Wordsmithing the Trump Trials
or why is the world this lazy?
The Political Left wants to frame the Manhattan DA’s business record fraud case as an “Election Interference” plot to counter what corporate owned media is calling a “hush money” case.
Actually, it’s both, but neither phrase fully encapsulates what the case is about.
At the core of the Manhattan DA’s case against Donald Trump is a “catch and kill” program orchestrated by the Trump campaign is a bunch of wealthy One-percenters who couldn’t care less about policy, politics, or proficiency. They care only about wealth and the accumulation of more.
It was not a matter of idealism or pragmatism in 2016, it was pure nihilism. Donald Trump was just the 7th warrior for the very rich going back to Ronald Reagan. Before then, greed was demure and constrained. It’s been drumline leading a brass band of Republican politicians ever since.
In October 2016, Donald Trump, a “self-described billionaire” who was flying his own personal jet around, was hitting up America’s wealthiest citizens to buy him the White House. The response was not “you’re in the Forbes 400 and have your own jet" — it was more like “How much do I need to invest and I’ll let you know my expected rate of return.”
And now with so much at stake in 2024, the Political Left is wringing its hands over what to call the Manhattan DA’s case against Trump. I guess the world of social media communication requires blunt messaging, when a paragraph cannot even begin to explain it.
So, what’s the best shorthand phrase to use in the current Trump trial?
Shorthand phraseology is the tool of the lazy and stupid or those who pander to the same. That said, maybe we can do better, if we are allowed a few more words.
I don’t like “election interference” for two reasons: one being that Donald Trump uses it as a part of his daily word salad. The other is that outside of football, no one really understands what “interference” means.
“Hush money” is overly mild. By October 2016, even before the Access Hollywood tape was exposed, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign was in a panic. Reporters, who had been satisfied by the clown car parade that Trump had created on the GOP side, were getting hammered by the Clinton campaign about the lack of journalistic scrutiny into Trump’s misdeeds and affairs.
The solution was a “catch and kill” program conducted by David Pecker,1 owner of The National Enquirer and friend of Donald Trump, and the Trump campaign. The Enquirer, often with David Pecker’s personal involvement, would buy bad stories about Donald Trump and not publish them. A person, like Karen MacDougal or Stephanie Cliffiord (aka Stormy Daniels), would sell their story exlusively to the National Enquirer (at a high price); and it would die there never to be heard about again.
In the case of Stormy Daniels though, it was far different. She had already told her story several times before Donald Trump began running for president; and everyone in Trump’s inner circle knew, including Trump’s attorney, that the NDA signed by Daniels was worthless. Paying Stormy Daniel $130,000 was “catch and kill” without the necessity of a middleman. It was a straight up bribe to a porn star.
“Porn Star Payoff” works. It says — tell me more.
I meant to publish this yesterday, but I had a severe allergic reaction to my soon to be daughter-in-law’s cat.
But not about cats.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Pecker