Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Mekh]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/don...lty-rcna136257



Reminder that Donald behaves as a mob-boss where loyalty to him is the only important thing in the world, because he is more important than this country.

Reminder that Republicans not only allow this, but actively support him.

Reminder that there are few dissenting voices against Donald in the Republican party or "conservative movement".

Reminder that Republicans are a threat to national security and the future of this nation.

Gels well with Rightoids posting Joker and Cillian Murphy memes how they are the most loyal to ever loyal: they are looking for a job with Trump!

[Edge-]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ts-republicans

“Nato countries that don’t spend enough on defense, like Germany, are already encouraging Russian aggression and President Trump is simply ringing the warning bell,” Tom Cotton of Arkansas, a former soldier, told the New York Times.

“Strength, not weakness, deters aggression. Russia invaded Ukraine twice under Barack Obama and Joe Biden, but not under Donald Trump.”

Tom Cotton: Harvard educated "elite".

Also a traitor, and incredibly stupid and dishonest individual.

Ukraine is not, and has never been a part of Nato. Just a reminder that an Ivy league degree doesn't prevent one from turning into Tom Cotton or Raphael Cruz.

[Breccia]

"Russia invaded Ukraine twice under Barack Obama and Joe Biden, but not under Donald Trump.”

Invalid comparison.

Trump said Russia didn't go into Ukraine when he was running the first time. He said so defending Putin. So that doesn't count.

Also either Trump asked them to leave and they didn't, or Trump never asked them to leave.

It's almost like Russia either really wanted Ukraine and would have gone regardless, or, Putin's goal was to create chaos and Trump was making enough on his own.

Also, fairly sure Russia invaded Ukraine the second time and...it went very very poorly. Like, Russia got themselves into deep economic trouble over this. Simply put, Russia is now worse off for invading Ukraine. By Trump's logic, Biden has done more damage to Russia than anyone since Reagan.

- - - Updated - - -

Near as I can tell, Trump has today only to ask SCOTUS for emergency help with "absolute immunity" and he hasn't done it yet.

His legal team has a long tradition of filing things at 4:59 tho.

[Kaleredar]

Invalid comparison.

Trump said Russia didn't go into Ukraine when he was running the first time. He said so defending Putin. So that doesn't count.

Also either Trump asked them to leave and they didn't, or Trump never asked them to leave.

It's almost like Russia either really wanted Ukraine and would have gone regardless, or, Putin's goal was to create chaos and Trump was making enough on his own.

Also, fairly sure Russia invaded Ukraine the second time and...it went very very poorly. Like, Russia got themselves into deep economic trouble over this. Simply put, Russia is now worse off for invading Ukraine. By Trump's logic, Biden has done more damage to Russia than anyone since Reagan.

- - - Updated - - -

Near as I can tell, Trump has today only to ask SCOTUS for emergency help with "absolute immunity" and he hasn't done it yet.

His legal team has a long tradition of filing things at 4:59 tho.

I think that Russia was relying quite heavily on Trump winning back in 2020 for their invasion scheme. Even though he lost, they had all of that (poor) planning already done and might have been relying on the notion that trump had sewn enough partisan chaos regarding Ukraine/russia to paralyze the US into inaction and so they acted anyway.

At any rate it’s foolish for anyone to pretend Trump didn’t embolden Russia with his isolationist, anti-nato, ally-abandoning, pro-Putin rhetoric and actions.

[Edge-]

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/arti...epublican.html

The American economy keeps performing better and better. Oddly, so too does Donald Trump’s polling. It is historically difficult to find a period of time in which an incumbent president, absent a major scandal or failed war, has suffered such miserable public approval in the face of widespread prosperity.

But for all the questions this predicament raises, it should at least put to rest one persistent question: whether the source of Donald Trump’s appeal is the immiseration of the working class.

The idea that Trumpism grew out of the shuttered factories of the Rust Belt, or perhaps the stagnating job market following the Great Recession, first took hold around eight years ago. Reporter Jeff Guo found links between areas supporting Trump in the Republican primary and “deaths of despair.” The left-wing commentator Thomas Frank wrote, “Could it be that all this trade stuff is a key to understanding the Trump phenomenon? … We cannot admit that we liberals bear some of the blame for its emergence, for the frustration of the working-class millions, for their blighted cities and their downward spiraling lives.”

When Trump surprisingly defeated Hillary Clinton, leftists used the event to proclaim the repudiation of Democratic Party’s entire program. “White working- and middle-class fellow citizens — out of anger and anguish — rejected the economic neglect of neoliberal policies and the self-righteous arrogance of elites,” wrote Cornel West. “Trump’s election was enabled by the neoliberal policies of the Clintons and Obama that overlooked the plight of our most vulnerable citizens.”

But it was not only the left that upheld this economy-centric understanding of the Trump phenomenon. The mainstream, too, believed Trump’s supporters had been left behind by the economy. The New York Times’ Election Night report on Trump’s victory in 2016 described his supporters as “a largely overlooked coalition of mostly blue-collar white and working-class voters who felt that the promise of the United States had slipped their grasp amid decades of globalization and multiculturalism.”

Analysts who closely studied the Trump vote cast doubt on this premise. Social issues, not economics, formed the main motivation for voters switching from Barack Obama in 2012 to Donald Trump in 2016.

But the economy-centric interpretation never died. One reason is that it was difficult to cleanly pull apart the effects of culture from the effects of economics. Educational polarization has been the master trend in politics, not just in the United States, but across the developed world. And because education and income are linked, it’s not always easy to see which factor is driving the trend and which is merely being pulled along for the ride. If Trump is losing votes in a wealthy, college-educated town and gaining them in a blue-collar town, the cause of the shift isn’t obvious.

A second reason the economic account of Trumpism has stayed around is that it flatters his supporters. Describing a phenomenon as a populist revolt against economic elites is not merely a description, but a moral indictment that allows the the Democratic Party’s critics to lambast it as a tool of the elite.

“We’re endlessly lectured by progressive elites in politics and the media about how GREAT the Biden economy is,” claims conservative pundit Batya Ungar-Sargon. “It actually is great — if, like the elites lecturing you, you own a house and have a stock portfolio. But for most Americans who live paycheck to paycheck, it’s awful.”

American Compass, a right-populist think tank, recently published an analysis purporting to show the “upper class” had become overwhelmingly Democratic. The report was eagerly embraced by the party’s left-wing critics, like Samuel Moyn:

https://twitter.com/samuelmoyn/statu...34501342892039

But American Compass’s definition of “class” was not quite what you’d think. It combined educational status with income. And the survey grouped respondents who did not report their income solely by their educational status, so that those who have an advanced degree but did not report their wages were defined as “upper class.” That definition includes, for instance, teachers — a majority of whom hold advanced degrees — and many other workers whom we wouldn’t intuitively describe as “upper class.”

Finally, and most frustratingly, the economic trends of Trump’s term, and then the couple years that followed, also made it hard to disprove the economic interpretation. The trajectory of the economy did not change when Trump took office, but the continued economic expansion pushed down the unemployment rate to a level that finally began to drive up wages for blue-collar workers. The boom came to a halt in 2020, but its effects were immediately replaced by generous economic aid.

Many Democrats adopted versions of this belief and hoped that Biden would undercut elements of Trump’s economic appeal by both co-opting his nationalist trade strategy and re-creating the high-pressure labor market of his first three years. Democratic senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut wrote an Atlantic column in 2022 arguing that neoliberal economics had alienated the working class from Democrats, but Bidenomics would win it back:

In largely rural parts of the country, Americans who feel left behind by neoliberal economics want to regain control over their economic destiny.



Luckily, President Biden’s first two years of accomplishments provide Democrats with an opportunity to sell a new, winning message of actionable economic nationalism — the antidote to the failures of neoliberalism. Biden has already passed three major legislative acts that show how economic nationalism works in practice. First, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law set about the work of rebuilding America’s roads, rails, and power lines, which will attract lost jobs back to America. Second, the CHIPS Act restarted the American microchip industry, as evidenced by the recent announcement of a $20 billion, 3,000-job microchip factory in Ohio. Finally, the Inflation Reduction Act supercharged the domestic renewable-energy industry; one estimate suggests that the law will create 9 million new jobs over the next decade.

The policy element of the plan was undeniable — Biden had kept Trump’s tariffs in place while building out extensive subsidies for manufacturing in left-behind towns. His “blue-collar blueprint” would win back those workers who had been abandoned by neoliberalism.

The plan was foiled, at least initially, by the post-pandemic inflation surge. Workers’ rising wages couldn’t keep pace with rising prices in 2021 and 2022. No wonder workers struggling with high costs longed for Trump’s return. Trump-era prosperity had given way to Biden-era inflation. So as of a year ago, it was still possible to squint at Trump’s support base and see economics as the primary underlying cause.

But those economic conditions no longer hold. Inflation has finally returned to normal levels, and the job market remains red-hot. Wages have been running ahead of price levels for the last year.

Arindrajit Dube, an economics professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst, recently detailed how the recovery has produced real wage growth. After inflation and the clawback of COVID-era fiscal support hurt pocketbooks through the first two years of Biden’s term, inflation-adjusted wages are now growing faster than the pre-pandemic trend:



And contrary to the complaint that only the elite have benefitted, Dube confirms that just the opposite has occurred. The lowest-earning households have gained the most, while the most affluent have lost purchasing power:



This has not only failed to dent Trump’s standing, it’s coincided with an increase. Over the last year, a period when the economy has surged, the former president has gone from tied with Biden to two points ahead. It is understandable that public sentiment would lag behind economic conditions. But the news narrative about the economy has turned sharply positive in recent months, and feelings about the economy have turned north as well. Even so, Biden’s polling continues to worsen.

There’s enough time for conditions to sink in and lift Biden’s approval. But at this point, a return to circa-2020 polling conditions (Biden winning by 4.5 percent) would be about a best-case scenario.

All this is to say that delivering broadly shared prosperity for the working class has done nothing so far to reduce the appeal of Trumpism. His appeal is not born of desperation or despair. Whatever alchemy produced the Trump cult, money alone will not dispel it.

The NY Magazine with a great piece about how Trumpism has never really been about "economic anxieties" as we were told in the years after Donald won.

Because if it was, then the currently great economy that's delivering for many in the "working class" would result in people being pretty happy and not being super interested in Donald's current focus on blood and soil and all that.

But instead they couldn't care less about the econmoy and are focused on...blood and soil.

[Breccia]

I think that Russia was relying quite heavily on Trump winning back in 2020 for their invasion scheme. Even though he lost, they had all of that (poor) planning already done and might have been relying on the notion that trump had sewn enough partisan chaos regarding Ukraine/russia to paralyze the US into inaction and so they acted anyway.

That's an excellent take. May or may not be right, but it fits the timeline and results.

- - - Updated - - -

Every leader kills people. Some kill more than others. Leadership requires killing people.

-- Tucker Carlson, today

There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?

-- Donald Trump, O'Reilly interview

Both were, of course, talking about Putin and more specifically why they refused to condemn him or talk about him in negative terms.

The Party of Trump has not changed their opinion about Putin, despite multiple invasions of sovereign country Ukraine. They admire and respect him.

- - - Updated - - -

As expected: Trump files for emergency SCOTUS preferential treatment at the figurative last minute.

Trump on Monday filed a last-ditch request at the Supreme Court seeking to prevent his prosecution for attempting to overturn the 2020 election from moving closer to trial.

Trump asked the justices to put on hold an appeals court ruling that rejected his broad claim of presidential immunity in relation to events leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a ruling against Trump on Tuesday that it said would be implemented Feb. 12 unless Trump filed an emergency application at the Supreme Court.

Trump ultimately would like the Supreme Court to hear his case and overturn the appeals court decision, but before the justices can reach that issue they have to decide whether to put the lower court ruling on hold.

The appeals court ruled that as "citizen Trump," the former president cannot benefit from any of the immunity defenses that a sitting president can deploy.

Trump's lawyers say that presidents should have total immunity for official acts as president and that his actions in questioning the election results were part of his official duties.

Bolded because Trump is in so many cases, you need to know which one.

For what it's worth, I think SCOTUS will -- slowly -- reject Trump's claim of absolute immunity from everything. I think they'll side with him in every other case, basically saying "it's okay to prosecute Trump, but we've already decided he's not guilty of anything". How long they drag this out is the mystery factor. It would be a massive slap in the face of justice for SCOTUS to say "we'll take this fast-acting emergency hasty request, and then sit on it for months and months" but, at this point, would it surprise anyone?

[Edge-]

Oh boy, so when does President Biden order that Seal Team 6 assassinate the conservative leaning SCOTUS members?

It's an official act, after all. And he deserves total immunity for all official acts in perpetuity, per Donald's lawyers.2

[Kathranis]

Even if you can argue that him questioning the election results is an official act, how does that also apply to his rhetoric about marching on the capital and inciting his supporters to unlawfully impede Congress in order to disrupt the election?

If the SCOTUS tries to find in favor of Trump, Biden should immediately start taking unilateral actions to go after Trump overtly. By the time the dust settles the election would be over.

[Breccia]

Oh boy, so when does President Biden order that Seal Team 6 assassinate the conservative leaning SCOTUS members?

It's an official act, after all. And he deserves total immunity for all official acts in perpetuity, per Donald's lawyers.2

Indeed, "absolute immunity" needs to be struck down before exactly this happens.

But it seems the legal statute is clear: election/re-election campaigns are not WH official duties. Not only should this ridiculous concept be struck down in general, it should also be struck down in this specific case.

- - - Updated - - -

Even if you can argue that him questioning the election results is an official act

He can't.

how does that also apply to his rhetoric about marching on the capital and inciting his supporters to unlawfully impede Congress in order to disrupt the election?

He has constantly been saying there was fraud, and maybe I could see the Executive Branch taking action, but...they did. They lost 60 cases in a row in court (new record!) and had no evidence. This wasn't about questioning the election and everyone knows it.

[Kathranis]

You know, I'd go a step further if I were Biden. I'd just say, "let it be known that if the SCOTUS determines the president is immune to criminal prosecution unless first successfully impeached by Congress, my first act after the ruling will be to have Donald Trump and every Republican member of Congress executed."

It's an extreme example but illustrates exactly why the idea of presidential immunity for high crimes and treason is utterly ridiculous.

[Milchshake]

I think Biden should be a bit more ambigious. "I reserve the right to invoke Corn Pop."

[Edge-]

https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/amp/show...log/rcna138367

Her reaction quickly turned to anger — not just at Trump, but at others in the GOP who have said nothing to push back against the former president’s weekend screed. “Why is there silence from the Republican Party?” she asked. “Like, where is everybody? ... Where are the Republicans in defense of our men and women in uniform that sacrifice for us and protect our country?”

Nikki Haley, being "shocked" that her political party won't come to the defense of her and her husband currently serving in the military.

Apparently she forgot that Donald literally made it a point to attack gold star families, and one in particular, back in 2016 and has a long history of being shitty towards veterans and their families?

Either Nikki is incredibly oblivious and gullible or she's incredibly dishonest. Or all of the above.

[Shadowferal]

You know, I'd go a step further if I were Biden. I'd just say, "let it be known that if the SCOTUS determines the president is immune to criminal prosecution unless first successfully impeached by Congress, my first act after the ruling will be to have Donald Trump and every Republican member of Congress executed."
It's an extreme example but illustrates exactly why the idea of presidential immunity for high crimes and treason is utterly ridiculous.

Hmm...certain SCOTUS members might take the hint.

[Breccia]

I think Biden should be a bit more ambigious. "I reserve the right to invoke Corn Pop."

"The time has come. Execute Order 420".

WaPo reports that Trump is upset that his lawyers are asking for money.

No, really.

Trump likes to have his lawyers around him, although one adviser said he’s complained that some are overpaid. The lawyers have been told they can’t charge more than $750 an hour after some lawyers sent in bills that Trump’s political advisers deemed exorbitant, this person said.

I mean, to a certain extent, it doesn't matter what they charge. Unless you're that one guy who demanded money up front, they're not getting paid.

The article is loaded with other issues that are, if anything, less favorable to Team Trump and its self-inflicted issues.

As a client, Trump is both fickle and demanding, talking to his defense attorneys multiple times per week, according to people familiar with the conversations, who like others interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss them. The lawyers are also in frequent contact with one another and Trump’s campaign staff.

Trump’s attorneys must decide when to incorporate their client’s more provocative legal commentary into court arguments, and they have had to review drafts of his social media posts to make sure they don’t violate gag orders or undermine legal strategy, these people said. Other times, Trump posts on social media without telling anyone, leaving his advisers and lawyers to read his missives at the same time as the public.

The lawyers are also dealing with an uncertain trial schedule — Trump’s federal election obstruction case in Washington has been pushed back from March 4 as Trump argues he should be immune from prosecution in that case, and his Florida trial could be delayed as well.

“Nobody knows which case is going to go first, and balancing the political and legal optics of every decision made is difficult,” said David Schoen, a lawyer who has represented Trump in the past. “Hopefully they have Trump’s interests in mind, but how do you balance all four of them — different interests, different judges?”

Schoen, who remains in contact with Trump, said Trump seems happy with his lawyers, although Schoen believes they should have more experience with high-profile cases. “I don’t think he has the best legal team he could have,” Schoen said. “All that matters is the client has the legal team around him that he thinks is the best team he could have.”

“All in all, it makes great sense not to represent Trump,” said Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University. “If you represent Trump, it could be a killer. The fear is that it could lead to an exodus or trouble within the firm itself.”

So Blanche, a graduate of American University and Brooklyn Law School, left Cadwalader, Wickersham and took the job himself. He has multiple lawyers working for his new firm, Blanche Law, all dispatched to the various Trump cases. Susan Necheles — a respected New York defense lawyer with her own firm — is also playing a lead role in the Manhattan criminal case, and according to the filings was paid $465,000 by Trump’s PACs between April and June of last year.

Yes, a lawyer is paying Trump to represent him.

Before a court appearance to enter his second not-guilty plea, Trump tapped Blanche to simultaneously lead the Florida and New York criminal cases. Kise, who has degrees from the University of Miami and the Florida State University School of Law, joined Blanche and the former president for that court appearance, after Trump scrambled unsuccessfully to find someone else.

And in court, judges have accused some of the attorneys of sounding like Trump on the stump. When Lauro said at a D.C. hearing that Trump had a right to “speak truth to oppression” and that a gag order prohibiting him from disparaging certain people involved in the case amounted to President Biden censoring his lead political opponent, District Court Judge Tanya S. Chutkan responded curtly.

“I understand that you have a message you want to get out. I do not need to hear any campaign rhetoric in my court,” the judge told Lauro. “Politics stops at this courtroom door.”

The lawyers can also get combative with judges, showing their boss the strong performance he is known to admire. Kise, for example, was a vigorous advocate for Trump at the civil business-fraud trial involving the Trump Organization, sometimes shouting in court. At one point, after Trump ranted from his courtroom seat that the case was politically motivated, Judge Arthur F. Engoron told Kise to “please control your client.” Kise did not make any visible effort to do so.

Trump has often wanted to guide the legal strategy in both his criminal and civil cases, those involved in the conversations said, and attended trials and hearings even when his lawyers said it was not necessary. At times, he has frustrated his legal team by seeking advice on the cases from other attorneys — including some whose conversations with him after he left the White House have become part of the classified-documents investigation.

“He’s not a very trusting person,” one top adviser said.

Blanche and the Florida legal team often meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago the day before court appearances in the classified documents case, then stay overnight, people familiar with the situation said. But the former president does not like to hear tough news about any of the cases against him, and will often change his story when he does.

“He has his own set of facts,” said a person who has worked for Trump in the past on legal matters, and like the others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. “That’s the biggest issue of representing him. It’s impossible to get him to agree to a unified set of facts. As soon as there is an issue with one of the facts, the facts just change retroactively.”

Some of Trump’s lawyers have expressed frustration that Epshteyn is so close to Trump because he often paints a rosy picture of the legal situation, giving the former president an unrealistic impression of what lies ahead in court, according to people familiar with the discussions.

“We have good news!” Trump will proclaim when he sees Epshteyn’s number on his phone.

But members of the legal team also sometimes see Epshteyn as a necessary middleman between Trump and his lawyers. He listens to Trump’s rants and speculations, giving the other attorneys more time to focus on their work.

Anyone seen Office Space? I'll give you a hint: it wasn't supposed to be an instruction manual.

[Surfd]

https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/amp/show...log/rcna138367

Nikki Haley, being "shocked" that her political party won't come to the defense of her and her husband currently serving in the military.

Apparently she forgot that Donald literally made it a point to attack gold star families, and one in particular, back in 2016 and has a long history of being shitty towards veterans and their families?

Either Nikki is incredibly oblivious and gullible or she's incredibly dishonest. Or all of the above.

Weird how the horrific behaviour of her fellow Republicans as amply demonstrated in a pattern of clear indicators over several years never seemed to be an issue worth being "concerned" about until it was suddenly directed at Her, personally. Then it's suddenly an issue. Just totally weird, right?

The moral outrage here is so hollow you could ring it like a bell.

[Breccia]

The moral outrage here is so hollow you could ring it like a bell.

And yet another victim of "I never thought Trump would turn on me"

Haley either knew what she was getting into, or should have. The shock will wear off and she'll go back to trying to win over the party that has a zero percent chance of backing someone Trump called an enemy, ruining her life, her career, probably her marriage, and we'll never hear from her again. And it won't be worth it. Oh well.

[Edge-]

And yet another victim of "I never thought Trump would turn on me"

It's like she too memory-holed the whole Donald presidency. Which is especially weird since she was our ambassador to the UN during that time.

[Breccia]

Trump asks RNC to have Lara Trump co-chair.

No, really. Click the link yourselves.

If anyone out there still thinks it's not the Party of Trump -- not us, I mean actual politicians and Republicans -- they should now just admit they were wrong. It is basically impossible to say you're a Republican without being automatically a Trump supporter, even if you specifically and directly refute it, if your party moves to full-on Trump mandated control.

It may not happen. But it will.

[Edge-]

Trump asks RNC to have Lara Trump co-chair.

No, really. Click the link yourselves.

If anyone out there still thinks it's not the Party of Trump -- not us, I mean actual politicians and Republicans -- they should now just admit they were wrong. It is basically impossible to say you're a Republican without being automatically a Trump supporter, even if you specifically and directly refute it, if your party moves to full-on Trump mandated control.

It may not happen. But it will.

Republicans: We're over political dynasties!

Also Republican: Long live the Trump dynasty!

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ts-republicans



Tom Cotton: Harvard educated "elite".

Also a traitor, and incredibly stupid and dishonest individual.

Ukraine is not, and has never been a part of Nato. Just a reminder that an Ivy league degree doesn't prevent one from turning into Tom Cotton or Raphael Cruz.

Yeah GOP still running with the the "What President Trump actually meant was..." defense.