Over at the Palmer report, they’ve noted that Trump just emitted a tweet in which he essentially admitted that he engages in “pump and dump”; that is, he uses people for his own ends then throws them under the bus when they are no longer of use. Even the Mooch has reacted to the tweet.
They’re right about the admission, but their conclusion is wrong.
The trick to running the same con over and over again on new people is that you don’t flat out brag about what you’re doing – at least not in public. Even if everyone knows what you’re doing, there will always be some new willing victim who doesn’t want to see it. But if you put it in writing like this, you’re kind of shattering the illusion for them. At some point Trump is going to run out of “pump and dump” suckers – and many of his victims are now treating him like an enemy. How much longer before he runs out of new candidates to do his bidding?
That all seems perfectly logical, but it doesn’t apply in Trumpland. It’s a little like saying that Trump would have to admit to killing someone on 5th Avenue before any of the thousands of witnesses would be believed, or, for that matter, believe it themselves.
Trump attracts hangers on who believe themselves to be the one exception to the pump and dump rule. It doesn’t matter how often they see other exceptions cast aside, they all feel differently until it happens to them. The fact that he admits to it makes no difference.
There is an infinite supply of such people, especially on the Republican side of the aisle. These are people, after all, who, as Krugman details here, have themselves gotten away with being publicly wrong time and again, but have continued, like shit, to float to the top. They are people whose minds can be in two places at once when they’re not anywhere at all. (For those under 65, that’s another Firesign Theatre reference.) They have rightfully thought themselves to be immune from failure by virtue of their place in the conservative establishment, and they firmly believe that immunity applies everywhere, even in the world of Trump.
Despite the evidence of their eyes and ears, they will simply not believe it can happen to them. So, no, Trump will not run out of pump and dump suckers. If anything, he’ll replace the ones he dumps with people ever more loyal to him in the first place.