So let's say we let him run to avoid a violent backlash.
What happens if he loses? We let him overturn the election to avoid another violent backlash?
All we're doing is proving to the fascists that we will kowtow to them if they are angry and violent enough. If we want to remain a free-ish country we're going to have to piss them off at some point by doing the right thing, and we'll need to deal with the fallout.
And if he wins the fascists will take that as endorsement. Whatever they would have done via backlash will become the norm since their present supports it.
I really think people either forgot or still don't understand just how close the insurrection was to succeeding. Change one part of Mike Pence's story and we'd be in a whole different -- and much darker -- timeline. There's plenty of evidence that suggests a different outcome if a similar coup is attempted this time. The law is on our side, and so are states' rights, we need to enforce them.
By 'deal with the fallout', of course you mean apply the law to criminals. Arrest them, charge them, send them to court, let them be convicted, and serve their sentences. Justice delayed is justice denied.
I personally can’t wait. All the 2nd Amendment idiots trying to take on the police and military?
It’d be glorious.
I personally can’t wait. All the 2nd Amendment idiots trying to take on the police and military?
How many police and military do you think are 2nd amendment idiots?
Being a traitor and being police/military is not the same. I'm suspicious of police AF but betraying your country is a bigger leap than liking guns.
Betraying my country? I'm saving it from this woke mind virus trying to overthrow the people's will! /s
Through a lot of the recent bullshit, the police were shaking hands with Proud Boys and turning their heads to miss crimes committed by them. Multiple police forces were entirely dismantled and rebuilt because there were zero salvageable members of them. And that only happened when their behavior got too much national attention.
The "boys club" that is the police takes the above and makes it worse. For most cops, if 1/3 of their force is all doing something, they're going along with it out of fear of rejection or even fear of reprisal.
didn't think that one through much did you?
Which we deals with the fallout though? Would you, as an individual, risk being their target? That's the hard part. Easy to say we as a society shouldn't cave, but would you like to be name dropped by Trump as the enemy?
I've seen your and other similar comments getting a lot of downvotes. Are people suggesting it's acceptable innocent people have to fear for their and their family's safety, because they choose to uphold the law?
I guess people think themselves above such things and would gladly sacrifice their lives or livelihood for their country.
They're going to be violent; it's only a matter of when, how much, and for how long. Kicking the can down the road puts "when" further away by making "how much" and "for how long" much worse.
Right? Jan 6 was a taste.
It was comically incompetent but almost successful. They had a practice run, the next time will be better (for them) if we let this continue. Gotta rip the bandage off at some point.
One thing I've wondered about is if the police that were part of the maga following have come to their senses AT ALL after having hundreds/thousands of people threaten them, beat them, etc when they were supposed to be "on the same side" during the January 6th nonsense.
So much of that uprising, protest, whatever you think it should be called, would've normally been squashed before people ever made it to the capital building if the police would've responded in a similar fashion to the many much smaller protests that came before it.
I highly doubt it, they probably figure anyone causing trouble was actually antifa.
It was comically incompetent
It was done so undercover and with a hamstrung/compliant law enforcement that national security didn't see it coming, although General Milly seems to have anticipated it. Right wing terrorists are treated with gentle hands.
They will be much more careful and thorough the next time. They are telegraphing it every day through Republican speak. Listen closely.
But that’s how we solve every problem in life.
Something something always do the right then when we have no other choice.
i wish they would get violent and we would respond in kind with greater force. give me a reason to start shooting these stupid fucks. let's get this over with ffs.
I get what you're saying, though I would frame it differently.
Knowing that there will be fascist violence, sooner or later (and with the election in November, that's the cutoff date), I may be put in a position of protecting myself and others. I need to be prepared to do that protecting.
Rudy has already hinted at violence Republicans are priming the cult. Tonight the rural red folk are out at night practicing with their night scoped rifles. Prepare accordingly.
Good point, though I would counter that there's a lot of blustering about taking our country back but I haven't seen many serious attempts or people capable of actually planning and executing such a thing, and I've had a good bit of contact with what y'all would consider to be American far right rebels.
For all I know, the far righties talking about their revolution is about as productive as the tankies talking about theirs. Nobody sees a future in this country where the workers seize the means of production and we actually eat the rich, right?
Nobody sees a future in this country where the workers seize the means of production and we actually eat the rich, right?
Comrade, I think you might be lost. I'm confident there are plenty of people on Lemmy who 100% envision such a future -- I can't be the only one!
Well, it's Lemmy, so in all honesty I'd say that there definitely are a lot of tankies here who are as delusional as the far right MAGA idiots. Blind adherence to ideology makes madmen of us all, just as does a cult of personality like Trump's.
Enlighten us, what's your ideology? The status quo ?
If the backlash is the scary imagine how frightening the presidency would be. Fucking cowards.
Remember how frightening the first one was. You know, with the Nazi "very fine people" and giving Putin a BJ on international TV and trying to destroy NATO and...
I also "fear backlash" if he runs and loses the election. He won't hesitate to get his followers to commit acts of violence. According to the logic of the "for fear of backlash we should allow him to run" people, we should just annoint Trump President for Life. After all, we can't do anything that might cause MAGA to become violent, right? /s
Being a little sarcy there pal? Telling everyone too? Totally warranted
It's a habit I formed back when I frequented Reddit. You sometimes couldn't tell if someone was being serious or not and since I didn't want anyone to mistake my sarcasm for MAGA-ism, I used /s liberally.
Why does that matter? If you're not convinced you can be effectively sarcastic then don't be sarcastic. Putting that at the end is tantamount to going 'LOOOOOOOOOOOL JK DON'T DOWNDOOT PLZZ!!!'.
Why die on this hill? It's so very, very pointless.
No, it's not, that stupid thing highlights several different problems, chief of which being that people would rather ruin a joke than risk being downvoted.
This is the kind of trend that'll just stunt weak, impressionable, scared people's cognition and impact their poor communicative skills further.
Full-swing shift into an oppressive authoritarian state once he’s elected
Many of these politicians are hoping that it will be someone else's problem.
For them, the poisons are:
A) Backlash now and get possibly killed
B) Meh. Let someone else deal with it after I retire
Keep in mind that in 2020, many of the Republican Secretaries of State were threatened for not giving the election to Trump. They did the right thing and got death threats over it.
When people stand their ground, we have to remember that they are the last line of defense against democracy. I don't say that lightly. Many Republicans saw the resistance and either replaced these people or wrote laws to make overturning an election easier.
If the Republicans see that they have lost, it won't be another January 6th. It will be a bloodless coup because they've already done the work to bring themselves into power.
And that's why this election is not only important but potentially dangerous. I don't know many liberals who are willing to put their lives on the line to stand up to fascism. Myself included. I'd like to believe I would. But I don't know if I could if it came down to it.
There won't be a " bloodless coup." It won't happen because there is only one president at a time, so no matter how the election goes, Biden sits alone at the levers of ultimate power until Trump is sworn in.
The only way a "bloodless coup" could happen is with the full foreknowledge and cooperation of the US military's senior officer corps, but that's impossible both because it's too difficult to coordinate, and because the senior officer corps absolutely despises Trump as a liar and a coward and for many other reasons that I'm sure will occur to you when you think back on his presidency.
He is widely seen as a gutless incompetent and deeply dishonorable idiot.
Your comment is bang on. The rise of Hitler and Mussolini in the 1930s should be mandatory reading for everyone. I bet less than 5% of the US population know how the Fascists came to power in Germany and Italy. Most people probably don't realize that Hitler was a populist who rose to power through legal means and then used a false flag operation to jail his opponents and seize power permanently, again using legal means. It would be all too easy for Trump to replicate that scenario if he gets the presidency again. If he gets elected legally (or at least with the appearance of legality), and then uses false flag operation to take out a good chunk of Congress, he could terrify the public and declare martial law. January 6 shows that he has the kind of supporters that would be willing to do something like that. In that scenario, even the US military probably wouldn't stop him.
What a lot of liberals often forget is that our constitution is just a piece of paper. What makes it powerful is the honesty of people in power to execute it to the best of their abilities.
We may disagree with how we accomplish our goals, but so long as we agree that the constitutional is worth protecting, we can dialogue.
The Republicans have shit on the constitution, and have threatened to institute a government based on dogma, where everything is made up and justice is only for the chosen few.
Some have said, "Well, at least I can change it from the inside."
My response has been, "Well, why haven't you?"
The sad thing is that the GOP has become overrun by a small minority who have a dispositional amount of influence. We need good spirited debate in this country. But the GOP is more concerned with power than they are with governing.
I've been saying for almost 20 years that there will be a civil war in my lifetime. I fear that we're getting closer and closer.
I don't know many liberals who are willing to put their lives on the line to stand up to fascism. Myself included. I'd like to believe I would. But I don't know if I could if it came down to it.
I'm with you on that. Honestly, I don't think I'd trust someone who sounded sure on that. They're either lying to themselves or a little too eager for violence.
We just need to rip the band-aid off and do it now before the election while we still have somebody semi-sensible in the Whitehouse, rather than wait for things to play out during the election. It's already going to be a chaotic time then, with everything being up in the air. Just push it now so we know what to expect walking into that shit. Otherwise we're going to be sleepwalking into that election potentially on the cusp of turning into a dictatorship virtually overnight.
No insurrectionists in any elected office. Makes perfect sense one would wish to have this key point in one's constitution, heck, even from the beginning. What about insurrectionists who were appointed by insurrectionist(s)? Seems pretty dubious. We need to either remove the insurrectionist appointees, or expand the SCOTUS to water down the insurrectionists in government. Putin must be chortling in his cocoa puffs.
No insurrectionists in any elected office.
TBH in hindsight, this was only ever a milquetoast alternative to the gallows.
Imagine the alternative timeline in which confederate leaders didn't get to go back to their states and become governors, senators, KKK members, in which the confederacy didn't get to install one of their own by putting a bullet in Lincoln's brain, who would then subsequently veto legislation from congress that sought to prevent southern states from re-establishing with the same leadership that led up to the confederacy.
For that matter, Andrew Johnson as Lincoln's VP had every appearance of signaling a unity ticket (see? we will give concessions if you participate in good faith!) but in retrospect he was effectively the confederacy's deepest mole and most powerful enabler.
Imagine, if you will, the timeline in which confederate leaders were hanged and the confederacy was in fact dismantled vs. being protected from consequence
It boils down to this: You don't stop MAGA violence by giving in, but the opposite. You stop it by fighting back and holding people accountable. Removing Trump from the ballot, as the law requires, is a first step. It sends a strong message to MAGA: This is what happens when you use violence to get your way. By not taking his name off the ballot, states are signaling that they will accede to violent threats. We should not be surprised if rewarding MAGA violence means we see more of it.
Yeuup
Basically, for evil to success is needed that the good doesn't do anything.
Giving them concessions because you're afraid they'll act badly tells them to act badly when they want concessions.
The right course of action is to make acting badly (like participating in a coup, or engaging in political violence or threats of it) have painful consequences.
I have no idea why concessions are still being made to these assholes.
They're the political equivalent of the pan handlers you give five dollars to on the way into a gas station. And by the time you walk out they forgot you already gave them money and give you the same story.
They can get their way 99.99% of the time, but that 0.01% of the time you hold them to the same standard as everyone else, they start screaming they're being persecuted.
Fuck em. They act the same no matter what so just don't give them anything. It's still the same amount of terroristic threats in the end.
getting more than everyone else and then crying oppression is baked into conservative dna. it's the essence of the movement.
Whatever happened to not negotiating with terrorists? These people are terrorists. If they break the law, charge them for their crimes.
They're all domestic terrorists, they admitted as much at CPAC; I have no idea why anyone is willing to negotiate or even take them at their word.
Awful lot of extra words for "terrorists".
Because that's exactly what they are threatening, doxing, death threat, shooting up clubs hell even tried to attack the FBi and of course the attempt to overthrow the government..... Literally the most successful terrorist there ever was and we still won't call it at face value for what the maga group is....
Literally the most successful terrorist there ever was
Definitely not. He wasn't successful at all.
Terrorism is to drive change and action through the threat of terror/fear etc.
He's not in jail, his blinded followers barely got punished for the severity of their crimes and we are all sitting here talking about if it's democratic to not put him in the ballot and fucking contemplating the very real prospect of a "one day dictator"
What other terrorist group has driven so much change in their favor? Do we all think Binladin was maybe on to something? How about ISIS ..?
He is closest to really overthrowing this whole ship, unless maybe we all vote for the oldest president there ever was....
We are on a knifes edge and it's fucking horrifying and baffling. This isn't 2020 we all know the "it will never happen" thoughts of trump getting elected were wrong and we shouldn't delude ourselves with thinking this will never happen either..... The highest court in the land is stacked and taking bribes now openly with no consequences, our past president almost assuredly sold nuclear secrets and still lives and allowed to fuck this whole country.... What higher power do you think is soundly going to hold people accountable and uphold the law, cause I don't see it.
He's not in jail,
Many terrorist leaders are not.
his blinded followers barely got punished for the severity of their crimes
Most of the violent offenders were suitably punished. I
we are all sitting here talking about if it's democratic to not put him in the ballot
The best place for terrorists is on the ballot because that reduces their ability to call for violence.
and fucking contemplating the very real prospect of a "one day dictator"
Trump has already been president. He wasn't very good. Certainly not dictator level.
What other terrorist group has driven so much change in their favor?
All? I see very little changes. What are MAGA demands for change?
Do we all think Binladin was maybe on to something? How about ISIS ..?
Totally different league to Trump.
He is closest to really overthrowing this whole ship,
He's already been captain once. He spent the time golfing and watching TV.
We are on a knifes edge
The knife has already fallen. Stacking the Supreme Court was the only real damage and that would have happened regardless of the republican candidate.
What higher power do you think is soundly going to hold people accountable and uphold the law.
The electorate.
I fear allowing the ignorant and uneducated to be part of the conversation.
It becomes a reason if it were to work... - hence why they keep trotting it out I suppose, just to see what sticks.
I don't think it's entirely about "fear of backlash". I think the real fear people are expressing is the fear of the election appearing rigged, Ahmadinejad-style. If the Republicans nominate Trump, and he goes unconsidered with "unknown numbers" of write-in votes in enough states to affect the election, he would obviously argue that he actually won on votes and might even be convincing to non-Republicans.
When the Colorado Supreme Court decided against Trump, it was a split decision by an all-Democrat panel that questioned what "due process" should be on the matter. There's so many ways that this can be spun nationally or internationally by the modern equivalent of the way the South created sympathy through propaganda after the Civil War that survives today. Hundreds of millions of people throughout the world will likely question the legitimacy of the president or US elections after this matter no matter who wins or how chips fall.
BUT, there's also no right answer, and none of the above reasons are sufficient to just put Trump back on the ballot and hope. It should never have gotten to this. Someone that is publicly believed by a significant percent of America to not be eligible should not have party support in the first place. And if it did, Congress should have stepped in before now.
Ultimately, the Republicans are again objectively hurting America for their own agenda.
If Republicans want a candidate on the ballot, they can nominate someone who didn't start an insurrection. They have no shortage of choices for other candidates. If anything, that's why the rulings should be laid out right now before the Republican Iowa Caucus.
In a vacuum, I could see the point of the world not seeing the US President as being democratically elected. In practice, this is only going to be an issue for countries that have their own problems with fascist political parties, and I'm not inclined to care.
fear of backlash
negotiating with terrorists
corporate wants you to find the difference between these this picture and this picture
If the only backlash there is to fear is death, then I have nothing to lose.
I honestly believe taking Trump off would hurt Biden. I feel there's a reasonable number who are looking at voting for him because he's not Trump.
The "backlash" will be that the people that take him off the ballot may end up being murdered. Or their family might be killed. Or both. Sure, maybe it's the duty of the secretary of state in each state to remove him from the ballot. But would you be willing to do that if it was likely someone would try to murder you? And consider for a moment that it's likely that a significant number of cops that you might expect would protect you probably sympathize with political violence in favor of Trump.
Those are the stakes for the people that need to remove him from the ballot.
Are you ready and willing to fight? Because you might have to.
This is why Mexican politicians kowtow to the cartels.
I thought America was better than this.
We had four years of a populist far-right president that brought out the very worst in his cultists. The only reason we were (past tense) better than this was because we believed we were.
Thanks for nutshelling the point of the article.
If I took an oath of office you bet your ass I’d be willing. That’s what it means to serve your country in office. If you aren’t willing to uphold your oath, resign.
I would hold no ill will to any person who resigned their position because they are unwilling but if you want to do the job, do it.
Would you though? Would you really? If you got a email of a photo of your family getting out of their car at Target or Walmart, would you really think, yeah, I'm willing to trade the life of my spouse and kids for this job? Would you be willing to do it that if you took it to the police and they just shrugged and said they didn't see anything actionable? The fact that we haven't heard of political figures being assassinated by Trump supporters yet doesn't mean that it's not going to happen; religious fanatics have blown up doctors offices and killed doctors to 'save babies', and Trump cultists literally believe he was chosen by their god to rule.
Asked and answered, it’s not going to change because you rephrased the question.
If I took an oath of office you bet your ass I’d be willing. That’s what it means to serve your country in office. If you aren’t willing to uphold your oath, resign.
I would hold no ill will to any person who resigned their position because they are unwilling but if you want to do the job, do it.
Bluntly, I don't believe you.
It wasn't all that long ago that people got lynched in the part of the country I live in. A candidate running against MTG--she's the next district over from me--had so many death threats and close calls that his wife divorced him and he ended up having to move out of the state to save his own life. Maybe you would be dumb and principled and do the right thing though; if so, you'd probable end up dead, esp. in a lot of the states that have really deep red pockets. Then the next person who takes the job, well, they're probably be a lot less interested in being right and dead, and more interested in being able to go home at night.
Bluntly, I don't believe you.
Good thing I’m not Tinker Bell and don’t need your belief to have strength in my convictions.
Cowards often like to believe others are just as cowardly as them, it helps rationalize their world view.
If Jan 6 shows any indication, a simple police presence will be enough to stop most violence and the outliers will be found.
I think this is a lot more true than many people here suspect. What we're realistically looking at is relatively low-intensity insurrection on the level of, say, Northern Ireland during the height of The Troubles. It's still a very bad thing, but it's not existential and if the comparison to The Troubles is accurate, the violence will mostly target federal law enforcement and any military that's brought to bear should Biden invoke the insurrection act.
The real existential threat is Trump actually winning another term.
Trump miscalculated. He thought Pence was spineless. Had Pence stopped the transition as they wanted and instead assisted with the fake electors they created and intended to deliver that day the insurrection would likely have worked. Trumps lawyer has already agreed to testify about the faked electors, and we know Pence got thrown off that day and then thrown to the wolves. I think Trump wanted the crowds of his followers there so when they submitted the fake electors and denounced the official vote he could have video of "everyone" cheering on live TV and he could look like he stopped a stolen election while he himself stole it. Narcissistic idea one might say.
This is an opinion piece from someone who thinks they know better than the entirety of the US judicial body. You can skip this one.
What Judicial body? Every currently standing ruling regarding the merits of Trump's eligibility to be president under the 14th amendment have found that he is not eligible (although all are still in limbo pending the inevitable SCOTUS appeal). There is a colorable technical argument to be made that he is not excluded, but most of the legal community is not convinced by them.
The legal arguments about his eligibility to appear on the primary ballot are more nuanced, but seem kind of silly if he ultimately is inneligable to hold the office.
The states that have ruled that Trump can remain on the primary ballot all did so on some sort of procedural ground. Typically of the form "state law does not require a candidate to be elligable to hold office to appear on a primary ballot". In fairness to those states' lawmakers, what sort of braindead political party would try nominating someone who was inneligable to hold office?
It's going to get fucky, because no presidential candidate is actually on a citizen's ballot. We don't vote for the named candidate; we vote for a panel of unnamed electors pledged (but not obligated) to support the named candidate.
We need to be talking about "faithless electors" and the "National Popular Vote Interstate Compact", as the conditions are ripe for these to play a major role in the next election.
Whenever someone devises a system to be foolproof, someone goes out and finds a greater fool. The Republican party is nothing if not overflowing with greater fools
Do any of you that let this man live rent free in your head realize he hasn't been CONVICTED of anything that would invalidate his candidacy? Indicted =/= guilty.
It's always hilarious when someone pulls the "you let this guy live rent free in your head" card about the greatest current threat to American democracy. Yes, we should just pretend he doesn't exist. It's almost always followed by one or more arguments that show they lack even a surface level understanding of the details of the situation. This post manages to live up to that 'standard'.
This is what happens when you have an uneducated populace. A lack of critical thinking skills leads to the adoption of nonsensical viewpoints based on emotion instead of reason. When those viewpoints are challenged, they're similarly met with typically meaningless, emotion-driven responses (a la "he lives in your mind rent free") as the adopters lack the capacity to respond with reason.
baa baa
Does that mating call work? Most magats I know just rape the livestock. Interesting, you try seduction instead.
I do think it's pretty funny he again proved my point for me.
I mean, posting easily disproven drivel made it pretty clear you're a sheep, but I appreciate the demonstration.
so disprove it.
The amendment says nothing about criminal conviction
Indeed. It was specifically written to be self-executing because it would have been impossible to charge, try and convict all of the tens of thousands of former Confederate officers it was meant to bar from federal office. Because it's self-executing, a simple finding of fact is sufficient for it to apply. The question then isn't whether it requires a conviction, but rather whether it applies to Trump.
To me it pretty obviously does apply to him, but I'm definitely biased as fuck.
They would just move the goalposts after any conviction anyway.
Anyone with eyeballs and ears understands what this man is, what this man did, and what he evokes from his followers. Why do I need a court to confirm it for me to want him nowhere near the levers of power ever again? He'll stop living in my head when he stops trying to take control of the country.
The 14th is self-executing which means that you don't have to be convicted in order to be disqualified. The reason it's self-executing is that it was originally designed to prohibit former Confederate officers from holding federal office, and since there was no way that every one of the tens of thousands of former Confederate officers could be tried and convicted, it was written to be self-executing meaning that a simple finding of fact rather than a conviction was sufficient to bar one from running for federal office.
Now, you may not like that and if you're a constitutional scholar you may even have some decent arguments as to why it doesn't apply to Trump, but leaving that aside, you are absolutely full of shit when you imply that he needs to be convicted before the 14th applies. That's why it's a question for the SCOTUS and not random idiots like yourself.
Sorry for being a dick, I'm just tired of this stupid phony talking point.
Lol a presidential candidate for one of two major parties I'm the most powerful country in the world threatens to literally be fascist and go after political opponents from day 1 .
Right wing morons:
ReNt FrEe!!11!
literally be fascist and go after political opponents
really? you don't see what's going on from the other side? LITERALLY doing just this? and you think the people the the R next to their names are the fascists? Are you in the market for a bridge perhaps?
Lmao. I bet you don't even know that Colorado Republicans are the ones to push the initiative to get him off the ballot. Or do you watch enough right wing nonsense to think the court cases against the man who openly admits to his crimes are political attacks?
Do tell though - What is the Democrat equivalent of Project 2025? When did the party not only allow the idea of subversion of democracy but have a large chunk of it cheer it on? When were political opponents unjustly targeted? Why did the Republican led Senate committee release an intelligence report saying how corrupt Trump was?
Wow… there are sill people doing the “rEnT fReE” bit?
So let's say we let him run to avoid a violent backlash.
What happens if he loses? We let him overturn the election to avoid another violent backlash?
All we're doing is proving to the fascists that we will kowtow to them if they are angry and violent enough. If we want to remain a free-ish country we're going to have to piss them off at some point by doing the right thing, and we'll need to deal with the fallout.
And if he wins the fascists will take that as endorsement. Whatever they would have done via backlash will become the norm since their present supports it.
I really think people either forgot or still don't understand just how close the insurrection was to succeeding. Change one part of Mike Pence's story and we'd be in a whole different -- and much darker -- timeline. There's plenty of evidence that suggests a different outcome if a similar coup is attempted this time. The law is on our side, and so are states' rights, we need to enforce them.
By 'deal with the fallout', of course you mean apply the law to criminals. Arrest them, charge them, send them to court, let them be convicted, and serve their sentences. Justice delayed is justice denied.
I personally can’t wait. All the 2nd Amendment idiots trying to take on the police and military?
It’d be glorious.
Well, I've got some news for you.
House Republicans All Vote Against Neo-Nazi Probe of Military, Police
The call is coming from inside the house
How many police and military do you think are 2nd amendment idiots?
Being a traitor and being police/military is not the same. I'm suspicious of police AF but betraying your country is a bigger leap than liking guns.
Betraying my country? I'm saving it from this woke mind virus trying to overthrow the people's will! /s
Through a lot of the recent bullshit, the police were shaking hands with Proud Boys and turning their heads to miss crimes committed by them. Multiple police forces were entirely dismantled and rebuilt because there were zero salvageable members of them. And that only happened when their behavior got too much national attention.
The "boys club" that is the police takes the above and makes it worse. For most cops, if 1/3 of their force is all doing something, they're going along with it out of fear of rejection or even fear of reprisal.
didn't think that one through much did you?
Which we deals with the fallout though? Would you, as an individual, risk being their target? That's the hard part. Easy to say we as a society shouldn't cave, but would you like to be name dropped by Trump as the enemy?
I've seen your and other similar comments getting a lot of downvotes. Are people suggesting it's acceptable innocent people have to fear for their and their family's safety, because they choose to uphold the law?
I guess people think themselves above such things and would gladly sacrifice their lives or livelihood for their country.
They're going to be violent; it's only a matter of when, how much, and for how long. Kicking the can down the road puts "when" further away by making "how much" and "for how long" much worse.
Right? Jan 6 was a taste.
It was comically incompetent but almost successful. They had a practice run, the next time will be better (for them) if we let this continue. Gotta rip the bandage off at some point.
One thing I've wondered about is if the police that were part of the maga following have come to their senses AT ALL after having hundreds/thousands of people threaten them, beat them, etc when they were supposed to be "on the same side" during the January 6th nonsense.
So much of that uprising, protest, whatever you think it should be called, would've normally been squashed before people ever made it to the capital building if the police would've responded in a similar fashion to the many much smaller protests that came before it.
I highly doubt it, they probably figure anyone causing trouble was actually antifa.
It was done so undercover and with a hamstrung/compliant law enforcement that national security didn't see it coming, although General Milly seems to have anticipated it. Right wing terrorists are treated with gentle hands. They will be much more careful and thorough the next time. They are telegraphing it every day through Republican speak. Listen closely.
But that’s how we solve every problem in life.
Something something always do the right then when we have no other choice.
i wish they would get violent and we would respond in kind with greater force. give me a reason to start shooting these stupid fucks. let's get this over with ffs.
I get what you're saying, though I would frame it differently.
Knowing that there will be fascist violence, sooner or later (and with the election in November, that's the cutoff date), I may be put in a position of protecting myself and others. I need to be prepared to do that protecting.
Rudy has already hinted at violence Republicans are priming the cult. Tonight the rural red folk are out at night practicing with their night scoped rifles. Prepare accordingly.
Good point, though I would counter that there's a lot of blustering about taking our country back but I haven't seen many serious attempts or people capable of actually planning and executing such a thing, and I've had a good bit of contact with what y'all would consider to be American far right rebels.
For all I know, the far righties talking about their revolution is about as productive as the tankies talking about theirs. Nobody sees a future in this country where the workers seize the means of production and we actually eat the rich, right?
Comrade, I think you might be lost. I'm confident there are plenty of people on Lemmy who 100% envision such a future -- I can't be the only one!
Well, it's Lemmy, so in all honesty I'd say that there definitely are a lot of tankies here who are as delusional as the far right MAGA idiots. Blind adherence to ideology makes madmen of us all, just as does a cult of personality like Trump's.
Enlighten us, what's your ideology? The status quo ?
If the backlash is the scary imagine how frightening the presidency would be. Fucking cowards.
Remember how frightening the first one was. You know, with the Nazi "very fine people" and giving Putin a BJ on international TV and trying to destroy NATO and...
I also "fear backlash" if he runs and loses the election. He won't hesitate to get his followers to commit acts of violence. According to the logic of the "for fear of backlash we should allow him to run" people, we should just annoint Trump President for Life. After all, we can't do anything that might cause MAGA to become violent, right? /s
Being a little sarcy there pal? Telling everyone too? Totally warranted
It's a habit I formed back when I frequented Reddit. You sometimes couldn't tell if someone was being serious or not and since I didn't want anyone to mistake my sarcasm for MAGA-ism, I used /s liberally.
Why does that matter? If you're not convinced you can be effectively sarcastic then don't be sarcastic. Putting that at the end is tantamount to going 'LOOOOOOOOOOOL JK DON'T DOWNDOOT PLZZ!!!'.
Why die on this hill? It's so very, very pointless.
No, it's not, that stupid thing highlights several different problems, chief of which being that people would rather ruin a joke than risk being downvoted.
This is the kind of trend that'll just stunt weak, impressionable, scared people's cognition and impact their poor communicative skills further.
Pick your poison:
Backlash now from an angry mob
Full-swing shift into an oppressive authoritarian state once he’s elected
Many of these politicians are hoping that it will be someone else's problem.
For them, the poisons are:
A) Backlash now and get possibly killed
B) Meh. Let someone else deal with it after I retire
Keep in mind that in 2020, many of the Republican Secretaries of State were threatened for not giving the election to Trump. They did the right thing and got death threats over it.
When people stand their ground, we have to remember that they are the last line of defense against democracy. I don't say that lightly. Many Republicans saw the resistance and either replaced these people or wrote laws to make overturning an election easier.
If the Republicans see that they have lost, it won't be another January 6th. It will be a bloodless coup because they've already done the work to bring themselves into power.
And that's why this election is not only important but potentially dangerous. I don't know many liberals who are willing to put their lives on the line to stand up to fascism. Myself included. I'd like to believe I would. But I don't know if I could if it came down to it.
There won't be a " bloodless coup." It won't happen because there is only one president at a time, so no matter how the election goes, Biden sits alone at the levers of ultimate power until Trump is sworn in.
The only way a "bloodless coup" could happen is with the full foreknowledge and cooperation of the US military's senior officer corps, but that's impossible both because it's too difficult to coordinate, and because the senior officer corps absolutely despises Trump as a liar and a coward and for many other reasons that I'm sure will occur to you when you think back on his presidency.
He is widely seen as a gutless incompetent and deeply dishonorable idiot.
Your comment is bang on. The rise of Hitler and Mussolini in the 1930s should be mandatory reading for everyone. I bet less than 5% of the US population know how the Fascists came to power in Germany and Italy. Most people probably don't realize that Hitler was a populist who rose to power through legal means and then used a false flag operation to jail his opponents and seize power permanently, again using legal means. It would be all too easy for Trump to replicate that scenario if he gets the presidency again. If he gets elected legally (or at least with the appearance of legality), and then uses false flag operation to take out a good chunk of Congress, he could terrify the public and declare martial law. January 6 shows that he has the kind of supporters that would be willing to do something like that. In that scenario, even the US military probably wouldn't stop him.
What a lot of liberals often forget is that our constitution is just a piece of paper. What makes it powerful is the honesty of people in power to execute it to the best of their abilities.
We may disagree with how we accomplish our goals, but so long as we agree that the constitutional is worth protecting, we can dialogue.
The Republicans have shit on the constitution, and have threatened to institute a government based on dogma, where everything is made up and justice is only for the chosen few.
Some have said, "Well, at least I can change it from the inside."
My response has been, "Well, why haven't you?"
The sad thing is that the GOP has become overrun by a small minority who have a dispositional amount of influence. We need good spirited debate in this country. But the GOP is more concerned with power than they are with governing.
I've been saying for almost 20 years that there will be a civil war in my lifetime. I fear that we're getting closer and closer.
I'm with you on that. Honestly, I don't think I'd trust someone who sounded sure on that. They're either lying to themselves or a little too eager for violence.
We just need to rip the band-aid off and do it now before the election while we still have somebody semi-sensible in the Whitehouse, rather than wait for things to play out during the election. It's already going to be a chaotic time then, with everything being up in the air. Just push it now so we know what to expect walking into that shit. Otherwise we're going to be sleepwalking into that election potentially on the cusp of turning into a dictatorship virtually overnight.
No insurrectionists in any elected office. Makes perfect sense one would wish to have this key point in one's constitution, heck, even from the beginning. What about insurrectionists who were appointed by insurrectionist(s)? Seems pretty dubious. We need to either remove the insurrectionist appointees, or expand the SCOTUS to water down the insurrectionists in government. Putin must be chortling in his cocoa puffs.
TBH in hindsight, this was only ever a milquetoast alternative to the gallows.
Imagine the alternative timeline in which confederate leaders didn't get to go back to their states and become governors, senators, KKK members, in which the confederacy didn't get to install one of their own by putting a bullet in Lincoln's brain, who would then subsequently veto legislation from congress that sought to prevent southern states from re-establishing with the same leadership that led up to the confederacy.
For that matter, Andrew Johnson as Lincoln's VP had every appearance of signaling a unity ticket (see? we will give concessions if you participate in good faith!) but in retrospect he was effectively the confederacy's deepest mole and most powerful enabler.
Imagine, if you will, the timeline in which confederate leaders were hanged and the confederacy was in fact dismantled vs. being protected from consequence
Yeuup
Basically, for evil to success is needed that the good doesn't do anything.
Giving them concessions because you're afraid they'll act badly tells them to act badly when they want concessions.
The right course of action is to make acting badly (like participating in a coup, or engaging in political violence or threats of it) have painful consequences.
I have no idea why concessions are still being made to these assholes.
They're the political equivalent of the pan handlers you give five dollars to on the way into a gas station. And by the time you walk out they forgot you already gave them money and give you the same story.
They can get their way 99.99% of the time, but that 0.01% of the time you hold them to the same standard as everyone else, they start screaming they're being persecuted.
Fuck em. They act the same no matter what so just don't give them anything. It's still the same amount of terroristic threats in the end.
getting more than everyone else and then crying oppression is baked into conservative dna. it's the essence of the movement.
Whatever happened to not negotiating with terrorists? These people are terrorists. If they break the law, charge them for their crimes.
They're all domestic terrorists, they admitted as much at CPAC; I have no idea why anyone is willing to negotiate or even take them at their word.
Awful lot of extra words for "terrorists".
Because that's exactly what they are threatening, doxing, death threat, shooting up clubs hell even tried to attack the FBi and of course the attempt to overthrow the government..... Literally the most successful terrorist there ever was and we still won't call it at face value for what the maga group is....
https://apnews.com/article/fbi-cincinnati-armed-man-b4701596a0eb9770e3b29e95328f5704
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/grand-jurors-dox-trump-indictment-b2393831.html
https://apnews.com/article/crime-shootings-colorado-hate-crimes-springs-b9be567920a55986c57af59535ac9f61
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-shares-article-doxxing-letitia-james-address-may-violate-gag-order
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/blame-abc-news-finds-17-cases-invoking-trump/story?id=58912889
Definitely not. He wasn't successful at all.
Terrorism is to drive change and action through the threat of terror/fear etc.
He's not in jail, his blinded followers barely got punished for the severity of their crimes and we are all sitting here talking about if it's democratic to not put him in the ballot and fucking contemplating the very real prospect of a "one day dictator"
What other terrorist group has driven so much change in their favor? Do we all think Binladin was maybe on to something? How about ISIS ..?
He is closest to really overthrowing this whole ship, unless maybe we all vote for the oldest president there ever was....
We are on a knifes edge and it's fucking horrifying and baffling. This isn't 2020 we all know the "it will never happen" thoughts of trump getting elected were wrong and we shouldn't delude ourselves with thinking this will never happen either..... The highest court in the land is stacked and taking bribes now openly with no consequences, our past president almost assuredly sold nuclear secrets and still lives and allowed to fuck this whole country.... What higher power do you think is soundly going to hold people accountable and uphold the law, cause I don't see it.
Many terrorist leaders are not.
Most of the violent offenders were suitably punished. I
The best place for terrorists is on the ballot because that reduces their ability to call for violence.
and fucking contemplating the very real prospect of a "one day dictator"
Trump has already been president. He wasn't very good. Certainly not dictator level.
All? I see very little changes. What are MAGA demands for change?
Totally different league to Trump.
He's already been captain once. He spent the time golfing and watching TV.
The knife has already fallen. Stacking the Supreme Court was the only real damage and that would have happened regardless of the republican candidate.
The electorate.
I fear allowing the ignorant and uneducated to be part of the conversation.
It becomes a reason if it were to work... - hence why they keep trotting it out I suppose, just to see what sticks.
I don't think it's entirely about "fear of backlash". I think the real fear people are expressing is the fear of the election appearing rigged, Ahmadinejad-style. If the Republicans nominate Trump, and he goes unconsidered with "unknown numbers" of write-in votes in enough states to affect the election, he would obviously argue that he actually won on votes and might even be convincing to non-Republicans.
When the Colorado Supreme Court decided against Trump, it was a split decision by an all-Democrat panel that questioned what "due process" should be on the matter. There's so many ways that this can be spun nationally or internationally by the modern equivalent of the way the South created sympathy through propaganda after the Civil War that survives today. Hundreds of millions of people throughout the world will likely question the legitimacy of the president or US elections after this matter no matter who wins or how chips fall.
BUT, there's also no right answer, and none of the above reasons are sufficient to just put Trump back on the ballot and hope. It should never have gotten to this. Someone that is publicly believed by a significant percent of America to not be eligible should not have party support in the first place. And if it did, Congress should have stepped in before now.
Ultimately, the Republicans are again objectively hurting America for their own agenda.
If Republicans want a candidate on the ballot, they can nominate someone who didn't start an insurrection. They have no shortage of choices for other candidates. If anything, that's why the rulings should be laid out right now before the Republican Iowa Caucus.
In a vacuum, I could see the point of the world not seeing the US President as being democratically elected. In practice, this is only going to be an issue for countries that have their own problems with fascist political parties, and I'm not inclined to care.
corporate wants you to find the difference between these this picture and this picture
If the only backlash there is to fear is death, then I have nothing to lose.
I honestly believe taking Trump off would hurt Biden. I feel there's a reasonable number who are looking at voting for him because he's not Trump.
The "backlash" will be that the people that take him off the ballot may end up being murdered. Or their family might be killed. Or both. Sure, maybe it's the duty of the secretary of state in each state to remove him from the ballot. But would you be willing to do that if it was likely someone would try to murder you? And consider for a moment that it's likely that a significant number of cops that you might expect would protect you probably sympathize with political violence in favor of Trump.
Those are the stakes for the people that need to remove him from the ballot.
Are you ready and willing to fight? Because you might have to.
This is why Mexican politicians kowtow to the cartels.
I thought America was better than this.
We had four years of a populist far-right president that brought out the very worst in his cultists. The only reason we were (past tense) better than this was because we believed we were.
Thanks for nutshelling the point of the article.
If I took an oath of office you bet your ass I’d be willing. That’s what it means to serve your country in office. If you aren’t willing to uphold your oath, resign.
I would hold no ill will to any person who resigned their position because they are unwilling but if you want to do the job, do it.
Would you though? Would you really? If you got a email of a photo of your family getting out of their car at Target or Walmart, would you really think, yeah, I'm willing to trade the life of my spouse and kids for this job? Would you be willing to do it that if you took it to the police and they just shrugged and said they didn't see anything actionable? The fact that we haven't heard of political figures being assassinated by Trump supporters yet doesn't mean that it's not going to happen; religious fanatics have blown up doctors offices and killed doctors to 'save babies', and Trump cultists literally believe he was chosen by their god to rule.
Asked and answered, it’s not going to change because you rephrased the question.
Bluntly, I don't believe you.
It wasn't all that long ago that people got lynched in the part of the country I live in. A candidate running against MTG--she's the next district over from me--had so many death threats and close calls that his wife divorced him and he ended up having to move out of the state to save his own life. Maybe you would be dumb and principled and do the right thing though; if so, you'd probable end up dead, esp. in a lot of the states that have really deep red pockets. Then the next person who takes the job, well, they're probably be a lot less interested in being right and dead, and more interested in being able to go home at night.
Good thing I’m not Tinker Bell and don’t need your belief to have strength in my convictions.
Cowards often like to believe others are just as cowardly as them, it helps rationalize their world view.
If Jan 6 shows any indication, a simple police presence will be enough to stop most violence and the outliers will be found.
I think this is a lot more true than many people here suspect. What we're realistically looking at is relatively low-intensity insurrection on the level of, say, Northern Ireland during the height of The Troubles. It's still a very bad thing, but it's not existential and if the comparison to The Troubles is accurate, the violence will mostly target federal law enforcement and any military that's brought to bear should Biden invoke the insurrection act.
The real existential threat is Trump actually winning another term.
Trump miscalculated. He thought Pence was spineless. Had Pence stopped the transition as they wanted and instead assisted with the fake electors they created and intended to deliver that day the insurrection would likely have worked. Trumps lawyer has already agreed to testify about the faked electors, and we know Pence got thrown off that day and then thrown to the wolves. I think Trump wanted the crowds of his followers there so when they submitted the fake electors and denounced the official vote he could have video of "everyone" cheering on live TV and he could look like he stopped a stolen election while he himself stole it. Narcissistic idea one might say.
This is an opinion piece from someone who thinks they know better than the entirety of the US judicial body. You can skip this one.
What Judicial body? Every currently standing ruling regarding the merits of Trump's eligibility to be president under the 14th amendment have found that he is not eligible (although all are still in limbo pending the inevitable SCOTUS appeal). There is a colorable technical argument to be made that he is not excluded, but most of the legal community is not convinced by them.
The legal arguments about his eligibility to appear on the primary ballot are more nuanced, but seem kind of silly if he ultimately is inneligable to hold the office.
The states that have ruled that Trump can remain on the primary ballot all did so on some sort of procedural ground. Typically of the form "state law does not require a candidate to be elligable to hold office to appear on a primary ballot". In fairness to those states' lawmakers, what sort of braindead political party would try nominating someone who was inneligable to hold office?
It's going to get fucky, because no presidential candidate is actually on a citizen's ballot. We don't vote for the named candidate; we vote for a panel of unnamed electors pledged (but not obligated) to support the named candidate.
We need to be talking about "faithless electors" and the "National Popular Vote Interstate Compact", as the conditions are ripe for these to play a major role in the next election.
Whenever someone devises a system to be foolproof, someone goes out and finds a greater fool. The Republican party is nothing if not overflowing with greater fools
Do any of you that let this man live rent free in your head realize he hasn't been CONVICTED of anything that would invalidate his candidacy? Indicted =/= guilty.
It's always hilarious when someone pulls the "you let this guy live rent free in your head" card about the greatest current threat to American democracy. Yes, we should just pretend he doesn't exist. It's almost always followed by one or more arguments that show they lack even a surface level understanding of the details of the situation. This post manages to live up to that 'standard'.
This is what happens when you have an uneducated populace. A lack of critical thinking skills leads to the adoption of nonsensical viewpoints based on emotion instead of reason. When those viewpoints are challenged, they're similarly met with typically meaningless, emotion-driven responses (a la "he lives in your mind rent free") as the adopters lack the capacity to respond with reason.
baa baa
Does that mating call work? Most magats I know just rape the livestock. Interesting, you try seduction instead.
I do think it's pretty funny he again proved my point for me.
I mean, posting easily disproven drivel made it pretty clear you're a sheep, but I appreciate the demonstration.
so disprove it.
The amendment says nothing about criminal conviction
Indeed. It was specifically written to be self-executing because it would have been impossible to charge, try and convict all of the tens of thousands of former Confederate officers it was meant to bar from federal office. Because it's self-executing, a simple finding of fact is sufficient for it to apply. The question then isn't whether it requires a conviction, but rather whether it applies to Trump.
To me it pretty obviously does apply to him, but I'm definitely biased as fuck.
They would just move the goalposts after any conviction anyway.
Anyone with eyeballs and ears understands what this man is, what this man did, and what he evokes from his followers. Why do I need a court to confirm it for me to want him nowhere near the levers of power ever again? He'll stop living in my head when he stops trying to take control of the country.
The 14th is self-executing which means that you don't have to be convicted in order to be disqualified. The reason it's self-executing is that it was originally designed to prohibit former Confederate officers from holding federal office, and since there was no way that every one of the tens of thousands of former Confederate officers could be tried and convicted, it was written to be self-executing meaning that a simple finding of fact rather than a conviction was sufficient to bar one from running for federal office.
Now, you may not like that and if you're a constitutional scholar you may even have some decent arguments as to why it doesn't apply to Trump, but leaving that aside, you are absolutely full of shit when you imply that he needs to be convicted before the 14th applies. That's why it's a question for the SCOTUS and not random idiots like yourself.
Sorry for being a dick, I'm just tired of this stupid phony talking point.
Lol a presidential candidate for one of two major parties I'm the most powerful country in the world threatens to literally be fascist and go after political opponents from day 1 .
Right wing morons:
ReNt FrEe!!11!
really? you don't see what's going on from the other side? LITERALLY doing just this? and you think the people the the R next to their names are the fascists? Are you in the market for a bridge perhaps?
Lmao. I bet you don't even know that Colorado Republicans are the ones to push the initiative to get him off the ballot. Or do you watch enough right wing nonsense to think the court cases against the man who openly admits to his crimes are political attacks?
Do tell though - What is the Democrat equivalent of Project 2025? When did the party not only allow the idea of subversion of democracy but have a large chunk of it cheer it on? When were political opponents unjustly targeted? Why did the Republican led Senate committee release an intelligence report saying how corrupt Trump was?
Wow… there are sill people doing the “rEnT fReE” bit?