Something else I'd like Michael Cohen to help us all understand: Loyalty to Trump

[flibbitygiblets]

I utterly fail to understand why anyone would be loyal to someone so vain, self-absorbed, incapable of humility or empathy, who gaslights and blames victims, who is so OBVIOUSLY full of shit and a con artist.

Why do we need this information? Because if someone can actually explain it, maybe we can use it against Trump's blind, stupid, arrogant followers.

Michael Cohen is famous for saying he'd "take a bullet for Mistah Trump". Not until Trump left Cohen swinging in the wind and facing dozens of years in prison, did that fool see the light and become (his words) a "patriot".

What will it take for 1/3 of America to do the same?

[JI7]

1. he wanted the fame

[unblock]

2. as edwin edwards once said, he'd have to be caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy.

short of that, the nut jobs will find an excuse for anything.

and i'm not so sure about the dead girl....

[dawg day]

3. I remember reading that after Trump cut him loose..

Cohen would walk past Trump Tower and choke up because he missed Trump so much.

I suspect his family eventually prevailed upon him to think of them for a change.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. In Cohen's case it might have been

that Cohen was an obscure, second-string lawyer who graduated from the worst law school in the U.S. (really!) and was making a living mostly by operating a shady taxi business and doing some real estate deals, then somehow he met Trump and saw a chance to attach himself to a rich celebrity. According to Wikipedia, "Trump hired him in part because he was already a fan of Trump's, having read Trump's Art of the Deal twice, bought several Trump properties, and convinced his own parents and in-laws, as well as a business partner to buy condominiums in Trump World Tower." Cohen was a remora who attached himself to a shark.

[Kaleva]

5. People become blinded by the god they made.

I lurk often at FR and I firmly believe that there is nothing that can convince a majority there that Trump is "someone so vain, self-absorbed, incapable of humility or empathy, who gaslights and blames victims, who is so OBVIOUSLY full of shit and a con artist.".

To do so would shatter their world view and their value system.

One can never really totally defeat true believers. We can minimize them and hope in time they change on their own or just die off.

[Cary]

6. Cult followers

[NanceGreggs]

7. There are more Michael Cohens ...

… in the world than you might think. They latch onto men they see as rich, influential, and powerful. It’s not sexual, but it an irresistible attraction. They live in constant and unremitting awe of their chosen idol. They want to be them, but know they never will be – so they settle for being part of their orbit. The object of their worship see them as an inferior lackey, a necessary nuisance to be taken advantage of. The worshipper, on the other hand, sees himself as his idol’s best friend.

When Trump first dismissed Cohen as a nobody, merely a lawyer he sometimes used for a small portion of his legal work, I can guarantee you that Cohen’s heart was broken. Sure, he treats other people that way – but me? I’m his best bud, his most trusted advisor, his closest confidant!

When Cohen finally flipped, I knew he’d tell Mueller everything – and apparently, he has.

They say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. In this instance, that woman’s fury doesn’t hold a candle to what Cohen feels towards Trump now.

We know that Trump has screwed others who trusted him, and I’m sure many of them have sought, and sometimes managed to achieve, some form of revenge.

The problem for Trump is that he screwed a man who is now in a position to destroy him.

You might think Cohen was stupid for ever trusting Trump. And I’d say he was.

But the real idiot here is Trump – he let himself believe that no one would ever dare turn against him, no matter how badly he used them, mistreated them, and humiliated them.

I guess he knows different now.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

8. trump power

I think Trump believes he has the power to simply squash or diminish his minions into irrelevancy, rather than believing they wouldn't dare turn against him.

[NanceGreggs]

9. I think it's a combination of both.

He's always operated in a world where literally anything could be resolved if you bullied enough, threatened enough, or reminded your opponent that you had more money to spend on lawyers, should push come to legal shove. (That last part is exactly how he got away with stiffing his labourers and suppliers. He'd just yell "sue me!" - knowing they couldn't afford the legal fees.)

Sadly for him, he's too oblivious to realize that how business is done in NYC is not applicable to life as an alleged "pResident". He's too stupid to understand that it's one thing for a spurned lawyer to be bad-mouthed in a Manhattan boardroom, and quite another for that spurned lawyer to spill his guts to a special counsel.

But I do think that Trump believed that no one would ever turn against him. He sees loyalty as a one-way street, and was probably flabbergasted to learn that not everyone in his orbit didn't fully understand and accept that that's the way it was.

Remember, the man is a delusional narcissist - I'm sure it never occurred to him that anyone would ever take a side against his own awesome self.