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I think Trump is now sure to win. From the audio I'm now also pretty sure there's a dead body somewhere and I'm intensely interested in who that corpse was before it made a very bad decision. What's the protocol for the media here? Avoid publicizing it to prevent copy cats? This is a very bad thing for our democracy.
Why? After all, he could still end up in jail. Or a second assassin could get luckier despite the likely increased security to follow. Or we could get an October surprise. Or some last-minute tricks to get him off the ballot/votes disqualified (I remember one particularly wacky-yet-memorable proposal for a way to declare Trump an invalid candidate and votes for him null and void). Or he could get over 100 million votes… and the Democrat candidate be declared the winner with an "official vote count" of several million more, particularly concentrated in "battleground" states.
It's not over until it's over, and nothing's certain except death and taxes.
I don't think that one would be enough anymore - not on its own.
If New York can put him in jail he can be Epsteined.
I mean, I think Epstein probably killed himself, but sure, it would definitely be possible to arrange for Trump to get murdered in prison (putting him in the general population would probably be enough right there). I just didn't count that as "on its own" - Trump being murdered was another item in the list I replied to.
As with the joke about Hell, the danger of putting Trump in genpop is he might take over.
True about a lot of famous and successful people, though, because they’re usually pretty charismatic and smart and can understand social hierarchies very well. Madoff was apparently very well liked in jail.
Yes -- I would assume the same about Bill Clinton, even more so. Probably any President, but Clinton and Trump more than most. Maybe not Gerald Ford.
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At this stage Trump could literally set up an alternative government in exile in Moscow and the majority's of states would support him.
Except, how's he supposed to get from a jail cell to Moscow
Support him how? Beyond symbolic "moral support" and "not my president" rhetoric, I mean.
talking out my ass here:
trump posts bail, flees or escapes usa with the help of literally anyone, declares he is true president in exile just like guaido. alternative suite of electors submits trump as legit winner.
specific mechanics break down from this point on regarding how to actually govern, but theres enough hilarity to sustain bullshit for a decade from this point
Bail is for pre-trial custody. He's already been convicted of multiple felonies, he just hasn't been sentenced yet. Once the judge gives him jail time, there's no "posting bail" to get out of it.
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If he was ordered to be arrested by federal marshals while in Texas I can see Abbott going ‘fuck it’ and having relatively loyal rangers / cops / nat guard surround him so that federal agents can’t reach him.
At that point Biden would have to decide whether to send in the troops to pacify Texas and that seems unlikely, it would probably just lead to a standoff until the election.
Major internal operations require politically reliable troops, and it seems unlikely that the US military can put together a politically reliable field army in the months before the election. It's not a thing that the US military has experience in and it doesn't take that many to own-goal the mission.
Now a very long-term standoff between the state of Texas and the federal government probably goes badly for Texas(and not great for the federal government either), but a major state rebelling probably has at least a year of 'we do what we want' before having to face the music.
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Well, my experience IRL is that there do indeed exist people (mostly elderly) who've already been put off of voting for him again because this time he's "a convicted felon," and thus I expect jailing him will move even more in that direction. Plus, it would definitely prevent any repeats of the debate disaster, wouldn't it?
Edit: I also saw this comment blaming the assassination attempt on the failure to have jailed him already:
(Emphasis added)
Yeah, I saw you say that before and you have a point.
I said that post-shooting it likely wouldn't be enough.
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My current worry (personal estimate of the conjunction of most likely and most bad) is that some Trump supporter somewhere does something very stupid and very violent, and then Trump fails to condemn it strongly "enough", leading to a spiral of violence on both sides. I hope I'm just worrying too much. I had similar worries about Oct 7, but it didn't spiral into a regional nuclear war, but I don't think this current domestic scenario has an equivalent to Biden ordering 2 carrier strike groups into the neighborhood.
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AP says two dead: the shooter and one attendee.
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