Donald Trump gave a 20-minute phone interview to Newsmax Thursday, where he made some unbelievable claims about mugshots, indictments, and his co-defendants.

Rudy shouldn’t be going through this, Rudy didn’t do anything…but I look at some of the other people, now, I didn’t know a lot of those people. I don’t know that I even met a lot of those people, but some I do. And their lives are destroyed by these maniacs. These are animals, these are vicious animals that have destroyed the lives of these people….and they don’t have a lot of money. And some of them did almost nothing; they don’t even know what they’re being charged for.

Every time. Every single time.

    • @rtxn@lemmy.worldEnglish
      120•1 year ago

      There are three factors that work for him.

      • Since he has no integrity or backbone whatsoever, he says what people want to hear. Even if he does fuck all.
      • Conservatives have a lot of hatred for the changing society - he gives them an enemy to “fight” against. Even if it’s jewish space lasers.
      • Some people think that things happen in a vacuum. They vote for one part of the conservative agenda that they agree with and ignore the threat he represents as a whole.
    • @SulaymanF@lemmy.world
      67•1 year ago

      They’re too embarrassed by this point to admit they made a mistake (and they see what happens to people like Chris Christie) so they stay with the cult.

      It’s also a Reverse Cargo Cult:

      In a regular cargo cult, you have people who see an airstrip, and the cargo drops, so they build one out of straw, hoping for the same outcome. They don’t know the difference between a straw airstrip and a real one, they just want the cargo.

      In a reverse cargo cult, you have people who see an airstrip, and the cargo drops, so they build one out of straw. But there’s a twist:

      When they build the straw airstrip, it isn’t because they are hoping for the same outcome. They know the difference, and know that because their airstrip is made of straw, it certainly won’t yield any cargo, but it serves another purpose. They don’t lie to the rubes and tell them that an airstrip made of straw will bring them cargo. That’s an easy lie to dismantle. Instead, what they do is make it clear that the airstrip is made of straw, and doesn’t work, but then tell you that the other guy’s airstrip doesn’t work either. They tell you that no airstrips yield cargo. The whole idea of cargo is a lie, and those fools, with their fancy airstrip made out of wood, concrete, and metal is just as wasteful and silly as one made of straw.

      1980s Soviets knew that their government was lying to them about the strength and power of their society, the Communist Party couldn’t hide all of the dysfunctions people saw on a daily basis. This didn’t stop the Soviet leadership from lying. Instead, they just accused the West of being equally deceptive. “Sure, things might be bad here, but they are just as bad in America, and in America people are actually foolish enough to believe in the lie! Not like you, clever people. You get it. You know it is a lie.”

      Trump’s supporters don’t care about being lied to. You can point out the lies until you’re blue in the face, but it makes no difference to them. Why? Because it is just a game to them. The media lies, bloggers lie, politicians lie, it’s just all a bunch of lies. Facts don’t matter because those are lies also. Those trolls on Twitter, 4Chan, T_D, etc. are just having a good laugh. They are congratulating each other for being so smart. We are fools for still believing in anything. There is no cargo, and probably never was.

      • Alien Nathan Edward
        18•1 year ago

        I feel like the thing that’s missing about a reverse cargo cult is that a sincere attempt to sell the lie comes first. Once that fails, as it inevitably will (you can only be so insistent in telling people that they’re not actually hungry and cold before they call you out on it), that’s when the lie about how smart they are to spot the lie and the external comparisons begin.

      • @SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
        11•1 year ago

        A lot of people think that scams are always about a conman trying to convince them that they’re legit. Some scams are, but many take the form of the conman signalling that he actually is running a scam, he’s scamming someone you don’t like, and he’s going to let you in on the scam if you help him.

        The beauty of this kind of scam is the mark isn’t going to check on the conman’s credentials, because the whole point is that he’s a shady guy that’s running a scam, and the mark thinks they’re going to get a share in the loot.

        The famous Nigerian Prince scam is like this. It’s obvious that the transaction isn’t legit, the “Prince” would just use legal means to get the gold out of the country if it were. No need for an internet stranger for a legitimate transfer of gold. It’s obvious that the Prince is doing something shady, but he’s going to cut you in on the profits of the shady activity if you help him.

        Many people on the right feel like Trump is scamming the libs, scamming the federal government, scamming news media. But not scamming them, because they’re in on the scam! Pitiful rubes…

        • Meldroc
          7•1 year ago

          Exactly. The real scam is making the marks think they’re in on the con.

      • @Blastasaurus@lemm.ee
        10•1 year ago

        Your summation was solid, but the straw airstrip quote might be the worst, watery-yet-needlessly-convoluted analogy I have ever heard.

      • Queen HawlSeraEnglish
        6•1 year ago

        The Republican Party doesn’t claim to not make mistakes, they do claim that admitting a mistake would in and of itself, be a mistake.

    • @dmention7@lemm.eeEnglish
      41•1 year ago

      Not a liar, a bullshitter.

      Lying requires some respect for the truth. It implies you are trying to deceive by denying or obscuring the actual facts of the matter, but lying still involves trying to convince someone that your alternative story is true.

      Trump and Co. are just straight up bullshitters. Reality is completely irrelevant, and they just make up whatever sounds good on the fly with zero regard for whether it’s even consistent with what they said 10 minutes ago.

      The maddening part with bullshitters is you can’t even debate or reason with them because the truth literally doesn’t matter to them or their audience.

      • Alien Nathan Edward
        13•1 year ago

        Reality is completely irrelevant

        remember Dick Cheney sneering at the “reality-based community” as the lies he used to justify the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan started coming to light? This contempt for what’s real is embedded in Republican DNA.

    • snooggums
      41•1 year ago

      He says the terrible shit they are thinking out loud and belittles anyone who disagrees. They are living vicariously through him.

    • @gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
      30•1 year ago

      “He’s not lying to me, he’s lying to them (the media, libs, etc.)”

      Like, imagine you gave up on anything ever getting better and just wanted to fling shit at the people you blame for your misery. There is no bigger piece of shit to fling than Donald Trump.

      • Bipta
        6•1 year ago

        There is no bigger piece of shit to fling than Donald Trump.

        Brand new (very accurate) sentence.

    • @Taleya@aussie.zone
      4•1 year ago

      Is there a theory on how he’s the true lizard man come to sow dissent? Can we start one? He doesn’t even know our terms and idioms, dead giveaway.