Trump Shares Posts Pitching Himself as Speaker and Calling Kevin McCarthy a Traitor

Flying Squid@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 335 points –
Trump Shares Posts Pitching Himself as Speaker and Calling Kevin McCarthy a Traitor
mediaite.com

I know we're living in the crapsack timeline, but I didn't realize it was a crapsack made of little shit people that the Republicans sculpted like they were Play-Doh and then threw them in the sack and made screaming noises, pretending the little shit people were screaming, before declaring that sack to be their new second-in-command after Trump.

80

They put a far right super majority in the supreme court, are trying to put their candidate in Congress as speaker and then re-elect him to the executive branch.

We all know they're fucking Nazis, but, just saying, this sure seems like some 1930's Germany shit, right now. Like it's obvious and all, but still needs to be said out loud.

Would be a lot cooler if we were not trying to replicate that shit.

If elected speaker, he would be third in line to the presidency. They were already ready to kill Trump's own VP on his behalf.

On the bright side, he can't claim executive immunity or pardon himself if he was selected to be Speaker, since the legislative branch does not confer the same level of such protections, and he wouldn't be able to campaign as much, since he would have to do actual work.

On top of that, he would have a much smaller megaphone, much less power, and he would be a live-in distraction for the true believers in Congress.

Basically, he'd have to successfully assassinate two members of the executive branch who are around and guarded by numerous people at all times.

Basically, he’d have to successfully assassinate two members of the executive branch who are around and guarded by numerous people at all times.

Or just manage to impeach them successfully. Which is unlikely, but possible.

2 more...

yeah.. but A LOT of those guys are now in prison too.

Not even close to enough to make a difference if this happens. For every convicted J6 insurrectionist, there's 100 willing to act that just didn't make it down to Washington that day.

Willing to bet that number is a lot higher than 100, sadly.

2 more...

He won't become speaker he got to many legal problems and it takes away from him campaigning so we safe for now.

That's why it'd be so funny if he got huckleberry finn'd into the job

Couldn't he turn it down even if he gets the votes? Unless he knows something we don't know and MTG and pals have a plan to get him installed as president this way.

Installing the Speaker as President just requires removing Pres and VP. It's 3rd in line.

Becoming speaker makes him 3rd in line for the presidency and that sweet, sweet executive immunity. 4 more years before he could be prosecuted, and let's be fair it's about even odds he'd live that long.

2 more...

If there is something dumb to be done it's guaranteed the MAGA Trumpers are gonna do it.

"Let's make President Drink-Bleach our speaker!"

What could possibly go wrong?

President Drink-Bleach

That would have saved us all so much trouble.

Sadly our timeline doesn't get democracy on easymode, we get to deal with the problem the hard way.

Of all the things to peg him for, this is what you choose?

What stupid, idiotic, dumb, ignorant thing would you pick to demonstrate the same thing?

He is disqualified due to the 14th amendment.

Also, specific to the role of Speaker, he’s disqualified due to having been indicted of felonies with a term of more than two years.

Technically that's just a GOP rule... and we know what their reaction is to things like that...

He shoild be, but so far the courts so far have disagreed, and the SCOTUS declined to hear the case until more lower courts have ruled. Until he's convicted, it's unlikely that he will be pre-emptively disqualified from holding office.

The Constitution does not state the individual has to be convicted. They only had to aid in any way, shape, or form an insurrection, which he did.

I agree with you, but so far the courts have not. Remember that the courts consist of judges who may or may not have allegiances or prejudices that influence their reading of the constitution. So while we can agree we both think Trump should be disqualified by the letter of the law, we cannot know for sure that he will be disqualified. If he is convicted of seditious conspiracy, then the pathway becomes much clearer.

If he's convicted on almost ANY of those 91 indictments on his shoulders, he's basically eligible for the rest of his life in prison. There's A LOT of serious charges there. I want to say most carry a 10 year minimum on the low end and 20+ on the high. So... changes are he isn't getting away with anything here imo.

Except not all of those charges disqualify him from holding office, and there's nothing preventing him from running from prison. Then what happens next? What if he wins? It's not really that far fetched to imagine. I agree, I think it's unlikely, but I didn't think it was likely Hillary would shit the bed in 2016, either. So here we are.

but you're making a big assumption that the middle of the road folks out there are going to vote for dude in prison which just isn't going to happen

Anyone that voted for Trump twice is nowhere near the middle of the road. It's alarming how many of them exist, but that's our reality. You're making a big assumption that Trump voters will suddenly be reasonable despite all evidence to the contrary.

A conviction would generally be seen as what establishes the fact that the person has done that act.

Which is probably for the best. I'd remind you that plenty of Americans right now would say that Biden has committed treason of some kind, so it's probably a good thing that there's a formal legal process for this.

It’s not clear just yet that the law applies to him, in general.

Well yeah, he wants to be second in line for the presidency so that his degenerate followers can perform some strategic assassinations and put him in the presidency.

A speaker needs to be able to speak coherent sentences…

There is nobody better than Trump at willing his own reality into existence. He teases some absurd idea then lets the subconscious of his MAGA fanbase bring it to life. I’m torn between disbelief and “of course they’re legitimately thinking about this.”

A speaker needs to be able to speak coherent sentences…

Lol where have you been? Competence are no longer requirements for office

Lmao. I can see it already. He thinks he can be speaker and President.

Then he just needs to appoint himself as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and become the President of the Senate to fulfill his dream of running the entire government.

(Not doing any work, mind you. Just holding all the positions of power at once.)

Then he just needs to appoint himself as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and become the President of the Senate to fulfill his dream of running the entire government.

Our former prime minister actually did something like this. He secretly appointed himself as health minister, finance minister, industry minister, home affairs minister and treasurer. It was quite a big scandal that only came out after the election that kicked out his government and threw a lot of ministerial decisions made during that time into legal doubt, though nothing ended up coming from it.

Morrison was a lazy shit and only used his secret ministerial powers a few times, he just wanted to have the power for himself. His stated reason was "in case the existing ministers became incapacitated by COVID", but we already have assistant ministers that could fill in if that happened.

Fuck scummo. He was even worse than Abbott. At least he cared about some of us. Sure, they were all rich, white, Christian people, but he still cared about them. Scummo just cared about himself and no-one else. Also, it was kinda funny when Abbott ate his second unpeeled yellow onion on national tv. I mean, once is a mistake, twice is hilarious/concerning.

Let's just skip all these stupid little technicalities and proclaim him Supreme Leader or King.

It's what the founding fathers would have wanted...

/s

That’s rich (unlike Trump) calling someone else a traitor.

Can the House have a Speaker who isn’t an elected official? Has that ever happened before where the Speaker of the House wasn’t a Representative?

Afaik it's not explicitly ruled out by the Constitution, though it's never been done. It would be very unorthodox, especially if the speaker were in prison.

It can happen. However, it is generally not done because the House wants to be in charge of itself.

This was the first article I was able to find, as the question has apparently come up as recently as after John Boehner vacated the position: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/can-outsider-be-speaker-house-n441926

" The Constitution is silent on that question, saying simply, "The House of Representatives shall chuse (sic) their Speaker and other Officers."

The Clerk of the House agrees with the office of the House Historian, which says the speaker "has always been (but is not required to be) a House Member."

Most historians and legal experts who've looked at this issue conclude the founders simply assumed the speaker would be drawn from among elected members.

"It would have been unthinkable for the most populous house not to have its leader be part of the representatives who were elected by the people," says David Forte, a constitutional scholar at Cleveland State University.

"Nothing fits that would make the speaker anything other than a member of the house," except for the Constitution's silence on the issue, Forte says, noting that the Articles of Confederation said members of Congress shall have authority "to appoint one of their members to preside." "

Gotta love how the vagueness of the Founding Fathers is cause for serious debate after they just assumed something was obvious.

The USA was probably the most experienced in writing constitutions at the time, both on a national scale and a state scale. Even then, there wasn't that much experience compared to today and a failure of a state government could easily be corrected by the King. These were smart men trying to create a workable compromise, but they weren't perfect.

They were all educated and well connected, but I think it'd be a stretch to say they were all smart. I don't know if we have enough information to make that claim. I don't like the worship of the founding fathers. They likely weren't particularly special people, but their circumstances were.

I don't think it is hero worship to say they were smart.

We have letters of enough of them to get an idea that they understood and could debate on a wide variety of topics. They were also able to put together a surprisingly stable government at a time when this wasn't guaranteed.

They were all flawed men in their own ways, but I wouldn't call them stupid.

Uh didn’t he explicitly say that he wasn’t interested in the speakership like a day or two ago? That was a quick about-face.

Excellent. Goodbye functioning government and goodbye swing district GOP congressmen/women.

His magamaniacs will try to kill Biden/Harris and get him installed again.

Can you even imagine the Democrats worshipping a candidate who was found liable for rape, liable for fraud, and who was out on bail for several incredibly serious crimes, for which there is overwhelming evidence of his guilt on the public record?

Republicans are disgusting. They are a cancer. The whole party is full of the most anti-American, anti-basic-decency traitors the world has ever seen.

He sure loves playing pretend.

Gotta have something real for it to be treason.

How would he be the Speaker and be a President ?

By getting the same mouth breathing idiots who chanted “hang mike pence” on Jan 6 to get serious about committing violence against the potus and vp. No doubt in my mind if somehow trump was 3rd in line he’d laser focus stochastic terrorism towards no 1 and no 2.

Mark my words: If they die, even by heart attack, he would try to seize both offices plus the speakership for himself and claim a new reich.

Probably because it's three months from the SOTU and he can sit behind President Biden and be on TV