Skibboleth
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User ID: 1226
Skibboleth
4mo ago
IMO, the impetus for the lawfare is that Democrats thought they had fully captured the institutions, and could now impose their will with no risk of retaliation.
IMO this is a bullshit story right-wingers tell themselves to rationalize power grabs. Throw in regular ominous remarks about the dangers of prosecuting (their) politicians just so people understand and it looks more like a story of incredible Democratic naivete where they thought a conservative judiciary would act in a principled manner rather than closing ranks to protecting their guy.
Skibboleth
4mo ago
If the postulate is that I plan to punch everyone in the face and also have 1000 fists so I can punch everyone in the face simultaneously, the fact that I am only punch one guy strongly calls into question whether or not I actually plan to punch everyone.
Skibboleth
4mo ago
it's insane to expose the President to prosecution for executing the duties of the Presidency.
Why? If the president can't do his job without committing crimes, maybe we need to either review his job or the law. The constitution certainly doesn't suggest immunity from criminal liability.
Furthermore, is there are reason why this standard is particular to the presidency and not any elected official? Shouldn't Bob Menendez be accountable to his voters, not some dodgy DoJ official? Who are federal prosecutors to to contravene the will of Illinois' people by charging Mike Madigan?
Skibboleth
4mo ago
If you never hold politicians accountable you encourage corruption and tyranny. Holding politicians accountable means prosecuting them when they commit crimes.
Once prosecuting ex-politicians was on the table
We already prosecute politicians. The constant special pleading for Trump makes no sense.
Skibboleth
4mo ago
None of those other figures are subject to the jurisdiction of blue states.
Trump's major cases are in Federal court or a red state. Why would the Democrats not simply cook up fraudulent Federal charges against their other political adversaries as well?
Skibboleth
4mo ago
Ring me back when they're charged.
Skibboleth
4mo ago
For some reason this problem only seems to come up with one specific guy. McConnell isn't buried in criminal accusations; neither is Desantis, Abbott, or pretty much any other major Republican leadership figure. Maybe Trump really is just unusually shady?
We can’t be having presidents going to jail all the time like Illinois governors.
Why not?
The Trump base might not be the most articulate but there are absolutely smart people in their orbit who understand their grievances and why they're so angry.
I didn't say every Trump supporter is stupid. I said that he has a dedicated core of supporters who are very loyal but not very bright or discerning, which I will stand by because I think it goes an enormous way towards explaining the durability of his support in particular despite losing as an incumbent and because it conforms to the general pattern with populist politicians more generally.
I recommend https://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-01-21/donald-trump-and-the-politics-of-resentment/
I've read it before. I'm not impressed. Many of its factual claims are tendentious or more reflective of self-image than reality (e.g. the persistent efforts to paint Trumpism as the voice of the working class). Much of it boils down to saying "liberals don't like conservatives and say mean things about them." Conservatives don't like liberals either and say mean things about them, so I'm not sure what I'm supposed to take away from that, other than that maybe conservatives care more about what liberals think of them than vice versa.
Once we cut past that, it is essentially a more sympathetic framing of my claim that Trump functions as an empty vessel for the nebulous fury of his supporters. The difference is that Greer thinks they are basically justified on grounds of economic neglect while I think the economic anxiety narrative is bullshit and they are attracted to Trump because he promises to vicariously remediate their sense of humiliation.
Trump's unique asset is that he is deeply and irrationally loved by a significant body of low-IQ conservatives who will rabidly attack anyone who challenges him. As such, he can threaten to spoil any Republican strategy that doesn't elevate him. The point the strategy outlined above is to try and break his hold on these people because insofar as they are responsive to anything, it's to vulgar social dominance. You're never going to win them over by arguing that you're better qualified or more competent, because they don't care. Nor can you win them over by appealing to principles, because they don't have any. You have to simultaneously tear Trump down as a weakling and present yourself as a better vessel for their inchoate rage.
Insofar as Desantis had a plan, it was hope that Trump was too old or too imprisoned to run.
Skibboleth
4mo ago
Until such time as Trump's supporters unstorm the capitol and Trump didn't try to have his VP declare him the winner despite losing, it seems entirely reasonable to say that Trump tried to seize power. "It was to force a debate" is just another flavor of Trumpist cope deploy to reconcile the gap between their self-image as patriotic Americans and the reality that they prioritize loyalty to their wannabe caudillo.
Skibboleth
4mo ago
However, it has likely also struck a crippling blow against the Democrat Party's primary value proposition: "Democracy."
I doubt it. The central thrust of the "Donald Trump wants to destroy democracy" critique is that Donald Trump tried to seize power when he lost in 2020, and nothing has changed on that front.
Skibboleth
4mo ago
Desantis lost because he was too much of a coward to actually run against Trump. He was facing an uphill battle anyway, but his plan of tickling Trump's balls was always guaranteed to fail. He never answered the question of why MAGA voters should support him instead of Trump when he should have been slamming Trump for being a fat old man, a puppet of his advisors, a sore loser, a man who fundamentally did not have the right stuff to Make America Great Again.
it seems clear that Newsom is the only viable candidate
Newsom seems like the least viable candidate, being a California politician with the aesthetics of an 80s movie villain.
Skibboleth
4mo ago
That requires the jurisdiction to provide shelter, which is usually unpopular (both since it costs money and since it has to go somewhere and no one wants to live next to the bum tank).
Skibboleth
4mo ago
I don't think he actually wins that many points here because of how personal some of this gets, which voters tend to dislike actually, but overall the impression is still vigorous and strong.
Trump benefits substantially from double standards where everyone already expects him to be dishonest, deranged, and mean-spirited, so when Trump does these things, no one cares.
I have genuinely never understood the "Trump is strong/vigorous" perception. He babbles incoherently and frequently trails off or repeats himself like a broken record. Physically he's a fat and sluggish old man. He doesn't give off age-belying vigor to me, he gives off 'unhinged grandpa energy". Best I can tell is that middle America is so acculturated to obesity that they conflate being loud with being energetic.
Skibboleth
5mo ago
This is the rhetoric that younger generations are hearing from their parents and grandparents.
Is it? I question whether or not the NYT commentariat has a enough similarity to the general population to draw a useful conclusion. You're talking about people who a) subscribe to the NYT b) read articles on seniors dating c) feel moved to comment on said article.
Anecdotally, I've never heard anything like this from my older relatives, and I'm going to guess that in general older people in stable long term relationships have better things to do than defend their choices in the NYT comments section.
The only guarantee of a lifetime of happiness, it seems... to live an entire life alone.
This is, at best, reducing the risk of experiencing emotional injury.
Skibboleth
5mo ago
In my opinion, the greatest fault of Capitalism, and the real problem that is behind it, is that it is so productive that can share money to unproductive people, creating a new caste of Priestly Propagandist
Is that a fault of Capitalism? Most societies, including non-capitalist/pre-capitalist ones, have/had some kind of priestly/moral class. Such as literal priests.
Skibboleth
5mo ago
That's not a peculiarity of American politics. Any political system is going to have gaps between intended policy, codified law, and execution. What is peculiar about American politics of late is legislative sclerosis. The consequence is that Congress plays a greatly reduced role in making and supervising policy, legislation rarely gets revised, and policy is often a matter of executive and judicial calvinball. The executive has a lot of formal and informal discretion, and often your only recourse if you don't like executive policy is to find a friendly judge and get an injunction.
Skibboleth
5mo ago
This is somewhat belied by Nixon's own decision making, he probably could have survived the break-in had he come clean about it early, it was only the long cover up that sank him.
I'm not a Nixologist, but my impression of him from various historical accounts (not just about Watergate) was that the idea of just going "This was a rogue op I had nothing to do with, the people involved have been fired and will be prosecuted" was pretty much unthinkable to him.
This kind of behavior, and trying to name CREEP the even creepier ODESSA after the mythical organization of ex-Nazis popular in fiction, really just weirded out most of the political staff in the White House, they were viewed less as scary secret-agent men and more as LARPer weirdoes.
Did nobody think having these clearly bonkers people on staff was a bad idea?
Skibboleth
5mo ago
Let's bring back stimulus check discourse.
Skibboleth
5mo ago
Would a student loan tax credit with identical bottom line implications be more legitimate than direct forgiveness?
Skibboleth
5mo ago
Xi in particular seems to have a preoccupation with projecting a certain kind of strength/dominance to the detriment of other concerns, causing him to derail long-term efforts by previous Chinese leaders to sell an image of China as a reasonable and conciliatory actor. I don't know if this got as specific as particular schemes so much as it was a high level strategy that was reflected in how the Chinese government approached various issues.
Skibboleth
5mo ago
If the 'quiet' part is merely that performative activism is a common phenomenon in the context of any high profile issue, Israeli conduct included
There was actually an Israeli who made this point a few years ago:
And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.
So I think it's safe to say that it's not an especially new phenomenon. The only thing that's new are the social media platforms.
They can already do this.
We already prosecute elected officials. If we concede to Trumpist threats every time it comes time to punish him for his lawlessness, we won't have a functioning country. Why not say the stubborn insistence that Trump must be impervious to prosecution and punishment is a threat to the stability of the country because the message it sends is that procedural politics are futile? If corrupt politicians will never face justice, why not deliver it yourself?
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