David Corn:The Scariest Part of the Trump-Ukraine Scandal? He Really Believes His Own Conspiracy The

[babylonsister]

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/10/the-scariest-part-of-the-trump-ukraine-scandal-he-really-believes-his-own-conspiracy-theories/


The Scariest Part of the Trump-Ukraine Scandal? He Really Believes His Own Conspiracy Theories.
It would be more comforting if he were just a serial liar.
David Corn


It’s been a long-standing question: Does Donald Trump believe his own crap? Does he truly think he has the best brain, that he is worth more than $10 billion, that there were more than a million people at his inauguration? And, in particular, does he accept the crazy conspiracy swill he so often slings: Barack Obama was born in Kenya, millions of undocumented immigrants voted illegally in the 2016 election for Hillary Clinton (which is why he did not win the popular vote), Ted Cruz’s dad killed JFK? It could be that Trump spews falsehoods, exaggerations, and ludicrous tales mainly for effect. He knows this stuff is bunk, but he tosses it out to gain an advantage—to pump up his image, to feed his political base, to shape the political discourse, to distract from his own misdeeds. But what if he actually does believe this rubbish? Which would be more alarming: a president who is a serial liar or a president who is delusional?

The Trump-Ukraine scandal has revealed much about its chief player, who comes across as a crass operator in his phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky, as Trump abuses the power of the presidency to muscle the Ukrainian leader into producing dirt that Trump can use for his own political purposes. But the quasi-transcript of this Godfather-like chat also answers the question posed above—and that answer is damn frightening.

As just about everyone now knows, during that July 25 call, when Zelensky told Trump that Ukraine wanted to obtain more Javelin anti-tank missiles from the United States, Trump immediately replied, “I would like you to do us a favor though.” He then, in his word-salad way, asked Zelensky to investigate the theory that the Democratic Party computer servers that were hacked by the Russians in 2016 supposedly ended up in Ukraine, as part of a grand plot to create a hoax Trump-Russia investigation to block Trump’s path to the White House. (Trump was hardly this coherent in making his request to Zelensky.) Referring to Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference, Trump said, “They say a lot of it started with Ukraine,” and he noted it was “very important” for Zelensky to investigate. Zelensky agreed to follow this path and pointed out that one of his assistants had already spoken about this to Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s chief henchman.

To be fair, you have to possess some background information to realize how bonkers this part of the conversation was. Trump was talking about one of the nuttiest conspiracy theories related to the Russia scandal—and he and his defenders have come up with a lot of bizarro alternative realities in their strenuous efforts to protect Trump. The basic theme they have been pushing for years is that Trump was set up by some Deep State cabal involving various US law enforcement and intelligence agencies, the Obama White House, the Democrats, the Hillary Clinton campaign, and, of course, the media (including me)—all of whom helped concoct a phony Russia investigation to delegitimize and stop Trump. And during his conversation with Zelensky, Trump zeroed in on one of the craziest variants of this favorite Big Idea of Fox News and the paranoid right.

snip//

It’s easy to dismiss Trump’s BS as, well, just BS. After all, Trump will publicly say anything to escape responsibility, change the subject, or cover up misconduct. He will claim an improper call was “perfect.” He will call for the arrest of a Congress member for treason. He will deny what he said an hour ago. An outrageous or offensive remark is often his best defense. But when he was speaking to Zelensky, he was not in front of an an audience (real or virtual). In private, he was expressing a priority and making a specific ask (or demand). And that focused on Zelensky producing information to confirm an utterly batty idea. Yet Trump regards this absurd idea as true. Why? Because he wants to. Because he needs it to be real. Because he does not care about reality. It was one thing for Trump to push Zelensky to come up with muck on Joe Biden and his son. That sort of material was within the realm of possibility (and it could probably be made up, if it doesn’t exist). But to concentrate on the servers conspiracy theory? This transcript shows that Trump is a prisoner of his own self-deception, a man untethered from the world of facts. It might be more reassuring if he was only an inveterate liar.

[wishstar]

1. Not only Trump but Barr and Pompeo have followed down the rabbit hole of the Deep State

conspiracies that it wasn't Trump who conspired with Russia. Seems that their ultimate goal is to help Putin and Trump by discrediting the Mueller findings about Russia interfering in the election to provide justification for sanctions to be lifted and Manafort pardoned.

[renate]

2. IDK... you know how it's such a mystery, why the WH decided to release such a damning memo?

I've been wondering whether he believed that if he stated on the phone call that he thought it was Ukraine, not Russia, who interfered in the election, we would go "Welp, if that's what he thinks, maybe he really isn't in thrall to Putin after all." And therefore he released the memo.

The theory that Trump believes the conspiracy theory that Ukraine did it, sounds good, but if it were correct, Trump would have to have been unaware of the conspiracy with Russia. I simply can't believe that could be true. His obsequiousness towards Putin is too complete.

I just reread David Corn's words, though, and I see that he's suggesting that Trump has actually, literally, and fully deluded himself. Oy vay. That really is scary.

Still, I've been wondering about whether that was the thinking behind the release of the memo, and it just didn't produce the results that were expected.

[Garrett78]

3. Trump probably does believe some of the nonsense that he spews.

And I'm sure most of his supporters believe just about all of it. But I suspect Trump is, for the most part, knowingly lying and obfuscating.

Just because the conversation with Zelensky was private doesn't necessarily mean Trump believes the notion that it was Ukraine (on Clinton's behalf) and not Russia (on his behalf) that interfered in the 2016 election. He may have just been hoping Zelensky or other Ukrainian officials would actually look into it and a story would come of it, which would then muddy the water. Sort of like how it doesn't matter if the Biden story is false; what matters is that there's confusion/doubt.

Maybe I've missed it, but I wonder why Trump and Republicans haven't been pushing this Ukraine-for-Clinton story publicly. Perhaps they know they would appear crazy, but that's never stopped them before.

[NCLefty]

4. Someone made an intersting point: many of the consp. Trump has pushed were probl fed to him from Fox

and other right-wing sources. And if they were pushing it, he felt he wasn't out on a limb to bring it up.

[IcyPeas]

5. He said it today and

He said it at the U.N. last week. He mentions rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and mark Levin. Think about that for a second.

These are the people he thinks are telling the truth. How can the press keep a straight face when he says that.

He is the doddering old white guy who listens to that crap and believes it. Typical fox news viewer.