American Politics Discussion Thread

[darrelljs]

Listen I get Biden is old. I get that he almost certainly in any normal election he shouldn't get elected. This isn't a normal election. Every republican that has spoken up against Trump is GONE. Even the ones who merely haven't done enough get threatened and primaried. That isn't normal politics.

Yeah but it's not my job to vote for your guy just because the other guy sucks more. You want my vote, nominate someone I can vote for.

Darrell

[Mjmd]

I mean in normal politics you are 100% correct. I've voted for many a Donald Duck because I didn't like either candidate.

In this case the other guy TRIED TO OVERTHROW AN ELECTION!

People have fought and died for our imperfect democracy throughout our history. There are people all over the world fighting to get their own freedom not knowing if they will succeed and not knowing even if they do succeed what will come of it.

We have to vote. Its literally the least we can do.

[greenline]

Al Gore tried to overthrow an election, he was just politer about it.

[Mjmd]

You mean he conceded immediately when his court case got decided? Which for the record is the right way to do it.

Did he pressure legislators to overturn state results? Did he spread false conspiracies and then NOT argue those in court? Did he throw together a fake slate of electors and try to get his vice president to throw out the legitimate results? We KNOW Trump did all these things.

Edit: did he then go after Democrats who didn't do enough to overturn the election?

[greenline]

Al Gore gave up early, that's correct. He also didn't have a crack team of prosecutors gunning to try and nail him on alleged tax fraud or 'Russian corruption' for the crime of winning the 2016 election. Even now, you see people crowing about how Trump is a convicted felon, but precious few are proud about saying exactly what he was convicted for.

"I didn't cross the Rubicon. The Rubicon crossed me!"

[Mjmd]

He gave up at the appropriate time.

I'm not going to go off on the red herring, but EVEN IF he was being falsely prosecuted (which again, I disagree with but not getting into) THAT DOESN'T GIVE HIM THE RIGHT TO OVERTURN AN ELECTION!!!!

We've gone over this. You've admitted he tried to overturn and you've admitted you are perfectly fine with that.

Again, you are losing the moral argument to ANDREW JACKSON. In our history he is the only election you can easily point to and say "ya that election was stolen". It was legally stolen, but still stolen. The popular former general did not start a civil war. Look around at history and see how rare this is. I would have to look but from memory there are at least 2 Mexican civil wars that resulted from similar circumstances.

Democracies don't make sense. We willingly let people we think are wrong and stupid take power. But it does have strengths. There are two pillars of Democracy. Transfer of power and accountability to the people. If we can't hold Trump accountable for trying to overturn the transfer of power we are doomed.

[greenline]

What does peace and love really take? A shared sense of restraint.

A civil war will probably never regardless of how crazy things get because no one wants to fight it. Americans these days are obese, neurotic, and over medicated. But clearly there is a final breakdown of civil norms going on. Trump now must run on the platform of sending all of his political opponents to prison on bullshit charges, because if he fails, they will send him and his friends to prison on bullshit charges. Biden's team finds themselves in the same position. How did we get here?

In 2016, Trump had a campaign slogan of locking up Hillary Clinton. When entering office, he let the US know that was just a campaign slogan. He did not use any power or influence to arrange a show trial in some Midwest town where every person would vote guilty, no matter what. Clinton got off scot free for her email server slip up. But this was not enough to appease the Democrats - they started inventing the Steele dossier, which wasn't enough to impeach Trump from office, but did result in many of his campaign people being arrested. During Trump's term, a number of cases were opened against him and his businesses, generally by actors within the New York bureaucracy who thought he needed to be made to suffer for his crime of being president.

Then the famous stories all happened. COVID, the 2020 election, and then January 6th. Trump cooks up a moronic plan to stay president that goes nowhere, then accidentally invites a rough and tumble sports riot to happen at the US capitol. Some property damage occurs, and then the confused mob is rounded up and sent home. The idea here is that this is the moment Trump allegedly crossed the line, because Jan 6 was either an attempt at a real coup, or an unforgivable blow to US prestige.

The idea of Jan 6 being like a real coup is easy to dismiss when looking at actual coups that have occurred in real life. If a coup does not involve, at a minimum, sending loyalist forces to seize control of the media and taking hostages, then what you're looking at isn't a coup, it's just public drunkenness. And the idea that Jan 6 was a crippling blow to the image and prestige of US democracy does not seem to hold, as the turn of voters and polls against Biden has much more to do with inflation, immigration, and general economic and political malaise growing under the current administration. Like it or not, most Americans are indifferent to most politics besides receiving their daily bread on time.

So the idea of Jan 6 requiring show trials where Trump was to be found guilty and kept from running on nonsense charges does not hold water. Certainly, there was no reason by Democrats to entertain his plans to stay president after 2020, but they simply could had let Biden go on to be president, let Trump run his mouth, and not press the issue with these lawsuits. This is why Ford pardoned Nixon - even though Nixon was actually far more guilty of authoritarian activities than Trump ever was, he also had the sense to realize what would happen if persecuting former presidents became commonplace.

[Mjmd]

Trump cooks up a moronic plan to stay president that goes nowhere,

Not all coups are in the streets. I've said it before Jan 6th at minimum was the smoke from a fire. The real attempt was lies and doubt followed by the fake electors, pressuring state officials, and pressuring officials within his administration. There have been many coups in the halls of power and in the courts of the world that aren't in the streets or from the military. Attempted murder isn't murder, but its still bad. An attempted coup isn't a coup, but I think you can see how in any other situation why its crazy you would want someone who tried back in office.

Lets be clear. EVEN IF all the rest of what you said is true (which again I disagree with, but sticking on point), that doesn't justify trying to overturn the election. Again, there are some clear equality fallacies going on. You can try to justify it any way you want, but you've been honest before, be honest again. You want it and you are ok with it. There is no justification. Should the democrats seize power to save us from Trump if he wins? He is going to lose the popular vote, the electoral college system makes no sense, there are tons of voter suppression efforts in Republican states, and he tried to overturn an election so clearly its ok for Democrats to stop him right? Should the Democrats try? Clearly there are valid justifications!!!! Again, there is ALWAYS a reason to try to seize power. ALWAYS. The unique thing about Democracies is we let the other side take power. Trump violated this. You may think he was justified, but be warned every takeover in history has thought it was justified.

[greenline]

Again, there are some clear equality fallacies going on. You can try to justify it any way you want, but you've been honest before, be honest again. You want it and you are ok with it. There is no justification. Should the democrats seize power to save us from Trump if he wins?

I find this to be a very strange question, because from my perspective, they are already doing this. If there is more than one way to enact a coup, there is more than one way to seize power in a government. Overturning an election, color revolution style is one way - so is squeezing out all of your political opponents through lawfare, and so is engaging in shady electoral practices leading up to a contested election. The Democrats are already doing their very best to make sure that Trump can not run for president and that he will never see the light of the sun again so that they can have supreme control over the government in perpetuity. They are, alas, discovering that they are a gerontocratic political party that is not so capable of deft maneuvering as they wished they were.

[Mjmd]

Oh so Democrats forced Republicans to choose the candidate under investigation? Listen any other Republican candidate beats Biden EASILY. Republicans could have had an easy election year and gotten the presidency.

You've admitted Trump tried to do a coup. You can't be mad he might be brought to trial for trying to do a coup. If I admit to attempted murder, I won't be surprised when someone tries to put me in jail. Again, we can get into how legitimate they are (there is this thing called evidence you might want to examine), but here is the thing. We KNOW Trump pressured his DOJ and threatened to fire people if they didn't do what he wanted. We have no evidence of this from Biden. Sure Trump is being prosecuted, but there isn't any evidence of direct Biden saying "LOCK HIM UP" or appointing officials with direct orders to investigate him?

AND AGAIN EVEN IF TRUE (which I just spent time saying we don't have evidence for) it doesn't make it ok for Trump to do something worse.