The President and the Porn Star

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_MeDotOrg
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The President and the Porn Star

Post by _MeDotOrg »

Alternate title: A few Centuries after the Cherry tree.

It says something about Presidential political reality in 2018 that a President having an affair with a porn star 4 months after the birth of his youngest child (And subsequently paying $130,000 for said Porn Star's silence) is NOT the biggest story of the year. If you don't think the political climate has changed, imagine the political blowback for Clinton, Bush or Obama.

The only proof of payoff is the empirical but indirect evidence of Stormy's silence on the subject. But if there was a non-disclosure agreement, it was after the In Touch magazine article. One would think that the litigious Mr. Trump would have sued In Touch and Stormy for the blatantly false allegations, but he seemed to let it slide.

I think about Sarah Sander's father, Mike Huckabee, and the self-righteous outrage that would be forthcoming if this was Clinton, Bush or Obama. But we are in Trumpland now (the country formerly known as U.S.A.). We are slowly being anesthetized to outrage.
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_EAllusion
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Re: The President and the Porn Star

Post by _EAllusion »

If there's a Democrat president in 2021, it would be back on as something that is a world-stopping national outrage. Don't fret about that. That hasn't gone away. Even the, "But...but you gave a pass to president Trump" defense would cause indignation. The real question for me is to what extent this is a muted scandal because it is Trump and to what extent does any Republican get this kind of pass now because of how the balkanized media currently works. I suspect this norm would apply to President Marco Rubio, but I'm not entirely confident.
_DoubtingThomas
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Re: The President and the Porn Star

Post by _DoubtingThomas »

MeDotOrg wrote:Alternate title: A few Centuries after the Cherry tree.

It says something about Presidential political reality in 2018 that a President having an affair with a porn star 4 months after the birth of his youngest child (And subsequently paying $130,000 for said Porn Star's silence) is NOT the biggest story of the year.


It is a good thing the story is not the biggest of the year. Like I told Doctor CamNC4Me, "How is that relevant to his presidency? His private life is none of our business. His wife probably doesn't give a s***."

Yes it proves conservative Republicans are a bunch of hypocrites, but I see no need to add fire over this.
_EAllusion
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Re: The President and the Porn Star

Post by _EAllusion »

DoubtingThomas wrote:
MeDotOrg wrote:Alternate title: A few Centuries after the Cherry tree.

It says something about Presidential political reality in 2018 that a President having an affair with a porn star 4 months after the birth of his youngest child (And subsequently paying $130,000 for said Porn Star's silence) is NOT the biggest story of the year.


It is a good thing the story is not the biggest of the year. Like I told Doctor CamNC4Me, "How is that relevant to his presidency? His private life is none of our business. His wife probably doesn't give a s***."

Yes it proves conservative Republicans are a bunch of hypocrites, but I see no need to add fire over this.

Trump paying hush-money to cover his dirty laundry smack dab at the end of the campaign suggests he is vulnerable to blackmail. That's something you don't want in a President.

(Of course, we live in a universe where the President is accepting straight-up cash to attend parties with him and you have to be a news-hound to even hear about that, so this isn't the biggest story out there regarding underreaction to Trump by a long shot. But it would've been for Obama or any number of other possible presidents.)
_DoubtingThomas
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Re: The President and the Porn Star

Post by _DoubtingThomas »

EAllusion wrote:Trump paying hush-money to cover his dirty laundry smack dab at the end of the campaign suggests he is vulnerable to blackmail. That's something you don't want in a President.


He paid money to keep his private life ... well private. I agree money in politics is a big problem, but almost all politicians would be willing to pay money to cover up the dirt.
_EAllusion
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Re: The President and the Porn Star

Post by _EAllusion »

DoubtingThomas wrote:
EAllusion wrote:Trump paying hush-money to cover his dirty laundry smack dab at the end of the campaign suggests he is vulnerable to blackmail. That's something you don't want in a President.


He paid money to keep his private life ... well private. I agree money in politics is a big problem, but almost all politicians would be willing to pay money to cover up the dirt.


A person who is willing to pay a lot of money to keep dirty laundry in their private life private is a person who is vulnerable to blackmail. You'd think Trump would be invulnerable to blackmail where not covering up his traitorous wrongdoing is concerned because there's already so many bad stories about him out in the open that he has survived. But then you have this story proving that, no, he'll totally bend to prevent a bad story getting out there. It should be self-evident why this isn't a good position for the President to be in.

It should make you wonder what other people who have information on his dumpster fire of a life might be demanding to withhold it. Maybe nothing, maybe not. Either way, this is not an insignificant non-story.
_EAllusion
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Re: The President and the Porn Star

Post by _EAllusion »

I'd also say that I'm a person who does think the President is a role model. They shouldn't necessarily be, but they are, and you should prefer for Presidents to comport themselves accordingly. It's not the only or main basis to judge a President's performance on. There's plenty of room to tolerate bad personal behavior in someone if they make up for it in other dimensions of the job. But we should lament the extent to which Trump or any President sets a bad example. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say Clinton was unfit for office because of his harassment and deception, but it sure as heck was a black mark on his presidency and a reason to judge him more negatively.

You don't see a ton of press on it at the moment, but Trump's almost comically awful example probably is having bad role modeling effects. Paying hush money to pornstars he had an affair with ain't helping on that front.
_MeDotOrg
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Re: The President and the Porn Star

Post by _MeDotOrg »

DoubtingThomas wrote:It is a good thing the story is not the biggest of the year. Like I told Doctor CamNC4Me, "How is that relevant to his presidency? His private life is none of our business...

Yes it proves conservative Republicans are a bunch of hypocrites, but I see no need to add fire over this.

So if it had come out a month before the election that Trump had an affair with a porn star 4 months after Brandon was born, and had attempted pay the woman $130,000 to sign a non-disclosure agreement, that would have had no effect on the election? You don't think that could have swung 30,000 votes in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania?

You don't think this revelation could have possibly swung the election? I think of that as a big deal.

DoubtingThomas wrote: His wife probably doesn't give a s***."


Melania probably refers to this as 'locker room walk'.

Perhaps his youngest son, as well as the rest of his family are less sanguine?
"The great problem of any civilization is how to rejuvenate itself without rebarbarization."
- Will Durant
"We've kept more promises than we've even made"
- Donald Trump
"Of what meaning is the world without mind? The question cannot exist."
- Edwin Land
_aussieguy55
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Re: The President and the Porn Star

Post by _aussieguy55 »

"Another motivation to go public, she said, was her anger about Trump’s newfound opposition to abortion and gay marriage."

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/201 ... rc_engaged

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/201 ... irc_recent

I wonder how his evangelical supporters are going to deal with it.

Donald Trump"I don't see why I need to repents when I am doing nothing wrong".

Megan Kelly's interview with the ladies friend supports the story. Seems like he might have wanted a three some.
Hilary Clinton " I won the places that represent two-thirds of America's GDP.I won in places are optimistic diverse, dynamic, moving forward"
_subgenius
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Re: The President and the Porn Star

Post by _subgenius »

MeDotOrg wrote:Alternate title: A few Centuries after the Cherry tree.

It says something about Presidential political reality in 2018 that a President having an affair with a porn star 4 months after the birth of his youngest child (And subsequently paying $130,000 for said Porn Star's silence) is NOT the biggest story of the year. If you don't think the political climate has changed, imagine the political blowback for Clinton, Bush or Obama.

there would have been no such "blowback", you are exaggerating. JFK made infidelity an integral part of Camelot and that had no "blowback" (notwithstanding Marilyn's preferences). Clinton was a known womanizer with even his wife acting as an enforcer by defending his promiscuity on the public stage. Bush - really? and Obama - clearly his tastes run along the lines of NBA stars not porn stars.

MeDotOrg wrote:The only proof of payoff is the empirical but indirect evidence of Stormy's silence on the subject. But if there was a non-disclosure agreement, it was after the In Touch magazine article. One would think that the litigious Mr. Trump would have sued In Touch and Stormy for the blatantly false allegations, but he seemed to let it slide.

I think about Sarah Sander's father, Mike Huckabee, and the self-righteous outrage that would be forthcoming if this was Clinton, Bush or Obama. But we are in Trumpland now (the country formerly known as U.S.A.). We are slowly being anesthetized to outrage.

You are constructing a most fragile man out of straw here....truly, no one cares...if anything it makes Democrats like him more...sexual deviance plays well to the DNC base.
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