Another Credible Rape Claim Against Trump....

[Adrift]

Trump's behavior was appalling although without it the majority of Americans would have remained unaware of just how shaky Ford's claims were since the MSM was taking extraordinary steps to avoid covering that in any sort of meaningful way. It wasn't until Trump blasted her in a Tweet which listed a number of the holes in her story that the MSM started covering it. And they only did so in order to show what a mean old ogre Trump was (quoting all the nasty things he said). IIRC, there was a chart showing support for Ford and opposition to Kavanaugh changing dramatically in the week or so after his tweet with many experts attributing the change to Trump's exposing the problems in her allegations as the reason.

I'd like to see that chart. It seemed to me that Ford's claims sounded shaky from the start, and most people felt that way, and that support for Kavanaugh seemed on pretty firm ground from the start, and continued that way. I don't remember Trump turning things around with a Tweet, but maybe my perception is skewed by hanging in different circles.

Here's the "very fine people" statement in context:

If you reported it accurately, you would say that the neo-Nazis started this thing. They showed up in Charlottesville. Excuse me. They didn't put themselves down as neo-Nazis. You had some very bad people in that group. You also had some very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group -- excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down, of to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.

Later in the same press conference, he said:

You had people and i'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists. They should be condemned totally. You had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. The press has treated them absolutely unfairly. Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people but you also had troublemakers and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats. You had a lot of bad people in the other group too.

https://www.vox.com/2017/8/15/161540...harlottesville

Anybody who could think that Trump was directly or indirectly calling white supremacists "very fine people" is either deceived, or being deceptive themselves.

I noticed that there has been a bit of historical revisionism since the event. As I understood it, the event labeled itself as a Unite the Right Rally, and most people at the time thought of it as just that...a sort of right wing rally that might have been triggered by the moving of Civil War statues, but that was about uniting right-wing citizens in general. I thought it was always understood that there were going to be some bad apples there, but that's common for any political turn out. You're going to have wackjobs at a unite the Unite the Left Rally as well. Generally speaking, it didn't seem it was intended to be a racist/neo-Nazi event. It was only some time after the tragic events of the rally that the full representation and agenda of those who initiated the rally seemed to come to light. That it was actually created by white supremacists, who very likely hoodwinked your regular right-winged American into supporting something they likely never would have had they known who all initiated it. If I had to guess, Trump was going by that understanding of the event...that it was a general right-wing rally that had a few nuts in it, and that those protesting it also had a few nuts.

The problem with Trump, as demonstrated in the quotes above, is that he's absolutely horrendous at getting his point across. He can't seem to talk without interrupting his train of thought with another thought, and it waters down whatever point he's trying to make. It's a wonder to me how he was ever successful in business. He's just lousy at expressing his point, and so, it's often missed. That's not a defense of Trump, by the way. I think it's bad that the leader of the free world has a problem communicating what he needs to communicate. He needs to fire his speech writer, and then stick to the script.

[myth]

As someone who actually investigates sexual assaults for a living (I did nothing but these cases for several years), I thought I'd give some of my initial impressions based on an interview with E. Jean Carroll on The Daily (transcript here: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/p...owTranscript=1

[oxmixmudd]

Time for a little whataboutism.... Obama did what you are describing every time he weighed in on a racial conflict without getting the facts. The militant blacks could think "hey, this guy is with us!". You condemn that, too, yes?

Yes I would, and did, except not here. I was not posting in civics when Obama was president.


Jim

[rogue06]

In that regard, Trump demonstrated quite clearly his ability to 'play' the media.

It made me reevaluate my stance of wanting him to please put his phone down and stop tweeting

[Zymologist]

The problem with Trump, as demonstrated in the quotes above, is that he's absolutely horrendous at getting his point across. He can't seem to talk without interrupting his train of thought with another thought, and it waters down whatever point he's trying to make. It's a wonder to me how he was ever successful in business. He's just lousy at expressing his point, and so, it's often missed. That's not a defense of Trump, by the way. I think it's bad that the leader of the free world has a problem communicating what he needs to communicate. He needs to fire his speech writer, and then stick to the script.

I think this sums it up well. Sometimes I'll read a transcript of something he said, and just think, "...what?"

[rogue06]

Also, several people in this thread are arguing for or against automatically believing rape victims when the make an accusation. The correct answer is, you don't do either. You peg that Belief-O-Meter at Neutral, and you gather information and let the needle on the Belief-O-Meter move wherever it goes.

In our society that is just not how it works. The accuser is almost always called the "victim" which immediately presumes that she is telling the truth.

[oxmixmudd]

I am glad you enjoyed my posts in NatSci. I am sorry you don't enjoy them here. But I am the same person in both.

There are a large number of issues that contributed to the crisis in Puerto Rico. But when you warn your kids they are heading down the wrong road and they head that way anyway and get themselves in trouble, is that the time to abandon them?

The fact is there are millions of people there suffering, and you don't take the time when they are starving or dying of thirst to lecture them about what their government did wrong. If their government wont help them then maybe if necessary you go in there and take over from their government for a time - but you don't let them alone to deal with it and you don't drag your feet getting in there and making sure people in isolated areas are getting food and water, and you don't look the other way knowing their own ineptitude is going to make things worse because you are mad over an unflattering sound bite on the news. The president must be more mature than that. And honestly, his supporters need to grow up and stop justifying actions that in fact kill people because they don't like how the media talks about him either.

Trump basically didn't like how their government officials talked about him. And for that, people suffered and died. And that is inexcusable.


Jim

[Adrift]

It made me reevaluate my stance of wanting him to please put his phone down and stop tweeting

I have a hard time thinking that Trump is playing 4D chess or whatever. Most of the time that he Twitters, he looks like a goofball. Sometimes he gets lucky, and things don't blow back in his face. Those who support him like that he Twitters without tact because, "He's no politician who minces words. He's an everyman just like me!"

[rogue06]

I'd like to see that chart. It seemed to me that Ford's claims sounded shaky from the start, and most people felt that way, and that support for Kavanaugh seemed on pretty firm ground from the start, and continued that way. I don't remember Trump turning things around with a Tweet, but maybe my perception is skewed by hanging in different circles.

It was from one of the myriad of different polling outfits and led to discussions on more than one show on a couple of TV channels. The point was that very few people who weren't following the story closely and only got their info from the MSM had only heard about how credible she was and were unaware of just how flimsy her story was. That changed for a significant portion of Americans once they started hearing (often for the first time) just what sort of problems her claims had.

[rogue06]

I have a hard time thinking that Trump is playing 4D chess or whatever. Most of the time that he Twitters, he looks like a goofball. Sometimes he gets lucky, and things don't blow back in his face. Those who support him like that he Twitters without tact because, "He's no politician who minces words. He's an everyman just like me!"

I don't see him as being a mastermind of some sort but it is undeniable that he has a superb understanding of how the media works and how to manipulate them. He's been doing it for decades.

[rogue06]

I am glad you enjoyed my posts in NatSci. I am sorry you don't enjoy them here. But I am the same person in both.

There are a large number of issues that contributed to the crisis in Puerto Rico. But when you warn your kids they are heading down the wrong road and they head that way anyway and get themselves in trouble, is that the time to abandon them?

The fact is there are millions of people there suffering, and you don't take the time when they are starving or dying of thirst to lecture them about what their government did wrong. If their government wont help them then maybe if necessary you go in there and take over from their government for a time - but you don't let them alone to deal with it and you don't drag your feet getting in there and making sure people in isolated areas are getting food and water, and you don't look the other way knowing their own ineptitude is going to make things worse because you are mad over an unflattering sound bite on the news. The president must be more mature than that. And honestly, his supporters need to grow up and stop justifying actions that in fact kill people because they don't like how the media talks about him either.

Trump basically didn't like how their government officials talked about him. And for that, people suffered and died. And that is inexcusable.


Jim

The Puerto Rican situation has been beaten into a fine pink mist which is a major reason that much of the MSM dropped it like a hot potato once the facts started to emerge.

Aside from allowing their infrastructure to decay to the point that (as they were repeatedly warned) a direct hit from a hurricane would wipe out their power grid requiring to be built from the ground up, the local government greatly exacerbated the situation after the storm by hoarding water, food and the equipment and supplies needed to restore power. IIRC, the feds literally had to send an armed unit in to get them to release some of the supplies so they could be sent to the people in need and start fixing things.

Logistically speaking, especially considering the resistance they faced from local government officials, the rebuilding was a complete success, but it was stupid for Trump to have later congratulated himself considering the large loss of life. That was not just tone deaf but callous.

[oxmixmudd]

It was from one of the myriad of different polling outfits and led to discussions on more than one show on a couple of TV channels. The point was that very few people who weren't following the story closely and only got their info from the MSM had only heard about how credible she was and were unaware of just how flimsy her story was. That changed for a significant portion of Americans once they started hearing (often for the first time) just what sort of problems her claims had.

And as we discussed, many of those 'holes' were manufactured holes after the fact straining at gnats by those wishing to prop up Kavanaugh. And as frustrating as that entire conversation was, it becomes very, very clear how that when one is dealing with the sort of completely partisan politics driving these things any element of the debate that is not absolutely black and white can be made to appear mostly grey or even the opposite shade by those without the capacity to honestly weigh the facts or determined to shift public opinion. And those in Trumps camp are in fact masters at that craft, though it would be unfair to say those on the Democratic side do not possess similar skills.

Anyway - my point is not to rehash these tired arguments. The point is, and I think well attested to here, that you guys will defend Trump no matter what the situation, not matter what the facts are. I see nothing different now in these few posts than was in evidence in the original threads. And I stand by my characterization of them.


Jim

[Adrift]

It was from one of the myriad of different polling outfits and led to discussions on more than one show on a couple of TV channels. The point was that very few people who weren't following the story closely and only got their info from the MSM had only heard about how credible she was and were unaware of just how flimsy her story was. That changed for a significant portion of Americans once they started hearing (often for the first time) just what sort of problems her claims had.

Interesting. In my office it was talked about as soon as it happened, and like I said, her claim sounded shaky at best. My office is pretty evenly split between liberal and conservative, and everyone was sorta "eh" about it. I don't remember Trump tweeting about it till some time into the whole ordeal, and it didn't overturn anyone's opinion that I knew. But like I said, maybe just the circles I'm in or something.

[Adrift]

I don't see him as being a mastermind of some sort but it is undeniable that he has a superb understanding of how the media works and how to manipulate them. He's been doing it for decades.

Eh. I don't know. I have a hard time buying that. I mean, he definitely knows how to stir things up, and self-promote, but I don't think he's manipulating the media in the sense that you seem to be suggesting. Like I said, I think he's just lucky more often than not, and his die hard supporters are so rabid that there's not much he could say that would shake them much.

[rogue06]

Offering up lame excuses and wishful thinking hardly constitutes showing that they were manufactured holes. To briefly recap:

• She could not remember when the assault supposedly happened. And I don't mean she was a bit fuzzy, she could not remember the year, or what time of year (month season or something like it was near the start/end of a semester, or anything like it), what time of week or anything at all.
• She could not remember where the party where she was supposedly assaulted was, giving only the most vague and unhelpful details.
• She couldn't remember how she got home from wherever it was she was supposedly assaulted.
• Her lifelong friend who Ford says was there said that she doesn't remember it.
• None of the other people at the party (there were like only a half dozen or less) remembered such a party
• Her account of the attack kept changing very important details like how many were involved (that changed at least 4 times) and whether Kavanaugh followed her upstairs or was waiting in ambush when she got upstairs.
• Her latest version (the one offered up to Feinstein and co.) contradicted the account that she previously told her psychiatrist in many ways but most importantly she originally didn't appear to know who her assaulters were.
• She claims that she recognized Kavanaugh as her assailant immediately after Trump was elected and mentioned potential SCOTUS nominees but Trump did not add Kavanaugh to his list until much later.

And this is the short list. There were numerous other problems with her story.