Trump made a mockery of American democracy. Why are Americans shrugging this off? | BY THE MIAMI HERALD EDITORIAL BOARD

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Donald Trump faces four indictments, 91 criminal charges and hundreds of years of maximum prison time combined.

This is a former president who — according to the latest grand jury indictment in Fulton County, Georgia — participated in a “criminal enterprise.” Trump and 18 co-defendants are accused of trying “to unlawfully change the outcome of the election” in 2020. Among the 13 felony charges he faces is one count of violating the Georgia RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act and two counts of conspiracy to commit forgery.

Most of those charges are related to a fake elector scheme by the Trump campaign in which a slate of “alternate” electors in Georgia would cast electoral votes for Trump instead of Joe Biden. The president of the most powerful democracy in the world allegedly tried to steal an election.

We can’t say it often enough: This is serious. Americans cannot shrug this off or normalize it, no matter how many times Trump gets indicted. Yet it feels like business as usual. Not only is Trump favored to win the GOP presidential nomination, he’s also neck and neck with President Biden in the 2024 general election, according to a July poll by the New York Times/Siena Poll.

MORE THAN A CULT

Trump’s support cannot only be explained as the product of the cult-like power he has over his MAGA base, which accounts for roughly 40% of Republican voters who believe those indictments are nothing but a conspiracy against him.

more: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article278265068.html

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I don't think it's "Americans", it's a brainwashed subset of Republicans who have been systematically fed an alternate reality for 30 years all the way back to "Hillary Clinton murdered Vince Foster!" (investigated by none other than Brett "I like beer, OK?" Kavanaugh) and "Janet Reno is really Chelsea Clinton's father!"

"Americans" also includes the subset that cry "both sides are the same" or are too apathetic to vote. If you don't vote against the Republican party, then you are supporting what is happening.

So no balls to ever vote FOR something? Settle for bread crumbs when you can have the whole damn loaf

Hard to pick out new wall paper when your house is on fire and burning down.

So your solution is voting for the arsonist and not the fire dept

I didn't invent our voting system. I just do the best I can within the system. I vote for the best person running in the primary, then I vote for the best person left running in the general election. "Best" is relative, but it is what it is.

It appears to be a very large subset that's prepared to vote him in for a second term.

It's smaller than you think... keep in mind, the Republican party has been distilling down to a pure crazy base for years now...

So remember, when you see polls like "70% of registered Republicans think... x", that's what's left after 20 years of rational conservatives leaving the party.

This isn't the party of George Will or William F. Buckly, Jr. The academic conservatives are long gone now.

It sure seems like those objectors leaving the party are good at holding their nose in the voting booth

The other side of that is that lots of us have been calling for him to be held responsible for years. He never has been. Forgive me if I'm less than perfecly hopeful this time.

4 indictments and 91 felonies is farther than we've gotten with any other Republican President in my lifetime.

Nixon - Watergate
Ford - Mostly Harmless
Reagan - October Surprise/Iran-Contra
Bush Sr. - Iran-Contra
Bush Jr. - Abu Ghraib war crimes

So I'll take it!

Ford was the corrupt deal to pardon Nixon, and Nixon also sabotaged the 1968 Paris Peace talks with the help of Henry Kissinger to extend the Vietnam War. The two also bombed Cambodia.

The two of them committed a lot of war crimes.

Nixon also started the war on drugs specifically as a way to harm the anti-war left and black people.

Yeah, I think the Nixon and Bush Jr. examples could have been way stronger than those. It seems they were chosen for their recognition rather than their severity. Abu Ghraib was not good, but blaming Bush for that rather than the whole war?