And Sleepy Joe Will Get The Credit: US Politics January 2021

I’m working on a story about White House-rioter contact.

Bottom line, there was. https://t.co/bog7d8XJHq

— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) January 10, 2021

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/10/trump-2024-campaign-456692

He began backing off the idea after learning that running would require him to release a new round of financial documents that would make him vulnerable to his ongoing criminal and civil investigations and lawsuits, according to two Republicans close to Trump.

Then came last week.

In interviews, more than half a dozen Republicans who had supported or worked for Trump say the president isn’t likely to run again, though he may tease it. If Trump changes his mind again and chooses to run, some said they would urge him not to, while others hope he’d be talked out of it.

“I think nothing is going to happen,” said a Trump friend. “He won’t be around in 2024. He’s not going to run. He’s going to fuck around and say he’s going to run. … He’ll tease. I don’t think he’s ever going to say ‘I won’t run.’ He just won’t run."

v tired of worrying what will "rile up his supporters even more" like I'm dealing with a drunk abusive dad or something

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Sunday, January 10, 2021 1:40 PM (forty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Rep. Peter Meijer (R-Mich.)—the Republican who won the seat previously held by Justin Amash—tells Reason some House Republicans who voted to reject the election results knew they were lying about the election but worried about the safety of their families. https://t.co/Nl3hTFbIeM pic.twitter.com/7FV44XhOEk
— JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) January 10, 2021

― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Sunday, January 10, 2021 1:55 AM (twelve hours ago)

turns out "we don't negotiate with terrorists" because we just do what they demand

He’s going to fuck around and say he’s going to run. … He’ll tease. I don’t think he’s ever going to say ‘I won’t run.’ He just won’t run."

Right, which is in line with not conceding but (at some point) standing down from actively contesting.

I still think far too many people overestimate Trump's support. When it's polled, it's not possible to separate support for him from support for whichever warm body is currently de facto head of Republican party. So many people dislike him but like tax cuts, the fantasy of overturning roe v Wade, the seating of conservative judges, etc etc. Him being an utterly heinous human and an incompetent executive is as much evidence that millions will support whomever is the R candidate as much as it is (or moreso) evidence that Trump's cult of personality supercedes all.

A Trump who can't run again is an influencer and a kingmaker

Lol even if Ivanka or Junior were running he wouldn’t do a single campaign event for them

yeah I think that's fair. I've known indifferent trump voters and "hold their nose" trump voters. But at some point, you know, nazis next door and all that.

*an incompetent executive yet still nearly winning reelection…

Anyway, I still want every Trump loyalist who has been waiting in the wings for Trump to exit the stage to... wait longer.

Pence, Cruz, Haley, Hawley, Noem, Rubio? Yeah if Trump is still an option for the base, sorry u are fuct.

If you so much as form an exploratory committee or visit Iowa you will see MAGAnauts descend on your white ass like vengeful locusts. Enjoy.

I think the jury's still out on whether deeply indebted, potentially criminally prosecuted, disgraced trump, turning 75 years old this year, continues to be much of a force or not. He could be a rush limbaugh type figure. I'm sure he could still command followers, but it's inevitably going to be smaller. People are drawn to power and he's about to lose a lot of it.

Just like Samson.

Is Rush dead I forget

He’ll get a book deal from someone (not a real publisher any more. It will have to be some self published thing.)

The ideal scenario is that he's surrounded by sharper grifters who continue to pump money out of his fans while taking 99% of it for further vanity ventures for him.

I mean, more so than usual.

there's a siriusxm deal in there somewhere

xxxp

He’s extremely unhealthy and has spent the last 5 years sleeping 3 hours a day and being pissed off at everyone. Had he not been the President there’s a good chance Covid would have killed him. Does he really make it to 80?

Why So Sirius?XM

Yeah, just think, with none of the hard work of the office on his schedule Trump will turn fallow and just atrophy.

So one of the Capitol police officers who was present on Wednesday reportedly committed suicide.

Were about to learn what damage is wrought by a lifelong consumption of McGriddles.

If he’s impeached and convicted does his clone that they strip for parts get ditched too?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parts:_The_Clonus_Horror

v tired of worrying what will "rile up his supporters even more" like I'm dealing with a drunk abusive dad or something

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Sunday, January 10, 2021 12:40 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

THIS.

*drunk abusive coach dad

Gotta admit that it’s pretty wild that Twitter is letting that vicious murder video fly around this morning without a warning or anything.

Or maybe it’s not the brutal murder video but a vicious beating video (I can’t watch it for a number of reasons) but still...

Fuck I just read the buzzfeed piece taking to two Black officers who were on the job that day. Thanks for mentioning it Neanderthal

So one of the Capitol police officers who was present on Wednesday reportedly committed suicide.

Hard not to jump to conclusions, but I'm going to make an effort.

Granny D

I still think far too many people overestimate Trump's support. When it's polled, it's not possible to separate support for him from support for whichever warm body is currently de facto head of Republican party.

This is true. Tribal feels are strong.

But we need to be clear about the distinction between the general-election electorate (which includes lots of more or less normal people) and the Republican primary electorate (which skews toward batshit insane).

If Trump is on the ballot, the only Rs who will defy him are the George Conway / Lincoln Project types. A GOP primary of Trump vs. Romney would be short and nasty and Trump would prevail in that primary (while saying things that will make him even more toxic that he already is).

If Trump is NOT on the ballot, there are more lanes of opportunity: one for the Nikki Haley types, and one for Crenshaw types, and perhaps some others that haven't occurred to me yet.

Of course predictions don't exactly have a deserved good rep these days. Still, I keep thinking about potential 2024 scenarios like:

1. After Biden's sensible 2022 retirement on health grounds, energetic, self-assured Presifent Harris faces a deluded and drooling Trump, who has refused to acknowkedge either his 2020 loss or his 2021 second impeachment. During debates Trump takes a break every 17 minutes to yell at a cloud about "the coward Mike Pence," while his diaper gets a badly-needed change. Harris wins 330 electoral votes.

2. Biden clings to life (and power) and runs for another term. Meanwhile a charismatic young football coach named Flex Manley rises from obscurity to galvanize MAGA Nation.

Trump (even though he contends he was impeached illegitimately by un-American Swamp Creatures and the lying media) gives his blessing and Manley cruises to victory. The platform includes making it illegal to speak Spanish.

Fwiw:

[Former police chief] Gainer described Liebengood’s death as a “line of duty casualty” in an interview with CBS News, saying it was no different than the death of fellow officer Brian Sicknick, who died Thursday night from injuries sustained while protecting the Capitol complex.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2021/01/10/another-capitol-police-death-officer-dies-by-suicide-after-responding-to-pro-trump-riot/

xp

Fwiw I’m wondering if they are insistent on calling it a “line of duty” death to make sure his family gets benefits.

Ah, I hadn't considered that angle but it's not unlikely. Either way, I agree that we shouldn't leap to conclusions.

police will call choking on a donut at breakfast a "line of duty death."

Not that my opinion matters to Nancy Pelosi but I'm reconsidering whether a 100-day delay in sending the articles might be good. It would allow for more investigation to present to the Senate (and to the public, obv). The whole sordid social media history of all of the planning and coordination of that whole event needs to be totally spelled out. Some of which will happen in the individual cases being charged, but most of those I'm sure will plead out so there won't necessarily be a big courtroom inquiry.

i wonder if this second cop suicide is like the first, in that this guy might have been a hardcore trumper.

It would allow for more investigation to present to the Senate

i get this, and i hope and expect that investigation / auditing of what happened will continue after impeachment. but we all saw what we just saw, 4 days ago. it is fresh and vivid, painful. that kind of raw feeling could lead to conviction, including the republican votes they need to do it. the longer the impeachment trial gets postponed, the further away that vivid pain drifts off. suddenly, the right's media alt reality will have provided all of them with dozens of excuses not to vote to convict, and will have formed new litmus tests for them so that voting to convict would be a betrayal of whatever mutation of the republican party exists at that moment. 100 days is an eternity, now. it needs to be done now.

we are dealing with frightened idiots right now - their attention span is not strong, we need to keep snapping fingers around their eyes and ears and bust out the smelling salts a little early. expedite everything as much as possible, before the rightwing trolls pull them down the trapdoor

Karl extremely otm

So that footage of cop being beaten by the mop on Capitol steps might not be of the cop who died. How many did they beat?? The one in the footage was beaten with a US flag while the mob chanted USA! USA!.

By the mob*

otm, in 100 days you will hear the phrase “reopening old wounds” from every single republican in congress, get them on the record now.

I think this thread is about where we stand, in terms of short vs long term threats simmering on top of all the racist and bigoted core. (I'm especially taken by the key point raised a few tweets in -- the fact that the Big Date has passed, nothing has changed, January 20th will arrive, etc, and the MAGA/Q calendar finally runs out. It's not the 20th I'm wondering about so much as it is the 21st.)

There won't be a rerun of Jan 6. The riot at the Capitol was unique in many ways: Trump called for it; it was the last chance to "overturn" the election; it was huge in scale. https://t.co/Iql50a3aUC

— Arieh Kovler (@ariehkovler) January 10, 2021

Karl extremely otm

― Überschadenfreude (sleeve), Sunday, January 10, 2021 2:25 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Agreed.

Fucking hell we all warned everyone about Trump and predicted some dark shit from his presidency but I admit to not foreseeing "mishandling a pandemic resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths and fomenting a riot on the Capitol resulting in the murder of a cop by his minions" being the capstone.

Re KM above: also, if the COVID and the economic situation were to be the same or worse in 100 days, there'd be no reason for them not to say we need to wait another 100 days. And if, as everyone hopes, things are much better on both fronts, that's precisely when even some Democrats will say "time to move on." They shouldn't wait.

Oh, gee, Republican Senators and right-wing Supreme Court justices might get assassinated by crazed Trumpoids? How...

...

...

...

...

awful

...

...

...

that would be.

Not entirely convinced the 20th won't be a shitshow, but hopefully the Capitol police / military will take it a little more seriously

Fucking hell we all warned everyone about Trump and predicted some dark shit from his presidency but I admit to not foreseeing "mishandling a pandemic resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths and fomenting a riot on the Capitol resulting in the murder of a cop by his minions" being the capstone.

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Sunday, January 10, 2021 3:33 PM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

It kind of feels like my worst predictions about Trump didn't come true until they all got compressed into the very end of his presidency.

If I ever hear the phrase Trump Derangement Syndrome again…

OK true, good points on proceeding directly. BUT there also needs to be a full accounting by the FBI or a House committee or somebody about the whole thing, reopening old wounds or not.

#BREAKING: In television news interview, CEO of Parler says attorneys representing the company have dropped them as a client.

— Matthew Keys (@MatthewKeysLive) January 10, 2021

re the question of are people coming to our homes with guns good piece from a couple months ago with historical context on periods of low level political violence, one of which we may already be in

_If proud boys and vigilantes can’t pull off a coordinated drive for power, they may opt for a time-honored approach in democratic politics: the “strategy of tension.” The term was coined in Italy during the Years of Lead from the late 1960s to the 1980s, when political violence exploded, with bombings, kidnappings, and failed coups making weekly headlines._

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/30/america-years-of-lead-political-violence-trump-election🕸

Fucking hell we all warned everyone about Trump and predicted some dark shit from his presidency but I admit to not foreseeing "mishandling a pandemic resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths and fomenting a riot on the Capitol resulting in the murder of a cop by his minions" being the capstone.

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Sunday, January 10, 2021 3:33 PM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

It kind of feels like my worst predictions about Trump didn't come true until they all got compressed into the very end of his presidency.