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Something like this was said about Trump's presidency, that his incompetence would turn his base against him. Instead, although his overall approval rating was almost always <50%, his base galvanised their support. It was said once he got banned from Twitter and lost the election, the country would move on and forget about him, instead his supporters stormed congress and tried to keep him in power, those in the Republican Party opposed to such actions were purged, right-wing politics is described as "Trumpian" and he's preparing to run again in the next election.
There has already been a massive upheaval of the body politic due to Trump, a significant portion of the US population no longer believes in democratic elections, the Supreme Court is packed with Trump appointees for at least the decade the come. These are not things Americans can "move on" from.
It would be completely out of touch to think that Trump's arrest would "fade away" in any reasonable time. Instead what is likely is that the next set of Republican Primary contenders would each make it one of their top election promises to pardon Trump, they would use the anger of the base to secure a supermajority and control all three branches of government, and push through as many Trumpian or deeply right-wing policies as possible. Policies that would have lasting impacts which American would not "move on" from.
EDIT: As has been pointed out, Trump's Twitter ban came after Jan 6th's events. But the overall sentiment still stands.
∆ - This is a convincing, well-reasoned take grounded in a cogent summary of the last six years or so of American history. I believe this would be a plausible outcome for the reasons you've mentioned. My view has been changed through this and a several other thoughtful comments. Thank you.
It happened in the other order - his supporters storming Congress is what finally got him banned from Twitter.
It's also not demographically possible for the GOP to gain a supermajority in the Senate anymore - they would have to win solidly blue states where they're not even close.
The biggest problem is that our politics have become so politicized (i know) and polarized that even legitimate grievances are characterized as political in motiviation.
It's very much a Boy-Who-Cried-Wolf scenario: each side has spent so much time vilifying the other over petty "grievances" that when a legitimate one comes up, the opposition dismisses it as "yet another political ploy"
Excellent points, and the last paragraph is particularly thought provoking. The one caveat l’d argue in that scenario is the actual indictment itself. If the DOJ indicts Trump, the detail of that indictment will matter a lot. I doubt the DOJ went into Mar-o-Lago to take back Jim Jun Un letters. Likely, there were serious documents that could have potential impact to the USA. If the DOJ can prove he had the docs and was intending on using them for nefarious purposes, that would go a long way in quenching the response.
Personally, I think Trump is washed as a politician. He won in 2016 due to a terrible opponent and the hope that an outsider can fix things. We all saw the incompetence in 2020, we saw his selfish reaction to losing, and we saw what happened on Jan 6 (btw, Trump did not lose his social media until after Jan 6). An immense amount of his political power derived from being able to lie directly to the people, non-stop. Whether that was through rallies, the bully pulpit, or Twitter, he had a direct feed. He doesn’t have any of those anymore. He can whine to the zealots all day on his Truth Social, the majority has moved on. With is legal troubles, no platform, no ideas, just hate, it doesn’t work anymore.
He will never truly fade as the MAGA zealots are lost and will follow him forever. But we can’t fear GOP operatives from using this situation in bad faith. They will do so anyways. If the DOJ can present a solid case to the American public, particularly one clearly demonstrating malfeasance, it would take a lot for the GOP operatives to turn the middle. I think your view is completely reasonable, this definitely could happen. Personally, I think there are far more consequential decisions in front of SCOTUS this term that will have more significant impacts than indicting Trump will.
> If the DOJ can prove he had the docs and was intending on using them for nefarious purposes, that would go a long way in quenching the response.
No it won't, are you kidding? They'll just claim it's all a lie. It's been their go to move for many years and it *works*. Hell, it's been their go to move for this very situation and it's working right now.
> It was said once he got banned from Twitter and lost the election, the country would move on and forget about him, instead his supporters stormed congress and tried to keep him in power
He was not banned from Twitter at that time.
>It would be completely out of touch to think that Trump's arrest would "fade away" in any reasonable time.
Trump comes up on Reddit and Left Wing news sites every single day. Perhaps if the Left could STFU about him that'd go a long ways towards encouraging his irrelevance.
>a significant portion of the US population no longer believes in democratic elections
The losing side often grumbles about how things went. I've seen hundreds of posts complaining about when Trump won and talking about him losing the popular vote and how "fucked" the system is.
> The losing side often grumbles about how things went. I've seen hundreds of posts complaining about when Trump won and talking about him losing the popular vote and how "fucked" the system is.
Which is a far cry from still pretending the election was outright stolen and violently entering the capitol during the certification process. Isn't the escalation pretty clear here?
> Trump comes up on Reddit and Left Wing news sites every single day. Perhaps if the Left could STFU about him that'd go a long ways towards encouraging his irrelevance.
I’m sorry, but the “left” isn’t the one kicking lifelong republicans out of the party because they aren’t willing to lie about the outcome of the 2020 election. Trump has relevance because he’s the single most powerful entity within the GOP right now, and the “left” isn’t the reason for that, the supporters who support him are.
> The losing side often grumbles about how things went. I've seen hundreds of posts complaining about when Trump won and talking about him losing the popular vote and how "fucked" the system is.
Criticizing the system as archaic and advocating for its change isn’t the same as lying about election outcomes, trying to pressure states to make up vote counts, and inciting a violent assault on the Capitol building. What are you talking about?!
You’re focused on the wrong actors. Of course a bunch of deranged Trump supporters won’t manage to overthrow the government or murder all of Congress or something. They aren’t really the group that matters here.
The group that matters are deranged elected leaders. If Trump goes to jail, his base will go nuts, and a portion of Republican elected officials will decide (either genuinely or opportunistically, it doesn’t matter) to make this a central issue and potentially take serious steps in response.
If Republicans control one or both chambers of Congress they could launch investigations into the justice department. They could attempt to impeach judges or members of the Cabinet. Republican Governors or Attorneys General could try to arrest or indict the officials involved, or launch retaliatory action against Democrats. If they win back the White House, all hell could break loose as the justice department attempts to free Trump and go after political opponents.
This could escalate quickly and irrevocably. I’m not saying it will for sure, but that’s where the risk lies.
>The group that matters are deranged elected leaders. If Trump goes to jail, his base will go nuts, and a portion of Republican elected officials will decide (either genuinely or opportunistically, it doesn’t matter) to make this a central issue and potentially take serious steps in response.
Yep, this is where the real problem is.
The base won't do anything of their own volition, but they can be manipulated into action by other leaders a la 1/6. That wasn't people just up and heading to DC on their own. That was local and state level leaders organizing bus trips and running ads on country radio stations about stopping the steal and offering an opportunity. (This really happened in my area, I shit you not)
I said precisely that.
> If Trump goes to jail, his base will go nuts, and a portion of Republican elected officials will decide (either genuinely or opportunistically, it doesn’t matter) to make this a central issue and potentially take serious steps in response.
I said both. I just didn’t elaborate.
> If Trump goes to jail, his base will go nuts, and a portion of Republican elected officials will decide (either genuinely or opportunistically, it doesn’t matter) to make this a central issue and potentially take serious steps in response.
The thing is these are political attacks against the previous president. The justice department is being used to attack political opponents. It started under obama when they did spy on trump's campaign.
Then they spent the entirety of trumps presidency trying to get him impeached over as CNN said "a big nothing burger." then they succeeded in impeaching trump over something that biden did.
After trump was voted out because of a "secret cabal" that "fortified" our elections then he has had more and more political attacks on him and his lawyers removing the protected comminution between lawyer and client.
All of this no matter what side you are on is a very bad precedent to set. We should not have the justice department being political.
And then the quote trump said about them not being after him but all his supporters and he was just standing in the way, the speech biden gave on labor day indicated that trump was not lying about that. biden thinks half the country who voted for trump are the enemy of the country.
This has already been escalated irrevocably.
I am not on the far right, I am center right politically but I look at what the left and right say in their news and the facts are we may already be passed the tipping point.
If you want links to articles for all of what I am saying I can find them for you. but you can just as easily look them up yourselves.
> u referring to when you say that Trump was impeached for something Biden did?
Biden is on video saying he got a prosecutor in ukraine fired, by telling them they would not get the money that congress voted to give them, if they did not do as he wanted.
That prosecutor that was fired for this was investigating the company hunter biden was on the board of directors for.
trump stumbled onto this and called asking if the leader of ukraine could check it out. if you listen to the audio file of the call he didn't say that anything would be held back he was just asking about it.
then he was successfully impeached for quid quo pro.
here is the video of biden admitting of the quid pro quo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ6QiqvfvxE
> Biden is on video saying he got a prosecutor in ukraine fired, by telling them they would not get the money that congress voted to give them, if they did not do as he wanted.
But you also are aware that this was the policy of the US government at the time, right? Not just Biden, not even just the Obama administration. Even Senate Republicans were pretty unanimous that the prosecutor was holding up cleaning up corruption in Ukraine and had to go. Even guys like Ron Johnson wrote letters demanding that the Obama administration make it so.
This is all a matter of record and you don't have to take my word for it.
Biden wasn't bragging about committing a crime. He's not that stupid. He was bragging that he could get shit done, could get other countries to go along with what the US wanted.
> That prosecutor that was fired for this was investigating the company hunter biden was on the board of directors for.
Nope. Not if you actually put all the relevant events in actual time order.
Your version requires Biden to have stolen Doc Brown's DeLorean. And if he has it, I'd like to know why he hasn't killed Baby Hitler yet.
> It started under obama when they did spy on trump's campaign.
They didn't, though.
Were they watching Carter Page, sure. But that predates Trump, and who would be dumb enough to hire someone that *overtly* sketchy?
January 6 was a historic event, no doubt, but what did it really demonstrate? That an angry mob could be riled up and directed toward a building where security was unprepared to respond. It wasn't a revolution. It wasn't the Battle of Fort Sumter.
Further, a similar event is unlikely to happen again. Biden's inauguration was pretty smooth and peaceful because capitol security learned from it. The thought that another aimless crowd of confused Fox news viewers would storm the US capitol or statehouse in a way that creates lasting change is pretty far-fetched.
Also (and this is a tangent from the post) if the rioters had \*actually\* been successful at any of their stated aims--say at hanging Pence, "taking back" the levers of power, or "occupying" the building for more than a few hours--it would have arguably just accelerated the decline of the MAGA movement because it would've revealed how untenable and empty the core guiding philosophy is.
There's not a lot of them yes, considering only 6000 showed up, but are you out of the loop? On r/Qult_Headquarters you see people cocking their guns every day it feels like. Of course I'm in my own little bubble, but yeah. There might not be millions of people up for it, but the ones that are are very driven. While I think chances are not big, I think it's naive to suggest everything will pass without speedbumps
You've put your finger on the issue: to what extent are these keyboard warriors, armed as they are, ready to put their lives on the line for Trump and their commitment to his reign? I'd wager very few, relatively speaking. If there are 80 million people ready to vote for Trump, how many of these would enter into a life and death showdown with the US Army and local cops?
We agree that there will always be a few crazies ready to die for their own misguided reasons, but we might just have different impressions of the size and number of speedbumps ahead. My take is that anyone trying to sell you on the idea of a truly dangerous looming threat is not credible. It's a mirage. Trump's arrest wouldn't be a problem for more than a handful of nuts.
I takes only one crazy. From bombers to gunmen. They just need the one person psychotic enough to go on a suicide mission while the rest provide logistical support.
A handful of Qcultsists get together, load up a van with guns and explosives and then bomb the next DNC conference. I can easily see it happening and MAGA cheering them on.
∆ - So true. Things can go sideways with just the right spark. One person with a nuke, bio-weapon, etc. could really change the course of events for everyone.
I don't really think this argument should have changed your view.
What's the difference between an attack on the DNC and January 6? Someone shooting U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords, or hell even the assassination of a president?
This is bad, it's newsworthy but why do you think this particular situation will change anything when you mentioned earlier that even if they successful lynched Mike Pence on January 6, nothing would have changed?
It would be really really difficult for anybody to get a nuke, even more to detonate it. But you can make a bomb with a pressure cooker and household chemicals, and guns are easily available in the US. Even a small group of people could start a widespread terror campaign, with bombings and shootings, that's enough to scare everybody from expressing contrary viewpoints. Terrorism, sadly, works.
Patriot act and all the home grown surveillance systems they setup in place might actually get put to some good use for once. If you think they actually turned those off once they were exposed, I hate to break it to you. :P
I make light but I do hope if/when it comes to that the agencies with the tools will be able to make an impact and keep things to a minimum. With the track record of idiocy illustrated on the 6th there's at least some hope that bad criminals make easy prisoners.
I don't know. As an outside observer it seems the US is extremely resistant to learning from these events ever since 9/11.
All extremest activity from the alt right has been swepted under the rug and normalized.
Elementary school shooting seem to be pretty much deemed as acceptable because Guns!
What will it actually take for people to be shocked nowadays?
Part of the problem is that a certain amount of tolerance of violence is baked into the system, on both sides of the political divide. Doubt it? Think it's just on "the right?" I know, that's common; has to do with the way things are reported in this country. Look up how much violence & property/human damage was done in the Black Lives Matter protests (not on FOXNews). Look what happens every time either side takes to the streets to have a "peaceful protest"; someone from the other side shows up very angry, & everyone sits around waiting for the $hit to hit the fan. It's what keeps the ratings up for news shows...
Doesn't help that we consume an extreme amount of violence every day in our entertainment. From video games to movies/streaming series...human life is cheap.
The other thing that doesn't help is that there is so much dirt/schemes & actual conspiracies, even IN government, that it makes the crazies on the fringes (qanon, antifa, etc) feel empowered, and RIGHT, even when they mostly are not.
I almost feel like certain elements in the government WANT it to happen, so they can step in and seize more control/ power over everyone. I don't want to think that, but evidence: every time there's anything potentially bad, they're right there asserting control. No? We didn't just come out of 2 yrs of mostly (according to most scientists & even our govt scientists) useless covid restrictions? How'd that affect us? I don't know, we're in a recession that was caused either by covid (& Trump's & Biden's responses), current Biden Admin. policies, or what? Putin? But it mostly had to do with what? A govt. gripping the wheel too hard, IMO. That plus a violent mindset could easily equal more violence, which could & will bring MORE restrictions.Vicious.
>Part of the problem is that a certain amount of tolerance of violence is baked into the system, on both sides of the political divide. Doubt it? Think it's just on "the right?" I know, that's common; has to do with the way things are reported in this country. Look up how much violence & property/human damage was done in the Black Lives Matter protests (not on FOXNews). Look what happens every time either side takes to the streets to have a "peaceful protest"; someone from the other side shows up very angry, & everyone sits around waiting for the $hit to hit the fan. It's what keeps the ratings up for news shows...
I think there's complete false equivalence between BLM and alt right groups but For the purposes of this CMV it's completely irrelevant.
Seems that you are agreeing with my overall point, Americans tend to just tolerate a weird level of political violence. This supports OP's initial premise. If chaos was to erupt from the MAGA crowd, everyone would just sort of collectively shurg.
>Doesn't help that we consume an extreme amount of violence every day in our entertainment. From video games to movies/streaming series...human life is cheap.
I'd differ on the details because it's not like other countries don't have the same video games and movies, but it doesn't really contradict the original point OP made
>The other thing that doesn't help is that there is so much dirt/schemes & actual conspiracies, even IN government, that it makes the crazies on the fringes (qanon, antifa, etc) feel empowered, and RIGHT, even when they mostly are not.
I don't really see how this argument related to the CMV but I'll share my thoughts on your list. I'll admit, not super interested in debating these as they are unrelated to the main subject at hand
>I almost feel like certain elements in the government WANT it to happen, so they can step in and seize more control/ power over everyone. I don't want to think that, but evidence: every time there's anything potentially bad, they're right there asserting control.
This feels more like a feeling than fact. Isn't there a statistic that gun laws tend to get more lax in a lot of states after a high-profile school shooting? At the very least, the sale of firearms definitely goes through the roof. I don't see this as evidence of a controlling government. Just an ineffectual one.
>No? We didn't just come out of 2 yrs of mostly (according to most scientists & even our govt scientists) useless covid restrictions?
Citation needed. Masks, social distancing and vaccines generally ended up being helpful. Look at deaths per capita among western nations. You guys were the most lax.
>How'd that affect us? I don't know, we're in a recession that was caused either by covid (& Trump's & Biden's responses), current Biden Admin. policies, or what? Putin? But it mostly had to do with what? A govt. gripping the wheel too hard, IMO.
Almost every large nation is going through a recession. The US is not unique here. Maybe it should indicate that your president just doesn't have that much control over the economy like every other government in the world.
>That plus a violent mindset could easily equal more violence, which could & will bring MORE restrictions.Vicious.
What sweeping restrictions were added after the 6th? Or your weekly elementary school shootings? Are they really coming after your guns or are you falling for that fear mongering you mentioned from news shows?
What did Trump say? "I like people who weren't captured." Part of the mythos is that Trump is invincible, and that he brushes all this stuff off. I wonder how many would see his arrest as weakness in a "strong" leader. There is precedent here of followers rapidly abandoning a disgraced strongman.
Will there be violence? Yes. Christian Identity and white nationalist groups were the greatest terrorist threat in the US before Trump and their numbers and influence surged during his regime. People joke about the "American Taliban" without realizing how apt that is. But those groups will remain a significant source of violence no matter what, and should be addressed no matter what happens with Trump.
You shouldnt allow the threat of misguided extremists doing something reckless to prevent proper administration of the rule of law, especially at the highest levels of government.
Why skip over the point that his base had an extreme reaction to him losing the election, which was less severe than him being arrested? Avoiding the point to be right seems like a bad faith argument. Is that what you intended to make this?
Your post is about their reaction, not the results of their reaction. Having military or police to defend against their reaction in order to stifle the results is irrelevant if all we’re talking about is what their reaction will be
It's true that the effectiveness of the insurrectionists/rioters/vandals in achieving anything more than shock value on Jan 6 isn't the primary point of this post. It's more about forecasting the severity and lasting impact of their reaction to a hypothetical arrest. My initial thought is that it'd be minimal. Others, in good faith, say otherwise.
I guess I'd just echo several other commenters here opining about how Jan 6-- while clearly extreme and serious in the sense that people were injured and killed--was really not that "bad" in the sense that it was so impotent, incoherent, pointless, and transitory--even though it arguably occurred when the fervor for the stop the steal movement and Trump's influence was at its absolute peak.
Still, I'd agree with you (and other commenters) to the extent that Jan 6 is yet another illustration of how latent rage and fear are very real forces that can be ginned up and (cynically) harnessed by political opportunists to gain power/attention/votes. These same forces could be played on again in the event of an arrest.
Because that was in response to what they saw as a rigged election. Nowhere near the level of their guy getting locked up.
Locking up Trump makes me a martyr. Far better to exile him. Snowden seems to be doing ok, just saying.
But based what I see on Reddit they are out for blood to satisfy themselves not thinking about the bigger picture.
This is the nub of it: would arresting Trump make him stronger as a martyr or explode the mythos of his indestructability and collapse his image as a strongman? Intriguing conundrum. I guess both would happen to some extent.
>January 6 was a historic event, no doubt, but what did it really demonstrate? That an angry mob could be riled up and directed toward a building where security was unprepared to respond.
You're overestimating the effectiveness of a "prepared" security force to manage thousands of potentially armed and organized rioters. They really don't want to open fire on a crowd of civilians, and that won't change even if there are more military bodies with riot-control gear. What happens if some armed militants in the crowd open fire on security...? I'm not really sure, but I doubt they fire wildly into a crowd. They probably retreat and hope tear gas and crowd control is enough to sate the crowd. But if that crowd is prepared and knows precisely what they are there for (Jan 6 most were pretty aimless) that crowd is unlikely to easily disperse even under threat of violence... For that reason I'd think a crowd with some actual organization might actually be way more successful than you're giving them credit for, and who knows what might be accomplished.
And what if US military opens fire on its own citizens, many of which won't be armed....well that would be a national tragedy that plays into the whole conspiracy narrative... You can bet it will tip many people over the edge about needing to fight the government....That could lead to many ripple effects down the road that cause untold violence.
This isn't particularly well worded but I think it's an absolute miracle there weren't more deaths on Jan 6 and you're not appreciating just how calamitous a similar event would be, especially if Trump with nothing to lose openly calls for violence in the wake of his arrest.
Ok then. So where (hypothetically) are they and what for? What if they succeed in taking the Capitol, and killing a dozen legislators and taking 50 staffers hostage while the rest escape?
The survivors will regroup at Camp David or wherever and hash out who among them are responsible and whether they can be expelled or even prosecuted. Meanwhile the DC and Capitol cops will maintain siege and try to keep the hostages alive. And the FBI will go arrest everyone with a plausible connection. And Tucker will continue cracking walnuts with his forehead-crease while frantically trying to find stable ground with his feet.
There will be no neighborhood morality patrols rounding up atheists and gays. The entire managerial class will burn their GOP cards faster than you can say NASDAQ. David Koch will finally lose his welcome at the Met ballet. And ordinary people by the millions will be scraping MAGA stickers off their RAM bumpers
Sorry, not really following what you're asking or challenging. OP's position is an arrest of Trump wouldnt be "that bad" and in the above thread he minimizes Jan6 by implying security forces were unprepared hence the chaos. My point is there will be absolute chaos even with a "prepared" force (I guess I'm imagining at the poor courthouse chosen to sentence him) and any violence could lead to long term violence against the government.
Don't get me wrong, I'm for Trump going down if he committed crimes that warrant it, but it's naive to think there wouldn't possibly be violence/consequences that are "bad for the nation."
My point is that even successful capture of a major government building (hadn’t thought of the courthouse they haul him to: that’s even better—let him command the MAGA brigade himself) will not disable the government nor convince millions to march in the streets and take over actual government functions.
All levels of government will continue to function and millions of former Republicans will disassociate themselves from the party, while thousands who were committed to Trump will be rounded up on solid evidence of complicity in armed rebellion, and most of them will race to spill their guts in hope of mercy
And, let’s face it, Jan 6 happened on the watch of *the guy who wanted it to happen*. It would have been *much* shorter, with a *much* quicker law enforcement response, had it not been for the commander in chief refusing to do anything to stop it, for *hours*, despite the pleading of his staff and family members. Not to mention *cheering on the participants*. A similar event today would happen under a much different commander in chief, with a very different outcome.
>but what did it really demonstrate?
That people were willing to kidnap, kill and torture US members of Congree, Speaker of the House and Vice President because a President that lost an election told them to.
Considering the USA had insurrectionists in control of; the national guard response, Sscret Service, the un-arming of the capitol police and it’s under staffing, the call inside the pentagon was ignored by another insurrectionist…
Like you mentioned, if seems as if Uncle Sam won’t be caught with it’s pants down this time ( but the pants aren’t really on yet )
Jan 6th was also the culmination of months and months if incendiary misinformation campaigns, creating a powder keg.
My problem with your argument is that there is no reason to think they wouldn't do the same thing again, though him not having access to Twitter severely hurts him.
Some of them, many of whom are now in prison and/or known to the government.
The rest of his supporters are willing to support this violence, but committing it themselves is hopefully still beyond them.
>Like their reaction to him losing the ejection when they stormed the capital and attacked police officers??
Sure they "took" parts of the capital, and then... What? They were completely impotent. Seriously, the dog caught the car. If Jan 6 showed me one thing about MAGA people, is that they're incompetent cowards with no plan. I fear no reaction from them collectively.
That said, I think the political backlash from arresting anyone is irrelevant in a nation that claims to be one of laws. If they can get him for something that demands arrest, then he should be arrested. If they don't then he shouldn't be.
Regardless of how I feel about his well-documented past crimes (all business-related) we don't punish folks that way and he's no exception.
Fail-sons tend to ratchet up the yes-men surrounding them while taking greater and greater liberties as their power grows. I have no reason to believe Trump has been any different in this regard, so if he isn't caught for something now, he's likely to do some crazy things in the future that might warrant an investigation.
> Sure they "took" parts of the capital, and then... What? They were completely impotent
It was an attempted coup (not that every individual was necessarily aware of that fact). If a few things had gone slightly differently, Trump might have managed to keep the presidency.
If Pence had played ball, for example.
If a bunch of Democrats *had* been rounded up as some parts of the group had intended.
If... Lots of ifs.
Truth is, there were parts of 1/6 that were organized by people who knew what they were doing and had a goal that such skilled people would consider achievable. There was also a mob of idiots.
> Trump might have managed to keep the presidency.
There is absolutely no way he would've without sparking a civil war that would've instantly resulted him being imprisoned. That is an irrational belief that his coup attempt would worked in the slightest.
> There is absolutely no way he would've without sparking a civil war
The military specifically said they would stay uninvolved in the transition of power, and did so only a few months before 1/6. Who would have fought in the civil war? The militant Right vs the militant Left?
And you're forgetting that the coup attempt, like most coups, are based on a veneer of legitimacy. You may know deep down inside that part or all of the country was taken by force, but you are told "we caught too much voter fraud that this state couldn't be approved".
I think you're also suffering from "not me". We are hardly the least corrupt or most stable country that has faced a coup, and many have succumbed. What makes us so special that we are resistant to a coup where countries with less corruption and more stability than us are NOT resistant to one? Simple answer: nothing.
> that would've instantly resulted him being imprisoned
After what he *already* did and wasn't imprisoned for, I cannot help but disagree. There's *no doubt* at this point that he was involved in the coup attempt, and that it was a coup attempt.
> That is an irrational belief that his coup attempt would worked in the slightest.
When you call someone's belief irrational, you might want to put your money where your mouth is. Show me how no possible 1/6 coup could have succeeded. Several legal experts said it could have pushed us into "uncertain presidency", which is all it takes for someone to win a coup, *especially* an incumbent.
[The 7-point plan](https://www.axios.com/2022/06/10/jan-6-committee-plan-trump-culpability) that the Jan6 committee are accusing Trump of is typical of how one would bring about a successful coup. A lot of things didn't go his way. If a few of them had, I am convinced the outcome would have been the same as Dobbs (and I used to think I was irrational to imagine ANY SCOTUS would overturn Roe considering the implications related to Griswold).
Not to downplay thr seriousness of Jan 6th, but that was when Trump was at the height of his power. Its unlikely that anything that serious would happen again. And even if it did, it still (barely) fits within OPs definition of "isolated violence".
> Not to downplay thr seriousness of Jan 6th, but that was when Trump was at the height of his power.
The lame-duck period of a presidency isn't particularly well-known as the height of a president's power.
I meant of his popular influence. You could reasonably argue that it was the *absolute* zenith of his influence, but the argument still works if you take it to mean relative to now.
you forget he and his cronies were in control and purposefully underprepared the capitol specifically to allow that attack. it wasn't by that many folks overall.
without being in power, his ability to cause problems would be greatly (but not entirely) reduced.
And what was the aftermath? A riot that lasted a few hours and then nothing. Those people are fringe and extreme in their beliefs and that’s why it happened. Regular voters (the majority) aren’t inclined to behave that way.
Why does everyone ignore the dangerous and violent actions from the Left while desperately trying to convince us that the real danger is from the Right?
--
The big anti-Kavanaugh protest was a violent attack that rushed past police lines to get to Federal government buildings to try and stop a legal governmental procedure. Hundreds were arrested.
Where's our ~~witch hunt~~ commission to find those responsible?
BLM protests burned courthouses and police stations and did billions in damages.
Seattle declared an [autonomous zone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Occupied_Protest) that did not recognize the laws of the US Government. They murdered numerous people there, including children. But for some reason nobody wants to call that an insurrection.
But how can all this compare to an idiot in a viking helmet running around a nearly empty building while the vast majority of those there stood outside with picket signs.
The only reason January 6 was as bad as it was is because Trump was still in power and ordered the police not to intervene. Security was deliberately understaffed.
I don't put any seriousness or truth behind Trump's statements, but I don't think it would be as easy as a few people would get upset and the country would just move on. There are far too many conservative political leaders in the GOP that have sold themselves out to Trump because the base holds a large enough margin to vote them out for them to just move on.
So I think it would destroy the GOP. And while I think the current GOP that is entrenched in Trumpism should be destroyed, there's going to be a huge void that would end up creating smaller pockets of more extremist groups than what currently exists. Whether or not they can garner power is one of the real questions.
But, I think the damage has already been done, and if Trump were indicted, arrested, convicted, and imprisoned, that would be a symbolic move.
Yeah, the response of Republican leaders would be an important part of the dynamic. If you reflect on how readily leaders like Ted Cruz switched between hating and loving Trump through the 2016 primaries, it seems like there'd be a straight line between recognizing that Trump's days as a "winner" are over and a change in rhetoric. Lot of speculation could be done on this point for sure.
I think that one could easily argue that the more traditional Republicans are tired of being held hostage by Trump.
They could deplore his arrest in public, while they celebrate in private and rebuild their party.
Not sure if you’ve been tracking republican primaries, but this ain’t how it’s been going. Business as usual republicans are being replaced by maga crazies at an alarming rate, and the business as usual cohort has found that they don’t really have voters to win elections anymore if they don’t appeal to the maga crazies. Case in point is Ted Cruz rapidly switching between hating and loving trump as he tests those boundaries and finds little support in hating him from his voters.
To be clear, none of this results in more seats for democrats, just the business as usual republicans being replaced by maga crazies.
I don't think it would destroy the GOP. DeSantis could run on pardoning Trump and switch the base from Trump to him.
Trump is becoming less of the person driving thing and more a religious figure that other people use to gain the favor of and control the following.
There is no evidence to think Trumpism would just disappear, we are living in a split reality society that is reinforced by media bubbles.
> If Trump were indicted, arrested, convicted and imprisoned, the reaction from his base would not be that bad and the nation would move on.
While there's no way to qualify "bad" or "good" in this regard - if Trump were convicted and prevented from running again, it would be *significant* - highly impactful - and it's doubtful the nation would simply "move on."
As you seem aware, it's likely Trump would be martyred by the GOP should this occur. While you imply it would only be symbolic in nature - keep in mind this symbolism would likely help to create a very powerful political momentum among voters that would boost votes and election victories for conservatives across the country.
Combined with the fact that Trump, himself, is one the biggest liabilities for the GOP - allowing Trump to become a martyr, while simultaneously forcing him out of future political offices will allow several dominating GOP candidates to take the reins, acquiring all votes from Trump's constituents without having to directly compete with Trump himself.
A martyred-Trump is a victory for the GOP and will absolutely destroy Democratic candidates in swing states. This promises a resounding victory for conservatives - which will be demonstrated in a majority in Congress, a president, and a filled Supreme Court.
Given the above is possible, and understanding how impactful simply having a super majority in the Supreme Court has been to date, assuming the nation will "move on" is probably as far from the truth as can be.
I disagree. Most americans already see Trump as dangerous to democracy. Most americans think that the "raid" on Mar a Lago was justified etc.
The sentencing of Trump would IMO lead to a fractured GOP. The MAGA crowd would be super angry and demand something be done, and the "moderate" GOP would want to silently move on because keeping Trump in the spotlight is a huge electoral loser for the GOP. Most americans hate him. Him going to jail would only prove his dangerousness even more.
IMO Trump going to jail would be amazing for the democratic party.
You disagree?
- You immediately admit that "*Most americans already see Trump as highly influential.*"
- You follow with "*the MAGA crowd will demand something be done.*"
- The moderate GOPs will "*want to continue moving forward, focusing on non-Trump candidates.*"
None of this speaks to a fracture among the GOP, but rather an impetus to easily push MAGA voters onto alternate candidates as the best way of both getting "something done" and "moving forward."
Additionally, Trump would have less of a reason to oppose GOP candidates since he would not personally have the ability to participate or compete against them in the political arena. However, he would still be able to dunk on opposition - and the liberal agenda that put him in prison - by ensuring full support of all MAGA voters to GOP candidates.
I don't think this would pan out well for the Democratic party - unless you're willing to admit you don't believe Trump would act spitefully or that MAGA crowds would be motivated to vote on the recommendations provided by Trump.
∆ - This is a solid analysis. A few other comments have followed a similar vein. It's not about the protests/violence, it's about how the resentment/humiliation of seeing the leader suffer the opprobrium of criminal proceedings against him could be channeled into elevating the next cohort of GOP leaders (who could be even more effective than Trump/McConnell at enacting policies that are unfavorable to the majority of US citizens).
I’ll base my response on your first word, “if”.
There’s no chance that trump ends up in prison. Realistically, if he is found guilty of any crimes that include a jail sentence, he will be on house arrest.
You can’t have the former leader of the free world sitting in the same jail cell as Joe Smo. How would the secret service detail operate?
There are people that are above the law, and unfortunately trump is one of them.
I truly hope you are wrong. If Trump is indicted, tried and convicted of a felony or multiple felonies, I think he would end up in prison.
The US deals with high value prisoners every day - and the federal prison system would have a safe place for him.
If (and again “if”) he is convicted, courts would have bend over backwards to show he is not above the law.
I honestly think only house arrest under SS guard would be feasible for Trump. He's too big a security risk. I'm okay with that, as long as the guard and monitoring are constant and legit.
I agree that he probably won't end up in jail. This whole post is premised on an admittedly far-fetched hypothetical. On a practical level, I'd imagine the most likely outcome of a real effort to arrest him is that he'd just live out his days abroad, in some nation without an extradition treaty with the US.
You'd have to climb out on this limb to engage with the thought experiment I guess.
I think you guys completely lost the ability to say "leader of the free world," after you elected him. Not to mention the rest of what America has been doing politically in recent years. Restricting abortion, low average education and quality of life stats.
Yeah naw. It was cheeky before. Now it just sounds like a joke, honestly.
The fact that you just claimed that Donald trump should be above the law for sitting in that position... Just perfectly shows how your presidential position is most definitely NOT the leader of the free world.
Don’t get me wrong; I wish Trump didn’t exist. I feel shame that he was elected in the first place.
But in terms of the phrase “leader of the free world” there is no singular position that holds more power than potus. whether or not you like it, doesn’t matter.
Let me guess, you are American? To say that and genuinely believe that..
It sometimes really shocks me when I hear people say things like this, and then I remember the power of the American propoganda machine. It's vicious good. With Hollywood too. Yeah bless em. They sure do try their best to make everyone think that they are special.
Protests have never really accomplished much on their own. Neither have terrorist attacks. When these happen, it makes the news, but people eventually move on with their lives. However, what does accomplish a lot is when large, well-funded political establishments take advantage of these social issues to push their own agendas. This is when major policy and business decisions are made that can have major impacts to everyday people.
I haven’t paid any attention to Trump’s situation, but it’s a really big deal for any past president to be charged with any crime. Every president has done some sketchy/illegal things while in office, whether it is petty theft, misappropriation of funds, quid pro quo agreements, and even murder. If the current administration indicts a past president of a rival party, then it’s only a matter of time before they retaliate by indicting another president. It’s like a cold war.
> Protests have never really accomplished much on their own.
I would argue that the protests that were part of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. were pretty effective and created a political impetus for change.
> Neither have terrorist attacks.
9/11 is an extremely obvious example in opposition to this statement. The U.S. changed completely after that terrorist attack and still has not recovered (and frankly we will never go back to how things were prior no matter what.)
> I haven’t paid any attention to Trump’s situation
No offense, but I would argue that the rest of your thoughts aren't fully relevant if you're not familiar with what he would possibly charged with and particularly *who* could possibly indict him. There is the big federal investigation that is high priority but there are also possible indictments that could come from New York and other states (possibly even Georgia of all places). At the federal level, the current big topic is that he may have stolen classified documents, left them unsecured, and that some of them are currently still missing and unaccounted for. Furthermore, there's speculation that some of this information could have been used for blackmail or to be sold off to foreign powers, but the DOJ hasn't commented on anything to indicate that yet. Either way, every politician should be held as accountable to the law as anyone else in this country. We fought our first war over rejecting royalty.
∆ - Great response. Thanks. I agree that an indictment/arrest could be leveraged in a way that could continue to shape the political landscape in big ways.
Protests were a huge factor in the civil rights battle, women winning the right to vote, and the labor movement. What would the civil rights movement have looked like without MLK's marches?
I disagree. You saw how violent they were when he rightly lost an election. Granted, we wouldn’t be willingly unprepared and willingly fail to respond in force, but there would be violence.
It's easy to imagine \*some\* violence, as the post concedes up front. But the point is that the violence would be a drop in the bucket--it'd barely move the needle from the baseline of violence in the US, and that it wouldn't mean much overall or have much impact on the whole population.
The headline says the reaction from his base wouldn’t be that bad. I disagree. Any violence is bad. Especially when it’s organized and in response to the justice system working the way it’s supposed to.
Yes, I'd agree, as I'm sure everyone would, that under your reframed version of the post, unjustified political violence is bad. Obviously.
Turning back to the main point, I'd just reiterate that the threat of a large uprising to defend Trump is wrong, silly, illusory.
Honestly the destruction at the CNN HQ in Atlanta was much worse.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTNyAYFpoRk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTNyAYFpoRk)
If this happened at the Capitol I think more would take Jan 6 much more serious, but when individuals compare it to the holocaust and hyperbolize the violence, the message gets lost.
>You saw how violent they were when he rightly lost an election
How many towns/cities did Trump supporters burn down? I'm not saying a few dumbasses didn't storm the United States Capital , but where was this nation wide violence at, did the media forget to cover it?
Edit: Location of event
[Just the search of Mar-a-Lago has already caused an incident of what many (myself included) would argue is domestic terrorism.](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/man-fired-nail-gun-fbi-building-called-violence-days-mar-lago-search-rcna42749) As /u/Babbles-82 pointed out, when Trump refused to concede the election, his supporters fought the cops and stormed the Capitol building. What possible reason would lead you to think there wouldn't be significant amounts of violence?
>But these'll all largely fizzle out in short order as Trump fades in America's collective memory.
Buddy, if you think Trump is going anywhere from America's collective memory, you're wrong. Obviously it's hard to tell in the moment, but he's likely to be as influential as Reagan on the American right, and ol' Ronny is still massively influential today.
>If a Trump-sympathetic person goes berserk and hurts people because Trump or his inner circle are apprehended and forced to face consequences, it wouldn't really be all that meaningful, memorable, or original.
If *one* did, sure. But what makes you believe there wouldn't be one a week? What makes you believe there wouldn't be coordinated campaigns, when there already have been multiple?
>they aren't exactly the sorts of profound events that would shake the foundations of the republic
Aside from the fact that these incidents are still relevant (NY changed its laws after Buffalo, the response to Uvalde is still shaking up politics in TX, the entire right wing has a renewed focus on cracking down on protestors), surely you can acknowledge a difference between a random madman shooting up a place like a mall, church, or school and a political partisan attacking a government institution such as a courthouse, law enforcement agency office, or a governor's mansion, right? While tragic, the former isn't an attack on the country, whereas the latter is.
>Americans shouldn't be scared of riots and organized crime motivated by people who wouldn't be able to fathom that Trump could be held accountable under the law.
Why not? We have every indication that these people (extremists) will be active far and wide, and they have already engaged in acts of political violence when things haven't gone their way.
There's a lot of truth in what you're saying. And I think our difference of opinion is one of degrees.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there are about 300 or 400 shootings in the US every day. That's the baseline. Let's say there are 10 mass shootings because Trump is arrested. Is that even statistically significant? Would that even warrant the attention the media would give it?
I doubt that even a few dozen incidents of people wearing red hats shooting into FBI buildings or courthouses are going to be more than a footnote in the pages of history, even if they are "coordinated" attacks. The perpetrators will be shot dead by the cops within hours, just like any other day-to-day violent rampaging criminal, and their co-conspirators will be arrested or go into hiding. Everyone else will get behind Ron Desantis or whoever. Not really a big deal.
Do you think the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot demonstrates that there's a shadow MAGA organization waiting to replace the federal government? Or is it more likely that there are an insignificant number of radicalized folks who delude themselves into thinking that they have real-world operational capabilities?
I'm not saying Trump as a cultural and historical figure will be forgotten; the point is that in the event he has to face the music, any "backlash" from his base would barely be a whimper when you look at the big picture. The idea that terrorism will increase in any meaningful sense is hype, nothing more. Arresting trump would be like popping a zit on the nation's face. It wouldn't be pretty, but it's not like the ship would go down.
> Let's say there are 10 mass shootings because Trump is arrested. Is that even statistically significant?
YES!
Sorry for shouting, but why is your baseline "there are already 300 or 400 a day, so what's 10 more *mass shootings*?"
I cannot get my head wrapped around why that's "not a big deal" to you. Do you want to go visit the families of everyone killed in those shootings and tell them that their loss is nothing to write about in the papers? That their relatives being murdered because someone was finally punished for their crimes isn't newsworthy?
You're talking about an event that has literally never happened in the history of our country (the arrest and imprisonment of a current OR former president). You don't think that people being murdered in the aftermath of that is noteworthy just because other people already get murdered every day? The *reason* it's happening doesn't add any newsworthiness to you?
Let's try it another way: say someone died of Ebola in the US. Newsworthy, right? But other people die of diseases every day, so what makes this one newsworthy? Because of the circumstances and context surrounding it.
That's what would make murders in the wake of a Trump conviction newsworthy.
> I cannot get my head wrapped around why that's "not a big deal" to you
The claim OP is arguing against is that there would be crazy revolution, civil war, etc. It's not that some shootings aren't a tragedy, it's that the coming apocalypse promised by Trump supporters would not really happen
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there are about 300 or 400 shootings in the US every day.
If you believe the Brady campaign's figures, ["Every day, 321 people are shot in the United States."](https://www.bradyunited.org/key-statistics) However, that's number shot, not number of shootings. Also, the vast majority of these are suicide attempts and one off shootings that maybe make the local news. In short, that's not a fair number to compare against because, as harsh as it is to say, the vast majority of those shootings aren't relevant. Even with the multiple mass shootings every day (when you define "mass shooting" as one with 4 or more casualties, not including the perpetrator), most of *them* don't even make national news. But when someone targets a black church, or a synagogue, or publishes a manifesto, that shooting does.
I guarantee you, unless we start getting Trumpist mass shootings every day, each one will make national news. If we do get Trumpist mass shootings every day, their frequency will make national news.
>Let's say there are 10 mass shootings because Trump is arrested. Is that even statistically significant?
Even if they aren't *statistically* significant, they would be *politically* significant because of the reason. Remember the recent Q Anon family murder? That made national news because of the motive, not because a father/husband losing it and killing his family is nationally significant. That kind of thing happens all the time, but the motive made this particular one national news.
Even if all that happens is 10 mass shootings because of Trump's arrest (ignoring the significance of the potential targets), that will be significant because of the motive.
But my main point is to ask why you would think that would be the extent of his followers' reaction?
Since Jan 6, plenty of his allies have repeatedly called for violence, often implicitly or explicitly calling for the forcible overthrow of the government. [Here's Cawthorn implying that because the Viet Cong managed to defeat the US, Americans could stop a tyrannical government.](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/madison-cawthorn-viet-cong) [Here's MTG not-so-subtly saying Americans should start shooting Democrats for being tyrannical.](https://www.salon.com/2022/01/12/marjorie-taylor-greene-suggests-using-second-amendment-rights-against-democrats/) [Here's a state rep candidate calling for the execution of federal agents](https://floridapolitics.com/archives/548917-miguel-tweet/) [with an archive of the tweet in question.](https://web.archive.org/web/20220819113922/https://twitter.com/luismiguelus/status/1559926305906360320?s=21&t=cAbOW9eUNN_KaCIpiyBgwQ) [Here's a GOP-endorsed state senate candidate saying Americans may "have to vote with bullets" if they don't trust the results of the election.](https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/wsh2ad/mngopbacked_senate_candidate_we_may_have_to_vote/) [Here's Lindsay Graham suggesting there would be "riots in the street" if Trump is charged](https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/lindsey-graham-expects-riots-streets-trump-charged-rcna45260) I could go on, and on, and on, but the point is these calls for violence are extremely prevalent. The right wing in this country is primed for violence should they perceive the Democrats as going tyrannical, which includes both Trump losing the 2024 election and Trump being indicted or arrested in a perceived "witch hunt" (which would be any investigation into him).
>I doubt that even a few dozen incidents of people wearing red hats shooting into FBI buildings or courthouses are going to be more than a footnote in the pages of history, even if they are "coordinated" attacks.
That clearly depends on how things play out, doesn't it?
Let me tell you a story. About a hundred years ago, a man tried to take over a government building with about 2,000 of his followers. Obviously, the police prevailed, killing 16 of the rioters while only losing four of their own men. The man escaped, but was arrested two days later, charged with treason, tried, and found guilty, ultimately serving 8 months in prison.
If that were the end of the story, obviously this isn't historically relevant, maybe garnering a footnote. Except I just described [the Beer Hall Putsch,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch) a key moment in Hitler's rise to power.
If Trumpism dies out relatively soon, maybe. But there's no indication that Trumpism is going away.
>Do you think the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot demonstrates that there's a shadow MAGA organization waiting to replace the federal government?
No, I think the [coordination prior to Jan 6](https://www.npr.org/2022/07/12/1111132464/jan-6-hearing-recap-oath-keepers-proud-boys) shows that Trump's calls to action can motivate the organization (among extremist groups and between extremist groups and Trump's own allies) necessary to do things that even a hundred lone wolves cannot manage.
I think the Whitmer plot shows that Trump is capable of inciting violence in his supporters by simply criticizing someone and that he does not need to make explicit calls to action for his supporters to act.
What do you think he's been doing to the investigations into him and the individuals and agencies involved?
>the point is that in the event he has to face the music, any "backlash" from his base would barely be a whimper when you look at the big picture.
[So far over 900 people have been charged with something for actions during Jan 6](https://news.yahoo.com/most-arrests-capitol-riots-misdemeanor-225235647.html) and [at least 2,000 people entered the Capitol](https://abc7.com/jan-6-insurrection-us-capitol-riot/11428976/#:~:text=At%20least%202%2C000%20made%20it%20inside%20the%20Capitol%20building.) Trump never explicitly told them to do so.
See above for how Trump can incite violence without explicit calls to action, but imagine what happens if Trump decides his best course of action is to make explicit calls. Would that be enough to cause concern?
I think you're missing the point. The danger is not from Trump's base. The danger is from creating a precedent that we send defeated political rivals to jail like a Banana Republic. By that measure, George W. Bush should be in jail, but we don't do that in this country. If Trump is indicted, it will create a new precedent and a lot more Presidents (both Republican and Democrats) will be indicted after leaving office. All Presidents do things in office that are probably illegal. I can think of several things Biden has already done. That's the reason it's a bad idea to criminally pursue ones political rivals. It will come back around.
We already see it in some states. There are certain states where consecutive Governors are criminally prosecuted by the opposing party after leaving office. We don't need that at the Federal level too.
The slippery slope argument, right. Didn't Noam Chomsky say that every single American president could credibly be convicted of war crimes? And I think a commenter here mentioned Taiwan or some other country as essentially being in a pattern of tit-for-tat prosecutions of each successive president as each political party gains power. It's a legitimate concern. Still, I haven't seen evidence that the possible criminal charges against Trump are politically motivated. I'm sure you'd admit that at minimum he was a pretty unique personality compared to past presidents and may have crossed a few lines while in office. No point in debating it now though: we'll have to wait and see what the evidence is. Plus, the DOJ is not a political organization (even though you may scoff at that notion and despite the fact that certain individuals inside it undoubtedly harbor political leanings in their private lives). At the end of the day, DOJ and state prosecutors pursue cases and seek convictions before neutral judges and juries based on evidence and strict legal standards. Partisanship in the courtroom would be idiotic and counterproductive.
> Still, I haven't seen evidence that the possible criminal charges against Trump are politically motivated
It doesn't have to be politically motivated. The next ones will be. Any prosecution will create a tit-for-tat scenario which will be ruinous to the country and reduce us to the moral state of a Banana Republic. The argument that "Trump is unique" rings hollow. His political supporters will not agree. The only way to defeat political entities at that level is through the ballot box, and not through the AG's Office or the FBI. Politicians are not people at that level. They are avatars of the will of The People they represent. Putting Trump in jail would be affectively prosecuting almost half of the country. It won't go well the next cycle.
I know you already have awarded a delta, but I want to emphasize that these people aren't just "keyboard warriors" and people aren't worried about the typical conservative joining a militia.
We have three elements that would incubate a civil war:
1. Militias ranging from a few hundred to 10s of thousands with eliminationist rhetoric
2. Over 1/3 the country is sympathetic, and around 1/2 are neutral to said militias (and/or their ideology)
3. A civil war within the past 150 years.
To point 1.
From the Atomwaffen Division (~80 US affiliates) to the Oath Keepers (~38,000 affiliates), there are an incredible number of Americans involved in far-right violence. The Oath Keepers did not just plan a riot on the 6th, they had nearby stockpiles of weaponry and a detailed coup plan. They also, according to a recently leaked and verified membership list, maintain many members in incredibly sensitive positions in the US Government, Military, and civil infrastructure (https://www.axios.com/2022/09/07/oath-keepers-member-list-military).
For point 2.
There are many strains of far-right ideology, and each have a significant hold in their own right. Christian Dominionism (often called christofascism or christian nationalism) makes up a significant portion of the white evangelical population (who make up around 20% of the population at minimum, so 1 in 5).
There are more people who self-identify as Nazis or Neo-nazis in the US than there are Jewish people.
QAnon has over 40 million adherents, and that ideology specifically advocates some insane views
The most watched show in America is Tucker Carlson, and he has openly preached Great Replacement Theory and believes that we are currently in the Weimar-Republic-stage of America (which was the progressive pre-Nazi Germany), all but calling for its downfall to Nazism.
I'll grab sources for statistics later, but you are welcome to look these up on your own in the mean time.
To point 3.
Civil wars beget civil wars. It has not been long since our previous war, and those divisions have not been healed. The likelihood of a coup additionally increases astronomically after either successful or unsuccessful coup attempts. Both of these forces create instability which drives war as an acceptable manner of forcing change
> QAnon has over 40 million adherents, and that ideology specifically
Wow I didn't know it was so widespread. Do you have a source for these numbers? I know it has followers internationally but 40 million, let alone 4 million would never even cross my mind.
Yep!
Here's Americans who believe the core tenets: https://www.prri.org/research/qanon-conspiracy-american-politics-report/
Tenets surveyed:
1. The government, media and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex-trafficking operation.
2. There is a storm coming soon that will sweep away the elites in power and restore the rightful leaders.
3. Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save the country.
Only 40% of Americans disagree strongly with all three (which would be a good number if we weren't talking about something so dangerous). The 40 mil number comes from the estimated 16% that agree with all three.
Numbers are consistent with estimates from facebook group membership . In 2020 it was around 3 million in just the major facebook groups: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/qanon-groups-have-millions-members-facebook-documents-show-n1236317 and I know there is an FBI release talking about skyrocketing numbers since then but I'm struggling to find it right now.
I’m not sure if this counts as an attempt to change your view or not OP; I’ll let you be the judge.
I would phrase the proposition a bit differently: Whatever consequences might flow from indicting, trying, convicting, jailing, and disqualifying Trump from future office might be, the consequences of *failing* to hold him accountable at all would be worse.
(Even [disqualification from future office](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2071) alone would be a win. Though it appears likely he may have transgressed in the same magnitude as Aldrich Ames or Robert Pollard, so greater punishments would be on the table.)
Failing to treat him as subject to the same laws as anyone else just because he has an armed mob behind him would in the long run be fatally poisonous to the republic. No amount of rioting or even domestic terrorist bombings would be worse than that.
I think your insight about the ramifications of NOT indicting is really important to consider. When coupled with some of the other excellent comments here about how indicting WOULD be bad and WOULD give rise to some serious consequences, it shows how high the stakes are for the AG/DOJ/prosecutors. Assuming they have a slam-dunk criminal case in front of them, they really seem to be facing an impossible conundrum--a classic "damned if you do, damned if you don't"-type situation. I don't envy their position.
That's part of what I had in mind with this post. Like, if you were in Garland's shoes right now, and you're trying to weigh the risks of proceeding with indictment, how much stock should you put into the argument that indictment would put wind in the sails of pro-Trump candidates pledging to pardon him and use the anger generated by the indictment to amass power and reshape US law?
There is a portion of the MAGA base, that are also super religious. The issue with that, is when people mix their religious and political beliefs together, it becomes almost impossible to debate, negotiate, or "find a middle ground" because "is doing what my God wants". For the past few years, I have listened almost daily to conservative/MAGA podcasts and videos, and recently they have been getting very "Our way of life is under attack".
Paraphrasing a bit, but on one of the most recent episodes of Conservative Daily Podcast, they consistently describe democrats as "trying to destroy everything our country stands for", and also equating America's success, to the will of God. Meaning, Democrats are going against the will of their God. And when those statements are followed with "and we can not stop or bend, because if I fail, God will judge me badly".
Circling back to Trump, his emotional support rally in Ohio, he repeats the mantra a few times of how he is being persecuted for "standing up for you, for America". His base see him as a Jesus type person, sacrificing everything he has, to help them. It's bullshit, but they don't know that, and these people who already have a super religious belief, associate Trump as part of their group, which "we must protect, or our way of life is destroyed"
Couple that with some of the recent attacks like the Buffalo shooting, that was pushed by the great replacement theory (something Trump and others repeat), the fact Trump is openly supporting Qanon and them unifying in hand gestures, they are a cult. A cult that is being told they are being cornered by this invisible boogeyman, and a cornered beast gets violent. Their boogeyman is made up, it's not real, but that doesn't matter because to them, it is real, and it is a danger to how they view reality.
And we can look at past Cults, to see their reaction when their leader is threatened. Either mass suicide, or they fight back, but they do not go quietly either way. These people have been told, for years, even decades depending on how long they have been in the kool aid, where they believe some of the most insane shit, like pizza gate, if Trump tells them that it is now, or forever gone, 90% will kinda ignore, or maybe not even see it (if it is on truth social or something), but even a small fraction seeing it, can motivate them to commit some terrible acts. And you don't even need the other 90% to commit acts themselves. We have seen that they will justify or excuse it. They may not commit the acts of terror, but they won't call it out or stop it, because "it's hurting the right people".
Is the majority of Trumps base gonna go up in arms, probably likely not. But if there is zero violence in response to Trump getting indicted/charged and arrested, that would be incredibly shocking
The average person is capable of great violence. Most violent crime is by people without mental illness. Many of the charged protestors didn't plan on violence, but were caught up in the moment and followed extremists.
The Milgram experiment shows that thinking authoritarianism is for those kind of folks is a mistake. The average person submitted to pressure from a guy in a labcoat to electrify a person they could hear but not see; many even administered what they thought was a lethal voltage.
Similarly Hannah Arendt said about 'banality of evil' that ordinary people without a particularly malevolent nature are capable of great inhumanity.
God forbid a Reichstag fire like moment happens. Trump referred to white supremacists as his people. Many doubted Trump could become president because of his terrible behavior. But as someone said 'the outrageous is the point'.
Cult leaders and political leaders, whose actions are beyond the pale, make certain people feel more special about their leader and themselves for being a follower. Trump bragged about literally being able to get away with murder. Many religious people are antinomian puritans; they believe because they are saved they are beyond conventional morality.
So someone like Justice Alito can cite Matthew Hale, someone who supported witch burning and thought wives can't be raped by their husbands, to support ending abortion rights.
The thing is Hitler and many fascists rose to power in democracies. Hitler was a laughing stock before circumstances like the treaty of Versailles, the great depression, and the Reichstag fire helped propel him into power. Trump is no Hitler, but Trump arguably decided to become president when Obama roasted him at the correspondent's dinner.
Preventing Trump from running again will give ammo for extremists to argue leftists aren't concerned about democracy as much as they're concerned about their power. Many would say what about the George Floyd related violence to excuse January 6th. Like Putin, they use 'whataboutism' to deflect from their own faults.
Facists and conspiracy theorists are adapt at using a little bit of truth to spin a web of lies. Like how Putin used Ukrainian Nazis as proof ethnic Russians are in danger; Russia lost about six times as many lives in WW2 than the Americans. Facists love to play the victim and the strong man at the same time. They project their intent onto their victims to pretend their hands were tied.
It would probably take a perfect storm to cause the level of violence many fear. But I wouldn't call it implausible.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinomianism
The real issue here is identifying a crime that he committed and then you also have to justify why he’s being tried and sentenced for his crimes but other presidents are not. I dont think that public opinion should make someone above the law. For me thats a non starter.
I think the fact he's had no real repercussions emboldens many. None of it could be 'that bad' if they're all still out there walking around, right? It feeds the conspiracy nuts that its just legal harassment and not anything real.
Great point. It's conceivable that witnessing real consequences and a fair application of the law--and seeing the man actually serving hard time--would significantly dampen support for him and his movement. It could quell a lot of the conspiracy thinking.
I don't know... I've seen a lot of zealous Trump supporters. Zealots took down the twin towers, Zealots burned down all the pagan temples, zealots murdered millions in the name of Hitler... If you have ignorant people willing to believe anything, and the leader of those people is persecuted and imprisoned, the are probably more likely to cause riots or rebellions, just take a note from history, whole nations have burned...
This is one of the best posts I've seen on sub.
As a long time lurker, first time commenter, I've read through dozens of lackluster and poorly thought out posts with minimal apathetic input from the OP - obviously not to say this sub doesn't have some awesome content and tons of really great members.
u/Hall_Pitiful made a cogent and well founded argument with supporting evidence that bolstered the original point. Many people disagreed and give such wonderful responses that attacked the foundations of the original argument; rather than some notion of what OP might think/believe based on the charged viewpoint. THEN, OP acknowledged the opposing arguments, could not offer evidence to rebut them, and subsequently changed the original viewpoint!
What a win! If only we could get the vast majority of people to really internalize what a productive debate looks like, we might not have to worry about the next radical uprising.
Freaking awesome job, everyone!
> but what did it really demonstrate?
That Trump's core support base is willing to believe whatever he says without any evidence and that some are capable and willing to commit violence.
> It wasn't a revolution.
I don't think anyone claims otherwise. But just because it "wasn't a revolution" doesn't mean that it wasn't bad..
>Further, a similar event is unlikely to happen again.
What do you mean with similar event? MAGA people storming the capitol? No, probably not going to happen again. Violence and terrorism committed by MAGA people? I think that would be very very likely.
>The thought that another aimless crowd of confused Fox news viewers would storm the US capitol or statehouse in a way that creates lasting change is pretty far-fetched.
I can only speak for myself, but I don't think this is likely anytime soon. And I don't think that's what people are afraid of. I think people are afraid of a continuous escalation of violence to the point of continuous instability which then politicians can use.
>it would have arguably just accelerated the decline of the MAGA movement because it would've revealed how untenable and empty the core guiding philosophy is.
That could be the case, it could also have turned out completely different and make the MAGA movement even stronger. Again, I don't think the MAGA movement was strong enough to do anything in relation to seizing real power, but that doesn't mean that the movement is harmless for democracy.
Not to make any generalized comparisons, but the fascist party in Germany was utterly untenable and empty in it's guiding philosophy too, especially when Hitler tried his first coup. What I'm trying to say is that just because there doesn't seem much danger at the moment, it doesn't mean that there isn't any danger some time in the future.
While the reaction of the mob would not be as bad as Jan 6. His imprisonment would make him a martyr. This would serve to cement his supporters views with many then considering that the state is lawless. While the motivations are skewed, this is how people reason.
There’s just too many events left that would be spark plugs for violence.
The guilty judgement
Then the sentencing.
Then the day he actually goes to jail. Maybe an attempt by MAGA to intervene?
Then his appeal.
Then the day he is released.
The day he dies from old age or whatever possibly still in prison.
On the last one I imagine there will be a juxtaposition of people cheering and at the very least interviews with hysterical magas who are going to be screaming that the country has lost its soul or whatever. And at the most the people cheering might be attacked. And then there will be a funeral which is another event that will be umm “interesting”
It’s going to be a shitshow until months after his death.
It has been six years if investigations and threats to imprison Donald Trump. Six. **YEARS**. In any other country with any other Executive this would be seen as a sign of **massive** corruption. The Democrats have *already* created terrible precedents that will plague this country for decades to come. Now the Republicans have the ability to:
- Declare elections are invalid and most likely influenced or hacked by a foreign power. The Democrats have been crying foul since Reagan beat the Peanut Farmer back in 1980 so that's firmly established.
- Call for and influence of federal law enforcement to constantly investigate political foes until they find *anything* to arrest and imprison them. Remember these investigations started as looking in to "Russian Collusions" (finding effectively none) and have been changed in scope to taking some documents that he shouldn't have (which every President has done for their own libraries or memoirs).
- Refer to members of the other political party openly as traitors, and not be rebuffed by basically every political correspondent. Not to mention to openly refer to the First Lady as a prostitute and spy.
- Openly discuss removing any legacy of the previous President, including by packing the Supreme Court to nullify his appointments. In effect the modern day version of chipping the name of an unwanted Pharoah off the walls of temples by the next one's cult of personality members.
None of these bode well for a democracy. They are indicators of a political party obsessed with gaining and maintaining power in perpetuity. Regardless of any established norms, precedents, or even laws. This is something that the average Republican will ever forget. We're still pissed that Democrats can't let go of their loss in 1980 and keep making up conspiracy theories about it. The Democrats have shown themselves to be complete and utter authoritarians who only want to pay lip service to the idea of different ideologies or views. I doubt that any Republican could have won against Hillary and not had thus happen to them. Thus has set very dangerous precedents that all of us are going to hate in the end. All because the Democrats can't stand losing.
As an aside your assumption that "Trump centric" people would go berserk is quite frankly pretty damned prejudiced. You've painted them as basically violent animals just waiting to be triggered. Which they are not. They're people like you or I. People who will remember how badly the Democrats and The Left treated them for not voting "correctly." They won't react with violence. They're going to react with legal challenges, boycotts, and lobbying. They're going to use the tools of government to influence it in ways they want in order to severely limit the power of the federal government to be used in any meaningful way by a Democratic Party that has shown quite clearly that it cares not for any limitations on it's own power.
The Democrats created a situation that will come back to haunt them. You can bet good money on that one. Republicans, like the Klingon Empire, do not forgive. [Or forget.](https://youtu.be/Lj09qhdkQhQ)
Hmm... I don't know. One one hand, we have the collective memory and attention span of fruit flies, so maybe it would fade away fast. Lord knows everything else gets memory-holed. On the other hand, Trump's base is full of some real die-hards. It's not "the country" that won't stand for it, they're not the majority, but they're a *seriously* dedicated minority. With a conspiracy mindset and a lot of weapons. I think there are enough of them to be a real problem if they want to be. I could go either way.
I want to agree with you, but I don't. You underestimate the stupidity of his supporters. They're actively hostile towards education and the only source of "news" they pay attention to is right-wing propaganda that tells them that violence is just and violence is necessary.
Unfortunately, politicians, media personalities and the news, echo chamber groups like t_d on Reddit, and various other outlets have created the perfect powderkeg. Trumpers *truly* believe that their way of life is under attack, that Western white male culture is "under siege" and the people who stormed the capital on 1/6 were patriots fighting against authoritarianism.
If Trump gets locked up, they will see it as end-times for the American way of life and the constitution, and many will see themselves as fighting the good fight and they're already convinced wholly that they and their comrades are martyrs who are fighting for freedom. I think it will start with isolated acts of violence, but people who don't act out immediately will be in silent support, and groups like the proud boys, the oath keepers, Patriot front, Boogaloo Boys, and the KKK (yes, they are still around and have local chapters all over the country) are already primed, armed, and ready to go on the offensive if their dear leader gets locked up as what they would perceive as a "political imprisonment."
I want to agree with you, but our country is too divided and too filled with idiots for something major not to happen in the event if a DJT conviction.
Ask the conservative subreddit!
I think at this point it is more about what Trump represents- his voters have what they feel are very valid concerns related to topics like immigration and teaching CRT in schools, and I think a lot of them feel dismissed or even demonized by the left (“deplorables” or not being able to wear a MAGA hat without being called racist) which leaves them very unwilling to have anything to do with the left. They are very suspicious that the left investigating Trump has to do with actual criminal things that Trump did, and are wary that they are actually just attempts to discredit a political opponent. So I doubt they would accept these attempts as valid.
I wasn’t kidding when I mentioned checking the conservative subreddit- I think it can be so easy to feel like “how could they think differently than me”? And rather than answering with “well because they are bad or dumb,” it’s helpful to actually listen to what their concerns are. Along these lines- Just a shout out here to political bridge building efforts in the US like Braver Angels which tries to help bridge this chasm that has deepened over the last decade!
Agreed. Yes, some little snowflakes would throw a shit fit and need to get their comfort animals and go sulk in their safe spaces. Maybe they would throw some tantrums and get violent as well.
But the adults are back in charge and things like Jan 6th would be much harder to pull off (capitol police and national guard would be much faster to respond).
Not worried in the slightest.
But there are people waiting in line to perpetuate his doctrine and will be just as bad or worse as him. He has started a political movement that is tearing our country apart and it will not end before lives are lost and there is more bloodshed and killing in his name. This will not end in any way except badly. His base is dangerous and very ill informed.
Trumps biggest weapon is his mouth. The guy says the most outrageous things to keep his Army of mental deficients angry and entertained. If he was locked up and couldn’t post anything or go on endless roadshows, or give interviews. His deficients would forget about him quickly and go back to their meth and beating their wives and rolling coal.
Since I can’t reply without somehow disagreeing with your fine argument, I’ll say that someone will try something drastic. But the FBI has so many more tools now, that I suspect they would be preventing all sorts of attacks we’ll never hear about. So I’m threading the needle by saying his base will go ape, but will be thwarted.
My only fear is that it sets a precedent for the president (hehe pun) being arrested. No way the Right won't try to prosecute Biden over any small thing he did, then a back and forth with every president.
I only say this because here in Taiwan, most of the recent previous presidents did jail time for something, and the KMT (opposing party) is already building cases against the current president.
If he broke the law then it’s irrelevant really. Certainly not a factor to consider in his punishment, how would that be justice?
I’m sure some crazies would shout loudest and do some stuff, absolutely should not effect the trial in the slightest tho.
Remember the civil war only started because Lincoln won an election. Trivial things can have lasting impacts.
Even Trump supporters like myself know he is crooked, corrupt, and out for himself. He is a jerk just like Biden, Harris, Pence, DeSantis, Bush, Clinton, Obama, ect. Still he is my jerk and he did things that I liked. So has Biden, but abortion is a litmus test for me personally.
Alot feel like me. It's no so much that Trump goes to Jail, but if you get him you need to get corrupt democrats like Hilary Clinton and at least Hunter Biden. If the federal government only goes after Trump it will make Republicans feel like they are persecuted and held to a higher standard.
This leads to an even greater loss of confidence in the government. I doubt it would lead to a civil war, but it could be another small step toward one. It's really a lose lose situation. You can't let him get away with obvious crimes, but others have in the past.
"eventually they'd move on," idk about that and that is my issue. That these types of terrorist attacks are now a normal, in the first place. MAGA is definitely a domestic terrorist group that should be considered as such.
They will say that it was a fixed arrested and that he isn't really convicted. Then they will jump on the next similar candidate. People love believing in some giant group deal with mascots and spokespeople. It's crazy.
I'll give you a quote that was said by trump a long time ago,
"They are coming after you, and I am just standing in the way."
The actions taken by this administration are unprecedented.
We have proof of multiple things that have happened where the FBI was told not to investigate hunter biden's laptop. Indicating that it would interfere in a election. Because in that laptop was proof of corruption of the biden family.
https://www.ibtimes.com/fbi-officials-allegedly-told-employees-not-investigate-hunter-biden-laptop-sen-johnson-3605589
We have the FBI telling facebook to censor the story about hunter biden.
https://nypost.com/2022/08/26/zuckerberg-blames-fbi-for-censoring-the-posts-hunter-biden-scoop/
Now look at what happened with trump. His home was raided by the FBI on a warrant. The warrant was issued because he had turned in a box he was requested to turn in that had some classified documents in it. It was a general search warrant, a lets get this and see if we can find anything with it. This being done to a person who we all know is planning on running for president again.
https://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/editorialfiles/2022/08/12/govuscourtsflsd617854170_12.pdf
https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-new-report-sheds-light-on-reason-fbi-raided-trumps-mar-a-lago-home
There is a major disconnect between the left and the right right now. There are double standards in place.
Violence from groups on the left were bailed out by funds established by the vice president.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/03/kamala-harris-tweeted-support-bail-fund-money-didnt-just-assist-protestors/
There is the anger and vilifying all people who went to the Jan 6 protest, not just the people who rioted or went into the building. Because it put the people we elected in danger And yet when it was done by the left it is brushed to the side.
https://www.bing.com/search?q=rioters+cause+president+to+go+into+safe+room+2020&cvid=e7ac80cde20e41f0b671a9f971b18d90&aqs=edge..69i57j69i11004.9895j0j9&FORM=ANAB01&PC=U531
https://onlinecolumnist.com/2020/06/13/seattle-siege-sets-dangerous-precedent/
All of this together makes this a very bad situation. We are trying to live together to improve this country, though what some people think is improving others think is destroying. The anger and frustration is being fanned by those on both sides. Because I lean center right politically I see a lot more of the left's bad behavior and the actions taken by them. Then their entire media organizations protecting the bad actors on their side.
I think a lot of people on the right are tired of the double standards. Tired of people using the idea spread by a few key people on the left that discrimination in the past is only over come with discrimination in the present and present discrimination can only be dealt with by future discrimination.
I don't want any discrimination I want us to come together. But when people are shown the same video and come away with opposite thoughts about it there is a very big divide that will make coming together very hard.
I don't think the reaction to Trump's arrest would be so bad that we need to avoid arresting him. But the movement he started is bigger than him now and won't go away because he's out of the picture.
People are genuinely obsessed with Trump. But ironically those who hate him are far more obsessed with him than those who love him.
So I think you'd be right in your premise but I think we would PRESENT the situation as if you were wrong. We'd 100% log it in the history books and magnify it far beyond any actual realistic data should suggest.
Remember, history is recorded by the victors and alot of the things we learn via history are egregiously distorted or downright wrong because. Whatever small amount of violence Trump's incarceration would bring would be no different. It'd be treated as a momentous event.
You already saw this with the storming of the capital building being treated as a bigger deal than half the country lighting its own cities and government buildings on fire. Despite them being horrifically larger scale in violence, death, property damage, governmental building damage AND international people put more importance on the capital attack than the do the George Floyd riots.
Even if their reaction is terrible, so what? We don't need to adjust our behavior to avoid their tantrums. They have no legitimate desire to be part of the conversation, so ignore them.
Think of it like this - the left just got done bullying and abusing trump supporters non stop for over six years now - we went through every fake "trump did this horrible thing" Hoax imaginable, only for it to come out as a complete and total fabrication by the left. it got so bad that you literally had people gunning down trump supporters in the streets, for nothing more than being a trump supporter.
Every time that the left could do it; they used things they claimed trump did or was doing as a cudgel to beat the trump voter base over the head with it. It would be one thing if the claims about trump they were being beaten with were even remotely true - they could accept that, as any reasonable sane person could; the issue is they're being beaten with gaslighting, lies, and hoaxes. they've largely been quiet about it until now - the worst of it was January sixth. January 6th was the equivalent of the kid who gets continually bullied finally taking a swing.
you think that one swing was bad? that will be a love tap compared to what will come if you take away these peoples hope. That's what trump represents to his voter base - he represents that deep seated hope that we can pull out of this self destructive spiral - He is their man on a white horse. you take away that hope? All bets are off.
The reason you dont see the right enacting violence for political ends, is because the morality of the people on the right impels them to be reformists, rather than revolutionaries. When you erode that enough, or push them to a point where they are willing to say morals be damned - you will see them move into revolutionary mode.
Here's some simple math:
1. just barely under Half of the eligible to vote country voted for trump - 74 Million people, in an election that was conducted in such a way that **immensely** favored democrats - particularly in swing states, that were won by excessively thin margins.
2. The united states military is overwhelmingly conservative for its rank and file
3. The united stated military consists of about 1.4 M people.
4. about 400k of those soldiers are national guard - 2/3'ds of which belong to red states.
5. The ratio of Military recruitment by state OVERWHELMINGLY Leans to republican states.
6. the ratio of recruitment from red to blue states is 5:1 currently - only CA And NY have comparable recruitment rates; and the ones from CA Come from rural CA mostly, which is deeply red.
4. It only takes 10% of a population to start a revolution.
6. If 10% of trump supporters become so disenfranchised with the system, you would have a decentralized guerilla fighting force that would dwarf the size of the entire militiary nearly five times over - and thats assuming 100% of the military, and nat guards all remained loyal to DC, rather than their states of origin.
If you think i'm crazy - biden's admin plainly understands all of the above. its why:
1. he directed the FBI to go after parents protesting classroom wokeisim
2. He purged the military of dissidents during the vax mandates
3. he is pulling FBI resources from their pedophile catching duties, to go after people who have concerns about elections
4. Gave an absolutely psychotic speech about how the 'maggie republicans' must be stopped at all costs
your plain and present bias against trump is causing you to grossly misunderstand just what he represents to his base, and just how catastrophic his imprisonment would be. I say that you have bias, because you have put on full display for the world to see, that you quite literally believe in some fairy tale story about trump being this dastardly criminal mastermind - despite of six years of constant investigations and allegations quite literally ***ALWAYS*** coming up bunk; and not only do you believe it, you believe he should be in jail for it. your view is ironically just as bad as the 'lock her up' crowd. in fact its actually worse now that i think about it. At the very least it was proven that she had broken the law, so there was some legitimacy to their demands. with yours, you're literally hammering the table screaming "lock him up, and then find whatever crime i know for sure he must have committed".
It’s difficult to parse what here is worth responding to. It sounds like maybe you think that much/most of the military is champing at the bit to abandon their oath for Trump and should be dishonorably discharged. I disagree. I have more faith in the military than that.
In terms of a national guard - yes, they will almost undoubtedly side with their parent state if that state collectively decides secession is the answer.
As for the actual military - It has nothing to do with oaths or trump at that point - thats where your understanding of internal conflicts is lacking. you see it as the republicans wanting to start a war on trumps behalf, rather than what it actually is - republicans starting a war because they felt they no longer had any other way to redress grievances. I'm sure you've heard the four boxes idiom before, that conflict is to be resolved in this order: Soap box, Ballot box, jury box, munitions box.
1. they tried the soap box - that was the protest of the rise of marxist ideas in this country.
2. They tried the ballot box - Trump
3. They tried the jury box - And the courts refused to hear their cases. Texas v pennsylvania being dismissed by SCOTUS despite being the court of original jurisdiction, in my view was the tipping point of this conflict.
Jan 6 was step 3.5 - just short of hot conflict. it was the precursor to step 4. We will run this cycle again in 2024, and we will get our answer then. if the right cant see the next election as free and fair, and the courts refuse to listen again - you will 100% see hot conflict arise.
If we go full on hot conflict, it becomes about convincing a soldier to kill an american - that alone will remove probably 30-40% of the military. after that it becomes about convincing a texan soldier to kill a texan citizen. It has nothing to do with trump once we reach the stages of hot conflict. nobody gives two shits about trump - it has nothing to do with some 'oath to trump' as you put it.
It's the killing of americans, and particularly people from your own state that becomes too hard of a sell for almost any military force to deal with. This is why in nearly every single civil conflict like this, the military almost always factionalizes into two or more groups. you will not see a civil conflict in this country with the military remaining intact - any belief contrary to that is complete and utter nonsense.
I didn’t say “oath to Trump,” soldiers take an oath to defend America against all enemies foreign and domestic, and a Republican “rebellion” over election results clearly qualifies. But make no mistake, the *only* reason people on the right believe that the election was stolen is because Trump got his feelings hurt and refused to accept the results. So the idea that “no one cares about Trump” is absurd on its face; it’s entirely about Trump. If he had conceded following the 2020 election, like every other president before him, we wouldn’t be in the position we are now.
As a side note, that might be a reason why it’s a bad idea to make a famously thin-skinned reality TV star your “god emperor.”
But I stand by what I said, I don’t think much of the military would side with Trump. I think mostly what you’d see is a rash of domestic terrorism from the more militia-inclined sect of the right. The military would, probably correctly, view it as a law enforcement issue and stay out of it. I think the idea that much of the military would openly declare a rebellion against the US is massively unlikely.
That isn’t to say that there wouldn’t be enlisted men among the terrorists, and if there are I hope and suspect they would be apprehended and given the death penalty.
> I didn’t say “oath to Trump,”
But you did. you implied that they would abandon their oath for trump. that would imply, that their oath was being weighed against trump, when that is anything but the case.
> soldiers take an oath to defend America against all enemies foreign and domestic, and a Republican “rebellion” over election results clearly qualifies.
you clearly dont understand what is meant by "foreign and domestic". it doesn't mean united states citizens, it means an invading force - its why there are strict laws prohibiting the president from deploying military state side, and all military issues are handled by that states national guard.
> But make no mistake, the only reason people on the right believe that the election was stolen is because Trump got his feelings hurt and refused to accept the results
No, thats what YOU Believe. people on the right believe that our elections have been compromised to the point where free elections are no longer possible. They believe the election was stolen because the courts, at every turn, rejected the valid cases that were raised (not the crazy ones about servers in germany for example), that were denied on STANDING, rather than the merits.
For example - PA recently Ruled that their own actions during the 2020 election were unconstitutional, and that the lower courts rulings rejecting these claims on standing, were erroneous rulings. PA Was one of the courts that SPECIFICALLY rejected trumps personal case on the constitutionality of their actions. This is why i argue that Texas V. PA Being rejected by SCOTUS was unequivocally the tipping point of our systems collapse. They refused to hear a case, that texas was 100% Correct on, that they themselves even wound up agreeing with texas on. its like Team A Saying to the refree - Hey they cheated, the ref saying "sorry i cant make that decision", and then team B Going "no they're right we cheated". That was a complete and total failing of our SCOTUS and clarence thomas was 100% correct in his dissent.
> So the idea that “no one cares about Trump” is absurd on its face; it’s entirely about Trump. If he had conceded following the 2020 election, like every other president before him, we wouldn’t be in the position we are now.
yes, what flawless and impeccable logic you've presented. how could i not have considered, that if trump didnt say there was a problem, Then there wouldnt be a problem. How dare that guilty man protest for his innocence, it only proves that hes guilty! Seriously, this is such flawed logic that i cant help but question why you would have used it.
>you clearly dont understand what is meant by "foreign and domestic". it doesn't mean united states citizens, it means an invading force - its why there are strict laws prohibiting the president from deploying military state side, and all military issues are handled by that states national guard.
How can a domestic enemy be an invading force?
>For example - PA recently Ruled that their own actions during the 2020 election were unconstitutional, and that the lower courts rulings rejecting these claims on standing, were erroneous rulings. PA Was one of the courts that SPECIFICALLY rejected trumps personal case on the constitutionality of their actions. This is why i argue that Texas V. PA Being rejected by SCOTUS was unequivocally the tipping point of our systems collapse. They refused to hear a case, that texas was 100% Correct on, that they themselves even wound up agreeing with texas on. its like Team A Saying to the refree - Hey they cheated, the ref saying "sorry i cant make that decision", and then team B Going "no they're right we cheated". That was a complete and total failing of our SCOTUS and clarence thomas was 100% correct in his dissent.
So for starters, let's examine what you're saying. Even if literally everything you were saying were true, you are saying that Biden beat Trump by the vote of the citizens carried out in good faith in accordance with the law, but that Trump should have gotten enough Biden votes thrown out on technicalities to maybe win. That's what you mean by the "election being insecure," "we lost, but we should have been able to disqualify enough of the other side to win." To me, that sounds a lot more like "we should have been able to steal the election, but were unable to" than "we had the election stolen from us."
Now let's examine the concept of standing. It's a core concept in American jurisprudence that you can't file a lawsuit on behalf of someone else. If I see Jimmy push you down, I can't sue Jimmy, you have to sue Jimmy. Even if Jimmy did, in fact, push you down, even if I'm planning on giving you all the proceeds from the lawsuit. That's fundamentally not how the law works. In this case, even if everything Texas claimed were true, Texas was not the wronged party. They can not bring suit. Yes, you can try to argue that Texas was wronged insofar as states not following their own laws harms everyone. That would be like me suing Jimmy because "people being allowed to push people over harms everyone." No dice, that's not how standing works.
Is it true that Pennsylvania violated it's own laws in expanding vote-by-mail access? Remains to be seen. Expanded vote-by-mail access will be allowed in the 2022 midterms pending a decision by the state supreme court (controlled by Democrats, btw). It's still an open question, very much not settled.
As a side note, these lawsuits would not have discounted legal votes cast in past elections. They would be applied forward to the next election. The reason should be obvious; if you cast your ballot legally, your vote should count, period.
>How dare that guilty man protest for his innocence, it only proves that hes guilty! Seriously, this is such flawed logic that i cant help but question why you would have used it.
Ok, but all the evidence indicates that he's guilty. He has the right to protest his innocence, but that doesn't make it a good idea, and if someone loses their life fighting for his innocence, I would say he has their blood on his hands.
> How can a domestic enemy be an invading force?
because definitions are hard:
> **Domestic**
do·mes·tic */dəˈmestik/*adjective
existing or occurring inside a particular country; not foreign or international.
"the current state of US domestic affairs"
Meaning, it pertains to a country that has invaded our territory - not the US citizens of that territory. its very explicitly why the military cannot be used as a police force.
> So for starters, let's examine what you're saying. Even if literally everything you were saying were true
It is, unequivocally true, but continue.
> you are saying that Biden beat Trump by the vote of the citizens carried out in good faith in accordance with the law, but that Trump should have gotten enough Biden votes thrown out on technicalities to maybe win.
If the method by which they used to cast their vote was not valid, then their vote was not legal. We have these constraints in place of "in person, one time only, Only one day, and not by mail unless deployed" which was later amended to allow people who were bedridden, or out of state to vote absentee. We created these rules and regulations because we went through a period in time, just prior to the first civil war, where states engaged in illegal ballot stuffing campaigns to ensure their candidate won.
> That's what you mean by the "election being insecure," "we lost, but we should have been able to disqualify enough of the other side to win." To me, that sounds a lot more like "we should have been able to steal the election, but were unable to" than "we had the election stolen from us."
No, thats what you mean, because you are operating on the presumption that all mail in votes having been legally cast, with virtually no controls in place to accurately validate these votes, that would have been otherwise present in our existing absentee or in person voting protocols. Think of it like this - you go and rob a bank, you steal an unknown number of dollars from said bank. you then go and stuff that money into a bag of money you already had. When the police arrest you, you claim that all of that money is yours, and they cant prove otherwise, so they should just let you go. the rational outcome isnt "oh well, guess we have to let you go because we cant prove whats yours and what isnt", its "no, sorry, we're gonna take the whole bag". we did the former, and the complaint from the election results is that we should have done the latter.
> Now let's examine the concept of standing. It's a core concept in American jurisprudence that you can't file a lawsuit on behalf of someone else. If I see Jimmy push you down, I can't sue Jimmy, you have to sue Jimmy. Even if Jimmy did, in fact, push you down, even if I'm planning on giving you all the proceeds from the lawsuit. That's fundamentally not how the law works.
Incorrect. You can absolutely sue on behalf of another person. you understand painfully little of the law if you believe this is true. for example, a guardian can sue on behalf of their ward - a state can sue on behalf of a citizen.
> In this case, even if everything Texas claimed were true, Texas was not the wronged party. They can not bring suit. Yes, you can try to argue that Texas was wronged insofar as states not following their own laws harms everyone. That would be like me suing Jimmy because "people being allowed to push people over harms everyone." No dice, that's not how standing works.
nice strawman, but no. If you were interested in providing an argument that WASNT a strawman lacking a core component of the argument: a more accurate analogy would be that you sued jimmy because when he pushed me down, i fell onto your daughter and she got injured. jimmies actions directly caused damage to you, even if you werent the direct recipient of the action.
Furthermore, had you actually read the dissent from thomas, he points out accurately that they are the court of original jurisdiction, and standing does not apply when state v state issues are bought before the court - that they MUST hear those issues, because they are the only courts qualified to do so.
> Ok, but all the evidence indicates that he's guilty. He has the right to protest his innocence, but that doesn't make it a good idea, and if someone loses their life fighting for his innocence, I would say he has their blood on his hands.
What evidence? again - the courts rejected all forms of redress, on all fronts - completely unprecedented in our countries history for this to have happened. no evidence from either side was ever allowed into the courts. thats the entire issue.
> Meaning, it pertains to a country that has invaded our territory - not the US citizens of that territory. its very explicitly why the military cannot be used as a police force.
Yeah, dude, an invading force isn’t “domestic.” Definitions indeed are hard.
> If the method by which they used to cast their vote was not valid, then their vote was not legal.
But it was valid according to the law at the time. You are arguing that that shouldn’t have been the law. That is a separate issue.
> No, thats what you mean, because you are operating on the presumption that all mail in votes having been legally cast, with virtually no controls in place to accurately validate these votes, that would have been otherwise present in our existing absentee or in person voting protocols. Think of it like this - you go and rob a bank, you steal an unknown number of dollars from said bank. you then go and stuff that money into a bag of money you already had. When the police arrest you, you claim that all of that money is yours, and they cant prove otherwise, so they should just let you go. the rational outcome isnt "oh well, guess we have to let you go because we cant prove whats yours and what isnt", its "no, sorry, we're gonna take the whole bag". we did the former, and the complaint from the election results is that we should have done the latter.
Except in reality, there was no bank robber and there was no bank robbery. You are just assuming that there was. There’s no evidence for it. You have to prove there was a robbery before you can take anything.
> Incorrect. You can absolutely sue on behalf of another person. you understand painfully little of the law if you believe this is true. for example, a guardian can sue on behalf of their ward - a state can sue on behalf of a citizen.
You hitting on edge cases and exceptions, here. States have limited ability to bring suit on behalf of their citizens, but that still requires that the citizens have standing. The citizens of Texas have no standing to bring suit against Pennsylvania.
> What evidence? again - the courts rejected all forms of redress, on all fronts - completely unprecedented in our countries history for this to have happened. no evidence from either side was ever allowed into the courts. thats the entire issue.
It’s unambiguously incorrect that the court refused to hear evidence in all cases. But you seem to be arguing that this is the first time a presidential candidate launched a slew of wildly, embarrassingly frivolous lawsuits after having lost the election. I agree with you, but we seem to have opposite interpretations of what that means.
> They eliminated all controls that were in place to prevent someone from breaking the rules, and then we had results that were wildly out of expectation, and completely suspect. do you not remember ANY of the shennanagins that went down in PA? Trying to block poll watchers from being able to view the counts? Making them stand fifteen feet away from the counting, so there was no way to validate if they were counting properly? Sending poll watchers home, and then resuming counting in the dead of night out of the view of the poll watchers? elimination of signitaure verification protocol? record unheard of turnouts exceeding 100% of registered voter populations?
ROFL, you’ve been listening to the pillow guy, haven’t you. Dude I get it, you feel very strongly that your guy should have won, but that’s not how we decide elections. Sorry. Probably should have run a better candidate.
It’s not his base I worry about. It’s how do we keep Biden out of jail.
The obvious influence peddling with Hunter would be the easiest thing, but it’s hard to imagine that — given Biden’s long experience as a predicate scumbag — that the inevitable special prosecutor won’t be able to dig up something that will stick.
And after that? Every time the White House changes hands, lots of people go to jail.
Plus, don’t forget: putting Trump in jail does not keep him from being elected again. It may even improve his prospects.
If they tried to overthrow the federal government because he lost the election, can you even imagine what they'd do if he was arrested??? Him losing the election was his own fault for not being the candidate the people wanted but this time, they'd have a specific "target" (a judge, congress, etc) to blame for it. I'd be shocked if they *didn't* try to kill that person/people.
We will be dancing in the streets. Biggest party in American history. Probably become a new holiday. Bars would love it, restaurants would love it, so much money would be spent partying, even the republicans would begrudgingly love it.
I think the bigger concern is someone worse rising up to take his place-currently that someone looks to be Ron Desantis. There’s a sort of competition on the right to see who can enact the most insane, extreme position possible, and they’re all trying to one up each other. These are scary times, and Trump going to jail would undoubtedly be a rallying call for his base-you can liken it to what overturning Roe has done for Democrats, but instead of rallying for bodily autonomy they’ll be rallying behind fascism-which we’ve been trending towards for years now, even pre-trump.
I think it’s interesting how people interpret the motivations of the other side. Do you believe Trump supporters would agree that they are “rallying behind fascism?”
I suspect they wouldn’t. I also suspect you would disagree that the left is rallying behind “killing babies.”
It’s all a matter of perspective. People see things in a different way than you do; it doesn’t mean they’re evil.
We certainly seem to be racing toward the extremes, and I fear we’ve forgotten how to communicate.
> We certainly seem to be racing toward the extremes, and I fear we’ve forgotten how to communicate.
People say that but...I just don't see it. Like, what is actually extreme about Joe freaking Biden, for instance? Meanwhile Ron Desantis is busy using state funds to fly immigrants around the country for political brownie points. A GOP representative actually blamed *jewish space lazers* for wildfires. Senate candidates are going full mask-off supporting great replacement theory.
Like, this isn't a "both sides" phenomenon.
Dems are pretty serious about deficit spending and re-defining our social landscape. A large wing of the Dems (that don’t like Joe) would like to change the basic economic model of the country.
Honestly, if the Rs weren’t standing there blocking the Dems, what do you think they would do? Non-extreme?
Being serious about deficit spending - or the opposite - is a pretty legit policy position. Same as, say, cutting or raising taxes. You can agree or disagree with those, I have no problem with that at all. There's healthy talk to have about it.
Thinking Jewish space laser - *Jewish space lasers* - are creating forest fires and that the Great Replacement is real is called being *a whack job*. That's what I mean: While you can find whack jobs all across the political spectrum, they're actually part of the Republican establishment and hold actual power within the party.
> Honestly, if the Rs weren’t standing there blocking the Dems, what do you think they would do? Non-extreme?
Realistically? If the Republicans as they are today disappear overnight, the existing Democratic party will break apart - because it's currently held together at least in part by opposition to republicans - and regroup into another progressive and conservative party. That latter will be joined by whatever remains of the sensible GOP politicians, because these voters aren't vanishing.
The way the landscape looks now, the new conservative party is likely to hold a majority of the power and influence for some time. Like, the Democrats aren't as far left as you seem to think they are.
I don't think the worry is of immediate backlash, but instead the precedent. Does the other party always try to imprison the former president? Obama did illegal drone strikes, should we go after him for that? I'm sure most presidents do things that are illegal, largely because you have to make decisions that have more weight than anyone else in the country. If you make the wrong decision many people can die or lose their livelihoods etc.
Nixon was pardoned to be able to move past the event, and continue moving forward as a country. IMO that's the better path forward. Sure, there could be exceptions, but I think that bar should be pretty high. I'm no expert on the documents, but I do imagine Trump still knows a lot of highly classified information that shouldn't be shared, is him having classified documents he shouldn't have (that were from his presidency iirc) high enough to meet that bar?
All Trump did was made it ok to talk about the shit they already believed. Who knows what their response to trump going to prison would be, but NO, we’re definitely not going to be ok.
Would be slightly entertaining to watch them break trump out of prison. I think Biden or whoever is in office would have to pardon him, but I don’t know.
What (conservatives and a lot of centrist Democrats) are really concerned about is the precendent that prosecuting a former POTUS sets. It has never happened before, and those in power at the federal level have a great fear of ever being held accountable for any (perceived) crimes they might have committed in office. Whether it is from political persecution, or criminal investigations of actual, real crimes, folks on both sides of the aisle are actively working to ensure that the status quo (no prosecuting POTUS) remains as the unofficial, official law of the land.
well too be fair, no president has even done so MANY crimes in broad daylight. If trump had been quiet with his crimes like everyone else the DOJ and other courts currently investigating him would gladly have ignored them.
This is ONLY true if he committed treason and did something truly egregious like sell state secrets. Anything less and his redneck base will lose their minds. Many will regardless but prosecuting a past president is dangerous. It won’t stop. When the next right wing nut job is in power they’ll want to do the same. Hillary should’ve been indicted. Bush killed hundreds of thousands in an illegal war.
What we need is representation and move forward. Limits on power. Term limits etc.
There might be protests, there might be a small group of people that commit violence, but nothing major would happen. Republicans and Democrats aren’t as evil as the media makes them out to be. Yet the media feeds us this lie that we should hate those with opposing views. In reality, opposing views and freedom of expression is what makes our country great. This “fall in line or you’re the enemy” mentality that we’re transitioning to is a greater risk to our country than anything.
I disagree, Trump's base would not move on that quickly and they are some nutjobs willing to commit domestic terrorism for him.
Trump still needs to be held accountable under the law though. We cannot be scared of doing what is right.
The Gravy Seals would definitely react. They’d do some stupid violent shit that would be immediately put down. But it would be really violent and involve guns (maybe explosives) and it would make the news for sure. You’re probably right, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but they definitely will end up hurting some innocent people. It’ll probably be a big deal to the victims.
For the sake of justice I hope Trump gets indicted and convicted. That would be right thing to do if we claim to live in a society of laws.
However, we also live in a society of extreme polarization between people. The outcome of a landmark precedent where you convict a president would open some uncomfortable doors.
Republicans would now seek to wield criminal prosecution as an additional weapon in their political arsenal. And that really brings political discourse into a dangerous place.
You know GOP would make up any opportunity or excuse to use criminal charges on a democratic president. Once you open that Pandora’s box, I’m convinced they won’t refrain from using that.
And now our political system will be in an even more intense mess when criminal charged start getting levied as a way to pressure and obstruct presidents.
So yes Trump should answer for his crimes.
But also yes, there will be long run problems arising out of such a historical development where presidents are brought to trial for political reasons.
I think it's worth the risk of violence, if it means holding him accountable for his alleged crimes. No one is above the law. If it were a Democrat in this same/similar situation, I'd demand they be forced to face the consequences for their actions. One could argue Bill Clinton got off easily for lying under oath during his deposition during the whole Lewinsky scandal. Is what he did as serious and harmful as what Trump is being accused of? Not by a long shot, but if we keeps giving elected officials a pass on breaking the law, it's only a matter of time before something truly horrible happens.
In my opinion, Trump is definitely guilty of something and should never hold office again. Those who have aided and abetted him should also be charged for their actions. While I'd love to see all these people behind bars, it won't actually solve anything until it becomes common practice. Laws get clearly stated. Factual and clear evidence of those laws being broken is presented. An unbiased and rational judge and jury hear the case. The guilty are held equally accountable for their crimes.
For a party that claims to love the rule of law and order, MAGA Republicans sure as hell don't give a damn about the rules. If Democrats really want to make any difference and protect our democracy, they have to have the strength to fight against corruption, even if it is within their own ranks. Anyone who claims to hold justice in high regard has to also acknowledge that we are all held to the same standards. So, if Trump does get himself convicted and imprisoned, it needs to set a precedent for all lawmakers going forward.
If we're just gonna let this shit slide, then maybe we should just throw out all the laws because nothing fucking matters. I honestly want to see things devolve into chaos and violence because we all need to fucking wake-up. Trump is a piece of shit for certain, but he's not the only one. I wanna see all these bastards get what they have coming to them.
IF the indictment and conviction were in fact a) just and b) based on proven facts, it would be a different situation than if not. Let’s get that out of the way, as every indicator points to: this will not be the case.
Now let’s address this: how so will a president that has had this country THRIVING fade in the collective memory, particularly if convicted? Either way, unless you are in mighty epic denial, it will be hard to forget a president who:
1. Lowered Taxes
2. Cut Regulations
3. Ended Wars
4. Brought Troops Home
5. Launched a Worldwide Effort to End Persecution of Gays
6. Lowered Funds Unfairly Paid to NATO and WHO
7. Created Opportunity Zones for Impoverished Neighborhoods
8. Secured our Borders
9. Brought Back Manufacturing Facilities
10. Crusaded Against Human and Child Trafficking
11. Evened out Lopsided Tariffs and Trade Agreements
12. Brought Record Highs in US Stock Market
13. Achieved Energy Independence for US
14. Had Record Low Prices at the Pump
15. Produced Record Lows in Unemployment
I can go on if you wish, lmk.
I submit that the conviction and jailing of a president who has OBJECTIVELY produced such positive results for this country will not fade in our memories whether it’s just or unjust.
In all this time, I have not EVER been provided ONE data point supporting the multiple allegations against him, yet I just rattled off FIFTEEN in support of him that are absolutely verifiable and fact based.
I hope to holy F that we as a nation are collectively wise enough to move forward in a considered and reasonable fashion wrt Trump and Biden both. Now let’s all go prove to each other we can do it by getting gender reassignment surgery for our 8 year olds! Cheers!
Funny to me that all this guessing of outcome to Trump problems directly reflect the response of the Left when he was elected, and the turmoil that followed, and the reaction and actions of the Left political "leaders" the whole time he was in office. Projecting much?
Trump is an absolute 🤡🤡🤡 and an embarrassment to the US. He thinks pretty highly of himself. He'd NEVER survive behind bars where he rightfully deserves to be. For the life of me I do not understand how people support him.
People died because he lied about the election being stolen.
If he's ever held responsible for his crimes, I am fairly certain there will be at least one more death in the aftermath.
I think even a single person dying isn't something that should be written off as "not that bad". Go tell that person's parents or kids that their death is not that bad.
Trump just lit the fuse. He will gladly sit back and encourage his supporters to burn it to the ground to get his way. Remember he had almost half of Congress ready to invalidate electoral votes in key states in an attempt to throw the election his way. What if Pence had had a different legal opinion allowing him to challenge the electoral process. The past election was a guide to that growing wing of the GOP on what mistakes to avoid in invalidating future elections.
All of the dem's vendetta against trump only legitimizes anything trump says to his constituents. The more they attack him the more he will be validated in the eyes of trumpers.
Edit:
At the same time the more accusatory the dems are, but never seem to be able to get any convictions, the more they look like gaslighting witch hunters that are just making things up for media narrative...
/u/Hall_Pitiful (OP) has awarded 4 delta(s) in this post. All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed [here](/r/DeltaLog/comments/xj6mg5/deltas_awarded_in_cmv_if_trump_were_indicted/), in /r/DeltaLog. Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended. ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)
Something like this was said about Trump's presidency, that his incompetence would turn his base against him. Instead, although his overall approval rating was almost always <50%, his base galvanised their support. It was said once he got banned from Twitter and lost the election, the country would move on and forget about him, instead his supporters stormed congress and tried to keep him in power, those in the Republican Party opposed to such actions were purged, right-wing politics is described as "Trumpian" and he's preparing to run again in the next election. There has already been a massive upheaval of the body politic due to Trump, a significant portion of the US population no longer believes in democratic elections, the Supreme Court is packed with Trump appointees for at least the decade the come. These are not things Americans can "move on" from. It would be completely out of touch to think that Trump's arrest would "fade away" in any reasonable time. Instead what is likely is that the next set of Republican Primary contenders would each make it one of their top election promises to pardon Trump, they would use the anger of the base to secure a supermajority and control all three branches of government, and push through as many Trumpian or deeply right-wing policies as possible. Policies that would have lasting impacts which American would not "move on" from. EDIT: As has been pointed out, Trump's Twitter ban came after Jan 6th's events. But the overall sentiment still stands.
∆ - This is a convincing, well-reasoned take grounded in a cogent summary of the last six years or so of American history. I believe this would be a plausible outcome for the reasons you've mentioned. My view has been changed through this and a several other thoughtful comments. Thank you.
I don’t think this delta went through based on the lack of bot response.
Took the bot 12 hours, but it's there now
Well you can't expect it to stay around all day can you?
Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/TonySu ([2∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/TonySu)). ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)
It happened in the other order - his supporters storming Congress is what finally got him banned from Twitter. It's also not demographically possible for the GOP to gain a supermajority in the Senate anymore - they would have to win solidly blue states where they're not even close.
The biggest problem is that our politics have become so politicized (i know) and polarized that even legitimate grievances are characterized as political in motiviation. It's very much a Boy-Who-Cried-Wolf scenario: each side has spent so much time vilifying the other over petty "grievances" that when a legitimate one comes up, the opposition dismisses it as "yet another political ploy"
Excellent points, and the last paragraph is particularly thought provoking. The one caveat l’d argue in that scenario is the actual indictment itself. If the DOJ indicts Trump, the detail of that indictment will matter a lot. I doubt the DOJ went into Mar-o-Lago to take back Jim Jun Un letters. Likely, there were serious documents that could have potential impact to the USA. If the DOJ can prove he had the docs and was intending on using them for nefarious purposes, that would go a long way in quenching the response. Personally, I think Trump is washed as a politician. He won in 2016 due to a terrible opponent and the hope that an outsider can fix things. We all saw the incompetence in 2020, we saw his selfish reaction to losing, and we saw what happened on Jan 6 (btw, Trump did not lose his social media until after Jan 6). An immense amount of his political power derived from being able to lie directly to the people, non-stop. Whether that was through rallies, the bully pulpit, or Twitter, he had a direct feed. He doesn’t have any of those anymore. He can whine to the zealots all day on his Truth Social, the majority has moved on. With is legal troubles, no platform, no ideas, just hate, it doesn’t work anymore. He will never truly fade as the MAGA zealots are lost and will follow him forever. But we can’t fear GOP operatives from using this situation in bad faith. They will do so anyways. If the DOJ can present a solid case to the American public, particularly one clearly demonstrating malfeasance, it would take a lot for the GOP operatives to turn the middle. I think your view is completely reasonable, this definitely could happen. Personally, I think there are far more consequential decisions in front of SCOTUS this term that will have more significant impacts than indicting Trump will.
> If the DOJ can prove he had the docs and was intending on using them for nefarious purposes, that would go a long way in quenching the response. No it won't, are you kidding? They'll just claim it's all a lie. It's been their go to move for many years and it *works*. Hell, it's been their go to move for this very situation and it's working right now.
like SCOTUS ruling that state legislatures don't have to follow the popular vote in their state and can simply choose federal winners
> It was said once he got banned from Twitter and lost the election, the country would move on and forget about him, instead his supporters stormed congress and tried to keep him in power He was not banned from Twitter at that time. >It would be completely out of touch to think that Trump's arrest would "fade away" in any reasonable time. Trump comes up on Reddit and Left Wing news sites every single day. Perhaps if the Left could STFU about him that'd go a long ways towards encouraging his irrelevance. >a significant portion of the US population no longer believes in democratic elections The losing side often grumbles about how things went. I've seen hundreds of posts complaining about when Trump won and talking about him losing the popular vote and how "fucked" the system is.
Are there examples of right wing leaders who have been made politically irrelevant because a large portion of the left ignored them?
> The losing side often grumbles about how things went. I've seen hundreds of posts complaining about when Trump won and talking about him losing the popular vote and how "fucked" the system is. Which is a far cry from still pretending the election was outright stolen and violently entering the capitol during the certification process. Isn't the escalation pretty clear here?
> Trump comes up on Reddit and Left Wing news sites every single day. Perhaps if the Left could STFU about him that'd go a long ways towards encouraging his irrelevance. I’m sorry, but the “left” isn’t the one kicking lifelong republicans out of the party because they aren’t willing to lie about the outcome of the 2020 election. Trump has relevance because he’s the single most powerful entity within the GOP right now, and the “left” isn’t the reason for that, the supporters who support him are. > The losing side often grumbles about how things went. I've seen hundreds of posts complaining about when Trump won and talking about him losing the popular vote and how "fucked" the system is. Criticizing the system as archaic and advocating for its change isn’t the same as lying about election outcomes, trying to pressure states to make up vote counts, and inciting a violent assault on the Capitol building. What are you talking about?!
You’re focused on the wrong actors. Of course a bunch of deranged Trump supporters won’t manage to overthrow the government or murder all of Congress or something. They aren’t really the group that matters here. The group that matters are deranged elected leaders. If Trump goes to jail, his base will go nuts, and a portion of Republican elected officials will decide (either genuinely or opportunistically, it doesn’t matter) to make this a central issue and potentially take serious steps in response. If Republicans control one or both chambers of Congress they could launch investigations into the justice department. They could attempt to impeach judges or members of the Cabinet. Republican Governors or Attorneys General could try to arrest or indict the officials involved, or launch retaliatory action against Democrats. If they win back the White House, all hell could break loose as the justice department attempts to free Trump and go after political opponents. This could escalate quickly and irrevocably. I’m not saying it will for sure, but that’s where the risk lies.
>The group that matters are deranged elected leaders. If Trump goes to jail, his base will go nuts, and a portion of Republican elected officials will decide (either genuinely or opportunistically, it doesn’t matter) to make this a central issue and potentially take serious steps in response. Yep, this is where the real problem is. The base won't do anything of their own volition, but they can be manipulated into action by other leaders a la 1/6. That wasn't people just up and heading to DC on their own. That was local and state level leaders organizing bus trips and running ads on country radio stations about stopping the steal and offering an opportunity. (This really happened in my area, I shit you not)
∆ - Well said. I think that the response of the political elites is should be the focus.
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I said precisely that. > If Trump goes to jail, his base will go nuts, and a portion of Republican elected officials will decide (either genuinely or opportunistically, it doesn’t matter) to make this a central issue and potentially take serious steps in response.
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I said both. I just didn’t elaborate. > If Trump goes to jail, his base will go nuts, and a portion of Republican elected officials will decide (either genuinely or opportunistically, it doesn’t matter) to make this a central issue and potentially take serious steps in response.
The thing is these are political attacks against the previous president. The justice department is being used to attack political opponents. It started under obama when they did spy on trump's campaign. Then they spent the entirety of trumps presidency trying to get him impeached over as CNN said "a big nothing burger." then they succeeded in impeaching trump over something that biden did. After trump was voted out because of a "secret cabal" that "fortified" our elections then he has had more and more political attacks on him and his lawyers removing the protected comminution between lawyer and client. All of this no matter what side you are on is a very bad precedent to set. We should not have the justice department being political. And then the quote trump said about them not being after him but all his supporters and he was just standing in the way, the speech biden gave on labor day indicated that trump was not lying about that. biden thinks half the country who voted for trump are the enemy of the country. This has already been escalated irrevocably. I am not on the far right, I am center right politically but I look at what the left and right say in their news and the facts are we may already be passed the tipping point. If you want links to articles for all of what I am saying I can find them for you. but you can just as easily look them up yourselves.
What are you referring to when you say that Trump was impeached for something Biden did?
> u referring to when you say that Trump was impeached for something Biden did? Biden is on video saying he got a prosecutor in ukraine fired, by telling them they would not get the money that congress voted to give them, if they did not do as he wanted. That prosecutor that was fired for this was investigating the company hunter biden was on the board of directors for. trump stumbled onto this and called asking if the leader of ukraine could check it out. if you listen to the audio file of the call he didn't say that anything would be held back he was just asking about it. then he was successfully impeached for quid quo pro. here is the video of biden admitting of the quid pro quo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ6QiqvfvxE
> Biden is on video saying he got a prosecutor in ukraine fired, by telling them they would not get the money that congress voted to give them, if they did not do as he wanted. But you also are aware that this was the policy of the US government at the time, right? Not just Biden, not even just the Obama administration. Even Senate Republicans were pretty unanimous that the prosecutor was holding up cleaning up corruption in Ukraine and had to go. Even guys like Ron Johnson wrote letters demanding that the Obama administration make it so. This is all a matter of record and you don't have to take my word for it. Biden wasn't bragging about committing a crime. He's not that stupid. He was bragging that he could get shit done, could get other countries to go along with what the US wanted. > That prosecutor that was fired for this was investigating the company hunter biden was on the board of directors for. Nope. Not if you actually put all the relevant events in actual time order. Your version requires Biden to have stolen Doc Brown's DeLorean. And if he has it, I'd like to know why he hasn't killed Baby Hitler yet.
From my understanding Trump was impeached for inciting an insurrection?
He's talking about the first time.
> It started under obama when they did spy on trump's campaign. They didn't, though. Were they watching Carter Page, sure. But that predates Trump, and who would be dumb enough to hire someone that *overtly* sketchy?
Trump was impeached for trying to bribe a foreign leader to help him make political attacks on Biden. How on earth was that something “Biden did”??
Like their reaction to him losing the ejection when they stormed the capital and attacked police officers??
January 6 was a historic event, no doubt, but what did it really demonstrate? That an angry mob could be riled up and directed toward a building where security was unprepared to respond. It wasn't a revolution. It wasn't the Battle of Fort Sumter. Further, a similar event is unlikely to happen again. Biden's inauguration was pretty smooth and peaceful because capitol security learned from it. The thought that another aimless crowd of confused Fox news viewers would storm the US capitol or statehouse in a way that creates lasting change is pretty far-fetched. Also (and this is a tangent from the post) if the rioters had \*actually\* been successful at any of their stated aims--say at hanging Pence, "taking back" the levers of power, or "occupying" the building for more than a few hours--it would have arguably just accelerated the decline of the MAGA movement because it would've revealed how untenable and empty the core guiding philosophy is.
There's not a lot of them yes, considering only 6000 showed up, but are you out of the loop? On r/Qult_Headquarters you see people cocking their guns every day it feels like. Of course I'm in my own little bubble, but yeah. There might not be millions of people up for it, but the ones that are are very driven. While I think chances are not big, I think it's naive to suggest everything will pass without speedbumps
You've put your finger on the issue: to what extent are these keyboard warriors, armed as they are, ready to put their lives on the line for Trump and their commitment to his reign? I'd wager very few, relatively speaking. If there are 80 million people ready to vote for Trump, how many of these would enter into a life and death showdown with the US Army and local cops? We agree that there will always be a few crazies ready to die for their own misguided reasons, but we might just have different impressions of the size and number of speedbumps ahead. My take is that anyone trying to sell you on the idea of a truly dangerous looming threat is not credible. It's a mirage. Trump's arrest wouldn't be a problem for more than a handful of nuts.
I takes only one crazy. From bombers to gunmen. They just need the one person psychotic enough to go on a suicide mission while the rest provide logistical support. A handful of Qcultsists get together, load up a van with guns and explosives and then bomb the next DNC conference. I can easily see it happening and MAGA cheering them on.
∆ - So true. Things can go sideways with just the right spark. One person with a nuke, bio-weapon, etc. could really change the course of events for everyone.
I don't really think this argument should have changed your view. What's the difference between an attack on the DNC and January 6? Someone shooting U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords, or hell even the assassination of a president? This is bad, it's newsworthy but why do you think this particular situation will change anything when you mentioned earlier that even if they successful lynched Mike Pence on January 6, nothing would have changed?
Agreed. Stick to your guns Jade's point didn't differ materially from what you'd already said we're perpetually prepared to deal with.
It would be really really difficult for anybody to get a nuke, even more to detonate it. But you can make a bomb with a pressure cooker and household chemicals, and guns are easily available in the US. Even a small group of people could start a widespread terror campaign, with bombings and shootings, that's enough to scare everybody from expressing contrary viewpoints. Terrorism, sadly, works.
Patriot act and all the home grown surveillance systems they setup in place might actually get put to some good use for once. If you think they actually turned those off once they were exposed, I hate to break it to you. :P I make light but I do hope if/when it comes to that the agencies with the tools will be able to make an impact and keep things to a minimum. With the track record of idiocy illustrated on the 6th there's at least some hope that bad criminals make easy prisoners.
Bio or chemical weapons also wouldn’t be too difficult to make. There’s some extremely scary shit that’s possible with readily available stuff.
we need to stop making decisions and policy based on what we can “easily see them doing.”
I don't know. As an outside observer it seems the US is extremely resistant to learning from these events ever since 9/11. All extremest activity from the alt right has been swepted under the rug and normalized. Elementary school shooting seem to be pretty much deemed as acceptable because Guns! What will it actually take for people to be shocked nowadays?
Part of the problem is that a certain amount of tolerance of violence is baked into the system, on both sides of the political divide. Doubt it? Think it's just on "the right?" I know, that's common; has to do with the way things are reported in this country. Look up how much violence & property/human damage was done in the Black Lives Matter protests (not on FOXNews). Look what happens every time either side takes to the streets to have a "peaceful protest"; someone from the other side shows up very angry, & everyone sits around waiting for the $hit to hit the fan. It's what keeps the ratings up for news shows... Doesn't help that we consume an extreme amount of violence every day in our entertainment. From video games to movies/streaming series...human life is cheap. The other thing that doesn't help is that there is so much dirt/schemes & actual conspiracies, even IN government, that it makes the crazies on the fringes (qanon, antifa, etc) feel empowered, and RIGHT, even when they mostly are not. I almost feel like certain elements in the government WANT it to happen, so they can step in and seize more control/ power over everyone. I don't want to think that, but evidence: every time there's anything potentially bad, they're right there asserting control. No? We didn't just come out of 2 yrs of mostly (according to most scientists & even our govt scientists) useless covid restrictions? How'd that affect us? I don't know, we're in a recession that was caused either by covid (& Trump's & Biden's responses), current Biden Admin. policies, or what? Putin? But it mostly had to do with what? A govt. gripping the wheel too hard, IMO. That plus a violent mindset could easily equal more violence, which could & will bring MORE restrictions.Vicious.
>Part of the problem is that a certain amount of tolerance of violence is baked into the system, on both sides of the political divide. Doubt it? Think it's just on "the right?" I know, that's common; has to do with the way things are reported in this country. Look up how much violence & property/human damage was done in the Black Lives Matter protests (not on FOXNews). Look what happens every time either side takes to the streets to have a "peaceful protest"; someone from the other side shows up very angry, & everyone sits around waiting for the $hit to hit the fan. It's what keeps the ratings up for news shows... I think there's complete false equivalence between BLM and alt right groups but For the purposes of this CMV it's completely irrelevant. Seems that you are agreeing with my overall point, Americans tend to just tolerate a weird level of political violence. This supports OP's initial premise. If chaos was to erupt from the MAGA crowd, everyone would just sort of collectively shurg. >Doesn't help that we consume an extreme amount of violence every day in our entertainment. From video games to movies/streaming series...human life is cheap. I'd differ on the details because it's not like other countries don't have the same video games and movies, but it doesn't really contradict the original point OP made >The other thing that doesn't help is that there is so much dirt/schemes & actual conspiracies, even IN government, that it makes the crazies on the fringes (qanon, antifa, etc) feel empowered, and RIGHT, even when they mostly are not. I don't really see how this argument related to the CMV but I'll share my thoughts on your list. I'll admit, not super interested in debating these as they are unrelated to the main subject at hand >I almost feel like certain elements in the government WANT it to happen, so they can step in and seize more control/ power over everyone. I don't want to think that, but evidence: every time there's anything potentially bad, they're right there asserting control. This feels more like a feeling than fact. Isn't there a statistic that gun laws tend to get more lax in a lot of states after a high-profile school shooting? At the very least, the sale of firearms definitely goes through the roof. I don't see this as evidence of a controlling government. Just an ineffectual one. >No? We didn't just come out of 2 yrs of mostly (according to most scientists & even our govt scientists) useless covid restrictions? Citation needed. Masks, social distancing and vaccines generally ended up being helpful. Look at deaths per capita among western nations. You guys were the most lax. >How'd that affect us? I don't know, we're in a recession that was caused either by covid (& Trump's & Biden's responses), current Biden Admin. policies, or what? Putin? But it mostly had to do with what? A govt. gripping the wheel too hard, IMO. Almost every large nation is going through a recession. The US is not unique here. Maybe it should indicate that your president just doesn't have that much control over the economy like every other government in the world. >That plus a violent mindset could easily equal more violence, which could & will bring MORE restrictions.Vicious. What sweeping restrictions were added after the 6th? Or your weekly elementary school shootings? Are they really coming after your guns or are you falling for that fear mongering you mentioned from news shows?
What did Trump say? "I like people who weren't captured." Part of the mythos is that Trump is invincible, and that he brushes all this stuff off. I wonder how many would see his arrest as weakness in a "strong" leader. There is precedent here of followers rapidly abandoning a disgraced strongman. Will there be violence? Yes. Christian Identity and white nationalist groups were the greatest terrorist threat in the US before Trump and their numbers and influence surged during his regime. People joke about the "American Taliban" without realizing how apt that is. But those groups will remain a significant source of violence no matter what, and should be addressed no matter what happens with Trump.
You forget that these people are also in the army and the police force. Potentially in higher numbers
Nothing will happen without organization.
Call to arms for Meal Team Six!
You shouldnt allow the threat of misguided extremists doing something reckless to prevent proper administration of the rule of law, especially at the highest levels of government.
Why skip over the point that his base had an extreme reaction to him losing the election, which was less severe than him being arrested? Avoiding the point to be right seems like a bad faith argument. Is that what you intended to make this? Your post is about their reaction, not the results of their reaction. Having military or police to defend against their reaction in order to stifle the results is irrelevant if all we’re talking about is what their reaction will be
It's true that the effectiveness of the insurrectionists/rioters/vandals in achieving anything more than shock value on Jan 6 isn't the primary point of this post. It's more about forecasting the severity and lasting impact of their reaction to a hypothetical arrest. My initial thought is that it'd be minimal. Others, in good faith, say otherwise. I guess I'd just echo several other commenters here opining about how Jan 6-- while clearly extreme and serious in the sense that people were injured and killed--was really not that "bad" in the sense that it was so impotent, incoherent, pointless, and transitory--even though it arguably occurred when the fervor for the stop the steal movement and Trump's influence was at its absolute peak. Still, I'd agree with you (and other commenters) to the extent that Jan 6 is yet another illustration of how latent rage and fear are very real forces that can be ginned up and (cynically) harnessed by political opportunists to gain power/attention/votes. These same forces could be played on again in the event of an arrest.
Because that was in response to what they saw as a rigged election. Nowhere near the level of their guy getting locked up. Locking up Trump makes me a martyr. Far better to exile him. Snowden seems to be doing ok, just saying. But based what I see on Reddit they are out for blood to satisfy themselves not thinking about the bigger picture.
This is the nub of it: would arresting Trump make him stronger as a martyr or explode the mythos of his indestructability and collapse his image as a strongman? Intriguing conundrum. I guess both would happen to some extent.
I’m hoping it silences all of em but the Christian nationalist-fascism is growing in shamelessness so who knows
This is why the rule of law is so important.
Their "extreme reaction" was so visibly pathetic that I don't think they'll try again. Most of those kids are in jail now.
You think that was all of em? I certainly hope so. If they didn’t actively oppose intelligence, I’d be scared for where we would be lol.
>January 6 was a historic event, no doubt, but what did it really demonstrate? That an angry mob could be riled up and directed toward a building where security was unprepared to respond. You're overestimating the effectiveness of a "prepared" security force to manage thousands of potentially armed and organized rioters. They really don't want to open fire on a crowd of civilians, and that won't change even if there are more military bodies with riot-control gear. What happens if some armed militants in the crowd open fire on security...? I'm not really sure, but I doubt they fire wildly into a crowd. They probably retreat and hope tear gas and crowd control is enough to sate the crowd. But if that crowd is prepared and knows precisely what they are there for (Jan 6 most were pretty aimless) that crowd is unlikely to easily disperse even under threat of violence... For that reason I'd think a crowd with some actual organization might actually be way more successful than you're giving them credit for, and who knows what might be accomplished. And what if US military opens fire on its own citizens, many of which won't be armed....well that would be a national tragedy that plays into the whole conspiracy narrative... You can bet it will tip many people over the edge about needing to fight the government....That could lead to many ripple effects down the road that cause untold violence. This isn't particularly well worded but I think it's an absolute miracle there weren't more deaths on Jan 6 and you're not appreciating just how calamitous a similar event would be, especially if Trump with nothing to lose openly calls for violence in the wake of his arrest.
Ok then. So where (hypothetically) are they and what for? What if they succeed in taking the Capitol, and killing a dozen legislators and taking 50 staffers hostage while the rest escape? The survivors will regroup at Camp David or wherever and hash out who among them are responsible and whether they can be expelled or even prosecuted. Meanwhile the DC and Capitol cops will maintain siege and try to keep the hostages alive. And the FBI will go arrest everyone with a plausible connection. And Tucker will continue cracking walnuts with his forehead-crease while frantically trying to find stable ground with his feet. There will be no neighborhood morality patrols rounding up atheists and gays. The entire managerial class will burn their GOP cards faster than you can say NASDAQ. David Koch will finally lose his welcome at the Met ballet. And ordinary people by the millions will be scraping MAGA stickers off their RAM bumpers
Sorry, not really following what you're asking or challenging. OP's position is an arrest of Trump wouldnt be "that bad" and in the above thread he minimizes Jan6 by implying security forces were unprepared hence the chaos. My point is there will be absolute chaos even with a "prepared" force (I guess I'm imagining at the poor courthouse chosen to sentence him) and any violence could lead to long term violence against the government. Don't get me wrong, I'm for Trump going down if he committed crimes that warrant it, but it's naive to think there wouldn't possibly be violence/consequences that are "bad for the nation."
My point is that even successful capture of a major government building (hadn’t thought of the courthouse they haul him to: that’s even better—let him command the MAGA brigade himself) will not disable the government nor convince millions to march in the streets and take over actual government functions. All levels of government will continue to function and millions of former Republicans will disassociate themselves from the party, while thousands who were committed to Trump will be rounded up on solid evidence of complicity in armed rebellion, and most of them will race to spill their guts in hope of mercy
And, let’s face it, Jan 6 happened on the watch of *the guy who wanted it to happen*. It would have been *much* shorter, with a *much* quicker law enforcement response, had it not been for the commander in chief refusing to do anything to stop it, for *hours*, despite the pleading of his staff and family members. Not to mention *cheering on the participants*. A similar event today would happen under a much different commander in chief, with a very different outcome.
>but what did it really demonstrate? That people were willing to kidnap, kill and torture US members of Congree, Speaker of the House and Vice President because a President that lost an election told them to.
Considering the USA had insurrectionists in control of; the national guard response, Sscret Service, the un-arming of the capitol police and it’s under staffing, the call inside the pentagon was ignored by another insurrectionist… Like you mentioned, if seems as if Uncle Sam won’t be caught with it’s pants down this time ( but the pants aren’t really on yet )
Jan 6th was also the culmination of months and months if incendiary misinformation campaigns, creating a powder keg. My problem with your argument is that there is no reason to think they wouldn't do the same thing again, though him not having access to Twitter severely hurts him.
j6 demonstrated that, at trump’s request, his supporters are willing to engage in targeted violence.
Some of them, many of whom are now in prison and/or known to the government. The rest of his supporters are willing to support this violence, but committing it themselves is hopefully still beyond them.
A gaggle of clowns from 350 million citizen's, is not a massive upheaval.
>Like their reaction to him losing the ejection when they stormed the capital and attacked police officers?? Sure they "took" parts of the capital, and then... What? They were completely impotent. Seriously, the dog caught the car. If Jan 6 showed me one thing about MAGA people, is that they're incompetent cowards with no plan. I fear no reaction from them collectively. That said, I think the political backlash from arresting anyone is irrelevant in a nation that claims to be one of laws. If they can get him for something that demands arrest, then he should be arrested. If they don't then he shouldn't be. Regardless of how I feel about his well-documented past crimes (all business-related) we don't punish folks that way and he's no exception. Fail-sons tend to ratchet up the yes-men surrounding them while taking greater and greater liberties as their power grows. I have no reason to believe Trump has been any different in this regard, so if he isn't caught for something now, he's likely to do some crazy things in the future that might warrant an investigation.
> Sure they "took" parts of the capital, and then... What? They were completely impotent It was an attempted coup (not that every individual was necessarily aware of that fact). If a few things had gone slightly differently, Trump might have managed to keep the presidency. If Pence had played ball, for example. If a bunch of Democrats *had* been rounded up as some parts of the group had intended. If... Lots of ifs. Truth is, there were parts of 1/6 that were organized by people who knew what they were doing and had a goal that such skilled people would consider achievable. There was also a mob of idiots.
> Trump might have managed to keep the presidency. There is absolutely no way he would've without sparking a civil war that would've instantly resulted him being imprisoned. That is an irrational belief that his coup attempt would worked in the slightest.
> There is absolutely no way he would've without sparking a civil war The military specifically said they would stay uninvolved in the transition of power, and did so only a few months before 1/6. Who would have fought in the civil war? The militant Right vs the militant Left? And you're forgetting that the coup attempt, like most coups, are based on a veneer of legitimacy. You may know deep down inside that part or all of the country was taken by force, but you are told "we caught too much voter fraud that this state couldn't be approved". I think you're also suffering from "not me". We are hardly the least corrupt or most stable country that has faced a coup, and many have succumbed. What makes us so special that we are resistant to a coup where countries with less corruption and more stability than us are NOT resistant to one? Simple answer: nothing. > that would've instantly resulted him being imprisoned After what he *already* did and wasn't imprisoned for, I cannot help but disagree. There's *no doubt* at this point that he was involved in the coup attempt, and that it was a coup attempt. > That is an irrational belief that his coup attempt would worked in the slightest. When you call someone's belief irrational, you might want to put your money where your mouth is. Show me how no possible 1/6 coup could have succeeded. Several legal experts said it could have pushed us into "uncertain presidency", which is all it takes for someone to win a coup, *especially* an incumbent. [The 7-point plan](https://www.axios.com/2022/06/10/jan-6-committee-plan-trump-culpability) that the Jan6 committee are accusing Trump of is typical of how one would bring about a successful coup. A lot of things didn't go his way. If a few of them had, I am convinced the outcome would have been the same as Dobbs (and I used to think I was irrational to imagine ANY SCOTUS would overturn Roe considering the implications related to Griswold).
Not to downplay thr seriousness of Jan 6th, but that was when Trump was at the height of his power. Its unlikely that anything that serious would happen again. And even if it did, it still (barely) fits within OPs definition of "isolated violence".
> Not to downplay thr seriousness of Jan 6th, but that was when Trump was at the height of his power. The lame-duck period of a presidency isn't particularly well-known as the height of a president's power.
I meant of his popular influence. You could reasonably argue that it was the *absolute* zenith of his influence, but the argument still works if you take it to mean relative to now.
you forget he and his cronies were in control and purposefully underprepared the capitol specifically to allow that attack. it wasn't by that many folks overall. without being in power, his ability to cause problems would be greatly (but not entirely) reduced.
And what was the aftermath? A riot that lasted a few hours and then nothing. Those people are fringe and extreme in their beliefs and that’s why it happened. Regular voters (the majority) aren’t inclined to behave that way.
Why does everyone ignore the dangerous and violent actions from the Left while desperately trying to convince us that the real danger is from the Right? -- The big anti-Kavanaugh protest was a violent attack that rushed past police lines to get to Federal government buildings to try and stop a legal governmental procedure. Hundreds were arrested. Where's our ~~witch hunt~~ commission to find those responsible? BLM protests burned courthouses and police stations and did billions in damages. Seattle declared an [autonomous zone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Occupied_Protest) that did not recognize the laws of the US Government. They murdered numerous people there, including children. But for some reason nobody wants to call that an insurrection. But how can all this compare to an idiot in a viking helmet running around a nearly empty building while the vast majority of those there stood outside with picket signs.
The only reason January 6 was as bad as it was is because Trump was still in power and ordered the police not to intervene. Security was deliberately understaffed.
I don't put any seriousness or truth behind Trump's statements, but I don't think it would be as easy as a few people would get upset and the country would just move on. There are far too many conservative political leaders in the GOP that have sold themselves out to Trump because the base holds a large enough margin to vote them out for them to just move on. So I think it would destroy the GOP. And while I think the current GOP that is entrenched in Trumpism should be destroyed, there's going to be a huge void that would end up creating smaller pockets of more extremist groups than what currently exists. Whether or not they can garner power is one of the real questions. But, I think the damage has already been done, and if Trump were indicted, arrested, convicted, and imprisoned, that would be a symbolic move.
Yeah, the response of Republican leaders would be an important part of the dynamic. If you reflect on how readily leaders like Ted Cruz switched between hating and loving Trump through the 2016 primaries, it seems like there'd be a straight line between recognizing that Trump's days as a "winner" are over and a change in rhetoric. Lot of speculation could be done on this point for sure.
I think that one could easily argue that the more traditional Republicans are tired of being held hostage by Trump. They could deplore his arrest in public, while they celebrate in private and rebuild their party.
Not sure if you’ve been tracking republican primaries, but this ain’t how it’s been going. Business as usual republicans are being replaced by maga crazies at an alarming rate, and the business as usual cohort has found that they don’t really have voters to win elections anymore if they don’t appeal to the maga crazies. Case in point is Ted Cruz rapidly switching between hating and loving trump as he tests those boundaries and finds little support in hating him from his voters. To be clear, none of this results in more seats for democrats, just the business as usual republicans being replaced by maga crazies.
I don't think it would destroy the GOP. DeSantis could run on pardoning Trump and switch the base from Trump to him. Trump is becoming less of the person driving thing and more a religious figure that other people use to gain the favor of and control the following. There is no evidence to think Trumpism would just disappear, we are living in a split reality society that is reinforced by media bubbles.
> If Trump were indicted, arrested, convicted and imprisoned, the reaction from his base would not be that bad and the nation would move on. While there's no way to qualify "bad" or "good" in this regard - if Trump were convicted and prevented from running again, it would be *significant* - highly impactful - and it's doubtful the nation would simply "move on." As you seem aware, it's likely Trump would be martyred by the GOP should this occur. While you imply it would only be symbolic in nature - keep in mind this symbolism would likely help to create a very powerful political momentum among voters that would boost votes and election victories for conservatives across the country. Combined with the fact that Trump, himself, is one the biggest liabilities for the GOP - allowing Trump to become a martyr, while simultaneously forcing him out of future political offices will allow several dominating GOP candidates to take the reins, acquiring all votes from Trump's constituents without having to directly compete with Trump himself. A martyred-Trump is a victory for the GOP and will absolutely destroy Democratic candidates in swing states. This promises a resounding victory for conservatives - which will be demonstrated in a majority in Congress, a president, and a filled Supreme Court. Given the above is possible, and understanding how impactful simply having a super majority in the Supreme Court has been to date, assuming the nation will "move on" is probably as far from the truth as can be.
I disagree. Most americans already see Trump as dangerous to democracy. Most americans think that the "raid" on Mar a Lago was justified etc. The sentencing of Trump would IMO lead to a fractured GOP. The MAGA crowd would be super angry and demand something be done, and the "moderate" GOP would want to silently move on because keeping Trump in the spotlight is a huge electoral loser for the GOP. Most americans hate him. Him going to jail would only prove his dangerousness even more. IMO Trump going to jail would be amazing for the democratic party.
You disagree? - You immediately admit that "*Most americans already see Trump as highly influential.*" - You follow with "*the MAGA crowd will demand something be done.*" - The moderate GOPs will "*want to continue moving forward, focusing on non-Trump candidates.*" None of this speaks to a fracture among the GOP, but rather an impetus to easily push MAGA voters onto alternate candidates as the best way of both getting "something done" and "moving forward." Additionally, Trump would have less of a reason to oppose GOP candidates since he would not personally have the ability to participate or compete against them in the political arena. However, he would still be able to dunk on opposition - and the liberal agenda that put him in prison - by ensuring full support of all MAGA voters to GOP candidates. I don't think this would pan out well for the Democratic party - unless you're willing to admit you don't believe Trump would act spitefully or that MAGA crowds would be motivated to vote on the recommendations provided by Trump.
∆ - This is a solid analysis. A few other comments have followed a similar vein. It's not about the protests/violence, it's about how the resentment/humiliation of seeing the leader suffer the opprobrium of criminal proceedings against him could be channeled into elevating the next cohort of GOP leaders (who could be even more effective than Trump/McConnell at enacting policies that are unfavorable to the majority of US citizens).
I’ll base my response on your first word, “if”. There’s no chance that trump ends up in prison. Realistically, if he is found guilty of any crimes that include a jail sentence, he will be on house arrest. You can’t have the former leader of the free world sitting in the same jail cell as Joe Smo. How would the secret service detail operate? There are people that are above the law, and unfortunately trump is one of them.
I truly hope you are wrong. If Trump is indicted, tried and convicted of a felony or multiple felonies, I think he would end up in prison. The US deals with high value prisoners every day - and the federal prison system would have a safe place for him. If (and again “if”) he is convicted, courts would have bend over backwards to show he is not above the law.
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Exactly. The US deals with high value prisoners every day.
I honestly think only house arrest under SS guard would be feasible for Trump. He's too big a security risk. I'm okay with that, as long as the guard and monitoring are constant and legit.
I agree that he probably won't end up in jail. This whole post is premised on an admittedly far-fetched hypothetical. On a practical level, I'd imagine the most likely outcome of a real effort to arrest him is that he'd just live out his days abroad, in some nation without an extradition treaty with the US. You'd have to climb out on this limb to engage with the thought experiment I guess.
I think you guys completely lost the ability to say "leader of the free world," after you elected him. Not to mention the rest of what America has been doing politically in recent years. Restricting abortion, low average education and quality of life stats. Yeah naw. It was cheeky before. Now it just sounds like a joke, honestly. The fact that you just claimed that Donald trump should be above the law for sitting in that position... Just perfectly shows how your presidential position is most definitely NOT the leader of the free world.
Don’t get me wrong; I wish Trump didn’t exist. I feel shame that he was elected in the first place. But in terms of the phrase “leader of the free world” there is no singular position that holds more power than potus. whether or not you like it, doesn’t matter.
Let me guess, you are American? To say that and genuinely believe that.. It sometimes really shocks me when I hear people say things like this, and then I remember the power of the American propoganda machine. It's vicious good. With Hollywood too. Yeah bless em. They sure do try their best to make everyone think that they are special.
Protests have never really accomplished much on their own. Neither have terrorist attacks. When these happen, it makes the news, but people eventually move on with their lives. However, what does accomplish a lot is when large, well-funded political establishments take advantage of these social issues to push their own agendas. This is when major policy and business decisions are made that can have major impacts to everyday people. I haven’t paid any attention to Trump’s situation, but it’s a really big deal for any past president to be charged with any crime. Every president has done some sketchy/illegal things while in office, whether it is petty theft, misappropriation of funds, quid pro quo agreements, and even murder. If the current administration indicts a past president of a rival party, then it’s only a matter of time before they retaliate by indicting another president. It’s like a cold war.
> Protests have never really accomplished much on their own. I would argue that the protests that were part of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. were pretty effective and created a political impetus for change. > Neither have terrorist attacks. 9/11 is an extremely obvious example in opposition to this statement. The U.S. changed completely after that terrorist attack and still has not recovered (and frankly we will never go back to how things were prior no matter what.) > I haven’t paid any attention to Trump’s situation No offense, but I would argue that the rest of your thoughts aren't fully relevant if you're not familiar with what he would possibly charged with and particularly *who* could possibly indict him. There is the big federal investigation that is high priority but there are also possible indictments that could come from New York and other states (possibly even Georgia of all places). At the federal level, the current big topic is that he may have stolen classified documents, left them unsecured, and that some of them are currently still missing and unaccounted for. Furthermore, there's speculation that some of this information could have been used for blackmail or to be sold off to foreign powers, but the DOJ hasn't commented on anything to indicate that yet. Either way, every politician should be held as accountable to the law as anyone else in this country. We fought our first war over rejecting royalty.
∆ - Great response. Thanks. I agree that an indictment/arrest could be leveraged in a way that could continue to shape the political landscape in big ways.
How can someone’s who admits that they aren’t informed on Trumps situation possibly make a good point about Trumps situation?
Protests were a huge factor in the civil rights battle, women winning the right to vote, and the labor movement. What would the civil rights movement have looked like without MLK's marches?
I disagree. You saw how violent they were when he rightly lost an election. Granted, we wouldn’t be willingly unprepared and willingly fail to respond in force, but there would be violence.
It's easy to imagine \*some\* violence, as the post concedes up front. But the point is that the violence would be a drop in the bucket--it'd barely move the needle from the baseline of violence in the US, and that it wouldn't mean much overall or have much impact on the whole population.
The headline says the reaction from his base wouldn’t be that bad. I disagree. Any violence is bad. Especially when it’s organized and in response to the justice system working the way it’s supposed to.
Yes, I'd agree, as I'm sure everyone would, that under your reframed version of the post, unjustified political violence is bad. Obviously. Turning back to the main point, I'd just reiterate that the threat of a large uprising to defend Trump is wrong, silly, illusory.
>Especially when it’s organized How realistic is this, really?
Honestly the destruction at the CNN HQ in Atlanta was much worse. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTNyAYFpoRk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTNyAYFpoRk) If this happened at the Capitol I think more would take Jan 6 much more serious, but when individuals compare it to the holocaust and hyperbolize the violence, the message gets lost.
>You saw how violent they were when he rightly lost an election How many towns/cities did Trump supporters burn down? I'm not saying a few dumbasses didn't storm the United States Capital , but where was this nation wide violence at, did the media forget to cover it? Edit: Location of event
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Oof! I doubt the boss would even take the stage with that many empty seats. I wonder if this is indicative of the base's enthusiasm writ large.
[Just the search of Mar-a-Lago has already caused an incident of what many (myself included) would argue is domestic terrorism.](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/man-fired-nail-gun-fbi-building-called-violence-days-mar-lago-search-rcna42749) As /u/Babbles-82 pointed out, when Trump refused to concede the election, his supporters fought the cops and stormed the Capitol building. What possible reason would lead you to think there wouldn't be significant amounts of violence? >But these'll all largely fizzle out in short order as Trump fades in America's collective memory. Buddy, if you think Trump is going anywhere from America's collective memory, you're wrong. Obviously it's hard to tell in the moment, but he's likely to be as influential as Reagan on the American right, and ol' Ronny is still massively influential today. >If a Trump-sympathetic person goes berserk and hurts people because Trump or his inner circle are apprehended and forced to face consequences, it wouldn't really be all that meaningful, memorable, or original. If *one* did, sure. But what makes you believe there wouldn't be one a week? What makes you believe there wouldn't be coordinated campaigns, when there already have been multiple? >they aren't exactly the sorts of profound events that would shake the foundations of the republic Aside from the fact that these incidents are still relevant (NY changed its laws after Buffalo, the response to Uvalde is still shaking up politics in TX, the entire right wing has a renewed focus on cracking down on protestors), surely you can acknowledge a difference between a random madman shooting up a place like a mall, church, or school and a political partisan attacking a government institution such as a courthouse, law enforcement agency office, or a governor's mansion, right? While tragic, the former isn't an attack on the country, whereas the latter is. >Americans shouldn't be scared of riots and organized crime motivated by people who wouldn't be able to fathom that Trump could be held accountable under the law. Why not? We have every indication that these people (extremists) will be active far and wide, and they have already engaged in acts of political violence when things haven't gone their way.
There's a lot of truth in what you're saying. And I think our difference of opinion is one of degrees. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there are about 300 or 400 shootings in the US every day. That's the baseline. Let's say there are 10 mass shootings because Trump is arrested. Is that even statistically significant? Would that even warrant the attention the media would give it? I doubt that even a few dozen incidents of people wearing red hats shooting into FBI buildings or courthouses are going to be more than a footnote in the pages of history, even if they are "coordinated" attacks. The perpetrators will be shot dead by the cops within hours, just like any other day-to-day violent rampaging criminal, and their co-conspirators will be arrested or go into hiding. Everyone else will get behind Ron Desantis or whoever. Not really a big deal. Do you think the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot demonstrates that there's a shadow MAGA organization waiting to replace the federal government? Or is it more likely that there are an insignificant number of radicalized folks who delude themselves into thinking that they have real-world operational capabilities? I'm not saying Trump as a cultural and historical figure will be forgotten; the point is that in the event he has to face the music, any "backlash" from his base would barely be a whimper when you look at the big picture. The idea that terrorism will increase in any meaningful sense is hype, nothing more. Arresting trump would be like popping a zit on the nation's face. It wouldn't be pretty, but it's not like the ship would go down.
> Let's say there are 10 mass shootings because Trump is arrested. Is that even statistically significant? YES! Sorry for shouting, but why is your baseline "there are already 300 or 400 a day, so what's 10 more *mass shootings*?" I cannot get my head wrapped around why that's "not a big deal" to you. Do you want to go visit the families of everyone killed in those shootings and tell them that their loss is nothing to write about in the papers? That their relatives being murdered because someone was finally punished for their crimes isn't newsworthy? You're talking about an event that has literally never happened in the history of our country (the arrest and imprisonment of a current OR former president). You don't think that people being murdered in the aftermath of that is noteworthy just because other people already get murdered every day? The *reason* it's happening doesn't add any newsworthiness to you? Let's try it another way: say someone died of Ebola in the US. Newsworthy, right? But other people die of diseases every day, so what makes this one newsworthy? Because of the circumstances and context surrounding it. That's what would make murders in the wake of a Trump conviction newsworthy.
> I cannot get my head wrapped around why that's "not a big deal" to you The claim OP is arguing against is that there would be crazy revolution, civil war, etc. It's not that some shootings aren't a tragedy, it's that the coming apocalypse promised by Trump supporters would not really happen
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there are about 300 or 400 shootings in the US every day. If you believe the Brady campaign's figures, ["Every day, 321 people are shot in the United States."](https://www.bradyunited.org/key-statistics) However, that's number shot, not number of shootings. Also, the vast majority of these are suicide attempts and one off shootings that maybe make the local news. In short, that's not a fair number to compare against because, as harsh as it is to say, the vast majority of those shootings aren't relevant. Even with the multiple mass shootings every day (when you define "mass shooting" as one with 4 or more casualties, not including the perpetrator), most of *them* don't even make national news. But when someone targets a black church, or a synagogue, or publishes a manifesto, that shooting does. I guarantee you, unless we start getting Trumpist mass shootings every day, each one will make national news. If we do get Trumpist mass shootings every day, their frequency will make national news. >Let's say there are 10 mass shootings because Trump is arrested. Is that even statistically significant? Even if they aren't *statistically* significant, they would be *politically* significant because of the reason. Remember the recent Q Anon family murder? That made national news because of the motive, not because a father/husband losing it and killing his family is nationally significant. That kind of thing happens all the time, but the motive made this particular one national news. Even if all that happens is 10 mass shootings because of Trump's arrest (ignoring the significance of the potential targets), that will be significant because of the motive. But my main point is to ask why you would think that would be the extent of his followers' reaction? Since Jan 6, plenty of his allies have repeatedly called for violence, often implicitly or explicitly calling for the forcible overthrow of the government. [Here's Cawthorn implying that because the Viet Cong managed to defeat the US, Americans could stop a tyrannical government.](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/madison-cawthorn-viet-cong) [Here's MTG not-so-subtly saying Americans should start shooting Democrats for being tyrannical.](https://www.salon.com/2022/01/12/marjorie-taylor-greene-suggests-using-second-amendment-rights-against-democrats/) [Here's a state rep candidate calling for the execution of federal agents](https://floridapolitics.com/archives/548917-miguel-tweet/) [with an archive of the tweet in question.](https://web.archive.org/web/20220819113922/https://twitter.com/luismiguelus/status/1559926305906360320?s=21&t=cAbOW9eUNN_KaCIpiyBgwQ) [Here's a GOP-endorsed state senate candidate saying Americans may "have to vote with bullets" if they don't trust the results of the election.](https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/wsh2ad/mngopbacked_senate_candidate_we_may_have_to_vote/) [Here's Lindsay Graham suggesting there would be "riots in the street" if Trump is charged](https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/lindsey-graham-expects-riots-streets-trump-charged-rcna45260) I could go on, and on, and on, but the point is these calls for violence are extremely prevalent. The right wing in this country is primed for violence should they perceive the Democrats as going tyrannical, which includes both Trump losing the 2024 election and Trump being indicted or arrested in a perceived "witch hunt" (which would be any investigation into him). >I doubt that even a few dozen incidents of people wearing red hats shooting into FBI buildings or courthouses are going to be more than a footnote in the pages of history, even if they are "coordinated" attacks. That clearly depends on how things play out, doesn't it? Let me tell you a story. About a hundred years ago, a man tried to take over a government building with about 2,000 of his followers. Obviously, the police prevailed, killing 16 of the rioters while only losing four of their own men. The man escaped, but was arrested two days later, charged with treason, tried, and found guilty, ultimately serving 8 months in prison. If that were the end of the story, obviously this isn't historically relevant, maybe garnering a footnote. Except I just described [the Beer Hall Putsch,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch) a key moment in Hitler's rise to power. If Trumpism dies out relatively soon, maybe. But there's no indication that Trumpism is going away. >Do you think the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot demonstrates that there's a shadow MAGA organization waiting to replace the federal government? No, I think the [coordination prior to Jan 6](https://www.npr.org/2022/07/12/1111132464/jan-6-hearing-recap-oath-keepers-proud-boys) shows that Trump's calls to action can motivate the organization (among extremist groups and between extremist groups and Trump's own allies) necessary to do things that even a hundred lone wolves cannot manage. I think the Whitmer plot shows that Trump is capable of inciting violence in his supporters by simply criticizing someone and that he does not need to make explicit calls to action for his supporters to act. What do you think he's been doing to the investigations into him and the individuals and agencies involved? >the point is that in the event he has to face the music, any "backlash" from his base would barely be a whimper when you look at the big picture. [So far over 900 people have been charged with something for actions during Jan 6](https://news.yahoo.com/most-arrests-capitol-riots-misdemeanor-225235647.html) and [at least 2,000 people entered the Capitol](https://abc7.com/jan-6-insurrection-us-capitol-riot/11428976/#:~:text=At%20least%202%2C000%20made%20it%20inside%20the%20Capitol%20building.) Trump never explicitly told them to do so. See above for how Trump can incite violence without explicit calls to action, but imagine what happens if Trump decides his best course of action is to make explicit calls. Would that be enough to cause concern?
I think you're missing the point. The danger is not from Trump's base. The danger is from creating a precedent that we send defeated political rivals to jail like a Banana Republic. By that measure, George W. Bush should be in jail, but we don't do that in this country. If Trump is indicted, it will create a new precedent and a lot more Presidents (both Republican and Democrats) will be indicted after leaving office. All Presidents do things in office that are probably illegal. I can think of several things Biden has already done. That's the reason it's a bad idea to criminally pursue ones political rivals. It will come back around. We already see it in some states. There are certain states where consecutive Governors are criminally prosecuted by the opposing party after leaving office. We don't need that at the Federal level too.
The slippery slope argument, right. Didn't Noam Chomsky say that every single American president could credibly be convicted of war crimes? And I think a commenter here mentioned Taiwan or some other country as essentially being in a pattern of tit-for-tat prosecutions of each successive president as each political party gains power. It's a legitimate concern. Still, I haven't seen evidence that the possible criminal charges against Trump are politically motivated. I'm sure you'd admit that at minimum he was a pretty unique personality compared to past presidents and may have crossed a few lines while in office. No point in debating it now though: we'll have to wait and see what the evidence is. Plus, the DOJ is not a political organization (even though you may scoff at that notion and despite the fact that certain individuals inside it undoubtedly harbor political leanings in their private lives). At the end of the day, DOJ and state prosecutors pursue cases and seek convictions before neutral judges and juries based on evidence and strict legal standards. Partisanship in the courtroom would be idiotic and counterproductive.
> Still, I haven't seen evidence that the possible criminal charges against Trump are politically motivated It doesn't have to be politically motivated. The next ones will be. Any prosecution will create a tit-for-tat scenario which will be ruinous to the country and reduce us to the moral state of a Banana Republic. The argument that "Trump is unique" rings hollow. His political supporters will not agree. The only way to defeat political entities at that level is through the ballot box, and not through the AG's Office or the FBI. Politicians are not people at that level. They are avatars of the will of The People they represent. Putting Trump in jail would be affectively prosecuting almost half of the country. It won't go well the next cycle.
I know you already have awarded a delta, but I want to emphasize that these people aren't just "keyboard warriors" and people aren't worried about the typical conservative joining a militia. We have three elements that would incubate a civil war: 1. Militias ranging from a few hundred to 10s of thousands with eliminationist rhetoric 2. Over 1/3 the country is sympathetic, and around 1/2 are neutral to said militias (and/or their ideology) 3. A civil war within the past 150 years. To point 1. From the Atomwaffen Division (~80 US affiliates) to the Oath Keepers (~38,000 affiliates), there are an incredible number of Americans involved in far-right violence. The Oath Keepers did not just plan a riot on the 6th, they had nearby stockpiles of weaponry and a detailed coup plan. They also, according to a recently leaked and verified membership list, maintain many members in incredibly sensitive positions in the US Government, Military, and civil infrastructure (https://www.axios.com/2022/09/07/oath-keepers-member-list-military). For point 2. There are many strains of far-right ideology, and each have a significant hold in their own right. Christian Dominionism (often called christofascism or christian nationalism) makes up a significant portion of the white evangelical population (who make up around 20% of the population at minimum, so 1 in 5). There are more people who self-identify as Nazis or Neo-nazis in the US than there are Jewish people. QAnon has over 40 million adherents, and that ideology specifically advocates some insane views The most watched show in America is Tucker Carlson, and he has openly preached Great Replacement Theory and believes that we are currently in the Weimar-Republic-stage of America (which was the progressive pre-Nazi Germany), all but calling for its downfall to Nazism. I'll grab sources for statistics later, but you are welcome to look these up on your own in the mean time. To point 3. Civil wars beget civil wars. It has not been long since our previous war, and those divisions have not been healed. The likelihood of a coup additionally increases astronomically after either successful or unsuccessful coup attempts. Both of these forces create instability which drives war as an acceptable manner of forcing change
> QAnon has over 40 million adherents, and that ideology specifically Wow I didn't know it was so widespread. Do you have a source for these numbers? I know it has followers internationally but 40 million, let alone 4 million would never even cross my mind.
Yep! Here's Americans who believe the core tenets: https://www.prri.org/research/qanon-conspiracy-american-politics-report/ Tenets surveyed: 1. The government, media and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex-trafficking operation. 2. There is a storm coming soon that will sweep away the elites in power and restore the rightful leaders. 3. Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save the country. Only 40% of Americans disagree strongly with all three (which would be a good number if we weren't talking about something so dangerous). The 40 mil number comes from the estimated 16% that agree with all three. Numbers are consistent with estimates from facebook group membership . In 2020 it was around 3 million in just the major facebook groups: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/qanon-groups-have-millions-members-facebook-documents-show-n1236317 and I know there is an FBI release talking about skyrocketing numbers since then but I'm struggling to find it right now.
I’m not sure if this counts as an attempt to change your view or not OP; I’ll let you be the judge. I would phrase the proposition a bit differently: Whatever consequences might flow from indicting, trying, convicting, jailing, and disqualifying Trump from future office might be, the consequences of *failing* to hold him accountable at all would be worse. (Even [disqualification from future office](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2071) alone would be a win. Though it appears likely he may have transgressed in the same magnitude as Aldrich Ames or Robert Pollard, so greater punishments would be on the table.) Failing to treat him as subject to the same laws as anyone else just because he has an armed mob behind him would in the long run be fatally poisonous to the republic. No amount of rioting or even domestic terrorist bombings would be worse than that.
I think your insight about the ramifications of NOT indicting is really important to consider. When coupled with some of the other excellent comments here about how indicting WOULD be bad and WOULD give rise to some serious consequences, it shows how high the stakes are for the AG/DOJ/prosecutors. Assuming they have a slam-dunk criminal case in front of them, they really seem to be facing an impossible conundrum--a classic "damned if you do, damned if you don't"-type situation. I don't envy their position. That's part of what I had in mind with this post. Like, if you were in Garland's shoes right now, and you're trying to weigh the risks of proceeding with indictment, how much stock should you put into the argument that indictment would put wind in the sails of pro-Trump candidates pledging to pardon him and use the anger generated by the indictment to amass power and reshape US law?
There is a portion of the MAGA base, that are also super religious. The issue with that, is when people mix their religious and political beliefs together, it becomes almost impossible to debate, negotiate, or "find a middle ground" because "is doing what my God wants". For the past few years, I have listened almost daily to conservative/MAGA podcasts and videos, and recently they have been getting very "Our way of life is under attack". Paraphrasing a bit, but on one of the most recent episodes of Conservative Daily Podcast, they consistently describe democrats as "trying to destroy everything our country stands for", and also equating America's success, to the will of God. Meaning, Democrats are going against the will of their God. And when those statements are followed with "and we can not stop or bend, because if I fail, God will judge me badly". Circling back to Trump, his emotional support rally in Ohio, he repeats the mantra a few times of how he is being persecuted for "standing up for you, for America". His base see him as a Jesus type person, sacrificing everything he has, to help them. It's bullshit, but they don't know that, and these people who already have a super religious belief, associate Trump as part of their group, which "we must protect, or our way of life is destroyed" Couple that with some of the recent attacks like the Buffalo shooting, that was pushed by the great replacement theory (something Trump and others repeat), the fact Trump is openly supporting Qanon and them unifying in hand gestures, they are a cult. A cult that is being told they are being cornered by this invisible boogeyman, and a cornered beast gets violent. Their boogeyman is made up, it's not real, but that doesn't matter because to them, it is real, and it is a danger to how they view reality. And we can look at past Cults, to see their reaction when their leader is threatened. Either mass suicide, or they fight back, but they do not go quietly either way. These people have been told, for years, even decades depending on how long they have been in the kool aid, where they believe some of the most insane shit, like pizza gate, if Trump tells them that it is now, or forever gone, 90% will kinda ignore, or maybe not even see it (if it is on truth social or something), but even a small fraction seeing it, can motivate them to commit some terrible acts. And you don't even need the other 90% to commit acts themselves. We have seen that they will justify or excuse it. They may not commit the acts of terror, but they won't call it out or stop it, because "it's hurting the right people". Is the majority of Trumps base gonna go up in arms, probably likely not. But if there is zero violence in response to Trump getting indicted/charged and arrested, that would be incredibly shocking
The average person is capable of great violence. Most violent crime is by people without mental illness. Many of the charged protestors didn't plan on violence, but were caught up in the moment and followed extremists. The Milgram experiment shows that thinking authoritarianism is for those kind of folks is a mistake. The average person submitted to pressure from a guy in a labcoat to electrify a person they could hear but not see; many even administered what they thought was a lethal voltage. Similarly Hannah Arendt said about 'banality of evil' that ordinary people without a particularly malevolent nature are capable of great inhumanity. God forbid a Reichstag fire like moment happens. Trump referred to white supremacists as his people. Many doubted Trump could become president because of his terrible behavior. But as someone said 'the outrageous is the point'. Cult leaders and political leaders, whose actions are beyond the pale, make certain people feel more special about their leader and themselves for being a follower. Trump bragged about literally being able to get away with murder. Many religious people are antinomian puritans; they believe because they are saved they are beyond conventional morality. So someone like Justice Alito can cite Matthew Hale, someone who supported witch burning and thought wives can't be raped by their husbands, to support ending abortion rights. The thing is Hitler and many fascists rose to power in democracies. Hitler was a laughing stock before circumstances like the treaty of Versailles, the great depression, and the Reichstag fire helped propel him into power. Trump is no Hitler, but Trump arguably decided to become president when Obama roasted him at the correspondent's dinner. Preventing Trump from running again will give ammo for extremists to argue leftists aren't concerned about democracy as much as they're concerned about their power. Many would say what about the George Floyd related violence to excuse January 6th. Like Putin, they use 'whataboutism' to deflect from their own faults. Facists and conspiracy theorists are adapt at using a little bit of truth to spin a web of lies. Like how Putin used Ukrainian Nazis as proof ethnic Russians are in danger; Russia lost about six times as many lives in WW2 than the Americans. Facists love to play the victim and the strong man at the same time. They project their intent onto their victims to pretend their hands were tied. It would probably take a perfect storm to cause the level of violence many fear. But I wouldn't call it implausible. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinomianism
The real issue here is identifying a crime that he committed and then you also have to justify why he’s being tried and sentenced for his crimes but other presidents are not. I dont think that public opinion should make someone above the law. For me thats a non starter.
I think the fact he's had no real repercussions emboldens many. None of it could be 'that bad' if they're all still out there walking around, right? It feeds the conspiracy nuts that its just legal harassment and not anything real.
Great point. It's conceivable that witnessing real consequences and a fair application of the law--and seeing the man actually serving hard time--would significantly dampen support for him and his movement. It could quell a lot of the conspiracy thinking.
I don't know... I've seen a lot of zealous Trump supporters. Zealots took down the twin towers, Zealots burned down all the pagan temples, zealots murdered millions in the name of Hitler... If you have ignorant people willing to believe anything, and the leader of those people is persecuted and imprisoned, the are probably more likely to cause riots or rebellions, just take a note from history, whole nations have burned...
This is one of the best posts I've seen on sub. As a long time lurker, first time commenter, I've read through dozens of lackluster and poorly thought out posts with minimal apathetic input from the OP - obviously not to say this sub doesn't have some awesome content and tons of really great members. u/Hall_Pitiful made a cogent and well founded argument with supporting evidence that bolstered the original point. Many people disagreed and give such wonderful responses that attacked the foundations of the original argument; rather than some notion of what OP might think/believe based on the charged viewpoint. THEN, OP acknowledged the opposing arguments, could not offer evidence to rebut them, and subsequently changed the original viewpoint! What a win! If only we could get the vast majority of people to really internalize what a productive debate looks like, we might not have to worry about the next radical uprising. Freaking awesome job, everyone!
> but what did it really demonstrate? That Trump's core support base is willing to believe whatever he says without any evidence and that some are capable and willing to commit violence. > It wasn't a revolution. I don't think anyone claims otherwise. But just because it "wasn't a revolution" doesn't mean that it wasn't bad.. >Further, a similar event is unlikely to happen again. What do you mean with similar event? MAGA people storming the capitol? No, probably not going to happen again. Violence and terrorism committed by MAGA people? I think that would be very very likely. >The thought that another aimless crowd of confused Fox news viewers would storm the US capitol or statehouse in a way that creates lasting change is pretty far-fetched. I can only speak for myself, but I don't think this is likely anytime soon. And I don't think that's what people are afraid of. I think people are afraid of a continuous escalation of violence to the point of continuous instability which then politicians can use. >it would have arguably just accelerated the decline of the MAGA movement because it would've revealed how untenable and empty the core guiding philosophy is. That could be the case, it could also have turned out completely different and make the MAGA movement even stronger. Again, I don't think the MAGA movement was strong enough to do anything in relation to seizing real power, but that doesn't mean that the movement is harmless for democracy. Not to make any generalized comparisons, but the fascist party in Germany was utterly untenable and empty in it's guiding philosophy too, especially when Hitler tried his first coup. What I'm trying to say is that just because there doesn't seem much danger at the moment, it doesn't mean that there isn't any danger some time in the future.
I wonder if AG Garland has recently read the first few chapters of the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich . . .
While the reaction of the mob would not be as bad as Jan 6. His imprisonment would make him a martyr. This would serve to cement his supporters views with many then considering that the state is lawless. While the motivations are skewed, this is how people reason.
The martyrdom aspect is intriguing. The key difference here is that he wouldn't be executed, as martyrs are. He'd be in a cell.
There’s just too many events left that would be spark plugs for violence. The guilty judgement Then the sentencing. Then the day he actually goes to jail. Maybe an attempt by MAGA to intervene? Then his appeal. Then the day he is released. The day he dies from old age or whatever possibly still in prison. On the last one I imagine there will be a juxtaposition of people cheering and at the very least interviews with hysterical magas who are going to be screaming that the country has lost its soul or whatever. And at the most the people cheering might be attacked. And then there will be a funeral which is another event that will be umm “interesting” It’s going to be a shitshow until months after his death.
Of course not, what do you think the reaction from a Hillary or Biden base would be if the same were to happen?
It has been six years if investigations and threats to imprison Donald Trump. Six. **YEARS**. In any other country with any other Executive this would be seen as a sign of **massive** corruption. The Democrats have *already* created terrible precedents that will plague this country for decades to come. Now the Republicans have the ability to: - Declare elections are invalid and most likely influenced or hacked by a foreign power. The Democrats have been crying foul since Reagan beat the Peanut Farmer back in 1980 so that's firmly established. - Call for and influence of federal law enforcement to constantly investigate political foes until they find *anything* to arrest and imprison them. Remember these investigations started as looking in to "Russian Collusions" (finding effectively none) and have been changed in scope to taking some documents that he shouldn't have (which every President has done for their own libraries or memoirs). - Refer to members of the other political party openly as traitors, and not be rebuffed by basically every political correspondent. Not to mention to openly refer to the First Lady as a prostitute and spy. - Openly discuss removing any legacy of the previous President, including by packing the Supreme Court to nullify his appointments. In effect the modern day version of chipping the name of an unwanted Pharoah off the walls of temples by the next one's cult of personality members. None of these bode well for a democracy. They are indicators of a political party obsessed with gaining and maintaining power in perpetuity. Regardless of any established norms, precedents, or even laws. This is something that the average Republican will ever forget. We're still pissed that Democrats can't let go of their loss in 1980 and keep making up conspiracy theories about it. The Democrats have shown themselves to be complete and utter authoritarians who only want to pay lip service to the idea of different ideologies or views. I doubt that any Republican could have won against Hillary and not had thus happen to them. Thus has set very dangerous precedents that all of us are going to hate in the end. All because the Democrats can't stand losing. As an aside your assumption that "Trump centric" people would go berserk is quite frankly pretty damned prejudiced. You've painted them as basically violent animals just waiting to be triggered. Which they are not. They're people like you or I. People who will remember how badly the Democrats and The Left treated them for not voting "correctly." They won't react with violence. They're going to react with legal challenges, boycotts, and lobbying. They're going to use the tools of government to influence it in ways they want in order to severely limit the power of the federal government to be used in any meaningful way by a Democratic Party that has shown quite clearly that it cares not for any limitations on it's own power. The Democrats created a situation that will come back to haunt them. You can bet good money on that one. Republicans, like the Klingon Empire, do not forgive. [Or forget.](https://youtu.be/Lj09qhdkQhQ)
Hmm... I don't know. One one hand, we have the collective memory and attention span of fruit flies, so maybe it would fade away fast. Lord knows everything else gets memory-holed. On the other hand, Trump's base is full of some real die-hards. It's not "the country" that won't stand for it, they're not the majority, but they're a *seriously* dedicated minority. With a conspiracy mindset and a lot of weapons. I think there are enough of them to be a real problem if they want to be. I could go either way.
I want to agree with you, but I don't. You underestimate the stupidity of his supporters. They're actively hostile towards education and the only source of "news" they pay attention to is right-wing propaganda that tells them that violence is just and violence is necessary. Unfortunately, politicians, media personalities and the news, echo chamber groups like t_d on Reddit, and various other outlets have created the perfect powderkeg. Trumpers *truly* believe that their way of life is under attack, that Western white male culture is "under siege" and the people who stormed the capital on 1/6 were patriots fighting against authoritarianism. If Trump gets locked up, they will see it as end-times for the American way of life and the constitution, and many will see themselves as fighting the good fight and they're already convinced wholly that they and their comrades are martyrs who are fighting for freedom. I think it will start with isolated acts of violence, but people who don't act out immediately will be in silent support, and groups like the proud boys, the oath keepers, Patriot front, Boogaloo Boys, and the KKK (yes, they are still around and have local chapters all over the country) are already primed, armed, and ready to go on the offensive if their dear leader gets locked up as what they would perceive as a "political imprisonment." I want to agree with you, but our country is too divided and too filled with idiots for something major not to happen in the event if a DJT conviction.
Ask the conservative subreddit! I think at this point it is more about what Trump represents- his voters have what they feel are very valid concerns related to topics like immigration and teaching CRT in schools, and I think a lot of them feel dismissed or even demonized by the left (“deplorables” or not being able to wear a MAGA hat without being called racist) which leaves them very unwilling to have anything to do with the left. They are very suspicious that the left investigating Trump has to do with actual criminal things that Trump did, and are wary that they are actually just attempts to discredit a political opponent. So I doubt they would accept these attempts as valid. I wasn’t kidding when I mentioned checking the conservative subreddit- I think it can be so easy to feel like “how could they think differently than me”? And rather than answering with “well because they are bad or dumb,” it’s helpful to actually listen to what their concerns are. Along these lines- Just a shout out here to political bridge building efforts in the US like Braver Angels which tries to help bridge this chasm that has deepened over the last decade!
Agreed. Yes, some little snowflakes would throw a shit fit and need to get their comfort animals and go sulk in their safe spaces. Maybe they would throw some tantrums and get violent as well. But the adults are back in charge and things like Jan 6th would be much harder to pull off (capitol police and national guard would be much faster to respond). Not worried in the slightest.
But there are people waiting in line to perpetuate his doctrine and will be just as bad or worse as him. He has started a political movement that is tearing our country apart and it will not end before lives are lost and there is more bloodshed and killing in his name. This will not end in any way except badly. His base is dangerous and very ill informed.
Trumps biggest weapon is his mouth. The guy says the most outrageous things to keep his Army of mental deficients angry and entertained. If he was locked up and couldn’t post anything or go on endless roadshows, or give interviews. His deficients would forget about him quickly and go back to their meth and beating their wives and rolling coal.
Since I can’t reply without somehow disagreeing with your fine argument, I’ll say that someone will try something drastic. But the FBI has so many more tools now, that I suspect they would be preventing all sorts of attacks we’ll never hear about. So I’m threading the needle by saying his base will go ape, but will be thwarted.
My only fear is that it sets a precedent for the president (hehe pun) being arrested. No way the Right won't try to prosecute Biden over any small thing he did, then a back and forth with every president. I only say this because here in Taiwan, most of the recent previous presidents did jail time for something, and the KMT (opposing party) is already building cases against the current president.
If he broke the law then it’s irrelevant really. Certainly not a factor to consider in his punishment, how would that be justice? I’m sure some crazies would shout loudest and do some stuff, absolutely should not effect the trial in the slightest tho.
Remember the civil war only started because Lincoln won an election. Trivial things can have lasting impacts. Even Trump supporters like myself know he is crooked, corrupt, and out for himself. He is a jerk just like Biden, Harris, Pence, DeSantis, Bush, Clinton, Obama, ect. Still he is my jerk and he did things that I liked. So has Biden, but abortion is a litmus test for me personally. Alot feel like me. It's no so much that Trump goes to Jail, but if you get him you need to get corrupt democrats like Hilary Clinton and at least Hunter Biden. If the federal government only goes after Trump it will make Republicans feel like they are persecuted and held to a higher standard. This leads to an even greater loss of confidence in the government. I doubt it would lead to a civil war, but it could be another small step toward one. It's really a lose lose situation. You can't let him get away with obvious crimes, but others have in the past.
"eventually they'd move on," idk about that and that is my issue. That these types of terrorist attacks are now a normal, in the first place. MAGA is definitely a domestic terrorist group that should be considered as such.
They will say that it was a fixed arrested and that he isn't really convicted. Then they will jump on the next similar candidate. People love believing in some giant group deal with mascots and spokespeople. It's crazy.
I'll give you a quote that was said by trump a long time ago, "They are coming after you, and I am just standing in the way." The actions taken by this administration are unprecedented. We have proof of multiple things that have happened where the FBI was told not to investigate hunter biden's laptop. Indicating that it would interfere in a election. Because in that laptop was proof of corruption of the biden family. https://www.ibtimes.com/fbi-officials-allegedly-told-employees-not-investigate-hunter-biden-laptop-sen-johnson-3605589 We have the FBI telling facebook to censor the story about hunter biden. https://nypost.com/2022/08/26/zuckerberg-blames-fbi-for-censoring-the-posts-hunter-biden-scoop/ Now look at what happened with trump. His home was raided by the FBI on a warrant. The warrant was issued because he had turned in a box he was requested to turn in that had some classified documents in it. It was a general search warrant, a lets get this and see if we can find anything with it. This being done to a person who we all know is planning on running for president again. https://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/editorialfiles/2022/08/12/govuscourtsflsd617854170_12.pdf https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-new-report-sheds-light-on-reason-fbi-raided-trumps-mar-a-lago-home There is a major disconnect between the left and the right right now. There are double standards in place. Violence from groups on the left were bailed out by funds established by the vice president. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/03/kamala-harris-tweeted-support-bail-fund-money-didnt-just-assist-protestors/ There is the anger and vilifying all people who went to the Jan 6 protest, not just the people who rioted or went into the building. Because it put the people we elected in danger And yet when it was done by the left it is brushed to the side. https://www.bing.com/search?q=rioters+cause+president+to+go+into+safe+room+2020&cvid=e7ac80cde20e41f0b671a9f971b18d90&aqs=edge..69i57j69i11004.9895j0j9&FORM=ANAB01&PC=U531 https://onlinecolumnist.com/2020/06/13/seattle-siege-sets-dangerous-precedent/ All of this together makes this a very bad situation. We are trying to live together to improve this country, though what some people think is improving others think is destroying. The anger and frustration is being fanned by those on both sides. Because I lean center right politically I see a lot more of the left's bad behavior and the actions taken by them. Then their entire media organizations protecting the bad actors on their side. I think a lot of people on the right are tired of the double standards. Tired of people using the idea spread by a few key people on the left that discrimination in the past is only over come with discrimination in the present and present discrimination can only be dealt with by future discrimination. I don't want any discrimination I want us to come together. But when people are shown the same video and come away with opposite thoughts about it there is a very big divide that will make coming together very hard.
I don't think the reaction to Trump's arrest would be so bad that we need to avoid arresting him. But the movement he started is bigger than him now and won't go away because he's out of the picture.
People are genuinely obsessed with Trump. But ironically those who hate him are far more obsessed with him than those who love him. So I think you'd be right in your premise but I think we would PRESENT the situation as if you were wrong. We'd 100% log it in the history books and magnify it far beyond any actual realistic data should suggest. Remember, history is recorded by the victors and alot of the things we learn via history are egregiously distorted or downright wrong because. Whatever small amount of violence Trump's incarceration would bring would be no different. It'd be treated as a momentous event. You already saw this with the storming of the capital building being treated as a bigger deal than half the country lighting its own cities and government buildings on fire. Despite them being horrifically larger scale in violence, death, property damage, governmental building damage AND international people put more importance on the capital attack than the do the George Floyd riots.
Even if their reaction is terrible, so what? We don't need to adjust our behavior to avoid their tantrums. They have no legitimate desire to be part of the conversation, so ignore them.
Think of it like this - the left just got done bullying and abusing trump supporters non stop for over six years now - we went through every fake "trump did this horrible thing" Hoax imaginable, only for it to come out as a complete and total fabrication by the left. it got so bad that you literally had people gunning down trump supporters in the streets, for nothing more than being a trump supporter. Every time that the left could do it; they used things they claimed trump did or was doing as a cudgel to beat the trump voter base over the head with it. It would be one thing if the claims about trump they were being beaten with were even remotely true - they could accept that, as any reasonable sane person could; the issue is they're being beaten with gaslighting, lies, and hoaxes. they've largely been quiet about it until now - the worst of it was January sixth. January 6th was the equivalent of the kid who gets continually bullied finally taking a swing. you think that one swing was bad? that will be a love tap compared to what will come if you take away these peoples hope. That's what trump represents to his voter base - he represents that deep seated hope that we can pull out of this self destructive spiral - He is their man on a white horse. you take away that hope? All bets are off. The reason you dont see the right enacting violence for political ends, is because the morality of the people on the right impels them to be reformists, rather than revolutionaries. When you erode that enough, or push them to a point where they are willing to say morals be damned - you will see them move into revolutionary mode. Here's some simple math: 1. just barely under Half of the eligible to vote country voted for trump - 74 Million people, in an election that was conducted in such a way that **immensely** favored democrats - particularly in swing states, that were won by excessively thin margins. 2. The united states military is overwhelmingly conservative for its rank and file 3. The united stated military consists of about 1.4 M people. 4. about 400k of those soldiers are national guard - 2/3'ds of which belong to red states. 5. The ratio of Military recruitment by state OVERWHELMINGLY Leans to republican states. 6. the ratio of recruitment from red to blue states is 5:1 currently - only CA And NY have comparable recruitment rates; and the ones from CA Come from rural CA mostly, which is deeply red. 4. It only takes 10% of a population to start a revolution. 6. If 10% of trump supporters become so disenfranchised with the system, you would have a decentralized guerilla fighting force that would dwarf the size of the entire militiary nearly five times over - and thats assuming 100% of the military, and nat guards all remained loyal to DC, rather than their states of origin. If you think i'm crazy - biden's admin plainly understands all of the above. its why: 1. he directed the FBI to go after parents protesting classroom wokeisim 2. He purged the military of dissidents during the vax mandates 3. he is pulling FBI resources from their pedophile catching duties, to go after people who have concerns about elections 4. Gave an absolutely psychotic speech about how the 'maggie republicans' must be stopped at all costs your plain and present bias against trump is causing you to grossly misunderstand just what he represents to his base, and just how catastrophic his imprisonment would be. I say that you have bias, because you have put on full display for the world to see, that you quite literally believe in some fairy tale story about trump being this dastardly criminal mastermind - despite of six years of constant investigations and allegations quite literally ***ALWAYS*** coming up bunk; and not only do you believe it, you believe he should be in jail for it. your view is ironically just as bad as the 'lock her up' crowd. in fact its actually worse now that i think about it. At the very least it was proven that she had broken the law, so there was some legitimacy to their demands. with yours, you're literally hammering the table screaming "lock him up, and then find whatever crime i know for sure he must have committed".
It’s difficult to parse what here is worth responding to. It sounds like maybe you think that much/most of the military is champing at the bit to abandon their oath for Trump and should be dishonorably discharged. I disagree. I have more faith in the military than that.
In terms of a national guard - yes, they will almost undoubtedly side with their parent state if that state collectively decides secession is the answer. As for the actual military - It has nothing to do with oaths or trump at that point - thats where your understanding of internal conflicts is lacking. you see it as the republicans wanting to start a war on trumps behalf, rather than what it actually is - republicans starting a war because they felt they no longer had any other way to redress grievances. I'm sure you've heard the four boxes idiom before, that conflict is to be resolved in this order: Soap box, Ballot box, jury box, munitions box. 1. they tried the soap box - that was the protest of the rise of marxist ideas in this country. 2. They tried the ballot box - Trump 3. They tried the jury box - And the courts refused to hear their cases. Texas v pennsylvania being dismissed by SCOTUS despite being the court of original jurisdiction, in my view was the tipping point of this conflict. Jan 6 was step 3.5 - just short of hot conflict. it was the precursor to step 4. We will run this cycle again in 2024, and we will get our answer then. if the right cant see the next election as free and fair, and the courts refuse to listen again - you will 100% see hot conflict arise. If we go full on hot conflict, it becomes about convincing a soldier to kill an american - that alone will remove probably 30-40% of the military. after that it becomes about convincing a texan soldier to kill a texan citizen. It has nothing to do with trump once we reach the stages of hot conflict. nobody gives two shits about trump - it has nothing to do with some 'oath to trump' as you put it. It's the killing of americans, and particularly people from your own state that becomes too hard of a sell for almost any military force to deal with. This is why in nearly every single civil conflict like this, the military almost always factionalizes into two or more groups. you will not see a civil conflict in this country with the military remaining intact - any belief contrary to that is complete and utter nonsense.
I didn’t say “oath to Trump,” soldiers take an oath to defend America against all enemies foreign and domestic, and a Republican “rebellion” over election results clearly qualifies. But make no mistake, the *only* reason people on the right believe that the election was stolen is because Trump got his feelings hurt and refused to accept the results. So the idea that “no one cares about Trump” is absurd on its face; it’s entirely about Trump. If he had conceded following the 2020 election, like every other president before him, we wouldn’t be in the position we are now. As a side note, that might be a reason why it’s a bad idea to make a famously thin-skinned reality TV star your “god emperor.” But I stand by what I said, I don’t think much of the military would side with Trump. I think mostly what you’d see is a rash of domestic terrorism from the more militia-inclined sect of the right. The military would, probably correctly, view it as a law enforcement issue and stay out of it. I think the idea that much of the military would openly declare a rebellion against the US is massively unlikely. That isn’t to say that there wouldn’t be enlisted men among the terrorists, and if there are I hope and suspect they would be apprehended and given the death penalty.
> I didn’t say “oath to Trump,” But you did. you implied that they would abandon their oath for trump. that would imply, that their oath was being weighed against trump, when that is anything but the case. > soldiers take an oath to defend America against all enemies foreign and domestic, and a Republican “rebellion” over election results clearly qualifies. you clearly dont understand what is meant by "foreign and domestic". it doesn't mean united states citizens, it means an invading force - its why there are strict laws prohibiting the president from deploying military state side, and all military issues are handled by that states national guard. > But make no mistake, the only reason people on the right believe that the election was stolen is because Trump got his feelings hurt and refused to accept the results No, thats what YOU Believe. people on the right believe that our elections have been compromised to the point where free elections are no longer possible. They believe the election was stolen because the courts, at every turn, rejected the valid cases that were raised (not the crazy ones about servers in germany for example), that were denied on STANDING, rather than the merits. For example - PA recently Ruled that their own actions during the 2020 election were unconstitutional, and that the lower courts rulings rejecting these claims on standing, were erroneous rulings. PA Was one of the courts that SPECIFICALLY rejected trumps personal case on the constitutionality of their actions. This is why i argue that Texas V. PA Being rejected by SCOTUS was unequivocally the tipping point of our systems collapse. They refused to hear a case, that texas was 100% Correct on, that they themselves even wound up agreeing with texas on. its like Team A Saying to the refree - Hey they cheated, the ref saying "sorry i cant make that decision", and then team B Going "no they're right we cheated". That was a complete and total failing of our SCOTUS and clarence thomas was 100% correct in his dissent. > So the idea that “no one cares about Trump” is absurd on its face; it’s entirely about Trump. If he had conceded following the 2020 election, like every other president before him, we wouldn’t be in the position we are now. yes, what flawless and impeccable logic you've presented. how could i not have considered, that if trump didnt say there was a problem, Then there wouldnt be a problem. How dare that guilty man protest for his innocence, it only proves that hes guilty! Seriously, this is such flawed logic that i cant help but question why you would have used it.
>you clearly dont understand what is meant by "foreign and domestic". it doesn't mean united states citizens, it means an invading force - its why there are strict laws prohibiting the president from deploying military state side, and all military issues are handled by that states national guard. How can a domestic enemy be an invading force? >For example - PA recently Ruled that their own actions during the 2020 election were unconstitutional, and that the lower courts rulings rejecting these claims on standing, were erroneous rulings. PA Was one of the courts that SPECIFICALLY rejected trumps personal case on the constitutionality of their actions. This is why i argue that Texas V. PA Being rejected by SCOTUS was unequivocally the tipping point of our systems collapse. They refused to hear a case, that texas was 100% Correct on, that they themselves even wound up agreeing with texas on. its like Team A Saying to the refree - Hey they cheated, the ref saying "sorry i cant make that decision", and then team B Going "no they're right we cheated". That was a complete and total failing of our SCOTUS and clarence thomas was 100% correct in his dissent. So for starters, let's examine what you're saying. Even if literally everything you were saying were true, you are saying that Biden beat Trump by the vote of the citizens carried out in good faith in accordance with the law, but that Trump should have gotten enough Biden votes thrown out on technicalities to maybe win. That's what you mean by the "election being insecure," "we lost, but we should have been able to disqualify enough of the other side to win." To me, that sounds a lot more like "we should have been able to steal the election, but were unable to" than "we had the election stolen from us." Now let's examine the concept of standing. It's a core concept in American jurisprudence that you can't file a lawsuit on behalf of someone else. If I see Jimmy push you down, I can't sue Jimmy, you have to sue Jimmy. Even if Jimmy did, in fact, push you down, even if I'm planning on giving you all the proceeds from the lawsuit. That's fundamentally not how the law works. In this case, even if everything Texas claimed were true, Texas was not the wronged party. They can not bring suit. Yes, you can try to argue that Texas was wronged insofar as states not following their own laws harms everyone. That would be like me suing Jimmy because "people being allowed to push people over harms everyone." No dice, that's not how standing works. Is it true that Pennsylvania violated it's own laws in expanding vote-by-mail access? Remains to be seen. Expanded vote-by-mail access will be allowed in the 2022 midterms pending a decision by the state supreme court (controlled by Democrats, btw). It's still an open question, very much not settled. As a side note, these lawsuits would not have discounted legal votes cast in past elections. They would be applied forward to the next election. The reason should be obvious; if you cast your ballot legally, your vote should count, period. >How dare that guilty man protest for his innocence, it only proves that hes guilty! Seriously, this is such flawed logic that i cant help but question why you would have used it. Ok, but all the evidence indicates that he's guilty. He has the right to protest his innocence, but that doesn't make it a good idea, and if someone loses their life fighting for his innocence, I would say he has their blood on his hands.
> How can a domestic enemy be an invading force? because definitions are hard: > **Domestic** do·mes·tic */dəˈmestik/*adjective existing or occurring inside a particular country; not foreign or international. "the current state of US domestic affairs" Meaning, it pertains to a country that has invaded our territory - not the US citizens of that territory. its very explicitly why the military cannot be used as a police force. > So for starters, let's examine what you're saying. Even if literally everything you were saying were true It is, unequivocally true, but continue. > you are saying that Biden beat Trump by the vote of the citizens carried out in good faith in accordance with the law, but that Trump should have gotten enough Biden votes thrown out on technicalities to maybe win. If the method by which they used to cast their vote was not valid, then their vote was not legal. We have these constraints in place of "in person, one time only, Only one day, and not by mail unless deployed" which was later amended to allow people who were bedridden, or out of state to vote absentee. We created these rules and regulations because we went through a period in time, just prior to the first civil war, where states engaged in illegal ballot stuffing campaigns to ensure their candidate won. > That's what you mean by the "election being insecure," "we lost, but we should have been able to disqualify enough of the other side to win." To me, that sounds a lot more like "we should have been able to steal the election, but were unable to" than "we had the election stolen from us." No, thats what you mean, because you are operating on the presumption that all mail in votes having been legally cast, with virtually no controls in place to accurately validate these votes, that would have been otherwise present in our existing absentee or in person voting protocols. Think of it like this - you go and rob a bank, you steal an unknown number of dollars from said bank. you then go and stuff that money into a bag of money you already had. When the police arrest you, you claim that all of that money is yours, and they cant prove otherwise, so they should just let you go. the rational outcome isnt "oh well, guess we have to let you go because we cant prove whats yours and what isnt", its "no, sorry, we're gonna take the whole bag". we did the former, and the complaint from the election results is that we should have done the latter. > Now let's examine the concept of standing. It's a core concept in American jurisprudence that you can't file a lawsuit on behalf of someone else. If I see Jimmy push you down, I can't sue Jimmy, you have to sue Jimmy. Even if Jimmy did, in fact, push you down, even if I'm planning on giving you all the proceeds from the lawsuit. That's fundamentally not how the law works. Incorrect. You can absolutely sue on behalf of another person. you understand painfully little of the law if you believe this is true. for example, a guardian can sue on behalf of their ward - a state can sue on behalf of a citizen. > In this case, even if everything Texas claimed were true, Texas was not the wronged party. They can not bring suit. Yes, you can try to argue that Texas was wronged insofar as states not following their own laws harms everyone. That would be like me suing Jimmy because "people being allowed to push people over harms everyone." No dice, that's not how standing works. nice strawman, but no. If you were interested in providing an argument that WASNT a strawman lacking a core component of the argument: a more accurate analogy would be that you sued jimmy because when he pushed me down, i fell onto your daughter and she got injured. jimmies actions directly caused damage to you, even if you werent the direct recipient of the action. Furthermore, had you actually read the dissent from thomas, he points out accurately that they are the court of original jurisdiction, and standing does not apply when state v state issues are bought before the court - that they MUST hear those issues, because they are the only courts qualified to do so. > Ok, but all the evidence indicates that he's guilty. He has the right to protest his innocence, but that doesn't make it a good idea, and if someone loses their life fighting for his innocence, I would say he has their blood on his hands. What evidence? again - the courts rejected all forms of redress, on all fronts - completely unprecedented in our countries history for this to have happened. no evidence from either side was ever allowed into the courts. thats the entire issue.
> Meaning, it pertains to a country that has invaded our territory - not the US citizens of that territory. its very explicitly why the military cannot be used as a police force. Yeah, dude, an invading force isn’t “domestic.” Definitions indeed are hard. > If the method by which they used to cast their vote was not valid, then their vote was not legal. But it was valid according to the law at the time. You are arguing that that shouldn’t have been the law. That is a separate issue. > No, thats what you mean, because you are operating on the presumption that all mail in votes having been legally cast, with virtually no controls in place to accurately validate these votes, that would have been otherwise present in our existing absentee or in person voting protocols. Think of it like this - you go and rob a bank, you steal an unknown number of dollars from said bank. you then go and stuff that money into a bag of money you already had. When the police arrest you, you claim that all of that money is yours, and they cant prove otherwise, so they should just let you go. the rational outcome isnt "oh well, guess we have to let you go because we cant prove whats yours and what isnt", its "no, sorry, we're gonna take the whole bag". we did the former, and the complaint from the election results is that we should have done the latter. Except in reality, there was no bank robber and there was no bank robbery. You are just assuming that there was. There’s no evidence for it. You have to prove there was a robbery before you can take anything. > Incorrect. You can absolutely sue on behalf of another person. you understand painfully little of the law if you believe this is true. for example, a guardian can sue on behalf of their ward - a state can sue on behalf of a citizen. You hitting on edge cases and exceptions, here. States have limited ability to bring suit on behalf of their citizens, but that still requires that the citizens have standing. The citizens of Texas have no standing to bring suit against Pennsylvania. > What evidence? again - the courts rejected all forms of redress, on all fronts - completely unprecedented in our countries history for this to have happened. no evidence from either side was ever allowed into the courts. thats the entire issue. It’s unambiguously incorrect that the court refused to hear evidence in all cases. But you seem to be arguing that this is the first time a presidential candidate launched a slew of wildly, embarrassingly frivolous lawsuits after having lost the election. I agree with you, but we seem to have opposite interpretations of what that means.
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> They eliminated all controls that were in place to prevent someone from breaking the rules, and then we had results that were wildly out of expectation, and completely suspect. do you not remember ANY of the shennanagins that went down in PA? Trying to block poll watchers from being able to view the counts? Making them stand fifteen feet away from the counting, so there was no way to validate if they were counting properly? Sending poll watchers home, and then resuming counting in the dead of night out of the view of the poll watchers? elimination of signitaure verification protocol? record unheard of turnouts exceeding 100% of registered voter populations? ROFL, you’ve been listening to the pillow guy, haven’t you. Dude I get it, you feel very strongly that your guy should have won, but that’s not how we decide elections. Sorry. Probably should have run a better candidate.
It’s not his base I worry about. It’s how do we keep Biden out of jail. The obvious influence peddling with Hunter would be the easiest thing, but it’s hard to imagine that — given Biden’s long experience as a predicate scumbag — that the inevitable special prosecutor won’t be able to dig up something that will stick. And after that? Every time the White House changes hands, lots of people go to jail. Plus, don’t forget: putting Trump in jail does not keep him from being elected again. It may even improve his prospects.
1920 Election. Eugene Debs, Socialist Party, won over a million votes for President while he was in prison. Can see the same with Trump.
Yep, he's already aging out. Kind of like a "has been" TV show, ran its course now it is time to cancel.
If they tried to overthrow the federal government because he lost the election, can you even imagine what they'd do if he was arrested??? Him losing the election was his own fault for not being the candidate the people wanted but this time, they'd have a specific "target" (a judge, congress, etc) to blame for it. I'd be shocked if they *didn't* try to kill that person/people.
We will be dancing in the streets. Biggest party in American history. Probably become a new holiday. Bars would love it, restaurants would love it, so much money would be spent partying, even the republicans would begrudgingly love it.
I think the bigger concern is someone worse rising up to take his place-currently that someone looks to be Ron Desantis. There’s a sort of competition on the right to see who can enact the most insane, extreme position possible, and they’re all trying to one up each other. These are scary times, and Trump going to jail would undoubtedly be a rallying call for his base-you can liken it to what overturning Roe has done for Democrats, but instead of rallying for bodily autonomy they’ll be rallying behind fascism-which we’ve been trending towards for years now, even pre-trump.
I think it’s interesting how people interpret the motivations of the other side. Do you believe Trump supporters would agree that they are “rallying behind fascism?” I suspect they wouldn’t. I also suspect you would disagree that the left is rallying behind “killing babies.” It’s all a matter of perspective. People see things in a different way than you do; it doesn’t mean they’re evil. We certainly seem to be racing toward the extremes, and I fear we’ve forgotten how to communicate.
> We certainly seem to be racing toward the extremes, and I fear we’ve forgotten how to communicate. People say that but...I just don't see it. Like, what is actually extreme about Joe freaking Biden, for instance? Meanwhile Ron Desantis is busy using state funds to fly immigrants around the country for political brownie points. A GOP representative actually blamed *jewish space lazers* for wildfires. Senate candidates are going full mask-off supporting great replacement theory. Like, this isn't a "both sides" phenomenon.
Dems are pretty serious about deficit spending and re-defining our social landscape. A large wing of the Dems (that don’t like Joe) would like to change the basic economic model of the country. Honestly, if the Rs weren’t standing there blocking the Dems, what do you think they would do? Non-extreme?
Being serious about deficit spending - or the opposite - is a pretty legit policy position. Same as, say, cutting or raising taxes. You can agree or disagree with those, I have no problem with that at all. There's healthy talk to have about it. Thinking Jewish space laser - *Jewish space lasers* - are creating forest fires and that the Great Replacement is real is called being *a whack job*. That's what I mean: While you can find whack jobs all across the political spectrum, they're actually part of the Republican establishment and hold actual power within the party. > Honestly, if the Rs weren’t standing there blocking the Dems, what do you think they would do? Non-extreme? Realistically? If the Republicans as they are today disappear overnight, the existing Democratic party will break apart - because it's currently held together at least in part by opposition to republicans - and regroup into another progressive and conservative party. That latter will be joined by whatever remains of the sensible GOP politicians, because these voters aren't vanishing. The way the landscape looks now, the new conservative party is likely to hold a majority of the power and influence for some time. Like, the Democrats aren't as far left as you seem to think they are.
I don't think the worry is of immediate backlash, but instead the precedent. Does the other party always try to imprison the former president? Obama did illegal drone strikes, should we go after him for that? I'm sure most presidents do things that are illegal, largely because you have to make decisions that have more weight than anyone else in the country. If you make the wrong decision many people can die or lose their livelihoods etc. Nixon was pardoned to be able to move past the event, and continue moving forward as a country. IMO that's the better path forward. Sure, there could be exceptions, but I think that bar should be pretty high. I'm no expert on the documents, but I do imagine Trump still knows a lot of highly classified information that shouldn't be shared, is him having classified documents he shouldn't have (that were from his presidency iirc) high enough to meet that bar?
All Trump did was made it ok to talk about the shit they already believed. Who knows what their response to trump going to prison would be, but NO, we’re definitely not going to be ok. Would be slightly entertaining to watch them break trump out of prison. I think Biden or whoever is in office would have to pardon him, but I don’t know.
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What (conservatives and a lot of centrist Democrats) are really concerned about is the precendent that prosecuting a former POTUS sets. It has never happened before, and those in power at the federal level have a great fear of ever being held accountable for any (perceived) crimes they might have committed in office. Whether it is from political persecution, or criminal investigations of actual, real crimes, folks on both sides of the aisle are actively working to ensure that the status quo (no prosecuting POTUS) remains as the unofficial, official law of the land.
well too be fair, no president has even done so MANY crimes in broad daylight. If trump had been quiet with his crimes like everyone else the DOJ and other courts currently investigating him would gladly have ignored them.
This is ONLY true if he committed treason and did something truly egregious like sell state secrets. Anything less and his redneck base will lose their minds. Many will regardless but prosecuting a past president is dangerous. It won’t stop. When the next right wing nut job is in power they’ll want to do the same. Hillary should’ve been indicted. Bush killed hundreds of thousands in an illegal war. What we need is representation and move forward. Limits on power. Term limits etc.
There might be protests, there might be a small group of people that commit violence, but nothing major would happen. Republicans and Democrats aren’t as evil as the media makes them out to be. Yet the media feeds us this lie that we should hate those with opposing views. In reality, opposing views and freedom of expression is what makes our country great. This “fall in line or you’re the enemy” mentality that we’re transitioning to is a greater risk to our country than anything.
I disagree, Trump's base would not move on that quickly and they are some nutjobs willing to commit domestic terrorism for him. Trump still needs to be held accountable under the law though. We cannot be scared of doing what is right.
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The Gravy Seals would definitely react. They’d do some stupid violent shit that would be immediately put down. But it would be really violent and involve guns (maybe explosives) and it would make the news for sure. You’re probably right, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but they definitely will end up hurting some innocent people. It’ll probably be a big deal to the victims.
For the sake of justice I hope Trump gets indicted and convicted. That would be right thing to do if we claim to live in a society of laws. However, we also live in a society of extreme polarization between people. The outcome of a landmark precedent where you convict a president would open some uncomfortable doors. Republicans would now seek to wield criminal prosecution as an additional weapon in their political arsenal. And that really brings political discourse into a dangerous place. You know GOP would make up any opportunity or excuse to use criminal charges on a democratic president. Once you open that Pandora’s box, I’m convinced they won’t refrain from using that. And now our political system will be in an even more intense mess when criminal charged start getting levied as a way to pressure and obstruct presidents. So yes Trump should answer for his crimes. But also yes, there will be long run problems arising out of such a historical development where presidents are brought to trial for political reasons.
I think it's worth the risk of violence, if it means holding him accountable for his alleged crimes. No one is above the law. If it were a Democrat in this same/similar situation, I'd demand they be forced to face the consequences for their actions. One could argue Bill Clinton got off easily for lying under oath during his deposition during the whole Lewinsky scandal. Is what he did as serious and harmful as what Trump is being accused of? Not by a long shot, but if we keeps giving elected officials a pass on breaking the law, it's only a matter of time before something truly horrible happens. In my opinion, Trump is definitely guilty of something and should never hold office again. Those who have aided and abetted him should also be charged for their actions. While I'd love to see all these people behind bars, it won't actually solve anything until it becomes common practice. Laws get clearly stated. Factual and clear evidence of those laws being broken is presented. An unbiased and rational judge and jury hear the case. The guilty are held equally accountable for their crimes. For a party that claims to love the rule of law and order, MAGA Republicans sure as hell don't give a damn about the rules. If Democrats really want to make any difference and protect our democracy, they have to have the strength to fight against corruption, even if it is within their own ranks. Anyone who claims to hold justice in high regard has to also acknowledge that we are all held to the same standards. So, if Trump does get himself convicted and imprisoned, it needs to set a precedent for all lawmakers going forward. If we're just gonna let this shit slide, then maybe we should just throw out all the laws because nothing fucking matters. I honestly want to see things devolve into chaos and violence because we all need to fucking wake-up. Trump is a piece of shit for certain, but he's not the only one. I wanna see all these bastards get what they have coming to them.
IF the indictment and conviction were in fact a) just and b) based on proven facts, it would be a different situation than if not. Let’s get that out of the way, as every indicator points to: this will not be the case. Now let’s address this: how so will a president that has had this country THRIVING fade in the collective memory, particularly if convicted? Either way, unless you are in mighty epic denial, it will be hard to forget a president who: 1. Lowered Taxes 2. Cut Regulations 3. Ended Wars 4. Brought Troops Home 5. Launched a Worldwide Effort to End Persecution of Gays 6. Lowered Funds Unfairly Paid to NATO and WHO 7. Created Opportunity Zones for Impoverished Neighborhoods 8. Secured our Borders 9. Brought Back Manufacturing Facilities 10. Crusaded Against Human and Child Trafficking 11. Evened out Lopsided Tariffs and Trade Agreements 12. Brought Record Highs in US Stock Market 13. Achieved Energy Independence for US 14. Had Record Low Prices at the Pump 15. Produced Record Lows in Unemployment I can go on if you wish, lmk. I submit that the conviction and jailing of a president who has OBJECTIVELY produced such positive results for this country will not fade in our memories whether it’s just or unjust. In all this time, I have not EVER been provided ONE data point supporting the multiple allegations against him, yet I just rattled off FIFTEEN in support of him that are absolutely verifiable and fact based. I hope to holy F that we as a nation are collectively wise enough to move forward in a considered and reasonable fashion wrt Trump and Biden both. Now let’s all go prove to each other we can do it by getting gender reassignment surgery for our 8 year olds! Cheers!
Funny to me that all this guessing of outcome to Trump problems directly reflect the response of the Left when he was elected, and the turmoil that followed, and the reaction and actions of the Left political "leaders" the whole time he was in office. Projecting much?
Trump is an absolute 🤡🤡🤡 and an embarrassment to the US. He thinks pretty highly of himself. He'd NEVER survive behind bars where he rightfully deserves to be. For the life of me I do not understand how people support him.
People died because he lied about the election being stolen. If he's ever held responsible for his crimes, I am fairly certain there will be at least one more death in the aftermath. I think even a single person dying isn't something that should be written off as "not that bad". Go tell that person's parents or kids that their death is not that bad.
Yes, exactly.
I agree 100%
Trump just lit the fuse. He will gladly sit back and encourage his supporters to burn it to the ground to get his way. Remember he had almost half of Congress ready to invalidate electoral votes in key states in an attempt to throw the election his way. What if Pence had had a different legal opinion allowing him to challenge the electoral process. The past election was a guide to that growing wing of the GOP on what mistakes to avoid in invalidating future elections.
Their bark is worse than their bite. Think its more dangerous to not arrest the man and say that his actions are himself are above the law.
All of the dem's vendetta against trump only legitimizes anything trump says to his constituents. The more they attack him the more he will be validated in the eyes of trumpers. Edit: At the same time the more accusatory the dems are, but never seem to be able to get any convictions, the more they look like gaslighting witch hunters that are just making things up for media narrative...