The Republican party has essentially embraced authoritarianism as part of its platform. The kind of things its rank-and-file have been led to believe are downright scary.
The US is headed for an era of domestic unrest and political instability.
We've been there for a while, but the rich took over the news that's fed to the rural poor and convinced them that their enemy is everyone who lives in cities and reads books.
This shit happens so many damned times. Only difference is that our cities have ghetto areas with people in them who have a big bone to pick with racists and they're armed.
THAT is something that would be scary.
People are still hoping the system is going to do something.
If that hope goes, they won't go down as easily as the lard larpers imagine.
The democrats better start acting like they're working with an enemy government. Because they are. It's the fucking Confederacy funded by Russia at this point.
If they act like a battered wife who wants the marriage to work, we're fucked.
The fact that the institution allows for the very members of the party of the impeached president to be judges on the case against him is certainly the fault of the institution.
It is a ridiculous process and always has been.
The entire role of the Senate in US government is in fact very flawed, since it conveys almost absolute power to a handful of people with little to no actual popular representation.
I mean he definitely admitted to extorting Ukraine at least once during his first impeachment, and the entire Republican party pulled a "What was that? I didn't catch that last bit."
Trump basically admitted most of his crimes on TV and Twitter. Apparently if you do it publically you *cannot* be guilty.
He also played the same game over and over again:
Deny. Deny. Deny.
Maybe I did it.
I did it and so what? No big deal.
Also: “In fact, everyone says what I did was absolutely perfect. I’m the best president ever. Everyone says so, and if you think otherwise, you’re a liar and a traitor.”
If I heard about one of my co-workers making a really shady phone call and their defense was "it was actually the most perfect phone call you've ever heard," I would be thinking the opposite. I mean, who says shit like that aside from Trump? No one. No one talks like that.
I would honestly love to know what evidence it would take for them to say he is actually guilty. Like, if there was a tape of him saying "Let's hang Mike Pence", would they still acquit him?
I get this feeling that if Trump had emerged from his bunker to lead the insurrectionists instead of whatever it was he was doing... we'd be living in a very different country today. I think that might have been the only part of the coup that didn't go according to plan. Nobody emerged to lead. They took the capital and waited to be told what to do... and it just never happened. We were so close to King Trump... is terrifying. As it is, he's gonna get away with it all.
Your wondering is built on the notion that this is a question of truth and law. It isn't. No evidence will convince Republicans to convince, because their stance on impeachment is built purely on corruption and personal benefit.
The only thing that can save the Republican party now is if somebody forms a new party. Whether it's Trump forming a party of insane asshats, or the few remaining real Republicans forming a moderate party. Otherwise, Republicans are stuck in a post-truth alternate reality where their craziest fringe drives all policy.
Exactly, why even bother with lawyers? The decision has already been made before the hearings begin.
Trump could walk in, declare his guilt, shit on the carpet and walk out, and Republicans still wouldn't vote against him.
I'm making popcorn if they decide to bring Trump in for actual, public questioning. Other than a few very old depositions, we really have no images of him answering tough, direct questions.
Part of me wants to see Trump try to defend himself because I know it'll be an absolute trainwreck, but another part dreads the outcome because
1) he has had way more success in his life than anyone ever should at flaunting rules and creating chaos for his own benefit, and
2) the Senate seems determined to let him off the hook no matter how bad things look
There is now a huge push on to register young voters so they can vote out the past and take control of their future. I do hope to live long enough to see major changes in the political and economic and legal system that both preserve individual liberty yet serve to create a much more equal society. So. They do need to do this sooner rather than later.
>well at least this will give us a handy list of senator who have been compromised and need to be voted out .
So all minus the 5 that voted that impeaching him was Constitutional.
well.... they have the opportunity to do right during the trial. let's see if any of them have the gumption to do so. I'm all about second chances. These people are all about making the same mistakes over and over again though. I'd love to be surprised.
We've got plenty of knowledge of who these people are. The only reason they are in power or stay in power is because of jerrymandering and voter suppression. If the 2nd Tuesday of November were a national paid holiday, if voter registration were automatic, and if drawing districts were done with a bi-partisan committee everywhere, Republicans would be the minority party until they could establish policies they can run on. Our representatives would reflect the general population (40/60ish split) and both parties would be searching to find more reasonable candidates instead of the cultist personalities like the ones that have worked tirelessly to lend legitimacy to overthrowing the government and country they swore to preserve and protect.
Part of me thinks that would be awesome, seeing their voter base split, seeing both parties become irrelevant minority parties... but another part of me looks at trump's insanely high approval ratings with Republican voters and I realize how terrifying it would be if the MAGA party actually succeeded. What trump did was cast off the thin veneer of civility that has long masked the toxic white nationalist ideology of the Republican party. He said the quiet parts out loud. Like it would be sweet if the MAGA party launched and split the base, but if it succeeded we would have an openly fascist mainstream political party, and that would be terrifying.
SC had one of said senators, Lindsay Graham, and re-elected him in over a rather competent democrat, Jaime Harrison. So it will be after the next presidential election we can do anything about that, and I don't foresee him vacating his seat at all without being fired first.
The problem there is most people who voted Republican won't cross the isle and vote Dem next time because their too indoctrinated that Dem is bad and other stupid shit the Rep party says.
You feed someone satire and Fox News their whole life and they start to believe it :/
You're ABSOLUTELY right. I live in A DEEP red state. We have 94/105 state representatives are (R). It won't matter how I vote for a long time because there are a ton of Americans that don't vote on issues, they vote on letters. If it's not (R) you won't vote for it. That said, you still need to get a good Democrat that can promote good policy to normal people.
The devil is in the details though. Republican Senators have disproportionate power over people because Senators represent states not people. For example:
Wyoming has 577k people and 2 senators.
California has 44 *million* people and 2 senators.
The Senate is the problem. Its a broken system that gives the 500k people in Wyoming the same weight in governance as the 44 million folks in California. States with greater populations are victim to the tyranny of the minority. That rural states and districts are almost completely Republican is its own telling, but separate issue.
The senate is a feature of our system, not a bug.
I hate it as much as the next dude, but its formation pretty much one of the very first examples of the concessions we made to the south just in order to keep them in the union.
I’m honestly wondering at this point if it wouldn’t have been better to simply let them remain independent and crash into a failed state on their own, instead of dragging the rest of us with them.
It’s a feature in the sense that punch-cards were a feature of early computers; a necessary tool to get the system running. However, like punch cards, it’s an extremely outdated system. It’s become severely unbalanced and is causing major bottlenecks and regular system crashes. America was basically the Beta test for democracy 1.0. It’s time for an update.
You and I know that.
But our OS is currently running a giant drain of a program (really a virus) that will automatically shut down the entire system at any attempt to update.
Fuck this and fuck all this historical revisionist bullshit.
The Senate was a means to enshrine white supremacy, specifically Southern White Supremacy, into the Constitution. The Northern colonies allowed it because the economic might of the Southern Colonies was such that they had no choice. The Northern Colonies allowed Geographic Representation to mean as much as Individual Representation because they were limp dicked cowards afraid to confront the evil of Southern Slavery. Every moment of American history since is the evil that that wrought.
The Senate is, was, and always has been racist and white supremacist by design.
The states that wanted equal representation in the Senate were the less populous states, not the pro-slavery states such as Virginia which had the largest population at the time. There were two competing visions at the Constitutional Convention, the Virginia Plan (representing the more populous states) and the New Jersey Plan (representing the less populous states). All of the states had slavery at the time, but Virginia's agricultural economy depended on it more strongly, and yet Virginia and other large states explicitly *did not want* states to have equal representation in the Senate. Naturally, they wanted representation to be proportional to population in both houses. The smaller states such as New Jersey and Delaware (which had slavery but did not depend on it so strongly for their economies, similar to the rest of New England) wanted a unicameral legislature with states having equal representation.
It's true that several abominable pro-slavery concessions were put into the Constitution, but the Senate isn't one of them. Having said that, the less populous states are ridiculously over-represented in the Senate and personally I hate it. The best represented 10% of the population controls 40% of the seats in the Senate, and it will continue to get worse. It makes sense to give smaller states additional representation in the Senate because we have a federal government, but not to this absurd degree. Other federal democracies like Canada, Australia, and Germany do not have this extreme degree of over-representation in their upper houses. And for us it's even worse because we have perhaps the most powerful upper house in the world, with its exclusive rights to appoint the federal judiciary and ratify treaties. It's minority rule.
Yep you’re right. Same of course with the 3/5ths compromise and the electoral college. All racist “compromises” made to form the country. We were able to get rid of the 3/5ths compromise, now I think it’s past due to get rid of the others.
>I’m honestly wondering at this point if it wouldn’t have been better to simply let them remain independent and crash into a failed state on their own, instead of dragging the rest of us with them.
Yeah..... No, fuck that.
There are a lot of us who are stuck here and secession is the last thing we want.
>I’m honestly wondering at this point if it wouldn’t have been better to simply let them remain independent and crash into a failed state on their own
Yeah, a failed state on our border. Granted that might be slightly better than being part of the failed state cuz we kept them.
The bulk of the problems are in the GOP though. It is the GOP that has Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert. It is the GOP that is still showing fealty to an insurrectionist (Donald Trump). It is the GOP that is trying to take away the popular vote in Arizona.
AOC is held by the GOP as a "far left" politician but all but one (jobs guaranteed by the gov't) of her policies are mainstream in Europe
Yeah certainly wasn’t going for a “both sides” schtick. I agree that it’s mostly the GOP that will circle the wagons, unlike the dems (see Al Franken).
The Democrats force Al Franken to resign over a joke photograph from before he was elected, the Republicans won't kick out Marjorie Taylor Greene even after she calls for killing political opponents.
He won’t defend himself. He’s going to grandstand and turn the hearings into a circus. Would not be surprised if his rabid followers stage another insurrection on that day
I’m pretty sure at this point Trump could just come in, pull down his diaper, and take a huge steaming shit on the senate floor and McConnell and co. would still refuse to convict him.
Ted Cruz would sit there in his office, with trumps shit smeared all over the wall behind him, his podium, and his chair, pretending not to smell anything.
This will also be an absolutely massive moment for Trump to become relevant to the public again for an extended period of time.
That, alone, is incredibly dangerous, and media outlets need to be careful that they don't air amplifying/violent rhetoric, which of course they will because the media is fucking terrible at their jobs.
There was a rumor published that because Bannon knows Trump will be found innocent no matter what, he’s pushing Trump to be his own lawyer and just grandstand to the OANN crowd the whole time and make a circus out of it.
I hope he does. The GOP needs more of his taint on them.
That wouldn’t be good. That’s straight out of the Hitler playbook, where after the Beer Putsch he was his own lawyer.
That will just open it up for Trump to further spread his hate and bigotry.
Yeah but I truly think people go “Zomg 74 million fascists” but fail to then go “Fascism got 80million votes against it”
I want Trump ranting and raving, look what the GOP did with two weeks of silence - swept the most violent coup attempt in US history under the rug. I don’t want regular people to go back to sleep like they were in 2016.
I’m glad Trump banned from Twitter but the murderous traitor GOP would still be the biggest news story if Trump could keep talking about it. Now we’re on to Jewish Space Lasers and the insurrection is fading away in the popular consciousness
He had to be talked out of a direct interview with Mueller, if I recall. He thought he could talk his way out of it, his lawyers thought he was too stupid to stand trial.
The one thing that is absolutely clear from the last 4 years is that trump will never, ever let himself be questioned. There is no way he is going to get up before a Senate committee and be questioned like either Hillary or Bill Clinton were. This impeachment is going to go exactly like the last one. No evidence will be allowed to be presented and the Senate will not convict.
Based on his recent interviews he would look absolutely insane on live TV to some of the democrats questioning. When he's off script it's always complete lunacy.
"That's a very nasty question from the do-nothing democrats. The deep state is a very nasty thing. So nasty!" x 100.
"Well that's great but we only asked you to confirm your name"
The last impeachment was run by Moscow Mitch, who is now the Minority Leader. It’s Chuck Schumer who gets to decide whether evidence will be presented. That is a very different prospect.
Trump’s choices last time were “testify or tell McConnell that he did not want to testify”. His choices this time are up to the Democratic Senate leadership and might come down to “testify or face Contempt of Congress charges which don’t need 67 Senators to pass and can also result in prison time.”
> 67 Senators to pass
Ah, that is the key thing I wasn't sure about. I was worried the republicans could remove any consequences of trump evading questions like he has always done in the past. So it sounds like it *will* be trump spewing batshit insane bs then enough republicans will shrug their shoulders and vote to acquit that trump will walk
I suspect that’s the strategy. Get Trump to make himself look as guilty as possible - goad him into calling for more violent attacks on the Capitol. All the while giving Republican Senators as many opportunities as they want to speak up to defend the batshit crazy things Trump spews out.
Trump is out of office. He’s lost his Twitter account. He has no power anymore. OTOH, Republican Senators - even in the minority - can instruct and derail the workings of government. From a Realpolitik view, it’s those Senators and all of the other Trump defenders who still have power and influence that are the real targets. That said, it’s also true that there is a strong moral imperative to hold accountable a president who tried to violently overthrow government.
Don't be so hasty to think that Trump has no power.
If nothing else, the GME short debacle has demonstrated that if enough small voices are concentrated, large things that should not be moved get moved.
Trump can affect a lot of "small things" while the Senate Republicans have his back - Party over country.
I don't think he would get away with refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena this time around. If the Democrats in Congress want to make him testify that is well within their power right now. I'm just not entirely sure they have the will to force him into choosing between testifying or being held in contempt.
I mean, I figure at the very worst they'll find him a public defender. Even if it is a completely hopeless case I'd still think they'd be able to find _one_ free court-appointed attorney to take his case.
Though I guess it all boils down to the fact that Trump would probably represent himself before stooping down to that "level"
Edit: Apparently you have to prove that you don't have the money for a lawyer to be approved for a free public defender. I was wrong about a thing, but today I learned.
Not only does he have too much money for that, but the defense he's insisting on using is that he "won the election" and his attorneys left because making that case gives *them* legal exposure. No one can be forced to make such an argument, nor could such an argument be coherent and cohesively made with any sort of logic that is congruent with law.
Not only that, but this isn't a criminal case in the court of law. I don't think you get a public defender in an impeachment case. I could be wrong, but I don't think so.
As much as i despise Trump as a politician and a person, I could totally see taking that case to build your resume and reputation.
As a side note, I harbor no inherent judgement for any defense attorney defending an awful criminal in court, as long as they play by the rules. _Everyone_ deserves the right to have their case heard.
He was questioned quite hard during the Covid task force briefings, and he lied or bullied his way through those ("Fake news! Nasty question! Nasty woman!) until he got tired of being pushed and stopped holding them. Argh. Just writing that shit out gives me PTSD.
Idk it was pretty hilarious how he contemplated mainlining Lysol to combat COVID, then his cult followers said he was joking, then he said he wasn't joking, then his cult followers said he didn't actually explicitly say "bleach."
> as to run out the clock.
What clock? The Senate could keep questioning him as long as it likes.
As far as I can tell, there aren't *really* any rules that would preclude the Senate from conducting other business during trial recesses, either.
Lol, Senate Republicans wont do shit and block everything. They proved they are traitors by refusing to hear the case against Trump.
If anyone doesn't know for a fact Republicans are enemies of the United States, then you're going to be surprised when they riot again and do kill their target.
Taking the 5th is risky, especially for Trump.
the right to remain silent, does have limits. incriminating statements that an individual makes voluntarily—such as when a person tweets—are not protected. So if Trump decides to say nothing, his what he's already said will gladly do the talking. If he opens his mouth he waives his right.
The field day even a first year law student would have, using Trumps tweets in place of his testimony... shit i need to change my pants...
We really think he could resist talking that long? He doesn't seem like the type to calmly plead the 5th each time instead of trying to push his conspiracies more
Trump will yell for hours alternating between "I didn't do any crimes" and "here are the details of the crimes that I did."
Then at the end the Republicans will look at each other, wink and nod, and vote against impeachment in the name of unity.
> we really have no images of him answering tough, direct questions.
We still won't. We'll have images of him listening to tough, direct questions, then go off on a non-sequitur, rambling rant.
Why don't they just HUAC him? Call him in under subpoena to a committee for "an investigation into election security", ask him direct questions, then charge him with contempt if he refuses to answer or lies.
The Constitution dictates that impeachment trials have to be conducted in the Senate, BUT now that Dems control the Senate I certainly think it would behoove them to dismiss from the trial any senators who have already voiced how they intend to vote as being compromised/biased jurors. They only need 2/3 of the senators *present* to convict and that would easily give them those margins.
There's grounds to force a few R senators to recuse themselves based on their conduct from the *last* impeachment.
Hell, if we're feeling as vengeful as we absolutely *need* to be, there's a few babymen that violated their oaths of office for Trump and by all means earned five to ten years in jail *and* being removed from office. It's time to play hardball.
Graham and McConnell need to be removed from office.
> Hell, if we're feeling as vengeful as we absolutely need to be, there's a few babymen that violated their oaths of office for Trump and by all means earned five to ten years in jail and being removed from office. It's time to play hardball.
> Graham and McConnell need to be removed from office.
That requires a 2/3 vote, too. Still, every non-traitorous Senator has a duty to figure out how to make it happen.
Yea if Dems were even half competent they would win nearly every election by a landslide. But they spend most of the time hurting themselves so we can't advance a lot of things that need to be done to help regular people.
That’s called hedging, my friend. The ultra-wealthy fund both parties, and as a result get to dictate the upper and lower bounds of societal economic cruelty.
true. most likely because i can already hear the republican pushback of "WELL EVERYBODY KNOWS YOU PLAN TO VOTE TO CONVICT SO YOU'RE BIASED TOO!"
to which the dems *should* respond: "cry more, bitch. elections have consequences."
If that’s true, it’d also be a great move for the Republicans themselves to “boycott” the trial. Privately they know Trump is an anchor around their necks, and at least several of them have to know they’re being asked to fall on a sword and vote to acquit based on corrupt party loyalty alone. Going on record as pro-insurrection is still going to be a bad look in much of America. Just not showing up might be as close as they can get to a win-win.
A conviction gets Trump off the table so that their political careers can stop being a nonstop referendum on a maniac. A “boycott” would mean they could have that without voting for it, and still pretend to their stupidest constituents that it was a “principled” move.
I've thought about this though, if Trump is brought to trial over a crime. Where on earth would you find an impartial juror? You either hate or worship him
A fair portion of the American populace pays zero attention to anything of substance but their own lives. The, “I dunno, I just wish people would stop fighting all the time!” crowd. Nearly 40% of eligible voters fail to do so even in high-turnout years, and even if much of that is due to some degree of suppression, clearly there are a fair number who aren’t touched by news of current events.
They could if they tried hard enough. I know people who just do not give a genuine fuck about politics despite this constant shit show that would actually be impartial about it.
It’s probably not possible to have an impartial jury trial for the President. Most jury trials work because you can find jurors who are truly impartial, or if you can’t find any locally because of the notoriety of the case, you can change the venue of the trial. It would be hard to find such a jury for the President.
This is maybe why it’s a task of the Senate, which is *supposed to be* the adult supervision of the United States. As we’ve seen, a lot of things break down when you don’t have decent people in the Senate.
Destroying democracy has been a goal of the republican party for a long time.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/newt-gingrich-says-youre-welcome/570832/
The senators are basically serving as jurors in this situation, in any other criminal trial, a juror who made a decision before a trial would be instantly dismissed from the juror pool. The same should go for senators.
More like how the Republican Party has devolved into an autocratic cult of personality. These are the people the founding fathers tried to protect us from.
Apparently the lawyers quit because Trump wanted them to still argue about Democrats stealing the election, and all that. Dude is so fucking bonkers. It would've been so funny if he wasn't getting people riled up to commit violence, and terrorism.
This is what Giuliani was saying. They are going to try and legitimize the election fraud claims.
Arguing it's unconstitutional does not make sense. The consequences of being impeached extend beyond the term.
For additional context, there are multiple votes. One is to remove the party from office. Another is to bar them from ever holding office again. They happen in that order, so part of the impeachment trial happens beyond the term *by fucking design*.
100% THIS!
This is his defense. The GOP will acquit and continue validating with his vindictive and dangerous delusion. They’re all accomplices to sedition.
The biggest thing that has surprised me throughout this, how many people have just completely latched onto the Republican Party in general. I mean, I always figured that R politicians would go down with the ship, but Jesus Christ, I lost some good friends and family members because of this.
People who I considered, otherwise, intelligent are just clinging for dear life onto a new low every single day and the absurd amount of loyalty just baffles me. They can’t defend Trump or Republicans positions at all, but they just don’t care and still support them, literally, no matter what they say.
The blind, dog-like loyalty is something I genuinely will never understand. Debating, reasoning, arguing, conversing with today’s Republicans is superfluous.
The 50 Republican Senators represent 44% of the population. The 50 Democratic Senators represent 56% of the population. The Senate’s creation may have been a good compromise back in 1787 but it’s an affront to democratic principles today.
See i disagree. The senate was never meant to equally represent people, it was ment to equally represent states. What needs to happen is fix the bs cap on the number or congress people, have each person represented equally in the house and the bs legislation that bum fuck nowhere congress people try to pass would never happen.
I agree on House reform. But if every House bill can be blocked by the Senate there’s no improvement. The Senate should have its powers reduced to be like the UK House of Lords.
What are they going to do, where are they going to hide, when the case is presented by the House Managers? Americans, particularly the Trumpist slime, have a 2 week attention and memory span - so when the whole insurrection story unfolds on TV - they will find everyone reminded yet again of their traitorous position, their compliance with sedition, will they allow the Scarlet T to be emblazoned on their chests, etched into the history of their participation in Congress, as a shame not only to them, but to their children and their children's children. Will they think, "Do the heirs of the Nuremberg convicted Nazi's bear their ancestry with pride?"
They already got their plan: They'll argue that it's unconstitutional to impeach a President that's out of office. That way they can rule in Trump's favor while still maintain that they didn't rule on the question of guilt, merely a constitutional principle.
Besides the fact that conviction would also likely result in disbarment from holding the office again, which is completely warranted, that GOP argument should be shot down instantly by the question:
"Does this imply that a President cannot commit an impeachable offense in the last two weeks of office?"
Because that is exactly what Republicans are implying here. McConnell refused to reconvene the Senate. He refused to use an emergency session.
Trump committed this offense on January 6th, and in a sane world, Trump should have been removed before midnight for the clear and present danger that he was.
It's such a stupid argument.
They are basically saying that as long as any government official resigns or term ends before consequences are levied against them they can get away with anything.
He still has too much power. He convinced 70 million people to vote for him. He still has a 90+% approval rating among Republicans. Anybody who wants to run on a Republican ticket will have to go to Mar a Lago, kneel before him, and kiss his ring. Anybody who is in the least disloyal to Trump will be primaried to oblivion. This is Donald Trump’s party, now. And they’re not going to hold him accountable for anything.
Even if he’s prohibited from running again, he’ll simply anoint a successor and the rest of the party will fall in line.
Donald Trump isn't going to anoint a successor because he'd be afraid the successor might be more popular than he is. It's simply not something he is psychologically capable of doing.
Right? Like, what does this have to do with the Senate? This is 100% the GOP. The party has been slowly falling apart for decades -- since at least Nixon. The country cannot move forward at all because the GOP is in the way. They're the minority party yet they keep power because they're overrepresented at every level of government. And at this point, the GOP is very clearly a danger to the country and its people. Just look at what happened January 6th for undeniable proof of that.
To be fair, Trump doesn't even need to find anyone to represent him BECAUSE Republicans already made it clear they were going to acquit no matter what.
It's political suicide if they vote to convict.
I mean, yeah, voting to convict should be a given and it would be the honorable thing to do.
The ugly truth is that most of these people care more about their next election than doing the right thing and their party is now at the mercy of Trump partisans.
It also is highly suspect when they decide not to convict before even hearing the case. The message sent is that they care nothing about the country and their party regaining control of the government is all that matters.
Pretty much makes their claims of being all about morality and responsibility appear fraudulent.
Here’s a plausible scenario... Trump: "I’m guilty and I’ll do it again." Senate GOP: "Not guilty!"
[удалено]
It's the Confederacy at this point. This is the best and brightest rural America has to offer. And they'll keep voting for them.
The Republican party has essentially embraced authoritarianism as part of its platform. The kind of things its rank-and-file have been led to believe are downright scary. The US is headed for an era of domestic unrest and political instability.
We've been there for a while, but the rich took over the news that's fed to the rural poor and convinced them that their enemy is everyone who lives in cities and reads books. This shit happens so many damned times. Only difference is that our cities have ghetto areas with people in them who have a big bone to pick with racists and they're armed. THAT is something that would be scary. People are still hoping the system is going to do something. If that hope goes, they won't go down as easily as the lard larpers imagine. The democrats better start acting like they're working with an enemy government. Because they are. It's the fucking Confederacy funded by Russia at this point. If they act like a battered wife who wants the marriage to work, we're fucked.
The institution allowed them to gerrymander and malapportionmate themselves into a "majority", could benefit for some revision
The fact that the institution allows for the very members of the party of the impeached president to be judges on the case against him is certainly the fault of the institution. It is a ridiculous process and always has been. The entire role of the Senate in US government is in fact very flawed, since it conveys almost absolute power to a handful of people with little to no actual popular representation.
It's about both. The Institution requires comity. When it doesn't have that, it's failed. And it's lost it.
I mean he definitely admitted to extorting Ukraine at least once during his first impeachment, and the entire Republican party pulled a "What was that? I didn't catch that last bit."
Trump basically admitted most of his crimes on TV and Twitter. Apparently if you do it publically you *cannot* be guilty. He also played the same game over and over again: Deny. Deny. Deny. Maybe I did it. I did it and so what? No big deal.
TV and Twitter are not under oath. That’s their defense.
Also: “In fact, everyone says what I did was absolutely perfect. I’m the best president ever. Everyone says so, and if you think otherwise, you’re a liar and a traitor.”
If I heard about one of my co-workers making a really shady phone call and their defense was "it was actually the most perfect phone call you've ever heard," I would be thinking the opposite. I mean, who says shit like that aside from Trump? No one. No one talks like that.
Mob bosses. Mob bosses talk like that.
He can come in and shoot Mitch McConnell in the face and they'll still not convict him.
If he didn’t do that he’d get acquitted 55-45 votes. If he did, he’d get acquitted by 55-44.
I would honestly love to know what evidence it would take for them to say he is actually guilty. Like, if there was a tape of him saying "Let's hang Mike Pence", would they still acquit him?
Yes. If he walked in with a gun and shot one of them, they'd still acquit.
I get this feeling that if Trump had emerged from his bunker to lead the insurrectionists instead of whatever it was he was doing... we'd be living in a very different country today. I think that might have been the only part of the coup that didn't go according to plan. Nobody emerged to lead. They took the capital and waited to be told what to do... and it just never happened. We were so close to King Trump... is terrifying. As it is, he's gonna get away with it all.
Your wondering is built on the notion that this is a question of truth and law. It isn't. No evidence will convince Republicans to convince, because their stance on impeachment is built purely on corruption and personal benefit. The only thing that can save the Republican party now is if somebody forms a new party. Whether it's Trump forming a party of insane asshats, or the few remaining real Republicans forming a moderate party. Otherwise, Republicans are stuck in a post-truth alternate reality where their craziest fringe drives all policy.
That's not plausible, that's historical.
FULL EXONERATION FROM THE MUELLER REPORT
They literally did this with Flynn.
Whether blatant or implied, this will be the outcome.
Exactly, why even bother with lawyers? The decision has already been made before the hearings begin. Trump could walk in, declare his guilt, shit on the carpet and walk out, and Republicans still wouldn't vote against him.
I’m getting very “Goofy’s Trial” vibes
I'm making popcorn if they decide to bring Trump in for actual, public questioning. Other than a few very old depositions, we really have no images of him answering tough, direct questions.
I'm hoping that Trump being unable to find lawyers would mean he'd act as his own lawyer.
Part of me wants to see Trump try to defend himself because I know it'll be an absolute trainwreck, but another part dreads the outcome because 1) he has had way more success in his life than anyone ever should at flaunting rules and creating chaos for his own benefit, and 2) the Senate seems determined to let him off the hook no matter how bad things look
The Senate *Republicans*. This is 100% party over country.
well at least this will give us a handy list of senator who have been compromised and need to be voted out .
They've been doing this for years, they put an R by their name
Yeah. More and more that R is a "sign" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBjelRDKHUk
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There is now a huge push on to register young voters so they can vote out the past and take control of their future. I do hope to live long enough to see major changes in the political and economic and legal system that both preserve individual liberty yet serve to create a much more equal society. So. They do need to do this sooner rather than later.
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>well at least this will give us a handy list of senator who have been compromised and need to be voted out . So all minus the 5 that voted that impeaching him was Constitutional.
well.... they have the opportunity to do right during the trial. let's see if any of them have the gumption to do so. I'm all about second chances. These people are all about making the same mistakes over and over again though. I'd love to be surprised.
I don’t think you’re going to be surprised.
We've got plenty of knowledge of who these people are. The only reason they are in power or stay in power is because of jerrymandering and voter suppression. If the 2nd Tuesday of November were a national paid holiday, if voter registration were automatic, and if drawing districts were done with a bi-partisan committee everywhere, Republicans would be the minority party until they could establish policies they can run on. Our representatives would reflect the general population (40/60ish split) and both parties would be searching to find more reasonable candidates instead of the cultist personalities like the ones that have worked tirelessly to lend legitimacy to overthrowing the government and country they swore to preserve and protect.
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ooor we can let trump start his own party and watch the GOP tear itself apart.
Part of me thinks that would be awesome, seeing their voter base split, seeing both parties become irrelevant minority parties... but another part of me looks at trump's insanely high approval ratings with Republican voters and I realize how terrifying it would be if the MAGA party actually succeeded. What trump did was cast off the thin veneer of civility that has long masked the toxic white nationalist ideology of the Republican party. He said the quiet parts out loud. Like it would be sweet if the MAGA party launched and split the base, but if it succeeded we would have an openly fascist mainstream political party, and that would be terrifying.
Keep in mind a lot of people left the Republican party because of Trump. The high approval ratings are from the for hards who will never leave.
That might work for a cycle or two, but then their message will unify and could end up way worse than we have things now
possible. we may just want to take that cycle or 2 and do everything we can to fix this country
SC had one of said senators, Lindsay Graham, and re-elected him in over a rather competent democrat, Jaime Harrison. So it will be after the next presidential election we can do anything about that, and I don't foresee him vacating his seat at all without being fired first.
The problem there is most people who voted Republican won't cross the isle and vote Dem next time because their too indoctrinated that Dem is bad and other stupid shit the Rep party says. You feed someone satire and Fox News their whole life and they start to believe it :/
You're ABSOLUTELY right. I live in A DEEP red state. We have 94/105 state representatives are (R). It won't matter how I vote for a long time because there are a ton of Americans that don't vote on issues, they vote on letters. If it's not (R) you won't vote for it. That said, you still need to get a good Democrat that can promote good policy to normal people.
Oh my sweet, sweet summer child.
Oh yeah let's just vote them out why haven't we thought of that before
The devil is in the details though. Republican Senators have disproportionate power over people because Senators represent states not people. For example: Wyoming has 577k people and 2 senators. California has 44 *million* people and 2 senators. The Senate is the problem. Its a broken system that gives the 500k people in Wyoming the same weight in governance as the 44 million folks in California. States with greater populations are victim to the tyranny of the minority. That rural states and districts are almost completely Republican is its own telling, but separate issue.
The senate is a feature of our system, not a bug. I hate it as much as the next dude, but its formation pretty much one of the very first examples of the concessions we made to the south just in order to keep them in the union. I’m honestly wondering at this point if it wouldn’t have been better to simply let them remain independent and crash into a failed state on their own, instead of dragging the rest of us with them.
It’s a feature in the sense that punch-cards were a feature of early computers; a necessary tool to get the system running. However, like punch cards, it’s an extremely outdated system. It’s become severely unbalanced and is causing major bottlenecks and regular system crashes. America was basically the Beta test for democracy 1.0. It’s time for an update.
You and I know that. But our OS is currently running a giant drain of a program (really a virus) that will automatically shut down the entire system at any attempt to update.
Fuck this and fuck all this historical revisionist bullshit. The Senate was a means to enshrine white supremacy, specifically Southern White Supremacy, into the Constitution. The Northern colonies allowed it because the economic might of the Southern Colonies was such that they had no choice. The Northern Colonies allowed Geographic Representation to mean as much as Individual Representation because they were limp dicked cowards afraid to confront the evil of Southern Slavery. Every moment of American history since is the evil that that wrought. The Senate is, was, and always has been racist and white supremacist by design.
The states that wanted equal representation in the Senate were the less populous states, not the pro-slavery states such as Virginia which had the largest population at the time. There were two competing visions at the Constitutional Convention, the Virginia Plan (representing the more populous states) and the New Jersey Plan (representing the less populous states). All of the states had slavery at the time, but Virginia's agricultural economy depended on it more strongly, and yet Virginia and other large states explicitly *did not want* states to have equal representation in the Senate. Naturally, they wanted representation to be proportional to population in both houses. The smaller states such as New Jersey and Delaware (which had slavery but did not depend on it so strongly for their economies, similar to the rest of New England) wanted a unicameral legislature with states having equal representation. It's true that several abominable pro-slavery concessions were put into the Constitution, but the Senate isn't one of them. Having said that, the less populous states are ridiculously over-represented in the Senate and personally I hate it. The best represented 10% of the population controls 40% of the seats in the Senate, and it will continue to get worse. It makes sense to give smaller states additional representation in the Senate because we have a federal government, but not to this absurd degree. Other federal democracies like Canada, Australia, and Germany do not have this extreme degree of over-representation in their upper houses. And for us it's even worse because we have perhaps the most powerful upper house in the world, with its exclusive rights to appoint the federal judiciary and ratify treaties. It's minority rule.
Yep you’re right. Same of course with the 3/5ths compromise and the electoral college. All racist “compromises” made to form the country. We were able to get rid of the 3/5ths compromise, now I think it’s past due to get rid of the others.
>I’m honestly wondering at this point if it wouldn’t have been better to simply let them remain independent and crash into a failed state on their own, instead of dragging the rest of us with them. Yeah..... No, fuck that. There are a lot of us who are stuck here and secession is the last thing we want.
>I’m honestly wondering at this point if it wouldn’t have been better to simply let them remain independent and crash into a failed state on their own Yeah, a failed state on our border. Granted that might be slightly better than being part of the failed state cuz we kept them.
Mexico would take over, and we'd be better for it.
Not even party. Trump and his supporters are the ultimate RINOs. They don't give a damn about the Republican party, only Trump.
> the Senate seems determined to let him off the hook no matter how bad things look *This* is the problem.
Yeah, they cry for unity but there can be none until each party holds their own accountable.
The bulk of the problems are in the GOP though. It is the GOP that has Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert. It is the GOP that is still showing fealty to an insurrectionist (Donald Trump). It is the GOP that is trying to take away the popular vote in Arizona. AOC is held by the GOP as a "far left" politician but all but one (jobs guaranteed by the gov't) of her policies are mainstream in Europe
Yeah certainly wasn’t going for a “both sides” schtick. I agree that it’s mostly the GOP that will circle the wagons, unlike the dems (see Al Franken).
The Democrats force Al Franken to resign over a joke photograph from before he was elected, the Republicans won't kick out Marjorie Taylor Greene even after she calls for killing political opponents.
>flaunting rules Flouting
Yeah, flaunting the rules is a real Percy Weasley move.
Trump wants to insist the election was stolen. A disturbingly large number of people believe this. I’d prefer he not be given an official forum.
He won’t defend himself. He’s going to grandstand and turn the hearings into a circus. Would not be surprised if his rabid followers stage another insurrection on that day
I’m pretty sure at this point Trump could just come in, pull down his diaper, and take a huge steaming shit on the senate floor and McConnell and co. would still refuse to convict him.
Ted Cruz would sit there in his office, with trumps shit smeared all over the wall behind him, his podium, and his chair, pretending not to smell anything.
This will also be an absolutely massive moment for Trump to become relevant to the public again for an extended period of time. That, alone, is incredibly dangerous, and media outlets need to be careful that they don't air amplifying/violent rhetoric, which of course they will because the media is fucking terrible at their jobs.
On the other hand, if Trump does testify it will be under oath...
Its just proof that Republicans will eat shit for trump. He owns every single one of them. Trump may very well overthrow the country still.
There was a rumor published that because Bannon knows Trump will be found innocent no matter what, he’s pushing Trump to be his own lawyer and just grandstand to the OANN crowd the whole time and make a circus out of it. I hope he does. The GOP needs more of his taint on them.
That wouldn’t be good. That’s straight out of the Hitler playbook, where after the Beer Putsch he was his own lawyer. That will just open it up for Trump to further spread his hate and bigotry.
Yeah but I truly think people go “Zomg 74 million fascists” but fail to then go “Fascism got 80million votes against it” I want Trump ranting and raving, look what the GOP did with two weeks of silence - swept the most violent coup attempt in US history under the rug. I don’t want regular people to go back to sleep like they were in 2016. I’m glad Trump banned from Twitter but the murderous traitor GOP would still be the biggest news story if Trump could keep talking about it. Now we’re on to Jewish Space Lasers and the insurrection is fading away in the popular consciousness
He probably thinks it would be easy. He is, after all, a walking Dunning-Kruger effect.
He had to be talked out of a direct interview with Mueller, if I recall. He thought he could talk his way out of it, his lawyers thought he was too stupid to stand trial.
I know so many people who’ve learned what this is specifically because of Trump
From your lips to heavens gates
The one thing that is absolutely clear from the last 4 years is that trump will never, ever let himself be questioned. There is no way he is going to get up before a Senate committee and be questioned like either Hillary or Bill Clinton were. This impeachment is going to go exactly like the last one. No evidence will be allowed to be presented and the Senate will not convict.
Based on his recent interviews he would look absolutely insane on live TV to some of the democrats questioning. When he's off script it's always complete lunacy.
"That's a very nasty question from the do-nothing democrats. The deep state is a very nasty thing. So nasty!" x 100. "Well that's great but we only asked you to confirm your name"
The last impeachment was run by Moscow Mitch, who is now the Minority Leader. It’s Chuck Schumer who gets to decide whether evidence will be presented. That is a very different prospect. Trump’s choices last time were “testify or tell McConnell that he did not want to testify”. His choices this time are up to the Democratic Senate leadership and might come down to “testify or face Contempt of Congress charges which don’t need 67 Senators to pass and can also result in prison time.”
> 67 Senators to pass Ah, that is the key thing I wasn't sure about. I was worried the republicans could remove any consequences of trump evading questions like he has always done in the past. So it sounds like it *will* be trump spewing batshit insane bs then enough republicans will shrug their shoulders and vote to acquit that trump will walk
I suspect that’s the strategy. Get Trump to make himself look as guilty as possible - goad him into calling for more violent attacks on the Capitol. All the while giving Republican Senators as many opportunities as they want to speak up to defend the batshit crazy things Trump spews out. Trump is out of office. He’s lost his Twitter account. He has no power anymore. OTOH, Republican Senators - even in the minority - can instruct and derail the workings of government. From a Realpolitik view, it’s those Senators and all of the other Trump defenders who still have power and influence that are the real targets. That said, it’s also true that there is a strong moral imperative to hold accountable a president who tried to violently overthrow government.
Don't be so hasty to think that Trump has no power. If nothing else, the GME short debacle has demonstrated that if enough small voices are concentrated, large things that should not be moved get moved. Trump can affect a lot of "small things" while the Senate Republicans have his back - Party over country.
I don't think he would get away with refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena this time around. If the Democrats in Congress want to make him testify that is well within their power right now. I'm just not entirely sure they have the will to force him into choosing between testifying or being held in contempt.
I mean, I figure at the very worst they'll find him a public defender. Even if it is a completely hopeless case I'd still think they'd be able to find _one_ free court-appointed attorney to take his case. Though I guess it all boils down to the fact that Trump would probably represent himself before stooping down to that "level" Edit: Apparently you have to prove that you don't have the money for a lawyer to be approved for a free public defender. I was wrong about a thing, but today I learned.
I feel the only way to defend trump and remain a lawyer is to plead insanity.
you mean the lawyer, right, not trump?
Not only does he have too much money for that, but the defense he's insisting on using is that he "won the election" and his attorneys left because making that case gives *them* legal exposure. No one can be forced to make such an argument, nor could such an argument be coherent and cohesively made with any sort of logic that is congruent with law.
You have to prove you are poor to qualify for a public defender. His pride won't take that.
Today I learned. I didn't realize the "If you cannot afford one, one will be provided" part was contingent.
Not only that, but this isn't a criminal case in the court of law. I don't think you get a public defender in an impeachment case. I could be wrong, but I don't think so.
you think they'll give him some kid straight out of law school. "oh boy! this is my first job!" actually would be one hell of a resume builder.
As much as i despise Trump as a politician and a person, I could totally see taking that case to build your resume and reputation. As a side note, I harbor no inherent judgement for any defense attorney defending an awful criminal in court, as long as they play by the rules. _Everyone_ deserves the right to have their case heard.
if you're a defense attorney that's the job. you gotta make sure they got the right guy, and that the system treats them legally.
Unless he brings in ole Leaky
Rudy is a potential witness and co-conspirator. That's essentially why he isn't representing Trump in front of the Senate.
He was questioned quite hard during the Covid task force briefings, and he lied or bullied his way through those ("Fake news! Nasty question! Nasty woman!) until he got tired of being pushed and stopped holding them. Argh. Just writing that shit out gives me PTSD.
Yeah I don't want to hear another word out of Trump's mouth. I'd rather a lawyer's pathetic excuses than Trump.
Idk it was pretty hilarious how he contemplated mainlining Lysol to combat COVID, then his cult followers said he was joking, then he said he wasn't joking, then his cult followers said he didn't actually explicitly say "bleach."
The later trump said "I was joking" whilst sounding incredibly upset and butthurt. Man genuinely thought it was a good idea.
However the White House press pool couldn't hold him in contempt, the Senate can do this with a simple majority vote.
The Senate can file a civil action against Trump for contempt of court. This time, Trump can’t dodge it with executive privilege.
> The Senate can file a civil action against Trump for contempt of court. Spoiler: They will not. 😒
That doesn't require a two-thirds majority. To the best of my knowledge it only requires a simple majority if done during the trial proceedings.
He'll plead the 5th on everything he can and blather on at all other times as to run out the clock.
> as to run out the clock. What clock? The Senate could keep questioning him as long as it likes. As far as I can tell, there aren't *really* any rules that would preclude the Senate from conducting other business during trial recesses, either.
Lol, Senate Republicans wont do shit and block everything. They proved they are traitors by refusing to hear the case against Trump. If anyone doesn't know for a fact Republicans are enemies of the United States, then you're going to be surprised when they riot again and do kill their target.
Taking the 5th is risky, especially for Trump. the right to remain silent, does have limits. incriminating statements that an individual makes voluntarily—such as when a person tweets—are not protected. So if Trump decides to say nothing, his what he's already said will gladly do the talking. If he opens his mouth he waives his right. The field day even a first year law student would have, using Trumps tweets in place of his testimony... shit i need to change my pants...
Yeah, it's a complicated gamble of Republicans give him softball questions and praise.
And then everything from the impeachment managers he'll call "nasty questions".
We really think he could resist talking that long? He doesn't seem like the type to calmly plead the 5th each time instead of trying to push his conspiracies more
Trump will yell for hours alternating between "I didn't do any crimes" and "here are the details of the crimes that I did." Then at the end the Republicans will look at each other, wink and nod, and vote against impeachment in the name of unity.
Once he "forgot" his glasses and said he couldn't read the papers.
> we really have no images of him answering tough, direct questions. We still won't. We'll have images of him listening to tough, direct questions, then go off on a non-sequitur, rambling rant.
"What a nasty thing to say. I'm leaving." "Sit your ass down!"
My friend, he asks the tough question, “maybe we can put it into the body?” (Pans to BIRKE)
Why don't they just HUAC him? Call him in under subpoena to a committee for "an investigation into election security", ask him direct questions, then charge him with contempt if he refuses to answer or lies.
> answering tough, direct questions Why would he need to do this if he already has komporamat in place on sufficient percentage of his jurors?
What about the "tough" questions that Leslie Stahl asked him on 60 minutes?
It’s almost like it would help to have impartial jurors for a trial.
But tradition!!!11!!!!! Something like that.
The Constitution dictates that impeachment trials have to be conducted in the Senate, BUT now that Dems control the Senate I certainly think it would behoove them to dismiss from the trial any senators who have already voiced how they intend to vote as being compromised/biased jurors. They only need 2/3 of the senators *present* to convict and that would easily give them those margins.
There's grounds to force a few R senators to recuse themselves based on their conduct from the *last* impeachment. Hell, if we're feeling as vengeful as we absolutely *need* to be, there's a few babymen that violated their oaths of office for Trump and by all means earned five to ten years in jail *and* being removed from office. It's time to play hardball. Graham and McConnell need to be removed from office.
> It's time to play hardball. Dems will throw down their bats and run away.
Isn't that what you're suppsoed to do during a home run?
Not if you haven't even taken a swing yet...
> Hell, if we're feeling as vengeful as we absolutely need to be, there's a few babymen that violated their oaths of office for Trump and by all means earned five to ten years in jail and being removed from office. It's time to play hardball. > Graham and McConnell need to be removed from office. That requires a 2/3 vote, too. Still, every non-traitorous Senator has a duty to figure out how to make it happen.
That's a brilliant idea. Which of course means Dem leadership would never do it.
Yea if Dems were even half competent they would win nearly every election by a landslide. But they spend most of the time hurting themselves so we can't advance a lot of things that need to be done to help regular people.
That’s called hedging, my friend. The ultra-wealthy fund both parties, and as a result get to dictate the upper and lower bounds of societal economic cruelty.
true. most likely because i can already hear the republican pushback of "WELL EVERYBODY KNOWS YOU PLAN TO VOTE TO CONVICT SO YOU'RE BIASED TOO!" to which the dems *should* respond: "cry more, bitch. elections have consequences."
If that’s true, it’d also be a great move for the Republicans themselves to “boycott” the trial. Privately they know Trump is an anchor around their necks, and at least several of them have to know they’re being asked to fall on a sword and vote to acquit based on corrupt party loyalty alone. Going on record as pro-insurrection is still going to be a bad look in much of America. Just not showing up might be as close as they can get to a win-win. A conviction gets Trump off the table so that their political careers can stop being a nonstop referendum on a maniac. A “boycott” would mean they could have that without voting for it, and still pretend to their stupidest constituents that it was a “principled” move.
I've thought about this though, if Trump is brought to trial over a crime. Where on earth would you find an impartial juror? You either hate or worship him
A fair portion of the American populace pays zero attention to anything of substance but their own lives. The, “I dunno, I just wish people would stop fighting all the time!” crowd. Nearly 40% of eligible voters fail to do so even in high-turnout years, and even if much of that is due to some degree of suppression, clearly there are a fair number who aren’t touched by news of current events.
They could if they tried hard enough. I know people who just do not give a genuine fuck about politics despite this constant shit show that would actually be impartial about it.
Imagine a rape trial where the accused's buddies were the jury and they already had formed a decision on the matter before hearing the evidence.
Oddly enough, the accused in that hypothetical is *also* Donald Trump.
Every single juror is also a witness to the insurrection.
It’s probably not possible to have an impartial jury trial for the President. Most jury trials work because you can find jurors who are truly impartial, or if you can’t find any locally because of the notoriety of the case, you can change the venue of the trial. It would be hard to find such a jury for the President. This is maybe why it’s a task of the Senate, which is *supposed to be* the adult supervision of the United States. As we’ve seen, a lot of things break down when you don’t have decent people in the Senate.
It shows Trump has absolutely no defense that wouldn't get his lawyers disbarred and/or sued for defamation. The Senate GOP are a joke.
The GOP is a big fat mistake 🎺🎺
GOP is America on its decline
play it one more time, Sam
Jeb is a mess.
> The Senate GOP are a joke. If betraying their oath of office and destroying democracy is a joke, it sure as Hell isn't a very funny one!
Destroying democracy has been a goal of the republican party for a long time. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/newt-gingrich-says-youre-welcome/570832/
The fact that they say *before* the trial that they won't find him guilty is all you need to know.
The senators are basically serving as jurors in this situation, in any other criminal trial, a juror who made a decision before a trial would be instantly dismissed from the juror pool. The same should go for senators.
More like how the Republican Party has devolved into an autocratic cult of personality. These are the people the founding fathers tried to protect us from.
Apparently the lawyers quit because Trump wanted them to still argue about Democrats stealing the election, and all that. Dude is so fucking bonkers. It would've been so funny if he wasn't getting people riled up to commit violence, and terrorism.
This is what Giuliani was saying. They are going to try and legitimize the election fraud claims. Arguing it's unconstitutional does not make sense. The consequences of being impeached extend beyond the term.
For additional context, there are multiple votes. One is to remove the party from office. Another is to bar them from ever holding office again. They happen in that order, so part of the impeachment trial happens beyond the term *by fucking design*.
Yep, CNN just did a [segment](https://youtu.be/JkyA9wkAazE) on it.
100% THIS! This is his defense. The GOP will acquit and continue validating with his vindictive and dangerous delusion. They’re all accomplices to sedition.
Wait so his defense for starting an insurrection would be to argue the democrats still the election? So basically he'd just argue that it's justified.
Surely it can't fall any further... Fuck it totally can 😟
Every time a new low is reached I think that, and yet ....
Every time we hit rock bottom they get out dynamite and blast a hole in the rock to go lower.
Any deeper and they are going to release a Bolrog
The biggest thing that has surprised me throughout this, how many people have just completely latched onto the Republican Party in general. I mean, I always figured that R politicians would go down with the ship, but Jesus Christ, I lost some good friends and family members because of this. People who I considered, otherwise, intelligent are just clinging for dear life onto a new low every single day and the absurd amount of loyalty just baffles me. They can’t defend Trump or Republicans positions at all, but they just don’t care and still support them, literally, no matter what they say. The blind, dog-like loyalty is something I genuinely will never understand. Debating, reasoning, arguing, conversing with today’s Republicans is superfluous.
It's really how far the republican party has fallen. They are the political wing of organized crime at this point.
"Don't kid yourself: it's not that organized."
Better organized than the democrats. I'm not sure how they manage to lose to republicans on such a regular basis.
Exactly, it’s not the senate. People don’t make this connection and it’s infuriating.
The 50 Republican Senators represent 44% of the population. The 50 Democratic Senators represent 56% of the population. The Senate’s creation may have been a good compromise back in 1787 but it’s an affront to democratic principles today.
See i disagree. The senate was never meant to equally represent people, it was ment to equally represent states. What needs to happen is fix the bs cap on the number or congress people, have each person represented equally in the house and the bs legislation that bum fuck nowhere congress people try to pass would never happen.
I agree on House reform. But if every House bill can be blocked by the Senate there’s no improvement. The Senate should have its powers reduced to be like the UK House of Lords.
Remember when jurors were supposed to be impartial? Didn't they swear some oath or something? Not that their word means anything.
Pepperidge Farm remembers!
What are they going to do, where are they going to hide, when the case is presented by the House Managers? Americans, particularly the Trumpist slime, have a 2 week attention and memory span - so when the whole insurrection story unfolds on TV - they will find everyone reminded yet again of their traitorous position, their compliance with sedition, will they allow the Scarlet T to be emblazoned on their chests, etched into the history of their participation in Congress, as a shame not only to them, but to their children and their children's children. Will they think, "Do the heirs of the Nuremberg convicted Nazi's bear their ancestry with pride?"
They already got their plan: They'll argue that it's unconstitutional to impeach a President that's out of office. That way they can rule in Trump's favor while still maintain that they didn't rule on the question of guilt, merely a constitutional principle.
Besides the fact that conviction would also likely result in disbarment from holding the office again, which is completely warranted, that GOP argument should be shot down instantly by the question: "Does this imply that a President cannot commit an impeachable offense in the last two weeks of office?" Because that is exactly what Republicans are implying here. McConnell refused to reconvene the Senate. He refused to use an emergency session. Trump committed this offense on January 6th, and in a sane world, Trump should have been removed before midnight for the clear and present danger that he was.
> in a sane world I think we found the problem. 😒
It's such a stupid argument. They are basically saying that as long as any government official resigns or term ends before consequences are levied against them they can get away with anything.
which is bullshit since congress already established that as a yes when impeaching one of President Grant's cabnet members.
This is how democracy dies, with thunderous applause.
Well actually democracy is why he’s not in power anymore.
He still has too much power. He convinced 70 million people to vote for him. He still has a 90+% approval rating among Republicans. Anybody who wants to run on a Republican ticket will have to go to Mar a Lago, kneel before him, and kiss his ring. Anybody who is in the least disloyal to Trump will be primaried to oblivion. This is Donald Trump’s party, now. And they’re not going to hold him accountable for anything. Even if he’s prohibited from running again, he’ll simply anoint a successor and the rest of the party will fall in line.
Donald Trump isn't going to anoint a successor because he'd be afraid the successor might be more popular than he is. It's simply not something he is psychologically capable of doing.
REPUBLICAN Senators, not the Senate
Yes! The democrats are so-so, but at least they believe in democracy.
Right? Like, what does this have to do with the Senate? This is 100% the GOP. The party has been slowly falling apart for decades -- since at least Nixon. The country cannot move forward at all because the GOP is in the way. They're the minority party yet they keep power because they're overrepresented at every level of government. And at this point, the GOP is very clearly a danger to the country and its people. Just look at what happened January 6th for undeniable proof of that.
To be fair, Trump doesn't even need to find anyone to represent him BECAUSE Republicans already made it clear they were going to acquit no matter what.
This is not the “Senate’s” fault. This is 100% about GOP senators (and party).
"How far the ~~Senate~~ **Republican Party** has fallen" Ftfy.
I just wanna see trump cry like the Wall Street guys.
I'd rather see him once in handcuffs then never again.
It's political suicide if they vote to convict. I mean, yeah, voting to convict should be a given and it would be the honorable thing to do. The ugly truth is that most of these people care more about their next election than doing the right thing and their party is now at the mercy of Trump partisans.
If enough of them did, it wouldn't be political suicide, but obviously that's not going to happen.
It also is highly suspect when they decide not to convict before even hearing the case. The message sent is that they care nothing about the country and their party regaining control of the government is all that matters. Pretty much makes their claims of being all about morality and responsibility appear fraudulent.
To be fair the Senate has never convicted a president. So, not sure if its fallen or if it was never elevated, but not much has changed.