Trump Defends Against Sex Abuse Claims with a Laughable Media/Banking Conspiracy Theory
Donald Trump has told a lot of lies and made up a whole bunch of bullcrap in this campaign, but it is quite possible that this most absurd fabrication came Thursday during his defense of the sex abuse allegations now swirling around him. While taking a break from disparaging the looks of his accusers, Trump conned his audience into the most ludicrous, hypocritical, and dangerous conspiracy theory I have ever heard of put forward by the presidential nominee of a major party (“Birtherism” is close, but Trump technically never trotted out that silliness while the nominee).
With a straight face, Trump actually alleged that the accusations he is facing have come about because he is the target of a grand plot by this nation’s media and big banks, which is apparently being orchestrated by the Clintons. Trump, he told his supporters, is so dangerous to the shadowy “establishment” that they will stop at nothing to bring him down to protect their chiefdoms.
This is complete garbage.
Forgetting that until about a year ago the Clintons were his very good friends, there is not a shred of proof that the allegations themselves have Clinton fingerprints on them. Of course, the niftiest part of this conspiracy must have been getting Trump to use the bogus “locker room” excuse in response to the “Billy Bush” tape, which then led to him denying he ever committed acts like those he’s now being accused with.
But let’s pretend that, like in a really bad action/adventure movie, those problems with his narrative could somehow be overcome by simply suspending disbelief. It’s the part about the media and the banks being behind it all that really requires this tale to be in the Bullshit Hall of Fame.
Donald Trump is a person who was literally MADE by the media and SAVED by the banks.
His original celebrity was created by fawning news coverage of him as a supposed business tycoon. It expanded when NBC gave him a primetime show “Celebrity Apprentice.” Then, despite not being remotely qualified for the position, during the primaries the news media handed him approximately two BILLION dollars in free air time, which effectively made him unbeatable in a far-too-crowded GOP field.
This is the guy against whom the corporate media is engaged in a massive conspiracy? The guy who is one of their own and who would be the best president for news ratings in modern history? Yes, the news coverage of him has been harsh, especially in the last couple of weeks, but I would submit that any other Republican who had anywhere near Trump’s skeletons would have been treated even worse, maybe significantly so.
As silly as the media portion of the scheme is, the bank element of the conspiracy is even more laughable. Without the banks bailing him out in the early 1990s there not only wouldn’t be a Trump presidential campaign, we likely wouldn’t even know who he is today.
It has been well documented (for full disclosure, my own father played a small but significant role in this process) that, when the real estate market collapsed and his casinos failed, Trump was unable to pay off the massive loans he had taken to finance his “smoke and mirrors” empire. At that time, the big banks all held a joint meeting where they effectively decided whether to let Trump “live” or “die.”
In the end, they decided that because assets were worth more if his name retained its value (equity created by the media) that it was better for them if he “lived” and eventually paid them back a portion of what he owed. As part of the restructuring deal, the banks put together a fund to pay Trump personally $450,000 a month so that he could keep up the appearance of being super rich and so his “brand” would not be tarnished, thus further reducing their chances of getting any of their original investment back.
Does that seriously sound like a guy who has been targeted by a conspiracy by the “banks,” which, by the way, would likely do extremely well if he ever somehow became president and his tax plan became law?
In all seriousness, Trump blaming this abuse allegations on the media and the banks being out to get him is as ridiculous as if O.J. Simpson attributed his double murder arrest to a conspiracy between the NFL and the major knife manufacturers.
As funny as this charade is, there is also a very serious and sinister side to Trump’s latest con. He is cynically using the distrust of the “system” possessed by his “basket of deplorables” in order to distract them from who he really is and manipulate their (sometimes justified) anger at society for his own very selfish benefit.
This outrageous reality was illustrated perfectly in this YouTube video by the Washington Free Beacon, in which Trump’s speech was overlaid with footage with the evil Bane character from the Batman movies, with Trump’s words used to inspire the prison uprising. It illustrates just how scary what Trump is trying to do here really is and provides a foreboding sense of just how ugly this election could still get before it is over.
The truth is that no one has benefited more, on less merit, from the media/banking “establishment” than Donald Trump. In a rational world, this isn’t even debatable. But we now live in a culture where nearly everything is upside down. Where up is down and wrong is right. And where a draft-dodging fake billionaire who pays no income taxes and who thrive thanks to the generosity of the media and banks can pretend to be a man of the people while lying to them about women he groped because he felt entitled to do so thanks to his celebrity.
Someone, please, make this election finally end.
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John Ziegler is a nationally-syndicated radio talk show host and documentary filmmaker. You can follow him on Twitter at @ZigManFreud or email him at johnz@mediaite.com.
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This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
