• earlier this morning, I saw some poll on shitty ass reactionary Newsweek or some place like it that had confidence/support for Trump’s DOJ in handling Epstein in the single digits, lmao. those are toilet numbers in America, where probably a third of the US still thinks Brett Farve is a good guy.

    if he pardons her, the sheer number of already unstable, armed qanon weirdos that will experience a violent psychotic break and become aggressively fixed has got to be the subject of a secret service PowerPoint slide.

  • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
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    8 days ago

    yes, you can technically pardon your sex-trafficing pedophile co-conspiritor cementing republicans as the party of pedophiles.

    it would be very on-brand.

    • Evilsandwichman [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      I’m reminded of (although obviously not as gigantic an issue as this) an article someone once wrote in regards to why printers having a subscription to continue working was okay: they’re allowed to do it; that was it, that was the article; literally explaining that actually it was okay to lock your printer because the company is legally allowed to do it.

      • SoyViking [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        8 days ago

        If the republicans are the party of pedophiles then the democrats have to be at least as pedophile-friendly in order to reach across the aisle. Only true adults in the room would understand.

      • marxisthayaca [he/him,they/them]@hexbear.net
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        7 days ago

        Dems are like hey we need to highlight all the pedophiles we currently have in office, start an ad campaign stat!the one time we had a lot of influence we had a pedophile in the white house, we need to elevate more pedophiles

    • opus86@lemmy.today
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      8 days ago

      That’s their superpower, they don’t care what anyone thinks about them. They are just steamrolling their agenda without a care what anyone says about it.

  • godlessworm [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    i looked at r/conservative to see what they were saying, and they think that trump is “dangling a pardon over her head so she keeps talking”. as if the deal wouldnt be “dont talk and i’ll pardon you”. they still cling onto hope that trump is a “benevolent pedophile” lmfaooo

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    If he pardons her we may actually see a serious schism within the GOP. I think there’s too many people who signed on because they believed Trump was going to punish pedophiles, if Ghislaine goes on TV to say Trump didn’t do shit and he pardons her, that is going to break some brains.

    • BeamBrain [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      I think there’s too many people who signed on because they believed Trump was going to punish pedophiles

      That’s the reason they give, but I don’t think it’s the actual reason. Him being on Epstein’s list didn’t shake their faith in him.

      • christian [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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        8 days ago

        If you confidently say something out loud enough times it starts becoming pretty embarrassing to backtrack on it. If they can’t even come up with a justification that’s convincing in their inner monologue, they’ll have to either backtrack on being pro-Trump or being anti-pedophilia. This might sound absurdly optimistic, but I actually think most magas would have an easier time revoking support for Trump than saying they don’t care about pedophilia.

    • I’m kinda torn because I know Maxwell still isn’t getting the punishment she deserves but this is still better than nothing, and pardoning her may be really hurtful to the victims.

      On the other hand, it may create an interesting series of events as long as NEH campists put down the lathe.

    • GoodGuyWithACat [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      I think there’s too many people who signed on because they believed Trump was going to punish pedophiles

      These people don’t care about pedophiles. They care about punishing liberals and built up a public reason to justify their hatred. They care about punishing non white people, queer folks, and women and will do any sort of mental gymnastics to go back to supporting Trump.

  • LangleyDominos [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    I think certain media strategies make a lot more sense if you look at it as a private conversation said in public rather than simply a public statement. The FBI guy did one of these earlier this year on Epstein where he answered a question nobody in the room asked. It’s easy to write it off as just poor presentation or trying to avoid other questions. But I think there is a deeper purpose and that is to let specific people or a specific person know something. If you contact them directly, that puts a clear line from you to them. If you shout in an public place and they happen to be there to hear it, you’re talking to everyone.

    So anyways, Ghislaine was visited last week by Bondi or Bondi’s team. What Trump said here is to show Ghislaine he’s ready to play ball on her pardon. It’s not a Trump gaff. The plan may be to feign weakness, have the GOP put her in a congressional hearing where she says she never met Trump, and then pardon her. Is it an obvious gambit? Yes. But it’s legal and there’s enough plausible deniability for the 20% of Republicans that matter. Ghislaine goes to Israel for protection and Trump can move on with the Russiagate trial as a palette cleanser.

    This has to be like watching the Warren Commission shit. Like a lot of the public agrees this is fishy and everyone is hoping someone will step in to stop it. But then it happens and a few years later you’re the punchline of every conspiracy theorist caricature. There’s going to be some MCU movie in 10 years with a tinfoil character and one of the heroes will quip “Oh you think Epstein’s island was real too eh? pffft”

    • Leon_Grotsky [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      There’s going to be some MCU movie in 10 years with a tinfoil character and one of the heroes will quip “Oh you think Epstein’s island was real too eh? pffft”

      Sorta off topic, but I watched X-Men: Days of Future Past last night and I choked on my drink cackling when they got to the “DID MAGNETO KILL JFK?!?” part

    • darkcalling [comrade/them, she/her]@hexbear.net
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      Ghislaine goes to Israel for protection and Trump can move on with the Russiagate trial as a palette cleanser.

      Meanwhile chuds go 210% “Jews did it, Jews did it!” and go off the deep end on anti-semitism and pedophile blood libel shit into full on classic Nazism as a result. Some of the smarter white nationalists pre-positioned for this pivot will be there to scoop them up, having already positioned themselves as outside the mainstream on imperialism, antagonism against Russia, and being critical of the mainstream chud info-tainment sphere (Fox, other Trump bootlickers), etc. Within 2 years a deranged chud radicalized by this shoots up a synagogue or Jewish school while proclaiming they’re stopping pedophiles.

  • LeeeroooyJeeenkiiins [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    Ive seen red maga frothing mad chuds in the wild posting shit like uh, trump telling superman he (trump) is a hero before getting smacked and quipped with “heroes dont protect pedophiles” and like obviously that doesn’t mean a lot but it’s not nothin IMO. It’s cracks in his support

    I think a lot of his most vocal online hogs were really on that q anon shit and he’s kinda giving incontrovertible evidence that it was all bullshit that, somehow, not even these people can deny any longer

    • Lussy [any, hy/hym]@hexbear.net
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      Ive seen red maga frothing mad chuds in the wild posting shit like uh, trump telling superman he (trump) is a hero before getting smacked and quipped with “heroes dont protect pedophiles” and like obviously that doesn’t mean a lot but it’s not nothin IMO. It’s cracks in his support

      Until you remind them Trump’s blackbagging minorities by the hundreds of thousands. He’s giving them what matters, there are no cracks in his support.

  • M68040 [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    8 days ago

    Given how pissed off people are about the sudden pivot on Epstein to this point, i figure he’s on track to get got by a melted brain Gen Xer libertarian who’s memorized every episode of south park

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    7 days ago

    I am begging everyone, from us to even the most brunch-loving liberal, play up the epstein angle at every turn. Call Trump and every rightoid a diddler.

    This could be our gamergate moment if we play our cards right.