The Presidency of Donald J. Trump, Episode XIV: T-minus 97 Hours

And now for today’s slam dunk impeachable offense.

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But it can be worse. And I don’t suggest not prosecuting people. Just not treason/sedition.

I guess some of these folks believe the election was stolen, but there’s got to be a decent percentage who know it wasn’t. I mean, the House Republicans know it wasn’t stolen, yet they say it was. Its really just a lame excuse for them to attempt to steal the election themselves.

BLM isn’t going to contest a legitimate victory like that. Now, if they stormed the Capitol after Republicans followed through on a scheme to disqualify tlvalid electoral votes and hand the election to Trump, I will refuse to condemn that action.

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If Trump had actually rigged it, you would have seen a massive show of force because they would have been well aware of the need to demonstrate outrageous strength. Millions of people would have been there to protest, but they never would have gotten within 500 feet of the Capitol.

Part of the reason the defenses were so light, I suspect, on top of several individual cops being straight up in on it, is that everyone knows the election wasn’t actually stolen.

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Dunno. If you ask what do you advocate as a German in 1924 if you don’t have super-powers to make things happen, but you know what is potentially coming*? Dunno.

*say you don’t know it’s specifically Hitler/Nazis, but know it’s some right-wing group.

I’m afraid I have to very firmly disagree with you. Part of the point of treating a crime like this harshly is to emphasize the distinction between calling for the overthrow of the government or using rumour and slander to encourage subversion of the political power (fine), setting a fire at a police station (a serious crime, but nothing like the plot we’re talking about here) and an attempted coup (a really big deal!). You say that “treason should not be a crime,” but I think that obscures more than it says. There’s a vast universe of opposition to the state that is not and never should be a crime. There’s a vast universe of violent opposition to the state that is and should be a crime because of the violence but is no worse because of the anti-state character. There’s a tiny sliver of things that are total poison to a democratic government and can never be permitted, chief among those being attacking the legislature to install a dictatorship. Whether you label that treason or something else, obviously that can’t be permitted. Maybe we could argue about whether the proper punishment is criminal or extrajudicial, but I really don’t believe that you think that sort of thing is fine.

In any case, the slippery slope you’re worried about is in full effect. Sedition has been a crime for 200 years, and any enterprising federal prosecutor can throw it at a protestor if they feel frisky. Letting politically powerful seditionists off the hook isn’t going to change that.

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I think a lot of people on the left would already call elections illegitimate because of voter suppression and gerrymandering.

Don’t really think they are different in practice.
No way the dems don’t vote yes with the simple majority.

So Ted Cruz is seriously arguing that just because you wear a „Camp Auschwitz“ shirt, that does not mean you are a Nazi?
Let me tell you something, Ted. My grandpa wore a Wehrmacht uniform, his brother that of a Wehrmacht officer. I have been to Auschwitz. I know about this stuff. If you hesitate just for a second to condemn Auschwitz in fucking 2021, you are a Nazi. Full stop. No further argument needed.

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“According to Senate precedent” lol whatever

Where in the Constitution or federal statute even does it read that an impeached president can’t run again with or without this vote? That’s what matters.

I mean, if it’s just up to the Senate, why can’t they just vote that he can’t hold office again without the impeachment? Set the “Senate Precedent!”

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I’m pretty non-violent, so maybe not, but I don’t think it’s worse than state violence per se.

Not sure who we’re talking about here. Trump? Guilliani?

The precedent has been set by such votes in previous impeachment proceedings. Voting to bar him from office without impeachment first would be a bill of attainder.

Lol. Engineers itt. I was just thinking the same.

The question is ridiculous. Obviously the ideology of a criminal defendant shouldn’t affect their punishment, so in that sense, I guess my answer wouldn’t change, but if you think there’s any kind of plausible scenario that could reasonably be described as “antifa/BLM do the same thing,” then I think you’re completely missing the point here.

Also, I want to make it clear that I don’t think that your run-of-the-mill rioters are plausibly guilty of treason. I think there was quite possibly some kind of treasonous conspiracy afoot, but most of the people who were there were certainly not in on it.

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Exactly - no evidence of anything untoward at all - and they’ve had plenty of opportunities to present in court - 60 loses wasn’t it.

The George Floyd protests, on the other hand, were triggered by a single video - clear for everyone to see - which was followed by hundreds of incidents of further police brutality … 958 of which were tabulated, posted and discussed on a twitter feed

https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1284526898991828992

in a spreadsheet

and on an interactive map

https://maminian.github.io/brutality-map/

ffs! - even John Cusack is in there somewhere.

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The ones who are acting at the direction of the President.

Can they have the vote to prevent him from future office without the impeachment vote?

You haven’t been following the thread if you don’t know “hundreds of people should be charged with treason” isn’t part of the discussion.

I don’t understand this. Of course it’s plausible that people who would be described as antifa/BLM would do the same thing. If you go to a protest with antifa/BLM there you may find yourself among a dozen people from the Revolutionary Communist Party. They will hand you flyers.

eta: The left and right do things different because of their different nature. The right hates property crime and didn’t even try to burn down the capital. The left might have done that, though many would be helping people, even enemies out. The right wants to leave the property and kill the people.