Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

If they take it and affirm CO, it'll be Jan. 6 every day for millions of MAGAs

see I'm not convinced of this. there are fascist rallies held fairly frequently in this country and nobody shows up but content creators and like 5 other people. sometimes there are more reporters than attendees. Trump himself spends his days calling into Z-rated podcasts and appearing on shows with names like Patriot Life Now! I mean there are 100% people willing to die for Trump but I feel like a significant portion of them are people who have already figured out a way to get on TV because every member of Trump Nation believes celebrity is the only thing that matters

I am aware that most people are fucking morons, thanks.

Most of us fit the profile. I recently read Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Olga Tokarczuk and one of the characters says (I'm paraphrasing), "Oh, you absolutely must tell people what they should think, otherwise someone else will." I agree.

People are very suggestible and when someone very confidently describes the 'right' way to look at something and no one immediately contradicts them, it's just easiest to adopt that viewpoint as correct and move on. Unless you have pre-existing countervailing thoughts.

The less you know about something, the easier it is to shape your views on it. It's also why news readers and talk show hosts strive to sound and act 'trustworthy' according to what their consultants say the correct signals are. This is an open secret that applies not just to FOX NEWS, but to all cable and broadcast news.

when it comes to this stuff I think a lot about that study which showed that people become measurably less extreme after just two weeks of not watching FOX News. I know things look bad right now but I don't really believe that Donald Trump pushed the electorate past the point of no return

You realize this isn't self-evident to a massive portion of the country, right?

― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Tuesday, December 19, 2023 11:01 PM bookmarkflaglink

are we just forever going to enslave ourselves to the will of ignorant, bloodthirsty authoritarian voters and the politicians they voted in? they're going to do terrible things if we sit and do nothing. they're going to do terrible things if provoked.

they're just going to do terrible things regardless but constantly framing things as "oh no we done poked the hornet's nest" just kinda lets them dictate the terms of how things go

also - notice how shook a lot of these insurrectionists got AFTER January 6th, when many of them faced severe charges? remember all the talk on Telegram/other right wing social media about how armed "patriots" were going to ensure Biden never got to take office, and then a whole bunch of nothing happened?

these people felt comfortable thumping their chests on January 6th because they THOUGHT they were invincible. Imagine a convoy of idiot drivers all tearing down a road at 150 miles per hour, doing Tokyo Drift stunts because someone told them their cars had force fields around them, and then the first few rows of the fleet crashed and died in a fiery ball. the people that didn't die suddenly are going to drive like Sunday School teachers for the rest of their lives.

that doesn't mean this shit isn't scary or that we aren't going to see acts of violence/extremism from these folks, but y'know I'm not going to live in fear of how every little thing will inspire them to rise up and turn this country into the Turner Diaries Live on Ice. that's just giving them power.

Why not let the actual criminal trial about this subject play out then?

conservative patriots are LARPers, the majority of whom like to act like badasses when there is no actual risk or repercussion, which is exactly why so many of these folk were little more than the drunk angry uncle who ranted on social media during the Obama administration

xpost the criminal trial that probably won't conclude prior to the election, so we can determine after he's possibly President again that he broke the law but oopsie we can't indict the President now so we will just have to say "lesson learned" for next time?

Then perhaps the focus should be on actually beating him in the election instead of giving up and hoping the Supreme Court will save us.

their entire strategy is astroturfing. they talk about it openly on Twitter. like look at all the companies who got bullied by right-wingers after selling T-shirts that said "Gay Christmas" or whatever to the point where it actually affected their stock price. once they gave in it's not like their stock price went up. one of the biggest right wing celebrities is a guy who took a video of himself shooting up a case of Bud Light and then was photographed a few months later drinking it. 95% of this shit is pretend.

our strategy can be more than one thing. and it isn't as if Joe Biden is sitting here and puppeteering everything from his White House seat. there are a bunch of disconnected things happening around the country because Trump is a criminal so of course he's facing several different court cases/etc

Then perhaps the focus should be on actually beating him in the election instead of giving up and hoping the Supreme Court will save us.

I was gonna waste my time taking this absurd argument apart, but Neanderthal already did.

I was listening to that Trump–Raffensperger call. It's outrageously bad. When he is slandering Ruby Freeman he offers social media posts as evidence of her election fraud complicity. And someone suggests perhaps social media posting isn't evidence. And then he replies to clarify, no this wasn't social media, social media is big-tech, big tech isn't on our side - this was Trump media!

Then perhaps the focus should be on actually beating him in the election instead of giving up and hoping the Supreme Court will save us.

― Muad'Doob (Moodles)

lol

Should Biden win in November 2024 an army of former Clarence Thomas clerks will find some legal mechanism to deny him victory. You really think 2024 will be a normal election anyway? Come the fuck on.

Agree with Moodles that voting Trump out is better for the country. Getting him thrown off the ballot feels like abdicating responsibility.

I also hope he goes to jail the day after he loses the election for all the other crimes he has done.

There will already be people protesting the results of the 2024 election claiming Trump was kept off the ballot in every blue state, or whatever bullshit some guy in the front seat of his car on the internet put it in their heads.

Trump supporters are already so far gone that expecting them to follow the nuance of constitutional law is silly. They are Trump supporters because *they don't care* about the law. That care about force (of language, of action) in the face of the law.

It's not a matter of "better." Of course he's going to be on the ballot.

Then what is the point?

The point is to show that the law applies. The point is to show that liberal majorities whether in a court or in a legislature work. The point is to say fuck you.

It’s going to fun when Texas courts start kicking people who protested a war off the ballot for giving aid and comfort to the enemy

GOP legislatures and conservative courts have already been doing extralegal things to take away power from democratic officials, and in Tennessee, expelled two members of their legislature for merely protesting. they don't need provocation to do shit like this - they're already doing it

Thank you

xpost and, once again, the law prohibits someone who engaged in insurrection from running, and it does not stipulate that he has to have been 'found guilty in a court of law'. the courts ruling that he engaged in insurrection *is* sufficient - or should be at least. I don't have, like, any faith that SCOTUS is actually going to back this ruling, but even if he IS found guilty, SCOTUS would be equally as likely to find some mechanism to say 'this doesn't actually apply' and undo the lower court's ruling.

moving goalposts is how conservatives work.

"well, ok, so he was found guilty, but it was by a biased court with a biased liberal judge! He voted for a Democrat once"

Of course, a system of political parties taking turns throwing legal hail marys doesn't bode well, but this is the world we live in, and these are the hands we're given.

the courts ruling that he engaged in insurrection *is* sufficient - or should be at least.

Very much disagree with this.

I mean look the Republican house has already opened up an impeachment inquiry into Biden despite the fact that they have zero actual evidence of wrongdoing, and even say as much to the media when asked. they're gonna find whatever ways they can to kick Dems off the ballot regardless of how successful this is. the GOP recognized long ago that politics in this country is a form of Prisoner's Dilemma and if they're willing to cheat and do underhanded shit and the Dems aren't, then they're gonna wind up with all the power. I'm not sure how the Dems can really counteract that without screwing over everyone but I'm pretty sure appeasing the fascists ain't gonna do it, it never does

xpost why? this is one of the many untested parts of the Constitution. it's a Civil War provision that has fallen into relative obscurity and has zero precedent regarding the President. it makes zero mention of a criminal trial conviction being required, most likely because they didn't want a former Confederate to be able to hold office by either having crony sympathetic prosecutors refusing to bring criminal charges, or using a savvy legal team that can delay the trial long enough not to be disqualified.

this isn't as if the Colorado Supreme Court ignored decades or centuries of precedent and came up with a weird ruling - it's a hotly debated topic but while legal scholars are split on whether this applies to the Presidency, this isn't a case of them all saying "ok this is a reach".

the only way this shit gets settled is when a Court rules on it. otherwise it stays theoretical forever.

lol "settled"

I've been sort of skeptical of this lawsuit and I remain skeptical that SCOTUS will agree with the Colorado court. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't have been pursued, it's an important legal question. And as with all the Jan. 6 investigations and prosecutions up to and including Trump, I think that it also has some long-term impact in just trying to defend the integrity of elections and the peaceful transfer of power. The more any of this causes any future candidate or would-be insurrectionist to think for a second about whether they want to go to jail, the better!

Watching lib friends on social media wring their hands to a bloody pulp over this is more infuriating than usual. They're okay with punching back so long as we don't actually throw a punch.

Two days ago a young woman who graduated from my uni last week got arrested for 1/6 crimes. Almost three years later actions still have consequences.

I disagree with "settled," though. We're about to find out!

SCOTUS will vote to keep Trump on the ballot, and that will be the correct choice. No one has proven that Trump engaged in insurrection in a court, which is why it is a matter of opinion.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/section-3-14th-amendment-us-constitution-trump-2024-ballot/

decent discussion here - even conservative legal scholars have written a legal brief supporting this interpretation of the Constitution.

that doesn't mean it's going to stick, it probably won't, but "don't return fire against the enemy that is bombing us, they might drop more bombs" is not a strategy I endorse.

That's not my argument btw. I just disagree with this as constitutional law.

xpost the irony of handwringing about what a look this is for Democrats when the initial lawsuit itself was filed by CREW on behalf of six voters, they were all Republican or unaffiliated.

and....once again...nowhere in the provision does it state a requirement that a criminal trial has to occur. In this interpretation, it is a self-executing provision. a lawsuit was filed on behalf of these voters, the case has been heard by a District judge and the state's Supreme Court. they have seen the evidence and issued their own rulings based on this evidence.

much like impeachment and the 25th amendment, our ancestors did a shit job of actually fleshing out the actual process, because at the time they felt it was self-evidence - you're a Confederate, you're out! which is why centuries later, we have such disagreements.

*self-evident

Now it's "You're a Confederate? You're in!"

No one has proven that Trump engaged in insurrection in a court, which is why it is a matter of opinion.

When my ten-year-old son tries to run for President, the state election board doesn't need him to be convicted by a court of being ten to disqualify him from appearing on the ballot. 14th Amendment says nowhere that a conviction for insurrection is required. You can like that or not like that for any number of reasons that appeal to conservatives and liberals variously, but that is what it says, it is the Constitution, and that is what the Colorado court used as the basis for their ruling here, including their determination that what Trump did on January 6th was insurrection.

The judiciary routinely draws up standards out of thin air for the application of laws. Many of them are famous! This is why you get a Miranda warning when being arrested, why free speech can be restricted if it provokes imminent lawless action, why art is obscene if taken as a whole, it lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. The legislature didn't come up with those things. Here the Colorado court hasn't outlined a test for insurrectionary behavior, but they have by their ruling asserted that the court can determine according to their own standards what constitutes insurrection for the purposes of applying the Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Their opinion, since they are judges, has the force of a ruling. Again, this happens all the time.

The Supreme Court will now weigh in. Who knows what they will do? Maybe say that a federal conviction for insurrection is the standard for 14th Amendment disqualification, which will then be the test that is applied in these cases. Maybe refuse to make that kind of ruling and say it is a matter for the states to decide, as they have often recently done for cases relating to elections. I doubt they'll mess with saying that Section 3 does not apply to the office of the President, the Colorado court dealt with that nonsense assertion very thoroughly.

If the 14th amendment says all of this stuff, just imagine what's in the rest of the Constitution!

we're not even allowed to go to the bathroom

That's amendment #2, iirc.

The court requests NOT to hear what they will have to pry out of your cold, dead hands in the bathroom.

It doesn't say a conviction is required but an actual conviction is what gets you past the "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" part being deemed debatable until then.

I hear you can mint a trillion dollar coin

The Bulwark sums up the attitude I'm seeing in lots of places, including this thread, pretty well:

"Donald Trump must be allowed every possible legal maneuver in his quest to subvert American democracy. But the law must never apply to Trump, because doing so might make him stronger."

My wanting to inflict maximum pain on Trump by having ~$81M voters tell him to go fuck himself before he is ruled ineligible to serve again and then thrown in jail for the rest of his life for one of any number of crimes he committed is not appeasing fascists or withholding fire or whatever other dumb things people are saying.

Both things can happen people.

The Bulwark sums up the attitude I'm seeing in lots of places, is run by war criminals