Mike 03
Mike 03's JournalThe Curious Case of Dalia Dippolito
The case that he reminds me of is Dalia Dippolito. She was caught on video arranging a hit on her husband. Unbeknownst to her, the man she was hiring was an undercover police officer. A police sting caught her when she came back to her home believing her husband had just been assassinated.
Her interrogation is remarkable. When she was provided one phone call she called her husband, the man she'd just tried to have killed, and demanded to see him in person, because she believed, if she could just be alone with him, she could convince him of her innocence. That was her obsession: If I can just talk to him face to face, I can manipulate him and win him over, like I've won everybody over all my life.
She is a textbook example of a psychopath.
For some, yes.
Also, there's the cumulative impact to think about.
Fire and Fury by itself didn't get Trump removed, nor did any other single book (not even the Mueller Report) but when you have twelve, fifteen, twenty books I think it seeps into the national consciousness.
And that is also helped by the writers appearing on TV. The "book tour" aspect is an important part.
Most people won't have time for Peter Strzok's book, but they'll see him on TV saying exactly what Comey, Mattis and so many others are saying. I do think, in the aggregate, it can make a difference.
I'm not recommending Bolton's book, but one thing he definitely emphasizes
throughout it how easy it has been for foreign tyrants to manipulate Trump through flattery and deep-state hogwash. Trump is like a star-struck teenager around these people, and he only wants to be liked by them. He will give away anything to feel like he's part of that club.
I think Trump learned from Xi that COVID was airborne
because that information, although speculative and based on one study, came out much earlier than most people remember, and it was published in a study out of China.
We don't have to speculate about what might have happened if Woodward had released the tape early, because we actually saw yesterday what Trump would have done if Woodward had released the tape: lied and spun, just like he always does. "I was exaggerating... It was taken out of context... I wanted to be positive... It was a perfect call." It would be long forgotten today.
What cracks me up about these "He should have come forward sooner" posts is that dozens of people have come forward and even testified damaging-as-hell information about Trump over the last three years and Trump always escaped culpability and removal.
And that tape, had Woodward released it, would now be a distant, fleeting memory just like Trump pulling our troops out of Syria after a call with Erdogan and the subsequent slaughter of the Kurds, and all the other abominations Trump committed. Hell, there were things in the very first book, Fire and Fury, that could have put away any other president. Jared Kushner and his bullshit Top Secret security clearances, his relationship with MbS, abuse of funds for the Inauguration, violations of the emoluments clause, Manafort and Mike Flynn, a First Lady who doesn't want to live with her husband, firing of Comey, etc...
Who here remembers Fiona Hill's devastating testimony today? That should have been enough to put Trump out of office. And we could say that about dozens of other people, including Cohen. Any one of them, had this been any other presidential administration, could have set into motion the removal of a president.
Woodward isn't a saint, but what I am appreciating is the timing of all this. Same for Mattis waiting to come forward, Bolton, these DHS people, and Miles Taylor, and these others.
My guess is he was trying to impress Woodward, not about being a "cheerleader"
but just about how much he knew, name dropping President Xi, etc...
Trump only lives in the moment and the things that fly out of his mouth are only intended for the audience at any given moment. That is why he told a bunch of our troops that he had raised their salaries when he hadn't. In that moment, he wanted it to be true, but it wasn't.
He can't take responsibility for anything. He's a pathological liar. He doesn't want to believe anything that he considers bad news. Then, as for what he didn't do to save anybody, he's constitutionally lazy and extremely angry and even sadistic, and on top of that some of his close advisors might have given him ridiculous reasons that he was dumb enough to believe about why he should let the virus take its course in order to preserve the markets and the economy. It goes without saying he's failed on every level, unless one considers letting the Federal Reserve and Treasury prop up the absurdly bloated stock market a success.
Mary Trump's book is so worth reading. Or "Dangerous Case of Donald Trump" by Bandy Lee, et al.
Every successful tyrant or dictator who ever lived learned how to
do this trick. You make up an enemy that doesn't exist and get everyone who is not "the enemy" to hate the enemy. And then you move the enemy around. First they are outside the country, and then eventually, when the dictator needs to marginalize the opposition, the enemy is suddenly inside the country.
It's the fascist playbook.
By the way, they actually do love Trump, or how he makes them feel. They love Trump because of how powerful and acknowledged Trump makes them feel. I'd recommend picking up a good book about the Third Reich, or The Cult of Trump by Steven Hassan. Until the Red Army was burning down their homes, Nazi supporters loved Hitler; they thought he was put there by God. In fact, some of them never stopped loving Hitler, even when Germany was rubble.
I wish to god some reporter would say something like this:
So, you didn't want people to panic, but you didn't mind if they died??
or
It seems like you'd rather people die than panic, is that right?
Graham was definitely a source for Fear, Woodward's first Trump book.
You can tell because Woodward recounts phone conversations between Graham and Trump, where only those two people were present, and also tells us what Graham was thinking.
A book that has really helped me understand this, because it is
fascinating and a question many people wrestle with at some point during their lives (questions about the nature of evil and human criminal behavior) is Alone with the Devil by forensic psychiatrist Dr. Ronald Markman. It's an old book but it stands the test of time, and it approaches this question from both the legal and psychiatric perspective.
Evil is what happens when a person with no conscience attempts to
gratify himself, build himself up and evade responsibility for his actions. Sometimes his motive is revenge, or to hurt people who don't like him, or a desperation to please people who he owes a favor or who he perceives to have equal or greater status (i.e., Putin, Kim, Erdogan).
Profile Information
Gender: MaleHometown: Modesto California
Home country: United States
Current location: Arizona
Member since: Mon Oct 27, 2008, 06:14 PM
Number of posts: 16,616
