I’ve sat in hours of traffic trying to cross the GW. By the time you finish that trip you’re hoping who/whatever caused the traffic has a serious injury.
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I recall that him being the first Catholic POTUS was a bigger deal.
I don’t think there has been any POTUS that has represented as being non-Christian (although some probably weren’t actually Christian). Maybe a better chance that a convicted felon will get elected POTUS before a non-Christian does?
Christie is the GOP candidate who I find the least evil, position-wise. Unfortunately, I dislike the guy so much, due to his focus on higher office, bridgegate, and the tone-deafness of his private beach party during lockdown, that I find myself possibly preferring Haley over Christie in the primary.
(My primary voting strategy will be “Trump if DeSantis is competitive for Connecticut’s delegates; else seek the least objectionable candidate still on the ballot whom I can stand to vote for.” I’ll probably need a barf bag on hand when voting, regardless.)
That’s fair, I think he and Haley would both be relatively competitive GOP nominees in NJ.
He is one of histories singular leaders though.
As I recall, most of the successful emperors were in their 40s, or close to it, before they were augustus.
On that note, I wonder if the original augustus’s age influenced the constitutional required age of 35 to be president. it wouldn’t surprise me if it did.
Not COVID lockdown, right?
It was a budget issue in 2017. So, “shutdown” technically.
That was probably it. I could have sworn that there was another incident duing COVID, but Google is stubbornly not supporting my memory.
in a different universe, bridgegate gains him votes. an openly super petty politician? now you know the extent to which he will be a dick about stuff
One more reason Trump needs to be kept out of power.
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Chesebro and Powell have both asked for speedy trials, starting in October (Powell wants it to be just 3 days, which I don’t think she can demand). Assuming that the other defendants are allowed to sever their trials from the 2 of them to have a later date, how does this affect things?
I imagine that while there is a legit chance of a diehard Trumpist hanging the jury in Trump’s trial, it seems less likely that someone would do that for Chesebro or Powell. So let’s suppose that the October trial results in convictions. Does having convicted co-conspirators rub off on Trump at all? At what point does the Republican party start to care? If all of his fund raising goes towards his defense and none towards supporting down ballot campaigns, does that cause internal rebellion?
Presumably convictions in October will be downplayed by Trump as being for other people, but if the October trial results in exonerations, then he’s going for a huge victory lap and I think Willis has a big problem.
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It seems obvious. The question has been asked for years. What are we at now? 6 years since becoming president. But 8 years and counting since the escalator and his vile political behavior? More than 12 if you go back to the birther stuff and the start of his political BS. If the Republican party didn’t care and has even supported him for the past 12 years, I see absolutely no reason to think they’ll start to care now. Those few with a spine to stand up at some point? Chris Christie and a whole bunch of other people who are no longer in office and are certainly not in a position of any power or influence anymore.
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Trump’s Georgia attorneys have filed to sever from the other defendants.
Presumably having multiple trials means that the later defendants gain the knowledge of how the prosecution will try the case, which can inform their strategy. Both sides also gain intelligence on how juries react to the messaging, and they’ll tailor their strategies accordingly.
I think having Trump tried separately might also reduce the risk of a mistrial for the other defendants. I can imagine there being a few folks in the jury pool who could hide their would-vote-to-acquit-even-if-incontrovertible-proof-is-introduced bias well enough to get onto the jury, who might not act on that bias with other cronies.
Maybe if a couple of early defendants are found guilty and receive stiff sentences, other defendants might be motivated to revise their pleas and testify against Trump to reduce their prison time.
There are probably too many variables in play to really predict what the upsides and downsides really will be.
As long as Republican voters see Dems as the greater evil, and as long as many of them continue to get news and commentary through sources that justify or gloss over excesses by GOP politicians, etc…they won’t care.
The best hope is that, once Trump rides off into the sunset (one way or another), the folks who grow into control of the GOP will be more…adult-y? less wacky? than Trump has been, and some semblance of sanity might be restored.
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In terms of voting for the D or the R in the general, sure. I’m super curious how the Republican primary goes though.
Possibly, but I think a pretty big % of the all-in cult 45 members fully support any means necessary to keep their guy in power including violence or sedition. Anyone aiding that effort is a true patriot, regardless of the constitution or laws. I could see jury nullification for any of the defendants.
One of the Manafort jurors left her MAGA hat in the car so she could get on the jury, and thought (and still thinks) that the Mueller probe was a witch hunt. She voted to convict on all counts. I don’t think underlings are safe.
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One juror could keep Trump or any co-defendant could prevent a conviction, but one could not create an acquittal, invoke double jeopardy or prevent a retrial. Likely prosecutors would try at least once more, maybe more than once more depending on what the actual jury votes were.
While Trump would probably claim a hung jury shows he was innocent, opponents from either party would point out he was not acquitted.
Exactly.
If you take the set of people who would vote Trump “not guilty” even if the prosecution presented a video of Trump holding a smoking gun, saying “I did it”…I think that a subset (possibly a small subset) would not extend the same courtesy to the lower-profile minions.