The GTP Unofficial 2020 US Elections Thread

[jjaisli]

I hope you're ready to see Biden in jail for being a democrat when the republicans get whoever they vote in.

No doubt they would probably say something this ridiculous. But we have laws. And if Trump is put on trial and proven guilty and he gets away with it and he is free to run again in 2024, he is only going to be emboldened.

 

[Joey D]

No doubt they would probably say something this ridiculous. But we have laws. And if Trump is put on trial and proven guilty and he gets away with it and he is free to run again in 2024, he is only going to be emboldened.

I do wonder if there's a court in the land that would be willing to put a former president on trial. That seems like a recipe for disaster, even if Trump is blatantly guilty.

Also, I would hope that by 2024 the Republicans realize they need to run a candidate who's not a complete jackass to defeat Biden. There are plenty of people within the party that want the Republicans to get back to being neo-cons instead of Twitting Fascists.

 

[UKMikey]

Imagine blood-sucking lawyers getting cold feet.

Growing Discomfort at Law Firms Representing Trump in Election Lawsuits

That's pretty much the reaction I had when I mentioned this upthread.

https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/thre...lections-thread.385257/page-160#post-13279534

If even Lionel Hutz & Co don't want to defend him, things are pretty bad.

 

[Joey D]

That's pretty much the reaction I had when I mentioned this upthread.

https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/thre...lections-thread.385257/page-160#post-13279534

Whoops, I didn't see that you'd already post that.

But yes, that's a proper reaction. I know most lawyers are decent people, but the law firm of Jones Day really is a walking lawyer joke.

 

[EngieDiesel]

I do wonder if there's a court in the land that would be willing to put a former president on trial. That seems like a recipe for disaster, even if Trump is blatantly guilty.

If there was sufficient proof that the President's actions willfully and intentionally harmed the wellbeing of the country, it would be negligent of them to not hold a trial. Of course it would have to be a complete bullseye of a case, and if there's one thing Trump is inarguably good at, it's deflecting legal bullets (usually by using his supporters as meatshields).

Also, I would hope that by 2024 the Republicans realize they need to run a candidate who's not a complete jackass to defeat Biden. There are plenty of people within the party that want the Republicans to get back to being neo-cons instead of Twitting Fascists.

We won't know for sure until Biden is fully moved into the White House. Very few Republicans in office are going to openly turn on Trump until then because they don't want to be perceived as a traitor to the party, which is far more important to them and their chances of keeping their jobs.

 

[TheCracker]

I don't think Trump is going to try a military coup. But I do think it's on the table for him. First of all, I don't think our military is properly mentally ready to try it. I don't think Trump is as big a favorite among the military as he might be. His connections to Russia, his insulting of all things military, and his disregard for the nation in general kinda hold him back in terms of winning the hearts of military people up and down the line.

I don't believe a military coup in the full sense of the term would ever be on the cards in the US, as the armed forces are not permitted to be deployed domestically under federal law. The Posse Comitatus Act. This doesn't include the National Guard, but they're the only military arm available to the President to act against the people, or a proportion of, if they see fit to do so.

 

[Danoff]

I don't believe a military coup in the full sense of the term would ever be on the cards in the US, as the armed forces are not permitted to be deployed domestically under federal law. The Posse Comitatus Act. This doesn't include the National Guard, but they're the only military arm available to the President to act against the people, or a proportion of, if they see fit to do so.

I'm not relying on that to prevent a military coup. If it came down to it, Trump would not let that get in his way. I'm relying mostly on 3 other factors for this.

1) People are willing to stand up for what is right, and in the military, this is even more essential. I don't see America going down like this.
2) Trump is a coward at heart.
3) This looks like it would be a really poorly thought-out and badly coordinated slap-dash military coup.

Edit:

As long as nothing comes of it, I'm kinda happy for the military takeover scare. I feel like democrats are getting a huge crash course in constitutional protections, democratic safeguards, and the reasons why we don't just had the keys to the government. There's a whole huge group, possibly even most of the country, that is suddenly really really glad that we don't just break down the checks and balances in order to ram through whatever the latest popular bill is.

Take a long look folks. Stare down the barrel of this one. Really take it to heart how close we are to losing the nation. And then hopefully it will fizzle like Trump's electoral hopes.

 

[McLaren]

I do wonder if there's a court in the land that would be willing to put a former president on trial. That seems like a recipe for disaster, even if Trump is blatantly guilty.

My understanding, New York will be after him first. I think the Attorney General & the SDNY are both after him. While I don't know much about the AG's case, I have read the SDNY has been patiently waiting til' he's a private citizen to file a lawsuit so there's no excuse of how Trump is President, gets him out of the suit.

Edit* This link seems to break it down what both the AG & SDNY are after with him.
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-yor...0201102-lg4za42k5ffdfhwzllbtn4hluy-story.html

 

[EngieDiesel]

I'm not relying on that to prevent a military coup. If it came down to it, Trump would not let that get in his way. I'm relying mostly on 3 other factors for this.

1) People are willing to stand up for what is right, and in the military, this is even more essential. I don't see America going down like this.
2) Trump is a coward at heart.
3) This looks like it would be a really poorly thought-out and badly coordinated slap-dash military coup.

4) Trump cares too much about his private business enterprises to risk completely destroying his global reputation by trying to instigate a coup that has a high chance of failing or falling apart before it even gets going.

 

[Famine]

as the armed forces are not permitted to be deployed domestically under federal law

Given that Trump has broken, or made overtures about breaking, at least seven articles of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, I don't see this as a particular barrier.

 

[Scaff]

I'm not relying on that to prevent a military coup. If it came down to it, Trump would not let that get in his way. I'm relying mostly on 3 other factors for this.

1) People are willing to stand up for what is right, and in the military, this is even more essential. I don't see America going down like this.
2) Trump is a coward at heart.
3) This looks like it would be a really poorly thought-out and badly coordinated slap-dash military coup.

Edit:

As long as nothing comes of it, I'm kinda happy for the military takeover scare. I feel like democrats are getting a huge crash course in constitutional protections, democratic safeguards, and the reasons why we don't just had the keys to the government. There's a whole huge group, possibly even most of the country, that is suddenly really really glad that we don't just break down the checks and balances in order to ram through whatever the latest popular bill is.

Take a long look folks. Stare down the barrel of this one. Really take it to heart how close we are to losing the nation. And then hopefully it will fizzle like Trump's electoral hopes.

I think we should all thanks ourselves that America's experiment with fascism has been attempted by generally incompetent idiots, image if it had actually been people with brains and a plan!

 

[Biggles]

Waking up this morning & reading this cheery exchange of views on GTPlanet!

I dunno - I tend to believe that the mechanisms of democracy will continue to move things along notwithstanding Trump. I'm putting my trust in the Deep State to keep functioning. 👍

On the reporting of votes in the US vs elsewhere: voting in Canada is done with a pencil on a paper ballot. The vote count is generally available within a couple of hours. However ... the norm in Canada in a general election is to vote for ONE PERSON/PARTY - your local member of Parliament. You're not voting for president/representative/senate/governor/sheriff/town dog catcher or any number of "propositions", so the the count is extremely simple & straightforward.

 

[TheCracker]

Given that Trump has broken, or made overtures about breaking, at least seven articles of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, I don't see this as a particular barrier.

Trump may not see it as a barrier, but you'd hope that the Joint Chiefs and the rest of the chain of command would.

It wouldn't so much be 'making America great again' as 'making America a completely different entity all together' He'd be throwing the last 241(-4) years out of the window. Again, wouldn't put it past him, but would hope that even the most staunched of Republican supporters would see it as a step too far.

 

[Whitestar]

Almost a week old now, but I just saw this tweet by AOC:

I'm a bit confused, she's not talking about your average voter here is she? If so then I much prefer the Biden/Penn approach of reaching out to Trump supporters.
Arent these kinds of tweets only going to cause further divide?

 

[Jezza819]

If even Lionel Hutz & Co don't want to defend him, things are pretty bad.

I'm sure the firm of Dewey, Cheatem, & Howe will be more than willing to step in.

 

[UKMikey]

I'm a bit confused, she's not talking about your average voter here is she? If so then I much prefer the Biden/Penn approach of reaching out to Trump supporters.
Arent these kinds of tweets only going to cause further divide?

Yeah, it's all started to go a bit Robespierre, hasn't it?

At any rate I hope this article is correct and The Don is too busy scheming against Joe and Kamala to focus on the important tasks of seeding the government with his sycophants and scorching the earth around the White House lawn.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/11/politics/donald-trump-schedule-election/index.html

 

[Tornado]

AOC can lock herself into being a windmill chaser once she's convinced herself that something is true (see how she immediately blamed all of the Democrats who lost House seats for running weak campaigns rather than bothering to acknowledge that maybe even some people in the South really hate Trump but don't necessarily want the Democrats to have a complete smorgasboard to do whatever they want; even calling out someone who... uh... won re-election), so that's not a terribly surprising Tweet; but everyone on the Right already hates her as is so I don't think it will make things any worse.

 

[Famine]

Trump may not see it as a barrier, but you'd hope that the Joint Chiefs and the rest of the chain of command would.

They were seemingly okay with the unconstitutional misuse of federal agencies in Portland. I'm not sure we should be hoping that now is when they grow a conscience.

Again, wouldn't put it past him, but would hope that even the most staunched of Republican supporters would see it as a step too far.

They've been totally fine with the President attacking freedom of speech (against bad people like the press, not good people), right to bear arms (against bad people with bump stocks, not good people), quartering troops in hotels (so they can be there for bad people rioting, not good people), denying due process (against bad people accused of murder, not good people), and right now refusing to give up his post after losing the election (to keep bad people out of the White House, not good people).

Near on 71m people voted for that.

 

[Tornado]

 

[Keef]

I can't think of any way that Trump made any lasting changes in my life...

You haven't noticed the terrifying rise of far-right militia and white supremacist groups? Maybe that doesn't effect you, but there are a lot more people in the country than just you, and that train of thought is part of why Trump's leadership is so dangerous - it's extremely narcissistic and self-centered, with a total lack of empathy that we've literally never seen in America before. That combined with his lack of concern for precedent, and his effective endorsement of these far-right groups as well as several foreign dictators is more comparable to the various dictators we read about in history books than to any prior American president. The mindless passion his supporters have, and their complete rejection of reasoned arguments, is more proof of his spooky ability to "rally the troops" which is a talent he shares with those historical and terrible figures.

Fortunately, you're not going to get the chance to actually find out how Trump will change your life because a genuine majority of Americans have rejected submitting to his drivel. The people of 1930s Germany et al didn't think their lives had been effected either. All they had to do was take an oath to support their leader, right? They had no idea what was going on.

...you will still go to work/school, you will still have your family, you will still be able to buy necessities and personal items, and your status in life/society is definitely not going to change just because of the president.

Again, this line of thought ignores the realities of a lot of people whom you don't know. Not everybody's life follows the suburban script which you've described here. There are millions of Americans whose status in society - in some cases their status as a person - does indeed sway with the political tides. I think you know what I'm talking about. There are millions of Americans who have literally feared for their future safety as they watched the normalization of far-right ideologies for the past four years. Some of these people didn't vote for Trump the first time around because they already knew his history of narcissism, racism, cheating, etc, and they knew what would happen if he were able to set policy based on his personal beliefs, and if closeted racists around the country were legitimized by Trump's public endorsements.

I genuinely believe that we just dodged a bullet so big that people would be making Youtube docuseries about it on its 100th anniversary.

ruled in favor 9-3

Great post but for the record it's 6-3. There are currently 9 justices. It's a big deal because Chief Roberts notwithstanding there is a 5-3 conservative majority now, so even if the Chief went against those colleagues it would still be only 5-4. With Ginsberg, it was at least split 4-4 with Chief Roberts known to sway in a mostly non-partisan manner, acting as a reasonable tie breaker.

A good captain might not look like he's doing much, but his foresight and decision making is a big part of the reason that the ship avoided sailing directly into a storm.

Ly bb. Brought a tear to my eye

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

I think we should all thanks ourselves that America's experiment with fascism has been attempted by generally incompetent idiots, image if it had actually been people with brains and a plan!

I'm hoping that this is just Trump being vindictive to people he doesn't like, rather than any sort of plan - planning does not seem to be in his wheelhouse. This is an impulsive man and firing Esper seems to me like blowing off steam. I have my fingers crossed though...

 

[Not_A_Guest]

The issue however, is the bold; Trump may not be a fascist in full view, but he has displayed fascist tendencies multiple times, and that becomes the worrying part. He has violated multiple Constitutional amendments, he has used authority power for personal gain, he repeatedly lies and gas lights his base against opposition, he has committed election interference by trying coerce a foreign nation into damaging an opposing candidate's image, and now, he refuses to concede power through claims of fraud (yet has not produced such evidence) & assuming, wants the election decided by the Supreme Court, a Supreme Court he made sure to rush a 9th judge through so that, on paper, his outcome would easily be ruled in favor 9-3.

The biggest issue with this is that violating the law seems par for the course for presidents as of late: "... he also notes that many of these violations are not unique to Trump and were also carried out by Barack Obama and George W. Bush. 'Many of the Democrats in the past have been complicit in these violations,' Fein said..." Not that this absolves Trump of guilt at all, but I'm willing to bet that the average Trump supporter saw that the media made relatively little fuss in those two administrations and is not confident in their impartiality now. It's difficult to consume modern media when those journalists seem to turn a blind eye to the injustices you consider to be most important. All networks do this; modern news is a business, and polarizing people to stay on your platform is the best way to generate a consistent ad revenue stream. But the end result is that Trump's base has a distilled distrust of the majority of news media, and I'm going to wager that left-wing people have a similar distrust of conservative media. It's healthy to be critical of our elected leaders, but when subjects like this make it past the first editor's review, it's easy to get jaded to everything Trump-related in the news.
In the specific case you mentioned of his refusal to concede, I don't like it either. But it's easy to see why Trump's base gives him a pass. If the election had not been as clear of a victory for Biden, I am not personally sure that he would have conceded quickly either (nor would I have minded-- a recount is a good sanity check in any case). And I am absolutely confident that, if given the opportunity, Democrats would have rammed a judge into the SC at the 11th hour in the exact same way we saw with Barrett. As long as it's technically legal (and even in many cases where it's not), I am willing to bet money that any politician will take any and all steps to solidify their party's power.

This sort of behavior is, in relation to your second paragraph, why people absolutely mock & condemn Trump supporters. Because, they continue to stand by a man who routinely portrays multiple displays of how a fascist leader comes into power and see nothing wrong it b/c ultimately, it means they "win".

This is one of the biggest problems with left-wingers that came to a head in 2016. I can't believe that this wasn't quickly fixed in party/media platforms after that, but thinking that conservatives are stupid for supporting the only viable conservative candidate is not a productive strategy at all. I stated in my first post that people will always have at least one reason, good or bad, for supporting the candidate they do, but nobody thinks to themselves that they think the way they do because they're stupid. Chalking up a person's entire political stance up to them being intellectually inferior (or welfare parasites, on the other side) is a really good way to get people to stop listening to you. Let's even say that the stereotypes are correct to a significant degree, and that left-wing people tend to be more well schooled than right-wing people. Why would you go so far as to say someone is inferior to you because they are not as educated? Is education suddenly an all-encompassing measure of one's worth? Isn't this just classism by another name, considering how expensive college is in the US? Most importantly, how is that a healthy method of discourse?
Maybe I sound like a broken record, but this is why conservatives don't listen to varied media on politics anymore. This is how the problem started in 2016 before Trump was even president, but it turned quite a lot of people off to avenues of information that could opened more eyes to Trump's problems. The simplest and most productive solution would have been to not treat every conservative like they're an uneducated backwoods white redneck, and not treat every liberal like they're a lazy city-dwelling drone. Of course, I have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.

The President is the captain of a massive ocean liner, and just because you don't notice immediately when he turns the wheel doesn't remove the fact that he has enormous influence on the direction the ship goes. A good captain might not look like he's doing much, but his foresight and decision making is a big part of the reason that the ship avoided sailing directly into a storm.

I appreciate the insight, but I think the (fairly regulated) alternating of the presidency between parties is a strong damper on radical lasting direction change. Of course the president has quite a lot of national and international influence, but the next person (of opposing political beliefs) will build off of the positive (or "politically agreeable") changes made by the last president and roll back at least a few of the negatives, which is why the important distinction here is that presidents don't generally make permanent changes that would not have been replicated by another president.

Arent these kinds of tweets only going to cause further divide?

Yep, in case you're wondering, it's tweets like this that make conservatives rather worried about AOC and the most radical parts of the Democratic Party.

We will see where Trump goes come Jan. 20. Not much else matters up till then except the Senate runoff in Georgia.

 

[Tornado]

The left hasn't spent to past four years refraining from doing the things that drove people to Trump for "telling it like it is" either.

 

[Keef]

The biggest issue with this is that violating the law seems par for the course for presidents as of late: "... he also notes that many of these violations are not unique to Trump and were also carried out by Barack Obama and George W. Bush. 'Many of the Democrats in the past have been complicit in these violations,' Fein said..." Not that this absolves Trump of guilt at all, but I'm willing to bet that the average Trump supporter saw that the media made relatively little fuss in those two administrations and is not confident in their impartiality now.

What you say here it true, but again you're not looking deep enough. Think about this question: What's more dangerous, a leader who breaks laws, or a leader who simply changes the law so their agenda is no longer illegal?

Lukashenko, Putin, Erdogan, Maduro, dozens of others throughout history. They chose a much more insidious strategy. Instead of breaking laws which obviously risks liability, they worked to change the laws to not only allow autocratic legislation but also to avoid any liability in the process. If given enough time, and if the right changes are made, boom you've got a dictatorship before anyone on the street even realizes what happened.

On numerous occasions Trump has expressed his distaste with current laws and his desire to find ways around them or to change them outright to suit his agenda. The difference between Trump and prior presidents who broke laws is that none of those prior presidents ever expressed a desire to rewrite and control the process. They were simply cogs in the system who made bad decisions, they never tried to be the system.

 

[Blitz24]

The answer to extremism on one-side isn't to have extremism on the other, yet that is what happened.

 

[Danoff]

The answer to extremism on one-side isn't to have extremism on the other, yet that is what happened.

Not really... Biden is about as moderate as it gets.

 

[Liquid]

Please be real.

 

[jjaisli]

"Succeed" from the Union?

 

[Joey D]

Please be real.

The last time anywhere in the south "succeed" from the union, it didn't go so well for them. Mississippi also has a GDP similar to Peurto Rico, so I'm guessing that wouldn't work out too well for them. It's also almost last in everything including education and median income. Let it secede, they'd sink themselves.

 

[Blitz24]

Not really... Biden is about as moderate as it gets.

Not saying Biden is extreme in any way. I'm saying that is what one side fears the most and believes that the other side's most moderate representative is a wolf in sheep's clothing.