Colorado supreme court ruled that they can take Trump off the ballot, now it looks like California is trying to do that as well. Meanwhile, republican states are threatening to retaliate in kind.
This seems unprecedented for US, does anybody know what happens in this scenario?
I agree with many points in here or don’t disagree enough to really respond.
However, I will say about the “insurrection” stuff: did Trump orchestrate it? Depends on what that means to you, I guess.
To me, a sitting president spent 2 months-ish crying because he lost, refused to just say that he lost, and then tweeted “everyone! I have evidence! Come to the Capitol Jan 6th! It’ll be wild!” (Paraphrasing there obviously). And (further paraphrasing) had his henchmen and kid give speeches followed by himself which boiled down to “we’re gonna go to the Capitol building…and convince them to not certify this election. wink wink”
So he purposely and clearly spent months after and years before the election laying the ground, prepping his base (and Republicans had done this for 40+ years waaaaaay prior to Trump. They’ve been whining about election stealing back to Kennedy, LBJ, etc. (some legitimate, some not. Also they did the same shit anyway).
Then he gave them a specific event which he manufactured basically and pretended it mattered beyond ceremony (the actual stuff on Jan 6 is literally just ceremony. All the locking-in has been done by that point. As Pence correctly has said, it didn’t matter what he did/didnt do that day (from a purely legal outlook)).
And on the day he planned he gave a speech basically like “go MAKE them listen.” Did he say directly “go kill Nancy!”? No. But did he need to? Does a mafia boss have to say directly “kill whoever” or can it be reasonably assumed at a certain point that they’re saying certain things, doing certain things, etc. with a clear agenda towards encouraging an outcome?
I mean, look. I don’t actually care about congress, the Capitol, their ceremonies, etc. We all know this is a farce and has been for quite some time… it isn’t a democracy it’s just a capitalist-controlled hellscape. But I’m also not gonna pretend Trump didn’t sick his hordes of most brainbroken, most fanatic supporters on congress to harass them. Do I think he expected them to actually break in and accomplish anything (killing members, specifically)? No. But he knew what he was doing.
I think the event itself is overhyped, but, be definitely did that shit. What I find more concerning is the stuff like threatening officials in GA (a perfect phone call folks!). Again, liberal democracy blah blah blah, but if we’re playing the game, and we all are because we are stuck in it, he definitely was going far beyond any acceptable practices there and his party leaders should’ve barred him from office. Can’t have a shitty liberal democracy if one party is just clearly ignoring the law, telling a state official to “find votes,” etc.
I know this will absolutely never happen, but every time I hear Trump speaking on legitimate problems, I’m like “GODDAMNIT man! Can he drop the Nazi bullshit and just do… good stuff? He wants us to like him. Just do good shit!” Obviously that’s pure fantasy, but it’s absolutely frustrating sometimes hearing him speak, how he can read a room, and then seeing him pivot directly into the same neoliberal bullshit as everyone else.
I understand why they’re going after him for it, legality be damned- but if you ask me? As you seem to agree, this wasn’t an insurrection- and considering you agree with, or don’t particularly disagree with, many of my points- they’re grasping at straws or coming up with complete fabrications and farces of lawfare, to pin him and his supporters down as a result.
It’s not a crime to contest an election- hell, the last time to my knowledge was with a Democrat- Al Gore. End of the day, Trump can’t be said to have instigated anything more than an a protest which has since been blown wildly out of proportion IMO. They don’t have anything legally (that is remotely related nor anywhere near similar to charges of “insurrection,” anyways) on him, hell, they don’t have anything on the majority of his supporters, but they’re working like hell (and obfuscating events of capitol hill, and stretching the notions of plausibility like hell) to charge him with all sorts of things, with all sorts of assumptions simply taken for granted and swept under the rug legally, in order to do it.
That’s what I’m seeing, anyways. The criminalization of a mass political movement (of assholes, sure, but assholes who are entirely within their legal rights to be assholes) and the persecution of the most prominent political opponent, a classic case of lawfare and complete perversion of law in my books, though not one I can really care too much about.
I guess I’m operating within the mindset of “if these are the rules (like you don’t send a giant swarm of hogs towards the capitol) then he broke the rules and he should pay.” It’s also pretty clear by now that very little will happen to him. I know the libs are coping, but we all know Trump is only leaving the race by two means: voluntarily stepping down or nature takes its course.
My civil rights, civil liberties brain says “yeah people should be able to do this stuff minus the breaking in portion.” Not because of property damage, but because, I mean, I absolutely despise Nancy and if something had happened to her then I’m not going to feel particularly sad over it. But it could also be a non total sack of shit and having a norm of “these few thousand hogs are really angry, so the Speaker just had to die” 🤷♀️ also seems “pretty bad.”
And of course my leftist brain is ripping itself apart between “If (s)he dies, (s)he dies” and “this will directly lead to even harsher crackdowns on BLM, anti-Israel, etc. protests by the left” Which are basically all violence-free, yet get met with 100x the reaction of the hog rally directly threatening (to whatever degree) congress’ lives. Of course that’s happening ANYWAY and this prosecution or pursuit of prosecution will probably only accelerate timelines (I’m not an accelerationist because as of right now that just leads directly to true fascism, whatever that ends up looking like (not just orange man)).
So, in the end… I guess I don’t care? I mean I don’t like what he did, obviously. [liberalness] The courts are the proper place for his grievances not in DC with his loyal squad of piggies. [/liberalness] But had it been a left winger or even a Bernie type who felt cheated, and I legitimately agreed with his claim of being cheated, then I’d want to do (hypothetically, in a book, etc.) what they did. Or, more hypothetical things even.
Of course this all runs up against reality which is you don’t take over a government by force by occupying its capitol. You don’t even do it by killing all those leaders. The government is run by thousands of faces and names we don’t know and it would continue with or without those elected names in place. And liberals don’t want to go down THAT road of speaking about actual revolutionary tactics, who would have to “go”, what places have to be captured, etc. Certainly the MSM doesn’t anyway for obvious reasons. The fucking FBI director would probably call Chris Hayes live on TV if he started talking about that shit. “Did Trump supporters plan to bomb local electrical infrastructure? New evidence is comin- hold on… ok, my producer is telling me to move on… ok… Trump was back in court today for his next round of slander cases…”
I don’t know how much weight is placed behind “intent but lacking the knowledge or ability” vs pure “intent” devoid of context such as knowledge. Like if you intend to overthrow the government, but you think doing so means breaking into the capitol, is that an insurrection? I dunno. I’d classify the whole thing probably as a riot myself. Obviously libs love institutions so defacing the beautiful capitol is a crime worthy of execution by itself in their eyes.
Seems to me that this is what is going on with Trump, though. A few thousand- well no, a few million ghouls- card-carrying Democrats and Republicans alike- are really angry, so Mr. Former President has to be banned from office and his followers criminalized en masse, one way or another- doesn’t matter how they do it.
I share the sentiment. Mainly I just plan to leave (Canada, not the US). Things are, especially in the US, almost certainly going to shit within the next decade if even that, and honestly? Trump probably isn’t going to be the instigator, I also see him as no more of a threat than the “establishment” political bloc/blob, and considering how deranged their foreign policy has proven to be under Biden- I suspect Trump would even be the better candidate to maintain the status quo, reel in the empire a bit, and bring back some sanity in that regard.
But ultimately I don’t care. I’m not an accelerationist, but I also can’t bring myself to care- “red fascist, blue fascist, orange fascist-” the blue fascists at least are less likely to fuck over minorities and the LGBT community, but then at the same time it seems to me like they’re the ones, alongside the red fascists (who are really just the opposite side of the same coin) driving the west rapidly towards outright fascism, domestically and certainly in foreign policy.
Agreed. Though obviously I don’t think Trump tried to do any of that, nor do I think there is any solid case to be made (legally) arguing he did, however people might feel or extrapolate things wildly about it.
I imagine either is damning- if it can be decisively and legitimately proven in court. I’d argue that Trump’s actions can’t be, and that they didn’t have either intent to begin with anyways, and a massive effort is underway to obscure events and muddy the waters to claim otherwise- he said his piece, which was not meaningfully different from Al Gore’s contesting results in 2000- and handed over power, sure, he was a “bad sport” and didn’t attend the inauguration, but he didn’t do anything remotely illegal.