Forum    Search    FAQ

Board index » Chat Forums » Political Opinions and Opinionated Posts




Post new topic  Reply to topic  [ 1466 posts ] 
 
Author Message
 Post subject: Re: Trump.
 Post Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2021 7:23 pm 
Moderator of DOOM!
Moderator of DOOM!
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Thu May 30, 2002 12:00 am
Posts: 15851
Location: Yes.
It's going to be interesting to see just how many prosecutors indict Trump going forward, isn't it? Granted that tossing him in prison won't heal the GOP, I'm sure a lot of plutocrats will be thrilled. Now if they were all happy, that would be another story...

Top 
   
 Post subject: Re: Trump.
 Post Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2021 10:17 pm 
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Tue May 21, 2002 12:00 am
Posts: 12406
Location: The things, they hurt
Well, New York will go after him. But I am not so sure about the Feds. If Comey is indicative of the median attitude in DC, the Biden administration will probably decide that it isn't worth the public spectacle to prosecute Trump.

Top 
   
 Post subject: Re: Trump.
 Post Posted: Tue Jan 19, 2021 7:11 am 
Moderator of DOOM!
Moderator of DOOM!
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Thu May 30, 2002 12:00 am
Posts: 15851
Location: Yes.
Georgia also seems fairly interested. It'd be an interesting moment for the incumbent governor, certainly.

Top 
   
 Post subject: Re: Trump.
 Post Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2021 2:55 am 
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Tue May 21, 2002 12:00 am
Posts: 12406
Location: The things, they hurt
Mitch seems pretty pissed off at Trump, though knowing him, he's probably angrier about losing his job as Senate Majority Leader than he is about nearly being dragged out and lynched by an angry mob.

About five or six hours to go until Trump flies off to Florida, hopefully to fall into an alligator pit.

Top 
   
 Post subject: Re: Trump.
 Post Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2021 11:53 am 
Moderator of DOOM!
Moderator of DOOM!
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Thu May 30, 2002 12:00 am
Posts: 15851
Location: Yes.
Trump's out. Be nice if his damage went with him, but at least his capacity to do more has been seriously curtailed. Now it looks like Biden's got a nice afternoon of executive orders signing ahead of him...

Top 
   
 Post subject: Re: Trump.
 Post Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2021 12:20 pm 
Member of the Fraternal Order of the Emergency Pants
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Wed Feb 26, 2003 12:00 am
Posts: 3411
AOL: Dodger724
Location: Relative Obscurity
Anyone for locking this thread and never speaking of the 45th president ever again?

Top 
   
 Post subject: Re: Trump.
 Post Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2021 12:32 pm 
Moderator of DOOM!
Moderator of DOOM!
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Thu May 30, 2002 12:00 am
Posts: 15851
Location: Yes.
I certainly never expected this to become the second longest thread in the board back when. Hopefully if there's anything else that needs saying here, it would be about his and his cohort's destruction.

Top 
   
 Post subject: Re: Trump.
 Post Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2021 8:34 pm 
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Mon Sep 23, 2002 12:00 am
Posts: 2699
Website: http://kitoba.com
Location: Televising the revolution
Passiflora wrote:
I doubt it ever crosses the mind of Americans, but Trump's conspiracy theories have worldwide impact.


I wonder if it will make a difference in other countries with far-right nationalists to see that America was able to get that close to dictatorship, and then step back, even on the very brink.

I remember finding a rare ray of hope a few years ago when CCC told us that South Africa had successfully dumped their narcissistic, corrupt, flamboyant would-be dictator.

Top 
   
 Post subject: Re: Trump.
 Post Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2021 10:59 pm 
Gatekeeper of Niftiness
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Sat Feb 09, 2008 12:16 am
Posts: 9081
Location: Praise be to the sticky elastic bands of the Healing Gauze
I consider myself shocked... absolutely shocked that Trump is still in the US. I figured he'd be somewhere in Europe or Asia by now.

These past four years have been a ride. One that I do not wish to repeat.

Top 
   
 Post subject: Re: Trump.
 Post Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2021 12:33 am 
Member of the Fraternal Order of the Emergency Pants
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Wed Feb 26, 2003 12:00 am
Posts: 3411
AOL: Dodger724
Location: Relative Obscurity
kitoba wrote:
I remember finding a rare ray of hope a few years ago when CCC told us that South Africa had successfully dumped their narcissistic, corrupt, flamboyant would-be dictator.

Maybe you were gone while he was doing it, but he actually posted here in great detail about the Jacob Zuma scandal and I was actually a bit jealous during the Trump years of the sane governance and application of rule of law for dealing with an obviously corrupt president.

Top 
   
 Post subject: Re: Trump.
 Post Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2021 3:10 am 
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Tue May 21, 2002 12:00 am
Posts: 12406
Location: The things, they hurt
I don't think we're quite rid of him yet. Over 70% of Republican voters believe that Biden stole the election, and the likes of Linsey Graham are still sucking up to Trump. I think there's about a 50% chance that Mitch will see which way the wind is blowing and walk back his threat to convict.

kitoba wrote:
I wonder if it will make a difference in other countries with far-right nationalists to see that America was able to get that close to dictatorship, and then step back, even on the very brink.

Possibly, but not in the way you might think. Squint hard enough through a funhouse mirror and the Biden inauguration resembles a restorationist countercoup. Dictators will trot out the "see, America does this too" excuse when they put down their protesters and mass arrest their opposition. This is obviously a bad-faith reading of events, but we're talking about authoritarian propaganda here.

Top 
   
 Post subject: Re: Trump.
 Post Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2021 9:33 am 
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Sun May 26, 2002 12:00 am
Posts: 2266
Location: Vienna, Austria, EU
Great that he finally did hit the institutional brick wall, that i expected him to hit within the first 100 days.

That he only hit it after he lost the election clearly enough, does not help my trust in checks and balances however and i start to wonder if that is a problem only with US checks and balances or if they are as vulnerable everywhere.

Top 
   
 Post subject: Re: Trump.
 Post Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2021 2:33 am 
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Tue May 21, 2002 12:00 am
Posts: 12406
Location: The things, they hurt
All it takes for a democracy to become vulnerable is for at least one major player to participate in bad faith - i.e. to have a party that's only willing to abide by the rules of democracy as long as they are winning.

How much does that apply to the extremists in Europe? My (possibly inaccurate) impression is that because most European countries have multiparty democracies, the extremists possibly have a more difficult time getting into a position where they can wreck the institutions. On the other hand, you do have to beat them back at the polls every few years. If one the far right managed to get into the governing coalition, how much trouble do you think you'd be in?

In the US, the two-party system forced the Democrats to stand there and watch while Trump hijacked the Republican party.

Political scientists also used to say (dunno what the state of the research is now) that presidential systems are somewhat more vulnerable to being taken over by demagogues than parliamentary systems. Because a presidential election gives a demagogue a platform all of his own, and enables him to claim that he alone represents the People. It doesn't mean prime ministers can't turn authoritarian, but it helps.

Top 
   
 Post subject: Re: Trump.
 Post Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2021 7:45 am 
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Sun May 26, 2002 12:00 am
Posts: 2266
Location: Vienna, Austria, EU
With a mutliparty system, Romney style conservatives (or whatever the specific ideology) can run as their own party and often are not doomed to US style third party status. So conservative voters, who like Romney style conservativism, will expect their Romneys to not be in the same party as their Trumps.

And if you have a coalition government, all parties need to provide something for their base, so if one party in government has "don't rock the boat too much" on their ticket, they at least need to be seen dragging their heels, when the other is trying to wreck the institutions.

I don't know how correct i am with the following impressions, but it always has seemed to me, that all parties contain people, who value the instituion they work for more then their party and whos reaction to an institution wrecking policy would be along the line of "you might know better about the big political picture, but i know that institution better". And it would be really difficult to purge them from the party, without splitting the party.

Top 
   
 Post subject: Re: Trump.
 Post Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2021 3:30 am 
User avatar
Offline
Joined: Tue May 21, 2002 12:00 am
Posts: 12406
Location: The things, they hurt
The Senate Republicans are poised to let Trump off the hook again, so no, there are no institutional walls. He'll get away with everything at the federal level.

Time to give up hoping that the Republicans will ever come to their senses. They're not going to openly ditch Trump. His supporters aren't going to suddenly realize he's a loser and pretend they never heard of him. The politicians aren't going to stop pandering to the craziest. That whole party is going to continue its long slide into white grievance and knee-jerk nationalism. That's what they've chosen, that's what they lack the guts to stand up to, that's what they're going to be. If Trump dropped dead of a heart attack tomorrow, the crazies would coalesce around another right-wing extremist.

Top 
   
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
 
Post new topic  Reply to topic  [ 1466 posts ] 

Board index » Chat Forums » Political Opinions and Opinionated Posts


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest

 
 

 
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to: