I STILL THINK DETAILS OF TRUMP'S SEX LIFE WON'T HURT HIM WITH THE BASE (EVEN IF HURTING IS THE POINT)

Josh Marshall thinks we're going to hear Stormy Daniels talk about Donald Trump's kinks, which he suspects won't be good for Trump:

In many ways, having sex with a porn star is on-brand for Donald Trump. He spent decades playing up a reputation as a billionaire playboy. These stories ... play to the tough guy, dominant and hyper-masculine image he likes to portray....

But Daniels apparently says something different. I’m told that in her 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper Daniels suggests that Trump, how to say this, likes it when women aren’t nice to him, treat him in perhaps denigrating ways.

I think that would be very much off brand for Trump.

Marshall follows up:

In fairness to President Trump there are numerous men and women living upstanding, moral and productive lives within the BDSM community. As long as the safe word isn't "bigly" there's nothing to be ashamed of.

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 12, 2018

I understand the temptation to believe that something about Trump will eventually be disillusioning for the deplorables. I just don't think this is it.

I think they'd be disillusioned if they learned he'd had sex with a child (at least I hope so); I think most of them would be nonplussed if one or more of his former bed partners turned out to be a man. (For Trump, gay sex would definitely be off brand.)

But if he's a submissive? I think the deplorables will rationalize that. Most will just tune out the details, loudly insisting that what he does in the bedroom is his business. The ones who think about will either say it's fake news or insist that it doesn't matter that he playacted as a submissive because he was clearly the one in charge, because he's the billionaire who decided what would happen and she was just a porn star taking orders. They'll claim to be worldly-wise and tell you that a lot of powerful men are sexual submissives because it relieves the tension of being in charge all the time. (That idea is modern folklore, isn't it?) They'll say that he was in charge all along, like the God Emperor he is!

I don't know what the truth is. Daniels told In Touch in 2011 that their sex was "textbook generic." On the other hand:

According to 2009 emails between political operatives who were at the time advising Daniels on a possible political campaign, the adult film actor and director claimed that her affair with Trump included an unusual act: spanking him with a copy of Forbes magazine....

The campaign consultant who wrote the email ... tells Mother Jones that Daniels said the spanking came during a series of sexual and romantic encounters with Trump and that it involved a copy of Forbes with Trump on the cover.

That report didn't go viral.

I think our side would find this revelation very amusing -- after all, we've taken the most salacious sex rumor about Trump and altered it in this direction already. Recall what the Steele dossier said:

According to Source D, where s/he had been present, TRUMP’s (perverted) conduct in Moscow included hiring the presidential suite of the Ritz Carlton Hotel, where he knew President and Mrs OBAMA (whom he hated) had stayed on one of their official trips to Russia, and defiling the bed where they had slept by employing a number of prostitutes to perform a 'golden showers' (urination) show in front of him.

Steele's dossier says the prostitutes urinated "in front of him." It doesn't say (as so many of us do) that they urinated on him.

They say Trump is such a great deal-maker, but there are millions of women who would piss on him for free.

— Sandra Newman (@sannewman) January 11, 2017

The deplorables hear these rumors and don't care. Anything they hear about his sex life, as long as it's with an adult woman (or more than one), they'll just shrug off. They're not going to let the foundation of their belief system collapse over a little S&M.