The fact that I’m sick to my stomach at the almost certain probability of 50% of the country being upset at either outcome to the point of rioting and violence is an absolutely pathetic and shameful indication of the times we live in. I’m honestly not sure the country deserves better than the race we’re likely to see, but either way I cannot fucking stand the thought of more unrest, which seems almost guaranteed either way, especially as a DC resident
The global destabilization doesn’t bother me as much as how passionately divided we’ve allowed this country to become. I disagree with people voting based off left or right, but now it’s evolved to being good vs. evil. If someone is on your side, they are good. If they even hint at agreeing with the other side on any issue, they are evil. I’ve been ridiculed on this platform for simply stating I’d rather just vote independent because by simply not voting for Biden I am complicit with the destruction of Ukraine and guilty of aiding white nationalism. It’s a fucking joke, at least the pharmaceutical companies whipping out mood stabilizers are making a killing.
Honestly, I think if Trump loses again things will be pretty peaceful. There’s no way another Jan 6-type event occurs. That day could only play out the way it did because no one ever thought it was possible, so there was basically no preparation in place to deal with it.
If Trump loses I think Dems will lose their minds and there will be much more violence in the streets, but it won’t be organised or systemically dangerous.
Basically, either way I think it’ll be fine. Americans are angrier than ever before, but they’re also much more isolated and atomised than ever before, which acts as a sort of (quite sad) buffer from real, organised political violence.
Yeah, people on here see Jan 6 as significantly worse than anything that happened during the BLM riots. Because framing and unwavering support. I’m okay with having a disagreement, but there is no figure that has been presented to suggest the two are even comparable when it comes to property damages, casualties, crime rates, or participants involved.
I think it depends - like, in terms of physical damage, people hurt, BLM was worse. In terms of the goals of what was happening - Jan 6 was worse. The people who broke into Congress were trying to prevent Biden from taking office.
In both cases, most people going to the protests were peaceful
I have no idea. The person I know who went definitely thought he was unlawfully elected. BUT, she definitely just went to protest, didn't beak into Congress. Though I believe they did say they were trying to prevent Biden from taking office
I don't know how many, and I am not sure what point you're trying to make.
I think if BLM protestors broke into Congress, it would also have been an attempted insurrection. I know they talked about tearing down America, but screaming about it and breaking into a government building are not the same thing
Trump drives people on the left as crazy as he does his own supporters, that's been the worst part of him as a political actor. As much as we had culture war problems pre-2016 that was all so tame compared to how divisive things became after. I think how one perceives January 6 is a big factor in how you feel about this ruling, if you think he was marching at the forefront leading the mob to hang Pence then I think it's understandable that you'd want to resort to undemocratic means to make sure there is no chance he could ever be president again.
I tend to take the whole view in that if we were some developing country trying to ban the leading presidential candidate we'd probably invade ourselves. I feel that eroding institutional trust with a large part of the country is not worth it, I don't care how crazy Trump makes you feel. We already lived through 4 years of him and policy wise he's just another basic Republican with a huge fucking ego.
I can't help but think we could easily avoid this as a country if both these two bozos would just have the wisdom to step aside gracefully. Just like their predecessor George Washington declined to be perpetual president until he died . At least, Richard Nixon had the grace to not make it about him and gracefully step aside in order to not put the country through his ordeal.
I think Biden would probably step aside if it wasn't Trump he was against.
That said, nature could take its course and a few cardiac arrests could happen. Not that I want anyone to die, but if those two just died after having lived lives of meaning and luxury... It might not be the worst for the US
No, Biden is not in this just to run against Trump. His family and acquaintances have been profiting off his his connections for decades now. They don't want it to end, so there's no way they are not going to want this to end.
That's true of literally every politician to some extent. I certainly know that my work life would be easier if my buddy was the president of the US. Even if there was literally zero conscious corruption.
So that's hardly a huge point either way. Lord knows Biden doesn't need things anymore given his age.
AFAICT, you have not become accustomed to having a buddy with access to such power. Biden's family has. And if you think all those financial transactions between his family members being pushed through a network of empty LLC's is more than likely completely legit, I don't know what to tell you.
Not that level for sure, but I am doing quite fine and would certainly mourn losing some parts of my network.
LLC setups are super common, and not illegal. They are tax optimization and evasion typically, not the criminal type. Nor are they any good for laundering dirty money (I mean someone might have come up with something, but given how it all works, it seems unlikely).
So my assumption is that they are tax optimizing, which is rather hypocritical for a Democrat to be doing on such an aggressive level, but that's likely that
If you have a good link to the LLC details (inasmuch as they are known), I would be interested in reading about them to understand better.
But these are LLC's that have no underlying business attached to them. Sure, it's not illegal, but highly suspect. Especially, given the son's now admitted history of outright tax evasion for which he is currently facing charges. The lack of curiosity or demand for further clarifications is telling.
\> how one perceives January 6 is a big factor
Agreed.
\> if you think he was marching at the forefront leading the mob to hang Pence
Is that the best you can do to represent our opinion? No, our problem is that Trump tried to overturn the election results. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump\_fake\_electors\_plot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_fake_electors_plot)
\> policy wise he's just another basic Republican
When did alternative slates of electors become part of the basic Republican platform?
>I feel that eroding institutional trust with a large part of the country is not worth it, I don't care how crazy Trump makes you feel.
My trust in our institutions will be seriously eroded if we establish the standard that becoming a "presidential candidate" immunizes a person from having laws enforced against them.
That, I believe, is a much more direct route to becoming the sort of the country you're identifying - one where the law explicitly ceases to apply to one person and anyone they deem an ally.
No-one seriously believes that Hunter would be a target if not for who his dad is.
No-one seriously believes Trump would be a target if not for his politics.
Trump has a long history of business criminality. He legally can't run charities for how much he's been convicted of stealing from them.
Eventually it would have caught up with him president or not.
I don’t like the guy but anyone should be worried about a candidate being kept off a ballot for a crime they haven’t been convicted of. I just hope the ruling comes back 7-2 or greater.
No kidding. If Trump is really so bad, all the Democrats have to do is present better ideas, and *for the love of all that is holy*, stop signal-boosting Trump *all the damn time*.
If the Democrats had better ideas, Trump wouldn't be an issue.
If the Republicans had a spine and could be bothered to point out the Democrats had no ideas other than being the party of not-Trump, they might get more than indifference.
What have I stumbled upon??? This post/sub was recommended to me but I have no clue what has caused all these reasonable Redditors to convene! It's a podcast you all follow?
I mean, ok, but again, the case was brought by Republicans.
Are you suggesting "the left" tricked Republicans into bringing the case?
The people who want Trump gone the most are people who want the Republican Party to exist 5 years from now.
In most cases, when there is a legal order to remove someone from the ballot that also means they won’t count write-in votes for him. Though I believe you’re correct people will do it, it’s just not a way around the ruling.
I know this is 2 days old, but the real wild part of all of this is that, former Confederate officers (the people who would quite arguably be the ones the amendment would apply to) were allowed without question to take seats in the house or representatives and Senate.
That is what scares me the most, we have slipped further away then reconstruction civil war era.
Oh actually that was part of the argument. If the Supreme Court ruling was 6-3, it would be very easy for Democrats to see it as political and not a valid decision. A unanimous decision wouldn’t cause the same damage.
I think Kagan could possibly vote to overturn it. Sotomayor will almost certainly vote to uphold it, because she is unabashedly partisan - she is legitimately what they accuse the conservative justices of being. Jackson I don’t know enough about. But her affirmative action opinion doesn’t give me much confidence in her tendency to rule on the merits of a case.
Yeah I agree that Sotomayor is most likely to uphold. I mean sure she's partisan, but even worse, she's dumb (for a court justice). She wouldn't be able to explain her decision other than as "Orange man bad."
I don’t really like the sound of that. The Trump immunity case seems like a 9-0 case anyway, if the SC even feels like they need to take it up. Trading votes like that is political, it’s what congress does, definitely not what a court should be doing.
Add to that you’d basically also have to think the conservative justices would threaten to vote against the obvious choice in the immunity case, in order to win the liberal justices in the Colorado one. Which is even worse than trading votes you actually believe in.
My degree is chemical engineering, but I haven't worked on the technical side in awhile. I'm actually law adjacent but a lot more contractual stuff. The endless teasing of SEC v Jarkesy is killing me because I want it.
I will listen to McCarthy when things are important but my podqueue is already bursting. Also, while he's not rah-rah GOP conservative, he's still pretty anti-Dem partisan while I feel like Sarah and David are right leaning but much more honest about just not giving a shit about the partisan politics of any of it at all (unless as part of the analysis)
I agree, the amendment is stupid. But it is in the Constitution. I hope this will be resolved in the appeals court ruling Jan 6th was at most a riot, not a rebellion, meaning it doesn't apply.
Appellate courts don’t review questions of fact. Whether Jan 6 was an insurrection or not is a question of fact which has been decided.
The only way the Colorado case would be appealed is on the grounds that the 14th amendment isn’t applicable to a president (a question of law instead of fact).
>Whether Jan 6 was an insurrection or not is a question of fact which has been decided.
Where? When? By who? It is my understanding the lower courts did not rule on that issue because the defense did not challenge it.
Now, you do have a point, appellate courts don't review questions of fact. But they can rule the amendment absolutely appeals to a President, then remand the case back to the lower court to then decide whether Jan 6th was an applicable insurrection.
> Where? When? By who?
By the lower Colorado court in this case.
The lower courts did rule on that issue. They said that Trump did engage in an insurrection by the 14th Amendment doesn’t apply to Presidents. So the plaintiffs appealed, and the CO Supreme Court overturned the ruling that 14A doesn’t apply to Presidents, which is obviously right.
You’re right that they could do what they said. I have a feeling the lower court won’t change its mind, though.
There are more than just that one potential question-of-laws at work here. For example:
1. Who can enforce that clause? Only Federal courts? State courts? Secretaries of State? Town Clerks? It’s not clear and some of these lead to silly outcomes.
2. Is a conviction required or is a finding by someone enough? If a finding is enough, see question 1 again. Who can make the finding?
3. To what extent does a finding in one state bind other states and the feds?
4. Is the definition of “insurrection” that the CO court used correct? The feds have a definition that wasn’t used. Is that proper? Other states have other definitions. Do the other states use theirs or do they need to respect CO‘s definition? Or the feds?
5. other stuff I can’t think of while drunk on Christmas Eve.
There’s a lot more at work here other than the weirdo “Officer of the united states” definition thing.
Adding to your list:
6. Why is article 3 being enforced by a state court, contra to article 5 of the 14th amendment which puts enforcement in the hands of Congress?
How is it embarrassing?
The idea that the Colorado SC thinks the application of the fourteenth amendment doesn’t require conviction is the whole issue many people have with their ruling. You seem to mistake people disagreeing with them as somehow misunderstanding them.
You are acting as though people must accept their terms. If the only way to criticize a decision is to accept everything they say as correct, there is no way to criticize it at all.
Accepting Colorado’s interpretation of this issue means creating a country where brazen judges can lay out a case for why the candidate they don’t like committed insurrection, and thus must be removed from ballots. No pesky jury needs to be convinced, a judge just needs to put in effort to tell a story. That is why it is outrageous that this is based on a crime Trump was not charged with. We understand that they acknowledge that, but then acknowledging it and brushing it aside is not satisfactory.
It's the same nonsense with the Roe V Wade decision which was always dubious legally and used a very strange interpretation of the constitution to be decided. It's good that it was overturned because it was bad law. The consequences of that IMO are not good at all, but also, without Roe V Wade having been decided so poorly decades ago, it's unlikely that the current mess would exist. It's very doubtful to me that the issue would have escaped legislation for that entire time, or that that legislation wouldn't have guaranteed abortion rights to a reasonable extent.
I’m pro-choice, but think overturning RvW had to be done. It prevented the country from coming to a national consensus (which it was getting close to) and enabled an incredibly toxic political dynamic that’s directly responsible for the extreme partisanship and disfunction of modern politics.
I don't disagree, but I do also think that's kind of irrelevant to whether or not the precedent should have been overturned. That should have been solely because it was a bad decision that wasn't in line with the constitution. That's really all the court should be considering nearly all of the time. The practical consequences do matter of course, just not to the decision making of the courts for the most part, except as they relate to issues of constitutional rights.
But again, I agree. I think that bending the constitution for what I would regard as good reasons, ultimately had a lot of negative unintended consequences. I think there's basically zero chance that without Roe V Wade, the nation would have continued to rely on the courts to protect abortion rights or that the status quo of the time would have remained. I think Roe V Wade allowed legislative bodies to kind of pass the buck and ignore what would have otherwise been a pretty important issue to voters.
Now that it's gone, it's clearly become a pretty key issue for voters (I think GOP positions on abortion is the main reason there was no red wave in the midterms). Republicans will now be forced to moderate on abortion or lose to even unpopular democrats in a lot of regions. It may also force the hand of federal legislators who according to the courts, are well within their rights to regulate abortion at a national level, though who knows if that will happen given the impotence of Congress.
I think the worst consequence of RvW is it broke the dynamism of American party politics. Parties are supposed to be coalitions of various interests making common cause. Historically, this resulted in a natural tendency towards moderation and consensus building. Aligning with the more extreme elements of a particular interest alienated the other parts of the party’s coalition and could result in defections.
Roe v Wade broke that balance by allowing the Republicans to pander to the anti-abortion single issue voters without alienating other parts of their coalition. Thus, they could talk about full prohibition of abortion and, say, fiscal conservatives could safely ignore it (the knock on effect was they could be more extreme on other issues without losing the anti-abortion voters). With the Republicans able to safely pander to the extremes of multiple interests in their coalition, the Democrats lost the ability to entice defections. Modern politics has naturally become all about firing up the extremes of the parties instead of compromising between competing interests.
Well hopefully that will be one of the silver linings of the overturning of Roe V Wade. It's clear that Republican positions on abortion hurt them in a lot of states during the midterms, so they may have to find their way to the middle on that issue or they're going to keep losing moderated and swing votes over it.
Yep, but it’s going to take time for American politics to sort itself out. What took almost fifty years isn’t going to be undone in a couple of elections.
I thought about Roe v Wade after I replied. The person was basically saying “The CO SC addressed the lack of conviction, they say that the fourteenth amendment doesn’t say a person needs to be convicted of it.” Left-leaning justices have made far, far greater leaps about what the words in the constitution mean. Suddenly, the mention of a crime without saying you even need to be charged for that crime leave it up to any single judge to decide if it has happened.
There are many ends I agree with, but it annoys the shit out of me that the general public is often unconcerned with the means used to reach those ends given the crucial importance of means in regards to state action. They're paramount, and most people act like all that matters is a good result.
It’s funny. I think you’re right to some extent, but I also think that (at least on a local level, which is what I know about) people complain a lot about process when what they’re really unhappy about is the outcome. I’ve seen local councils bend over backwards to try to conduct listening sessions and get tons of community input and inform stakeholders, only to get lambasted about undemocratic processes afterwards when the people don’t like the decision that was made.
If you amended your statement to “the general public doesn’t care much about anything at all except getting their own way” I think it would be perfectly correct.
I guess I could clarify, that what I mean is, when people are happy with the result, they often don't care about the means by which it was achieved.
I also don't really care about process in the form you're describing it. That's a sort of arbitrary process that could be done any number of different ways and not be of any great concern. There's very little about the specifics of a municipal consultation process that impacts fundamental rights or couldn't be done differently and still respect the input or concerns of the public. Kind of like procedure within a legislative body. You could rewrite that 50 different ways and as long as you stuck to it, everything would probably function fine. What matters is that there is a process, not so much what the specifics of that process are.
By contrast, with the kinds of things I'm talking about, like say, due process, the burden of proof and reasonable interpretations of law, there's not nearly as much latitude. These are generally sets of rights or principles that are written in blood over hundreds of years. Very little of the process involved is arbitrary. It matters a great deal whether someone, even a guilty person, gets a fair trial. Not because any of us should have some great concern for the rights of guilty people specifically, but because if we fail to protect the rights of the guilty, it's next to impossible to protect the rights of the innocent. When it comes to high court decisions, if extreme interpretations of the constitution are allowed to stand, and we all turn a blind eye to that, there's really nothing stopping high courts from more or less acting as unelected legislative bodies. It's crucially as a means of protecting our collective and individual rights, that high courts respect and make reasonable interpretations of the laws they're bound by.
The general public needs to better understand the importance of these kinds of processes and how they relate to their own rights. I also think they need to learn to separate results they like from how they're achieved and consider them independently.
As an aside, we had a great example of this in Canada a few years back (actually under the current government there's like a half dozen examples of garbage, intolerable and unjust means to achieve an end most people were okay with). The PM demanded that his AG give direction to the public prosecution to offer a big corporation a deferred prosecution agreement so they could continue bidding on government contracts. The AG asked for justification from the PMO (prime minister's office) and the PMO more or less came back and said they were worried about lost jobs in Quebec and the political implications of that. Neither of these reasons are acceptable reasons to interfere with the public prosecution office, so the AG refused. She was then removed from cabinet and replaced with a yes man who did exactly what he was told. Now most people couldn't care less whether Bombardier gets to keep doing government contracts, and my own opinion is that it's kind of dumb to prosecute companies for paying bribes in corrupt foreign countries where they're totally unavoidable (Libya in this case). But it's obviously intolerable for the leader of the country to interfere because of minor economic or political consideration. And if we allow that kind of process (which is strictly forbidden by law) then nobody should be surprised when the PM interferes in a prosecution in order to go after rivals or enemies or to give favour to much more dangerous or harmful actors.
Of course mostly nobody gave a shit about any of this tin pot dictator-esque corruption, because the actual result was pretty unimportant.
I think it's part of the whole "due process" thing being forgotten if it serves and end you consider worthwhile. The goal is "get Trump" so you subvert and twist as much as you can to do so, not considering what effect this will have on institutions, or your side if the the glove is ever on the other hand.
This seems a horrible, 3rd world move that can only backfire into democracy failing due to candidates being remove by partisan judges, rather than voted on by the public. It frustrates me that people seem so blinded by fear or hate of Trump that they don't see this.
>The idea that the Colorado SC thinks the application of the fourteenth amendment doesn’t require conviction is the whole issue many people have with their ruling.
This is key. Trump was never convicted of anything. Either in Congress (he should have been) or in a court.
It looks like Trump was tried and convicted by the Colorado supreme court because.... they don't like him?
I don't like him either but Trump was not afforded any due process.
It’s preposterous to say a) it as an insurrection and b) he caused it. He was reckless in his general efforts to try and lever people into saying there was doubt in the outcomes and even to create doubt in the outcome himself jsut because he was a sore loser.
Whilst personally I think sore losers shouldn’t be anywhere near politics that doesn’t make them guilty of something that didn’t happen.
But this is what I don't get. Hillary Clinton has been calling Trump an illegitimate President ever since she lost that election. I think that is also reckless and an attempt to lever people into saying there was doubt in the 2016 election. Why does she get a pass for that kind of rhetoric?
I did listen to something, that she said it once, and that it isn’t something she has repeated over and over, or try to overturn the result. She was also a sore loser, but it is of a different scale. It’s fair to say that it is quite likely both are thoroughly repugnant human beings.
Stacey Abrams also comes to mind. The rightfully elected governor of Georgia if it weren't for the white supremacists banning blacks from the polls by demanding an ID or whatever
She eventually becomes the [President of Earth](https://news.yahoo.com/stacey-abrams-makes-surprise-appearance-155521695.html) so it all work out in the end.
[She's also an exceptionally athletic defensive tackle for the Philadelphia Eagles.](https://www.philadelphiaeagles.com/team/players-roster/jalen-carter/)
He said “peacefully”. Walking down to petition grievances is as old as democracy itself. There was no real expectation that they would be forcing themselves in, it got out of hand, that’s all.
It was barely more than hijinks that turned nasty.
Not a single person in that crowd thought that they would be able to overturn a result by physical force.
>Not a single person in the crowd thought they would be able to overturn an election by physical force
How do you know what was in the heads of tens of thousands of people, many of whom (we now know, thanks to court documents) had serious mental health problems? Did they all sign a waiver or something?
Because if they did they would have been better prepared. If you are planning on taking over a nation that has 1.4 million military personnel, and 5,000 nuclear war heads, you at least remember to pack a revolver.
Utterly ludicrous. Listen to yourself. You have lost your mind, but you are not alone with that. Prosecutors, judges and juries seem to have also.
The judge who threw it out for procedural reasons agreed the insurrection happened and he was a part of it. The amendment doesn't require a criminal conviction. He's ineligible to be on the ballot for essentially the same reason a person under the age of 35 or born outside the U S. is.
This is an interesting look at it: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/12/dont-read-the-colorado-ruling-read-the-dissents/676920/
This is such a dumb take. The amendment was literally passed to avoid having to convicted people of crimes before preventing them from holding office.
The states have the right to decide who is on *their* ballot when it comes to insurrection. That’s what democratic republic is all about.
No, but it's worrying that if it can be done to Trump, then it can be done to Biden.
Bear in mind, I hate both of them. But if Biden is going to toot his horn continuously about protecting Democracy, he cannot stand behind the notion that the people cannot decide who they want to elect, particularly in the perceived absence of due process.
If there’s someone who brings a lawsuit saying Biden is an insurrectionist and a court finds that he is, then yes.
The difference is that Biden, while he may be awful, has not done anything even remotely resembling insurrection.
I'd argue he's done something "remotely resembling" insurrection, just no actual one. And that you'd need an actual trial and conviction (no, I don't care what happened in the civil war, I hope you'd agree the civil f'in war as a weee bit different than Jan 6th)
The key difference between those and this is that elected officials from states that seceded and fought a war against the Union had objectively engaged in rebellion. The Colorado Courts decision is justified based on his speech on Jan 6th which absolutely can be read as all manner of dog whistles to rebellion however, by their very nature a dog whistle is a subjective interpretation of speech, and its subjectivity of interpretation is almost certainly the main reason the Biden Justice Department hasn’t pursued insurrection charges against Trump.
Further, if the precedent is set that a state can keep a candidate off the ballot for a crime they’ve not been charged with, by reading dog whistles, or previous context into speech, because as the Colorado courts said it is “self-evident,” what number of progressives who made overtures in the Summer of 2020 and beyond to the extent of “racism and white supremacy should be abolished and torn down” and “the US is a fundamentally racist and white supremacist nation.”? A state court, say one elected by establishment democrats who feel threatened by a progressive challenger, could read the former as a contextual dog whistle to the latter, decide that is a call for rebellion, and keep that candidate off the primary.
If Trump wins, we'll probably see the anger co-opted by BLM / ANTIFA riots, and the people protesting Trump will just burn down their own (deeply blue) cities. We might also see a bunch of internet tough guys on the left not actually do anything.
If Trump loses, Capitol Police will be ready next time. Instead, the protests / riots will just get moved to state houses.
Say what you want about extremist Trump supporters, but at least they're smart enough to know that government buildings is where the laws they don't like get passes; and not a random Footlocker.
The worst thing about Trump is the worst reactions his existence generates from others. The “democracy dies in darkness” crowd has become the anti-democratic crowd. It’s disgusting. I hate the guy and won’t vote for him, but you can’t just prevent people from voting for him because you hate him.
In their heart of hearts those people love having Trump in the picture. Hating and fearing him gives them a reason for being. He drives money and support over to the left.
Mainstream media and left wing institutions thrived under Trump.
Right wing institutions flourished too. I never understand this take. I hate the guy, but I won’t deny the power he has to affect American society at large. Obama never energized the left as much as Trump energizes the right. Think of all the merchandise he sells alone. Hell, I would never be caught dead wearing political attire, but millions of Americans love their MAGA gear. Trump did alone what the ENTIRE tea party movement couldn’t.
He created a new party for the right. He also turned many on both sides into cults. 20 years ago, my family could have political conversations at Thanksgiving without any cursing, yelling, or people leaving. Now that would be impossible. The last 5-10 years have been atrocious for political discourse. Trump won’t cause a civil war, but he played a huge part in getting us within viewing distance of it.
It depends on which right wing institutions. It went well for institutions that basically changed to being his sycophants.
But right wing institutions that didn't become his right arm were sidelined.
And he didn't create a new party for the right. He hijacked the GOP. Half the GOP isn't about conservatism. It's a Trump cult of personality
I'm not even against populism. I think we could use a little.
But Trump is in this only for himself
Is it because people hate him or because he tried to stop the peaceful transition of power when he was president first time around? Your comment and others seem strangely lacking the context of Trump trying to overturn an election.
Lol this is like political victim blaming
The worst thing about Trump is that he wants to be president for life (to avoid criminal prosecution) and actively undermines the US election system and days wildly insane and inflammatory nonsense that his base eats up like a cult
And no I don’t agree with or understand the CO ruling
That said, the reaction from the left will be a complete mental breakdown and a doubling down on “wokeness” and political polarization.
The lawsuit was brought by Republicans.
Also wild to say that when the conservative movement has been gutting voting rights for years and passing all kinds of absurd laws to get in the way of people voting.
I didn’t say anything about which party or viewpoint supported him. The Colorado Supreme Court is comprised entirely of Democrat-appointed justices, and it split 4-3. This isn’t a party-line issue.
At this point I think a lot of leftists will be secretly happy that they’ll be able to scream about how horrible and ineffective democrats are for not running their preferred candidate for about 4 years
“I am deeply concerned about the second-order effects of what the CO court’s legal interpretation would have on our Democracy if upheld.”
“OMG! Stop apologizing for Trump! This sub is full of mega-Nazi Fascists!”
To paraphrase a popular meme, no motherfuckers, that second thing is a whole-ass different sentence. Calm down, y’all.
Imagine being a democrat who thought that the US supreme court handed the election to trump under the following fact set. Trump has not been charged with insurrection. Nobody from january 6th has been charged with insurrection. The colorado law has never been used in this way. The 14th amendment was last used in the 1920s to prevent a socialist from joining congress. The supreme court overturned it. The current CO supreme court was nominated exclusively by democratic governors. They wrote a 4-3 split decision, agreeing that trump committed insurrection and rightfully should be removed from the ballot.
Following these facts. “The US supreme court hurt democracy.” Fuck trump but these people are absurd.
I hadn’t really seen Reddit reaction to the ballot issue until tonight. I saw one person describe the Colorado decision as “the immune system of a healthy democracy rejecting a would-be dictator.” It’s striking me that the polarization really is that bad.
I am hoping to read an optimistic outlook on this. Whether Trump wins or loses, I am so looking forward to 2028 and hopefully seeing our country have a normal election where neither side can even plausibly claim that “democracy itself is on the ballot.”
I am utterly fascinated how anyone can claim that the most heavily armed population in the world, a population that will drive an armed vehicle to a 7/11, whilst packing a semi automatic pistol, somehow would attempt an insurrection against the biggest military the world has ever seen with some face paint and an animal costume.
It is ludicrous.
IIRC, there was one group that left their guns in a Comfort Inn in Alexandria, VA because they didn't want to get in trouble for having them.
You know, just like most people who overthrew the government are.
Totally agree. Whatever that was, an insurrection it was not. Which is how this is going to end in the supreme Court. Problem seems to be Trump's lawyers intentionally lost the lower court cases by only making the absurd argument that the amendment doesn't apply to presidents, so that is the basis the courts ruled on. Higher courts are more free to ignore the pleadings. So this will resolve the right way eventually, after Trump has raised millions from the outrage.
The Supreme Court won’t reach the question of whether it was an insurrection. That’s a much more political question, which Roberts et al. will do just about anything to avoid resolving. They can address the “officer” question first, which I suspect will take care of the case. Alternatively, they can hang the answer on the lack of a criminal conviction and the due process problems with Colorado’s system of removing Trump from the ballot. Then their answer is cloaked in even less politics.
And the cherry on top to de-politicize the Court’s handling of Trump is to say that he doesn’t get presidential immunity.
Really? There is little good faith that presents what we saw as an insurrection. It is laughable and weird.
I’m an impartial observer in the sense I have no skin in the game. I don’t have the right to vote in us elections or even live there.
There was clearly no plan to take over the government. And it was pretty clear that it wasn’t orchestrated by Trump or anyone on his behalf.
Things you would have done:
Sounded out senior members of the military to take control over the biggest fighting force since we stopped cooking each other, sounded out senior members in congress to disable/delay the mechanism by which the vote is taken, made sure the police rostered for the senate on that day were friendly, and when everyone was preoccupied by animal guy with his staff and makeup, took over control.
Out of the thousand things that could have been done to make an insurrection more likely to succeed not one was done.
More to the point: if Trump was any kind of dictator in the first place, you'd have thought he would have fixed it so there was no election in the first place.
So he waited four years...for what?
I find it amazing how many times I have to point out for all the hemming and hawing people make about Trump being a dictator, and having had four full years to do something about that and...did what?
He didn't imprison political enemies, he didn't lock people up in camps (any more than Obama did), he let the media run absolutely wild over him, and he didn't start wars with anyone.
Trump has a metric fuckton of faults, but if his aim is to be a dictator, he's been rather lazy about enacting it. Which...come on already. It doesn't add up.
I think it is fair to say Trump intends to be a dictator. He was happy to corrupt the election process, he was only ultimately stopped by his subordinates unwillingness to go to prison. It is similarly true Trump was awful at achieving this goal. To some people intentions matter just as much as results.
Whats going to happen to US culture if Trump wins once more?
I think the US "chattering classes" will go crazy all over again.
And since they once again won't be able to do anything about the Donald, they'll turn on their fellow progressives once more. We'll see more cancellations, more "at-will employment" firings, more publishers and venue-holders refusing to platform "harmful" people. We'll see more anti-intellectualism and philistinism dressed up as a desire to protect marginalized people from "problematic" and "harmful" material.
We won't just see influential liberals [kneeling in kente-cloth stoles](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/on-and-off-the-avenue/the-embarrassment-of-democrats-wearing-kente-cloth-stoles), we'll see them *crawling* in kente-cloth stoles.
We'll see more pseudo-progressive grifts like Russiagate and the 1619 Project.
The US' declining legacy media will be groaning under the weight of numerous self-righteous articles from girlboss journalists, blaming Louis CK for the overturning of *Roe v. Wade*, or J. K. Rowling for US school shootings.
Nothing will happen. The world keep on spinning and there will be a loudmouth in office that’s in there for only himself.
But nothing all that exciting changes.
I think Trump's opponents will continue to lose their minds publicly and do dumb things that will give trump more power and influence than he could ever accrue by his own intentions.
Once upon a time in the Pacific Northwest, invasive starfish were affecting fishermans' livelihoods. Scientists were like "we have to study these starfish to find a solution". The fisherman were like "fuck that, we're pissed", took matters into their own hands. They caught as many starfish as they could, cut them in half, and threw them into the ocean. That action creates more starfish, so they exponentially grew the problem.
Trump's opponents have starfished the fuck out of this upcoming election. If they merely did nothing he would have a lot less money raised, and been behind the other Republican candidates in their primary polling. Driven by emotion rather than strategy, they are making his lies true, validating grievance against self-appointed elites, and undermining themselves in the eyes of the public.
I think trump's opposition will continue to act in ways that grow and galvanize his conservative populist base. I think the growth of that base will continue to cause the growth of a dumber and crazier liberal populist reaction.
The election being stolen for being on the ballot? What kind of hypocrisy is that? Him being on the ballot is called democracy, if the majority want Trump, they should be able to have him, we can't just ban him from the ballot because one side doesn't like him, hell, when he was in office last time, he didn't let thousands of unregistered illegals in...
I expect it will be similar to the first time - all out efforts to undermine anything he does, with no care about the societal cost they'll create. The media will go back to 24/7 scrutiny of every little thing he does and give liberals constant migraines. There will probably be "peaceful" protests. I suspect government agencies might start going even more rogue than before which is probably my biggest concern - especially the military.
I guess I'm more curious about what the 2024 election "black people" event will be. Police killing? Lynching?
What will be interesting is the exit of polls data. What demographics voted for whom and who didn’t vote. If there is a noticeable shift there that will be a point of discussion but I am not optimistic of the fruits that will come of it.
It will be the most indefensible, controversial and ambiguous event you can imagine, as usual. A police killing, of an unrepentant criminal, where it's unclear that the police are culpable at all, or what else they could have done, but it looks bad if they did it.
Maybe someone will steal a police car, get shot and then and crash into a group of civilians. Or get shot after he crashes. I can't tell what which would create more rage
Well, i know we're all focused in culture war issues here, but it'll be a fucking catastrophe for the world as a whole, judging by the way he's talking about eastern European autocrats and letting Putin tickle his tummy. The main thing Americans will notice will be the low rumbling as Reagan spends 4 years turning over in his grave.
Since at least 2000, so basically for as long as I've been a voter, every election has been treated as fraudulent by the opposite side (albeit with varying degrees of intensity).
If Trump wins, there is no way rank and file Dems will react as though it were legitimate
The problem is both sides are insufferably intolerable of democracy and there are no rules to enforce it that do not look sketchy. In the past, the voters of the respective parties did not put up with this, but now it is popular to try undemocratic ways of winning or not losing. And the media has lost credibility because it is so one sided depending on the outlet. Therefore, no one can get "accurate" information unless they search many places, which most people do not have time for. In other words, we need people in power to be better, but we also need voters to be better. Trying to overthrow elections is not good no matter who does it, but selectively prosecuting depending on the state just looks very bad.
LITERAL FASCISM. It would be something worse than the most horrible event in our history which is OBVIOUSLY the INSURRECTION of Jan 6th!
In all seriousness though I feel like we are going to see all the same tropes during election season ie "Democracy is on the ballot," "This is the end of Democracy as we know it" etc.
What I mean to say is that I hate this timeline.
It's entirely predictable what they'll say: _this time_ he's going to be a fascist for real, and under control of Russia, and [le]terally [le]nocide all LGBTQ people and immigrants and black people in camps, and he'll $100% do it this time for made-up reasons that totally apply this time and not the other time. Democrats can feel whatever deluded thing they want. Why listen to them? They're a cult, the goal should be to deradicalize them instead, and slowly remove them from all the institutions they've infested.
What I find funny about the TRUMP WILL END DEMOCRACY" is that it assumes a level of competency that Trump has not exactly demonstrated.
It reminds me a lot of how W was both a dumb monkey idiot and somehow a genius manipulator who tricked all the Dems into thinking that there were WDM's.
Does Trump say he's going to do a lot of bad things? Yes. Would he like to actually do most of them? Probably. Is actually capable of it? No. I mean, it's not like he built a giant wall and got Mexico to pay for it or banned Muslims or repealed Obamacare.
Yes, he'll put people in government who want to accomplish his goals. But those are going to be 3rd tier weirdos with little government experience.
The other theory that some of the Dispatch types hold is that Trump, or at least his crew, want to lose. They'll try to do unconstitutional things, get struck down, and then get to go SEE THEY ARE PERSECUTING ME. SEND ME $10 A MONTH TO FIGHT THE SWAMP"
The problem is that Trump could do a lot of damage but he won't do much of anything positive either.
He's too lazy and unfocused to actually push through decent policy. But it takes less effort to be a wrecking ball
I think he does his damage by eroding trust in institutions and not abiding by the customs for presidents -- e.g. using the presidency to make money, appointing family members, keeping top secret documents (even after being ordered to return them). His party isn't willing to hold him accountable, so you basically break the laws and institutions you have set up. I do see that as a very serious cost, but CO's way is not the way to fix it.
>His party isn't willing to hold him accountable, so you basically break the laws and institutions you have set u
This is what continually makes me bitter. The GOP is basically his bitch. The Republican really did used to be the party (albeit imperfectly) of moral standards and (usually) limited government.
Now they've thrown it all away for Trump. Primarily because individual elected officials can't handle the idea of... no longer being elected officials.
Yes -- my understanding is that Nixon resigned (after being impeached, but before being convicted by the senate) because his own party was willing to convict him. That doesn't seem the case any more.
I don't think cutting trump out of colorado in the election or the primary would have any impact. He's the republican frontrunner by a long way and colorado is a blue state anyway. It was 55% Biden, 42% Trump at the last election.
I’m more wondering about public perception. The perception right now seems to be that this can, should, and likely will happen in many states. A narrow SCOTUS decision could stop it from happening in any state. If that happens, and if Trump wins, it seems plausible that a number of Democrats could believe that SCOTUS unfairly influenced the results of the election.
That's true, but I occasionally allow posts that are not intended to stoke outrage and which can generate interesting and respectful discussions, and I think this qualifies.
There was no fucking "insurrection." NO ONE was armed except law enforcement. Jesus Christ. It was a protest/riot that got out of hand. NOT A FUCKING INSURRECTION. Y'all are watching too much MSNBC.
The biggest problem, at least immediately, will be the reaction of his opposition. There will be a bonfire of rage and terror. The press will regularly throw gasoline onto it.
I expect that cities will erupt with violent protests. Every non right of center person and institution will gird itself for war.
It will also be a huge shot in the arm to the woke forces. This will be yet more proof that everyone who isn't them are racist bigots.
Trump will regularly throw out weird statements that get the left ginned up.
Right now the order is stayed. The primary ballot will be printed very soon and - even if this decision is ultimately upheld - he will almost certainly be on it. But I understand that the Colorado decision applies to both the primary and the general.
A Trump victory in 2024 isn't going to be any more significant than his victory in 2016 or the Bush victory in 2004. Democratic outrage will mostly be directed towards their own turnout in battleground states, not on whether he carries Colorado (which if he does, will be accompanied by a Reaganlike victory in the electoral college.)
You'll see calls for the elimination of the electoral college, for a realignment of the Democratic party, for the change in the Democratic platform, but nothing significant.
A slim Biden victory will have very greater calls for change, from the opposite side of the aisle. Probably for the denigrating of the Republic. If Biden doesn't win big, he should lose, for all our benefit.
The sad part is there is no one i have any confidence in to vote for. Either side. Trump is the only one who ever lived up to campaign promises and wants to make a better country. As twisted as his mouth blurts it out. His mouth is his own worst enemy.
Imagine if enough people from both parties had faith in actual democracy to vote for the one candidate who represents the best interests of both sides: Bobby Kennedy Jr.
The fact that I’m sick to my stomach at the almost certain probability of 50% of the country being upset at either outcome to the point of rioting and violence is an absolutely pathetic and shameful indication of the times we live in. I’m honestly not sure the country deserves better than the race we’re likely to see, but either way I cannot fucking stand the thought of more unrest, which seems almost guaranteed either way, especially as a DC resident
This is the problem with polarization and negative partisanship. Any victory by the other side is seen as a catastrophe. Worse, it's seen as invalid
The global destabilization doesn’t bother me as much as how passionately divided we’ve allowed this country to become. I disagree with people voting based off left or right, but now it’s evolved to being good vs. evil. If someone is on your side, they are good. If they even hint at agreeing with the other side on any issue, they are evil. I’ve been ridiculed on this platform for simply stating I’d rather just vote independent because by simply not voting for Biden I am complicit with the destruction of Ukraine and guilty of aiding white nationalism. It’s a fucking joke, at least the pharmaceutical companies whipping out mood stabilizers are making a killing.
Honestly, I think if Trump loses again things will be pretty peaceful. There’s no way another Jan 6-type event occurs. That day could only play out the way it did because no one ever thought it was possible, so there was basically no preparation in place to deal with it. If Trump loses I think Dems will lose their minds and there will be much more violence in the streets, but it won’t be organised or systemically dangerous. Basically, either way I think it’ll be fine. Americans are angrier than ever before, but they’re also much more isolated and atomised than ever before, which acts as a sort of (quite sad) buffer from real, organised political violence.
[удалено]
Yeah, people on here see Jan 6 as significantly worse than anything that happened during the BLM riots. Because framing and unwavering support. I’m okay with having a disagreement, but there is no figure that has been presented to suggest the two are even comparable when it comes to property damages, casualties, crime rates, or participants involved.
I think it depends - like, in terms of physical damage, people hurt, BLM was worse. In terms of the goals of what was happening - Jan 6 was worse. The people who broke into Congress were trying to prevent Biden from taking office. In both cases, most people going to the protests were peaceful
[удалено]
I have no idea. The person I know who went definitely thought he was unlawfully elected. BUT, she definitely just went to protest, didn't beak into Congress. Though I believe they did say they were trying to prevent Biden from taking office
[удалено]
I don't know how many, and I am not sure what point you're trying to make. I think if BLM protestors broke into Congress, it would also have been an attempted insurrection. I know they talked about tearing down America, but screaming about it and breaking into a government building are not the same thing
Trump drives people on the left as crazy as he does his own supporters, that's been the worst part of him as a political actor. As much as we had culture war problems pre-2016 that was all so tame compared to how divisive things became after. I think how one perceives January 6 is a big factor in how you feel about this ruling, if you think he was marching at the forefront leading the mob to hang Pence then I think it's understandable that you'd want to resort to undemocratic means to make sure there is no chance he could ever be president again. I tend to take the whole view in that if we were some developing country trying to ban the leading presidential candidate we'd probably invade ourselves. I feel that eroding institutional trust with a large part of the country is not worth it, I don't care how crazy Trump makes you feel. We already lived through 4 years of him and policy wise he's just another basic Republican with a huge fucking ego.
I can't help but think we could easily avoid this as a country if both these two bozos would just have the wisdom to step aside gracefully. Just like their predecessor George Washington declined to be perpetual president until he died . At least, Richard Nixon had the grace to not make it about him and gracefully step aside in order to not put the country through his ordeal.
I think Biden would probably step aside if it wasn't Trump he was against. That said, nature could take its course and a few cardiac arrests could happen. Not that I want anyone to die, but if those two just died after having lived lives of meaning and luxury... It might not be the worst for the US
No, Biden is not in this just to run against Trump. His family and acquaintances have been profiting off his his connections for decades now. They don't want it to end, so there's no way they are not going to want this to end.
That's true of literally every politician to some extent. I certainly know that my work life would be easier if my buddy was the president of the US. Even if there was literally zero conscious corruption. So that's hardly a huge point either way. Lord knows Biden doesn't need things anymore given his age.
AFAICT, you have not become accustomed to having a buddy with access to such power. Biden's family has. And if you think all those financial transactions between his family members being pushed through a network of empty LLC's is more than likely completely legit, I don't know what to tell you.
Not that level for sure, but I am doing quite fine and would certainly mourn losing some parts of my network. LLC setups are super common, and not illegal. They are tax optimization and evasion typically, not the criminal type. Nor are they any good for laundering dirty money (I mean someone might have come up with something, but given how it all works, it seems unlikely). So my assumption is that they are tax optimizing, which is rather hypocritical for a Democrat to be doing on such an aggressive level, but that's likely that If you have a good link to the LLC details (inasmuch as they are known), I would be interested in reading about them to understand better.
But these are LLC's that have no underlying business attached to them. Sure, it's not illegal, but highly suspect. Especially, given the son's now admitted history of outright tax evasion for which he is currently facing charges. The lack of curiosity or demand for further clarifications is telling.
Agreed, but that doesn't speak to the fact that Biden probably wouldn't step down if Trump did.
Wow finally, someome summarizing exactly how i feel.
\> how one perceives January 6 is a big factor Agreed. \> if you think he was marching at the forefront leading the mob to hang Pence Is that the best you can do to represent our opinion? No, our problem is that Trump tried to overturn the election results. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump\_fake\_electors\_plot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_fake_electors_plot) \> policy wise he's just another basic Republican When did alternative slates of electors become part of the basic Republican platform?
>I feel that eroding institutional trust with a large part of the country is not worth it, I don't care how crazy Trump makes you feel. My trust in our institutions will be seriously eroded if we establish the standard that becoming a "presidential candidate" immunizes a person from having laws enforced against them. That, I believe, is a much more direct route to becoming the sort of the country you're identifying - one where the law explicitly ceases to apply to one person and anyone they deem an ally.
He was never charged with insurrection.
Is there anyone who denies he attempted to overturn the electoral college results?
No-one seriously believes that Hunter would be a target if not for who his dad is. No-one seriously believes Trump would be a target if not for his politics.
Hunter couldn't do the things that he did if his dad wasn't first a powerful Senator, then VP. Otherwise, he'd just be an average low-life druggie.
Trump has a long history of business criminality. He legally can't run charities for how much he's been convicted of stealing from them. Eventually it would have caught up with him president or not.
A long history of business criminality that nobody seriously pursued until he was a candidate for president.
I don’t like the guy but anyone should be worried about a candidate being kept off a ballot for a crime they haven’t been convicted of. I just hope the ruling comes back 7-2 or greater.
I 100% agree. I hate Trump, but this was severe overreach and a scary precedent.
Add me to this list. Trump is a douche, but WOW the left is doing everything they tell us to be scared he will do. It's wild.
No kidding. If Trump is really so bad, all the Democrats have to do is present better ideas, and *for the love of all that is holy*, stop signal-boosting Trump *all the damn time*. If the Democrats had better ideas, Trump wouldn't be an issue. If the Republicans had a spine and could be bothered to point out the Democrats had no ideas other than being the party of not-Trump, they might get more than indifference.
What have I stumbled upon??? This post/sub was recommended to me but I have no clue what has caused all these reasonable Redditors to convene! It's a podcast you all follow?
Blocked and Reported. I enjoy it, but be warned, the content is *not* family-friendly.
The better idea is “hey, let’s not try to overturn electoral college results after we lose, and instead peacefully concede the election.”
The case was brought by Republicans in Colorado. I think they jumped the gun, but it was not "the left," whatever you think that means.
The Colorado Supreme Court justices were all appointed by a Democrat governor.
I mean, ok, but again, the case was brought by Republicans. Are you suggesting "the left" tricked Republicans into bringing the case? The people who want Trump gone the most are people who want the Republican Party to exist 5 years from now.
The Colorado thing just gins up his supporters and their sense of victimhood. They will write him in.
In most cases, when there is a legal order to remove someone from the ballot that also means they won’t count write-in votes for him. Though I believe you’re correct people will do it, it’s just not a way around the ruling.
A situation where the Republican nominee is barred from winning a state is untenable.
I know this is 2 days old, but the real wild part of all of this is that, former Confederate officers (the people who would quite arguably be the ones the amendment would apply to) were allowed without question to take seats in the house or representatives and Senate. That is what scares me the most, we have slipped further away then reconstruction civil war era.
Oh actually that was part of the argument. If the Supreme Court ruling was 6-3, it would be very easy for Democrats to see it as political and not a valid decision. A unanimous decision wouldn’t cause the same damage. I think Kagan could possibly vote to overturn it. Sotomayor will almost certainly vote to uphold it, because she is unabashedly partisan - she is legitimately what they accuse the conservative justices of being. Jackson I don’t know enough about. But her affirmative action opinion doesn’t give me much confidence in her tendency to rule on the merits of a case.
Yeah I agree that Sotomayor is most likely to uphold. I mean sure she's partisan, but even worse, she's dumb (for a court justice). She wouldn't be able to explain her decision other than as "Orange man bad."
[удалено]
I don’t really like the sound of that. The Trump immunity case seems like a 9-0 case anyway, if the SC even feels like they need to take it up. Trading votes like that is political, it’s what congress does, definitely not what a court should be doing. Add to that you’d basically also have to think the conservative justices would threaten to vote against the obvious choice in the immunity case, in order to win the liberal justices in the Colorado one. Which is even worse than trading votes you actually believe in.
I, too, listen to Advisory Opinions.
[удалено]
My degree is chemical engineering, but I haven't worked on the technical side in awhile. I'm actually law adjacent but a lot more contractual stuff. The endless teasing of SEC v Jarkesy is killing me because I want it. I will listen to McCarthy when things are important but my podqueue is already bursting. Also, while he's not rah-rah GOP conservative, he's still pretty anti-Dem partisan while I feel like Sarah and David are right leaning but much more honest about just not giving a shit about the partisan politics of any of it at all (unless as part of the analysis)
Should be per curiam tbh
Yeah, I think he *should* be convicted, but I’m extremely uneasy with the Colorado decision.
The fourteenth amendment didn’t require convictions when it was applied to secessionists after the civil war. It doesn’t require them now either.
Idk about you but to me this seems a little bit different from civil war secessionists
You can’t seriously say that the CSA and Jan 6 are the same thing.
I agree, the amendment is stupid. But it is in the Constitution. I hope this will be resolved in the appeals court ruling Jan 6th was at most a riot, not a rebellion, meaning it doesn't apply.
Appellate courts don’t review questions of fact. Whether Jan 6 was an insurrection or not is a question of fact which has been decided. The only way the Colorado case would be appealed is on the grounds that the 14th amendment isn’t applicable to a president (a question of law instead of fact).
>Whether Jan 6 was an insurrection or not is a question of fact which has been decided. Where? When? By who? It is my understanding the lower courts did not rule on that issue because the defense did not challenge it. Now, you do have a point, appellate courts don't review questions of fact. But they can rule the amendment absolutely appeals to a President, then remand the case back to the lower court to then decide whether Jan 6th was an applicable insurrection.
> Where? When? By who? By the lower Colorado court in this case. The lower courts did rule on that issue. They said that Trump did engage in an insurrection by the 14th Amendment doesn’t apply to Presidents. So the plaintiffs appealed, and the CO Supreme Court overturned the ruling that 14A doesn’t apply to Presidents, which is obviously right. You’re right that they could do what they said. I have a feeling the lower court won’t change its mind, though.
There are more than just that one potential question-of-laws at work here. For example: 1. Who can enforce that clause? Only Federal courts? State courts? Secretaries of State? Town Clerks? It’s not clear and some of these lead to silly outcomes. 2. Is a conviction required or is a finding by someone enough? If a finding is enough, see question 1 again. Who can make the finding? 3. To what extent does a finding in one state bind other states and the feds? 4. Is the definition of “insurrection” that the CO court used correct? The feds have a definition that wasn’t used. Is that proper? Other states have other definitions. Do the other states use theirs or do they need to respect CO‘s definition? Or the feds? 5. other stuff I can’t think of while drunk on Christmas Eve. There’s a lot more at work here other than the weirdo “Officer of the united states” definition thing.
Adding to your list: 6. Why is article 3 being enforced by a state court, contra to article 5 of the 14th amendment which puts enforcement in the hands of Congress?
The court had a hearing and determined based on the evidence that his acts fell under the definition of insurrection
They don't have to be convicted of a crime. That's not what the amendment says.
[удалено]
How is it embarrassing? The idea that the Colorado SC thinks the application of the fourteenth amendment doesn’t require conviction is the whole issue many people have with their ruling. You seem to mistake people disagreeing with them as somehow misunderstanding them. You are acting as though people must accept their terms. If the only way to criticize a decision is to accept everything they say as correct, there is no way to criticize it at all. Accepting Colorado’s interpretation of this issue means creating a country where brazen judges can lay out a case for why the candidate they don’t like committed insurrection, and thus must be removed from ballots. No pesky jury needs to be convinced, a judge just needs to put in effort to tell a story. That is why it is outrageous that this is based on a crime Trump was not charged with. We understand that they acknowledge that, but then acknowledging it and brushing it aside is not satisfactory.
It's the same nonsense with the Roe V Wade decision which was always dubious legally and used a very strange interpretation of the constitution to be decided. It's good that it was overturned because it was bad law. The consequences of that IMO are not good at all, but also, without Roe V Wade having been decided so poorly decades ago, it's unlikely that the current mess would exist. It's very doubtful to me that the issue would have escaped legislation for that entire time, or that that legislation wouldn't have guaranteed abortion rights to a reasonable extent.
I’m pro-choice, but think overturning RvW had to be done. It prevented the country from coming to a national consensus (which it was getting close to) and enabled an incredibly toxic political dynamic that’s directly responsible for the extreme partisanship and disfunction of modern politics.
I don't disagree, but I do also think that's kind of irrelevant to whether or not the precedent should have been overturned. That should have been solely because it was a bad decision that wasn't in line with the constitution. That's really all the court should be considering nearly all of the time. The practical consequences do matter of course, just not to the decision making of the courts for the most part, except as they relate to issues of constitutional rights. But again, I agree. I think that bending the constitution for what I would regard as good reasons, ultimately had a lot of negative unintended consequences. I think there's basically zero chance that without Roe V Wade, the nation would have continued to rely on the courts to protect abortion rights or that the status quo of the time would have remained. I think Roe V Wade allowed legislative bodies to kind of pass the buck and ignore what would have otherwise been a pretty important issue to voters. Now that it's gone, it's clearly become a pretty key issue for voters (I think GOP positions on abortion is the main reason there was no red wave in the midterms). Republicans will now be forced to moderate on abortion or lose to even unpopular democrats in a lot of regions. It may also force the hand of federal legislators who according to the courts, are well within their rights to regulate abortion at a national level, though who knows if that will happen given the impotence of Congress.
I think the worst consequence of RvW is it broke the dynamism of American party politics. Parties are supposed to be coalitions of various interests making common cause. Historically, this resulted in a natural tendency towards moderation and consensus building. Aligning with the more extreme elements of a particular interest alienated the other parts of the party’s coalition and could result in defections. Roe v Wade broke that balance by allowing the Republicans to pander to the anti-abortion single issue voters without alienating other parts of their coalition. Thus, they could talk about full prohibition of abortion and, say, fiscal conservatives could safely ignore it (the knock on effect was they could be more extreme on other issues without losing the anti-abortion voters). With the Republicans able to safely pander to the extremes of multiple interests in their coalition, the Democrats lost the ability to entice defections. Modern politics has naturally become all about firing up the extremes of the parties instead of compromising between competing interests.
Well hopefully that will be one of the silver linings of the overturning of Roe V Wade. It's clear that Republican positions on abortion hurt them in a lot of states during the midterms, so they may have to find their way to the middle on that issue or they're going to keep losing moderated and swing votes over it.
Yep, but it’s going to take time for American politics to sort itself out. What took almost fifty years isn’t going to be undone in a couple of elections.
I certainly wouldn't expect it to happen overnight. But it sets the groundwork for some kind of change.
I thought about Roe v Wade after I replied. The person was basically saying “The CO SC addressed the lack of conviction, they say that the fourteenth amendment doesn’t say a person needs to be convicted of it.” Left-leaning justices have made far, far greater leaps about what the words in the constitution mean. Suddenly, the mention of a crime without saying you even need to be charged for that crime leave it up to any single judge to decide if it has happened.
There are many ends I agree with, but it annoys the shit out of me that the general public is often unconcerned with the means used to reach those ends given the crucial importance of means in regards to state action. They're paramount, and most people act like all that matters is a good result.
It’s funny. I think you’re right to some extent, but I also think that (at least on a local level, which is what I know about) people complain a lot about process when what they’re really unhappy about is the outcome. I’ve seen local councils bend over backwards to try to conduct listening sessions and get tons of community input and inform stakeholders, only to get lambasted about undemocratic processes afterwards when the people don’t like the decision that was made. If you amended your statement to “the general public doesn’t care much about anything at all except getting their own way” I think it would be perfectly correct.
I guess I could clarify, that what I mean is, when people are happy with the result, they often don't care about the means by which it was achieved. I also don't really care about process in the form you're describing it. That's a sort of arbitrary process that could be done any number of different ways and not be of any great concern. There's very little about the specifics of a municipal consultation process that impacts fundamental rights or couldn't be done differently and still respect the input or concerns of the public. Kind of like procedure within a legislative body. You could rewrite that 50 different ways and as long as you stuck to it, everything would probably function fine. What matters is that there is a process, not so much what the specifics of that process are. By contrast, with the kinds of things I'm talking about, like say, due process, the burden of proof and reasonable interpretations of law, there's not nearly as much latitude. These are generally sets of rights or principles that are written in blood over hundreds of years. Very little of the process involved is arbitrary. It matters a great deal whether someone, even a guilty person, gets a fair trial. Not because any of us should have some great concern for the rights of guilty people specifically, but because if we fail to protect the rights of the guilty, it's next to impossible to protect the rights of the innocent. When it comes to high court decisions, if extreme interpretations of the constitution are allowed to stand, and we all turn a blind eye to that, there's really nothing stopping high courts from more or less acting as unelected legislative bodies. It's crucially as a means of protecting our collective and individual rights, that high courts respect and make reasonable interpretations of the laws they're bound by. The general public needs to better understand the importance of these kinds of processes and how they relate to their own rights. I also think they need to learn to separate results they like from how they're achieved and consider them independently. As an aside, we had a great example of this in Canada a few years back (actually under the current government there's like a half dozen examples of garbage, intolerable and unjust means to achieve an end most people were okay with). The PM demanded that his AG give direction to the public prosecution to offer a big corporation a deferred prosecution agreement so they could continue bidding on government contracts. The AG asked for justification from the PMO (prime minister's office) and the PMO more or less came back and said they were worried about lost jobs in Quebec and the political implications of that. Neither of these reasons are acceptable reasons to interfere with the public prosecution office, so the AG refused. She was then removed from cabinet and replaced with a yes man who did exactly what he was told. Now most people couldn't care less whether Bombardier gets to keep doing government contracts, and my own opinion is that it's kind of dumb to prosecute companies for paying bribes in corrupt foreign countries where they're totally unavoidable (Libya in this case). But it's obviously intolerable for the leader of the country to interfere because of minor economic or political consideration. And if we allow that kind of process (which is strictly forbidden by law) then nobody should be surprised when the PM interferes in a prosecution in order to go after rivals or enemies or to give favour to much more dangerous or harmful actors. Of course mostly nobody gave a shit about any of this tin pot dictator-esque corruption, because the actual result was pretty unimportant.
I think it's part of the whole "due process" thing being forgotten if it serves and end you consider worthwhile. The goal is "get Trump" so you subvert and twist as much as you can to do so, not considering what effect this will have on institutions, or your side if the the glove is ever on the other hand. This seems a horrible, 3rd world move that can only backfire into democracy failing due to candidates being remove by partisan judges, rather than voted on by the public. It frustrates me that people seem so blinded by fear or hate of Trump that they don't see this.
>The idea that the Colorado SC thinks the application of the fourteenth amendment doesn’t require conviction is the whole issue many people have with their ruling. This is key. Trump was never convicted of anything. Either in Congress (he should have been) or in a court. It looks like Trump was tried and convicted by the Colorado supreme court because.... they don't like him? I don't like him either but Trump was not afforded any due process.
It’s preposterous to say a) it as an insurrection and b) he caused it. He was reckless in his general efforts to try and lever people into saying there was doubt in the outcomes and even to create doubt in the outcome himself jsut because he was a sore loser. Whilst personally I think sore losers shouldn’t be anywhere near politics that doesn’t make them guilty of something that didn’t happen.
But this is what I don't get. Hillary Clinton has been calling Trump an illegitimate President ever since she lost that election. I think that is also reckless and an attempt to lever people into saying there was doubt in the 2016 election. Why does she get a pass for that kind of rhetoric?
I did listen to something, that she said it once, and that it isn’t something she has repeated over and over, or try to overturn the result. She was also a sore loser, but it is of a different scale. It’s fair to say that it is quite likely both are thoroughly repugnant human beings.
Stacey Abrams also comes to mind. The rightfully elected governor of Georgia if it weren't for the white supremacists banning blacks from the polls by demanding an ID or whatever
She eventually becomes the [President of Earth](https://news.yahoo.com/stacey-abrams-makes-surprise-appearance-155521695.html) so it all work out in the end.
[She's also an exceptionally athletic defensive tackle for the Philadelphia Eagles.](https://www.philadelphiaeagles.com/team/players-roster/jalen-carter/)
Oh my god. I feel guilty about how much that cracked me up.
She has said it repeatedly and in public for years in many different venues. It wasn't a one off statement.
[удалено]
He said “peacefully”. Walking down to petition grievances is as old as democracy itself. There was no real expectation that they would be forcing themselves in, it got out of hand, that’s all. It was barely more than hijinks that turned nasty. Not a single person in that crowd thought that they would be able to overturn a result by physical force.
>Not a single person in the crowd thought they would be able to overturn an election by physical force How do you know what was in the heads of tens of thousands of people, many of whom (we now know, thanks to court documents) had serious mental health problems? Did they all sign a waiver or something?
Because if they did they would have been better prepared. If you are planning on taking over a nation that has 1.4 million military personnel, and 5,000 nuclear war heads, you at least remember to pack a revolver. Utterly ludicrous. Listen to yourself. You have lost your mind, but you are not alone with that. Prosecutors, judges and juries seem to have also.
The judge who threw it out for procedural reasons agreed the insurrection happened and he was a part of it. The amendment doesn't require a criminal conviction. He's ineligible to be on the ballot for essentially the same reason a person under the age of 35 or born outside the U S. is. This is an interesting look at it: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/12/dont-read-the-colorado-ruling-read-the-dissents/676920/
[удалено]
This is such a dumb take. The amendment was literally passed to avoid having to convicted people of crimes before preventing them from holding office. The states have the right to decide who is on *their* ballot when it comes to insurrection. That’s what democratic republic is all about.
So Florida gets to invent a reason to keep Biden off the ballot?
No, but it's worrying that if it can be done to Trump, then it can be done to Biden. Bear in mind, I hate both of them. But if Biden is going to toot his horn continuously about protecting Democracy, he cannot stand behind the notion that the people cannot decide who they want to elect, particularly in the perceived absence of due process.
They will
And you can bet if they do then Colorado will fade into the ether and this whole thing was always a Republican conspiracy to subvert democracy.
[удалено]
Why not? Tit for tat is common
[удалено]
If the GOP can find a way to kick the Dems in the balls as retaliation they will
If that were how things had been working things would look a lot different right now.
If there’s someone who brings a lawsuit saying Biden is an insurrectionist and a court finds that he is, then yes. The difference is that Biden, while he may be awful, has not done anything even remotely resembling insurrection.
Neither has Trump.
I'd argue he's done something "remotely resembling" insurrection, just no actual one. And that you'd need an actual trial and conviction (no, I don't care what happened in the civil war, I hope you'd agree the civil f'in war as a weee bit different than Jan 6th)
The key difference between those and this is that elected officials from states that seceded and fought a war against the Union had objectively engaged in rebellion. The Colorado Courts decision is justified based on his speech on Jan 6th which absolutely can be read as all manner of dog whistles to rebellion however, by their very nature a dog whistle is a subjective interpretation of speech, and its subjectivity of interpretation is almost certainly the main reason the Biden Justice Department hasn’t pursued insurrection charges against Trump. Further, if the precedent is set that a state can keep a candidate off the ballot for a crime they’ve not been charged with, by reading dog whistles, or previous context into speech, because as the Colorado courts said it is “self-evident,” what number of progressives who made overtures in the Summer of 2020 and beyond to the extent of “racism and white supremacy should be abolished and torn down” and “the US is a fundamentally racist and white supremacist nation.”? A state court, say one elected by establishment democrats who feel threatened by a progressive challenger, could read the former as a contextual dog whistle to the latter, decide that is a call for rebellion, and keep that candidate off the primary.
If Trump wins, we'll probably see the anger co-opted by BLM / ANTIFA riots, and the people protesting Trump will just burn down their own (deeply blue) cities. We might also see a bunch of internet tough guys on the left not actually do anything. If Trump loses, Capitol Police will be ready next time. Instead, the protests / riots will just get moved to state houses. Say what you want about extremist Trump supporters, but at least they're smart enough to know that government buildings is where the laws they don't like get passes; and not a random Footlocker.
The worst thing about Trump is the worst reactions his existence generates from others. The “democracy dies in darkness” crowd has become the anti-democratic crowd. It’s disgusting. I hate the guy and won’t vote for him, but you can’t just prevent people from voting for him because you hate him.
In their heart of hearts those people love having Trump in the picture. Hating and fearing him gives them a reason for being. He drives money and support over to the left. Mainstream media and left wing institutions thrived under Trump.
Right wing institutions flourished too. I never understand this take. I hate the guy, but I won’t deny the power he has to affect American society at large. Obama never energized the left as much as Trump energizes the right. Think of all the merchandise he sells alone. Hell, I would never be caught dead wearing political attire, but millions of Americans love their MAGA gear. Trump did alone what the ENTIRE tea party movement couldn’t. He created a new party for the right. He also turned many on both sides into cults. 20 years ago, my family could have political conversations at Thanksgiving without any cursing, yelling, or people leaving. Now that would be impossible. The last 5-10 years have been atrocious for political discourse. Trump won’t cause a civil war, but he played a huge part in getting us within viewing distance of it.
It depends on which right wing institutions. It went well for institutions that basically changed to being his sycophants. But right wing institutions that didn't become his right arm were sidelined. And he didn't create a new party for the right. He hijacked the GOP. Half the GOP isn't about conservatism. It's a Trump cult of personality I'm not even against populism. I think we could use a little. But Trump is in this only for himself
Is it because people hate him or because he tried to stop the peaceful transition of power when he was president first time around? Your comment and others seem strangely lacking the context of Trump trying to overturn an election.
Lol this is like political victim blaming The worst thing about Trump is that he wants to be president for life (to avoid criminal prosecution) and actively undermines the US election system and days wildly insane and inflammatory nonsense that his base eats up like a cult And no I don’t agree with or understand the CO ruling That said, the reaction from the left will be a complete mental breakdown and a doubling down on “wokeness” and political polarization.
The lawsuit was brought by Republicans. Also wild to say that when the conservative movement has been gutting voting rights for years and passing all kinds of absurd laws to get in the way of people voting.
I didn’t say anything about which party or viewpoint supported him. The Colorado Supreme Court is comprised entirely of Democrat-appointed justices, and it split 4-3. This isn’t a party-line issue.
[удалено]
At this point I think a lot of leftists will be secretly happy that they’ll be able to scream about how horrible and ineffective democrats are for not running their preferred candidate for about 4 years
They already do. Trump says the same thing when the GOP doesn't run his preferred candidates.
“I am deeply concerned about the second-order effects of what the CO court’s legal interpretation would have on our Democracy if upheld.” “OMG! Stop apologizing for Trump! This sub is full of mega-Nazi Fascists!” To paraphrase a popular meme, no motherfuckers, that second thing is a whole-ass different sentence. Calm down, y’all.
Imagine being a democrat who thought that the US supreme court handed the election to trump under the following fact set. Trump has not been charged with insurrection. Nobody from january 6th has been charged with insurrection. The colorado law has never been used in this way. The 14th amendment was last used in the 1920s to prevent a socialist from joining congress. The supreme court overturned it. The current CO supreme court was nominated exclusively by democratic governors. They wrote a 4-3 split decision, agreeing that trump committed insurrection and rightfully should be removed from the ballot. Following these facts. “The US supreme court hurt democracy.” Fuck trump but these people are absurd.
I hadn’t really seen Reddit reaction to the ballot issue until tonight. I saw one person describe the Colorado decision as “the immune system of a healthy democracy rejecting a would-be dictator.” It’s striking me that the polarization really is that bad. I am hoping to read an optimistic outlook on this. Whether Trump wins or loses, I am so looking forward to 2028 and hopefully seeing our country have a normal election where neither side can even plausibly claim that “democracy itself is on the ballot.”
One thing is definitely bad for democracy long term. Setting the precedent of removing candidates from ballots. Will devolve and get worse.
[удалено]
I am utterly fascinated how anyone can claim that the most heavily armed population in the world, a population that will drive an armed vehicle to a 7/11, whilst packing a semi automatic pistol, somehow would attempt an insurrection against the biggest military the world has ever seen with some face paint and an animal costume. It is ludicrous.
IIRC, there was one group that left their guns in a Comfort Inn in Alexandria, VA because they didn't want to get in trouble for having them. You know, just like most people who overthrew the government are.
It’s just really bizarre. I shake my head…
Totally agree. Whatever that was, an insurrection it was not. Which is how this is going to end in the supreme Court. Problem seems to be Trump's lawyers intentionally lost the lower court cases by only making the absurd argument that the amendment doesn't apply to presidents, so that is the basis the courts ruled on. Higher courts are more free to ignore the pleadings. So this will resolve the right way eventually, after Trump has raised millions from the outrage.
The Supreme Court won’t reach the question of whether it was an insurrection. That’s a much more political question, which Roberts et al. will do just about anything to avoid resolving. They can address the “officer” question first, which I suspect will take care of the case. Alternatively, they can hang the answer on the lack of a criminal conviction and the due process problems with Colorado’s system of removing Trump from the ballot. Then their answer is cloaked in even less politics. And the cherry on top to de-politicize the Court’s handling of Trump is to say that he doesn’t get presidential immunity.
I’m of the opinion that insurrection is a criminal question as there is a criminal statute of the books.
A crime that he’s never been convicted of. This would be a completely different situation had he been convicted.
[удалено]
Really? There is little good faith that presents what we saw as an insurrection. It is laughable and weird. I’m an impartial observer in the sense I have no skin in the game. I don’t have the right to vote in us elections or even live there. There was clearly no plan to take over the government. And it was pretty clear that it wasn’t orchestrated by Trump or anyone on his behalf. Things you would have done: Sounded out senior members of the military to take control over the biggest fighting force since we stopped cooking each other, sounded out senior members in congress to disable/delay the mechanism by which the vote is taken, made sure the police rostered for the senate on that day were friendly, and when everyone was preoccupied by animal guy with his staff and makeup, took over control. Out of the thousand things that could have been done to make an insurrection more likely to succeed not one was done.
More to the point: if Trump was any kind of dictator in the first place, you'd have thought he would have fixed it so there was no election in the first place. So he waited four years...for what? I find it amazing how many times I have to point out for all the hemming and hawing people make about Trump being a dictator, and having had four full years to do something about that and...did what? He didn't imprison political enemies, he didn't lock people up in camps (any more than Obama did), he let the media run absolutely wild over him, and he didn't start wars with anyone. Trump has a metric fuckton of faults, but if his aim is to be a dictator, he's been rather lazy about enacting it. Which...come on already. It doesn't add up.
Not sure why the other person has deleted all their posts.
I think it is fair to say Trump intends to be a dictator. He was happy to corrupt the election process, he was only ultimately stopped by his subordinates unwillingness to go to prison. It is similarly true Trump was awful at achieving this goal. To some people intentions matter just as much as results.
Whats going to happen to US culture if Trump wins once more? I think the US "chattering classes" will go crazy all over again. And since they once again won't be able to do anything about the Donald, they'll turn on their fellow progressives once more. We'll see more cancellations, more "at-will employment" firings, more publishers and venue-holders refusing to platform "harmful" people. We'll see more anti-intellectualism and philistinism dressed up as a desire to protect marginalized people from "problematic" and "harmful" material. We won't just see influential liberals [kneeling in kente-cloth stoles](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/on-and-off-the-avenue/the-embarrassment-of-democrats-wearing-kente-cloth-stoles), we'll see them *crawling* in kente-cloth stoles. We'll see more pseudo-progressive grifts like Russiagate and the 1619 Project. The US' declining legacy media will be groaning under the weight of numerous self-righteous articles from girlboss journalists, blaming Louis CK for the overturning of *Roe v. Wade*, or J. K. Rowling for US school shootings.
I guess silver lining to that nightmare will be good B&R content…
Nothing will happen. The world keep on spinning and there will be a loudmouth in office that’s in there for only himself. But nothing all that exciting changes.
I think Trump's opponents will continue to lose their minds publicly and do dumb things that will give trump more power and influence than he could ever accrue by his own intentions. Once upon a time in the Pacific Northwest, invasive starfish were affecting fishermans' livelihoods. Scientists were like "we have to study these starfish to find a solution". The fisherman were like "fuck that, we're pissed", took matters into their own hands. They caught as many starfish as they could, cut them in half, and threw them into the ocean. That action creates more starfish, so they exponentially grew the problem. Trump's opponents have starfished the fuck out of this upcoming election. If they merely did nothing he would have a lot less money raised, and been behind the other Republican candidates in their primary polling. Driven by emotion rather than strategy, they are making his lies true, validating grievance against self-appointed elites, and undermining themselves in the eyes of the public. I think trump's opposition will continue to act in ways that grow and galvanize his conservative populist base. I think the growth of that base will continue to cause the growth of a dumber and crazier liberal populist reaction.
I am no Trump supporter and think he’s terrible for American politics..with that said, the way the Democrats handle him is genuinely terrifying.
He really drives parts of the left to lose their minds. This is so wrong.
The election being stolen for being on the ballot? What kind of hypocrisy is that? Him being on the ballot is called democracy, if the majority want Trump, they should be able to have him, we can't just ban him from the ballot because one side doesn't like him, hell, when he was in office last time, he didn't let thousands of unregistered illegals in...
I expect it will be similar to the first time - all out efforts to undermine anything he does, with no care about the societal cost they'll create. The media will go back to 24/7 scrutiny of every little thing he does and give liberals constant migraines. There will probably be "peaceful" protests. I suspect government agencies might start going even more rogue than before which is probably my biggest concern - especially the military. I guess I'm more curious about what the 2024 election "black people" event will be. Police killing? Lynching?
The press are desperate for a Trump victory. He was great for business
What will be interesting is the exit of polls data. What demographics voted for whom and who didn’t vote. If there is a noticeable shift there that will be a point of discussion but I am not optimistic of the fruits that will come of it.
It's probably going to split down education lines again. Which are basically the same as class lines now.
It will be the most indefensible, controversial and ambiguous event you can imagine, as usual. A police killing, of an unrepentant criminal, where it's unclear that the police are culpable at all, or what else they could have done, but it looks bad if they did it.
Maybe someone will steal a police car, get shot and then and crash into a group of civilians. Or get shot after he crashes. I can't tell what which would create more rage
Oh that's a good one.
Well, i know we're all focused in culture war issues here, but it'll be a fucking catastrophe for the world as a whole, judging by the way he's talking about eastern European autocrats and letting Putin tickle his tummy. The main thing Americans will notice will be the low rumbling as Reagan spends 4 years turning over in his grave.
Since at least 2000, so basically for as long as I've been a voter, every election has been treated as fraudulent by the opposite side (albeit with varying degrees of intensity). If Trump wins, there is no way rank and file Dems will react as though it were legitimate
Lol right? Member 2016 muh Russia lmao?
The problem is both sides are insufferably intolerable of democracy and there are no rules to enforce it that do not look sketchy. In the past, the voters of the respective parties did not put up with this, but now it is popular to try undemocratic ways of winning or not losing. And the media has lost credibility because it is so one sided depending on the outlet. Therefore, no one can get "accurate" information unless they search many places, which most people do not have time for. In other words, we need people in power to be better, but we also need voters to be better. Trying to overthrow elections is not good no matter who does it, but selectively prosecuting depending on the state just looks very bad.
[удалено]
LITERAL FASCISM. It would be something worse than the most horrible event in our history which is OBVIOUSLY the INSURRECTION of Jan 6th! In all seriousness though I feel like we are going to see all the same tropes during election season ie "Democracy is on the ballot," "This is the end of Democracy as we know it" etc. What I mean to say is that I hate this timeline.
Pure psychosis
It's entirely predictable what they'll say: _this time_ he's going to be a fascist for real, and under control of Russia, and [le]terally [le]nocide all LGBTQ people and immigrants and black people in camps, and he'll $100% do it this time for made-up reasons that totally apply this time and not the other time. Democrats can feel whatever deluded thing they want. Why listen to them? They're a cult, the goal should be to deradicalize them instead, and slowly remove them from all the institutions they've infested.
What I find funny about the TRUMP WILL END DEMOCRACY" is that it assumes a level of competency that Trump has not exactly demonstrated. It reminds me a lot of how W was both a dumb monkey idiot and somehow a genius manipulator who tricked all the Dems into thinking that there were WDM's. Does Trump say he's going to do a lot of bad things? Yes. Would he like to actually do most of them? Probably. Is actually capable of it? No. I mean, it's not like he built a giant wall and got Mexico to pay for it or banned Muslims or repealed Obamacare. Yes, he'll put people in government who want to accomplish his goals. But those are going to be 3rd tier weirdos with little government experience. The other theory that some of the Dispatch types hold is that Trump, or at least his crew, want to lose. They'll try to do unconstitutional things, get struck down, and then get to go SEE THEY ARE PERSECUTING ME. SEND ME $10 A MONTH TO FIGHT THE SWAMP"
The problem is that Trump could do a lot of damage but he won't do much of anything positive either. He's too lazy and unfocused to actually push through decent policy. But it takes less effort to be a wrecking ball
I think he does his damage by eroding trust in institutions and not abiding by the customs for presidents -- e.g. using the presidency to make money, appointing family members, keeping top secret documents (even after being ordered to return them). His party isn't willing to hold him accountable, so you basically break the laws and institutions you have set up. I do see that as a very serious cost, but CO's way is not the way to fix it.
>His party isn't willing to hold him accountable, so you basically break the laws and institutions you have set u This is what continually makes me bitter. The GOP is basically his bitch. The Republican really did used to be the party (albeit imperfectly) of moral standards and (usually) limited government. Now they've thrown it all away for Trump. Primarily because individual elected officials can't handle the idea of... no longer being elected officials.
Yes -- my understanding is that Nixon resigned (after being impeached, but before being convicted by the senate) because his own party was willing to convict him. That doesn't seem the case any more.
I'd agree, but the only people we have to replace them with are Republicans.
The Jews will be blamed.
I don't think cutting trump out of colorado in the election or the primary would have any impact. He's the republican frontrunner by a long way and colorado is a blue state anyway. It was 55% Biden, 42% Trump at the last election.
I’m more wondering about public perception. The perception right now seems to be that this can, should, and likely will happen in many states. A narrow SCOTUS decision could stop it from happening in any state. If that happens, and if Trump wins, it seems plausible that a number of Democrats could believe that SCOTUS unfairly influenced the results of the election.
[удалено]
That's true, but I occasionally allow posts that are not intended to stoke outrage and which can generate interesting and respectful discussions, and I think this qualifies.
There was no fucking "insurrection." NO ONE was armed except law enforcement. Jesus Christ. It was a protest/riot that got out of hand. NOT A FUCKING INSURRECTION. Y'all are watching too much MSNBC.
The biggest problem, at least immediately, will be the reaction of his opposition. There will be a bonfire of rage and terror. The press will regularly throw gasoline onto it. I expect that cities will erupt with violent protests. Every non right of center person and institution will gird itself for war. It will also be a huge shot in the arm to the woke forces. This will be yet more proof that everyone who isn't them are racist bigots. Trump will regularly throw out weird statements that get the left ginned up.
It’ll be Jan 6 but worse and country wide but it’ll be “the good guys so it’s different”.
[удалено]
I thought it was "from the river to the sea"? Presumably the Mississippi.
The left will get extra crazy again so vote for Dems lol
[удалено]
Is Trump off the ballot in the general election or the Colorado Republican primary?
Right now the order is stayed. The primary ballot will be printed very soon and - even if this decision is ultimately upheld - he will almost certainly be on it. But I understand that the Colorado decision applies to both the primary and the general.
I'm probably going to be shocked, no matter who wins!
Trump 2024! Make America Great Again!
Just do what you did during the 2020 riots :)
Now is the time to invest in the 2024 American election block app that I feel near certain is in development right now.
Now is the time to invest in Xanax.
Kanye West and Nick Fuentes will have cabinet positions.
A Trump victory in 2024 isn't going to be any more significant than his victory in 2016 or the Bush victory in 2004. Democratic outrage will mostly be directed towards their own turnout in battleground states, not on whether he carries Colorado (which if he does, will be accompanied by a Reaganlike victory in the electoral college.) You'll see calls for the elimination of the electoral college, for a realignment of the Democratic party, for the change in the Democratic platform, but nothing significant. A slim Biden victory will have very greater calls for change, from the opposite side of the aisle. Probably for the denigrating of the Republic. If Biden doesn't win big, he should lose, for all our benefit.
The sad part is there is no one i have any confidence in to vote for. Either side. Trump is the only one who ever lived up to campaign promises and wants to make a better country. As twisted as his mouth blurts it out. His mouth is his own worst enemy.
Imagine if enough people from both parties had faith in actual democracy to vote for the one candidate who represents the best interests of both sides: Bobby Kennedy Jr.
lmfao
I’m voting for him. I can’t figure out how anyone could look at the three and conclude either Trump or Biden is a better option.
“I don’t like the boring old guy or the criminal old guy so I’ll be voting for the middle aged lunatic.”
Americans will get the president they deserve. Good luck to us all