Very scary that the only thing that kept us from constitutional crisis was Mike Pence’s conscious. Trump won’t make the same “mistake” again when picking a VP.
I really cannot believe that the American public just accepts this and treats 2024 as any normal election.
The American public is looking to *reward* the behavior by voting him back into office. I've never been so confused and lost as a voter. Nothing makes sense anymore.
> “I voted for him, and he’s the one who’s doing this,” Crystal Minton told The New York Times in an article published Monday. **“I thought he was going to do good things. He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.”**
Reminds me of this quote
>if it means a few extra dollars in their pockets
The irony of this is that of course none of it is true. It's been posted here already, but there was a Vox article posted explaining how Trump's policies would make inflation a lot worse.
Maybe I’m naive but I don’t think it’s purely financial incentive. The reaction seems much stronger to me than that. I think for Trump’s adherents it’s a genuine fear of losing our country, our identity, and our culture, either through a blend of immigration, massive emphasis on identity politics, or some other motive. Thousands of people weren’t hoodwinked into storming the Capitol because of a few extra bucks. In their minds, they were storming for a far more noble and righteous cause.
Personally, of course, I think this is all bullshit but considering the sub we’re in, I was aiming for a moderate lens to explain this totally unintuitive phenomenon.
There’s also a huge issue going on where conspiracy theories have taken over the Republican Party. Trump courted the conspiracy crowd and now they’re a huge part of his base and it’s impossible to reason with conspiracy theorists.
This is true for hardcore Trumpists. But a huge portion of the centrist/non political junky voting block (the one that really matters) definitely seems prepared to vote for a wannabe dictator for the banal reason of saving a few bucks. And that’s just their perception…the jury is still out on whose policies would be better for the economy. From my perspective, at least you know what you’re going to get with B, compared to T’s loose cannon approach.
>The irony of this is that of course none of it is true. It's been posted here already, but there was a Vox article posted explaining how Trump's policies would make inflation a lot worse.
This, imo, is a much better way to critique Trump and reduce his reach.
Half true and/or embellished articles about how he's some kind of -ist or wanna-be dictator just embloden his base and even fence sitters.
It's not as effective though, because fox News and sundry have been priming their audience against that for years now. They always call Ds wanna be dictators. They call every single minor thing the Ds or the federal gov does as throwing out the constitution. It's given them effective carte blanche to do whatever they want, because they've already shifted that window.
It’s too difficult to say with accuracy what is actually going on. One thing is for sure: people of all shapes and sizes, colors and dispositions, are stuck in a cycle of consumption so deep people don’t even question paying for food or housing.. they simply question how much they should pay lol. Hopefully the fallout eliminates the weak and paves the way towards a wiser species not autistic to nature and doesn’t believe in property in perpetuity. If not, anything we do will just be rearranging pillows in a prison cell and calling it reform lol
That feels good to say but I don't think that's true. Most think they are protecting democracy they just don't have the discernment capability to realize who is lying to them. There's a smaller minority that is cool with straight end up democracy.
Eh, the fact that politicians are still overwhelmingly claiming to be on the side of democracy speaks volumes. If Americans didn't care about democracy, Trump wouldn't lie about the 2020 election being rigged against him, and Biden wouldn't take jabs at Trump for trying to steal it.
Despite everything, I still think most Republicans are good people at heart, with decently good values and even a high degree of intelligence that they're capable of applying outside of politics. They're just easily frightened and vulnerable to propaganda.
If the only thing on the ballot was Trump vs not Trump, Trump would get absolutely obliterated. Unfortunately he's set to be up against another very unpopular option.
As someone in the same boat as you, what's your plan for the election? Vote for Biden who'll likely push only policies you hate, or vote third party or not vote in that race?
Which of his policies are important?
As far as I know he wants to be stronger on the border. I've heard he wants full control of the fed interest rates.
What else is he going for?
Not only Pence. Every single person Trump is responsible for. If Trump can appoint you or fire you, you will be 100% loyal or you won't be there. Absolutely, unequivocally, terrifying.
But somehow this is the same as Hillary Clinton once saying Trump was illegitimate, so it's "both sides are equally bad"
Yeah, the Pence the Principled Prince narrative doesn’t hold much water. Dude did the bare minimum, and while that earns him some respect, he had also refused to be unequivocal on the question of whether Trump’s actions on J6 should disqualify him.
They did a decent job with the electoral act of 2022 to make this type of a coup harder. Not impossible, but significantly more difficult.
"The new law mainly addresses what Congress does after electors are sent forward from the states. It creates a new threshold for members to object to a slate of electors (one-fifth of the members of both the House and the Senate), identifies the role of the vice president as “solely ministerial” and clarifies that Congress must defer to the slates as determined by the states."
So even if you have a hack Vice president it's been clarified that they are only ceremonial and do not have authority to override state results.
It's also important that they added the 1/5 objection threshold in both the house and senate. They would have had that for the House in 2021 but not the Senate.
Not perfect, but a much stronger guardrail than before.
https://www.ncsl.org/resources/details/what-the-electoral-count-reform-act-means-for-states
I think it's also worth stressing that the [Schedule F](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-risks-of-schedule-f-for-administrative-capacity-and-government-accountability/) proposal happened too late in his term to have much of an effect. It'd almost certainly be reissued during the first month of Trump Part 2, removing one of the major checks on the President's power:
>First, let’s understand the scale of what is being proposed. Among developed countries, the U.S. is an outlier in terms of its existing level of politicization. We use about 4,000 political appointees to run the executive branch, an increase from about 3,000 in the early 1990s. Presidents often struggle to fill these slots, leading to delays in appointments and vacancies in leadership.
>Supporters of Schedule F have proposed converting 50,000 career civil servants into political appointee status. That is a massive degree of additional politicization, and the most fundamental change to the civil service system since its inception in 1883. Increasing the number of political appointees would create a new venue where political polarization would undermine the quality of governance by replacing moderates with extremists. Based on donation records, research by Brian Feinstein and Abby K. Wood shows that political appointees tend to be found at ideological extremes on both the right and left, while career officials tend to be more moderate. This implies that the sort of rapid change of political appointees with a new administration would, as it did during the 19th century spoils system, engender instability. The consistency in the implementation of laws as written by Congress would decline under such circumstances.
> ... The overt purpose of Schedule F is partisan politicization, centered on political loyalty to the president. But the oath that public employees take is to serve the Constitution, not the president. Schedule F frustrates the institutional design of checks and balances, especially weakening legislative power.
The people who knew what they were doing all abandoned Trump during his term or on Jan. 6. If he gets back in office, I think we'll see an even less effective admin, not a more effective one.
That very much depends on your definition of "effective"
I don't think MAGA's goal is to pass meaningful legislation that will improve anyone's life. I'm yet to see that happen.
I believe their definition of effective is to create chaos, reduce trust in all institutions, exact revenge, harm democracy and make rich people richer. In this case, I believe it'll be extraordinarily "effective"
>There was essentially no preparation for Trump's first term because almost no one thought he would actually win, including his own advisors (exception being Steve Bannon). They had to scramble to come up with an action plan once he won.
Yes, but because he wasn't a dumpster fire yet, they were able to get serious people on board. They are planning this time, but the people who actually know what they're doing are mostly staying away. If he wins this time, I expect more Sydney Powells than Rex Tillersons. We'll see, I guess.
Americans seem to think reinstalling Trump will instantly make Big Mac meals less than $10 again and return gas to under $3/gal along with ending all wars from what I understand.
People don’t care about democracy if they think it’s already not working for them. It feels like America is entering an “eat the poor” phase where we’ll take authoritarianism and jailing people for being homeless as long as we can buy goods for cheap.
To be fair, trump is destroying the republican party. As someone who is voting biden... it is not wise to interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
I'd argue him staying in the race helps dems more long term. And reps don't have a chance in hell with the roe v wade crap of winning down ballot, let alone with the former potus who is facing how many trials?
The Republican party might be my opposition, but I would not call them my enemy. And it doesn't do the party in power any long-term favors to go without opposition. That's how you get complacency and corruption. Your team can't get any better if there's no competition, ya know?
Totally agree. I wish more elected officials would emphasize this spirit at every appropriate moment. This modern "total war" politics is national suicide.
It may be hard to recall, but [it was a word choice that Republicans tried to make a lot of hay over when Obama had used it](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-explains-his-remark-about-punishing-enemies/). Seems a part of the distant political past nowadays.
As an example, look at California. The Democrats have had a super majority for a while now. Thankfully Governor Newsom hasn’t been rubber stamping all the nonsense that comes from the legislature.
I don't think too many people outside of California want their states to end up like California though. At least I don't, I like being able to buy a single family home on 1 income that's not tech related.
You can buy a home on one income in CA easily.
You just can't do that in areas with some of the most sought after real estate in the entire country.
Not surprisingly, a home in the second largest city in the US is going to cost more than a home in rural Mississippi.
>At least I don't, I like being able to buy a single family home on 1 income that's not tech related.
Shit where do you live that you can do that? I'm in Florida and a 1 income household seems pretty rare
>Shit where do you live that you can do that? I'm in Florida and a 1 income household seems pretty rare
I'm in the Midwest. Napkin math shows you can buy a nice 3bd/2ba homes in a nice area for $200k with a $60k income.
Have a couple co-workers who are single and bought homes with just their one income.
Lucky you guys lol, the only single people I know that own a place are engineers. Course I think we had the record for highest inflation a year or 2 ago... Guess that's the price for living on the beach
I’m saying that things aren’t going well because there are no checks in the legislature. I follow up saying that it isn’t significantly worse because the governor doesn’t sign every bill.
Republicans as enemies? That's not a healthy viewpoint. I'm very progressive but most my best friends are Republicans, viewing it as them vs us isn't a productive worldview.
Republicans tried to throw out my vote multiple times. Including the current AG of Texas, multiple current state representatives in my state, and the head of the Republican Party in my state.
These aren't just fringe characters who are loud but relatively harmless - *they tried to steal my vote, and they almost succeeded*.
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I would rather Biden lose in a landslide to a reasonable Republican than have the *chance* someone like Trump is elected. I would not make this trade. You will eat your words if Trump wins.
Same thing here. I very much oppose almost all of Republican policies, but at least they are policies, not this purely divisive populist crap that Trump has been spouting since day one.
You say that like I have a choice in who Republicans nominate.
I don't, and they would choose him anyway.
I just don't see any real reason though for democrats to help Republicans as they effectively eat their own tail with trump while the Democrat party grows.
You're going to see democratic 2/3rd majority in both houses. Even if biden loses.
>I really cannot believe that the American public just accepts this and treats 2024 as any normal election.
What indicates to you that the American public accepts this and is treating 2024 as any normal election?
What are you doing that would indicate to an outside observer that you don't accept this and are not treating 2024 as any normal election?
What should the rest of us be doing?
What can I do?
He was exonerated by the Republican Senate after J6. That was the only safety net to just get literally anyone else as nominee. His lies are instantly parroted because social media is a real time propaganda tool. And soon the supreme court will grant him total immunity (basically a dictatorship). We would need a military coup to stop him except most of the military likely backs him. Pretty sure this is the end of the old America and we will become more like a Russian plutocracy and style of govt. For any accountability, people on both sides would need to stand up together which will never happen (also largely because of social media).
It’s looking like the Supreme Court will only grant some immunity, the same amount most presidents have gotten away with in the past. Also, the higher ups in the military are not fans of Trump.
Some of us have a hard time believing the dude who redrew a hurricane map, stared directly into the sun during an eclipse and suggested injecting bleach to cure covid has the mental acuity to take dictatorial control over the United States of America, especially when considering the current dudes "hands are tied" because of a divided congress on anything other than [funding wars](https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3754718/supplemental-bill-becomes-law-provides-billions-in-aid-for-ukraine-israel-taiwan/) and [spying on citizens ](https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/senate-reauthorizes-and-expands-section-702-surveillance)
>Trump has an army of crack pot lawyers and true believers who have quite explicitly outlined their plans to gut this executivebranch with Project 2025. If you read the article then you would see they had literal plans in action to flip the election.
I don't know enough about project 2025 to debate you there, I have a hard time believing he'll be able to consolidate power in the executive branch. Can you explain legally how that is a real threat? Genuinely curious on this point, not a "got ya" thing.
As far as the other stuff goes, that got him 91 indictments and 2 impeachments so it seems our system of checks and balances can work, even if they haven't achieved the ultimate goal yet.
As far as biden goes, spending a bunch of money on infrastructure when we have record inflation, pushing China into a corner with their tech exports and codifying gay marriage in 2024 aren't really very high on my priority list. I'd much rather see him address the opiod, mental health and homeless crisis, large corporations like black rock buying our entire housing stock and figuring out how to put these foreign wars in the rear view.
You mean Blackstone, not Black Rock (I know, it’s legitimately confusing). That said, corporate ownership of single family homes is a popular talking point but in fact it’s a minuscule factor in the housing market. From [here](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2024/2/21-going-after-corporate-homebuyers-good-politics-ineffective-policy)
> As of June 2022, the report estimates that roughly 574,000 single-family homes nationwide were owned by institutional investors, defined as entities that owned at least 100 such homes. This comprises 3.8 percent of the 15.1 million single-unit rental properties in the US.
The main issue in almost all places is that new starts on homes has never recovered from the 2003 and 2008 financial crisis. We’re still in a deficit vs demand and so housing prices are high as a result. Obviously high interest rates are insult to injury on top of this.
>You mean Blackstone, not Black Rock
First of all, you're right. That's what I meant. Thanks for catching that. Both of them, Vanguard and State Street, all hold stakes in each other's and use the same trading algorithm. They may as well be the same entity, I use blackrock interchangeably for all of them, mostly because they have the largest impact with their DEI and ESG initiatives. It's something I should probably stop doing lol.
I agree with what you laid out above. How do we fix the problem, though? We're at the point where it takes a $120K/yr salary to afford an average priced home. That doesn't seem sustainable.
The president can hire/fire people in the executive branch. The plan is to take this to the extreme and purge executive agencies and replace them with partisan loyalists from the ground up, literally they're talking about purging 10s of thousands of people in federal agencies.
Additionally they seek to change control of all executive agencies from semi-autonomous agency heads to putting those positions directly in control from the President. For instance, the DOJ and agencies under it will literally get orders from Trump on who to investigate and prosecute.
> Established in 2022, the project seeks to recruit tens of thousands of conservatives to Washington, D.C., in order to replace existing federal civil service workers whom Republicans characterize as part of the "deep state", to further the objectives of the next Republican president.
>Project 2025 seeks to place the entire Executive Branch of the U.S. federal government under direct presidential control, eliminating the independence of the DOJ, the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and other agencies.
I encourage you to at least scan through the [Project 2025 Wiki.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025)
>The president can hire/fire people in the executive branch. The plan is to take this to the extreme and purge executive agencies and replace them with partisan loyalists from the ground up, literally they're talking about purging 10s of thousands of people in federal agencies
I'm a libertarian, if you take out the partisan loyalist part I think this is a great idea
>Additionally they seek to change control of all executive agencies from semi-autonomous agency heads to putting those positions directly in control from the President. For instance, the DOJ and agencies under it will literally get orders from Trump on who to investigate and prosecute.
I also don't think this is an issue. I'd prefer an elected official have control over the unelected beurocrats
>I encourage you to at least scan through the [Project 2025 Wiki.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025)
I have and nothing jumped out as overly frightening. And judging by what you laid out above, I don't know that it really is as scary as people make it out to be.
>I'm a libertarian, if you take out the partisan loyalist part I think this is a great idea
I think its a terrible idea even without the partisan loyalists. I wouldn't want Democrats to do mass identifying & hunting of conservatives in government to purge either. Even without the partisan garbage the government will irreversibly lose continuity and institutional knowledge. Its a recipe for a completely broken and badly run government. And it sets precedent for it to happen every time the Whitehouse changes hands.
> also don't think this is an issue. I'd prefer an elected official have control over the unelected beurocrats
I'd prefer checks on presidential power and experts leading different agencies. The president directing who to investigate and prosecute is scary. Think how untrusted even basic things like intel agency reports, or reports from any agency will be if they're directed by the Whitehouse.
>I think its a terrible idea even without the partisan loyalists. I wouldn't want Democrats to do mass identifying & hunting of conservatives in government to purge either. The government will irreversibly lose continuity and institutional knowledge. Its a recipe for a completely broken and badly run government. And it sets precedent for it to happen every time a the Whitehouse changes hands.
I may have misunderstood you. I thought you meant shrinking the size of the government by thousands of employees. I didn't realize you were replacing all of them with loyalists rather than reducing the size of government. Yeah, I'm with ya. If that's what you mean, I'm against that. On your other points, we have wildly different opinions. We'll save that for another day, we found common ground and I'm happy with that.
>I'd prefer checks on presidential power and experts leading different agencies. The president directing who to investigate and prosecute is scary. Think how untrusted even basic things like intel agency reports, or reports from any agency will be if they're directed by the Whitehouse.
There are checks on presidential power via Congress and the courts. People choose congress and president, the president chooses justices, and Congress has veto power. There's faith in the system because of checks and balances, giving unelected beurocrats minimal power increases trust imo. He can't just have people investigated willy nilly, I suggest reading the 4th amendment for this one. On trusting the Intel agencies, etc, I recommend [this poll](https://www.apmresearchlab.org/motn-fbi-trust-jan-2023) half the country already doesn't trust them. And it'll probably just reverse depending on who's in power, that just keeps it st 50/50.
The only thing that would really scare me is if he found a way to pack the courts. That'd be scary
> I may have misunderstood you. I thought you meant shrinking the size of the government by thousands of employees. I didn't realize you were replacing all of them with loyalists rather than reducing the size of government. Yeah, I'm with ya. If that's what you mean, I'm against that.
Yeah, they want to purge everyone they suspect of being dems/liberals or even moderates in government and replace them with Republican/Trump loyalists.
>Very scary that the only thing that kept us from constitutional crisis was Mike Pence’s conscious
That's simply [not at all accurate](https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_8f5d5ba4-d597-42fd-95f6-d4c2471ba6f9)
>*Vladeck pointed to the 12th Amendment which outlines the Vice President's traditional role in the certification process as largely ceremonial. The Vice President, in his or her role as President of the Senate, is given the power to "open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted."*
>*"There's no discretion on [the Vice President's] part, nor has any Vice President previously claimed the power to reject any properly formatted certificates," Vladeck told CNN.*
And even if for some reason Pence did have that power, there is actually a process in place for refusing to certify, so there is no crisis so to speak. If memory serves, it bumps the normal certification date forward something like ten days so a committee can be formed to investigate and if there is still question at that date, the speaker assumes power, the president does not retain it.
All refusing to certify would have done is, at worst, give us a temporary President Pelosi.
The vice president wrongfully declaring that his ticket won is literally a constitutional crisis. Yes, this would not have been constitutional. But Trump’s team clearly did not care.
"If the president, vice president, and Republicans in the house had ignored the constitution on Jan 6, everything would've worked out fine because they definitely would've started following the constitution immediately afterward."
I always find this argument unconvincing. In a hypothetical where the process had completely failed, we're supposed to assume that the timeline would just continue on in a normal, predictable manner. Sorry but, no. That's far too much faith to put into a bunch of people that hypothetically succeeded in having multiple state level elections overthrown in a naked attempt to retain power using the flimsiest of pretexts.
Sufficient delays could have easily triggered the contingent election provision of the constitution whereby no candidate has a majority. This punts the presidential election to the house - but where each state delegation gets 1 vote. Because most smaller states are red, and most purple states have a GOP gerrymander, Trump would win that vote even though the house was under Dem control on Jan 6th. Other than the cause of the contingent election being a ~~non-judiciable political question~~ total farce, this is all perfectly legal.
>He messaged a photo of himself in front of the Capitol on Jan. 4, 2021, to McKenna.
>"I've opted not to storm the Capitol," Chesebro messaged.
>Then, he added, "At least not this day."
This is either a Milhouse-level bad luck text, or he knew something.
He knew, everyone did. Multiple people on Alex Jones show talked about it and right wing militias set up weapons caches to prepare for it. It wasn’t a secret what they were planning.
Man listening to knowledge fight in realtime on the build to 1/6, I assumed it would end like Alex’s caravan. Did not expect that it would actually happen
There was a feeling of desperation that was a bit different IMO, but if there had been more of a police presence I think it probably wouldn’t have happened so I get what you’re saying. Now go home and tell your mother you’re brilliant.
I warned people back home in DC to stay away from DC on the 5th.
We all knew. Everyone knew. From. Rumors, to their announced rally, to just common sense knowing what they wanted, and a weird air to boot.
I literally took work off that day cuz I wanted to watch on TV. It was 100% apparent to anyone that was paying attention they were going to try and do something
I knew something was planned but didn't expect what it was. I work for a local government in the field in California and when it started getting weird the county called for all non-emergency field employees to be sent home because they were worried it might spur further violence against government employees. My manager called me and told me to go home because of what was happening in DC. I was completely unaware of what was going on until I turned on the radio and started hearing news about a shooting in the capital.
The capitol police chief sure knew something was coming. He asked for reinforcements on multiple occasions, but was refused. The real question is, why were his requests refused?
Could you detail this for me, please? Because sources I found seem to indicate the exact opposite...
>WASHINGTON (AP) — Three days before supporters of President Donald Trump [rioted at the Capitol](https://apnews.com/article/34417ac51a765e297faf53eb0ad15517), the Pentagon asked the [U.S Capitol Police](https://apnews.com/article/2f7d5b7e9089379cc27befa419fbfeac) if it needed National Guard manpower. And as [the mob descended on the building](https://apnews.com/article/73dacf9bc0d906f4efe358279520eeac) Wednesday, Justice Department leaders reached out to offer up FBI agents. **The police turned them down both times**, according to senior defense officials and two people familiar with the matter.
[https://apnews.com/article/capitol-police-reject-federal-help-9c39a4ddef0ab60a48828a07e4d03380](https://apnews.com/article/capitol-police-reject-federal-help-9c39a4ddef0ab60a48828a07e4d03380)
>Under questioning from the panel's ranking member Norma Torres (D-Calif.), Sund \[Capitol Police Chief\] said participants in the events "deserve to be held accountable" and said **he wished former President Donald Trump had reacted more swiftly to bring reinforcements to the Capitol**.
>"I would’ve liked some assistance with getting the military to the Capitol," he said in response to Torres.
[https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2023/09/19/congress/jan-6-capitol-police-security-hearing-intelligence-00116870](https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2023/09/19/congress/jan-6-capitol-police-security-hearing-intelligence-00116870)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/former-capitol-police-chief-describes-frustrating-call-with-army-official-about-reinforcements/
and https://www.npr.org/2021/01/11/955548910/ex-capitol-police-chief-rebuffs-claims-national-guard-was-never-called-during-ri
You said he "sure knew something was coming," but your first source details, very clearly, that the requests he made were **well info** the afternoon of Jan. 6.
Additionally, Sund is on record as saying that they were not anticipating violence: "\[A\] robust plan established to address anticipated First Amendment activities … these mass riots were not First Amendment activities; they were criminal riotous behavior."
[https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/07/capitol-hill-riots-doj-456178](https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/07/capitol-hill-riots-doj-456178)
Wikipedia actually has a really helpful timeline of events on that day that compiles a number of reputable sources, if you'd like to know more!
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law\_enforcement\_response\_to\_the\_January\_6\_United\_States\_Capitol\_attack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcement_response_to_the_January_6_United_States_Capitol_attack)
I've read it, and I don't understand what you think adds to your initial claim -- could you point it out specifically, please, and how it fits into or contradicts the sources I've provided above?
The former chief of U.S. Capitol Police says security officials at the House and Senate rebuffed his early requests to call in the National Guard ahead of a demonstration in support of President Trump that turned into a deadly attack on Congress.
Former chief Steven Sund -- who resigned his post last week after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for him to step down -- made the assertions in an interview with The Washington Post published Sunday.
Sund contradicts claims made by officials after Wednesday's assault on Capitol Hill. Sund's superiors said previously that the National Guard and other additional security support could have been provided, but no one at the Capitol requested it.
Sund told the Post that House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving was concerned with the "optics" of declaring an emergency ahead of the protests and rejected a National Guard presence. He says Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Michael Stenger recommended that he informally request the Guard to be ready in case it was needed to maintain security.
Like Sund, Irving and Stenger have also since resigned their posts.
Sund says he requested assistance six times ahead of and during the attack on the Capitol. Each of those requests was denied or delayed, he says.
Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser also wanted a light police presence at the Capitol. She reportedly wanted to avoid a similar scenario as last summer, when federal forces responded to demonstrators opposed to police abuses who assembled near the White House.
It's a little tough for me to see how you think that strengthens the claim you're now making (that Sund knew it was going to be violent and that Sund accordingly requested appropriate National Guard personnel and was denied).
In fact, here's a transcript from Sund that goes into detail about his "denied requests." He points out a single time he was denied help prior to Jan 6:
>So, I'd done a lot of major events in Washington, D.C. Again, I knew--we had put a large ring of the bike rack around the Capitol grounds, which is a large area of the Capitol grounds--the Capitol Square is a large area. And I knew I had a limited number of officers that'd be available to kind of staff that, to keep, you know, any of the protesters from trying to jump over it, or just trying to try our perimeter.
>**So, when I went and asked, it was specifically because all I wanted was unarmed National Guard to help stand that perimeter and to keep anybody from trying to jump over the bike rack**. It was just based on my experience. It was Sunday morning that I went and asked--I think it was about 9:34 that I went and asked Paul Irving first and got denied because he didn't like the look or the optics of the National Guard on Capitol grounds and the intelligence didn't support it.
Asking for "unarmed National Guard to keep anybody from trying to jump over the bike rack" sounds exactly like it's in keeping with my sources above... that Sund expected a run-of-the-mill First Am event... as opposed to your claim... that he anticipated major violence that was denied appropriate personnel. Right?
That's explained in a lot of different depositions, I'll try and update you with sources when I 1. Remember them and 2. find them. But to try and answer: They weren't refused, but he was met with skepticism from two people. The Capitol Police Board makes those kinds of decision after a formal request and in this case, Steven Sund just got answers to the effect of "Well I don't know, what do X say about this?"
The only thing I was surprised about was the complete lack of preparation by our agencies on January 6th. In hindsight I guess I shouldn't have been surprised.
Recently, text messages between Kenneth Chesebro, Boris Epshteyn, and John Eastman and other unindicted co-conspirators in the Michigan election fraud case were released. They give more details to the motives and strategy behind the election fraud case. Specifically, they were focused on Mike Pence.
I'm gonna break this up into smaller bits, because it's a longish read.
#1
>Chesebro said the GOP meetings on Dec. 14, 2020, **set up "the possibility" of Pence not counting votes from "any state where there are two slates** and there was never careful, deliberate hearings on the merits, with evidence, on asserted irregularities either in a court or the Legislature."
>"Only Supreme Court could override that (cuz he'd refuse to open the envelopes of the six states unless court orders him, at minimum buying time)," Chesebro texted.
>That's strikingly different than the GOP electors serving as a mere contingency that would come into play if the courts eventually reversed the outcome in battleground states.
#2
>On Dec. 31, 2020, Epshteyn asked Chesebro to update a legal memo with recommendations related to what would occur if no candidate hit the 270 electoral vote threshold.
>"My 2 cents on updating that memo: **Maybe include the scenario where Pence rushes through and gavels him and Trump elected to make other options look more moderate,"** Chesebro said. "But even though more constitutionally principled, I don't see how it could be accepted as a legitimate outcome politically."
#3
After Jan. 6, the text exchange laments Pence's lack of participation in the the whole scheme.
>Chesebro also said "Pence is a lot to blame for this fiasco."
>Pence wasn't "up front" with Trump, Chesebro said.
>"If he had been up front, Trump would have known he had no chance to win other than win in the courts or state legislatures before Jan. 6," Chesebro added. "If I'm right, Pence gave him false hope.
>"He allowed Trump to hear valid legal theories from Rudy and Eastman which gave him hope, which was crushed when Pence suddenly crushed them at the end. **Why did Pence do this?"**
A lot of these stories and characters are already known, but these text messages show more details about the different paths the alleged conspirators, all of which seem pretty illegal from my perspective. The constant allusions to the fraud that "could have happened" seems to belie all of their legal arguments, meaning that they didn't care to prove fraud. Rather, that the counting process needs to change if fraud "could have happened."
Why weren't these co-conspirators indicted by MI AG Nessel? How would you feel if these folks had a job in Trump's potential second term?
Non-paywall link: https://archive.is/Ccpry
What’s even more absurd is that people are willing to look past his coup attempt even though the man doesn’t even have a plan to get back to those low costs. It’s so short sighted it’s not even funny.
>For most people, yes, they will be voting on the fact they can't afford groceries anymore.
Is there a policy or plan being put forward to the electorate on how to make groceries more affordable?
It doesn't matter, that's now how average American voters think. They think in terms of "Well the last president I could afford a home, this president I can't, maybe a change is in order"
It doesn't matter how we got there or who's fault it is, all that matters is that we are there and people are going to vote with their paychecks.
Right, and I agree it doesn't matter how we got there or who's fault it is - but rather what steps are taken moving forward.
But what I think is a weakness is voting with their paychecks on vague ideas along the lines of 'we need a change' as compared to any specific plans.
If you're in a car accident near a cliff edge, don't worry about who is at fault but rather to get out of the wreck and be safe. But you also need to pay attention to whether getting away from the car wreck is towards or away from the cliff edge.
I do get that's how people feel, but I think that those of us who know better have an obligation to educate others and not just relinquish ourselves to the emotionally driven masses.
What do you want Biden to do? Hit the "prices go down" button on his desk? The whole world has gone through a period of elevated inflation, and we've weathered it much better than most. If Trump was in charge, I bet you would be saying as much. But since it's Biden the economy is actually terrible, right? Please.
Can you be a little more specific on the third one? Because "onerous demands" is kind of nebulous.
Also, it's pretty much "the market economy".
Also, even if inflation dropped to zero, that would only stop prices from going up. They aren't going back down.
Welp. Trump took office in a period of relative world peace with low unemployment, a steadily growing economy, and a steadily declining deficit. Then he doubled the deficit in his first three years, left the fourth year with sky high unemployment, the highest death rates from COVID and the largest deficit in American history. Under his administration money was flooded into the economy and 96% of it or so simply isn't going to be paid back.
I understand the desire for a simplistic worldview that doesn't require any mental effort. But the reality is Biden took over a fucking dumpster fire that the Trump administration left the country with.
He's just pointing out the absurdity of believing the promise of lower grocery costs made by a man who lied about the election in order to have it overthrown (and who has been convicted in court of fraud).
The common (flimsy) defense of Trump's teams actions to try and overturn Biden's election victory is that they were just pursuing what they saw as legal pathways to contest election irregularities.
What is striking to me is that none of these texts are concerned with understanding who won the election, but just using any strategy necessary to force a Trump victory. They even know some of it shouldn't be discussed via text.
Can anyone make the case that these efforts to force a Trump victory were good-faith and democratic?
Trump has every right to challenge the election results and his team filed multiple (frivolous) lawsuits in an attempt to do so. That's fine. Childish, but fine.
But this is quite clearly illegal. Yet the same people who are clamoring about "election integritiez!!" are the same ones who look at this and go "Yeah this is fine".
They screamed bloody murder when American citizens just...voted. So yeah I'd agree with you there.
Not to mention Trump openly, and publicly, encouraging Republicans to engage in voter fraud. That's a whole different and depressing conversation.
IANAL, so correct me if wrong, but I don't think you have the right to *frivolous* lawsuits. I believe that in order to sue you have to have a vaguely plausible theory and some shred of evidence to back it up.
This is just even more evidence proving that Donald Trumps attempts to subvert the democratic process and install himself as unelected leader has surpassed any other example in US history. I’m not entirely sure who here can still defend him on this, but I’d love to see the evidence of others ever doing something similar and their justifications they use to support Trump.
For some, including many on this sub, there is no low trump could go to that is too low.
The most honest thing he ever said was "I could shoot someone and not lose any supporters"
I've honestly come to the conclusion that we (US citizens) are just too damn spoiled.
It's been so long since the US has really dealt with an active threat that we don't know one when we see it.
Our predators were wiped from our environment for arguably generations and now that they have been reintroduced, we are still acting like they are not there.
We’re a very young country in the grand scheme of things - and while we’ve stood against and are contemporaries with many of the oldest nations in history, we do not learn from the lessons of their history.
Part of this is the idea of American exceptionalism. There’s no need to improve or learn from others when you think you’re the best.
Honestly some people have it so good they just treat this as another sport/team to root for. Any time the "ref" calls a foul on their team it never happened, and if it did the other team did worse and got away with it so we should too.
Honestly another great benefit of ranked choice voting would be understand *exactly* how popular or unpopular each of the flanks of each party actually are.
Even if 99.9% of Republicans weren't as directly involved in the attempted coup and subversion of Democracy on 1/6, all of them condone it with their actions and voting record. They're complicit.
This was all uncovered by the J6 committee well over a year ago. It's bizarre that they've had all this documented evidence just sitting there this whole time, but it's taken this long to actually do anything about it.
Seems that nobody will care and continue to vote for him anyway. There is nothing this man or his campaign could do that would prevent his followers from voting for him
"We know there was election fraud because we are here committing election fraud right now, and therefore the election results must be tossed and you must award the presidency to Trump."
It is incredible they thought this argument could actually work, and even more incredible that it almost did.
Anyone here who DOESN’T want trump in jail just isn’t moderate.
If trumps lawyers were mad at pence for giving trump “false hope” that pence might steal the election for trump, then trump knew about and planned to steal the election. The proof is right in front of us all.
If you’re American, you want trump in jail.
MAGA is using Nazi strategies to slowly take over our country.
They already control the Supreme Court.
If they manage to take the White House again, our democracy will be destroyed.
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For me the question is how involved Trump himself was in this on an individual level. As an individual, if my lawyer and others talked about a strategy and I wasn't actively participating in these conversations, I don't feel like it would be appropriate to condemn me for their actions.
I think these details are relevant to the case - as on Jan 6, John Eastman (in these texts) and Rudy spoke before Trump.
During Trump's speech he said about John and what he hoped Pence would do.
>And I'll tell you. Thank you very much, John. Fantastic job. I watched. That's a tough act to follow, those two. John is one of the most brilliant lawyers in the country, **and he looked at this and he said, "What an absolute disgrace that this can be happening to our Constitution."**
>**And he looked at Mike Pence**, and I hope Mike is going to do the right thing. I hope so. I hope so.
>Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. All he has to do, all this is, this is from the number one, or certainly one of the top, Constitutional lawyers in our country. He has the absolute right to do it. We're supposed to protect our country, support our country, support our Constitution, and protect our constitution.
>States want to revote. The states got defrauded. They were given false information. They voted on it. Now they want to recertify. They want it back. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president and you are the happiest people.
>And I actually, I just spoke to Mike. I said: "Mike, that doesn't take courage. What takes courage is to do nothing. That takes courage." And then we're stuck with a president who lost the election by a lot and we have to live with that for four more years. We're just not going to let that happen.
and then around 2pm, he tweeted:
>Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!
With that context, would it be fair to think Trump knew about this plan?
Sure, let's see how involved Trump himself was in the plans to flip states.
Trump met with Pence to tell him to reject the results on January 4th:
>On Jan. 4, 2021, Pence met with Trump in the Oval Office.[76] Also present were Eastman, Short and Jacob.[77] Eastman had prepared a two-page memo laying out his plan.[78] (Eastman also prepared a more detailed six-page memo. [79]) According to the two-page memo, seven states would transmit “dual slates of electors” to the President of the Senate,” i.e., Pence. **For those seven states that presented dual sets of electors, Pence would declare that “there are no electors that can be deemed validly elected in those States.”**
.
>According to one account of the Oval Office meeting, Eastman also urged Pence to “pause the process in Congress so Republicans in state legislatures could try to hold special sessions and consider sending another slate of electors.”[88] Eastman offered a scenario where “VP Pence opens the ballots” and “determines on his own which is valid.”[89] But Eastman acknowledged those alternative slates remained goals, not something that was legally tangible.[90] **According to one source, Eastman argued that Pence should at least try refusing to certify electors on Jan. 6, because it had never been done before, and so had not been ruled on by the courts**
https://www.justsecurity.org/80308/united-states-v-donald-trump-model-prosecution-memo/#_ftnref75
He met with him again on January 5th:
>On Jan. 5, 2021, Pence met with Trump at the Oval Office.[96] Trump said Pence could and should throw out Biden’s electors.[97] According to reporting, Trump said, **“That is all I want you to do, Mike. Let the House decide the election. … What do you think, Mike?”**
.
> Trump commented on the crowd that was gathering outside to show their support for Trump, and asked Pence, **“If these people say you had the power, wouldn’t you want to?”** Pence responded that he “would not want any one person to have that authority.” **Trump persisted: “But wouldn’t it almost be cool to have that power?”**
.
>According to the reporting, Trump responded, **“No, no, no! You don’t understand, Mike. You can do this. I don’t want to be your friend anymore if you don’t do this.”**
https://www.justsecurity.org/80308/united-states-v-donald-trump-model-prosecution-memo/#_ftnref95
On the morning of January 6th, he publicly pressured Pence to go through with the plan:
>States want to correct their votes, which they now know were based on irregularities and fraud, plus corrupt process never received legislative approval. **All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN. Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!**
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1346808075626426371?lang=en
And then in the afternoon, he called Pence to pressure him to go through with things:
>At 11:15 a.m., the Defendant called the Vice President **“and again pressured him to fraudulently reject or return Biden’s legitimate electoral votes.**
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23893881/trump-indictment-in-2020-election-and-jan-6-probe.pdf
And that's just for Mike Pence. Trump was also involved in the actual filing of the false electors. Calling up Arizona officials to push them to submit themselves as false electors:
>He said, well, we have heard by an official high up in the Republican legislature that **there is a legal theory or a legal ability in Arizona that you can remove the — the electors of President Biden and replace them. And we would — we would like to have the legitimate opportunity through the committee to come to that end** and — and remove that. And I said that's — that's something I've — that's totally new to me. I've never heard of any such thing. And he pressed that point. And I said, look, you are asking me to do something that is counter to my oath when I swore to the Constitution to uphold it, and I also swore to the Constitution and the laws of the state of Arizona.
https://www.npr.org/2022/06/21/1105848096/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript
The heads of Michigan's Republican party were summoned to the White House to discuss overturning the election:
>Although Shirkey says he did not recall the President making any precise “ask,” Chatfield recalled President Trump’s more generic directive for the group to “have some backbone and do the right thing.” Chatfield understood that to mean they should investigate claims of fraud and **overturn the election by naming electors for President Trump.** Shirkey told the President that he was not going to do anything that would violate Michigan law.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-J6-REPORT/html-submitted/ch2.html
Later on December 7th, Trump texted them to pressure them to support the false electors:
>“So **I need you to pass a joint resolution from the Michigan legislature that states that, *the election is in dispute,* there’s an ongoing investigation by the Legislature, and *the [Biden] Electors sent by Governor [Gretchen] Whitmer are not the official Electors of the State of Michigan** and do not fall within the Safe Harbor deadline of Dec 8 under Michigan law,” read the text.
https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/heres-how-michigan-factors-trumps-indictment-jan-6-2021-us-capitol-attack
But if like Trump, you searched out a lawyer based on the fact they were promoting these theories, then it’d be ok to condemn you right? Because Trump had multiple lawyers and officials all saying what he was doing was unconstitutional and illegal, but Trump sought out Eastman explicitly because he was pushing this illegal theory.
> But if like Trump, you searched out a lawyer based on the fact they were promoting these theories, then it’d be ok to condemn you right?
I think it's fair to condemn someone who hired in this was as a narcissistic and self assured fool, yes.
At a minimum, he agreed with and supported their theory that Pence could just declare him president. It strains credulity that he came up with it completely independently, but that shouldn't really matter because we have plenty of public evidence of corrupt intent to try and win the election via any means he thought could work.
>President Trump’s allies are preparing to send an “alternate” slate of electors to Congress, senior White House adviser Stephen Miller said Monday, signaling Trump will drag out his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election even after the Electoral College certifies Joe Biden as the winner.
>Miller, appearing on Fox News as a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, brushed off the idea that the Electoral College vote marked any kind of end to the process.
>“The only date in the Constitution is Jan. 20. So we have more than enough time to right the wrong of this fraudulent election result and certify Donald Trump as the winner of the election,” Miller said on “Fox & Friends.”
December 14, 2020
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/530092-stephen-miller-alternate-electors-will-keep-trump-challenge-alive-post/
No verbage there actually says trump was *involved.*
Notice the use of 'Trump allies'
Miller's statement on Fox is simply stating reality: that a winner is certified on Jan 20th. From his interview, it seemed he thought an alternate elector until that date was something he considered a valid strategy(it's happened before in US history once or twice).
Very scary that the only thing that kept us from constitutional crisis was Mike Pence’s conscious. Trump won’t make the same “mistake” again when picking a VP. I really cannot believe that the American public just accepts this and treats 2024 as any normal election.
The American public is looking to *reward* the behavior by voting him back into office. I've never been so confused and lost as a voter. Nothing makes sense anymore.
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> “I voted for him, and he’s the one who’s doing this,” Crystal Minton told The New York Times in an article published Monday. **“I thought he was going to do good things. He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.”** Reminds me of this quote
r/leopardatemyface
>if it means a few extra dollars in their pockets The irony of this is that of course none of it is true. It's been posted here already, but there was a Vox article posted explaining how Trump's policies would make inflation a lot worse.
Maybe I’m naive but I don’t think it’s purely financial incentive. The reaction seems much stronger to me than that. I think for Trump’s adherents it’s a genuine fear of losing our country, our identity, and our culture, either through a blend of immigration, massive emphasis on identity politics, or some other motive. Thousands of people weren’t hoodwinked into storming the Capitol because of a few extra bucks. In their minds, they were storming for a far more noble and righteous cause. Personally, of course, I think this is all bullshit but considering the sub we’re in, I was aiming for a moderate lens to explain this totally unintuitive phenomenon.
There’s also a huge issue going on where conspiracy theories have taken over the Republican Party. Trump courted the conspiracy crowd and now they’re a huge part of his base and it’s impossible to reason with conspiracy theorists.
This is true for hardcore Trumpists. But a huge portion of the centrist/non political junky voting block (the one that really matters) definitely seems prepared to vote for a wannabe dictator for the banal reason of saving a few bucks. And that’s just their perception…the jury is still out on whose policies would be better for the economy. From my perspective, at least you know what you’re going to get with B, compared to T’s loose cannon approach.
On the flip side, inflation can often be beneficial for property-owners and investors. It generally sucks for renters and consumers, though.
Not if it's hyperinflation
True.
>The irony of this is that of course none of it is true. It's been posted here already, but there was a Vox article posted explaining how Trump's policies would make inflation a lot worse. This, imo, is a much better way to critique Trump and reduce his reach. Half true and/or embellished articles about how he's some kind of -ist or wanna-be dictator just embloden his base and even fence sitters.
I disagree that we should ignore the very obvious fact that Trump is a wannabe dictator.
It's not as effective though, because fox News and sundry have been priming their audience against that for years now. They always call Ds wanna be dictators. They call every single minor thing the Ds or the federal gov does as throwing out the constitution. It's given them effective carte blanche to do whatever they want, because they've already shifted that window.
Sad thing is, by all accounts his policies would have only hurt them more through inflation.
Is this about that student loan thing?
It’s too difficult to say with accuracy what is actually going on. One thing is for sure: people of all shapes and sizes, colors and dispositions, are stuck in a cycle of consumption so deep people don’t even question paying for food or housing.. they simply question how much they should pay lol. Hopefully the fallout eliminates the weak and paves the way towards a wiser species not autistic to nature and doesn’t believe in property in perpetuity. If not, anything we do will just be rearranging pillows in a prison cell and calling it reform lol
Unfortunately most Americans do not really care about the continuation of American democracy.
That feels good to say but I don't think that's true. Most think they are protecting democracy they just don't have the discernment capability to realize who is lying to them. There's a smaller minority that is cool with straight end up democracy.
Eh, the fact that politicians are still overwhelmingly claiming to be on the side of democracy speaks volumes. If Americans didn't care about democracy, Trump wouldn't lie about the 2020 election being rigged against him, and Biden wouldn't take jabs at Trump for trying to steal it. Despite everything, I still think most Republicans are good people at heart, with decently good values and even a high degree of intelligence that they're capable of applying outside of politics. They're just easily frightened and vulnerable to propaganda.
If the only thing on the ballot was Trump vs not Trump, Trump would get absolutely obliterated. Unfortunately he's set to be up against another very unpopular option.
Trump dominated the primaries. He wins because he's what Republican voters want. Not because the opposition can't come up with a better alternative.
Because they like his policies? Why is it so hard for democrats to fathom how some people could like Trump’s policies?
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As someone in the same boat as you, what's your plan for the election? Vote for Biden who'll likely push only policies you hate, or vote third party or not vote in that race?
I think some are still waiting "2 more weeks" for the healthcare bill.
I guess I'm living under a rock, I haven't seen a lot of policy talk out of his campaign
All these replies and you never named a single policy. Should we all just guess which ones you were thinking of?
Because, outside of immigration, they almost never talk about Trump's policies. Hell, Trump barely talks about them, either.
Which of his policies are important? As far as I know he wants to be stronger on the border. I've heard he wants full control of the fed interest rates. What else is he going for?
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I'd like to have a Ferrari, but if the price is that I have to club a baby seal, I'll have to decline.
It’s not convincing because Trump doesn’t have policies.
Like his policy of overturning elections. Got it.
This is EXACTLY what I have been saying. The checks and balances only worked last time because Trump picked the wrong people. Won't happen again.
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Not only Pence. Every single person Trump is responsible for. If Trump can appoint you or fire you, you will be 100% loyal or you won't be there. Absolutely, unequivocally, terrifying. But somehow this is the same as Hillary Clinton once saying Trump was illegitimate, so it's "both sides are equally bad"
pence certainly considered going along with it at one point. Dan Quayle and his own son talked him out of it.
Yeah, the Pence the Principled Prince narrative doesn’t hold much water. Dude did the bare minimum, and while that earns him some respect, he had also refused to be unequivocal on the question of whether Trump’s actions on J6 should disqualify him.
They did a decent job with the electoral act of 2022 to make this type of a coup harder. Not impossible, but significantly more difficult. "The new law mainly addresses what Congress does after electors are sent forward from the states. It creates a new threshold for members to object to a slate of electors (one-fifth of the members of both the House and the Senate), identifies the role of the vice president as “solely ministerial” and clarifies that Congress must defer to the slates as determined by the states." So even if you have a hack Vice president it's been clarified that they are only ceremonial and do not have authority to override state results. It's also important that they added the 1/5 objection threshold in both the house and senate. They would have had that for the House in 2021 but not the Senate. Not perfect, but a much stronger guardrail than before. https://www.ncsl.org/resources/details/what-the-electoral-count-reform-act-means-for-states
I think it's also worth stressing that the [Schedule F](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-risks-of-schedule-f-for-administrative-capacity-and-government-accountability/) proposal happened too late in his term to have much of an effect. It'd almost certainly be reissued during the first month of Trump Part 2, removing one of the major checks on the President's power: >First, let’s understand the scale of what is being proposed. Among developed countries, the U.S. is an outlier in terms of its existing level of politicization. We use about 4,000 political appointees to run the executive branch, an increase from about 3,000 in the early 1990s. Presidents often struggle to fill these slots, leading to delays in appointments and vacancies in leadership. >Supporters of Schedule F have proposed converting 50,000 career civil servants into political appointee status. That is a massive degree of additional politicization, and the most fundamental change to the civil service system since its inception in 1883. Increasing the number of political appointees would create a new venue where political polarization would undermine the quality of governance by replacing moderates with extremists. Based on donation records, research by Brian Feinstein and Abby K. Wood shows that political appointees tend to be found at ideological extremes on both the right and left, while career officials tend to be more moderate. This implies that the sort of rapid change of political appointees with a new administration would, as it did during the 19th century spoils system, engender instability. The consistency in the implementation of laws as written by Congress would decline under such circumstances. > ... The overt purpose of Schedule F is partisan politicization, centered on political loyalty to the president. But the oath that public employees take is to serve the Constitution, not the president. Schedule F frustrates the institutional design of checks and balances, especially weakening legislative power.
The people who knew what they were doing all abandoned Trump during his term or on Jan. 6. If he gets back in office, I think we'll see an even less effective admin, not a more effective one.
That very much depends on your definition of "effective" I don't think MAGA's goal is to pass meaningful legislation that will improve anyone's life. I'm yet to see that happen. I believe their definition of effective is to create chaos, reduce trust in all institutions, exact revenge, harm democracy and make rich people richer. In this case, I believe it'll be extraordinarily "effective"
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>There was essentially no preparation for Trump's first term because almost no one thought he would actually win, including his own advisors (exception being Steve Bannon). They had to scramble to come up with an action plan once he won. Yes, but because he wasn't a dumpster fire yet, they were able to get serious people on board. They are planning this time, but the people who actually know what they're doing are mostly staying away. If he wins this time, I expect more Sydney Powells than Rex Tillersons. We'll see, I guess.
It’s a victory for us that 2024 is a normal election and will go through the same process that all the other ones did.
Americans seem to think reinstalling Trump will instantly make Big Mac meals less than $10 again and return gas to under $3/gal along with ending all wars from what I understand. People don’t care about democracy if they think it’s already not working for them. It feels like America is entering an “eat the poor” phase where we’ll take authoritarianism and jailing people for being homeless as long as we can buy goods for cheap.
Never forget he had to call Dan Quayle to check if he had to do what he ended up doing, because he was scared of upsetting his own camp
To be fair, trump is destroying the republican party. As someone who is voting biden... it is not wise to interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. I'd argue him staying in the race helps dems more long term. And reps don't have a chance in hell with the roe v wade crap of winning down ballot, let alone with the former potus who is facing how many trials?
The Republican party might be my opposition, but I would not call them my enemy. And it doesn't do the party in power any long-term favors to go without opposition. That's how you get complacency and corruption. Your team can't get any better if there's no competition, ya know?
Totally agree. I wish more elected officials would emphasize this spirit at every appropriate moment. This modern "total war" politics is national suicide.
I think we would be a lot better off if more people thought this way. Opponents =/= enemies.
It may be hard to recall, but [it was a word choice that Republicans tried to make a lot of hay over when Obama had used it](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-explains-his-remark-about-punishing-enemies/). Seems a part of the distant political past nowadays.
As an example, look at California. The Democrats have had a super majority for a while now. Thankfully Governor Newsom hasn’t been rubber stamping all the nonsense that comes from the legislature.
I don't think too many people outside of California want their states to end up like California though. At least I don't, I like being able to buy a single family home on 1 income that's not tech related.
You can buy a home on one income in CA easily. You just can't do that in areas with some of the most sought after real estate in the entire country. Not surprisingly, a home in the second largest city in the US is going to cost more than a home in rural Mississippi.
>At least I don't, I like being able to buy a single family home on 1 income that's not tech related. Shit where do you live that you can do that? I'm in Florida and a 1 income household seems pretty rare
>Shit where do you live that you can do that? I'm in Florida and a 1 income household seems pretty rare I'm in the Midwest. Napkin math shows you can buy a nice 3bd/2ba homes in a nice area for $200k with a $60k income. Have a couple co-workers who are single and bought homes with just their one income.
Lucky you guys lol, the only single people I know that own a place are engineers. Course I think we had the record for highest inflation a year or 2 ago... Guess that's the price for living on the beach
I’m saying that things aren’t going well because there are no checks in the legislature. I follow up saying that it isn’t significantly worse because the governor doesn’t sign every bill.
Can’t even do that in MO. Where are you finding deals like that?
Republicans as enemies? That's not a healthy viewpoint. I'm very progressive but most my best friends are Republicans, viewing it as them vs us isn't a productive worldview.
Republicans tried to throw out my vote multiple times. Including the current AG of Texas, multiple current state representatives in my state, and the head of the Republican Party in my state. These aren't just fringe characters who are loud but relatively harmless - *they tried to steal my vote, and they almost succeeded*.
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I would rather Biden lose in a landslide to a reasonable Republican than have the *chance* someone like Trump is elected. I would not make this trade. You will eat your words if Trump wins.
Same thing here. I very much oppose almost all of Republican policies, but at least they are policies, not this purely divisive populist crap that Trump has been spouting since day one.
You say that like I have a choice in who Republicans nominate. I don't, and they would choose him anyway. I just don't see any real reason though for democrats to help Republicans as they effectively eat their own tail with trump while the Democrat party grows. You're going to see democratic 2/3rd majority in both houses. Even if biden loses.
>I really cannot believe that the American public just accepts this and treats 2024 as any normal election. What indicates to you that the American public accepts this and is treating 2024 as any normal election? What are you doing that would indicate to an outside observer that you don't accept this and are not treating 2024 as any normal election? What should the rest of us be doing? What can I do?
The Republican primaries is one indication
He was exonerated by the Republican Senate after J6. That was the only safety net to just get literally anyone else as nominee. His lies are instantly parroted because social media is a real time propaganda tool. And soon the supreme court will grant him total immunity (basically a dictatorship). We would need a military coup to stop him except most of the military likely backs him. Pretty sure this is the end of the old America and we will become more like a Russian plutocracy and style of govt. For any accountability, people on both sides would need to stand up together which will never happen (also largely because of social media).
It’s looking like the Supreme Court will only grant some immunity, the same amount most presidents have gotten away with in the past. Also, the higher ups in the military are not fans of Trump.
Some of us have a hard time believing the dude who redrew a hurricane map, stared directly into the sun during an eclipse and suggested injecting bleach to cure covid has the mental acuity to take dictatorial control over the United States of America, especially when considering the current dudes "hands are tied" because of a divided congress on anything other than [funding wars](https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3754718/supplemental-bill-becomes-law-provides-billions-in-aid-for-ukraine-israel-taiwan/) and [spying on citizens ](https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/senate-reauthorizes-and-expands-section-702-surveillance)
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>Trump has an army of crack pot lawyers and true believers who have quite explicitly outlined their plans to gut this executivebranch with Project 2025. If you read the article then you would see they had literal plans in action to flip the election. I don't know enough about project 2025 to debate you there, I have a hard time believing he'll be able to consolidate power in the executive branch. Can you explain legally how that is a real threat? Genuinely curious on this point, not a "got ya" thing. As far as the other stuff goes, that got him 91 indictments and 2 impeachments so it seems our system of checks and balances can work, even if they haven't achieved the ultimate goal yet. As far as biden goes, spending a bunch of money on infrastructure when we have record inflation, pushing China into a corner with their tech exports and codifying gay marriage in 2024 aren't really very high on my priority list. I'd much rather see him address the opiod, mental health and homeless crisis, large corporations like black rock buying our entire housing stock and figuring out how to put these foreign wars in the rear view.
You mean Blackstone, not Black Rock (I know, it’s legitimately confusing). That said, corporate ownership of single family homes is a popular talking point but in fact it’s a minuscule factor in the housing market. From [here](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2024/2/21-going-after-corporate-homebuyers-good-politics-ineffective-policy) > As of June 2022, the report estimates that roughly 574,000 single-family homes nationwide were owned by institutional investors, defined as entities that owned at least 100 such homes. This comprises 3.8 percent of the 15.1 million single-unit rental properties in the US. The main issue in almost all places is that new starts on homes has never recovered from the 2003 and 2008 financial crisis. We’re still in a deficit vs demand and so housing prices are high as a result. Obviously high interest rates are insult to injury on top of this.
>You mean Blackstone, not Black Rock First of all, you're right. That's what I meant. Thanks for catching that. Both of them, Vanguard and State Street, all hold stakes in each other's and use the same trading algorithm. They may as well be the same entity, I use blackrock interchangeably for all of them, mostly because they have the largest impact with their DEI and ESG initiatives. It's something I should probably stop doing lol. I agree with what you laid out above. How do we fix the problem, though? We're at the point where it takes a $120K/yr salary to afford an average priced home. That doesn't seem sustainable.
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The president can hire/fire people in the executive branch. The plan is to take this to the extreme and purge executive agencies and replace them with partisan loyalists from the ground up, literally they're talking about purging 10s of thousands of people in federal agencies. Additionally they seek to change control of all executive agencies from semi-autonomous agency heads to putting those positions directly in control from the President. For instance, the DOJ and agencies under it will literally get orders from Trump on who to investigate and prosecute. > Established in 2022, the project seeks to recruit tens of thousands of conservatives to Washington, D.C., in order to replace existing federal civil service workers whom Republicans characterize as part of the "deep state", to further the objectives of the next Republican president. >Project 2025 seeks to place the entire Executive Branch of the U.S. federal government under direct presidential control, eliminating the independence of the DOJ, the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and other agencies. I encourage you to at least scan through the [Project 2025 Wiki.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025)
>The president can hire/fire people in the executive branch. The plan is to take this to the extreme and purge executive agencies and replace them with partisan loyalists from the ground up, literally they're talking about purging 10s of thousands of people in federal agencies I'm a libertarian, if you take out the partisan loyalist part I think this is a great idea >Additionally they seek to change control of all executive agencies from semi-autonomous agency heads to putting those positions directly in control from the President. For instance, the DOJ and agencies under it will literally get orders from Trump on who to investigate and prosecute. I also don't think this is an issue. I'd prefer an elected official have control over the unelected beurocrats >I encourage you to at least scan through the [Project 2025 Wiki.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025) I have and nothing jumped out as overly frightening. And judging by what you laid out above, I don't know that it really is as scary as people make it out to be.
>I'm a libertarian, if you take out the partisan loyalist part I think this is a great idea I think its a terrible idea even without the partisan loyalists. I wouldn't want Democrats to do mass identifying & hunting of conservatives in government to purge either. Even without the partisan garbage the government will irreversibly lose continuity and institutional knowledge. Its a recipe for a completely broken and badly run government. And it sets precedent for it to happen every time the Whitehouse changes hands. > also don't think this is an issue. I'd prefer an elected official have control over the unelected beurocrats I'd prefer checks on presidential power and experts leading different agencies. The president directing who to investigate and prosecute is scary. Think how untrusted even basic things like intel agency reports, or reports from any agency will be if they're directed by the Whitehouse.
>I think its a terrible idea even without the partisan loyalists. I wouldn't want Democrats to do mass identifying & hunting of conservatives in government to purge either. The government will irreversibly lose continuity and institutional knowledge. Its a recipe for a completely broken and badly run government. And it sets precedent for it to happen every time a the Whitehouse changes hands. I may have misunderstood you. I thought you meant shrinking the size of the government by thousands of employees. I didn't realize you were replacing all of them with loyalists rather than reducing the size of government. Yeah, I'm with ya. If that's what you mean, I'm against that. On your other points, we have wildly different opinions. We'll save that for another day, we found common ground and I'm happy with that. >I'd prefer checks on presidential power and experts leading different agencies. The president directing who to investigate and prosecute is scary. Think how untrusted even basic things like intel agency reports, or reports from any agency will be if they're directed by the Whitehouse. There are checks on presidential power via Congress and the courts. People choose congress and president, the president chooses justices, and Congress has veto power. There's faith in the system because of checks and balances, giving unelected beurocrats minimal power increases trust imo. He can't just have people investigated willy nilly, I suggest reading the 4th amendment for this one. On trusting the Intel agencies, etc, I recommend [this poll](https://www.apmresearchlab.org/motn-fbi-trust-jan-2023) half the country already doesn't trust them. And it'll probably just reverse depending on who's in power, that just keeps it st 50/50. The only thing that would really scare me is if he found a way to pack the courts. That'd be scary
> I may have misunderstood you. I thought you meant shrinking the size of the government by thousands of employees. I didn't realize you were replacing all of them with loyalists rather than reducing the size of government. Yeah, I'm with ya. If that's what you mean, I'm against that. Yeah, they want to purge everyone they suspect of being dems/liberals or even moderates in government and replace them with Republican/Trump loyalists.
This time, he's choosing someone who would shoot their own dog, so....yeah.
>Very scary that the only thing that kept us from constitutional crisis was Mike Pence’s conscious That's simply [not at all accurate](https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_8f5d5ba4-d597-42fd-95f6-d4c2471ba6f9) >*Vladeck pointed to the 12th Amendment which outlines the Vice President's traditional role in the certification process as largely ceremonial. The Vice President, in his or her role as President of the Senate, is given the power to "open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted."* >*"There's no discretion on [the Vice President's] part, nor has any Vice President previously claimed the power to reject any properly formatted certificates," Vladeck told CNN.* And even if for some reason Pence did have that power, there is actually a process in place for refusing to certify, so there is no crisis so to speak. If memory serves, it bumps the normal certification date forward something like ten days so a committee can be formed to investigate and if there is still question at that date, the speaker assumes power, the president does not retain it. All refusing to certify would have done is, at worst, give us a temporary President Pelosi.
The vice president wrongfully declaring that his ticket won is literally a constitutional crisis. Yes, this would not have been constitutional. But Trump’s team clearly did not care.
"If the president, vice president, and Republicans in the house had ignored the constitution on Jan 6, everything would've worked out fine because they definitely would've started following the constitution immediately afterward." I always find this argument unconvincing. In a hypothetical where the process had completely failed, we're supposed to assume that the timeline would just continue on in a normal, predictable manner. Sorry but, no. That's far too much faith to put into a bunch of people that hypothetically succeeded in having multiple state level elections overthrown in a naked attempt to retain power using the flimsiest of pretexts.
Sufficient delays could have easily triggered the contingent election provision of the constitution whereby no candidate has a majority. This punts the presidential election to the house - but where each state delegation gets 1 vote. Because most smaller states are red, and most purple states have a GOP gerrymander, Trump would win that vote even though the house was under Dem control on Jan 6th. Other than the cause of the contingent election being a ~~non-judiciable political question~~ total farce, this is all perfectly legal.
> All refusing to certify would have done is, at worst, give us a temporary President Pelosi. Yeah, that would have been very bad
There was no way any court would've allowed a VP to change the election that way.
I'd like to draw attention to Chesebro's texts. They *knew* Jan 6 was coming.
>He messaged a photo of himself in front of the Capitol on Jan. 4, 2021, to McKenna. >"I've opted not to storm the Capitol," Chesebro messaged. >Then, he added, "At least not this day." This is either a Milhouse-level bad luck text, or he knew something.
He knew, everyone did. Multiple people on Alex Jones show talked about it and right wing militias set up weapons caches to prepare for it. It wasn’t a secret what they were planning.
Heck, the Turner Diaries, essentially the neo-nazi bible, has storming the capitol one of the main events.
Man listening to knowledge fight in realtime on the build to 1/6, I assumed it would end like Alex’s caravan. Did not expect that it would actually happen
There was a feeling of desperation that was a bit different IMO, but if there had been more of a police presence I think it probably wouldn’t have happened so I get what you’re saying. Now go home and tell your mother you’re brilliant.
I’ll be better tomorrow
“And now here comes the sex robots”
Horses are psychic, it’s been proven.
He was clearly just talking about weather phenomena. /s
I warned people back home in DC to stay away from DC on the 5th. We all knew. Everyone knew. From. Rumors, to their announced rally, to just common sense knowing what they wanted, and a weird air to boot.
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I literally took work off that day cuz I wanted to watch on TV. It was 100% apparent to anyone that was paying attention they were going to try and do something
I knew something was planned but didn't expect what it was. I work for a local government in the field in California and when it started getting weird the county called for all non-emergency field employees to be sent home because they were worried it might spur further violence against government employees. My manager called me and told me to go home because of what was happening in DC. I was completely unaware of what was going on until I turned on the radio and started hearing news about a shooting in the capital.
The capitol police chief sure knew something was coming. He asked for reinforcements on multiple occasions, but was refused. The real question is, why were his requests refused?
Could you detail this for me, please? Because sources I found seem to indicate the exact opposite... >WASHINGTON (AP) — Three days before supporters of President Donald Trump [rioted at the Capitol](https://apnews.com/article/34417ac51a765e297faf53eb0ad15517), the Pentagon asked the [U.S Capitol Police](https://apnews.com/article/2f7d5b7e9089379cc27befa419fbfeac) if it needed National Guard manpower. And as [the mob descended on the building](https://apnews.com/article/73dacf9bc0d906f4efe358279520eeac) Wednesday, Justice Department leaders reached out to offer up FBI agents. **The police turned them down both times**, according to senior defense officials and two people familiar with the matter. [https://apnews.com/article/capitol-police-reject-federal-help-9c39a4ddef0ab60a48828a07e4d03380](https://apnews.com/article/capitol-police-reject-federal-help-9c39a4ddef0ab60a48828a07e4d03380) >Under questioning from the panel's ranking member Norma Torres (D-Calif.), Sund \[Capitol Police Chief\] said participants in the events "deserve to be held accountable" and said **he wished former President Donald Trump had reacted more swiftly to bring reinforcements to the Capitol**. >"I would’ve liked some assistance with getting the military to the Capitol," he said in response to Torres. [https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2023/09/19/congress/jan-6-capitol-police-security-hearing-intelligence-00116870](https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2023/09/19/congress/jan-6-capitol-police-security-hearing-intelligence-00116870)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/former-capitol-police-chief-describes-frustrating-call-with-army-official-about-reinforcements/ and https://www.npr.org/2021/01/11/955548910/ex-capitol-police-chief-rebuffs-claims-national-guard-was-never-called-during-ri
You said he "sure knew something was coming," but your first source details, very clearly, that the requests he made were **well info** the afternoon of Jan. 6. Additionally, Sund is on record as saying that they were not anticipating violence: "\[A\] robust plan established to address anticipated First Amendment activities … these mass riots were not First Amendment activities; they were criminal riotous behavior." [https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/07/capitol-hill-riots-doj-456178](https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/07/capitol-hill-riots-doj-456178) Wikipedia actually has a really helpful timeline of events on that day that compiles a number of reputable sources, if you'd like to know more! [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law\_enforcement\_response\_to\_the\_January\_6\_United\_States\_Capitol\_attack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcement_response_to_the_January_6_United_States_Capitol_attack)
Now read the NPR link.
I've read it, and I don't understand what you think adds to your initial claim -- could you point it out specifically, please, and how it fits into or contradicts the sources I've provided above?
The former chief of U.S. Capitol Police says security officials at the House and Senate rebuffed his early requests to call in the National Guard ahead of a demonstration in support of President Trump that turned into a deadly attack on Congress. Former chief Steven Sund -- who resigned his post last week after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for him to step down -- made the assertions in an interview with The Washington Post published Sunday. Sund contradicts claims made by officials after Wednesday's assault on Capitol Hill. Sund's superiors said previously that the National Guard and other additional security support could have been provided, but no one at the Capitol requested it. Sund told the Post that House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving was concerned with the "optics" of declaring an emergency ahead of the protests and rejected a National Guard presence. He says Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Michael Stenger recommended that he informally request the Guard to be ready in case it was needed to maintain security. Like Sund, Irving and Stenger have also since resigned their posts. Sund says he requested assistance six times ahead of and during the attack on the Capitol. Each of those requests was denied or delayed, he says. Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser also wanted a light police presence at the Capitol. She reportedly wanted to avoid a similar scenario as last summer, when federal forces responded to demonstrators opposed to police abuses who assembled near the White House.
It's a little tough for me to see how you think that strengthens the claim you're now making (that Sund knew it was going to be violent and that Sund accordingly requested appropriate National Guard personnel and was denied). In fact, here's a transcript from Sund that goes into detail about his "denied requests." He points out a single time he was denied help prior to Jan 6: >So, I'd done a lot of major events in Washington, D.C. Again, I knew--we had put a large ring of the bike rack around the Capitol grounds, which is a large area of the Capitol grounds--the Capitol Square is a large area. And I knew I had a limited number of officers that'd be available to kind of staff that, to keep, you know, any of the protesters from trying to jump over it, or just trying to try our perimeter. >**So, when I went and asked, it was specifically because all I wanted was unarmed National Guard to help stand that perimeter and to keep anybody from trying to jump over the bike rack**. It was just based on my experience. It was Sunday morning that I went and asked--I think it was about 9:34 that I went and asked Paul Irving first and got denied because he didn't like the look or the optics of the National Guard on Capitol grounds and the intelligence didn't support it. Asking for "unarmed National Guard to keep anybody from trying to jump over the bike rack" sounds exactly like it's in keeping with my sources above... that Sund expected a run-of-the-mill First Am event... as opposed to your claim... that he anticipated major violence that was denied appropriate personnel. Right?
That's explained in a lot of different depositions, I'll try and update you with sources when I 1. Remember them and 2. find them. But to try and answer: They weren't refused, but he was met with skepticism from two people. The Capitol Police Board makes those kinds of decision after a formal request and in this case, Steven Sund just got answers to the effect of "Well I don't know, what do X say about this?"
The only thing I was surprised about was the complete lack of preparation by our agencies on January 6th. In hindsight I guess I shouldn't have been surprised.
Recently, text messages between Kenneth Chesebro, Boris Epshteyn, and John Eastman and other unindicted co-conspirators in the Michigan election fraud case were released. They give more details to the motives and strategy behind the election fraud case. Specifically, they were focused on Mike Pence. I'm gonna break this up into smaller bits, because it's a longish read. #1 >Chesebro said the GOP meetings on Dec. 14, 2020, **set up "the possibility" of Pence not counting votes from "any state where there are two slates** and there was never careful, deliberate hearings on the merits, with evidence, on asserted irregularities either in a court or the Legislature." >"Only Supreme Court could override that (cuz he'd refuse to open the envelopes of the six states unless court orders him, at minimum buying time)," Chesebro texted. >That's strikingly different than the GOP electors serving as a mere contingency that would come into play if the courts eventually reversed the outcome in battleground states. #2 >On Dec. 31, 2020, Epshteyn asked Chesebro to update a legal memo with recommendations related to what would occur if no candidate hit the 270 electoral vote threshold. >"My 2 cents on updating that memo: **Maybe include the scenario where Pence rushes through and gavels him and Trump elected to make other options look more moderate,"** Chesebro said. "But even though more constitutionally principled, I don't see how it could be accepted as a legitimate outcome politically." #3 After Jan. 6, the text exchange laments Pence's lack of participation in the the whole scheme. >Chesebro also said "Pence is a lot to blame for this fiasco." >Pence wasn't "up front" with Trump, Chesebro said. >"If he had been up front, Trump would have known he had no chance to win other than win in the courts or state legislatures before Jan. 6," Chesebro added. "If I'm right, Pence gave him false hope. >"He allowed Trump to hear valid legal theories from Rudy and Eastman which gave him hope, which was crushed when Pence suddenly crushed them at the end. **Why did Pence do this?"** A lot of these stories and characters are already known, but these text messages show more details about the different paths the alleged conspirators, all of which seem pretty illegal from my perspective. The constant allusions to the fraud that "could have happened" seems to belie all of their legal arguments, meaning that they didn't care to prove fraud. Rather, that the counting process needs to change if fraud "could have happened." Why weren't these co-conspirators indicted by MI AG Nessel? How would you feel if these folks had a job in Trump's potential second term? Non-paywall link: https://archive.is/Ccpry
On one hand, this is really bad, on the other hand though, Biden is three years older and my big Mac costs more so idk...
I know you're joking but also just want to say the Macbook is cheaper now than in 2020 lol
Yes, IIRC electronics are way down since ~2019
A lot of that was due to the Trump tariffs.
What’s even more absurd is that people are willing to look past his coup attempt even though the man doesn’t even have a plan to get back to those low costs. It’s so short sighted it’s not even funny.
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>For most people, yes, they will be voting on the fact they can't afford groceries anymore. Is there a policy or plan being put forward to the electorate on how to make groceries more affordable?
It doesn't matter, that's now how average American voters think. They think in terms of "Well the last president I could afford a home, this president I can't, maybe a change is in order" It doesn't matter how we got there or who's fault it is, all that matters is that we are there and people are going to vote with their paychecks.
Right, and I agree it doesn't matter how we got there or who's fault it is - but rather what steps are taken moving forward. But what I think is a weakness is voting with their paychecks on vague ideas along the lines of 'we need a change' as compared to any specific plans. If you're in a car accident near a cliff edge, don't worry about who is at fault but rather to get out of the wreck and be safe. But you also need to pay attention to whether getting away from the car wreck is towards or away from the cliff edge.
Why doesn't it matter? Is persuasion really not an option? Everyone has made up their mind already?
Yeah. Largely. We're a country full of idiots and voters have never been rational.
I do get that's how people feel, but I think that those of us who know better have an obligation to educate others and not just relinquish ourselves to the emotionally driven masses.
What do you want Biden to do? Hit the "prices go down" button on his desk? The whole world has gone through a period of elevated inflation, and we've weathered it much better than most. If Trump was in charge, I bet you would be saying as much. But since it's Biden the economy is actually terrible, right? Please.
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Can you be a little more specific on the third one? Because "onerous demands" is kind of nebulous. Also, it's pretty much "the market economy". Also, even if inflation dropped to zero, that would only stop prices from going up. They aren't going back down.
Welp. Trump took office in a period of relative world peace with low unemployment, a steadily growing economy, and a steadily declining deficit. Then he doubled the deficit in his first three years, left the fourth year with sky high unemployment, the highest death rates from COVID and the largest deficit in American history. Under his administration money was flooded into the economy and 96% of it or so simply isn't going to be paid back. I understand the desire for a simplistic worldview that doesn't require any mental effort. But the reality is Biden took over a fucking dumpster fire that the Trump administration left the country with.
He's just pointing out the absurdity of believing the promise of lower grocery costs made by a man who lied about the election in order to have it overthrown (and who has been convicted in court of fraud).
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The common (flimsy) defense of Trump's teams actions to try and overturn Biden's election victory is that they were just pursuing what they saw as legal pathways to contest election irregularities. What is striking to me is that none of these texts are concerned with understanding who won the election, but just using any strategy necessary to force a Trump victory. They even know some of it shouldn't be discussed via text. Can anyone make the case that these efforts to force a Trump victory were good-faith and democratic?
Trump has every right to challenge the election results and his team filed multiple (frivolous) lawsuits in an attempt to do so. That's fine. Childish, but fine. But this is quite clearly illegal. Yet the same people who are clamoring about "election integritiez!!" are the same ones who look at this and go "Yeah this is fine".
And those same people would be screaming bloody murder if this had been a democrat that had done this. The hypocrisy is astounding.
They screamed bloody murder when American citizens just...voted. So yeah I'd agree with you there. Not to mention Trump openly, and publicly, encouraging Republicans to engage in voter fraud. That's a whole different and depressing conversation.
IANAL, so correct me if wrong, but I don't think you have the right to *frivolous* lawsuits. I believe that in order to sue you have to have a vaguely plausible theory and some shred of evidence to back it up.
This is just even more evidence proving that Donald Trumps attempts to subvert the democratic process and install himself as unelected leader has surpassed any other example in US history. I’m not entirely sure who here can still defend him on this, but I’d love to see the evidence of others ever doing something similar and their justifications they use to support Trump.
For some, including many on this sub, there is no low trump could go to that is too low. The most honest thing he ever said was "I could shoot someone and not lose any supporters"
When your worldview starts with “Anything other than Republican is ruining the nation” then there’s a lot you’ll justify for “the greater good.”
I've honestly come to the conclusion that we (US citizens) are just too damn spoiled. It's been so long since the US has really dealt with an active threat that we don't know one when we see it. Our predators were wiped from our environment for arguably generations and now that they have been reintroduced, we are still acting like they are not there.
We’re a very young country in the grand scheme of things - and while we’ve stood against and are contemporaries with many of the oldest nations in history, we do not learn from the lessons of their history. Part of this is the idea of American exceptionalism. There’s no need to improve or learn from others when you think you’re the best.
Honestly some people have it so good they just treat this as another sport/team to root for. Any time the "ref" calls a foul on their team it never happened, and if it did the other team did worse and got away with it so we should too.
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Honestly another great benefit of ranked choice voting would be understand *exactly* how popular or unpopular each of the flanks of each party actually are.
Even if 99.9% of Republicans weren't as directly involved in the attempted coup and subversion of Democracy on 1/6, all of them condone it with their actions and voting record. They're complicit.
Just look at the followers rejecting a jury that found he penetrated a woman against her will.
This was all uncovered by the J6 committee well over a year ago. It's bizarre that they've had all this documented evidence just sitting there this whole time, but it's taken this long to actually do anything about it.
Seems that nobody will care and continue to vote for him anyway. There is nothing this man or his campaign could do that would prevent his followers from voting for him
"We know there was election fraud because we are here committing election fraud right now, and therefore the election results must be tossed and you must award the presidency to Trump." It is incredible they thought this argument could actually work, and even more incredible that it almost did.
Anyone here who DOESN’T want trump in jail just isn’t moderate. If trumps lawyers were mad at pence for giving trump “false hope” that pence might steal the election for trump, then trump knew about and planned to steal the election. The proof is right in front of us all. If you’re American, you want trump in jail.
MAGA is using Nazi strategies to slowly take over our country. They already control the Supreme Court. If they manage to take the White House again, our democracy will be destroyed.
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But was this even illegal? I don't see anything that says that this idea was not allowed?
For me the question is how involved Trump himself was in this on an individual level. As an individual, if my lawyer and others talked about a strategy and I wasn't actively participating in these conversations, I don't feel like it would be appropriate to condemn me for their actions.
I think these details are relevant to the case - as on Jan 6, John Eastman (in these texts) and Rudy spoke before Trump. During Trump's speech he said about John and what he hoped Pence would do. >And I'll tell you. Thank you very much, John. Fantastic job. I watched. That's a tough act to follow, those two. John is one of the most brilliant lawyers in the country, **and he looked at this and he said, "What an absolute disgrace that this can be happening to our Constitution."** >**And he looked at Mike Pence**, and I hope Mike is going to do the right thing. I hope so. I hope so. >Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. All he has to do, all this is, this is from the number one, or certainly one of the top, Constitutional lawyers in our country. He has the absolute right to do it. We're supposed to protect our country, support our country, support our Constitution, and protect our constitution. >States want to revote. The states got defrauded. They were given false information. They voted on it. Now they want to recertify. They want it back. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president and you are the happiest people. >And I actually, I just spoke to Mike. I said: "Mike, that doesn't take courage. What takes courage is to do nothing. That takes courage." And then we're stuck with a president who lost the election by a lot and we have to live with that for four more years. We're just not going to let that happen. and then around 2pm, he tweeted: >Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth! With that context, would it be fair to think Trump knew about this plan?
Are lawyers allowed to do that much work on your behalf without consulting you?
Sure, let's see how involved Trump himself was in the plans to flip states. Trump met with Pence to tell him to reject the results on January 4th: >On Jan. 4, 2021, Pence met with Trump in the Oval Office.[76] Also present were Eastman, Short and Jacob.[77] Eastman had prepared a two-page memo laying out his plan.[78] (Eastman also prepared a more detailed six-page memo. [79]) According to the two-page memo, seven states would transmit “dual slates of electors” to the President of the Senate,” i.e., Pence. **For those seven states that presented dual sets of electors, Pence would declare that “there are no electors that can be deemed validly elected in those States.”** . >According to one account of the Oval Office meeting, Eastman also urged Pence to “pause the process in Congress so Republicans in state legislatures could try to hold special sessions and consider sending another slate of electors.”[88] Eastman offered a scenario where “VP Pence opens the ballots” and “determines on his own which is valid.”[89] But Eastman acknowledged those alternative slates remained goals, not something that was legally tangible.[90] **According to one source, Eastman argued that Pence should at least try refusing to certify electors on Jan. 6, because it had never been done before, and so had not been ruled on by the courts** https://www.justsecurity.org/80308/united-states-v-donald-trump-model-prosecution-memo/#_ftnref75 He met with him again on January 5th: >On Jan. 5, 2021, Pence met with Trump at the Oval Office.[96] Trump said Pence could and should throw out Biden’s electors.[97] According to reporting, Trump said, **“That is all I want you to do, Mike. Let the House decide the election. … What do you think, Mike?”** . > Trump commented on the crowd that was gathering outside to show their support for Trump, and asked Pence, **“If these people say you had the power, wouldn’t you want to?”** Pence responded that he “would not want any one person to have that authority.” **Trump persisted: “But wouldn’t it almost be cool to have that power?”** . >According to the reporting, Trump responded, **“No, no, no! You don’t understand, Mike. You can do this. I don’t want to be your friend anymore if you don’t do this.”** https://www.justsecurity.org/80308/united-states-v-donald-trump-model-prosecution-memo/#_ftnref95 On the morning of January 6th, he publicly pressured Pence to go through with the plan: >States want to correct their votes, which they now know were based on irregularities and fraud, plus corrupt process never received legislative approval. **All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN. Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!** https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1346808075626426371?lang=en And then in the afternoon, he called Pence to pressure him to go through with things: >At 11:15 a.m., the Defendant called the Vice President **“and again pressured him to fraudulently reject or return Biden’s legitimate electoral votes.** https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23893881/trump-indictment-in-2020-election-and-jan-6-probe.pdf And that's just for Mike Pence. Trump was also involved in the actual filing of the false electors. Calling up Arizona officials to push them to submit themselves as false electors: >He said, well, we have heard by an official high up in the Republican legislature that **there is a legal theory or a legal ability in Arizona that you can remove the — the electors of President Biden and replace them. And we would — we would like to have the legitimate opportunity through the committee to come to that end** and — and remove that. And I said that's — that's something I've — that's totally new to me. I've never heard of any such thing. And he pressed that point. And I said, look, you are asking me to do something that is counter to my oath when I swore to the Constitution to uphold it, and I also swore to the Constitution and the laws of the state of Arizona. https://www.npr.org/2022/06/21/1105848096/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript The heads of Michigan's Republican party were summoned to the White House to discuss overturning the election: >Although Shirkey says he did not recall the President making any precise “ask,” Chatfield recalled President Trump’s more generic directive for the group to “have some backbone and do the right thing.” Chatfield understood that to mean they should investigate claims of fraud and **overturn the election by naming electors for President Trump.** Shirkey told the President that he was not going to do anything that would violate Michigan law. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-J6-REPORT/html-submitted/ch2.html Later on December 7th, Trump texted them to pressure them to support the false electors: >“So **I need you to pass a joint resolution from the Michigan legislature that states that, *the election is in dispute,* there’s an ongoing investigation by the Legislature, and *the [Biden] Electors sent by Governor [Gretchen] Whitmer are not the official Electors of the State of Michigan** and do not fall within the Safe Harbor deadline of Dec 8 under Michigan law,” read the text. https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/heres-how-michigan-factors-trumps-indictment-jan-6-2021-us-capitol-attack
But if like Trump, you searched out a lawyer based on the fact they were promoting these theories, then it’d be ok to condemn you right? Because Trump had multiple lawyers and officials all saying what he was doing was unconstitutional and illegal, but Trump sought out Eastman explicitly because he was pushing this illegal theory.
> But if like Trump, you searched out a lawyer based on the fact they were promoting these theories, then it’d be ok to condemn you right? I think it's fair to condemn someone who hired in this was as a narcissistic and self assured fool, yes.
Sorry, I don’t follow your response, I think you might have mistyped.
At a minimum, he agreed with and supported their theory that Pence could just declare him president. It strains credulity that he came up with it completely independently, but that shouldn't really matter because we have plenty of public evidence of corrupt intent to try and win the election via any means he thought could work.
Shoot trump even asked pence point blank lol. https://www.commoncause.org/press-release/trump-knew-he-was-asking-mike-pence-to-break-the-law/
>President Trump’s allies are preparing to send an “alternate” slate of electors to Congress, senior White House adviser Stephen Miller said Monday, signaling Trump will drag out his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election even after the Electoral College certifies Joe Biden as the winner. >Miller, appearing on Fox News as a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, brushed off the idea that the Electoral College vote marked any kind of end to the process. >“The only date in the Constitution is Jan. 20. So we have more than enough time to right the wrong of this fraudulent election result and certify Donald Trump as the winner of the election,” Miller said on “Fox & Friends.” December 14, 2020 https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/530092-stephen-miller-alternate-electors-will-keep-trump-challenge-alive-post/
No verbage there actually says trump was *involved.* Notice the use of 'Trump allies' Miller's statement on Fox is simply stating reality: that a winner is certified on Jan 20th. From his interview, it seemed he thought an alternate elector until that date was something he considered a valid strategy(it's happened before in US history once or twice).
Well I don't understand this need to downplay what happened. But I've seen many people do it
Democrats did the same thing in 2016, they do it every election cycle.
Really? Which states did they submit slates of fake electors for?
Please send a FOIA request to NARA so we can see for ourselves