“When we fight, we win!” – Kamala Harris.
What do we do when we fight & lose? Never Give Up! Never surrender!
People admire that about a leader and a cause. We don’t just fight the fights we can win. You fight the fights that need fighting!” Martin Sheen, The American President (1995)
We expect THEM to follow the norms of losing. Like we do. Accept the loss. Don’t flip the board over.
And when we WIN? We are supposed to accept the win. Stop fighting. Reach out to the losing side & shake hands. Follow the norms of winners. Say, “Good luck! It’s great to have a strong opponent!”
Don’t be a sore winner! Don’t spike the football. Don’t mock them for losing. Don’t brag about the win everywhere. “Don’t get cocky kid!”
I’m getting into too many sports and movie metaphors here, so I want to talk about a specific win and why when we fight & win against RWers we must keep fighting, because the norms of winning aren’t enough against today’s RW.
Ruby Freeman & Shaye Moss won a $148 million judgement against Giuliani after he defamed them
Rudy delayed turning over his assets to them for over a year.
Inside court, under oath, Rudy & his lawyers were rebuked and chastised by the judge for their failures to follow the law. Rudy was threatened with contempt
Outside the court, when he was NOT under oath Rudy lied about the case.
The MSM ran the video of Rudy lying. Those lies were shared everywhere on social media.
There was no video of the lawyer for Freeman & Moss reminding people of the harm Rudy did, his failure to comply, debunking his new and reoccurring lies, and what was revealed UNDER OATH in the court.
On Thursday of last week Rudy’s lawyers quit working for him.
(Read this GREAT story about it by Brandi Buchman in the Huffington Post focusing on how the victims were harmed. Rudy Giuliani’s Lawyers Tell Judge They Want To Quit On Him
People think they quit because they were worried about getting paid, but I asked Glenn Kirschner about that Sunday and he said, judges don’t grant that kind of request, because they should have known that going in. More likely it was because they didn’t want to commit crimes for Rudy and they didn’t want to get disbarred, like Rudy.
Outside of court Rudy whined he didn’t have enough money to afford food, and his followers donated $127,000 to him. (Money that should be seized by the court and given to Freeman and Moss.)
Friday, we learned he’s been hiding $over 40,000 in joint checking accounts in multiple LLCs, in court he didn’t want to tell the judge who was in those LLCs with him, but because it was in court, he was ORDERED to do it. (BTW, why did he say he couldn’t give their name? He claimed they would be threatened and harassed. They expect that the tactics THEY use to intimidate others will be used by the left.)
Friday night Rudy finally turned over some assets: some watches, his Mercedes. Hooray! That’s a win!
We need to celebrate!
Rudy was ALSO supposed to turn over a signed, framed Joe DiMaggio jersey. That was supposed to be settled on Nov 15. But Rudy’s new lawyer didn’t turn it over and engaged in this legal f*ckery.
See the Jersey hung over his fireplace in his penthouse apartment? Rudy got it in 2002 at the 3rd Annual Joe DiMaggio Awards Gala Honoring Rudy Giuliani. When Freeman and Mosses lawyers got the keys to the penthouse, it wasn’t there.
There was a bunch of back and forth with Rudy’s lawyers about exactly where it was, asking for a list of inventory and how the Freeman/Moss lawyers could access them. The old lawyers quit, the new lawyer sent a letter saying something like,
‘Oh yeah, that framed Joe DiMaggio jersey that was in his penthouse apartment? According to OUR interpretation of the law in the state of New York, that shirt is ‘wearing apparel’ and is exempt.’
ARE YOU Fking KIDDING ME? WEARING APPAREL? RUDY LOST THE CASE! It’s been adjudicated! IN COURT! He did the crime, pay the fine!
What I see today is a lot of people giving up. I get it. When Trump never went to prison for his crimes, people think “What’s the point of fighting him?” It’s hard to think about fighting NEW fights over his lawbreaking, when we failed to punishing him for his OLD attacks. But I want to remind people to focus on the victims who have succeeded in fighting Trump, Rudy, RW media and MAGA nuts.
Learn from what they did right. Learn what to do when they refuse to accept defeat. Anticipate their doubling down. Know that winning in court is not the end of fighting them. They have to be fought OUTSIDE the court too.
Learn how knock back their own narrative in their own media and on social media when we win.
“Political prosecution?! We’re the real victims here!”
I’ve written recently why the DOJ is bad at promoting their successes. They don’t get that truth and justice need a hype-man.
But in civil cases, we can talk about the case while it is happening. We can comment about their lies right outside the courthouse. We can get the last word. We can remind people about what was said UNDER OATH in court, and who is the real victim.
These women were DRIVEN from their HOMES and neighborhood of the death threats based on the DEFAMATION of Rudy, OAN, Gateway Pundit and Donald Trump. They had to go into HIDING because people were POUNDING on their doors and pushed their way into their homes to confront them.
Freeman and Moss won a civil defamation case against OAN, Rudy and The Gateway Pundit. E Jean Carroll won multiple civil cases against Trump. Trump lost the The Trump org fraud case. I have some understanding WHY those cases were successful. I also know that the MINUTE we won, the RW FLIPS the narrative to them being the victim.
Americans need to see bad people punished, but Dems are afraid to be the ones doing it. We don’t want to be a “sore winner.” We identify with the victim. But Rudy is NOT the victim. Getting justice and compensation for the pain & suffering that ACTUAL victims experience IS something that WE on the left CAN get behind.
I’ve looked at what kind of cases against Trump & MAGA have succeeded, the civil cases. One reason was there was a financial pay off for the people fighting, so that they can fund the ongoing case against an opponent, especially againts one that uses delays & financial resources to overwhelm people.
At the highest levels on the right when someone does something immoral or illegal for Trump they have been getting away with it. But when he thinks you are ripping him off or doing something that costs him money, THAT is when he gets pissed and will cut them loose. Trump expects to PROFIT from everything. If someone is a big earner, they can get away with ANYTHING.
When fighting Trump, the RW media & MAGA in this century requires us to understand what levers work and why. We have seen that when something costs corporations massive amounts of money, the change their behavior. With Trump, like the mob, if someone stops being a big earner for him he threatens them, they lose power in the organization.
When we win against them, we need ways to take their money and use it to build our side. Our activists, our media, our future cases against them. We work the narrative to show our side that when we win, we fight.
