We had an attempted coup already. That this case was directly related to. I don’t even mean the very public storming of Congress during the certification of electors, but multiple attempts by the then-President to subvert the election process.
The guy who did it’s probably about to be President again and just got a lot more legal cover.
Folks need to read up on how democracies fail. Shit’s getting real iffy here.
Which word do you take objection to? Considering he begins each rally with the January 6 "patriot" anthem, I stand by the "his" word. He clearly aligns with the folks who he considers "political prisoners" (his words not mine).
As far as "coup" - I'd say summoning thousands of folks to the Capitol, then not calling for dispersal once they have physically breached the perimeter of the building where the Congress and Vice President are assembled to certify the election results (where he lost), plus (arguably, more importantly) engaging in a campaign to establish networks of alternative electors in key swing states that do not match the popular votes in those states, then I'd say "coup" (granted, with a "attempted" modifier would be more accurate) would be a reasonable word to use for the events that transpired.
Don’t remember the “find votes” request or attempts to find a legal-enough-to-muck-things-up way to replace real electors with fake ones, or similar to throw the election to the House to decide, then?
Those have been charged. He’s in court for a bunch of other stuff, too, some of which was brewing before 2017 but his DOJ ruled they had to pause (including investigations, because you need to e.g. issue subpoenas for those to do their work) until he was out of office, and nobody tried to fight that, so it’s just now finally happening.
I'm not sure what you're arguing here? If someone is accused of committing three crimes, but only one is "serious", then the person should only be prosecuted on the one, but not the other two?
> And yet he left office on the appointed day and lost an election.
Trump would argue he didn't lose the election, and would still be in power if he had his way. I think we should be making it harder, not easier, for the democratic process to be subverted.
I have a difficult time reasoning about Trump in the age of constant hysteria. Trying to keep a clear head and an even keel has me discounting a lot of the "sky is falling" alarmism. It has me afraid that there are actual pieces of the sky falling that I'm filtering out.
All the "will you peacefully cede power" talk before the election sounded like alarmist clickbait, but he was weirdly resistive to admitting he lost, and there are a lot of batshit crazy people who seem to follow whatever he says (see also, Jan 6).
[edit] the score on this post proves its own point. Its vacillated between +4 and 0 since I posted it an hour ago, and there are plenty of hyperbolic people in the replies. Being "OMG THE WORLD IS ENDING" about everything just adds noise that makes it hard to identify truly bad things.
On a site that ostensibly has an ethos of "be curious, not ideological," it's sad to see so many people peering only through the lenses of ideology and panic.
> but he was weirdly resistive to admitting he lost
That is an understatement. His entire platform is that he won every state including Minnesota and New York. This is a personal revenge campaign made up around a lie.
He still says he didn’t lose and always qualifies his intent to accept the results of the next election with language that, given his not accepting the last one, amounts to “I’ll accept it if I win”.
Whatever else he did was fairly normal bad-president stuff. Like, pretty bad, but not the end of the Republic or anything. The attempts to overturn the election, and the utter failure of the state to swiftly punish same, are some real “this may not be the end, but you can see it from here” stuff.
Democratic states tend to vote in the person who ends them. It’s clear now that that’s a thing we’re very much at risk of doing. I don’t even necessarily mean a second Trump term, just anyone who follows his blueprint. The voters evidently don’t see that as disqualifying, and the system’s displayed an inability to respond to such attempts.
The sharks may or may not be circling yet, but there’s blood in the water.
There's trying to keep a clear head, and then there's being completely willingly ignorant of major, major events in the news cycle the last few years, including direct statements from the Trump administration and Trump himself which you seem to have very successfully achieved.
Not sure where you’re reading into that, but good for you for figuring out something nonsensical.
as to what I actually feel, I am stating that the parent comment (as sibling comments have pointed out as well) seems completely oblivious to Jan 6 and the subsequent criminal events/statements since then.
Hope that helps your reading/rage issue, have a good day.
If you want to know what Trump and his ilk are planning, just read it from their own website: https://www.project2025.org/
Highlights:
- The DoJ reports directly to the President
- No term limits for FBI head
- Arrest and prosecute DAs he doesn't agree with
- Use the military to enforce domestic laws on citizens
Worth noting that we’re 3-for-3 on recent-ish major Republican plans to do bad things being implemented at least in large part—the PNAC plan for Iraq and other issues from the ‘90s (W’s big contribution was carrying this out); the plan to execute a strategic focus of resources and follow-up with laws to attain practically unassailable dominance in states where Republicans should be losing pretty often, through gerrymandering and targeted vote suppression (enormous success, there, largely achieved during the ‘00s); and the Federalist Society plan to groom jurists and then get them placed to reshape the courts (Trump’s crowning achievement for the right in his first term—and not just the Supreme Court).
The scenario you describe has never been the case and is already settled law. The president has largely been already held to be immune from litigation for their official acts while president. In fact, it was a huge debate because Clinton got sued civilly by Republican activists for various reasons and SCOTUS held that the trial could proceed while he was president. So in fact, the only time a president has been sued and had to participate while President was when the Republicans tried to jam up a Democratic one, in the middle of a war (Kosovo although some will claim that Clinton “started” that war precisely because of the lawsuit).
What’s specifically new here is the claim by SCOTUS that the President also has post-presidency immunity. It used to be you could use it as a defense whereby you provide evidence that you weren’t acting corruptly within your official acts. Now it’s a blanket immunity - a trial can’t even be brought and your motivations are largely irrelevant and immune from examination.
US v Nixon very clearly put limits of what the president could do in office. Under this ruling, Nixon could have kept the tapes of him ordering the Watergate break in a secret and would have remained in office.
> While the Court acknowledged that the principle of executive privilege did exist, the Court would also directly reject President Nixon's claim to an "absolute, unqualified Presidential privilege of immunity from judicial process under all circumstances."
This ruling directly contradicts and overturns US v Nixon which is a blaring signal considering just how criminally we now know Nixon, his administration, and his reelection committee was behaving.
It has been 3 years and 6 months since Trumps election interference with essentially no progress being made in the courts.
If and when Trump gets elected how long do you think it will take the Supreme Court to differentiate between an 'official' act and a 'non-official' act when Trump acts illegally in 2025?
Throw in the recent ruling increasing the difficulty of proving bribery and things are looking grim ( IMHO ).
Part of this is abdication and dysfunction of the government overall. As I remember it, the argument was that Roe was based on faulty caselaw. If so, I have no problem with it being overruled, but I then expect Congress to pass the correct law to take its place.
The problem isn't that Roe was overturned - it's that our legislative system is so dysfunctional that law is being settled in the other branches of government.
I believe in freedom and democracy. I don't believe in mobs attacking the Capitol or "find me some votes" or minority rule or massive roundups and detention camps or any of that.
can you find any comments anywhere here which seem to support " mobs attacking the Capitol or "find me some votes" or minority rule or massive roundups and detention camps or any of that"?
That is what you are defending when you defend this decision, which along with everything else was drawn out to the last possible moment so as to kick the can until after the election.
Folks, the blueprint for prosecuting Trump has been created.
If you read the complete ruling, the justices work to clarify how "official" and "unofficial" acts apply to the case at hand. For example, many of the conversations had with Pence and the AG are considered off limits for prosecution as they are "official." Other charges, however, can stick if the lower court decides:
> Trump can point to no plausible source of authority enabling the President to not only organize alternate slates of electors but also cause those electors—unapproved by any state official—to transmit votes to the President of the Senate for counting at the certification proceeding, thus interfering with the votes of States’ properly appointed electors
The damning part starts on page 27 of the ruling[0].
i'm a little busy cutting through the actual opinion at the moment. maaaybe i'll get to this Vox journalist's own interpretation of it when i'm done. no breath should be held though.
Nobody who actually read the ruling would link to a media take on it, or make a silly comment like this. The dissent is part of the package, published together. THere is the majoriy opinion, often a dissenting opinion, and sometimes (like here) even more.
Some people actually have a clue what's going on. It takes work, you can't just lazily consume nonsense from journalists.
