Trump’s Grifty Myopia
The griftiness of it all is not surprising, but remains astounding.
Amid the documents released by the January 6th committee comes this gem: that Trump was concerned with trademarking the phrase “Rigged Election!” right after the 2020 election (Trump wanted to trademark ‘Rigged Election!’ and other key findings from the Jan. 6 panel’s latest release).
On November 9, 2020, then-Trump aide Dan Scavino emailed Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, with the request from Trump.
“Hey Jared! POTUS wants to trademark/own rights to below, I don’t know who to see – or ask…I don’t know who to take to,” the email from Scavino reads, according to a transcript of Kushner’s testimony to the committee, which was released by the panel on Friday.
Two phrases were bolded in the email: “Save America PAC!” and “Rigged Election!”
I will readily allow that in the reams of information about very serious matters this is a minor blip and in most ways is of little consequence. But by the same token, it is a disturbing insight into the petty grift machine that is the former president’s brain.
I suppose on one level it is a testament to his weird genius for exploiting his customers, but it is about as far away from an appropriate presidential impulse as one can get.
The reason you trademark something is to protect the ability to make sales using a given phrase. Because, you know, if you are the President of the United States and you think that an election was stolen, one of your first moves would be to figure out the merchandising angle. Although more likely than not, he didn’t care about the veracity of any of his claims and he simply was thinking about how to make a buck.
Of the reason that I objected to Trump as a candidate and as president is that he is clearly unsuited for the job in fundamental ways. He is simply not a serious person.
A serious person, when faced with the belief that an American presidential election was stolen, does not start thinking about hat, t-shirt, and bumper sticker sales.
There is also a profound stupidity in all of this. If, in fact, the election was stolen, then the US was facing a truly terrifying authoritarian turn. As such, he really needed to be a bit more fearful of his legal status, what with the incoming regime clearly having vast powers to manipulate outcomes in a truly impressive fashion.
Or, if he knew it was all, to quote the former Attorney General, “bullshit” then he really had no concept or care about what such claims could do to the body politic. It is governing malpractice on a massive scale. And hey, if he could sell a new line of merch, so much the better!
It is worth noting, too, that the people he wanted to fleece with “Rigged Election!” gear were his base. You know, people who need an alternative to their MAGA hat. It is continually obvious how the whole thing was a grift.
It is continually obvious how the whole thing was a grift.
For shame, Steven, for shame! Surely that he’s running again in 2024 just shows his desire to turn the nation back to the Godly democracy that was lost under Obama and is tarnished each day by the evil Joe Biden! As they say, why would he lie? Who would profit?
He is a grifter through and through. It remains astonishing to me that he was ever elected.
Reminds me a lot of Karl Rove/unnamed senior Bush admminsitration official:
The guy wasn’t entirely wrong. Because Trump did manage to create a new (albeit not universally accepted) reality, namely that the election was stolen. Ashli Babbitt was willing to die for this “reality.” Others went to jail.
You can’t deny that there is a certain power in not being tethered to reality.
Maybe you care about reality, other people care more about power (in all its shapes and forms).
And let’s face it, it worked for Trump for a long, long time.
@drj:
Without any doubt.
And I also would say that people who want power for the sake of power are often the most dangerous of people.
Many of us were saying he was just a grifter conman from the jump.. and we were shouted down because Of Course He’s Serious And Very Rich.
This will get ignored just like all the rest.. because they don’t want to confront the objective reality that everything about DJT was a lie.
That, and part of being an appealing cult leader is using enough doublespeak to allow followers to project whatever they want onto him.
I’ve been reading Michael Cohen’s Disloyal, about his years of being Trump’s groveling dogsbody, and my two main takeaways so far are that Trump is even more loathsome than we thought, and that reality has absolutely no meaning for him.
It’s worth remembering that fraud and cons are vastly under-reported because the victims would rather be victims than admit they were victims.
MAGAts tell themselves they’re inside the con, but Trump isn’t collecting his pay from liberals. We’ve never bought any part of Trump’s con job. MAGAts are the victims. They placed their lives, their very identities in Trump’s hands, and he of course squeezes them, and they inevitably, squeal in delight as cult members do. But that said, there’s a trickle leaving the cult, a trickle starting to realize that people are going to prison for Trump’s lies. And starting to realize their orange Jesus DGAF about them.
MAGA is about where Scientology is. Still alive and kicking but sliding ever further down the IQ curve.
We begin the Saint Peter stage, where some MAGAts will deny their Christ thrice, but most will just sort of fade away into the wallpaper. Ten years from now finding an admitted ex-MAGAt will be as hard as finding an ex-Nazi in postwar Berlin. “Me? No, I was never on-board with all the crazy, I just liked some of his policies! Heh heh, Q? Nah, I never. . .”
@Jen: Interesting response. Whenever I think of the people having elected Trump, I’m reminded of H.L. Menkin’s musings about underestimating the intelligence of the American public and the dangers of going broke doing so.
@CSK: Reality isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Our contemporary situation allows for copious constructing of reality and given how much conjecture is perceived to be “fact” and “reality,” Kellyanne Conway’s admonition that the various media have their facts and Trump’s people have “alternate facts” isn’t really that far off the mark.
I think I suffer from benito fatigue. there are many possible observations, mostly denigrating, to be made on this matter. but who has the energy for that anymore?
I really would like to hear a lot more about the Cheeto only after he’s indicted. That would be energizing.
@Jen:
Me too, but Trump somehow managed to convince people who felt abandoned by Republicans and Democrats alike that he not only cared for them but was one of them. What’s sad is that he despises them.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Trump’s refusal to acknowledge reality is the most extreme case I’ve ever seen.
I can and I do. There is a certain freedom that comes from not being tethered to reality, but that is not power. Sooner or later that freedom crashes into reality and is on the losing end, like the person who believes with all their heart that they can fly and jumps off a 16th floor balcony.
@Gavin: Oh for fuck’s sake, no one shouted you down, bloody hell drama lama overdone language. Rather the broad establishment agreed and discounted his potential. Serious people never considered him either genuinely rich nor a serious person. That became his strength in playing the rubes.
@OzarkHillbilly:
You are far more optimistic than I about our financial and political elites if you don’t think that there are a significant number of Elons, Trumps, or Bankman-Frieds who managed to stop just in time.
Prediction: Jared Kushner (the one who was going to bring peace to the Middle East) will get off scot-free and end up quite a bit richer as well.
@Lounsbury: Do you always have this kind of trouble with distinguishing figurative from literal? I mean, I get that you’re doing your “scold of the lefties” schtick, but your grip on reality is starting to slip a little if you didn’t get that he was speaking figuratively. Either that or your credibility as an honest broker.
Dude, chill.
@Lounsbury:
2/3 of white male voters are rubes?
@Lounsbury: Drama llama. Two “Ls.”
@Jen: I would like maudlin pangolin, coarse horse and obtuse mongoose to get their day.
And maybe vanity manatee.
@Michael Reynolds:
He could. All he needs to do is sell toilet paper with his face printed on it.
@Gustopher:
propaganda panda?
ponderous rhinoceros?
🙂
Let’s see… Elon has lost what? 50% of the value on his Tesla stock since he way overpaid for twitter and ever since has been showing his ass to the entire world? Yeah, fantasy 0 – reality 3.
Trump? Let’s see… oh hell, I am not even going to enumerate all his legal problems, which even if he slithers out of 50% of them it will cost him a fortune in lawyer’s fees and might well end up in prison/on probation anyway. Fantasy 2 1/2 – 3, trump 1 at best.
SBF? How much did he have to post in bail??? And how much does he now say he is worth??? Reality 332 – SBF fantasy -4.
1 of the 3 above is definitely going to prison (Bernie Maddow anyone?). The 2nd… I don’t see how he weasels his way out of prison, but it’s always possible they will let him live under a bridge somewhere. The 3rd… This is just the beginning of the end of his grift. Lord only knows how low he will go.
Reality doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the lies one tells oneself. One can keep saying it’s 70 degrees and the sun is shining, but if one is in Buffalo during December the weather gods are gonna fuck you up.
@Steven L. Taylor:
You mean like Brandon – I mean, Biden?
Good Lord, you and your cronies here are living in an alternate universe. One entirely situated inside Trump’s head, it appears.
News flash, children: Trump’s not in office. Unfortunately, the Unclothed Emperor is.
Counter prediction: This is the guy who way overpaid for 666 5th Ave and only got the Qataris to bail him out because his father in law was in the White House at the time and they stupidly thought he had influence there.
My prediction is that he will make a similarly stupid investment that will eventually go very badly south and thinking it was his brilliant business acumen that got the Qataris to invest in him the first time around he will go hat in hand begging for more. They will look at the millions they lost and look into his vacant eyes and seeing his empty future they will say, “Fck off.”
Oooopps… somebody farted.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Sorry, fondue’s hittin a little funny.
@alanstorm: Says the guy who probably got suckered into a double payment to allllll of Trump’s grifting emails, and now he’s too far in the hole to think about ever not planting his nose right up Trump’s ass…..because someday….he’ll be a winner again!
Happy New Year, sucker.
Speaking of losers…..it looks like Elon Musk is on track to be the first person EVER to lose 200 billion dollars.
Not sure alan or oneamerican can count that many zeroes.
@Steven L. Taylor: @alanstorm:
Steven, you have cronies! Rejoice!
But wait…you aren’t very good at managing them. Cronies don’t pushback on their keepers regularly.
So good luck hanging onto them.
Alan, we are all still waiting for that storm that’s been a-brewin’ and a-comin’ for how many years now? Or is your name the persona you adopt when you go out at night, defacing various private properties with “I Did That” stickers? Either way…
Sad!
@alanstorm:
Well, with cleverness of this magnitude, consider me fully chastised and in my place.
@Kurtz: Good cronies are so hard to come by.
BTW: I marvel at the way in which these types of guys just show up and basically make the same comment over and over and then scurry off.