Both incoherent and irreconcilable with reality

With the removal of McCarthy as Speaker I didn’t have time to delve into the week’s other big story – the nasty guy’s trial for fraud. Last Sunday, the day before that trial got started Heather Vogell of ProPublica, in an article posted on Daily Kos, reported Judge Arthur Engoron granted a summary judgment (no actual trial) in favor of the state of New York that the nasty guy organization executives (meaning him and his sons) engaged in persistent fraud by submitting false and misleading Statements of Financial Condition. Based on that ruling Engoron canceled certificates, which are needed to legally operate in the state. Which means his real estate empire is in peril. Of course, the ruling will be appealed. On Monday Laura Clawson of Kos reported the nasty guy trial for fraud got underway. This is separate but related to Engoron’s ruling above. I don’t know the distinctions. This is a bench trial (no jury) and is a civil case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James. The result won’t be a prison term, but a fine and James is asking for $250 million. Amazingly the nasty guy actually attended. He didn’t have to and hasn’t attended many of his other court hearings. The nasty guy and his sons of course complained about the judge, the AG, and everyone else of being unfair to him, that it’s all a politically motivated witch hunt to interfere with the election – the same blather he’s been saying for a long time. Hunter of Kos reported that during the lunch break on the first day of the trial (which will last several weeks) the nasty guy emerged from the courtroom and performed an eight minute rant before the cameras. Hunter included video of the whole rant (but why would you want to watch?) and transcriptions of excerpts. In response to one excerpt Hunter wrote:

Members of Trump's base have regularly taken this "fight" language as permission to mount harassment campaigns and death threats against Trump's enemies of the moment, whether they be public figures or private citizens.

Mid afternoon on Monday Kerry Eleveld of Kos posted with a title that serves as a sufficient summary, “Facing potential financial ruin in civil trial, Trump asks his followers to bail him out.” An Associated Press article posted on Kos on Tuesday reported the nasty guy was there again in person. I’ll let the article work through the details of the legal wrangling. Also on Tuesday Mark Sumner of Kos discussed the ranting over this not being a jury trial. Did his lawyers fail to request it? Was the request denied? I read later this type of trial doesn’t get a jury. Sumner wrote:

Trump attorney Alina Habba also complained that Trump wanted a jury. However, when she raised this issue to Engoron, she got back a simple reply: Trump’s legal team had never requested a jury trial. The general assumption has been that this was a screwup on the part of a legal team that has—so far, at least—failed to impress. But it could also be a strategy designed to give Trump what he’s always looking for: someone to attack. ... Keeping the focus on Engoron (with the occasional shot at James), Trump gets to play his favorite role: victim of a system that is always unfair to poor Donald Trump, America’s only honest man. Painting himself as completely beset by radical Democrats, deranged prosecutors, and a legal system isn’t what Trump does in court. It’s what he does every day. It’s also not so different from what he’s done through thousands of other lawsuits. Trump has enormous experience in bullying judges, belittling prosecutors, and evading charges. This is just the latest. The “no jury” bit is just another excuse for him to pound the table when he cries about how this was all so unfair. But hey, it could also be a screwup. And honestly, when it comes to the result of the trial this time, it’s not likely to matter.

An AP article on Wednesday reported the nasty guy was there in person again. There was more of what he does every day, though this time there’s a bit of reporting about one of the witnesses, one of the organization’s accountants. Also, the judge imposed a limited gag order requiring “all participants in the trial not to hurl personal attacks at court staffers.” This was in response to the nasty guy being nasty to one of the clerks. He took that post down. Lisa Rubin, in a thread on Thread Reader App, explains why the nasty guy is taking so much interest in this case he showed up in person.

Part of it is image. Trump’s self concept and public persona alike rest on his King of All Real Estate construct. Although the Attorney General has already exposed how much of it is a fiction, the trial will methodically unspool his legend, witness by email by letter. But it’s more than that. The remedies the AG is seeking — which Trump himself acknowledges constitutes a sort of “corporate death penalty” — are the only ones he can’t campaign away.

He also can’t pardon himself if he managed to get back to the White House. And if he loses he (and his sons) could lose his real estate empire and be barred from doing business in New York. All that could be worse than prison. On Monday, during that first day of the fraud trial, Sumner wrote that when the nasty guy has been speaking lately his words are getting “both incoherent and irreconcilable with reality.” He has examples. The other part of Sumner’s post is how much effort is being spent documenting every one of Biden’s gaffes – did you hear he’s 80? – and how little effort is being spent documenting how disconnected from reality nasty guy’s rants have become. The articles about Biden’s blunders are almost formulaic. But...

What the articles never get around to mentioning is that there is a fundamental difference between Biden making an error or a verbal gaffe, and Trump weaving a whole narrative—complete with people calling him “sir,” crazy whales, or killer batteries—that has no relationship to reality. Failing to highlight that difference isn’t just bad journalism; it’s intentionally bad journalism designed to create a false equivalence. And that’s being generous.

Aldous Pennyfarthing of the Kos community has an example of the reverse. A week ago Biden gave one of the most important speeches of his presidency. He gave...

a fierce defense of democracy, the Constitution, and American values—all while name-checking Donald Trump and the extreme MAGA movement that threatens the basic foundations of our republic. ... You’d think the current president (rightly) calling out his top political rival for being a power-mad, wannabe tinpot dictator who disdains the Constitution would merit searing, front-page coverage across the legacy media. But you’d be wrong.

The speech didn’t make the front page of either the New York Times or Washington Post. Pennyfarthing quoted a tweet from Jeff Sharlet:

Yes, @washingtonpost, “Democracy Dies in the Darkness.” You know where else it can wither? A3, inside, which is where you buried the fiercest, highest stakes pro-democracy speech I’ve heard from a president in my lifetime.

Pennyfarthing then quoted a good chunk of the speech. Biden said the world is watching the chaos in our government:

Think about this: The first meeting I attended of the G7—the seven wealthiest nations in the world—in Europe, the NATO meeting, I sat down—it was in ... January, after being elected—so late January, early February—and it was in England. And I sat down, and I said, “America is back.” And Macron looked at me, and he said, “Mr. President, for how long—for how long?”

NYT does have some good stuff. Hunter discussed an NYT report that looked at Win It Back, a conservative anti-Donald Trump PAC, and their testing of 40 ads in hopes of finding one that would prompt his base to abandon him.

"All attempts to undermine [Trump’s] conservative credentials on specific issues were ineffective," writes McIntosh. "Even when you show video to Republican primary voters — with complete context — of President Trump saying something otherwise objectionable to primary voters, they find a way to rationalize and dismiss it." We’ve been saying this for years, but now $6 million in research hammers it home: Republican voters do not care what Trump says, what he does, or whether he makes an ass of himself on the world stage. Republicanism is a cult.

Hunter then ponders what might work.

Republicans are drawn to Trump because his public performances are seen as enraging non-Republicans and "elites." But if anti-Trump Republicans portray him as a laughingstock? Maybe that’ll have traction. Show the man as he appears on the golf course, not in his suit and tie. Mock him for being revealed as a business failure. Have former members of his administration who now oppose him laugh on camera as they tell viewers that he should be on “Dancing with the Stars,” not in the White House. Show him instead as a weak and pitiful figure whose best days have passed him by, a man who can't keep up with his own lies—an object of derision. Mock him so viciously that Trump's shallow, lib-owning base voters feel like suckers. If ads like these were prolonged enough, Republican voters might not be able to brush them off so easily.

A bit more on McCarthy’s removal. Clawson noted that the nasty guy could have helped McCarthy and didn’t. A good word from him might have swayed enough votes. Yeah, he was sitting in a courtroom while the House drama was going on. But between the vote to keep the government open and the call for McCarthy’s removal the nasty guy did post to his social media. But that didn’t include anything about McCarthy. And when, during the trial, he was asked about McCarthy he ignored the question. Yeah, the House has a Speaker Pro Tempore in Patrick McHenry. About all he’s done so far is retaliate against Democrats. As for actual House business – like a possible government shutdown in mid November – he’s not touching it. Yet. That means Republicans are consumed by palace intrigue over who will be the next Speaker. Two guys have declared they’re candidates. One is Jim Jordan, the guy running the Biden impeachment inquiry and seems to be best at jumping in front of cameras to bellow about Biden. The other is Steve Scalise, current Majority Leader with lots of contacts with other members. But he’s getting treatment for cancer. And... “Neither of the two have proven interested in or capable of compromise with Democrats.” Both are much more likely to blame Democrats. The best outcome would be for moderate Republicans to form an alliance with Democrats. Yeah, that ain’t happening because “none of the Republicans ... have been willing to buck their party, even when they could easily team up with Democrats and create a big enough bloc to have influence.” Even Republicans from districts Biden won are trashing Democrats. Yeah, trashing Democrats. Hunter reported Rep. Nick Langworthy, vice chair of the National Republicans Congressional Committee even added the idea that George Soros and liberal dark money caused McCarthy’s removal.

It only stands to reason, then, that Matt Gaetz is an enormous, caucus-sabotaging asshole because George Soros made him do it. No doubt liberal dark money was behind every far-right Republican extremist's vote to oust the party's leader.

Hunter described what that accusation represents.

It's just as accurate to note that the omnipresent Republican obsession with finding out-group scapegoats for every news event—everything from natural disasters to pathetic intraparty slap-fights—is yet another hallmark of authoritarianism in general and fascism specifically. The party can never fail. It can never have corrupt elements and can never be wrong when it declares that an ideological policy prescription will solve a particular problem. If an indictment comes down, it is because the party's enemies have engineered it. If the party's enacted policies only worsen what they were intended to solve, it is because the party's enemies secretly sabotaged the country to make the party look bad. And of course, if the party is plagued with rabid extremists and flat-out incompetents who themselves keep the party from accomplishing any of the things it promises, or who even flub things so badly that the party can do nothing at all, it is the party's secret enemies who are behind that, too, working with unknown "elites" to trick the party into its own self-destruction. ... You heard it from Langworthy first: Matt Gaetz is secretly in league with the liberal elites.