Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[The Stormbringer]

There were, and maybe still are, some classic conservatives in the Republican Party. They're likely seething with anger at what Trump did to their party, or considering fleeing the party like @Skroe did.

They're the minority now.

But! But I was told by someone on these forums that they were the majority! And MAGA was the minority! Are you claiming I was led astray? Say it isn't so?!

[Sunseeker]

There were, and maybe still are, some classic conservatives in the Republican Party. They're likely seething with anger at what Trump did to their party, or considering fleeing the party like @Skroe did.

They're the minority now.

Sure, there'd be some people left. But they'd make up such a small number they'd be completely out of power within 20 years. Which is effectively the same as "noone left".

[Breccia]

Sure, there'd be some people left. But they'd make up such a small number they'd be completely out of power within 20 years. Which is effectively the same as "noone left".

The transformation of the Republican Party to the Party of Trump is ongoing, yes. There will be other deplorable criminal racists running after Trump, carrying on the party probably even in his name.

But at least 2024 isn't looking good for them.

[Drutt]

This is too funny.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66261070

A Ponzi scheme operator whose prison sentence was commuted by former US President Donald Trump has been charged with a similar fraud.

Eli Weinstein, 48, was among 143 people whose convictions were either fully pardoned or commuted in Mr Trump's final hours in office.

But less than a year after release, Mr Weinstein allegedly launched a scheme to defraud at least 150 investors.

Federal prosecutors said on Wednesday he "picked up right where he left off".

[Ivanstone]

There were, and maybe still are, some classic conservatives in the Republican Party. They're likely seething with anger at what Trump did to their party, or considering fleeing the party like @Skroe did.

They're the minority now.

The classic conservatives aren’t any less bigoted or greedy. Trump is slightly better than a lot of them because he’s marginally nicer to gay people.

Jesse Helms is looking up from Hell and masturbating with glee. Not because the GOP got meaner. It’s because the GOP got less polite.

[Poopymonster]

There were, and maybe still are, some classic conservatives in the Republican Party. They're likely seething with anger at what Trump did to their party, or considering fleeing the party like @Skroe did.

They're the minority now.

Look at how they're treating classic conservatives now.
It should be no surprise, we know how the GQP treats minorities.

[s_bushido]

This is too funny.

Guy defrauded people out of hundreds of millions, but they convinced Trump that he didn't get a fair trial. Gee...I wonder why that rhetoric worked on him.

[Gorsameth]

Many, yes. Enough, no. Despite Trump crowing about his numbers that were far lower than Biden's, I think Trump's actions, obviously mostly COVID, demoralized a lot of these Trump enablists who realized they'd elected a lying incompetent loser.

And they won't vote for him in 2024, either.

he got 12 million more votes in 2020 then 2016. I don't buy the notion that a noticeable amount of people who voted R in 2016 were turned off by what Trump did during his 4 years in office.
They (almost) all just kept on voting for whatever box had an R next to it.

[s_bushido]

he got 12 million more votes in 2020 then 2016. I don't buy the notion that a noticeable amount of people who voted R in 2016 were turned off by what Trump did during his 4 years in office.
They (almost) all just kept on voting for whatever box had an R next to it.

Without seeing specific breakdowns of who voted for which candidate in which election, it does look like you're probably right that people vote for their team regardless. Well...except when it came to Hillary. Dems stayed home on that one because "who in their right mind would vote for the useless con man?"

2008: 45.7(R) / 52.9(D)
2012: 47.2(R) / 51.1(D)
2016: 46.1(R) / 48.2(D)
2020: 46.8(R) / 51.3(D)

But I don't think the raw amount of votes is all that meaningful in 2020. Since it was such an outlier for both candidates.

[Odinfrost]

Gee, Trump listening to the yes-men he surrounds himself with? Another day that ends in an arrest. Simply put, because Trump freed his kind of criminals -- which, yes, includes tax evaders, here's the entire list of Trump pardons on a dot-gov site, browse for the word "tax" yourself -- and not, say, people wrongfully imprisoned or in federal prison for pot, these serial grifters and cheats immediately used their newfound freedom to grift and cheat.

"Surely other people pardoned by former Presidents also got re-arrested."

Okay, name one.

Then name nine more. Good luck with that.

It's been ages since I've commented in here, but, honestly, this doesn't surprise me. Of course the cheating grifter will free other cheating grifters.
They're his kin. And a grifter freed by him is a grifter that gets him his vote. The grifters dishonor code or something.

[Breccia]

Guy defrauded people out of hundreds of millions, but they convinced Trump that he didn't get a fair trial. Gee...I wonder why that rhetoric worked on him.

It's been ages since I've commented in here, but, honestly, this doesn't surprise me. Of course the cheating grifter will free other cheating grifters.
They're his kin. And a grifter freed by him is a grifter that gets him his vote. The grifters dishonor code or something.

Yep. Someone must have told Trump to pardon him -- it seems unlikely Weinstein donated. But of course Trump saw the story about someone who was fleecing his customers for hundreds of millions and said "They're alive, like me" "Yep, that'd be me if I ever got caught".

[ringpriest]

The only thing I can think of is that these people pay zero attention to everything going on, or they've bought into his propaganda and think it's all fake or an attack against him, the one and only savior of the USA... You know, morons.

It's not just that, although many Trump supporters - particularly the outspoken ones - are fools and villains (often both). I pay little attention to mainstream US news (although it's hard to travel and not catch some in passing) and when I do see it, I'm always a little surprised by how amazingly kindit is to Donald Trump. I think people get confused, because while it is seldom favorable coverage, it is virtually always the sort of coverage the legitimizes him, and paints him as a merely a corrupt tycoon-turned-politician. Yes, maybe more corrupt than most, but nothing more negative than that.

In short, US media, even supposedly Trump-hostile media, do not inform their viewers with any degree of fidelity about Donald Trump, a blithering idiot of a conman who would have been in jail decades ago if the US truly cared about whitecollar crime, and who would have been imprisoned or executed by now in any country with a functioning judicial system. He is constantly praised by faint damns, that in turn help normalize him.

A casual viewer/voter (and having the time, education and access to be more is a distant luxury for many Americans) concluding that Biden and the Democrats are somewhat less corrupt and quite a bit more liberal than the GOP and Trump (like the difference between Carter and Reagan, or Pappy Bush and Dukakis) is making a reasonable judgement, based on the evidence available to them. Sure, if they did a great deal more research, and/or had better sources of information and better critical analysis skills, they'd see that the difference is more like that between FDR and Hitler in 1934... but a society that would provide a better 4th Estate and better education wouldn't be in this position to begin with.

This popular confusion, is, by the way, why the Republicans keep hammering on Hunter Biden. They aren't trying to prove anything, or convince anyone paying attention. They are trying to maintain the concealing misasma that lets them pretend Democrats and Republicans are two sides of the same coin. Republicans need to conceal their fascism from poorly-informed voters who would oppose it, while simultaneously appealing to pro-facist voters of all stripes. It's a difficult line to walk, but the more they can blow smoke, the better their chances of making it. (To be clear, the Democrats are deeply flawed, as is the current Ameican establishment... but both are far preferable to the Republicans of Gilead and their cowardly Goering-playing-at-Fuher.)

- - - Updated - - -

Without seeing specific breakdowns of who voted for which candidate in which election, it does look like you're probably right that people vote for their team regardless. Well...except when it came to Hillary. Dems stayed home on that one because "who in their right mind would vote for the useless con man?"

Don't forget the impact of extensive Russian propgaganda ops targeted specifically at convincing Democratic voters to anything other than vote for Hillary Clinton.

Trump told his Russian allies to hack Clinton's campaign, and they did, stealing all her campaign's data, internal polling, and operational planning. Then Trump's Russian-paid campaign chair handed all of the Trump campaign's data, internal polling, and operational planning over to a Russian intelligence asset. And then a large number of Russian disinformation campaigns went to work and successfully flipped the election.

[taheen74]

It isn't a spite vote. It is the fact the Republican party, at least the voting base, refuses to acknowledge that people in their party should be kicked out of it. They refuse to accept the fact the party is a party of grifters, racists and zealots because the base is exactly those things. They welcome those things even though they accuse others of being said things.

This is why the GoP motto should be "Every accusation is a confession."

It's both fun and pathetic to watch the Party implode on itself.

[Edge-]

Atlanta law enforcement readies for a possible Trump indictment

[Breccia]

So Trump had announced, again, that he was the target of an investigation, again. Okay, we knew that.

But there's more to the story. And @Edge- I hope you're sitting down.

Two of the charges we already know because the House referred them.

18 U.S. Code § 371 - Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud United States

This one is pretty direct. Trump was trying to get the government to give him four more years he fairly and legally lost, by claiming he did not fairly and legally lose. Oh, and the fake electors might be part of this. And maybe the murderous insurrection. Trump really threw everything he had and it wasn't enough.

Should it matter, 18 US Code 371 carries five years unless you were conspiring to commit a misdemeanor. Stealing the White House is not a misdemeanor. Trump should be worried.

18 U.S. Code § 1512 - Tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant

This code covers a lot, including trying to kill people, but Trump should be looking at this section:

Whoever corruptly—
(1)alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or
(2)otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so,
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

Yes, that suggests Trump could only be fined for trying to delay the certification. The word "corruptly" is Trump's best chance here, and it's not a very good one. Trump could try to convince the judge (and jury?) that he honestly thought he'd won.

That...is a tall order. He lost I believe 60/61 court cases on the topic, and the one he won did nothing. No reasonable person could conclude he'd won, so Trump would have to plead insanity. Oh, and that probably won't work, Agent Smith has a bunch of texts and other communication, and witness testimony, which say Trump knew full well he lost. Besides, Trump pleading insanity would (a) probably not work, it almost never does, (b) immediately get him thrown off the RNC ticket -- even they aren't going to back someone who admits they're not competent to tell right from wrong, and (c) goes against what a narcisistic sociopath would do, he'd literally rather commit violence than admit he's not the best at everything.

The NYTimes adds more info:

The corrupt obstruction of a proceeding charge has been used against hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters and has served as the Justice Department’s go-to count in describing the central event that day: the disruption of the Electoral College certification process that was taking place inside the Capitol during a joint session of Congress.

In other words, there's a ton of prescedent for this charge, not just in general but for this specific act. Trump should be panicking.

So conspiracy and obstruction we saw coming. There is a third code.

"Treason."

No.

"The Insurrection Act."

No.

"Perjury? Filing a false report?"

Not yet.

18 U.S. Code § 241 - Conspiracy against rights

"...the hell is that?"

The United States is built on certain unalienable rights. One of them is voting. If you conspire to remove people's rights, that's unAmerican, and illegal.

Trump conspired to overthrow the election, throwing out effectively every vote in the US, even the ones for him, technically. Therefore removing one of the most vital American rights of 150+ million Americans. And, by virtue of being not the Insurrection Act, is much easier to prove. The aforementioned communications and witnesses will give Agent Smith a two for one special.

The NYTimes continues:

A series of 20th-century cases upheld application of the law in cases involving alleged tampering with ballot boxes by casting false votes or falsely tabulating votes after the election was over, even if no specific voter could be considered the victim.

In a 1950 opinion by the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, for example, Judge Charles C. Simons wrote of applying Section 241 in a ballot box-stuffing case that the right to an honest count “is a right possessed by each voting elector, and to the extent that the importance of his vote is nullified, wholly or in part, he has been injured in the free exercise of a right or privilege secured to him by the laws and Constitution of the United States.”

In a 1974 Supreme Court opinion upholding the use of Section 241 to charge West Virginians who cast fake votes on a voting machine, Justice Thurgood Marshall cited Judge Simons and added that every voter “has a right under the Constitution to have his vote fairly counted, without its being distorted by fraudulently cast votes.”

The line of 20th-century cases raised the prospect that Mr. Smith and his team could be weighing using that law to cover efforts by Mr. Trump and his associates to flip the outcome of states he lost. Those efforts included the recorded phone conversation in which Mr. Trump tried to bully Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” enough additional votes to overcome Mr. Biden’s win in that state and promoting a plan to use so-called fake electors — self-appointed slates of pro-Trump electors from states won by Mr. Biden — to help block or delay congressional certification of Mr. Trump’s defeat.

Agent Smith is accusing Trump...of grand scale voter fraud.

I want to say that again, because some of y'all need to see this.

Agent Smith is accusing Trump of grand scale voter fraud. A crime which has been accused of, by Trump, over and over, but never committed...until he, personally, intentionally, and willfully, did it himself. Meaning, if Trump (and any of his co-conspirators) are convicted or plead guilty of this, they will be the only people ever convicted of the crime Trump said was rampant. Oh, and he claimed it had happened before he actually did it, so he was still wrong when he claimed it.

Can we re-draft Trump's election fraud commission? The ones that weren't arrested or died, that is.

"Fine, whatever. What's the penalty for that 241 thing?"

They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both

"Okay, so a fine and maybe some prison time. Well, even if he gets the max, he could make it another ten years."

and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section

"...uh oh."

or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both

"Ohhhhhhhh shit.|

or may be sentenced to death.

"Mother fucker."

Yes. Trump should be mortified.

Now, I am not suggesting Agent Smith will ask for the death penalty. In fact, I'm saying he won't right now. I am only pointing out, Trump is accused of a crime which carries the death penalty. Like other "if someone dies" laws, hey @cubby back me up on this, the law does not say "the person who dies has to be the target of the intended action" but it says "if someone dies during the criminal act". And "hang Mike Pence" sounds like an attempt to kill to me, even if on-duty law enforcement weren't directly and physically assaulted -- how many convicted? Hundreds? A thousand? -- due to Trump's direct words and actions didn't count.

Smith doesn't need to prove Trump's actions led to a forseeable chain of events which led to death. I don't think the shooter was ever charged, and the murderous insurrectionists have their own problems. Smith needs to prove Trump conspired to remove the rights of at least one American to vote, by removing the results of the fair and legal election and declaring himself king. The "any reasonable person would see this could lead to death" kinda thing simply isn't necessary. Trump shouldn't worry about being executed, only convicted of a crime so serious he loses 2024 -- whether or not he's kicked off the RNC ticket isn't the point anymore. If he doesn't get a pardon, even a few years could see him die in prison.

We'll see what Smith does and doesn't charge, but, I can't think of a good reason that specific code should be mentioned in the "you are in trouble" letter if it wasn't on the short list. Three major felonies, each carrying possible prison time of five or more years (I have no idea what the fine would be for such an act on this grand a scale, even if it didn't work).

Happy Friday, everyone.

- - - Updated - - -

Atlanta law enforcement readies for a possible Trump indictment

And holy shit, that's not even the same indictment.

[Corvus]

The death penalty hey? I seem to recall Trump has opinion about that...

[Gorsameth]

Without seeing specific breakdowns of who voted for which candidate in which election, it does look like you're probably right that people vote for their team regardless. Well...except when it came to Hillary. Dems stayed home on that one because "who in their right mind would vote for the useless con man?"

2008: 45.7(R) / 52.9(D)
2012: 47.2(R) / 51.1(D)
2016: 46.1(R) / 48.2(D)
2020: 46.8(R) / 51.3(D)

But I don't think the raw amount of votes is all that meaningful in 2020. Since it was such an outlier for both candidates.

The part that matters to me is that in no sane reality should Trump have gotten more votes after seeing 4 years of him in the WH.

The fact that America as a whole didn't (near) unanimously reject him shows just how bad the tribalism in the US really is.
The GOP could put the literal corpse of Hitler on the ballot and he would get 46% of the vote. Because he has an R next to him.

[Darththeo]

The part that matters to me is that in no sane reality should Trump have gotten more votes after seeing 4 years of him in the WH.

The fact that America as a whole didn't (near) unanimously reject him shows just how bad the tribalism in the US really is.
The GOP could put the literal corpse of Hitler on the ballot and he would get 46% of the vote. Because he has an R next to him.

There are a large number of voters who always will vote for the sitting President as people think President are entitled to two terms.

[Poopymonster]

The death penalty hey? I seem to recall Trump has opinion about that...

YOU CAN'T KILL A GOD!
As he frantically has his personal toilet at Mar-A-Lardo outfitted with gold and life support systems.
JOB OPENING: APPLY NOW! We need 1000 REAL PATRIOT FREEDOM LIBTERIES AMERICANS to personally assist YOUR GREATEST PRESIDENT in his professional and personal daily activities.
Benefits, raises, promotions available after 180 days.
Some reason the positions are never filled for longer than...24 hours.

[Teriz]

The scary thing is if you view right wing media, they're really pushing the narrative that Trump did nothing wrong and this is a politically motivated attack.

Trump is playing into it, saying that his "followers" will react violently if he is put in prison. Then he has the audacity to say that the justice department rightly charging him for criminal behavior is "fascist" while he actively tries to become an American dictator.

What disgust me the most is that Trump is still polling at 44% in the general election. That just tells me that conservatives saying "back the blue" and "worship the constitution" are full of shit.