Politico:
He doesn't care about the leak, and he doesn't care about the info. He cares about whether or not he can use the situation to (eg) punish "The Lugenpresse" for being mean to him, while keeping the option to hit back against "enemies" on Capitol Hill by threatening to torch a few of their staffers etc etc etc.
Because it's not about right or wrong - legal vs illegal - to a guy like Trump, these things are of no value in themselves; they're fungible. Their value is determined only by their usefulness as trade goods in The Marketplace of Power.
It's always and only about the simple binary: Pro-Trump vs Anti-Trump.
That's his strength and that's what makes him very very dangerous. Not because he plays the same ol' game (and he is playing the same old game), but because he plays that game while pretending he's not playing it - or he can not play it while pretending he is playing it - or any combination that he thinks suits his purpose at any given moment.
And since the rubes have been sold on the idea that there is no objective reality anyway, they just get in line and away we go.
The gaslighting is so fucking strong.
On Friday morning, President-elect Donald Trump tweeted a request for House and Senate intelligence committees to investigate the leak of a classified intelligence report to NBC News reporters.
“I am asking the chairs of the House and Senate committees to investigate top secret intelligence shared with NBC prior to me seeing it,” he tweeted. "Before I, or anyone, saw the classified and/or highly confidential hacking intelligence report, it was leaked out to @NBCNews. So serious!" he added on Sunday.
But how likely is such an investigation to happen, and what would happen if it did? Attorneys that have represented journalists and government employees say that such an investigation would be extremely unusual, with only one comparable hearing, held in 1976.So, for now, a move against NBC is unlikely - the Congress Critters know they can't spank reporters without getting their own tits caught in the wringer - the usual political reality of Safety By Mutual Culpability - but Trump doesn't really care about that. It may look like a Drain The Swamp opportunity, but he just uses that as cover to further his own ends. It's another chance for him to stand in the middle and play the factions against each other.
He doesn't care about the leak, and he doesn't care about the info. He cares about whether or not he can use the situation to (eg) punish "The Lugenpresse" for being mean to him, while keeping the option to hit back against "enemies" on Capitol Hill by threatening to torch a few of their staffers etc etc etc.
Because it's not about right or wrong - legal vs illegal - to a guy like Trump, these things are of no value in themselves; they're fungible. Their value is determined only by their usefulness as trade goods in The Marketplace of Power.
It's always and only about the simple binary: Pro-Trump vs Anti-Trump.
That's his strength and that's what makes him very very dangerous. Not because he plays the same ol' game (and he is playing the same old game), but because he plays that game while pretending he's not playing it - or he can not play it while pretending he is playing it - or any combination that he thinks suits his purpose at any given moment.
And since the rubes have been sold on the idea that there is no objective reality anyway, they just get in line and away we go.
The gaslighting is so fucking strong.
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