Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

“Leavings” is going to be rotating thru my conversations for the next week thank u

Thanks for that, unperson. (And thanks, all of you, for today’s discussion.)

https://i.imgur.com/8yojXc1.jpg

Sorry Jake, but the numbers don't add up for you.

We'll still have Ryan Gosling.

The Tea Party is descended from Gingrich / Contract With America, which descends from talk radio, which descends from Reagan, who descended from Goldwater, and ultimately the Klan and the Confederacy, etc.

An anti-tax, small-government, anti-federal politics is inherently a racist politics.

Sure, there is a through line straight from the Confederacy to the present day GOP and Trump is its latest heir, but the particulars of the Trump cult added a new twist in that his most crazed and loyal acolytes were basically non-voters prior to Trump because of the prevalence of conspiratorial thinking among them, as typified by the birthers. It's no coincidence Trump served as their figurehead.

booming piece

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/05/opinion/trump-insurrections-disqualification-14th-amendment.html?unlocked_article_code=1.LU0.cfLX.xqQybZP3qsK-&smid=url-share

Yeah it’s the most convincing thing I’ve read on what he should be disqualified. Every day I curse Pelosi for not fast tracking impeachment after January 6.

Why he should be disqualified

Look me in the eye
Then tell me that I'm unqualified

But these objections rest on a poor foundation. They treat Trump as an ordinary candidate and Jan. 6 as a variation on ordinary politics. But as the House select committee established, Jan. 6 and the events leading up to it were nothing of the sort. And while many Americans still contest the meaning of the attack on the Capitol, many Americans also contested, in the wake of the Civil War, the meaning of secession and rebellion. That those Americans viewed Confederate military and political leaders as heroes did not somehow delegitimize the Republican effort to keep them, as much as possible, out of formal political life.

What unites Trump with the former secessionists under the disqualification clause is that like them, he refused to listen to the voice of the voting public. He rejected the bedrock principle of democratic life, the peaceful transfer of power.

xxpost He was impeached 7 days after Jan. 6.

It was just enough time for Congress to scrape the feces off their desks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA9B4VU8FlM

It brings to mind that (from what I see) there's too much debate around whether or not he "planned" to have the Jan 6 mob forcefully invade to overturn the election as the specific action and goal, and not enough pointing out that regardless of the particular intention and orchestration there's the fact that there was no true effort by him to tell them to STOP once things got out of hand. This seems overly generous but I've always felt that he himself and his advisors didn't really specifically conceive of a plan to literally have the mob violently overturn the election, but instead thought things would play out as sort of a Boston Tea Party style patriotic act of defiance that would be looked back at in history books in a similar positive light. But entertaining that idea feels like a weaker position to prosecute from, though I don't think the distinction really lets him off the hook at all given the lack of action once things really got out of hand. It just feels more in line with his/their style of opportunistic narrative manipulation to "see how things play out" and then leverage plausible deniability to steer the narrative accordingly.

Back in 2021 the only way I stopped a conservative relative from babbling about Trump's culpability was when I quietly asked, "If he didn't encourage a rebellion on his behalf, then why didn't he stop it?"

sorry didn't mean to use "things got out of hand" twice, I hate when I do stuff like that

OMG and "things would play out" I guess I'm too tired to edit myself

Exactly Alfred, and in conversation it feels like the only direct response would be a rhetorical "what was he supposed to do?!" with no interest in an answer

see this is the problem, like yes if you give Trump the extreme benefit of the doubt I guess you can sorta exonerate him on this. problem is no politician in American history deserves the benefit of the doubt less than Donald Trump, the guy who will praise dictators and Nazis if they're nice to him, the guy who's defrauded every single person he's ever worked with, the guy who outright said he would only accept the results of the election if he won, the guy who was literally recorded trying to strongarm a secretary of state into "finding" more votes

regardless of who actually planned what the point is if he thought getting a mob together to storm the Capitol would actually overturn the election there is like a 100% chance he would try to do it

maybe the only way out of this that don't mek scotus look incredibly stupid or corrupt is that either 1 standards and process for finding insurrection must be required, or 2 standards and process for national or presidential balloting must be required.

re: an exception to states' rights being needed wrt balloting for national office-- pre-scotus gorsuch hisself is cited himself in CO's decision, stating that states HAVE such authority. he will need to do a little work ("well NOT for preznit," or "well NOT with regards standards for finding insurrection.")

how you find inherent contradiction or absurdity making such things required, that's where the magic is

the Jan 6th data from Trump's twitter dm's and phone acct that Jack Smith has acquired becomes public it could be interesting. I presume there must be some damning evidence there if they are going to present it to a jury.

I was just reflecting on it because:

-It's how I think it really played out, I'm not reaching to give him benefit of the doubt or exonerate him of his responsibility or guilt
-As Alfred mentioned in his anecdote, it derails the central counterargument that his supporters push back on, which is whether it was preconceived and puts focus back on who is responsible for it going as far as it did and what was the hope that motivated letting it continue

there's too much debate around whether or not he "planned" to have the Jan 6 mob forcefully invade to overturn the election as the specific action and goal, and not enough pointing out that regardless of the particular intention and orchestration there's the fact that there was no true effort by him to tell them to STOP once things got out of hand

otfm

"but officer, when i drank those ten beers, i didn't plan on running you off the road. no fair!"

Dude got on national television and said “stand down and STAND BY”

Even his nominal attempt to calm thing down included a call to await further orders

When I heard his Proud Boys remark on that first debate, I thought, "He means it" and "He also has no idea how English works."

Taylor Swift did not direct her fans to attack Jake Glynenhaal, but she once they started she did nothing to stop them

xpost That's the catch, isn't it? Trump only selectively seems to know what words mean.

the Jan 6th data from Trump's twitter dm's and phone acct that Jack Smith has acquired becomes public it could be interesting. I presume there must be some damning evidence there if they are going to present it to a jury.

I was listening to them talk about this stuff on NPR this morning, and someone emailed in basically asking, where's the question in any of this? We watched it happen, we've all seen the tapes, people actually died, hundreds have been arrested, we've heard the testimony, there have been numerous investigations, what part of any of this is in doubt?

^^^

It's not as if anyone arguing in favor of Trump is doing so in good faith or making any attempt at an airtight argument. It's people with brains and eyes expending all the energy pointing at the mountain of evidence and saying 'you clearly did it!' and Diaper Don and his Doo-Doo Brigade simply responding with a lackadaisical 'nuh-uh'.

it's real simple, the question is whether or not Trump is above the law, as it pretty much always has been

I know what Steven Seagal would say.

"buy my illegal crypto"?

even the Trump–Raffensperger phone call should be enough to get him off the ballot. Trying to intimidate local officials to change an election result and then he calls it a "perfect phone call" the mind boggles. I'm totally persuaded towards the ballot removal argument now, even it is going to be overturned.

He's such a shite excuse for an insurrectionary criminal mastermind, leaving behind a trail of digital evidence of him committing his crimes is an amateur mistake.

no, the perfect phone call was where he tried to extort Zelenskyy for Hunter Biden dirt, the Raffensperger phone call was the one where everyone admitted he did nothing wrong

“This was a perfect phone call,” he has said of his call to Raffensperger

Dude got on national television and said “stand down and STAND BY”

IIRC, he said "stand back," not "stand down," which of course means something different.

Trump repeating himself? Never thought I’d see the day.

As I understand it, Trump is petitioning the SC to not just decide if the 14th amendment applies, but whether or not he committed insurrection, which puts the SC in a bit of an awkward position in terms of how they can approach this.

There is no way the Court can decide that at this stage.

and yet the argument his lawyers seem to be making is that even if the Colorado law could be applied to Trump, it wasn't valid because he didn't do an insurrection. There isn't any reason why they had to choose that particular line of argument, yet they did.

At this stage in his mental decline, I'm only surprised he hasn't requested SCOTUS to rule on whether he was the best president of all time

It's official folks, scrotum has named me this years best president of all time. That's right you heard it hear first and it's what everyone's been saying.

the "god made trump" thing trump posted on truth social has me fucking dying

"come home hungry, have to wait until the first lady is done with lunch with friends, then tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon, and mean it"

SCOTUS has agreed to hear the disqualification appeal

Surely that will turn out well.