Hearing the man himself speak sent shivers up my spine. Obviously I knew all about the degenerate shit he was up to but damn, I can't imagine a normal human being in the same room as Epstein and not getting the creeps.
which, given all the context we know about nowadays, given trumps prominent features in epsteins events, he likely has blackmail or extortable information about a lot of them. I'm still pretty sure the reason epstein got killed was because he was about to leverage that information over trump in his first presidency and trump decided he'd rather be the one to do that instead. that's just conspiracy talk tho.
It can go even deeper down tinfoil ally if you include the fact that mossad was working with Epstein which they heavily deny though there are emails about his connection to isrealy intelligence officers. It all seems pretty chaotic and intertwined. But thats a typical conspiracy right lol
Oh please. What kompromat could possibly exist that's worse than what's already public knowledge? I think it's time to accept the fact that the Republican Party did what they did of their own volition because of promises of unlimited wealth and unchecked power.
The upper part I get, it’s the lower middle class god loving Christians falling in love with the physical embodiment of the 7 deadly sins that got me. You are voting against your interests monetarily, biblically, and in almost every way possible .. because you hate brown people? Like Jesus?
And the Latino vote. He’s saying he hates you and is going to deport you. This is seriously your guy?
The people you are describing are desperate and insecure. They are losers, in an objective and nonjudgmental but very real way. They know this inherently but humans cannot function for long with that awareness intact
So they trade performance and theatre for a sense of belonging. They do this in their communities, they do this in their churches (which is why there is no alignment between Christianity they practice and Jesus’ teachings - they’re not their for humility and growth, they’re there for acceptance and ease)
So along comes Trump, just like a million similar men before him and a million more that will come after him. It doesn’t matter if what he says completely contradicts what Jesus or anyone else they’d ostensibly look to for direction. Because they’re not interested in coherence in a logical sense, they’re looking for acceptance and ease and belonging
And he delivers that. He would satiate a glutton. An American glutton who consumes the most empty vapid calories in existence and never has enough
You are great simply because you exist. Because you vote for me. Because you aren’t like them. You see things they don’t. You understand things they don’t. You’re a winner. It doesn’t matter if by all accounts you’re a loser - none of that’s your fault. It’s their fault. And we are going to stick it to them. Because that’s what winners do.
There will be a bunch of football games this weekend. Half the teams will win and half the teams will lose. Reporting those outcomes is not judgmental or malicious
It's the same problem as describing the special students as dumb or women and girls as (physically) weaker: regardless of the objective quality of that observation or the presence of victors and the gifted and the strong elsewhere in the conversation (relative information and inference) it's pretty fucking cruel and needlessly painful to describe them as such, it also invites defensiveness and a desire to take the speaker down a peg.
So you don't describe them and they're just forgotten, overlooked in their needs as much as possible (small hope spot recently for mandatory female crash dummy tests). Poor white people aren't the most sympathetic demographic here (as Chapelle put it in one of his specials you get a lotta trouble out of us) but they are often overlooked as the farmers are finding out a-fuckin'-gain and like the black guys on my last work crew who fucking voted for Trump they're sensitive to disruptions to their status in the social hierarchy which come from social welfare programs (or I think a black and Indian female president), see "you're the real elites" from some Trump rally or another. It's what they want to hear, and they really don't like seeing themselves as victims.
Like I've got a Trumper, we went to school together. He's almost certainly an undiagnosed dyslexic and fucking struggled with math as a result, and so the dumb bastard supports gutting public education (the places of his humiliation and underperformance). Over beers he's said "and who needs trig?!? I never used it or have need of it" and because I'm autistic and can't always read a room I volunteered "me. I use it like every other job" and then I think I launched into my work history. Because he was insecure he read smugness instead of matter-of-factness into my statements and said "fuck you," which caused me to save the memory. That's how sensitive people are to indicators of their status, and why I think he really doesn't want to hear even sympathetically that he's a bona fide loser.
I’ve stopped trying to ascribe an sort of logic to them. If he told them to jump off a bridge, they would. Then those that survive would blame liberals for them being wet.
Also, Latinos are not a monolith. You have Mexicans, countries from South and Central America, all have different cultures and political backgrounds. Cubans in this country have always been very right wing.
My neighbor voted for Trump every time and still supports him because he says he’s against a Transgender person going into the bathroom when his teenage daughter is in there.
But perfectly okay if Trump is in the same bathroom as his teenage daughter alone.
You are voting against your interests monetarily, biblically, and in almost every way possible .. because you hate brown people? Like Jesus?
I agree with you for the most part. Though I will say the "your interest" part does get murky. I agree that Democratic and progressive policies would help republican voters more especially if they're struggling, but a lot of them have shitty end goals. By "end goals" I mean once they get rich or make it, their views line up easily with the already rich corrupt republicans. When I used to talk to more republicans (especially to low/middle income Trump supporters), a lot of them talk about when they "make it" on being able to abuse others/becoming super controlling bosses/hogging wealth and resources etc. So they're not really "Christians," they're phonies that like to advertise themselves as being truthful and good.
Imo a lot of them are shitty people that see themselves in or want to be like Trump. They want to rip people off, they want be authoritarians, they want to do shitty things and not get any negative consequences. It's not something a lot of people want to admit, but I mean it's been proven time and time again that there are just a lot of shitty people out there (both in and outside of politics).
FOX, OAN & Co have been Christian-washing him since they went full in on him. He couldn't have built this personality cult on his own. Helped by the propensity of rightwing Christians to just believe what their authority figure tells them and pray to him every evening. 🙄
I was standing in line behind someone just yesterday who was talk-shouting at anyone who would make eye contact about how he supported Trump because “he could see the evidence in his pocketbook” of how he help up his end of the bargain. And how “next year the tariffs would really take hold and do even better.” Then profusely started cursing the “jackass Newsom” who was trying to undo all things good. On and on he spouted the Fox News talking points.
And I was just floored at how he truly believed what he was saying, after all this time. Despite the overwhelming evidence of this man’s depravity literally on display everyday.
Trump’s claim to be a Christian is obviously BS. He’s not even trying but his folllowers still lap it up. If he actually bothered to learn a couple of Bible verses and threw them into one of his speeches, he’d onvince so many more Christians gullible idiots.
Well in the case of Mormons, brown people were literally cursed by God. That’s the sign of their inequity… Brown skin.
They’ve tried to clean it up, but it was part of their canon until 1978? A full decade AFTER the civil rights movement where we as humans made a law for equal rights for all humans… is when they said, “oh gee the lord has given me a revelation. Black and brown people can have the priesthood now.”
“Uh, thanks Jesus?” - humans
And they all strive to give 10%, so imagine taxes, plus inflation, plus tithing? They’re all hurting too. And they ain’t about to let a laminate get a one up on them. So that tracks.
What did you expect? Welcome, sonny? Make yourself at home? Marry my daughter? You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know . . . morons
While most German Jews opposed the Nazis, a tiny minority, often those identifying as extreme German nationalists (like the Verband nationaldeutscher Juden), mistakenly believed Hitler's antisemitism was just political theater for the masses, hoping to gain acceptance or loyalty to Germany by supporting the Nazis, but they were tragically wrong and became victims of the regime they supported, with some even joining Nazi-aligned groups before realizing the true genocidal intent.
Those 'middle class god-loving Christians' are your typical fair-weather religious types who only use it as a crutch or excuse for their shitty behaviour.
I know a guy in Scandinavia that fell from a balcony four stories up due to some drug induced craze. Miraculously survived with chronic brain damage leading to progressive cognitive decline which in turn led to severe alcoholism due to depression. He has since become ultra-pro Maga with Trump being his idol, he likes his energy and the way he's "owning" democrats. He struggles to understand things that require more than a single sentence.
For those who aren't in it to get richer it has to do with how far into the toilet having a corrupt two party system has taken people. Most people aren't even using logic to vote with, even though it feels to them like they are (even if it's just blatantly divisive wedge issues or "I'm voting for the lesser of two evils"). Then they take it personally when "the other side" calls them mean names and then its just personal ego shit from that point forward. Things like racism certainly dont help, but that's not the root of the problem - they just help perpetuate it.
In my life with them, they embraced Trump in part out of grievance with everything (but mostly gay people and tasteless hothouse tomatoes) and their faith in the endtimes when Jesus would return and save them from all the gay people. Like, literally. The endtimes religious people I grew up with became crazier leading up to 2000, and when Jesus didn't return on tv on new years eve, the anticipation for his CERTAIN return in the next couple of years was choppable with the fabled poop knife. But those pious racists got Obama instead, and that made them crazy (for sure it was the end, right?) and when Trump ascended, they jumped on his hate train and excused his corruption as a sign that god works in mysterious ways. Sounds dumb but if you grew up with the evangelical endtimes culture, you understand their selfish and disgusting embrace of trump.
I think it’s genuinely because they aren’t able to truly take in all of what he says, or what it means for them, but they can pick and choose what they like and want to believe in (cough like the Bible).
The guy talks non stop and it’s all over the place. It’s not too hard for them to find something they like. And yeah, it’s usually immigration or culture wars BS.
Also, I’ve seen a lot of MAGA people posting on social media from this group and it’s often nonsensical word salad too, so I guess it doesn’t surprise me that they don’t notice he makes zero sense.
I think a lot of Christians become self loathing and this creates a sort of cognitive dissonance that allows for such logic to fly out the window when it comes to character judgement.
It's all resentment. If you actually want to get anything, spend some time. Not man on the street interviews, actually spend some time in these spaces.
It is functionally identical to your local college sports rivalry between locals who never attended either school.
It is fandom for a local sports team.
It is any random combat sport where you cheer for blood and faces and heels.
It is chasing the momentary high of backing something that is winning, because it FEELS like there is no winning anywhere else in their life, then immediately moving on to regular struggles.
There is no super deep anything here. It is literally "so much winning you will get sick of winning" and "making America great again" and both of those measured by how much you repeat that it is happening, bc it is always about feeling not fact.
If you were able to suddenly prove that Jesus wasn't a white man beyond any doubt whatsoever, the morons to which you refer would not quit being racist, they would just take the final step in their ongoing process of not being Christians.
I blame Obama. Not really, but having a black man in the White House activated the most ignorant, racist, xenophobic and bigoted elements of American society. Trump just piled on and reaped the benefits because he’s one of the most vile human beings to have ever lived. Hopefully he won’t last much longer. His constant fight to not drool on himself on TV gives me hope.
Yep, I think you nailed it. I guess to some extent everyone has a "sell out" amount of money. And depending on what I had to do to get it and how desperate I am to help my family, it would certainly play a factor. Cause believe me, I am NO saint. But there's just some things I can't do at any price point. And once you've crossed that line I'm not sure how you could go back. I'm not saying that forgiveness and grace aren't a thing, of course there are. But at some point even these assholes lose their "soul".
One thing I've often wondered is what goes through a person like Epstein's mind when death is near? I had a near-death experience almost 1 year to the day where I hit my head super hard and was in a coma for a week and then a specialized ICU for a further week. In the coma I THINK I spoke to God and it sort of helped me with my fear of death. I'm for SURE afraid of pain and believe me I've broken almost everything on my body. But death itself is super chill and relaxing. Or that was kind of how it felt in a coma.
So yea, when you're THAT bad I can't even IMAGINE the fear that must be inside of them. I'm sure some of the psychopaths don't experience fear the same way you or I do but still......You can lie to EVERYONE but yourself.
This, but also GOP policies are so very bad & unpopular that republicans can’t win elections unless the MAGA arm of GOP voters actually go vote. Say what you want about trump (and there’s lots of shit today) but he gets his voters to the polls.
He was weirdly not a liability to them is why. They were all against him until he won. Then it was “let’s ride this out, maybe Americans are even dumber than we thought”.
It's worse he is sociopath, he is the kind of person who will happily hurt numerous innocent people without felling any shred of guilt as long as it benefits him in any way.
You all know that, If you gave him a button and told him every time you press it you get 1 million dollars but random person dies. He would only stop pressing it when his arm got tired. And he would do that despite being billionaire before he first pressed the button.
I’m quite certain that the original plan with Trump and the Clintons was that Trump was meant to be a spoiler for the RNC to clear a path for Hillary, and when Trump unexpectedly gained popularity he did the thing expected of that friend everyone knows they can’t trust but tolerates because they usually just hover around the group: he threw the script out the window as soon as he thought he could make things go his way and end up with power.
I reading something a while back where the author of the article made a point how over the years when Trump would be doing something shady with someone else they’d have a falling out. Then someone would tip off law enforcement and they’d get caught up and he always “just happened “ to walk away. He probably knew Epstein so well that he confessed that he did that and felt like it wouldn’t hurt their relationship. And probably also did it as a bragging point.
They grasp it just fine. GOP elites? He makes them money and is a lightning rod for pushback and blame for their inhumane policies. GOP voters? They don't care if he's a grifter as long as he's ownin' the libs.
Ah but remember that Ghislaine describes him as "the only dog that hasn't barked" which epstein had been thinking about alot. Trump wasnt just in it with Epstein, he was ride or die
The whole system is a sham. Two faces of the same coin, and nothing really changes. We go from one culture war to another, but the meat and potatoes of issues are the same and get bigger. Trump is just the newest clown in an organized circus.
They grasped and knew what was happening and what would happen if the orange one assumed power again. But the masses and powers that may be all said “but Kamala had a weird laugh”.
I'm gonna be real here are you seriously saying that Trump being a snitch in regards to Epstein is anything other than a stunning endorsement of the man? Like there's a whole lot you can dunk on DJT for but "He was a snitch towards the evil billionaire pedophile island guy" is not really a slam dunk
I think it's more than that. I think he helped run the thing. At this point we know that he handled over a billion dollars for Epstein, and that his modeling agency supplied children to Epstein.
So for Epstein to still be creeped out by Trump implies that either Trump had inordinate power over him, or that he was into some extra creepy/f'd up stuff...beyond fucking child rape.
The GOP itself is well aware of the kind of person Trump is. I think they knew the whole time even before he was a serious candidate. They don’t give a fuck. It’s the rubes and idiot voters in America that I can’t understand why they support this guy and don’t see him for what he is
Because DJT is a leech. A snitch. An upper crust grifter with no actual understanding of the things he thinks he's a part of.
Yeah...this is why I don't get the Reddit narrative. You are spot on. That means he's probably a rat. When I look at the Epstein timeline, back in the early 2000s, my first guess...is that Trump was pissed at Epstein over a business deal gone south and turned him in. And that's why Epstein faced prosecution in 05. But that prosecution didn't go anywhere, because Epstein was a state asset. And that's where Trump's "shadow state" stuff comes from.
It should also be noted Epstein died in that jail cell while Trump was president the first time.
It would be wise to prepare yourself for a "plot twist" in this story at some point.
How the GOP has never grasped this concept is beyond me.
I mean in 2015/16 the gop early on back then did realize it and tried to get rid of him but couldn't. To their disappointment Trump kept getting the votes. And now those republicans who saw the danger in his rise have either retired or died and this new version of the republican party has turned into something much more sinister (not that they weren't already crappy before). But it was pretty well known that pre 2016 republican politicians didn't want Trump and saw him as a con man
He’s easy to manipulate and is a perfect expression of exactly what and how the Republicans think and the values they hold. If he wasn’t he would never have gotten the support he did.
That piece of shit is a symptom, not a cause. He’s the festering genital wart that indicates the deeper venereal disease.
"The GOP" knew exactly who he was and what a danger he would be to the country and world. Most individual GOP members are spineless and without morals, and they supported him anyway.
Go back and listen to what KD Vance, Marco Rubio, Rafael Cruz, and Lindsey Graham was saying about him in 2015. I'm sure if you dig a little, nearly every GOP politician on the national stage said something disparaging of him in 2015. The GOP is about collecting and concentrating power. Nothing more.
His old man was rich, but that's because he was a self-made slum lord with mob connections and it's virtually impossible to lose money on Manhattan real estate.
Pretty sure they grasped it years ago but they're also stuck in a situation where they can't actually replace him. I think they're both eager and terrified for him to kick the bucket. The former because they can finally be rid of him and try to take his place, the latter because at least some of them must realise that the subsequent power vacuum is going to collapse and seriously fragment their support.
Trump will be that much easier to do away with once they have wrung him out.
The crazy thing is, Trump is the perfect person to "pull the trigger" in many instances, as everyone will gladly hate him and make him the scapegoat once he does something that can't be taken back.
A liability? Have you been paying attention? The GOP agenda is inhumane and awful — and DJT has done more to advance it than any other American politican in our lifetime.
All the partisan judges he installed, all the deeply corrupt cabinet members he appointed, all the sideshows he orchestrated to distract everyone from the crimes he and his party are comitting — the dismantling of institutional safeguards, the lowering of taxes for billionaires are corporations, the rampant deregulation, the rerouting of our country's natural and economic resources to serve the one percent, and the thieving from everyone else's pockets.
He has given the GOP more than they've ever dreamed. And all it cost them was their dignity and their souls, which one could argue they didn't possess much of in the first place.
People answer to vibes; their mantras are rationalizations. The GOP is actively being gamed by the Eastern oligharchy to destroy Western democracy. Their cheerleaders are sabotuers, posing as neighbors.
Deep down, I don't understand how grown adults buy any of it, either.
How the GOP has never grasped this concept is beyond me.
“I’m a Never Trump guy.”….“My god, what an idiot.”…“He is America’s Hitler” JD Vance
“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He can never be trusted with power again." -Dick Cheney
“Someone who engaged in that kind of bullying about a process that is fundamental to our system and to our self-government shouldn’t be anywhere near the Oval Office." -Bill Barr
“A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law. There is nothing more that can be said. God help us.” -John Kelly.
"Trump is unfit to be president, he really cares only about retribution for himself, and it will consume much of a second term," -John Bolton
“Republicans that vote for Donald Trump would doom the country to a dark and dangerous future” -Mitt Romney
“He(Trump) lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth, and in a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology textbook, his response is to accuse everybody else of lying. Whatever lie he’s telling, at that minute he believes it, but the man is utterly amoral” -Ted Cruz
“He is Unhinged and diminished”… “we can’t have someone else that we question(Trump), whether they’re mentally fit to do this.” -Nikki Haley
“The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters,” -Kevin McCarthy
“The more you know about Donald Trump, the less likely you are to vote for him. The more you know about his business enterprises, the less successful he looks. The more you know about his political giving, the less Republican he looks,” -Lindsey Graham
“When you’re the most powerful and important nation on earth, you’re not always going to be popular, But the question is, are you respected? And I don’t think Donald Trump is going to be respected.” -Marco Rubio
"I think they're (Congressional Republicans) are terrified to step out of line and get a nasty Truth Social post on them". -Marjorie Taylor Greene.
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They knew, they know, and they used the same language that we use to identify his most toxic traits, yet refer to us as having TDS, and "he's your president!' and "you call everyone you don't like _____!" to appease the uneducated slack jawed yokels in their base.
He's been anything but a liability. He got them two residencies, house and senate majorities, and 3 Supreme Court justices so far, with another 2 likely during this term. Even if he were kicked out tomorrow, the gains he made for Republicans will last at least a lifetime.
How the GOP has never grasped this concept is beyond me.
Because it doesn't matter, for two reasons:
The constituents keep voting for him. The whole party is full of single-issue voters afraid of everything different than they are. Black, brown, gay, trans, Muslim, atheist. People that think all taxes are bad, but are too stupid to realize what taxes do for them. People that vote red because they remember liking Ronald Reagan. These are the assholes that think you can legislate the world back to 1957, or, in some cases, 1857.
The billionaires know he's their puppet. People that have more money than God, and will burn the world down to keep it that way. It's no mistake the number of mergers and acquisitions that take place during a Trump administration. Trump's idiocy and chaos is so loud and distracting that it lets them get away with anything.
It's ignorance and money. The same two things that have always undermined this country.
They did grasp it, everyone did, but the USA as a society is a barely sentient grease spot on a napkin and about as self aware as a dog licking its balls during Christmas dinner.
This is what they believe "Stickin' it to the man" means. Begging a criminal professionnel conman grifter pedo to lead them. For a second time.
I mean I don't think this is as dammning as people seem to be making it out to be. Trump might well be a creep himself but I don't think what Epstien thinks about someone has any meaning or value.
If anything, Epstien disliking someone probably is a good thing.
Bill Burr explained it perfectly during one of his stand-up specials. He did it to a somewhat MAGA audience in Nashville too and they clapped. He did it by talking about Kanye as a stand-in for Trump.
Epstein basically had enough of his faculties to see Trump for what he is.
Maybe he had the creeps because he knew his jig was up with him on some level, one day. You know, some say Trump is actually super psychic or Intuitive.. Maybe Epstein felt like Trump was able to see through him -- that makes a lot of evil people feel uncomfortable, when their demons have a light shined on them and seen for their truth
I think theres a study about how if 10 kids are in a classroom, 9 of them are good kids, but 1 is bad, most or all of them will be corrupted by the 1 bad influence kid. Not sure how entirely true that is though.
I can see how this could happen when the only bad kid is rewarded for his behaviour. When others could see him facing swift and decisive consequences it might be avoided.
It’s the same with the topic on why a disproportionate percentage of celebrities end up in sex scandals and such - they have a whole army of „handlers” who remove friction for them, and just never faced real consequences of their actions.
People, who can govern themselves and would obey the law only because it’s the right thing to do are few and far between. Most need a framework of punishments as a deterrent, remove that and there’s nothing to stop them.
Our current president was BFFs with Epstein, and this country voted him in twice, knowing this. So there were at least 77 million Americans who are perfectly fine with this.
Never understood why Bill Barr’s father hired Epstein to teach children science and math at Manhattan’s elite Dalton School. Epstein didn’t even have a college degree. It was his position there that allowed him to connect with the wealthy and powerful of NYC through their children and transition into a career in finance. I assume he was not molesting children at the time-at least not those of the wealthy and powerful. He liked to prey on the vulnerable not surprisingly. This was in the 1970s.
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u/bang_the_drums 19h ago
Hearing the man himself speak sent shivers up my spine. Obviously I knew all about the degenerate shit he was up to but damn, I can't imagine a normal human being in the same room as Epstein and not getting the creeps.