Stormy Daniels subtly used her 60 Minutes interview to get Donald Trump to set himself on fire
If you’ve already watched the Stormy Daniels interview on 60 Minutes, you’re aware by now that she didn’t reveal anything particularly humiliating about her affair with Donald Trump. She refused to confirm her own attorney’s earlier hint that she’s sitting on photos or videos of the affair. She provided no sexual comments about Trump, beyond generically saying she wasn’t attracted to him. For those looking for something salacious, it was a big letdown. But upon further inspection, rather than setting Trump on fire herself, Daniels subtly used her interview to get Trump to set himself on fire.
If Daniels had used this interview to make fun of Trump’s genitalia or his performance in bed, too many would have dismissed her as simply being a porn star trying to humiliate a consensual sexual partner by revealing intimate details. That alone reveals the inherently sexist nature of society, particularly when it comes to this kind of career. And yet it’s the cold hard reality when it comes to shifting public opinion about Trump. Daniels seemed to understand this, and so she made a point of not playing the role that many observers were stereotypically expecting her to.
As such, Daniels gained with something far more important than an immediate humiliating victory: credibility. The average nonpolitical person watching her interview, who hadn’t been sure what to make of the scandal up to this point, likely came away from this interview believing Daniels’ version of events. That matters, because even if Daniels does have photos or videos that prove the affair took place, that doesn’t prove anything beyond adultery – and Daniels’ most serious accusations have nothing to do with sex.
Keep in mind that this isn’t an alleged sexual assault. Daniels says it was all consensual. This is the story of a guy who cheated on his wife, and then had his lawyer buy the silence of his mistress, and allegedly had some other goon threaten her physical safety. Daniels has an uphill battle getting the average observer to believe that Trump hired a guy to threaten her, even though she can’t provide any evidence that it happened – but she took a big step in the right direction by making sure the average observer believed her story of the affair itself.
In the mean time, it’s not difficult to figure out that Stormy Daniels is trying to get Donald Trump to set himself on fire so she doesn’t have to. It’s not an accident that her attorney hinted this week that she’s sitting on compromising photos and videos of Trump. She declined to confirm as much during the interview, but that’s the whole point. If Trump blows his lid and begins attacking her on Twitter for having secretly videotaped them, then he’ll be confirming that she does indeed have the goods on him – and it’ll lend significant credibility to everything else she’s claimed about the payoff and the threats.
