GET OUT: US politics November 2020

Prove him wrong

He's right though.

Now it's time for the winners to write the history.

here in America a president's legacy never dies. who among us doesn't remember the presidential follies of Millard Fillmore and Franklin Pierce like the back of our hand?

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81OjuQzM0QL._AC_SY355_.jpg

Edward Norton weighs in (not a bad take!):

I’m no political pundit but I grew up w a dad who was a federal prosecutor & he taught me a lot & I’ve also sat a fair amount of poker w serious players & l’ll say this: I do not think Trump is trying to ‘make his base happy’ or ‘laying the groundwork for his own network’...

— Edward Norton (@EdwardNorton) November 20, 2020

On the "history will not look kindly" stuff - this is all based on the assumption that there will be a future with historians in it

Yeah, seriously. And not to invoke You Know Who, but speaking of remembering, it's often overlooked that Hitler first attempted a coup ten years before eventually taking power.

When everything is written and reproduced on a scale that is like, unlimited, and never successfully parsed and weeded, all histories survive.

I think Mill would argue that truth has longest power to survive and bcone rediscovered, so that’s good i guess.

We’re talking about people who still venerate the Confederacy, writing history to their tastes is part of the package.

otm

The fault lies not in our versh of history, but etc etc

When you've got even John Hinderaker dragging you...

OMG. The affidavit Sidney Powell and others are hyping when they say many precincts in Michigan have more votes than actual voters is .... based on data from Minnesota.https://t.co/0nBQDX4nOf

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) November 20, 2020

*looks to see if '10-ply-super-soft bitch' is trending yet*

lol.

For anyone who follows elections routinely, the entire idea that there could be more votes than voters in even one precinct much less dozens is hilariously implausible. There are battalions of voting officials and election observers in every county in the country who know very well how many registered voters they have, and something like that would jump out immediately. As if every Republican election observer in Michigan somehow missed this when the numbers were reported, but one guy with a computer in Texas spotted it?

And if you were going to have a huge, international conspiracy to steal an election, and had the means to do it, one thing you would absolutely NOT do is put more votes than voters in any given precinct. That would be unbelievably stupid.

Evidently a researcher, either Mr. Ramsland or someone working for him, was working with a database and confused “MI” for Minnesota with “MI” for Michigan. (The postal code for Minnesota is MN, while Michigan is MI, so one can see how this might happen.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLECCmKnrys

Yeah, seriously. And not to invoke You Know Who, but speaking of remembering, it's often overlooked that Hitler first attempted a coup ten years before eventually taking power.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, November 20, 2020 10:38 AM (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

and he saw more jail time than trump probably will

kinda agree with Edward Norton's take considering Ivanka is publicly whining about the NY tax fraud investigation, to me that clearly signals there's something big there

Even Edward Norton can be right once in a while.

I guess all I was saying with that overly long post is that one of the few thoughts that keeps me feeling even a smidge positive in the midst of all this is that there will be consequences. There have to be. Otherwise we’re all fucked, and I can’t face that possibility. And I mean look, there already are consequences- they’re all catching fucking covid! Because Trump doesn’t want them to even try to be safe! These fucks are imperiling themselves and their families just to hold the hem of his garment.

vast majority of those MN counties cited as being suspicious are highly red outstate rural districts

xpost As I saw it put by somebody else, as bad as it is to prosecute somebody for political purposes, it's just as bad *not* to prosecute somebody for political purposes. The reason the Civil War still looms so large is that those assholes never paid a price for their actions.

oh they did, it just fueled more resentment

Sherman/Atlanta, etc.

I wish I could be more optimistic that he's going to face consequences, but I just don't see it. Every single one of his toadies is going to end up with a cushy job somewhere, there are enough rich assholes that absolutely adore how they've made the libs cry and will be happy to set them up somewhere. Trump himself is going to walk away scot free after blowing everything up for the next two months because, well, darn it, the Dems don't want to "divisive" so they won't open a single investigation. I was holding out hope for the SDNY investigations, but I think he's going to threaten to light so many fires that they'll end up giving him a deal to shut down the investigations if he goes away. Which, for him, will mean either setting up or glomming onto some far-right media network that will let him call in and bloviate between rounds of golf in Florida.

Just enjoy the consequence that he's going to have to leave office as a loser and he knows the whole world knows it, regardless of what he says about it. If he ends up broke and/or in jail, all the better, but at a minimum he's finally run into something he can't just grift his way out of.

I think he's going to threaten to light so many fires that they'll end up giving him a deal to shut down the investigations if he goes away.

Man y'all are some real doom and gloom people, no offense.

Jefferson Davis was never tried and served just two years in prison. Robert E Lee as far as I can tell faced absolutely zero punishment. And so on.

he might get a deal, but he has no leverage in with to make one. like what fires could he light that would prevent the SDNY from investigating?

Robert E. Lee's plantation and land were taken from him by the US government, and it is now where Arlington Cemetary is. That aint' nothing

I don't have it in front of me, but there was a recent New Yorker article that played out how the SDNY investigations might fade away. Let me see if I can find it.

Jeff Davis moved to Canada until Johnson pardoned him

2xpost Yeah, That's Edward Norton's poker analogy. He is bluffing because his hand ain't shit.

Taking shit away from the guy in charge of a giant treasonous army is the equivalent of a fine. Did Robert E Lee die poor and alone?

here's the passage I had in mind:

Joe Lockhart, who served as Bill Clinton’s press secretary, suggested to me that, if Biden narrowly wins, a chaotic interregnum could provide an opportunity for a “global settlement” in which Trump will concede the election and “go away” in exchange for a promise that he won’t face charges anywhere, including in New York. Lockhart argued that New York’s legal authorities are not just lawyers but also politicians, and might be convinced that a deal is in the public interest. He pointed out that a global-settlement arrangement was made, “in microcosm,” at the end of the Clinton Presidency, when the independent counsel behind the Monica Lewinsky investigation agreed to wrap things up if Clinton paid a twenty-five-thousand-dollar fine, forfeited his law license, and admitted that he had testified falsely under oath. “So there’s some precedent,” Lockhart said, although he admitted that such a deal would anger many Americans.

and before someone pipes up and says "but there are Jeff Davis high schools and Lee Roads, etc" that stuff happened way way after the Civil War

Robert E Lee as far as I can tell faced absolutely zero punishment

vs

Taking shit away from the guy in charge of a giant treasonous army is the equivalent of a fine.

xpost - I mean, not going to say that's how it will play out, but these are the things that stick in mind, especially since much of the rest of the article's predictions for the election have played out.

Oh my god re: Michigan/Minnesota

Joe Lockhart is a communications consultant and not a lawyer, why am I supposed to listen to his opinion on what SDNY will do?? He also worked for Facebook, lol

xpost That's splitting hairs. Those were the people at the absolute top of a literally seditious treasonous army that cost hundreds of thousands of lives and almost destroyed the US, and whatever repercussion they faced was weak. Just looking it up, by 1865 Robert E Lee was the president of Washington college.

xpost - I'm not saying that's how it will play out, just something that stuck out to me with the article, which is essentially just a compilation of a bunch of people playing out the next few months.

A book Alfred recommended years ago about the Supreme Court after the Civil War really highlighted the position the US government was in. They couldn't occupy the South, because the south was part of the United States, and as the South was part of the United States, then they were entitled to the same representation in Congress and government as every other state. Which is why all those assholes could be a wrench in the gears for years after the Civil War.

That's splitting hairs. Those were the people at the absolute top of a literally seditious treasonous army that cost hundreds of thousands of lives and almost destroyed the US, and whatever repercussion they faced was weak. Just looking it up, by 1865 Robert E Lee was the president of Washington college.

Yes. Different states and different regions of the country had different responses to the treasonous actions of the Confederates. This same college in Virginia, (which, if you recall, was a slave state) is where the bones of Robert E Lee's horse are kept. You started out this by saying that Lee faced no repercussions, though, and that's wrong. We bury our dead on land owned by him. That's not nothing. It was likely seen as a huge insult to him.

He does not hold the cards for that kind of deal. They don’t need to make a deal to get him out of office. He may overstay his welcome but he’ll get removed anyway. Well I guess the only card he holds is that he can make the covid situation continue to get worse for 2 months and then lay it at Biden’s door.

Likely that he’s got people trying to make backchannel negotiations with Biden as we speak. Whether Biden would bite or just decide to let him stew is another question.

Even if he gets some kind of legal clearance, hard to see how he keeps his giant debts from coming due. But I'm sure there are restructuring options, or just another bankruptcy, whatever. I think he's marginally more likely to be held to account than your average rich white guy because there's so much scrutiny. But only marginally more likely. Worst-case scenario for him is probably some fines that he'll find a way to not pay and some kind of probation or suspended sentence. Our system does not send many rich white men to jail. Even if they're only fake-rich.

^^ otm

Once again though, you can't be pardoned for crimes you haven't been convicted of yet, let alone crimes you haven't been accused of yet. It's kind of a catch-22 for Trump, because hypothetically speaking if he were to try to negotiate some sort of non-prosecution agreement, that alone is a huge red flag that there are significant crimes for which he should be prosecuted. That's why he's most likely panic bluffing right now, there is no way out that does not leave him exposed.

The debt issue is something separate, but as the adage goes, that's a bigger problem for the idiots that lent him millions.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

he's fucked and he and his kids know it