I had no idea how sleazy Manafort was


All I can say is, “Holy shit.” I’ve always known that the Republicans were publicly depraved, but that’s nothing compared to how they carry on in private. The Rude Pundit puts it plainly and rudely.

A pretty goddamn extraordinary article by Maya Gurantz in the Los Angeles Review of Books delves into the hacked and leaked texts of Paul Manafort’s daughter, Andrea, many to her sister, Jessica. This happened in 2017. Gurantz looked through the 285,000 texts, many of which deal with wedding plans and pregnancies, and she finds one giant thing that most every article or report you’ve read or seen about Manafort has left out.

That would be “a decade of coercive and manipulative sexual behavior, in which Manafort allegedly forced his wife, vulnerable from having sustained brain damage after a near-death horseback riding accident years before, to engage in ‘gang bangs’ with black men while he watched.”

Usually, I expect the Rude Pundit to state the story in the bluntest, crudest way…but this time, after reading the Gurantz article, I have to say he may have failed to fully communicate the horrifying nature of Paul Manafort. It isn’t quite litotes, but it comes perilously close in comparison.

Manafort was a sick, racist, misogynist who abused his own helpless wife, and his wife revealed these facts to her daughters, who then disgustedly talked with each other about how much they hated their father.

I tried to help my mom and she just put her head back in the sand and is currently happy.
Either in ignorance or acceptance. Either way not my choice to judge. It’s her life.
And as long as that shit doesn’t affect my life, whatever.
I know my dad is a horrible and moral-less human. Total selfish sociopath. I don’t ever fool myself or forget. He is a master manipulator

The daughters also inherited that trait — they talk about milking their dad for a lavish dream wedding, guilting him into coughing up big bucks, and then never speaking to him again. They’re also pro-Trump.

Remember: this is the party of evangelical Christians.

Comments

  1. says

    41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

    44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

    45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

  2. lotharloo says

    As has also been exhaustively discussed, “cuck,” as deployed in the right-wing manosphere, has racialized overtones: in other words, not only has a cuck’s wife been fucked by another man, but specifically by a black man. The baby in your nest does not belong to you — there has been an intruder, and what if the whole world can see it. The cuck thus compromises his standing among his fellow whites by supporting an alien interloper — which is why even conservative men who appear willing to negotiate with liberals get labeled “cuckservatives.” In this worldview, all that matters is white superiority demonstrated through white male ownership of white women, and any other kind of compromise (even political) gets experienced as a sexual violation.

    Damn, I finally realized why alt-right scums like the insult “cuck” so much.

  3. doubtthat says

    Let me generally reccomend this very awesome podcast, Behind the Bastards:

    https://www.behindthebastards.com/

    They are all great and informative. There are a couple of pods about Manafort – appropriately titled, “No Matter How Much You Hate Paul Manafort, You Should Hate Him More.”:

    https://www.behindthebastards.com/podcasts/no-matter-how-much-you-hate-paul-manafort-you-should-hate-him-more-and-heres-why.htm

    It is not exaggeration to say that he has been responsible for hundreds of thousands if not millions of deaths. He engaged in lobbying efforts and bribery that extended violent conflicts in several countries.

  4. microraptor says

    lotharloo @2: Remember too that the same people tend to dehumanize black men, as well. It’s basically saying “your wife screws animals.”

  5. Azkyroth, B*Cos[F(u)]==Y says

    It’s basically saying “your wife screws animals.”

    Which to right-wingers is a violation of gender roles?

  6. flange says

    The last paragraph is, I think, poetry, if not, a prayer:
    “Whether or not Manafort was faking it, I don’t give a fuck. He isn’t just some skunk who lied to the FBI. Manafort is one of the reasons this country is on its current fucked path. And he tortured his wife. Suffer, you prick. Die alone, poor, confused, bereft of everything, not even a tragic figure because that would imply some goodness. No, die the way the evil are supposed to die, in a cell, hated, sick, and fading into dust.”

  7. unclefrogy says

    Remember: this is the party of evangelical Christians.

    one of the things I just do not understand at all.
    uncle frogy

  8. indianajones says

    @ unclefrogy. What don’t you understand? The only reason I can think of is some equating of ‘evangelical christians’ with virtue in some way.

  9. cherbear says

    In their own minds they are virtuous. Or they aren’t really Christians. I think they are evil, money-loving reactionaries that like to say they are born again without reading any of the gospels. As a former Catholic, its still pretty horrendous, even though I know what people say and what they do are sometimes two different things. snrk

  10. Azkyroth, B*Cos[F(u)]==Y says

    In their own minds they are virtuous.

    Conservative protestants, in particular, frankly act BETTER than you’d expect for a bunch of people who passionately believe 1) that they’re preemptively forgiven for any wrongs they commit and 2) that the victims of those wrongs, like all humans, are so utterly, intrinsically horrible that they inherently deserve the worst punishment imaginable just for existing.