I suppose it’s possible that Trump thought that Epstein liked “young but legal” girls. That’s who he was often seen in public with. Trump could have bonded with him over that, and never realized that Epstein also liked the ones who were too young to be legal.

For Epstein, it would have been useful for people to know him as “that guy who likes young women, but always of legal age”. That way if someone ever spotted him with someone who looked too young, he’d have people coming to his defence saying “hey, he likes them young, but they’re always legal.”

I’m sure there were some people who knew the truth about Epstein, but what makes the most sense to me is that there was an inner circle that participated in the sex acts with underage girls, and a much bigger outer circle who just thought he liked young women. Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense to me how so many people with a lot to lose were eager to party with him and didn’t try very hard to hide it, like Bill Gates for example.

But yeah, maybe Trump was part of the inner circle. It would hardly be shocking given what we know about him.

Epstein was probably very useful for whatever purpose he served to Donny

Sure, but have you seen the video of Trump talking into Epstein’s ear while the two were watching cheerleaders or something. That scene genuinely seemed to be one where he was treating Epstein as a friend. I’m not sure how much Epstein thought of Trump as a friend, but it did really look like Trump wanted Epstein to be his friend at that point.

I agree that he mostly doesn’t have friends because he sees everyone as tools to be used and discarded. That’s probably how most of them view him too, like Musk. But, I wouldn’t be surprised if Epstein was one of the few people he viewed as a friend. He knew him for at least 15 years, and with most people he’d have discarded them already.

So Donny sending a card doesn’t necessarily imply a close friendship like you would expect with a typical person.

The sad thing is that Trump’s friendship with Epstein really does seem to be one of the closest / only friendships of his adult life.

You mean like doodling things and signing them?

and the future president’s signature is a squiggly “Donald” below her waist, mimicking pubic hair

How long until the marching order to the MAGA influencers is: “Well, there’s proof that Trump isn’t a pedophile, if he was, why would he be doodling pubic hair?! Case Closed!”

Cool

Epstine?

The line’s “that’s a cross”.

Imagine how much exercise he could get if he walked while playing golf rather than riding carts.

Are you saying that they lied about his health!? Say it ain’t so!

We know he’s 6’3" and 224 pounds with a resting heartbeat of 62 bpm. How could he possibly have health problems?

So what? You can wait until the next election and undo whatever they did. Or you can use your power to adjust the system so your opponents can’t win.

There’s a difference between voting in a block, and literally passing/interesting legislation to expand powers of another branch at the expense of your own.

Not really. As soon as people are told they have to vote for what the party wants instead of each person individually voting as they believe, then it’s just a matter of where you draw the line. If your party’s leader is president then why wouldn’t you just fall in line and pass everything he wants. If you’re a judge and your party’s president is in office, why wouldn’t you try to find legal justification for everything he wants. Why should there be party infighting between the president and the head of the house? Surely the house should just fall in line and let the President get his agenda passed.

There are a lot of things that can’t be grown at all in Canada that do grow in Mexico and the US. I’d love it if Canada imported more Mexican goods and stopped buying from the US. I know a lot of people in Canada are still avoiding US products / produce too.

I just wonder what Canada can sell Mexico. Mexico is part of the same North American network of auto manufacturing, so Canada technically exports car parts to Mexico and Mexico exports car parts to Canada. But, really, that’s just shuffling things around as part of a continent-wide manufacturing chain, with the imports and exports showing up in a country’s list for accounting purposes. I don’t think Canada is a major buyer of cars made in Mexico or vice versa. Canada’s other main exports are petroleum-related, but since Mexico has its own petroleum industry, they probably don’t buy much from Canada.

but what if 2/3rds of the government decides to wipe their ass with the constitution at the same time

Or just, “what if a party works together and falls in line under a single leader”?

It should have been obvious not that this was possible, but that it was inevitable.

The only way I can see to do anything about that flaw is to just make it ridiculously easy to impeach any politician, say something like a general vote of the public that only requires a 25% margin to pass

If that happened, seats would be constantly vacant. You’d have 75% D districts with a 25% R minority who would simply remove anybody the other side elected. The D’s would retaliate by removing a R. The oligarchs would love that system because there would be nobody to pass laws that stopped their looting.

The fundamental problem is democracy.

Giving every single person a vote, no matter what, is a problem. Weighing every single vote equally, no matter what, is a problem. The GOP won because there were enough people who had lost touch with reality that their lies were believable. And, now that they won, they’re going to rig the game even more, and make sure that there are no limits put on disinformation.

Democracy may be the best system we have found so far, but it has some severe failure modes.

I mean, who would think that independent branches of governments would WILLINGLY cede their power to other branches of government?

Anyone with any sense?

This is how political parties work. And, the “founding fathers” were aware of it too. They just thought that somehow the US was special and would magically avoid this problem.

The issue is how many “working class” people identify as “working class”. How many get all their information from Fox News, Newsmax and wherever Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones are posting from today. Also, how many are completely disengaged from politics and don’t even know who’s Mayor, let alone who might be running in the next election? The rich may be few in number, but they’re engaged and mobilized and have a lot of tools they can use.

Figureheads that stand as tall as Trump

Should they also wear lifts? Or is it important that their height is natural?

Is there some sinister reason why the low point was 1905 or so?

Yup, the 1950s was only better for white people, but there’s a reason that white people look back on it with fondness.

But, I’d guess that even for black people it was better than the 1930s. When the economy shinks, they’re the first to lose jobs. When it grows they’re the last to get them. In the 1950s things were booming so my guess is that black unemployment was low. Still, for working class white males the 1950s may have been a peak, for most other people things have just been getting better every year since then.

Imagine how good it could be if everyone got some of the things working class whites got in the 1950s: strong unions, good labour protections, high tax rates on the ultra rich, etc.