It's worth remembering that a convicted felon, even one doing time in prison, can run for president in the US, nothing prevents them doing that.
Now a conviction on seditious conspiracy or treason removes that option, but thus far, Trump hasn't faced those charges.
Interesting times. It's possible that a conviction on federal charges might begin to unbreak the logjam of GOP politicians unable to say Trump is a crook. There have been noises from Pence and Haley, those profiles in courage, and perhaps that news would shake the tree a tad. I guess we may yet find out.
NB you might have thought that a conviction as a sex offender would impact the base. Nope, apparently not.
Cheers,
John
Trump indicted again: some thoughts
There was a famous socialist candidate called Eugene Debs in the 1930s or so who constantly ran afoul of the law. The trouble is, the law that allowed Debs to run also allows a conspicuous felon (to my mind) like Donald Trump to run, making it a hard law to fix.
Trump did indeed pack the Supreme Court, thanks to Mitch McConnell who for two years refused to bring Obama's candidate, Merrick Garland, to a vote. That and what I suspect was blackmail on Justice Kennedy (whose son worked for Deutsche Bank) gave Trump 3 of the 9 justices. What's surprising, at least reasonably surprising, is that when they get there, they don't always do what he wants. Go figure. Roberts as Chief Justice cares I think about his legacy and has joined the liberals several times for a 4-5 loss. Other times, like on the interests of business, he'll vote with the Right. I think it's fair to call Thomas and Alito safe votes for the Right, with more than a whiff of scandal to them. Kavanaugh has surprised: not a nice person ,the hearings showed, but not a safe vote. Gorsuch likes to vote for the right, and Barrett is a fairly extreme Catholic, but not a Trump minion. He did less well with them than he might have - than he did with Aileen Cannon, for instance, presiding judge in the new federal case against him in Florida, who earned a public rebuke from the Trump-appointed appeals court for her excessive efforts to help Trump out in her courtroom a couple of months ago. Now she is I think quite capable of working hard from the bench to get him acquitted, since I will bet she will refuse to recuse herself (like Thomas in the Supremes). The trial is a crapshoot, and will be ignored by the entire GOP base (unless he's acquitted).
Cheers,
John
Trump did indeed pack the Supreme Court, thanks to Mitch McConnell who for two years refused to bring Obama's candidate, Merrick Garland, to a vote. That and what I suspect was blackmail on Justice Kennedy (whose son worked for Deutsche Bank) gave Trump 3 of the 9 justices. What's surprising, at least reasonably surprising, is that when they get there, they don't always do what he wants. Go figure. Roberts as Chief Justice cares I think about his legacy and has joined the liberals several times for a 4-5 loss. Other times, like on the interests of business, he'll vote with the Right. I think it's fair to call Thomas and Alito safe votes for the Right, with more than a whiff of scandal to them. Kavanaugh has surprised: not a nice person ,the hearings showed, but not a safe vote. Gorsuch likes to vote for the right, and Barrett is a fairly extreme Catholic, but not a Trump minion. He did less well with them than he might have - than he did with Aileen Cannon, for instance, presiding judge in the new federal case against him in Florida, who earned a public rebuke from the Trump-appointed appeals court for her excessive efforts to help Trump out in her courtroom a couple of months ago. Now she is I think quite capable of working hard from the bench to get him acquitted, since I will bet she will refuse to recuse herself (like Thomas in the Supremes). The trial is a crapshoot, and will be ignored by the entire GOP base (unless he's acquitted).
Cheers,
John
Yup, BoJo is off! I think that's what people called him? And yes, Brexit won't be gone back on. My feeling is that Putin must have been about as happy as he is able to be, watching Western democracy crumble, until about three days into his invasion of the Ukraine.
You are of course quite right not to follow politics. My blood pressure is much better since we left the US, but I have been catching up on American headlines over the past few days. Erdogan won again comfortably in Turkey, which is not encouraging. But I hold out hope for the US in 2024.
Cheers,
john
You are of course quite right not to follow politics. My blood pressure is much better since we left the US, but I have been catching up on American headlines over the past few days. Erdogan won again comfortably in Turkey, which is not encouraging. But I hold out hope for the US in 2024.
Cheers,
john
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CalebPerry
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I keep hoping that Trump will just die -- but if I hope too hard, I'm afraid that wish will boomerang, and Joe Biden will die.
The damage that Trump has done in the world is enormous. He has given hope to every autocrat. He has shown them his playbook for gaining and holding onto power despite being clearly corrupt. It seems that most conservatives are corrupt in some way, and they admire someone like Trump who can be openly bad and corrupt and get away with it.
There is no shame left in society. We have always had bad people, but now they are shamelessly bad.
The damage that Trump has done in the world is enormous. He has given hope to every autocrat. He has shown them his playbook for gaining and holding onto power despite being clearly corrupt. It seems that most conservatives are corrupt in some way, and they admire someone like Trump who can be openly bad and corrupt and get away with it.
There is no shame left in society. We have always had bad people, but now they are shamelessly bad.
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I agree 100%, Caleb. Well put.
I might add that besides their lack of a shame button, a large swathe of the elected GOP publicly supports this obviously evil man because they are profiles in courage. During the Terror, the Assembly supported Robespierre out of fear for their necks. Today's GOP, somewhat more sordidly, does this out of fear for their paycheck. Except for about three people: Liz Cheney, for instance. They will be remembered thus. The party as a whole is rotten to the core, as they have established.
Cheers,
John
I might add that besides their lack of a shame button, a large swathe of the elected GOP publicly supports this obviously evil man because they are profiles in courage. During the Terror, the Assembly supported Robespierre out of fear for their necks. Today's GOP, somewhat more sordidly, does this out of fear for their paycheck. Except for about three people: Liz Cheney, for instance. They will be remembered thus. The party as a whole is rotten to the core, as they have established.
Cheers,
John
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CalebPerry
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Some may object to my contention that conservatives are less principled than liberals, but I have noticed over the years that more conservative politicians seem to get in trouble with the law than liberals (although the difference between them isn't huge). The attitude seems to be, "We enacted the laws so we don't have to follow them to the letter." However, when I think of what I might do as president, it isn't that good. I would declare a state of emergency and shut down the Supreme Court, opening it up only when one of the conservative justices had resigned (to restore balance given McConnell's shenanigans). We need a Lincoln-like figure now. (As I'm sure you know, Lincoln took many radical moves -- but then, that was a time of war).
My landlord and his wife are Trump supporters, but they are decent people -- although my landlord definitely feels that he has more rights than I have, given that he owns the property. The wife was somewhat horrified by Trump's behavior when he got into power, but I wouldn't be surprised if she has gravitated back to him. They see him as decisive, and they are convinced that the decisive image is accurate, even though he didn't do much as the president. (They conveniently didn't notice that he was an ineffective president.) My fear is that he will get back into office and try to install himself as some kind of dictator. The Republicans, for whom honest government is unimportant as long as they get what they want (look at how they are trying to limit the voting rights of liberals and blacks), would go along with whatever aggressive move that Trump would make. And all this time he would spend 30% of his time in office tweeting. Unbelievable.
My landlord and his wife are Trump supporters, but they are decent people -- although my landlord definitely feels that he has more rights than I have, given that he owns the property. The wife was somewhat horrified by Trump's behavior when he got into power, but I wouldn't be surprised if she has gravitated back to him. They see him as decisive, and they are convinced that the decisive image is accurate, even though he didn't do much as the president. (They conveniently didn't notice that he was an ineffective president.) My fear is that he will get back into office and try to install himself as some kind of dictator. The Republicans, for whom honest government is unimportant as long as they get what they want (look at how they are trying to limit the voting rights of liberals and blacks), would go along with whatever aggressive move that Trump would make. And all this time he would spend 30% of his time in office tweeting. Unbelievable.
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CalebPerry
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And I think it is the narcissists who love him. They don't see his narcissism because they are narcissistic too. But it goes beyond that.
He is adored by conservative Christians, and one of the reasons why (in my opinion) is that Trump's behavior mirrors the behavior of the Jehovah of the Old Testament. In the Torah/Old Testament, God is portrayed as an angry, self-interested, narcissistic tyrant. In other words, the society of the ancient Jews was very patriarchal. A demanding father was the only role-model that the ancient Jews had to imagine what their God was like. It was every father's right to be a monster to his family. Today's conservative Christians are comfortable with that because it is what they are familiar with. Indeed, bad fathers are probably everywhere in our society.
Contrast that with, e.g., the view of God in the Seth Material, which paints God as a wise and tolerant provider and protector. Whenever I speak about God, I say, "God doesn't sweat the small stuff" -- meaning, of course, that God isn't petty. But pettiness is what the Old Testament Jehovah is all about. If Kris doesn't kick me off the forum, I'll continue working on that thread.
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"pettiness is what the Old Testament Jehovah is all about" - Deuteronomy and Leviticus are a pretty good tesimony to that. There are 622 commandments. He is a jealous God!
So, yeah. Conservative Christians also believe Jesus said it was cool to be rich and devoted a lot of time to hate.
Cheers,
John
So, yeah. Conservative Christians also believe Jesus said it was cool to be rich and devoted a lot of time to hate.
Cheers,
John
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CalebPerry
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When describing the old Jehovah, "jealous" is the word I usually use, but I didn't think of it.
It was Jesus who said that "camel through the eye of a needle" thing, wasn't it? So you were being facetious.
It was Jesus who said that "camel through the eye of a needle" thing, wasn't it? So you were being facetious.
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Facetious, one of two words in the English langauge with every vowel in order! The other being abstemious.
Yup, I think their Jesus takes some willingness to twist your brain into a pretzel. But people can devote years of effort to doing that. Look at Jonestown, back in the day, to which I see many parallels in today's GOP base. I am waiting for trump to tell his tens of millions of followers they have to off themselves next Sunday. Because they would.
Cheers,
John
Yup, I think their Jesus takes some willingness to twist your brain into a pretzel. But people can devote years of effort to doing that. Look at Jonestown, back in the day, to which I see many parallels in today's GOP base. I am waiting for trump to tell his tens of millions of followers they have to off themselves next Sunday. Because they would.
Cheers,
John