Friday, June 10, 2022

Pardon Me for Being Petty

 

This is just a very brief and indulgent post where I point out that for some reason, multiple human barnacles attached themselves to the rotting luxury yacht Donald Trump as if he would be the safest port in a storm, or some such nautical thing. I dunno. I'm a landlubber. Anyhow. They stuck their necks out to get this man a second term and wanted pardons because? Because they necessarily broke the law to try and keep him in office?

Well, maybe? But the funny thing about Trump is you have to understand that every day was opposite day. He wasn't out to make America Great. He didn't really build the wall (he let that be a scam for his good friend Steve Bannon, who really needs to serve time for that). He didn't really set out to drain the swamp--he just fed red meat to the gators. So some of the swampiest and most grifting folks, like Ryan Zinke or Scott Pruitt, would just go on to be more grifting elsewhere. Take Ronny Jackson--someone, anyone, he shouldn't be driving. People associated with Trump are corrupt because that is who he attracts. So maybe people surrounding Trump aren't asking for pardons because of something they did concerning 1/6.

No! My word! It's just that unlike any other president in history, he had people like Roger Stone and Jared Kushner fronting access and making the prices legible for the folks who want to play. So I wouldn't necessarily assume pardons were a sign of assisting in the coup attempt. No. I just would think they were signs that someone wanted to get washed while the washing was accessible. 

I take it as a given that Trump held his "friends" more to account being an autocrat than Democrats ever would have, and that files exist. Buttons to be pushed. Maybe this is why so many were willing to immure themselves for him. It's a goddamn unpatriotic shame. Was it really leverage?

I feel like it's irresponsible not to speculate. 


3 comments:

bowtiejack said...

You know at one time the Nazis too
thought they were the really big dogs.

How'd that turn put?

StringOnAStick said...

I took note today of Emptywheel's point that DOJ has a nice grouping of people who were inside the Proud Boys and Oathkeepers who flipped and have been providing information. These are witnesses that the 1/6 committee does not have access to, and look at what a devastating narrative they've been able to put together without them. Given that, imagine what the DOJ is constructing.

Bruce.desertrat said...

"You know at one time the Nazis too
thought they were the really big dogs.

How'd that turn put?"

Lesse: millions of dead, world wide destrction on an industrial scale, letting the nuclear genie out of the bottle.

Gonn asay pretty fucked up all around. Sure it could have been worse, but that's cold (Cold War) comfort...

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