I am sorry, but I am so tired of the "save democracy", "threat of democracy" canard with respect to Trump that I simply cannot take the writer seriously. It is an intellectually bankrupt meme that has been repeated so many times that it has lost its meaning even if it had been based on anything real... which it had never been.
The only real threat to democracy that we have experienced has been from the left administrative authoritarians throughout the pandemic. As these power-hungry talent-less politicians and bureaucrats have drunkenly granted themselves emergency powers, they then went to work abusing those emergency powers to their maximum potential... deleting any and all voices of the people that might oppose as their families, children and businesses were irreparably and unnecessarily harmed.
How do you not see a threat to democracy when the man LITERALLY TRIED TO OVERTHROW OUR CONSTITUTIONAL ORDER?
Do you understand that this wasn't just a spontaneous "dust up" arising from an understandable citizen protest? There was an ACTUAL PLOT to corruptly overturn the results of our election, and the mere fact that this man has a significant minority of this nation sympathizing with him and that he will likely RUN FOR OFFICE AGAIN TO PROVIDE HIMSELF LEGAL IMMUNITY is an OBVIOUS threat to our democracy.
You do understand that he is the ONLY presidential candidate IN OUR HISTORY who refused to concede a loss in an election, despite the fact that others who had legitimate complaints acted with our country's best interest in mind. Trump's case was a COMPLETE FABRICATION and HE KNEW IT. He was told by EVERY legitimate official around him - his AG, his DHS chief, White House lawyers, yet he STILL sought out nuts and lunatics like General "Pizzagate" Flynn and Mike "Pillow Guy" Lindell to advise him.
Do you know that Flynn recommended he declare MARTIAL LAW? You should, because he tweeted it out, but he was actually IN THE WHITE HOUSE selling this to Trump. He needed Rudy Giuliani of all people to talk him out of it. Sidney Powell came up with an absolute hair-on-fire, raving mad, tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory about Dominion Voting machines - who are suing her into oblivion right now. And a significant chunk of Americans bought it! Do you know how her lawyers have defended her? By claiming that "no reasonable person" would think that what she was saying was true. Who ever said that irony was dead?
If the military opposes you and you don’t even try to get military support, then claims about overthrowing the government don’t pass the smell test. Quote from General Mark Milley (hardly a Trump fan)
“You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with the guns”.
From Matt Taibbi (hardly a Trump fan).
“I don’t mean to understate the seriousness of January 6th, even though it’s been absurdly misreported for over a year now. No one from a country where these things actually happen could mistake 1/6 for “a coup.” In the real version, the mob doesn’t take selfies and blaze doobies after seizing the palace, and the would-be dictator doesn’t spend 187 minutes snacking and watching Fox before tweeting “go home.” Instead, he works the phones nonstop to rally precinct chiefs, generals, and airport officials to the cause, because a coup is a real attempt to seize power. Britannica says the “chief prerequisite for a coup is control of all or part of the armed forces, the police, and other military elements.” We saw none of that on January 6th, but it’s become journalistic requirement to use either “coup” or “insurrection” in describing it:”
I don’t think the 2021/1/6 riots were peaceful. However, Trump rather clearly called for “peaceful and patriotic” protests (his words). He also called on his supporters to “Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”. Not exactly coup/insurrection/overthrow material.
"How do you not see a threat to democracy when the man LITERALLY TRIED TO OVERTHROW OUR CONSTITUTIONAL ORDER?"
My God you people are dense. Trump and millions of other people were convinced that the political establishment and the media cheated. From Trump's perspective and those people's perspective he was doing work to PROTECT DEMOCRACY from being destroyed by the dirty tricks of the political establishment corporatist cabal. That election was unprecedented in weirdness and shenanigans. 2000 Mules and $400 million in Zuckerbucks buys a lot of stuffed ballot boxes in the swing states.
If you cannot see that you are just a adel-brained TDS suffering ideologue lacking critical thinking skills.
No Frank. Nobody is dense except the people who were taken in by an obvious scam - and the people who still insist that it wasn't really a scam despite everything we know.
Firstly, it takes a particularly stubborn sense of obliviousness to not see that millions of people believed the election had been stolen BECAUSE TRUMP TOLD THEM it was stolen. In fact, he did more than that - he told them it was GOING TO BE STOLEN. Well ahead of time. Everyone outside of the hermetically sealed MAGA bubble saw this coming, and even *predicted* that he was going to exploit the red mirage / blue wave phenomenon - which election experts told us was a virtual certainty because of the late counting of mail-in ballots, and their heavy skew toward Democrats because TRUMP TOLD HIS VOTERS NOT TO USE THEM.
And just in case you suffer from the particular strain of sociological blindness to actually trust Donald Trump, an unctuous con-artist with a sordid history of scamming customers and business partners, when he tells you that he "really believed" that the election was stolen, we *know* that this was planned. Jonathan Swan of Axios reported two days before the election that Trump was planning behind the scenes to declare victory if he was up on election night. We even have Steve Bannon admitting *on tape* that this was the plan.
Even aside from this, how does "those people's perspective" not constitute a threat to democracy simply because they may have honestly believed it? The very fact that so many Americans believed something so dangerous yet so *clearly untrue* that it has led to death threats to election workers, plans to install election deniers in key state government positions, calls for civil warfare by right-wing lunatics, and *almost complete* capitulation by one of our two major political parties is a threat to the stability of our country not despite, but *because* so many people believe it.
And nobody who spouts out mindless right-wing talking points about idiotic conspiracy theories like "Zuckerbucks" and "2000 Mules" has any place accusing others of lacking critical thinking skills. D'Souza's claims have even been panned by people on the right because they are backed up by faulty assumptions and ultimately make no sense. Drop-boxes provide no more opportunity for fraud than does the post office - ballots are verified by officials when they reach polling locations, not by virtue of being placed in a drop box. You could deposit all the fake ballots you want in a drop box and it wouldn't do any more good than walking around putting them in unsurveilled mailboxes. Not to mention that GPS signals can't distinguish someone going up to a dropbox from merely walking past it on the street. And the behavior that he pointed out in Dropbox cameras was entirely unremarkable - people delivering several ballots at once (which was legal), one person snapping a selfie after depositing his ballot (which was apparently something trendy people were doing on Instagram at the time), etc.
It's mere common sense that a candidate has little incentive to steal an election that they are likely to win fairly. Anyone who was paying attention to polling before the election knew that Trump was way behind - much further behind than he had been in 2016 when he won on a fluke - and that his chances were small. Follow the motive, Frank, and you'll easily find the person who tried to steal the 2020 election. If this were a movie, it would be critically panned and have viewers yelling at the screen at how unrealistically dimwitted Trump's supporters were.
Trump is the person who tried to steal this election - it was blatant, unambiguous, and it had nothing to do with protecting democracy. And if you don't see that, quit projecting and don't tell me or anyone else that *we're* the ones suffering from a "derangement syndrome".
Stop wasting so many keystrokes writing such twaddle.
"Firstly, it takes a particularly stubborn sense of obliviousness to not see that millions of people believed the election had been stolen BECAUSE TRUMP TOLD THEM it was stolen. In fact, he did more than that - he told them it was GOING TO BE STOLEN. Well ahead of time."
And no, unlike you lefties, Trump supporters don't bow down to their politicians and suck on everything they say as gospel. Any objective and intelligent person with experience in several elections would admit that the 2020 election was a mess of dirty abnormalities.
It's revealing that you Trump supporters can never defend Trump directly. All you know how to do is whatabout Democrats - and you're lousy even at that.
Do you know what all of those other elections had in common? 2000: Gore conceded in December. 2004: Kerry conceded immediately. 2016: Hillary conceded immediately.
2020: Trump is STILL contesting the election almost TWO YEARS later. Still trying to get officials in Wisconsin and Arizona to "overturn" their electoral votes, something that is neither possible nor meaningful.
The 2000 and 2016 elections were ones where Democrats had legitimate grievances. The Supreme Court improperly interfered with the vote re-counting in Florida, as did a group of besuited frat-bros (the infamous "Brooks Brothers rebellion"). In 2016 an anti-democratic foreign adversary mounted an Internet disinformation campaign to sway voters while actively courting the candidate. The fact that in both cases, the Democrat won the popular vote may not have been a technically valid grievance, but it understandably rubbed salt in the wound, reminding most Americans that they are prisoners of a system they didn't choose and wouldn't agree to today. As for the 2004 controversy, it was barely a whisper in the general public consciousness.
Contrast that to today, where Republicans are RUNNING on the issue of claiming 2020 was stolen, and that if they were in office at the time they would have acted to overturn it. It has become a virtual litmus test in the party, with Trump actively counting down "8 down, 2 to go" as the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him each get intimidated or voted out of office. He flatly tells everyone he "won twice", and now we have to prepare for another attempted steal in 2024, possibly with his cupboard stocked with election deniers in strategic positions in swing state governments.
This isn't even getting into the past 15 or 20 years where the Republicans have been constantly making unfounded claims of Democratic voter fraud by illegal aliens, using this as a pretense for attacking voter registration groups and passing laws making it harder for poor and minority voters to vote (with an assist from their buddies on the Supreme Court, of course). Thankfully, it seems studies show these efforts generally haven't worked that well. But they've softened up the Republican electorate to the point that they were easy marks for Trump's election fraud scam.
Also, if you've been paying attention for longer than 20 years, you'd know that it's the Republican Party that's actually gotten in trouble with the courts for various electoral shenanigans, like sending "poll watchers" to intimidate voters, and robocalls giving false information about polling locations. That's why it was under a consent decree with Dept of Justice for *35 years* ('82-'17), which it repeatedly ran afoul of. Now that it's gone and the VRA has been gutted by right-wing judges, it's open season again, and they took full advantage in 2020 with unqualified, partisan "poll watchers" recruited to lob accusations without necessarily knowing what they were looking for.
And as for the 2020 election being a mess of "dirty abnormalities", chances are you can't name one I can't debunk. And there's certainly been plenty of that. But the only real abnormality was the widespread use of vote-by-mail, early mail, and drop-boxes, all of which any "objective and intelligent person" can agree were entirely reasonable provisions in the midst of a global pandemic spread through close airborne contact, and for which there was no vaccine. While it does open up some risks in terms of vote buying and coercion, such things would be difficult to conceal in an environment where they aren't already endemic, and worth the risk under the circumstances.
As for the rest, it was one ridiculous accusation after another dredged up from the fever swamps of the Internet. Throw it all against the wall to see what sticks. Doesn't matter if it's at all consistent or coherent, as long as it's so much that people conclude that *something* must be up - it can't all be false, right? It's a classic authoritarian ploy - "the firehose of falsehoods". Or as Steve Bannon himself enthusiastically described the tactic, "flood the zone with shit".
You know it's funny - when it comes to Trump's connection to Russia, his supporters seize on a handful of misinformation and the whole thing is a complete hoax, despite everything we know about his and his campaign manager's connections to Russia, his personal affinity for Putin, Russia's efforts to get him elected, and Trump's (largely successful) efforts to interfere with the Mueller probe - including Bill Barr's deceptive summary before Congress, regularly harassing his AG for recusing himself, and the pardons he duly delivered to those who agreed not to squeal on him.
Yet when it comes to the 2020 election, we have successfully batted away EVERY SINGLE claim of fraud - from Powell's "Kraken" to Pillow Guy's bogus network packets, from the con-artists in Antrim County to the Cyber Ninjas in Arizona. His lawyers were laughed out of court, and every contested state has had investigations, audits, and recounts that either found nothing *or* found misconduct on behalf of Trump supporters. And yet *still* we have to deal with people like you, whose "critical thinking" skills tell them that the general din and hum of petulant, dissatisfied Trump supporters must mean *something* dirty was up.
Regardless, you can claim all you want that Trump supporters don't just believe what they're told, but the past few years tell us otherwise. (Unless you're the type to think that putting stock in things like "2000 Mules" makes one smarter than all the RINO cucks who dismiss it, when all it demonstrates is kneejerk, uncritical receptiveness to conspiracy theories which validate one's worldview.) The Republican Party is well aware that it has switched places with Democrats as being the less educated party, but since ultimately Republican elites have nothing but contempt for the working class, it has no problem exploiting them as low-information voters. "I love the poorly educated!" said Trump in one of his more cringeworthy moments of pandering.
"In 2016 an anti-democratic foreign adversary mounted an Internet disinformation campaign to sway voters while actively courting the candidate."
Hillary spent $1.4 billion (roughly). Trump spent around $900 million. The Russians spent $1-2 million. Obama was President at the time and he didn't go bonkers about the 'Russians'.
Trump conceded after Congress confirmed. Hillary is still claiming Trump is an illegitimate POTUS and widdle wiberals like you are still believing Trump Russia collusion. The Jan-6 protests were nothing compared to Russiagate. After the coming midterms the GOP is gonna' roll some heads for that sordid chapter in Democrat dirty deeds.
If the military opposes you and you don’t even try to get military support, then claims about overthrowing the government don’t pass the smell test. Quote from General Mark Milley (hardly a Trump fan)
“You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with the guns”.
From Matt Taibbi (hardly a Trump fan).
“I don’t mean to understate the seriousness of January 6th, even though it’s been absurdly misreported for over a year now. No one from a country where these things actually happen could mistake 1/6 for “a coup.” In the real version, the mob doesn’t take selfies and blaze doobies after seizing the palace, and the would-be dictator doesn’t spend 187 minutes snacking and watching Fox before tweeting “go home.” Instead, he works the phones nonstop to rally precinct chiefs, generals, and airport officials to the cause, because a coup is a real attempt to seize power. Britannica says the “chief prerequisite for a coup is control of all or part of the armed forces, the police, and other military elements.” We saw none of that on January 6th, but it’s become journalistic requirement to use either “coup” or “insurrection” in describing it:”
I don’t think the 2021/1/6 riots were peaceful. However, Trump rather clearly called for “peaceful and patriotic” protests (his words). He also called on his supporters to “Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”. Not exactly coup/insurrection/overthrow material.
Taibbi is either being intentionally obtuse or, as usual, is failing to grasp the reality and enormity of Trump's threat. He may be no Trump fan, but he consistently minimizes his transgressions.
Let's set aside the fact that the "peacefully" was something that Trump threw into what was an otherwise incendiary and vitriolic speech. The idea that he actually expected the protest to be peaceful is hopelessly naive, but it's beside the point.
The riot itself was not the coup attempt. Taibbi speaks as if this bunch of weak-minded diabetic losers was supposed to be an occupying army. That's the kind of strawman he and his fellow anti-anti-Trump contrarians rely on.
The riot was merely intended to intimidate Mike Pence into playing the part Trump wanted in John Eastman's insane scheme to invalidate electors and kick the election to the House under the rules of the Twelfth Amendment, where the Republicans had the upper hand controlling 26 state legislatures. Failing that, they hoped to delay the certification so that they could spend more time pressuring state legislatures to override governor's certifications. If they had somehow managed to pull that off, it would have been up to this Supreme Court to stop it. The same Supreme Court that has already signaled that it intends to seriously consider the so-called "independent state legislature" theory, which aims to completely empower state legislatures to determine the outcomes of elections.
This scheme was a long-shot gambit, but that's based on the likelihood of state Republican officials doing the right thing.
Something becoming less and less likely as those who stood up to Trump are being censured by state Republican parties or intimidated and driven out of office. All over the country, 2020 election deniers are running for crucial offices from Governor and Attorney General to state elections boards, in hopes of giving 2024 Trump what 2020 Trump lacked.
As for your assertions regarding the military, if you're going to argue based on the encyclopedia definition of a word, then let's use the technically correct one (which I typically avoid because of how esoteric it is). What Trump attempted wasn't actually a coup - it was an autogolpe.
A coup is an attempt to seize control of the government. An autogolpe is an attempt to maintain the control of government you already have. For a coup, you need to capture the military. An autogolpe can be fought in legislatures and courts. If our civilian institutions had been cajoled into declaring Trump President, our military would have been obliged to accede to that. Trump was already their commander in chief, and would have remained so had he somehow finagled an overturn of the election.
Milley was speaking about the possibility of Trump attempting to physically force his autogolpe. It turns out that wasn't what was being plotted. Trump didn't necessarily need the crowd to get violent, although that certainly helped. But he needed them to be there and to be angry and intimidating. He only made that belated video telling the crowd to go home after it was clear the plot had failed, and after hours of tremendous pressure applied by his staff and some of his family. Try watching the blooper reel from the filming of it, where it was like pulling teeth trying to get Trump to say the right thing without valorizing the crowd (which he did anyway).
Everything you're citing in Trump's defense is the meager output of Herculean efforts by the people around Trump to provide cover and plausible deniability while the more responsible and realistic in his inner circle prevented the worst from coming to pass. This John Eastman "fake elector" scheme was only a last-ditch attempt after other efforts failed - for instance, Trump had to be talked out of firing his AG and replacing him with a stooge who was going to lie to state governments and claim they had discovered anomalies that they were investigating. In a second Trump administration, there likely won't be people to talk Trump down. He'll surround himself with people who will enable him just like the party is enabling him now, closing ranks around him after realizing that what they once considered unthinkable is what their voters wanted.
Just one question. Is there anything Trump could do--shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue, sexual assault, get caught on tape asking the Georgia Secretary of State to "find" him votes, inspire a mob to try to intimidate Congress into overturning an election--ANYTHING that you wouldn't whatabout?
Trump could campaign on on set of ideas and promises and come in to office doing exactly the opposite (like Joe Biden) and I would reject him in a heartbeat. He could also campaign on ideas that I think are terrible for the nation and then go forward and actually do them... like Bernie is likely to do.
Trump could weaponize the Justice Department and FBI to destroy his political opposition (like Joe Biden).
Trump could support canceling people that speak out about the COVID rules, or that challenge the global warming farce, or that oppose wokeism. He could agree to ban guns and taking away second amendment rights.
Trump could tacitly support defunding cops and radical DAs.
These are things that Trump could do that would have me rejecting him.
I love this reply. It properly restores policy and governance to the conversation about a president's suitability as a leader. The revulsion and disdain so many people feel towards Trump personally - which might be quite deserved in many ways but can't possibly be deserved in every way - have unbalanced his critics.
The inability of so many Trump critics to form coherent criticisms is, for me, a reliable source of astonishment. There's so much to criticize - something true of practically every leader. Unfortunately the gut revulsion people feel just swamps things. There are exceptions, and some of them write in these pages is. Still, they're rare.
I guess you could say the same about Trump's supporters, although at least many of them defend Trump by pointing to his actual governance as president. All by itself Trump's legitimate claim to have, during his presidency, involved the US in no new wars ought to earn him at least grudging respect for his conduct of foreign affairs, often the most important responsibility of the office. But it does not. I often ask Trump critics to think of one or two things he did well as POTUS. The question tends to leave people baffled, which indicates to me a deep lack of seriousness. (And by the way, people on the right should think through how they would answer the same question about Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, etc. If your answer is "nothing" then you really need to think through the implications of that with respect to your own fidelity to the truth.)
Great comment. Exactly correct. Frankly though, at this time, I cannot come up with a single positive accomplishment for Joe Biden. He has been much more of a fantastic train wreck than even his biggest critics could have imagined. It is though this lens that increases the clarity seeing the lack of balance in Trump critics… with respect to the list of accomplishments.
In terms of comparisons, there has not been a POTUS that I can remember whom I hated as a person… nor did I ever even consider that a benchmark for my support or opposition. I would never allow that to cloud my assessment of the performance of the person in office. This is what is completely backwards with the anti-Trump people… they ignore the actual performance and focus on their hate for the person.
Horseshoe theory in action: so much of the "anti-woke" worldview sounds like what you'd get if you took the woke worldview and flipped it upside down, with good guys and bad guys reversed.
I remember, when George W. Bush was coming into office, someone arguing that he should pardon Bill Clinton for the sake of national healing. Ah, to go back to those innocent times, when lying about sex in the Oval Office was what people got angry at the President for.
The processor takes almost 700 words to say basically:
(1) I have essentially no idea what the Department of Justice was looking for.
(2) I have even less idea about what they found.
(3) I'd really like to see Trump prosecuted because, you know, "our democracy"...
(4) ...but I'm also afraid it might backfire and hurt, you know, the flawed democracy that chose the wrong candidate in 2016 and almost repeated the mistake in 2020. Because I really love my democracy.
I’m commenting just to say, “Wow all of this is so stupid and should never have happened.” I’m specifically talking about an extremely uninteresting, incompetent person being given the worlds most important job. It should shock us more--the inability to pick intelligent and thoughtful leaders. The stupidity of our (The USAs) particular brand of politics will continue to drag down our collective potential.
And all for temporary power in this tiny stretch of human history. Gross.
When the Supreme Court handed abortion back to the democratic process, leftists/liberals were very upset. Now we are supposed to be upset by a 'threat of democracy? Which is it? Leftists/liberals hate democracy when they don't like the results and love democracy otherwise.
Come now. This is a reductionist talking point and I don't believe you don't see it.
Taking away a right that people have enjoyed for 50 years is not "loving democracy". If the issue of slavery were suddenly "sent back to the states", would you expect lovers of democracy to rejoice? Yes, it's an extreme example, but the point is that even in a democracy, majoritarian rule is not all-consuming. That's why we establish rights.
You might claim that abortion was never a "real" right to begin with. But neither was the right of individuals to own firearms. These were both inventions of the modern courts. Yet do people on the right get misty-eyed when legitimate firearms restrictions, voted into law by the people of a state, are overturned by our NRA-engineered Supreme Court?
The first ten Amendments to the Constitution, give the American people all sorts of rights. The 13th Amendment makes slavery unconstitutional. Strangely enough, the word abortion doesn't appear anywhere in Constitution. By contrast, the second Amendment rather specifically says "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed".
I'm not going to get into the Second Amendment right now because you're dodging the point. Do you really oppose slavery because you love the Constitution so much and it just happens to be that slavery is outlawed in the Constitution? Suppose we never had a 13th Amendment, because the states all just outlawed it at some point. And then some anti-immigrant hawks start talking about re-introducing it for illegal aliens. Subject to the voters of a state, of course. Would you be happy about this? Because, hooray democracy?
Of course you wouldn't. You'd consider it a profoundly tragic state of affairs. You oppose slavery because it's profusely immoral.
And I'm guessing you probably feel the same way about abortion. In which case, if there had been a similarly contorted legal ruling 50 years ago that claimed the Constitution *outlawed* abortion, and then it was struck down, would you be happy for democracy now that it was being returned to the states? (And if I'm wrong about you being staunchly pro-life, do you think most pro-life people would feel that way?)
The point is, you can argue all you want about what's Constitutional and what isn't, but that's not what your original post was about. You were telling people who believed all their lives that they had a Constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy that they must "hate democracy" now that this right is being taken from them. And I'm challenging this, because I doubt you'd feel the same if "democracy" wasn't aligned in favor of what you believe in.
Not to mention, this has absolutely nothing to do with whether the election of a President should be overturnable by people who don't like the result - which it obviously shouldn't, and is the reason why Trump and his acolytes are an obvious threat to democracy. Suggesting that people who oppose the appeal of Roe have no right to claim concern over a political party threatening the integrity of our elections might seem like a clever argument, but it's tendentious and would hardly stand up to scrutiny if the roles were reversed.
Hillary (AKA - The Hero of Benghazi) has claimed that Trump is an "illegitimate President". I guess you must think she is an obvious threat to democracy. Stacey Abrams is still claiming she won the 2018 election. You apparently think she is an obvious threat to democracy.
Now I think you're the one being willfully obtuse. Hillary can use whatever terms she wishes to describe the reality of Russia's corrupt (and successful) attempt to use Trump to inject instability into American society and our political establishment. Maybe you can come up with a better term for an incompetent, unfit President who is a tool of America's enemies.
But what Hillary did not do is accuse the Republican Party of stealing votes. Or the media of being the "enemy of the people" because of the way they hyped her scandals. Or the FBI of being corrupt and being part of a "deep state" conspiring against her. In other words, she did not attempt to undermine essential American institutions to cater to her own political interests. And needless to say, she does not command a personality cult who has woven her as a messiah figure into a perverse quasi-Christian theology that she refuses to refute because it might cost her politically.
As for Stacy Abrams, she's received her share of criticism, but the governorship of Georgia does not compare to the Presidency of the United States. Stacy Abrams at least had a clear case of the appearance of impropriety, with her opponent being the official in charge of the very election infrastructure underlying their contest, and having just instituted a mass voter-roll purge that almost certainly leaned Democrat. Trump had absolutely nothing but internet-trawled garbage.
But again, it's a question of how far someone is willing to go in pressing their grievances. Stacy Abrams didn't concede - and that was it. Do you see Abrams pushing for this as a litmus test in the Democratic Party? Viciously attacking anyone who doesn't agree with her, and swinging her endorsements to the people who most shamelessly pander to her grievances? Do you see her supporters driving the Democratic Party to condemn and ostracize anyone who crosses her?
Most importantly, did she engage in a plot to overturn the results of the 2018 election? Are people running for office in Georgia claiming that they would have acted to overturn the election had they been in office? Are her supporters intimidating politicians and election officials in order to influence their behavior or encourage vacancies in positions so that they can then fill them with compliant deniers of Kemp's win? Go ahead and ask Georgia election officials who has threatened their lives over email and voicemail, forced them to leave their homes and go into hiding or walk around with security details. I'll give you a hint - it isn't Stacy Abrams' supporters.
Let's try a few facts. Hillary (AKA - The Hero of Benghazi) spent roughly $1.4 billion trying to get elected in 2016. Trump spent around $900 million. The Russians spent 1-2 million at most.
" Hillary can use whatever terms she wishes to describe the reality of Russia's corrupt (and successful) attempt to use Trump to inject instability into American society and our political establishment."
I guess you missed the Mueller report where he showed that Russiagate was hoax. Don't worry, lots of people believe in hoaxes. Hillary and Pelosi fall into that category.
Actually, Stacy Abrams did try to overturn the results of the 2018 election (in court).
Maybe, just maybe Hillary should not have lied about Benghazi. Maybe, just maybe Hillary should not used a personal and private Email server. Maybe, just maybe Hillary should not have use the word ‘deplorables’. Maybe, just maybe Hillary should not had made her de facto slogan “I put up with Bill’s affairs so that I could get the White House, so now give me the White House’. Maybe, just maybe Hillary should have campaigned as hard as Trump (she didn’t even try). Maybe, just maybe Hillary should have campaigned harder in the Midwest (she never visited Wisconsin, even once). Maybe, just maybe Hillary should not have lied about the TPP. Maybe, just maybe Hillary should have given laudatory speeches to Wall Street for six-figures… And then refused to release the transcripts. . Maybe, just maybe Hillary should not have promoted the war in Libya. Maybe, just maybe Hillary should not have chosen Huma Abedin as her aid (no criticism of Huma Abedin from me, other than her disastrous choice of spouse).
'Separate but equal' (Plessy v. Ferguson) was Constitutional for more than 50 years. I guess you think the SC should have upheld 'separate but equal' forever. The late Ruth Bader Ginsburg called Roe "heavy-handed judicial intervention". Lawrence Tribe stated that "one of the most curious things about Roe is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found."
A verbatim excerpt from the essay above. Does the professor's writing inform and persuade? Or does it speculate and opine?
"If Trump committed… It is too early to know… We do not know for sure… We may soon learn more if… This may implicate… We do not know… of course, there is no way of knowing… Assuming that there is evidence… Caution is in order. …these documents may shed some light… On the one hand… On the other hand… …would be unlikely… …democracies tend to. …leaving open the question… One can argue… perhaps it is necessary… …has the potential… …in the event of… At this point… …too little information to know… …Department of Justice does seem to be… …if we get… …the consequences are unpredictable…"
You don't think that urging epistemological restraint and establishing contingencies is a legitimate basis for an essay? Especially in a circumstance like this where taking a stance is expected?
Expected by whom? Absent facts and data “taking a stance” is exactly the opposite of what epistemological restraint requires. I can’t believe this guy teaches at the University of Chicago. It’s so disheartening. He assumes his premise using cliches that now substitute for actual thought (why “our” democracy? and how exactly is it imperiled? by the tendencies of his political inferiors? by the errant choices of unwashed voters?). I understand that our political sympathies color our judgement. And how could it be otherwise? But in the absence of any solid data shouldn’t we wait a cycle it two before “taking a stance”? Or is this - as in so many things related to Trump - a place where the details of his malfeasance are beside the point.
Here’s why this guy’s essay is so annoying: he writes with the style and affect of a disinterested academic, but he never considers the quite legitimate possibility that the entire DOJ initiative has been constructed out of nothing. It’s certainly possible that there’s a serious underlying crime, but so far the saga of the Trump years is a long series of... no actual crimes. Doesn’t this trouble you?
I think you're missing my point, which is that he was taking a stance by *not* taking a stance. He's offering contingencies, but otherwise saying we should wait for more info.
And I think that summarizing Trump's political tenure as containing "no crimes", while it might be technically true in the sense that he hasn't been convicted of anything, is overly reductive as it ignores his unique position. As President, Trump essentially had immunity from prosecution. Otherwise he would have almost certainly been indicted for obstruction of justice after the Mueller Report was released. And that's not just my humble opinion - over a thousand former prosecutors from both Republican and Democratic administrations signed an open letter to that effect.
Also, the nature of the Presidency is such that it's actually not all that easy for a President to run afoul of the law in the first place, because we invest so much power in the office. Things that would be crimes for most people are often just "abuses of power" for the President.
For example, in multiple instances Trump's businesses profited from his office, like his having foreign emissaries and government employees patronize his hotels. People in Congress have literally gone to jail for steering government contracts to friends, but the President?
Well it's hard to say - nobody has tested the legal waters by charging a President, because supposedly we have to impeach him first. Which is what you're supposed to do when a President egregiously abuses his power. That's what "high crimes and misdemeanors" actually means in the Constitution - "high" referring not to the severity of the crime but the position of power that enabled the offense. The Founders were pretty clear on this in their writings.
But with Trump, his party wasn't willing to do that. Which was enabled in part by people like Matthew Whittaker and Alan Dershowitz claiming (wrongly) that impeachment required *actual* criminal violations. Which, as noted, are ambiguous and hard to determine a priori if you can't indict a President without first impeaching him. (And if DOJ officials like Mueller refuse to even say whether or not they *would* have indicted had he not been President.). So we get caught in a Catch-22 by not reading the Constitution properly.
Now that Trump is out of office, we have a chance to find out what limits there might be to a President's power, if we can keep politics out of it - big 'if' obviously. As I'm writing this now, it's clear that the DOJ had a perfectly legitimate reason for searching his home, but I never doubted it. Merrick Garland has given nobody any reason to suspect him of being partisan - if anything he has been a model of restraint in the face of calls from Democrats to be more aggressive.
And it's clear, even without hindsight, that the Republican reaction to this was overwhelmingly irresponsible, and frankly a projection of the loose morality they themselves have adopted in coddling Trump. Whereas Trump brazenly worked to influence the DOJ and the Mueller probe, Biden has steered completely clear, as Presidents normally do. Biden won't even step into this Secret Service IG fiasco, despite Congressional Republicans and Democrats duking it out and Democrats wanting him to fire the SS IG. Trump, on the other hand, had no problem firing IGs when they didn't produce what he wanted.
Can’t reply now, but I do appreciate your response. I absolutely did misunderstand your meaning with respect to “taking a stance,” but I do think there’s more to tease out in all of that. I’ll elaborate later.
"Whatever the Justice Department decides to do, the law alone will be insufficient to rescue our democracy from its malaise. Legal accountability for wrongdoing is neither necessary nor sufficient for political accountability, and the latter can only come with a loss at the polls. The election itself is the verdict. Here is where prosecution has the potential to backfire. After the search, the Republican Party predictably circled the wagons nearly as quickly as Trump sought to monetize the event with a fundraising appeal. This dynamic will continue and intensify in the event of an eventual prosecution."
I'm confused as to what the exact point of this article is. This makes it seem like maybe we shouldn't have carried out an investigation of some kind of law-breaking because it may backfire. What? We have a justice system and a legal system. If the crime in question is one that the FBI would investigate if someone else did it, than they should investigate a former president. We must try to apply the laws equally. Choosing not to prosecute because it might not bring our democracy back to life is answering the wrong question.
I agree 100%. The problem is that there is a massive cognitive disconnect between the actual Trump (rather scattered, not particularly ideological, vain, thin-skinned, a showman more than a politician, sometimes impulsive, but also often astute in his judgment of popular sentiment and from a pure policy perspective, fairly moderate) and the demon who possesses the brains of his critics. Trump’s failure to govern as if he were Mussolini has been a source of massive frustration to his detractors. This essay is a perfect example. The writer has so internalized the conundrum that he is already working out the eventuality that - once again - there’s no actual crime to prosecute. It’s like he’s in PTSD from all the other times he got stood up by the promise that this time the prosecution will really really really but Trump behind bars. Maybe he should be there. I don’t know. But the act is getting old. When even academics are feeling it you have to wonder how many more times will this show hit the road.
I generally agree with your assessment of Trump and add in one more thing: he is vain and thin-skinned to the point of derangement. He's unfit for any elected office, let alone the highest in the country.
I can't speak for the author, but it's possible that the "PTSD" you seem to notice comes from the simple fact that Trump has done things that should have destroyed him politically multiple times, and yet he has a core of voters who love him so much that he can't be touched. He tried to remain in power after losing an election. He took material actions to try to get various lawmakers and officials to overlook the facts they had and give him the window of doubt he needed. And yet all but a handful of his own party defend him. So, emotionally, I can understand a certain amount of "goddamnit just convict him of *SOMETHING*."
However, that would be a true travesty of justice. That is the point I was making. If he broke the law, and someone else would have been prosecuted in his position, he should be prosecuted too. That's it. That's all. So if someone else calling Georgia's Secretary of State and trying to lean on him to change the election results would have resulted in prosecution, so too should Trump be prosecuted.
(For what it's worth, I don't believe presidents should be immune during their term. If they perform an act that would get someone else prosecuted, they should be too. If that is too much a strain on the office for them to do their job, we have an impeachment process or the 25th Amendment.)
"It's of a piece with various Republicans like McCarthy who refuse to say that Joe Biden was the legitimate winner of the election, replying only "Joe Biden is the President" when explicitly asked about legitimacy."
I guess you think that Hillary must be a really awful person because she has said that Trump is an 'illegitimate president'. Carter has said more or less the same thing.
I am sorry, but I am so tired of the "save democracy", "threat of democracy" canard with respect to Trump that I simply cannot take the writer seriously. It is an intellectually bankrupt meme that has been repeated so many times that it has lost its meaning even if it had been based on anything real... which it had never been.
The only real threat to democracy that we have experienced has been from the left administrative authoritarians throughout the pandemic. As these power-hungry talent-less politicians and bureaucrats have drunkenly granted themselves emergency powers, they then went to work abusing those emergency powers to their maximum potential... deleting any and all voices of the people that might oppose as their families, children and businesses were irreparably and unnecessarily harmed.
How do you not see a threat to democracy when the man LITERALLY TRIED TO OVERTHROW OUR CONSTITUTIONAL ORDER?
Do you understand that this wasn't just a spontaneous "dust up" arising from an understandable citizen protest? There was an ACTUAL PLOT to corruptly overturn the results of our election, and the mere fact that this man has a significant minority of this nation sympathizing with him and that he will likely RUN FOR OFFICE AGAIN TO PROVIDE HIMSELF LEGAL IMMUNITY is an OBVIOUS threat to our democracy.
You do understand that he is the ONLY presidential candidate IN OUR HISTORY who refused to concede a loss in an election, despite the fact that others who had legitimate complaints acted with our country's best interest in mind. Trump's case was a COMPLETE FABRICATION and HE KNEW IT. He was told by EVERY legitimate official around him - his AG, his DHS chief, White House lawyers, yet he STILL sought out nuts and lunatics like General "Pizzagate" Flynn and Mike "Pillow Guy" Lindell to advise him.
Do you know that Flynn recommended he declare MARTIAL LAW? You should, because he tweeted it out, but he was actually IN THE WHITE HOUSE selling this to Trump. He needed Rudy Giuliani of all people to talk him out of it. Sidney Powell came up with an absolute hair-on-fire, raving mad, tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory about Dominion Voting machines - who are suing her into oblivion right now. And a significant chunk of Americans bought it! Do you know how her lawyers have defended her? By claiming that "no reasonable person" would think that what she was saying was true. Who ever said that irony was dead?
If the military opposes you and you don’t even try to get military support, then claims about overthrowing the government don’t pass the smell test. Quote from General Mark Milley (hardly a Trump fan)
“You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with the guns”.
From Matt Taibbi (hardly a Trump fan).
“I don’t mean to understate the seriousness of January 6th, even though it’s been absurdly misreported for over a year now. No one from a country where these things actually happen could mistake 1/6 for “a coup.” In the real version, the mob doesn’t take selfies and blaze doobies after seizing the palace, and the would-be dictator doesn’t spend 187 minutes snacking and watching Fox before tweeting “go home.” Instead, he works the phones nonstop to rally precinct chiefs, generals, and airport officials to the cause, because a coup is a real attempt to seize power. Britannica says the “chief prerequisite for a coup is control of all or part of the armed forces, the police, and other military elements.” We saw none of that on January 6th, but it’s become journalistic requirement to use either “coup” or “insurrection” in describing it:”
I don’t think the 2021/1/6 riots were peaceful. However, Trump rather clearly called for “peaceful and patriotic” protests (his words). He also called on his supporters to “Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”. Not exactly coup/insurrection/overthrow material.
"How do you not see a threat to democracy when the man LITERALLY TRIED TO OVERTHROW OUR CONSTITUTIONAL ORDER?"
My God you people are dense. Trump and millions of other people were convinced that the political establishment and the media cheated. From Trump's perspective and those people's perspective he was doing work to PROTECT DEMOCRACY from being destroyed by the dirty tricks of the political establishment corporatist cabal. That election was unprecedented in weirdness and shenanigans. 2000 Mules and $400 million in Zuckerbucks buys a lot of stuffed ballot boxes in the swing states.
If you cannot see that you are just a adel-brained TDS suffering ideologue lacking critical thinking skills.
No Frank. Nobody is dense except the people who were taken in by an obvious scam - and the people who still insist that it wasn't really a scam despite everything we know.
Firstly, it takes a particularly stubborn sense of obliviousness to not see that millions of people believed the election had been stolen BECAUSE TRUMP TOLD THEM it was stolen. In fact, he did more than that - he told them it was GOING TO BE STOLEN. Well ahead of time. Everyone outside of the hermetically sealed MAGA bubble saw this coming, and even *predicted* that he was going to exploit the red mirage / blue wave phenomenon - which election experts told us was a virtual certainty because of the late counting of mail-in ballots, and their heavy skew toward Democrats because TRUMP TOLD HIS VOTERS NOT TO USE THEM.
And just in case you suffer from the particular strain of sociological blindness to actually trust Donald Trump, an unctuous con-artist with a sordid history of scamming customers and business partners, when he tells you that he "really believed" that the election was stolen, we *know* that this was planned. Jonathan Swan of Axios reported two days before the election that Trump was planning behind the scenes to declare victory if he was up on election night. We even have Steve Bannon admitting *on tape* that this was the plan.
Even aside from this, how does "those people's perspective" not constitute a threat to democracy simply because they may have honestly believed it? The very fact that so many Americans believed something so dangerous yet so *clearly untrue* that it has led to death threats to election workers, plans to install election deniers in key state government positions, calls for civil warfare by right-wing lunatics, and *almost complete* capitulation by one of our two major political parties is a threat to the stability of our country not despite, but *because* so many people believe it.
And nobody who spouts out mindless right-wing talking points about idiotic conspiracy theories like "Zuckerbucks" and "2000 Mules" has any place accusing others of lacking critical thinking skills. D'Souza's claims have even been panned by people on the right because they are backed up by faulty assumptions and ultimately make no sense. Drop-boxes provide no more opportunity for fraud than does the post office - ballots are verified by officials when they reach polling locations, not by virtue of being placed in a drop box. You could deposit all the fake ballots you want in a drop box and it wouldn't do any more good than walking around putting them in unsurveilled mailboxes. Not to mention that GPS signals can't distinguish someone going up to a dropbox from merely walking past it on the street. And the behavior that he pointed out in Dropbox cameras was entirely unremarkable - people delivering several ballots at once (which was legal), one person snapping a selfie after depositing his ballot (which was apparently something trendy people were doing on Instagram at the time), etc.
It's mere common sense that a candidate has little incentive to steal an election that they are likely to win fairly. Anyone who was paying attention to polling before the election knew that Trump was way behind - much further behind than he had been in 2016 when he won on a fluke - and that his chances were small. Follow the motive, Frank, and you'll easily find the person who tried to steal the 2020 election. If this were a movie, it would be critically panned and have viewers yelling at the screen at how unrealistically dimwitted Trump's supporters were.
Trump is the person who tried to steal this election - it was blatant, unambiguous, and it had nothing to do with protecting democracy. And if you don't see that, quit projecting and don't tell me or anyone else that *we're* the ones suffering from a "derangement syndrome".
Stop wasting so many keystrokes writing such twaddle.
"Firstly, it takes a particularly stubborn sense of obliviousness to not see that millions of people believed the election had been stolen BECAUSE TRUMP TOLD THEM it was stolen. In fact, he did more than that - he told them it was GOING TO BE STOLEN. Well ahead of time."
That is a hoot given the 20 years of Democrats saying that elections were at risk and being stolen. https://cdn.theyeshivaworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/WhatsApp-Video-2022-07-23-at-10.59.03-PM-1.mp4?_=1
And no, unlike you lefties, Trump supporters don't bow down to their politicians and suck on everything they say as gospel. Any objective and intelligent person with experience in several elections would admit that the 2020 election was a mess of dirty abnormalities.
It's revealing that you Trump supporters can never defend Trump directly. All you know how to do is whatabout Democrats - and you're lousy even at that.
Do you know what all of those other elections had in common? 2000: Gore conceded in December. 2004: Kerry conceded immediately. 2016: Hillary conceded immediately.
2020: Trump is STILL contesting the election almost TWO YEARS later. Still trying to get officials in Wisconsin and Arizona to "overturn" their electoral votes, something that is neither possible nor meaningful.
The 2000 and 2016 elections were ones where Democrats had legitimate grievances. The Supreme Court improperly interfered with the vote re-counting in Florida, as did a group of besuited frat-bros (the infamous "Brooks Brothers rebellion"). In 2016 an anti-democratic foreign adversary mounted an Internet disinformation campaign to sway voters while actively courting the candidate. The fact that in both cases, the Democrat won the popular vote may not have been a technically valid grievance, but it understandably rubbed salt in the wound, reminding most Americans that they are prisoners of a system they didn't choose and wouldn't agree to today. As for the 2004 controversy, it was barely a whisper in the general public consciousness.
Contrast that to today, where Republicans are RUNNING on the issue of claiming 2020 was stolen, and that if they were in office at the time they would have acted to overturn it. It has become a virtual litmus test in the party, with Trump actively counting down "8 down, 2 to go" as the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him each get intimidated or voted out of office. He flatly tells everyone he "won twice", and now we have to prepare for another attempted steal in 2024, possibly with his cupboard stocked with election deniers in strategic positions in swing state governments.
This isn't even getting into the past 15 or 20 years where the Republicans have been constantly making unfounded claims of Democratic voter fraud by illegal aliens, using this as a pretense for attacking voter registration groups and passing laws making it harder for poor and minority voters to vote (with an assist from their buddies on the Supreme Court, of course). Thankfully, it seems studies show these efforts generally haven't worked that well. But they've softened up the Republican electorate to the point that they were easy marks for Trump's election fraud scam.
Also, if you've been paying attention for longer than 20 years, you'd know that it's the Republican Party that's actually gotten in trouble with the courts for various electoral shenanigans, like sending "poll watchers" to intimidate voters, and robocalls giving false information about polling locations. That's why it was under a consent decree with Dept of Justice for *35 years* ('82-'17), which it repeatedly ran afoul of. Now that it's gone and the VRA has been gutted by right-wing judges, it's open season again, and they took full advantage in 2020 with unqualified, partisan "poll watchers" recruited to lob accusations without necessarily knowing what they were looking for.
And as for the 2020 election being a mess of "dirty abnormalities", chances are you can't name one I can't debunk. And there's certainly been plenty of that. But the only real abnormality was the widespread use of vote-by-mail, early mail, and drop-boxes, all of which any "objective and intelligent person" can agree were entirely reasonable provisions in the midst of a global pandemic spread through close airborne contact, and for which there was no vaccine. While it does open up some risks in terms of vote buying and coercion, such things would be difficult to conceal in an environment where they aren't already endemic, and worth the risk under the circumstances.
As for the rest, it was one ridiculous accusation after another dredged up from the fever swamps of the Internet. Throw it all against the wall to see what sticks. Doesn't matter if it's at all consistent or coherent, as long as it's so much that people conclude that *something* must be up - it can't all be false, right? It's a classic authoritarian ploy - "the firehose of falsehoods". Or as Steve Bannon himself enthusiastically described the tactic, "flood the zone with shit".
You know it's funny - when it comes to Trump's connection to Russia, his supporters seize on a handful of misinformation and the whole thing is a complete hoax, despite everything we know about his and his campaign manager's connections to Russia, his personal affinity for Putin, Russia's efforts to get him elected, and Trump's (largely successful) efforts to interfere with the Mueller probe - including Bill Barr's deceptive summary before Congress, regularly harassing his AG for recusing himself, and the pardons he duly delivered to those who agreed not to squeal on him.
Yet when it comes to the 2020 election, we have successfully batted away EVERY SINGLE claim of fraud - from Powell's "Kraken" to Pillow Guy's bogus network packets, from the con-artists in Antrim County to the Cyber Ninjas in Arizona. His lawyers were laughed out of court, and every contested state has had investigations, audits, and recounts that either found nothing *or* found misconduct on behalf of Trump supporters. And yet *still* we have to deal with people like you, whose "critical thinking" skills tell them that the general din and hum of petulant, dissatisfied Trump supporters must mean *something* dirty was up.
Regardless, you can claim all you want that Trump supporters don't just believe what they're told, but the past few years tell us otherwise. (Unless you're the type to think that putting stock in things like "2000 Mules" makes one smarter than all the RINO cucks who dismiss it, when all it demonstrates is kneejerk, uncritical receptiveness to conspiracy theories which validate one's worldview.) The Republican Party is well aware that it has switched places with Democrats as being the less educated party, but since ultimately Republican elites have nothing but contempt for the working class, it has no problem exploiting them as low-information voters. "I love the poorly educated!" said Trump in one of his more cringeworthy moments of pandering.
You bet your ass he does.
"In 2016 an anti-democratic foreign adversary mounted an Internet disinformation campaign to sway voters while actively courting the candidate."
Hillary spent $1.4 billion (roughly). Trump spent around $900 million. The Russians spent $1-2 million. Obama was President at the time and he didn't go bonkers about the 'Russians'.
There you do again with buckets of wasted ink.
Trump conceded after Congress confirmed. Hillary is still claiming Trump is an illegitimate POTUS and widdle wiberals like you are still believing Trump Russia collusion. The Jan-6 protests were nothing compared to Russiagate. After the coming midterms the GOP is gonna' roll some heads for that sordid chapter in Democrat dirty deeds.
If the military opposes you and you don’t even try to get military support, then claims about overthrowing the government don’t pass the smell test. Quote from General Mark Milley (hardly a Trump fan)
“You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with the guns”.
From Matt Taibbi (hardly a Trump fan).
“I don’t mean to understate the seriousness of January 6th, even though it’s been absurdly misreported for over a year now. No one from a country where these things actually happen could mistake 1/6 for “a coup.” In the real version, the mob doesn’t take selfies and blaze doobies after seizing the palace, and the would-be dictator doesn’t spend 187 minutes snacking and watching Fox before tweeting “go home.” Instead, he works the phones nonstop to rally precinct chiefs, generals, and airport officials to the cause, because a coup is a real attempt to seize power. Britannica says the “chief prerequisite for a coup is control of all or part of the armed forces, the police, and other military elements.” We saw none of that on January 6th, but it’s become journalistic requirement to use either “coup” or “insurrection” in describing it:”
I don’t think the 2021/1/6 riots were peaceful. However, Trump rather clearly called for “peaceful and patriotic” protests (his words). He also called on his supporters to “Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”. Not exactly coup/insurrection/overthrow material.
Taibbi is either being intentionally obtuse or, as usual, is failing to grasp the reality and enormity of Trump's threat. He may be no Trump fan, but he consistently minimizes his transgressions.
Let's set aside the fact that the "peacefully" was something that Trump threw into what was an otherwise incendiary and vitriolic speech. The idea that he actually expected the protest to be peaceful is hopelessly naive, but it's beside the point.
The riot itself was not the coup attempt. Taibbi speaks as if this bunch of weak-minded diabetic losers was supposed to be an occupying army. That's the kind of strawman he and his fellow anti-anti-Trump contrarians rely on.
The riot was merely intended to intimidate Mike Pence into playing the part Trump wanted in John Eastman's insane scheme to invalidate electors and kick the election to the House under the rules of the Twelfth Amendment, where the Republicans had the upper hand controlling 26 state legislatures. Failing that, they hoped to delay the certification so that they could spend more time pressuring state legislatures to override governor's certifications. If they had somehow managed to pull that off, it would have been up to this Supreme Court to stop it. The same Supreme Court that has already signaled that it intends to seriously consider the so-called "independent state legislature" theory, which aims to completely empower state legislatures to determine the outcomes of elections.
This scheme was a long-shot gambit, but that's based on the likelihood of state Republican officials doing the right thing.
Something becoming less and less likely as those who stood up to Trump are being censured by state Republican parties or intimidated and driven out of office. All over the country, 2020 election deniers are running for crucial offices from Governor and Attorney General to state elections boards, in hopes of giving 2024 Trump what 2020 Trump lacked.
As for your assertions regarding the military, if you're going to argue based on the encyclopedia definition of a word, then let's use the technically correct one (which I typically avoid because of how esoteric it is). What Trump attempted wasn't actually a coup - it was an autogolpe.
A coup is an attempt to seize control of the government. An autogolpe is an attempt to maintain the control of government you already have. For a coup, you need to capture the military. An autogolpe can be fought in legislatures and courts. If our civilian institutions had been cajoled into declaring Trump President, our military would have been obliged to accede to that. Trump was already their commander in chief, and would have remained so had he somehow finagled an overturn of the election.
Milley was speaking about the possibility of Trump attempting to physically force his autogolpe. It turns out that wasn't what was being plotted. Trump didn't necessarily need the crowd to get violent, although that certainly helped. But he needed them to be there and to be angry and intimidating. He only made that belated video telling the crowd to go home after it was clear the plot had failed, and after hours of tremendous pressure applied by his staff and some of his family. Try watching the blooper reel from the filming of it, where it was like pulling teeth trying to get Trump to say the right thing without valorizing the crowd (which he did anyway).
Everything you're citing in Trump's defense is the meager output of Herculean efforts by the people around Trump to provide cover and plausible deniability while the more responsible and realistic in his inner circle prevented the worst from coming to pass. This John Eastman "fake elector" scheme was only a last-ditch attempt after other efforts failed - for instance, Trump had to be talked out of firing his AG and replacing him with a stooge who was going to lie to state governments and claim they had discovered anomalies that they were investigating. In a second Trump administration, there likely won't be people to talk Trump down. He'll surround himself with people who will enable him just like the party is enabling him now, closing ranks around him after realizing that what they once considered unthinkable is what their voters wanted.
"There was an ACTUAL PLOT"... A 'plot' that managed to exclude everyone (the military/CIA/FBI/etc.) that could actually overthrow the government.
I believe I covered this in my reply to your other comment.
Just one question. Is there anything Trump could do--shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue, sexual assault, get caught on tape asking the Georgia Secretary of State to "find" him votes, inspire a mob to try to intimidate Congress into overturning an election--ANYTHING that you wouldn't whatabout?
Trump could campaign on on set of ideas and promises and come in to office doing exactly the opposite (like Joe Biden) and I would reject him in a heartbeat. He could also campaign on ideas that I think are terrible for the nation and then go forward and actually do them... like Bernie is likely to do.
Trump could weaponize the Justice Department and FBI to destroy his political opposition (like Joe Biden).
Trump could support canceling people that speak out about the COVID rules, or that challenge the global warming farce, or that oppose wokeism. He could agree to ban guns and taking away second amendment rights.
Trump could tacitly support defunding cops and radical DAs.
These are things that Trump could do that would have me rejecting him.
I love this reply. It properly restores policy and governance to the conversation about a president's suitability as a leader. The revulsion and disdain so many people feel towards Trump personally - which might be quite deserved in many ways but can't possibly be deserved in every way - have unbalanced his critics.
The inability of so many Trump critics to form coherent criticisms is, for me, a reliable source of astonishment. There's so much to criticize - something true of practically every leader. Unfortunately the gut revulsion people feel just swamps things. There are exceptions, and some of them write in these pages is. Still, they're rare.
I guess you could say the same about Trump's supporters, although at least many of them defend Trump by pointing to his actual governance as president. All by itself Trump's legitimate claim to have, during his presidency, involved the US in no new wars ought to earn him at least grudging respect for his conduct of foreign affairs, often the most important responsibility of the office. But it does not. I often ask Trump critics to think of one or two things he did well as POTUS. The question tends to leave people baffled, which indicates to me a deep lack of seriousness. (And by the way, people on the right should think through how they would answer the same question about Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, etc. If your answer is "nothing" then you really need to think through the implications of that with respect to your own fidelity to the truth.)
Great comment. Exactly correct. Frankly though, at this time, I cannot come up with a single positive accomplishment for Joe Biden. He has been much more of a fantastic train wreck than even his biggest critics could have imagined. It is though this lens that increases the clarity seeing the lack of balance in Trump critics… with respect to the list of accomplishments.
In terms of comparisons, there has not been a POTUS that I can remember whom I hated as a person… nor did I ever even consider that a benchmark for my support or opposition. I would never allow that to cloud my assessment of the performance of the person in office. This is what is completely backwards with the anti-Trump people… they ignore the actual performance and focus on their hate for the person.
I think many hate because they are told to do so.
Their media feeds are a constant stream of negative stories and so they get programmed to hate. Yes, I agree.
According to this logic, all those European democracies are merely "left administrative authoritarian" ones. Oh, and this means Canada also.
Horseshoe theory in action: so much of the "anti-woke" worldview sounds like what you'd get if you took the woke worldview and flipped it upside down, with good guys and bad guys reversed.
Most, but not all. Justin Trudeau is at the top of the dung heap.
I remember, when George W. Bush was coming into office, someone arguing that he should pardon Bill Clinton for the sake of national healing. Ah, to go back to those innocent times, when lying about sex in the Oval Office was what people got angry at the President for.
Incredibly disappointing take.
The processor takes almost 700 words to say basically:
(1) I have essentially no idea what the Department of Justice was looking for.
(2) I have even less idea about what they found.
(3) I'd really like to see Trump prosecuted because, you know, "our democracy"...
(4) ...but I'm also afraid it might backfire and hurt, you know, the flawed democracy that chose the wrong candidate in 2016 and almost repeated the mistake in 2020. Because I really love my democracy.
I’m commenting just to say, “Wow all of this is so stupid and should never have happened.” I’m specifically talking about an extremely uninteresting, incompetent person being given the worlds most important job. It should shock us more--the inability to pick intelligent and thoughtful leaders. The stupidity of our (The USAs) particular brand of politics will continue to drag down our collective potential.
And all for temporary power in this tiny stretch of human history. Gross.
When the Supreme Court handed abortion back to the democratic process, leftists/liberals were very upset. Now we are supposed to be upset by a 'threat of democracy? Which is it? Leftists/liberals hate democracy when they don't like the results and love democracy otherwise.
Come now. This is a reductionist talking point and I don't believe you don't see it.
Taking away a right that people have enjoyed for 50 years is not "loving democracy". If the issue of slavery were suddenly "sent back to the states", would you expect lovers of democracy to rejoice? Yes, it's an extreme example, but the point is that even in a democracy, majoritarian rule is not all-consuming. That's why we establish rights.
You might claim that abortion was never a "real" right to begin with. But neither was the right of individuals to own firearms. These were both inventions of the modern courts. Yet do people on the right get misty-eyed when legitimate firearms restrictions, voted into law by the people of a state, are overturned by our NRA-engineered Supreme Court?
The first ten Amendments to the Constitution, give the American people all sorts of rights. The 13th Amendment makes slavery unconstitutional. Strangely enough, the word abortion doesn't appear anywhere in Constitution. By contrast, the second Amendment rather specifically says "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed".
I'm not going to get into the Second Amendment right now because you're dodging the point. Do you really oppose slavery because you love the Constitution so much and it just happens to be that slavery is outlawed in the Constitution? Suppose we never had a 13th Amendment, because the states all just outlawed it at some point. And then some anti-immigrant hawks start talking about re-introducing it for illegal aliens. Subject to the voters of a state, of course. Would you be happy about this? Because, hooray democracy?
Of course you wouldn't. You'd consider it a profoundly tragic state of affairs. You oppose slavery because it's profusely immoral.
And I'm guessing you probably feel the same way about abortion. In which case, if there had been a similarly contorted legal ruling 50 years ago that claimed the Constitution *outlawed* abortion, and then it was struck down, would you be happy for democracy now that it was being returned to the states? (And if I'm wrong about you being staunchly pro-life, do you think most pro-life people would feel that way?)
The point is, you can argue all you want about what's Constitutional and what isn't, but that's not what your original post was about. You were telling people who believed all their lives that they had a Constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy that they must "hate democracy" now that this right is being taken from them. And I'm challenging this, because I doubt you'd feel the same if "democracy" wasn't aligned in favor of what you believe in.
Not to mention, this has absolutely nothing to do with whether the election of a President should be overturnable by people who don't like the result - which it obviously shouldn't, and is the reason why Trump and his acolytes are an obvious threat to democracy. Suggesting that people who oppose the appeal of Roe have no right to claim concern over a political party threatening the integrity of our elections might seem like a clever argument, but it's tendentious and would hardly stand up to scrutiny if the roles were reversed.
Hillary (AKA - The Hero of Benghazi) has claimed that Trump is an "illegitimate President". I guess you must think she is an obvious threat to democracy. Stacey Abrams is still claiming she won the 2018 election. You apparently think she is an obvious threat to democracy.
Now I think you're the one being willfully obtuse. Hillary can use whatever terms she wishes to describe the reality of Russia's corrupt (and successful) attempt to use Trump to inject instability into American society and our political establishment. Maybe you can come up with a better term for an incompetent, unfit President who is a tool of America's enemies.
But what Hillary did not do is accuse the Republican Party of stealing votes. Or the media of being the "enemy of the people" because of the way they hyped her scandals. Or the FBI of being corrupt and being part of a "deep state" conspiring against her. In other words, she did not attempt to undermine essential American institutions to cater to her own political interests. And needless to say, she does not command a personality cult who has woven her as a messiah figure into a perverse quasi-Christian theology that she refuses to refute because it might cost her politically.
As for Stacy Abrams, she's received her share of criticism, but the governorship of Georgia does not compare to the Presidency of the United States. Stacy Abrams at least had a clear case of the appearance of impropriety, with her opponent being the official in charge of the very election infrastructure underlying their contest, and having just instituted a mass voter-roll purge that almost certainly leaned Democrat. Trump had absolutely nothing but internet-trawled garbage.
But again, it's a question of how far someone is willing to go in pressing their grievances. Stacy Abrams didn't concede - and that was it. Do you see Abrams pushing for this as a litmus test in the Democratic Party? Viciously attacking anyone who doesn't agree with her, and swinging her endorsements to the people who most shamelessly pander to her grievances? Do you see her supporters driving the Democratic Party to condemn and ostracize anyone who crosses her?
Most importantly, did she engage in a plot to overturn the results of the 2018 election? Are people running for office in Georgia claiming that they would have acted to overturn the election had they been in office? Are her supporters intimidating politicians and election officials in order to influence their behavior or encourage vacancies in positions so that they can then fill them with compliant deniers of Kemp's win? Go ahead and ask Georgia election officials who has threatened their lives over email and voicemail, forced them to leave their homes and go into hiding or walk around with security details. I'll give you a hint - it isn't Stacy Abrams' supporters.
Let's try a few facts. Hillary (AKA - The Hero of Benghazi) spent roughly $1.4 billion trying to get elected in 2016. Trump spent around $900 million. The Russians spent 1-2 million at most.
" Hillary can use whatever terms she wishes to describe the reality of Russia's corrupt (and successful) attempt to use Trump to inject instability into American society and our political establishment."
I guess you missed the Mueller report where he showed that Russiagate was hoax. Don't worry, lots of people believe in hoaxes. Hillary and Pelosi fall into that category.
Actually, Stacy Abrams did try to overturn the results of the 2018 election (in court).
Maybe, just maybe Hillary should not have lied about Benghazi. Maybe, just maybe Hillary should not used a personal and private Email server. Maybe, just maybe Hillary should not have use the word ‘deplorables’. Maybe, just maybe Hillary should not had made her de facto slogan “I put up with Bill’s affairs so that I could get the White House, so now give me the White House’. Maybe, just maybe Hillary should have campaigned as hard as Trump (she didn’t even try). Maybe, just maybe Hillary should have campaigned harder in the Midwest (she never visited Wisconsin, even once). Maybe, just maybe Hillary should not have lied about the TPP. Maybe, just maybe Hillary should have given laudatory speeches to Wall Street for six-figures… And then refused to release the transcripts. . Maybe, just maybe Hillary should not have promoted the war in Libya. Maybe, just maybe Hillary should not have chosen Huma Abedin as her aid (no criticism of Huma Abedin from me, other than her disastrous choice of spouse).
'Separate but equal' (Plessy v. Ferguson) was Constitutional for more than 50 years. I guess you think the SC should have upheld 'separate but equal' forever. The late Ruth Bader Ginsburg called Roe "heavy-handed judicial intervention". Lawrence Tribe stated that "one of the most curious things about Roe is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found."
A verbatim excerpt from the essay above. Does the professor's writing inform and persuade? Or does it speculate and opine?
"If Trump committed… It is too early to know… We do not know for sure… We may soon learn more if… This may implicate… We do not know… of course, there is no way of knowing… Assuming that there is evidence… Caution is in order. …these documents may shed some light… On the one hand… On the other hand… …would be unlikely… …democracies tend to. …leaving open the question… One can argue… perhaps it is necessary… …has the potential… …in the event of… At this point… …too little information to know… …Department of Justice does seem to be… …if we get… …the consequences are unpredictable…"
You don't think that urging epistemological restraint and establishing contingencies is a legitimate basis for an essay? Especially in a circumstance like this where taking a stance is expected?
Expected by whom? Absent facts and data “taking a stance” is exactly the opposite of what epistemological restraint requires. I can’t believe this guy teaches at the University of Chicago. It’s so disheartening. He assumes his premise using cliches that now substitute for actual thought (why “our” democracy? and how exactly is it imperiled? by the tendencies of his political inferiors? by the errant choices of unwashed voters?). I understand that our political sympathies color our judgement. And how could it be otherwise? But in the absence of any solid data shouldn’t we wait a cycle it two before “taking a stance”? Or is this - as in so many things related to Trump - a place where the details of his malfeasance are beside the point.
Here’s why this guy’s essay is so annoying: he writes with the style and affect of a disinterested academic, but he never considers the quite legitimate possibility that the entire DOJ initiative has been constructed out of nothing. It’s certainly possible that there’s a serious underlying crime, but so far the saga of the Trump years is a long series of... no actual crimes. Doesn’t this trouble you?
I think you're missing my point, which is that he was taking a stance by *not* taking a stance. He's offering contingencies, but otherwise saying we should wait for more info.
And I think that summarizing Trump's political tenure as containing "no crimes", while it might be technically true in the sense that he hasn't been convicted of anything, is overly reductive as it ignores his unique position. As President, Trump essentially had immunity from prosecution. Otherwise he would have almost certainly been indicted for obstruction of justice after the Mueller Report was released. And that's not just my humble opinion - over a thousand former prosecutors from both Republican and Democratic administrations signed an open letter to that effect.
Also, the nature of the Presidency is such that it's actually not all that easy for a President to run afoul of the law in the first place, because we invest so much power in the office. Things that would be crimes for most people are often just "abuses of power" for the President.
For example, in multiple instances Trump's businesses profited from his office, like his having foreign emissaries and government employees patronize his hotels. People in Congress have literally gone to jail for steering government contracts to friends, but the President?
Well it's hard to say - nobody has tested the legal waters by charging a President, because supposedly we have to impeach him first. Which is what you're supposed to do when a President egregiously abuses his power. That's what "high crimes and misdemeanors" actually means in the Constitution - "high" referring not to the severity of the crime but the position of power that enabled the offense. The Founders were pretty clear on this in their writings.
But with Trump, his party wasn't willing to do that. Which was enabled in part by people like Matthew Whittaker and Alan Dershowitz claiming (wrongly) that impeachment required *actual* criminal violations. Which, as noted, are ambiguous and hard to determine a priori if you can't indict a President without first impeaching him. (And if DOJ officials like Mueller refuse to even say whether or not they *would* have indicted had he not been President.). So we get caught in a Catch-22 by not reading the Constitution properly.
Now that Trump is out of office, we have a chance to find out what limits there might be to a President's power, if we can keep politics out of it - big 'if' obviously. As I'm writing this now, it's clear that the DOJ had a perfectly legitimate reason for searching his home, but I never doubted it. Merrick Garland has given nobody any reason to suspect him of being partisan - if anything he has been a model of restraint in the face of calls from Democrats to be more aggressive.
And it's clear, even without hindsight, that the Republican reaction to this was overwhelmingly irresponsible, and frankly a projection of the loose morality they themselves have adopted in coddling Trump. Whereas Trump brazenly worked to influence the DOJ and the Mueller probe, Biden has steered completely clear, as Presidents normally do. Biden won't even step into this Secret Service IG fiasco, despite Congressional Republicans and Democrats duking it out and Democrats wanting him to fire the SS IG. Trump, on the other hand, had no problem firing IGs when they didn't produce what he wanted.
Can’t reply now, but I do appreciate your response. I absolutely did misunderstand your meaning with respect to “taking a stance,” but I do think there’s more to tease out in all of that. I’ll elaborate later.
"Whatever the Justice Department decides to do, the law alone will be insufficient to rescue our democracy from its malaise. Legal accountability for wrongdoing is neither necessary nor sufficient for political accountability, and the latter can only come with a loss at the polls. The election itself is the verdict. Here is where prosecution has the potential to backfire. After the search, the Republican Party predictably circled the wagons nearly as quickly as Trump sought to monetize the event with a fundraising appeal. This dynamic will continue and intensify in the event of an eventual prosecution."
I'm confused as to what the exact point of this article is. This makes it seem like maybe we shouldn't have carried out an investigation of some kind of law-breaking because it may backfire. What? We have a justice system and a legal system. If the crime in question is one that the FBI would investigate if someone else did it, than they should investigate a former president. We must try to apply the laws equally. Choosing not to prosecute because it might not bring our democracy back to life is answering the wrong question.
I agree 100%. The problem is that there is a massive cognitive disconnect between the actual Trump (rather scattered, not particularly ideological, vain, thin-skinned, a showman more than a politician, sometimes impulsive, but also often astute in his judgment of popular sentiment and from a pure policy perspective, fairly moderate) and the demon who possesses the brains of his critics. Trump’s failure to govern as if he were Mussolini has been a source of massive frustration to his detractors. This essay is a perfect example. The writer has so internalized the conundrum that he is already working out the eventuality that - once again - there’s no actual crime to prosecute. It’s like he’s in PTSD from all the other times he got stood up by the promise that this time the prosecution will really really really but Trump behind bars. Maybe he should be there. I don’t know. But the act is getting old. When even academics are feeling it you have to wonder how many more times will this show hit the road.
I generally agree with your assessment of Trump and add in one more thing: he is vain and thin-skinned to the point of derangement. He's unfit for any elected office, let alone the highest in the country.
I can't speak for the author, but it's possible that the "PTSD" you seem to notice comes from the simple fact that Trump has done things that should have destroyed him politically multiple times, and yet he has a core of voters who love him so much that he can't be touched. He tried to remain in power after losing an election. He took material actions to try to get various lawmakers and officials to overlook the facts they had and give him the window of doubt he needed. And yet all but a handful of his own party defend him. So, emotionally, I can understand a certain amount of "goddamnit just convict him of *SOMETHING*."
However, that would be a true travesty of justice. That is the point I was making. If he broke the law, and someone else would have been prosecuted in his position, he should be prosecuted too. That's it. That's all. So if someone else calling Georgia's Secretary of State and trying to lean on him to change the election results would have resulted in prosecution, so too should Trump be prosecuted.
(For what it's worth, I don't believe presidents should be immune during their term. If they perform an act that would get someone else prosecuted, they should be too. If that is too much a strain on the office for them to do their job, we have an impeachment process or the 25th Amendment.)
"It's of a piece with various Republicans like McCarthy who refuse to say that Joe Biden was the legitimate winner of the election, replying only "Joe Biden is the President" when explicitly asked about legitimacy."
I guess you think that Hillary must be a really awful person because she has said that Trump is an 'illegitimate president'. Carter has said more or less the same thing.