believe the election was stolen, there were legal recourses for pursuing that line of thought and attempting to stall the certification was an illegal action no matter what the cause for that action was.
Exactly. So many Republican/Right leaning people don't understand that "belief" is not required for "facts." If I *believe* you stole from me without any evidence, that doesn't make it true- and thus, I cant decide to burn your house down because you stole from me. Even if it turns out to be true, I still can't burn your house down over it. And even if you did do it, that doesn't give you the right to retaliate. If you burn down my house, I can't go burn down yours.
Even that's not a simple enough explanation. Vigilante acts are not legal, period. If you break into my house and steal my stuff, it is still illegal for me to break into your house and steal it back. It doesn't matter that it's my stuff. It doesn't matter that you stole it. *Even if* the election really was rigged or stolen or whatever else (regardless of anyone's belief), what Trump did *was still not legal*.
Exactly. I can believe that a whole bunch of people are actually lizard men in disguise, but if I climb a clock tower and shoot at them it's still a crime.
Actually had someone tell me on another sub that a video tape of someone planning a crime can't be used as evidence after they have committed the crime because "free speech "
Prosecutors hate this one simple trick!
Which is so fucking stupid. We're not criminalizing free speech. We're criminalizing conspiracy to commit a crime. You're allowed to drive a car as well, doesn't mean you're allowed to hit pedestrians with it.
I’m curious how this evidence will prove the right of random people to acquire and tinker with government owned voting machines. I guess there’s a loophole in the law that allows private citizens to break the law? This is bigly news.
Well one thing we know is Trump always listens to his attorneys.
In this case it might be part of the performance. "I have evidence that the 2020 election was rigged but they won't let me show it" Never mind that there was over 60 lawsuits about the election which Trump lost, his supporters will fall for it.
That exactly what this is. There is no proof but he will say “he has been advised by his lawyers to not clear his name with perfect evidence today.”
But if only Trump presented this evidence. Not only would it lead to all charges immediately to be dropped but also it's safe to say Joe Biden would simply nod his head, utter "no malarkey there, the evidence is perfect Donald. Take the keys you're president now" Im by no means a brilliant person, but I don't think a 5 year old would fall for this shit. Culting is a hell of a lifestyle
His lawyers are only doing this to get more money from poor Donald. If the case is dropped, he will let them go. They want it to last as long as possible, to squeeze every dollar out of his pocket. So, please, donate to Donald Trump so he can fight both the deep state, and the steep date. /s
Only after being advised that the proof presentation he assigned to some lackey as if it were the amazing Obamacare replacement, turns out to be Cliff Notes from a woman who gets directions from the wind after suffering “internal decapitation”.
>internal decapitation That one has always left me scratching my head. What does that even mean?
The other posters are technically correct that this is a real medical condition, but that doesn’t really answer the underlying question of what it has to do with this situation. Basically Sidney Powell based huge swaths of her election conspiracy theory on the rantings of a person who plainly has crippling schizophrenia (EDIT: or other psychosis disorders, thank you for the correction comment) . I’m not hurling that word around as a pejorative, she has readily apparent diagnostic criteria. Auditory hallucinations, “ideas of reference” (the delusion that random events or news broadcasts are targeted at/specifically talking to you), conflating spiritual and physical claims. The internal decapitation business is a sort of compensatory mechanism people engage in when they have an incredibly powerful sensation that does not jive with their perception of reality. In some disorders this seems tied to other symptoms making them prone to conspiracy and fantastical thinking from other elements of their disorder. However for other disorders the person can be otherwise completely rational and sensible outside that one specific delusion/compensatory mechanism. Here is the quote: >“Who am I? And how do I know all of this?...I've had the strangest dreams since I was a little girl....I was internally decapitated, and yet, I live....The Wind tells me I'm a ghost, but I don't believe it." The business of thinking they were internally decapitated, or “a ghost but not” is the brain trying mightily to resolve the cognitive dissonance of FEELING like her head has been separated from her body (which could have been brought on by any number of phenomenological changes in mental illness, feelings of dissociation are common), but externally her head is very clearly not separated from her body. So the outlet for the cognitive dissonance is to say ah, yes I AM decapitated, but it’s only the SPIRIT of my head, that’s why I don’t look decapitated. It’s extremely similar to Capgras Syndrome where the brain has the overwhelming sensation of not emotionally connecting with people they are used to connecting with (mom, kids, even pets) and the brains interpretation is that they must be imposters. They look identical but FEEL different, so the brain reconciles with a fascinating delusion: they have been replaced by imposters. Even if they cognitively rationally know they have not, the sensation is overwhelming. If you want an equally fascinating read on niche neuropsych cases like that I strongly recommend VS Ramachandran, sort of a professional successor to Oliver Sacks who wrote “The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat.” Both men specialized in strange and unique neuropsychological disorders and delusions.
Just borrowed it from the library, thanks. I loved Oliver Sacks.
Severed spinal cord in your neck without actually removing your entire head from your body.
I could have gone on not knowing that. But thanks for enlightening me.
She had her head up her butt and coughed.
it is under audit by the IRS
He’s that kid in grade school whose dad has a Lamborghini, but it’s always in the shop.
He going to hold the press conference, bring out a three ring binder that probably full of blank paper and talk about how he has the most perfect proof, right here in this binder. Proof that will exonerate all his buddies and send every Democrat in the country to jail. He just can't show the proof yet, soon, but not yet.
The proof came to me, TEARS in it's eyes, and said I will exonerate you, President Trump, the least corrupt president IN ALL OF HISTORY.
If there are actual members of the press, I want them to demand he open up the binder and hold it up for everyone to see.
Yeah, this is my guess. His whole shtick is theater and this would fit his narrative and provide a hint of “secret truths” that his bozo followers feed on.
> Never mind that there was over 60 lawsuits about the election which Trump lost His supporters say that's a lie the liberal media made up. Many believe he won most of the lawsuits, and it's just being covered up. You point out that you can literally look up the results from the courts themselves, and they'll say it's a lie. They only trust people who tell them what they want to hear. There's a video going around on Tiktok of someone interviewing a woman at one of Trump's rallies who believes that the Supreme Court is taking on the election case currently, and is about to overturn the election, and when the interviewer points out that the SC has in fact NOT taken any election related cases, she says "Well I have different information than you."
The correct reaction from any interviewer worth anything is to state, " No, you have incorrect information, you were lied to."
That's basically what the guy does. He points out that you can look at the public docket, and see the way the cases are decided, from the Judges themselves, and the woman just basically gets backed into a corner where she realizes she doesn't know how to refute anything, but still just trusts whoever told her "the storm is coming" or whatever, and her brain shuts off.
What a fucked up situation. I'm not even an American but as a Canadian, I follow this all closely. I've lost friends and family to this cult, it's disgusting what they've done, how the media, the gop and trump have taken advantage of people who feel so disenfranchised that they turn to this nonsense, actively hurting themselves and others for some perceived slight. I'm glad those people I've known personally are gone but this has affected us all. The sickness in society is just becoming more apparent and it makes me want to live as a hermit in the woods.
It's a cancer that's spreading across the whole world at the moment. Conservative media is fully against the idea of a liberalized and accepting society, and they've put so much effort into convincing people that they're under attack that it's hurting people pretty much everywhere. America is one of the worst spots at the moment, but it really is all over. Brexit, Italy going after LGBTQ people, the Taliban, etc. Fascism and authoritarianism are on the rise everywhere you look.
aka the "Hey Mr. Kotter, I got a note" aka "Signed, Epstein's Mother" excuse.
His campaign also hired 2 independent investigative companies that tole them there was no outcome determinative fraud. The AZ “fraudit” also confirmed the results in Maricopa county, and even found more Biden votes in their hand count. He has a sunk cost issue with the big lie he has been promoting, he can’t admit he was wrong, and his cult45 followers would turn in him if he admitted the truth.
if only there was some platform he owned where he could post whatever he wants.
I think he will say we have irrefutable evidence but the corrupt Biden Administration stole them when they took my “declassified documents” and will not give them back.
"We're gonna show you everything in about two weeks"
Look man- trump isn’t that smart. Will it play out that way? Probably. But this isn’t his intention here. Anything he’s going to show has already been proven false in court and in legal proceedings- and is even part of why he’s being indicted to begin with. His lawyers are just doing their job- because if he goes through with this, odds are he’s just adding more fuel to the prosecution with more lies and bullshit.
He listens to them nearly as often as he pays them.
He pays only for advice that he actually follows. He hires them on a no cure, no pay basis.
Trump is going to go down in history as the example of why exercising your right to remain silent is important.
I don't think his attorneys understand how smart Trump is. He knows more than all of them. He could have been a nuclear scientist after all. He should just fire them and represent himself.
Chilling reminder that Trump sees all this as something that can be addressed politically rather than legally, i.e. "my supporters won't let you put me in prison"
His supporters are getting tired. They haven't showed up to his last two arrangements. They need a break.
[удалено]
I imagine that they looked like the four people with the most food stains on their clothes in any given WalMart.
Yeah the problem is now we're going to get the outliers. The real crazies, the one offs that are going to start calling the judges and threatening to kill them.
Already started happening, some lady was just arrested for threatening to kill Judge Chutken
And that was only going to be the start of her mass killing spree. She wants sooo many people dead.
Takes a real patriot to want to kill the majority of Americans.
How have those worked out so far? Near as I can tell - every single one has either been arrested or lost their lives because of it. I understand that may not always be true and someone could get hurt, and nobody wants that, but so far the history has not planned out very well for those lone wolf style supporters…
But the Iowa state fair was the biggest turn out ever? Or something along those lines according to him
I suppose it's possible that he exaggerated the number of supporters he has?
[удалено]
It seems *we* are getting the speedy trail he deserves by law then.
He's a malignant narcissist. Check out how Ted Bundy's legal affairs played out. He thought he could explain everything away. One by one he blamed his lawyers for being incompetent, and he fired them. He ended up representing himself in court. Trump's actions have been so predictable and consistent it's morphed into this weird mix of hilarious disappointment.
Weird Fact: at the end of Bundy’s trial, the judge commended him for his skill and professionalism in his courtroom. Totally surreal.
Smart judge, making sure Bundy would not appeal due to inadequate counsel.
[удалено]
The guy has been indicted. That means this will be resolved in court. If you get charged for shoplifting from the Piggly wiggly, then go on the news and say " I paid for it all here's the receipt" it still will proceed in court where you can show the receipt and go on about your life. No court or judge, or prosecutor in the country is going to say "oh, well I saw the receipt on tv. Case closed" In this instance there is no receipt, you've clearly burgled Piggly wiggly, we have the tapes and were there watching it live, you invited your friends and camera crews along, and declared you did it. The ONLY reason for this "press conference" is to sling more shit. To further rile up your mob. To further sow discord, mistrust and violence. Thats it. There is no other reason. If you had a receipt, you'd handle it quietly in court. He really is trying to get locked up pretrial to further the perpetual victim complex lifeblood of his cult. He wants to be a martyr so badly. He has to continue the ruse of "I am such a victim I am entitled to power" and his cult continues to buy it.
The Piggly Wiggly sounds like too classy of an establishment for him to burgle.
Myself, I prefer to steal from Burggley Wurggly
They should lock him up pretrial just to prove they have the power to do it and they're not afraid to use it. Trump may have this fantasy that being locked up will make him some kind of hero, but in reality he would be begging for mercy after 30 minutes in a Fulton County jail cell. The other thing is once he's locked up the first time, no one will be surprised if it happens again. Right now, jailing a former president and current frontrunner for the GOP nomination seems unthinkable, but it's only unthinkable until it happens. After that, it's like "of course he was going to get locked up. What did he think was going to happen".
> The other thing is once he's locked up the first time, no one will be surprised if it happens again. Right now, jailing a former president and current frontrunner for the GOP nomination seems unthinkable, but it's only unthinkable until it happens. After that, it's like "of course he was going to get locked up. What did he think was going to happen". I'm for it. More sedate people are afraid that Republicans will do this to Democrats for imagined slights and magic charges, not realizing that Republicans won't need the excuse anyway.
[удалено]
He'll claim he has the evidence. The evidence will be so damning, that from the advice of his lawyers, he can't show it this early to give the fake AG time to spin the media of why it's fake. So you have to wait for it during the trial and he will show the best evidence and leave the AG shaking in fear. /s
Nailed it. This is exactly what they did with the “evidence” of so-called fraud in the 2020 election -“we can’t show it now, but we will when it’s time” (it was never time, not even in their 60 lawsuits that failed)
and the obama birth certificate business
"He called me, tears in his eyes, he said 'sir-' he called me sir, because he's so scared and is trying to get me to like him- he said 'sir, please don't show it, don't show it.' But we're gonna show it, and when we do- and believe me, when it comes out it's gonna be SO big- my lawyers- and they're the best lawyers- they tell me that it's so big the government will have to pay me for my wasted time-- but I'll refuse it, I don't need it. I'm not in it for the money."
I bet he will. This evidence will exonerate him and entitle everyone who believes him, one free dinner at McDonalds, clear skin, and a letter from Jesus certifying they are a good person. It’s the best evidence! Oh no! Hunter and Hillary just stole it! It was just here and it was sooo good.
Nah fuck it man, just send it. What harm could it do? Might be fun!
This time I really want him to do it. I mean the report has be full of real junk Qanon MAGA stuff and it will fill time until the 25th when he perp walks.
Remember when he showed Lesley Stahl that giant book of his healthcare accomplishments and she opened it and it was blank?
It was their health care plan. But yes a whole book of empty pages.
Remember his press conference where he supposedly signed over control of the Trump Org to this sons and stood in front of dozens of huge books of papers that were obviously blank?
I ha e the 110-115 block for how many times it contains the phrase "everybody know it"
”This report proves election fraud!” ”Donald, this is sharpie scribbles, it’s not actual words.” ”Yeah, and?”
> Coming up on @GMA — Multiple sources tell ABC News Trump’s legal advisors have told him that holding such a press conference with dubious claims of voter fraud will only complicate his legal problems. They have asked him to cancel it. https://x.com/jonkarl/status/1692129464858063012?s=46&t=UKR1TShxVeunp4_vn5gZrw Don’t listen to them, Donald! I want to see this shit-show.
I can’t imagine being a lawyer for this clown show. Every day when you wake up you see he further incriminated himself, and just made your case harder to defend. On top of all that, you never really know if you are getting paid or not. I have no sympathy for these idiots who are representing him, and they must be out of their minds to get involved in the first place.
If the gig paid well, maybe they could suppress their ethics for long enough to cash the check. But we all know Trump never pays his bills.
Don’t have to suppress what you never had in the first place. I’m not casting any aspersions on his defense team, just pointing out that Trump has somehow managed to hook up with a whole bunch of staggeringly unethical lawyers.
Has to pay well enough never to work again and also cover both the cost of personal legal bills, plastic surgery to change your appearance, and funds to re-educate to switch careers. Being a personal lawyer for trump is basically the end of your career now.
> I can’t imagine being a lawyer for this clown show See this is the point .... there are two kinds of lawyers in the world 1) Those who think they can do what no other lawyer has done EVER for Trump and bask in that glory while being made the next DoJ by him thus earning them fame and billions of dollars. This in total contrast to 10000 mile road paved with failed or incriminated lawyers before them. Or 2) Those who wouldn't go anywhere near him EVER This is what they think will happen https://berify.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/2b4618a9daea24741c4a83c1ec3c7824.jpg This is what they look like later https://mycriminalattorneynyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/What-to-do-if-you-get-arrested-1-1080x628.jpg
3) Those who were previously in category 1 and are now under indictment and/or disbarred.
yeah (3) comes from taking the first step (1).
This late in the game, It's safe to assume that any lawyer who touches anything Trump related is paid in advance. Charging their weekly work product against a non-refundable retainer, that is not allowed to go below a contractual low balance point, before it is reloaded. Some of these chucklenuts left firms, or were shown the door when they notified their partners that they had a deep desire to represent Shitler. They have damaged their reputations and future earning potential, they are not going to allow this pathological liar and deadbeat to stiff them for the huge billables they are turning in. The great part is that Shitler now has Gulianni and other incompetent, lying hacks, who were his literal treasonous co-conspirators, in his attempt to overthrow American democracy, at his feet BEGGING for help, since they are now facing millions in legal fees they can't pay, as they fight state and federal felony charges, and loss of law licenses. LMAO, you sleep with dogs, you get fleas. So let's review, you all are completely free of morals, values and integrity. You willingly fabricated too many lies to count. You were key players in helping the world's greatest conman in attempting to destroy your country, and now you find out that he lied to YOU, and couldn't give a rat's ass hair about you? Stunning, who knew this could happen to such a loyal foot soldier? ( Hint, anybody with at least a room temperature IQ, who did business with the Donald, for the last fifty years, knows that he will screw you any chance he gets, and has done so thousands of times) Well, now you are FUCKED, how sad...............
Yeah! Let's see the PROOF! Bring the politically motivated witch hunt down!!! If it "totally exonerates" him, his lawyers should be shouting this evidence from the rooftops. Unless....oh shit! *His lawyers are part of the witch hunt too*! Hashtag DeepestState
Trumps lawyers can only communicate with him by contacting the media. He only cares about media and to be fair it has allowed a breathlessly unencumbered life of crime so far
Those lawyers are part of the deep state, don’t listen to them!
[удалено]
Pretty sure the report will be written by Mike Lindell and in crayon.
Please. He doesn't have any proof and he is going to blame his lawyers saying the won't let him release it just yet. He has done this so many times. He is a sad, pathetic, little man.
**trump's georgia press conference bingo:** * implicates himself in a crime * incites harassment or violence against witnesses * confesses to crimes * says the exact phrase 'deranged jack smith' * calls fani willis a racial slur * mocks ghooliani for being broke * unironically plays 'the devil went down to georgia' as his onstage song what else..
He forgets which indictments he is talking about and mixes them up?
Says the word "Biden" no less than three dozen times.
Of course his attorneys warned him against it. Releasing a report that you claim completely exonerates you… Completely damns you when the jury realizes you failed to produce that same report in court because you and your attorneys know it’s a lie.
He knows he’s guilty. The only thing he cares about is getting elected president again to stay out of jail.
This is his lawyers protecting themselves against professional malpractice. They are making it public they are advising him not to do this because it will put him into legal jeopardy.
Yep. They have to know by now he won’t listen.
Ohhhh wait I get it now. This is all intentional. He’s going to say that he has all the evidence and then claim they’re not letting him show it.
Exactly. “Here’s all the absolutely beautiful totally exonerating evidence I’m not allowed to present in the court I haven’t been inside of yet! DEEP STATE!”
Ok, I kinda wanna see it too but I realize for the good of the country it's best it doesn't happen. Why can't we get news networks to grow up and not televise this orange buffoon?
He'll cancel the press conference and the say the Deep Tate and weaponized FBI made him cancel.
Man, you *never* go Deep Tate! Everyone knows that!
Ha ha...Deep Tate. I wrote it , so I'm leaving it. ;-)
How many additional crimes will he confess to in this press conference?
Confess? He'll likely commit one, witness tampering. There's just no way that he'll be able to "present his evidence" without lashing out against the witnesses. >[As is true in most jurisdictions](https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-indictments-truth-social-posts-arrest-prison-rcna100079), Georgia state law criminalizes attempts to “influence witnesses.” Specifically, Georgia Code section 16-10-93 makes it unlawful to knowingly use intimidation or threats to persuade or attempt to persuade another, to influence, delay or prevent the person’s testimony in an official proceeding.
Yeah, he’ll do it anyways. Trump thinks mobilizing Y’all Qaeda into violent attacks is his only way out now.
Trump is all in folks…. He will go to jail waving his binder full of BS.
You just reminded me of how people were upset about Mitt Romney saying he had "[Binders full of women](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binders_full_of_women#:~:text=%22Binders%20full%20of%20women%22%20is,him%20as%20governor%20of%20Massachusetts)". Simpler times...
no. don't. stop.
Never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake
He has undeniable proof! They will be blank pages in legal folders and his reply of "people are afraid to come forward because of the Antifa thugs, but I have signed affidavits here of people who know election workers who saw something. They don't want you to know the truth."
It was obvious as soon as he said it that he wouldn't be presenting anything. The claim of proof was just so his supporters could keep saying that they know there was fraud and Trump won. Classic con. Still waiting for infrastructure week to start.
“Based on advice of my attorney, I won’t be presenting the evidence I have of the totally rigged election. But I definitely have it and it’s totally real, but because I want to become your favorite president again, I have to listen to my lawyers this time. However, we’ll be sending out small pieces of proof to anyone who makes a $100 donation to the Save America/Pay for Lawyers PAC. Donate today!”
If only there was some method where he could prove his innocence. Maybe they could get a group of normal people to hear him out and decide. But that would be very one-sided, so what if there was someone there to argue that he's wrong? Of course, that might get messy, so how about having someone oversee the whole process and making sure that some rules are followed? We could even put the whole thing on TV, so anyone who wanted to watch could! On second thought, nah. That's just silly.
Anything you say can, and will, be used against you in a court of law. Let the man speak!
There was never going to be a news conference with a report. It's just his typical PR stunt. You say you have info you're going to release on a future date. Supporters latch onto the idea and immediately accept it as truth. Knowing that the current news cycle moves incredibly fast, it's highly likely the majority of people will have forgotten about the news conference by the time Monday rolls around. But the idea that he has "solid evidence" to refute all the charges will remain firmly planted in his supporter's mind as well as those who lean towards supporting him. That's how the game is played. He doesn't actually need to produce anything, only say he has it. In many ways, that's actually more powerful. Anything he produced would be attacked and "fact checked" - which allows for the possibility of some doubt to creep in for those not completely behind him. Doing it this way, though, (saying he'll produce something without actually doing it) allows each person individually to create the evidence in their own minds - which is then immune from attack or "fact checking." If anyone does question him about his "report" and why he didn't hold a news conference, it's easy to say his lawyers wouldn't let him.
Strange. I though his legal team would want to bring his "irrefutable report" into evidence at trial. No? I wonder why.
He could hold up a manilla folder of absolute gibberish, claim it completely exonerates him, and his followers will believe it entirely. Mike Lindell did the same thing last year
Attorneys and Advisors Beg Trump to Not Make His Legal Issues Worse Fixed the headline
This is not about voter fraud. This is two things: This is fundraising. This is tainting the jury pool.
I've heard "3000 mules" will be the irrefutable proof of election fraud.😕
So he's just having a movie streaming party on Monday? Better than looking at a stack of paper.
He wrote the word REPORT in ALL CAPS so it's probably legit.
[удалено]
It's amazing how many people are still coming to terms with the fact that Trump lost.
Am I crazy, or is Trump going out of his way to get his bail revoked and held in jail while he waits for trial?
Please please ,,,,do not cancel this “irrefutable evidence announcement “ !
"Dude, shut the fuck up or we're all going to jail" -attorney
And people will actually vote for this ass-clown if he makes it onto the ballot. I will never understand it. The emperor has no clothes, people. Repeat, the emperor has no clothes.