• 0 Posts
  • 38 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: August 21st, 2023

help-circle
rss

  • The Bibles have nothing to do with his campaign. In the context of the Bibles, he’s just a dude selling bibles, he’s not a representative of his campaign, the money isn’t going to his campaign, and it’s not being spent on his campaign.

    To be specific, there’s no law against a church giving money to a political figure; there are laws against donations to political causes – and political campaigns are political causes. Trump the person can sell whatever he wants and use that money however he wants, or, in this case, license his name to whatever, etc.

    There’s no reason a person can’t pay for their own campaign, and there’s no reason someone with more money than sense can’t just give another person free money with no strings. We don’t tend to this because we don’t tend to have candidates that could believably get money from people for reasons unrelated to their campaign – with any career politician, it would be a transparent pretense. But not with Trump, he legitimately can get people to buy whatever, because it’s him they like, not just him-as-president. The shoes, the Bible, the steaks – they’re proof of that fact.

    The money he’s getting from the Bibles is not political money and he’s not spending it on his campaign. There’s just no there there.

    Trump’s debts are not “political,” especially the fraud verdict (the $400m one) which is his biggest problem rn. There’s no reason a person can’t sell a Bible and use it to pay for the judgement against him for fraud. Like, that’s a weird sentence, but it’s true.

    His campaign is definitely short on money, but, financially, his main concern right now is the fraud judgement, and after that the rape/defamation judgement, then maybe the lawyers next? Tho he probably doesn’t plan on paying them. So, yeah, Trump’s going to need some money for his campaign, but he needs to keep the Trump in Trump Tower or he’s completely fucked – legally, financially, and even politically.

    Look, I hate him too, but this is just not money laundering.




  • It’s not illegal to sell bibles. I’m sure there are loads of churches that will fill their pews with them, but they’re not sending money to the campaign, they’re sending it to Trump. Why would he make this harder for himself, he can just take the money and put it in his pocket, there’s no reason to get the campaign involved.


  • For real. Trump is an idiot, a grifter, and a piece of shit, but this isn’t even sidestepping campaign donation law.

    He’s not a political candidate getting funds from churches, he’s a parasite capitalist selling bibles to his fans, and he’s a political candidate – 2 separate things. The bible money isn’t going to his campaign, it’s just going to his pocket.

    This take assumes that he’s selling bibles, funneling the money from their sales to his campaign, then funneling it back out to pay for his disgorgements. This take thinks he’s intentionally making is harder for himself, just to make it illegal.

    He’s just a guy selling shit.







  • I’m not sure it was ever accurate for people who weren’t already conservative.

    It makes a lot more sense that, as you get older, you stop growing and learning, so as society progresses, your formerly progressive views become commonplace and eventually anachronistic.

    (That’s 100% what happened to my mother, who was a hippie, literally flowers in her hair, and now “just doesn’t really get the whole trans thing”)

    And, if a person was progressive, but had some secret conservative or regressive values, those values come into sharper relief when their other views become commonplace – and, as you get older, you’re less interested in hiding your flaws and/or shameful values, so they come out more.

    (That’s what happened with my dad, he was in folk music groups in the 70s and then became a doctor and didn’t like the idea of poor people getting some of his money (even though it was those same programs that kept his mother afloat after his father didn’t come back from Korea).)






  • Why can’t they just flip burgers from the age of 16 till 65? What if they don’t mind the work, they have a full and fulfilling life outside of work, and their job is just what they do to make ends meet? Does that mean they deserve to live in debt and working 100 hours a week? Are you so ignorant that you don’t understand that, in any economic system, capitalism or otherwise, not everyone can move up?

    It’s literally not possible. There have to be people flipping the burgers. That’s a fact of the system; there’s no way around that. And it’s ok – not perfect, but acceptable – as long as we treat those people with dignity and respect.

    And that means paying them enough to survive – and thrive – on 40 hours a week. No one’s saying they should have enough money to buy megayachts – or even regular yachts. But they should be able to buy a shitty canoe – and still be able to pay all their bills, and not have to work more than 40 hours.

    If you’re concerned about the possibility that, if they earn more, you’ll earn less, that’s just not true. There’s no scenario in the USA where a company is charging customers any less than the most they possibly can, and paying their workers any more than as little as possible. That’s literally the law. There is plenty of extra money that can be used to cover the needs of our poorest people – and to raise the salaries of more scarce labor who would otherwise turn to flipping burgers if burger-flipping salaries went up.

    Literally every business that’s even a little successful has extra money. (“Extra money” is also known as profit.) There is no reason why one person should have to work more than 40 hours a week while another person has more money then they can possibly spend in a lifetime; it’s illogical and irrational, and cruel.


  • If everyone who flips burgers gets a “better job” are you going to stop having burgers?

    The issue is that while there is work that needs to be done, then there will be a need to pay people to do it. If you’re a business owner and you have work that needs to be done, and you can’t afford to pay your employees enough for them to pay their bills and lube decent lives, and you can’t personally take the hit to your own income to cover the difference, then your business should fail.

    Right now, the arrangement forces people to work more than 40 hours a week – which is illegal, but companies get away with it because they don’t work at the same company for the whole time. In fact, many people with multiple jobs don’t even have full time jobs – they have 3 part time jobs, all working them less than 40 hours a week, so they don’t have to give them the benefits they’re required to provide for full time employees.

    (Personally, when I was young I had multiple places scheduling me for 39.5 hours a week. Now I’m a white collar FTE and I work 35 hours a week.)

    So, next time you call someone who’s flipping burgers “lazy,” think about how lazy a person must be to work 100 hours a week. Is that what laziness looks like to you? How many hours a week do you have to work too not be considered not lazy?

    Because, the thing is, you know they aren’t lacy. They’re working their fingers to the bone, and have much shittier and shorter lives than middle class people. Calling them lazy (or stupid or unlucky or whatever) is how you rationalize the fact that you’re unwilling to accept any inconvenience it might cause you to help them.

    In this scenario – aka, the real world, the world we are in right now – they are working harder than the rest of us are, for less money.