the man does so much that is illegal and improper, I feel ignoring it worse than any investigation and legal action.
They impeached Bill Clinton, they investigated Hillary, chants of lock her up, the investigated Hunter Biden.
I am not sure what line we are crossing here, that hasn’t already been crossed
Exactly. Republicans are crying banana republic right now, claiming there has been some sort of politicization of the DOJ. That’s a concern, and this should not be taken lightly. But at the same time, Republicans have been investigating democrats for years, and have little to nothing to actually show for it.
House Republicans also came in after the 22 election and were going to show how the FBI, social media companies, and many others were going to be held accountable. Their hearings were shit shows that produced nothing other than embarrassments for Republicans.
We need to stop giving in to these idiots. We all saw this coming for Trump during the 2016 republican primaries. Even his opponents at the time warned of this before they joined the cult movement. Trump is corrupt, and has been his entire life.
Trump indicted on crimes he bragged about publicly is not a threat to democracy. Giving him a pass on January 6 and allowing him to come back as a viable candidate less than 2 years later is the real threat. Does this further rally his supporters? Absolutely. But what is the alternative?
Historically, the Rubicon was crossed by a dictator who didn’t want to follow the rules of the republic. It’s a little backwards to use as an analogy to the rule of law being imposed on someone who believes that they are above it.
It sounds like the federal indictment is also very different from the NYC indictment, in that while Trump may have broken the law repeatedly in the NYC indictment it isn’t clear that other billionaires would be charged for doing so. Here, there are multiple recent cases and convictions of people who did less than what Trump has done.
Trump has also done lots of stuff without being charged. E.g., the Mueller report discussed 11 potential instances of obstruction of justice (1 as a candidate, 10 as President). There is an open letter, signed by 1,027 former US attorneys and prosecutors, appointed by both Republicans and Democrats, that argues that the 4 most serious such instances would be prosecuted for any normal person. At some point you have to draw a line. STATEMENT BY FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTORS | by DOJ Alumni | Medium
and - most republicans don’t believe there ever was an investigation into the Hillary e-mails
The November surprise that literally tanked Hillary’s numbers by the 0.5% needed for Trump to win.
I’ve said before that my primary objection to Trump, even before he was elected, was that he’s the poster boy for elements of modern American culture that disgust me.
While I focused on his antics of celebrity and promotion of the flaunting of excess when making that comment in the past, another element of that is his disregard/abuse of law.
If you’re going to have a law it needs to be equitably enforced…or else why bother having laws?
The New York State criminal case, I’ll admit, seems like it’s stretched to the point of being out to get an unpopular politician, or a reach to find something that might play to a jury that would otherwise have trouble getting the nuance of a more-appropriate criminal charge given the opacity of some laws.
This federal case…I’ll hold off on my armchair quarterbacking until the indictment and associated documents become public. Without those details, it’s hard to be objective when opining on whether this is persecution versus something that really rises to the level that people-who-are-not-Trump would be prosecuted for.
The criminal case that I’m more interested in seeing is the Georgia state case that may be coming up. A politician applying pressure to election officials to attempt to throw an election is an offense that should have grave consequences for the politician in question.
I fear that the 2024 primaries and election are mostly going to be Trump being tried in the court of public opinion.
Regarding Trump:
The fact that Trump was available to run for office in 2015 proves that rich people get different treatment under the law (that is not good and needs to be corrected). At some point you have to draw the line.
Regarding this case:
What has been made public, some by Trump himself, is enough to get anyone else a conviction on these charges. Not indicting him is confirmation that the rule of law does not matter and only power matters. It confirms that the presidency is an authoritarian position, and a president can do whatever they want.
Regarding the divide:
With the help of conservative media and conservative monies the Republicans have been playing at party over country since at least the mid 90’s (that is power to the party damn the rest). McConnell went all in when Obama was in office. Trump with his one true talent, branding, ripped the core out of this conservative positioning and set it on a course for full authoritarianism and a destruction of the semblance of the rule of law. This divide is not two sides splitting apart, it is one side ripping itself away from the center. One side that believes alternative facts are better than actual facts, oligarchs are good, voting should be kept to those that agree with me, loyalty is one sided, good and evil are easily defined according to my needs, I could go on.
Anyone that supports Trump at this point does not support a constitution, a democracy, or even a republic because Trump does not support those. Not prosecuting Trump concedes the country to him and his philosophy.
Regarding the future:
I still believe America can succeed/survive as a democracy based on the rule of law not the rule of some dear leader. I believe that conservatism can right itself and denounce their embrace of authoritarianism. The culture war and the economic policy squabbles mask the underlying divide of whether or not we wish to continue this great experiment or devolve into just another authoritarian state. Proving that even a president is accountable to the law may be used as a political weapon, but it is a weapon within the system. Not indicting is proof the system is a lie.
Willfully retaining military plans acknowledged as secret is very serious to me. We will see if that is the case in question.
However, the call to GA’s SoS was so egregious and clearly strikes at the heart of a democracy, the counting of votes, that i view it as more serious and entirely disqualifying from ever holding public office again.
I agree.
I don’t think we can just let him just ignore laws because he is/was the president. But, I wish the media coverage were “below the fold”.
I really don’t see how we keep a functioning “republic” if voters don’t work with some common set of “facts”. Over on FoxNews this is all about corrupt deep state – the news dropped yesterday just to distract from this $5 million Joe Biden bribe. Meanwhile, NBC breaks into their normal programming for 20 minutes of talking about a 1 minute story.
The actual crossing of the Rubicon was the first time that someone (Julius Caesar) tried using brute force to overturn the wishes of the voters in the Roman Republic. I think Jan 6 qualifies.
I chose that reference because it is held by many that it was the proximate cause of the end of the Roman republic. As far as I can tell, there was no written law forbidding it. It was improper, but not technically illegal. What followed was decades of civil war. Roman generals using armies to claim the empire.
The underlying question here is what is the best course moving forward. What do we do to best preserve the experiment? I have yet to see a compelling argument, either on this board or elsewhere, that indictment and conviction does more good than harm. There will be discord. Likely violent, if Jan6 is any indicator. That is harm. Hence I am sad and in no way celebratory.
While I am sympathetic to the arguments made regarding the impact of scofflaws and failing to “draw the line”, I do not see the net gain. It will bring pain. It may reduce some future pain, but is that future pain so clearly certain to ask that we now take the medicine? That’s a tough one. The medicine could be fatal, ala the Rubicon.
Hard disagree. Pardoning Nixon set the precedent that led us to Trump imo. All of what you say is true, and it’s sad that we have gotten to this point, but what you are advocating amounts to appeasing terrorists. It’s the wrong move and will just lead to worse behavior in the future imo.
if someone does actual criming above traffic ticket level stuff, then the consequences of that are what they are. investigations, maybe then charges, maybe then trials, whatever. whining about it is a waste of internet space.
The problem with adopting that precedent is that with Nixon/Watergate, although it did take time for a nontrivial number of people to join it, there was a general consensus that Nixon did wrong. His political career was done, and his reputation was impaired. He may not have been fined or gone to jail, but he was punished. While there could be questions raised about whether the result was equitable, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have the view of “he’s done; we’re done; let’s move on.”
Trump, unfortunately, isn’t done. His teflon coating has so far caused any meaningful consequences for his misdeeds to slide right off him. I don’t think we can move on until there’s been some agreed-upon recognition of wrongdoing and consequences for such.
If we were at a state where Trump was “done” – there was no possibility for he and his close followers to hold public office in the future, and he was sidelined from political theatre in disgrace – I could see an argument being made that it was best for the country to just move on rather than queueing up a sequence of trials. (I’m not sure I would agree…but I would at least not write off such a stance as completely unreasonable.)
But we seem to be a long way from that at this time.
Relevant recent article on this, it’s super embarrassing for the right, imo.
My question for EG… What, if any, crime would be serious enough that you would favor prosecution? Or do you advocate complete immunity for all presidents?
Eh, the Republicans worked with Clinton though. I think it was during the Obama administration that things really went off the rails. That was the era of “We’re not just the ‘party of no’, we’re ‘the party of hell no’”.
I mean, Hillarycare failed, but it lacked support from like half the Democrats (as well as all Republicans) so it’s certainly not fair to pin that on the Republicans.
But the Republicans and Clinton passed welfare reform and Clinton got his SCOTUS nominees approved with little drama IIRC. I looked up RBG’s confirmation vote and it was 96-3 so obviously most Republican Senators voted in favor.
I’m not sure we’ll see another 96-3 confirmation vote for a long time.
Breyer was 87-9 so not quite as lopsided as RBG but still a lot of Republicans voted for him.
Twig Republicans started going off the rails in the 90s, they just hadn’t shattered all the standing norms quite yet.
I guess it depends on how you define “off the rails”. The notion of refusing to work with Democrats no matter what didn’t start until Obama was POTUS.