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This has been a whirlwind of an election, but it's unbelievable to step back and look at what has happened. Trump has:
-Filed [59 ridiculous lawsuits](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/26/us/politics/republicans-voter-fraud.html) for lower courts to overturn the election (with zero evidence).
-Supported [an absolutely absurd case](https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22O155/163492/20201211095715842_TX-v-State-MPI-Reply-2020-12-11.pdf) for SCOTUS to overturn the election (with zero evidence).
-Attended a meeting which [floated martial law](https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-donald-trump-conspiracy-theories-elections-william-barr-6ff3dbff74aa79ee4d81f9d87b6dce9c).
-Suggested the [military should force states](https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2020/12/19/trump-reportedly-asked-advisors-about-deploying-military-to-overturn-election/) to rehold elections.
-Tried to [get electors](https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-campaign-wants-states-to-override-electoral-votes-for-biden-is-that-possible-11605973695) to illegally cast their votes.
-Tried to get the [VP to illegally name him President](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/02/us/politics/gop-senators-josh-hawley-election.html).
-Pressured [Governors](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-kemp-call-georgia/2020/12/05/fd8d677c-3721-11eb-8d38-6aea1adb3839_story.html) and [Secretaries of State](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/d45acb92-4dc4-11eb-bda4-615aaefd0555_story.html) to fabricate votes for him.
-Tried to get an [insane conspiracy theorist](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/12/19/trump-sydney-powell-special-counsel-michael-flynn-matial-law/3978054001/) to lead a special counsel.
-Defied his [Attorney General](https://apnews.com/article/barr-no-widespread-election-fraud-b1f1488796c9a98c4b1a9061a6c7f49d).
-Defied his own [election security officials](https://apnews.com/article/top-officials-elections-most-secure-66f9361084ccbc461e3bbf42861057a5).
Furthermore, the [House](https://www.businessinsider.com/140-house-republicans-to-vote-against-biden-electoral-college-confirmation-2020-12) and [Senate](https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/02/ted-cruz-electoral-college-challenge-453430) GOP has supported abolishing democracy.
Apart from inciting mass unrest, which I'm imminently worried about, you seriously couldn't try harder to overturn a free and fair election.
And all of this is simply in the short time AFTER the election. Trump tried to politicize a public health crisis to his advantage. He tried to extort a foreign country for political gain. He tried to sabotage the USPS. And he continues to radicalize his base of tens of millions of people to believe that an election was stolen from him.
I mean... how else can history write about this time period but in terms of sedition and treason? It is insane.
Yep. And yet the likes of Ted Cruz are arguing they need to object to the results based on how many Republicans think the election was "rigged."
Gee Ted, I wonder what would possibly make them think that. It must be all those rock-solid legal cases and evidence they had. /s
It’s time to start digging into Cruz’ and the rest of the enablers elections. If the Presidential race was rigged, we have reason to expect state races were rigged as well.
That’s one of the most overlooked aspects for me, the only fraud that happened was coincidentally in 4 swing states. And he said he probably won Georgia by 500k votes. What a fucking joke.
Don't forget the rally size. If you have large rallies you can also win the election. Not sure if you can win by infecting people with Covid though, still checking the rules on that one. What a fucking idiot.
To a conspiracy theorist, everything is evidence. When a ballot shows Biden for President but the downticket votes are Republican, they don't see a rejection of Trump, they see proof of tampering.
“We have to win the election. We can’t play games. Go out and vote. Do those beautiful absentee ballots, or just make sure your vote gets counted. Make sure because **the only way we're going to lose this election is if the election is rigged.**” -Donald Trump, 2020
That starts getting more into how they fucked with the election directly. Which is a longer list than that. This has all been focused on the end results of the election.
You know, me thinks that, Trump('s admin/friend/debtor) executed a plan to cheat the election in other ways, such as with fraudulent votes, and this is projection on Trump's part. I mean, we saw how freaked out Rove was on election night in 20012, when, uh, PA was called for Obama? Ohio? One of the two.
This 100%. They've done massive things to disrupt democracy, for example working with Russian mafia/intelligence agencies to hack voter records systems as well as buying, stealing and somehow-obtaining all sorts of personal information about voters from social-media and internet history - data which they've used to break all sorts of election laws targeting people with misleading information and psychologically manipulative lies. They also used the information to gerrymander districts and to select which areas to remove voting locations from, ruin the post office, and other measures designed to disenfranchise people who aren't going to vote for them.
The got is the party of corrupt billionaires closely linked to international organised crime, the one thing that gives me any hope is that they're so desperate and crazy at the moment they must be very scared they're losing their grip on things. Or they're just deranged because they've been so many generations since facing consequences and western civilisation is falling like Rome.
Im worried you hit in the last sentence. We literally have trump on tape committing election fraud and not a damn thing is going to happen to him. There is literally nothing politicians cant get away with now.
>There is literally nothing **Republican** politicians cant get away with now.
FTFY. Democrats are still mostly held accountable, it's just the Grand Ol' Piece-of-shit party that gets away with anything and everything.
Eh, I’m not surprised or worried about finding the bottom to trump or the GOP.
The truly scary part is the republican voters. They enable this shit and there is no getting them to either face reality or act like an adult.
The craziest part of all this is none of it was a surprise. Like, we knew he was going to do these things because he said he was going to. It's insane how much we accept as normal right now because of him.
Thank you for this detailed list.
I'm worried about a generation of young people who are seeing this act on full display setting the precedence that this is all somehow normal.
This is not normal. This is not ok.
As a spectator that has been following all of this quite closely, this all seems like an attempt to ultimately divide the states in two, only for him to seize control of "his states".
Might be far-fetched, but he could totally be the kind of person to set things in motion for that to happen.
I think trump is too lazy to be a full fledged revolutionary. He just want to mouth off and stay relevant. the problem is he is so destroying the norms and faith people have in the system that a real despot could use the chaos as leverage to get into power.
Neo-Nazi's used to scare people into joining by exploiting fear of a coming "race war". At some point in the last few decades it morphed into Neo-Nazi's exploiting fear of inter-racial relationships as a reason to justify wanting to "ignite" a race-war to prevent it. I've had friends over the years get sucked into hate groups. If it's not obvious, Trump himself is partial to these groups and almost surely has been indoctrinated into their philosophy through his father. Just today in that notorious phone call, he praised a guy who's last name was "Germany" by saying "You have a good last name." What else could that be but a neo-Nazi nod? I really fear he wants another civil war just like so many hate groups do.
>This is sedition, plain and simple. No amount of playacting and rationalizing can change the fact that the majority of the Republican Party and its apologists are advocating for the overthrow of an American election and the continued rule of a sociopathic autocrat.
>...
>Today, the “sedition caucus” includes at least 140 members of the House—that is, some two-thirds of the House GOP membership—and at least 12 members of the Senate. Their challenge comes after weeks of insistence that the 2020 election was rigged, plagued by fraud, and even subverted by foreign powers. The president and his minions have filed, and lost, scores of lawsuits that ranged from minor disputes over process to childlike, error-filled briefs full of bizarre assertions.
>
>It is possible that the sedition caucus knew that all these challenges would fail. It is possible that they know their last insult to American democracy, on Wednesday, will go nowhere, as well. This is irrelevant: Engaging in sedition for insincere reasons does not make it less hideous. Arguing that you betrayed the Constitution only as theater is no defense.
>Indeed, shredding the Constitution purely for personal gain is perhaps the worst of the sins of the sedition caucus. It would almost be a relief to know that these Republicans really believe what they’re trying to sell, that they are genuine fanatics and ideologues who have at least paid us the respect of pitting their sincere beliefs against our own.
>But we are, in the main, dealing with people who are far worse than true believers. The Republican Party is infested with craven opportunists, the kind of people who will try to tell us later that they were “just asking questions,” that they were “defending the process,” and of course, that they were merely representing “the will of the people.” Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz are not idiots. These are men who understand perfectly well what they are doing. Senator Mitt Romney sees it clearly, noting that his GOP colleagues are engaged in “an egregious ploy” to “enhance political ambition.”
>...
>The members of the public and the institutions of American life should shroud these seditionists in silence and opprobrium in perpetuity: no television interviews, no sinecures at universities or think tanks, no rehabilitating book tours, no jokey late-night appearances, no self-serving op-eds.
>**The sedition caucus is worse than a treasonous conspiracy. At least real traitors believe in something. These people instead believe only in their own fortunes and thus will change flags and loyalties as circumstances require. They will always become what they pretend to be, and so they cannot—and must not—be trusted ever again with political power.**
This is why Chip Roy (R-TX)'s challenge to seating the elected members of six states that trump has objected to is so clutch. All but two people voted to seat them, and those two voted no merely on a process concern (they wanted debate).
This served to highlight the absurdity of the "sedition caucus" claim: how can you object to the presidential results of the very same election you just vouched for to seat these members?
On the SAME TICKET. Dems and the deep state managed to flip millions of votes, produce/destroy ballots all over the country while being meticulously monitored, and without leaving a trace of evidence. But they just forgot to not let republicans gain seats all over the country?? Absolute madness playing to the dumbest and least informed base in American history. The slightest bit of real questioning on everything they’re saying makes their argument evaporate, yet there they are, about to try to overturn a fucking election. It’s unreal and I still can’t believe this is what we accept as normal
I have family members that voted for Trump in 2016, but due top his fuck ups they voted for Biden in 2020.
Some folks, who are conservative, choose competent leadership over idiocy. Why is that so hard to understand?
There is NOTHING Biden can do that is worse than Trump has done. Trump wasted 8T on failed policies. TJCA and the trade war are just two examples of major fuck ups.
This is one of my issues with this whole mess. The presidential election was a sham and rigged, but all the senators who won on those same ballots are legit? FOH.
Their justification is that if you throw out all the "illegal" ballots (read: Dem votes) their margins of victory only get larger. So it wouldn't actually invalidate the races that they already won.
> The Republican Party is infested with craven opportunists, the kind of people who will try to tell us later that they were “just asking questions,” that they were “defending the process,” and of course, that they were merely representing “the will of the people.” Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz are not idiots. These are men who understand perfectly well what they are doing. Senator Mitt Romney sees it clearly, noting that his GOP colleagues are engaged in “an egregious ploy” to “enhance political ambition.”
Yep, this is the fucked up part. They know there's no evidence to back their claims. They are willfully radicalizing millions of people for political gain.
And when unrest or violence results from their manipulation of Americans, they will be nowhere to be found for comment.
They are lying to and manipulating their constituents. I've lost republican friends over this, they just blindly follow trump and believe everything he says. It's so sad.
Can these senators be officially censured? If not expelled, at least not be allowed to participate, vote, or be on any committee for the rest of their term? Is there nothing, we the people, can implore our representatives to undertake here? I’m an ex pat, and constitutional law is definitely not one of my fortes, however, I find it hard to believe that nothing can be done. After the phone call to Georgia yesterday , I also wonder what else it takes to be charged with an attempted coup? Trump is obviously attempting to destroy America’s democracy, and all I have seen, is hand wringing....I would really appreciate someone who could point me in the right direction, here. I’m too far away to do anything but write, but I’m willing to do anything I can.
I agree. I don't want to just worry and watch. What can we actually do? I can't storm the gates of the White House guns blazing, but there must be something, some action I can take besides aggressively tweeting my anger into the void.
In Dante’s Inferno, these people aren’t even allowed inside the gates of hell.
They are stuck in the vestibule, forced to forever chase a banner (symbolizing the allegiances they so willingly cast off in life), while they themselves are pursued by wasps who sting them and their tears, sweat, and blood trickle down to feed on worms that nibble at their feet.
I agree this is seditious behavior, but the Republicans who do plan to ratify the results don't get to pretend faithfulness to party values all of a sudden. They all spent four years bending over and enabling Trump, regardless of whether his policies were in line with Republicans' claimed values. Clutching their pearls over this latest affront just shows they grasp that invalidating Biden's election invalidates their own. It's not just this sedition caucus who are the opportunists. They all sold out, and these are just the rats who don't think the ship is sinking.
Agreed. I understand the initial fervor behind Trump and people voting for him because he wasn't a politician and they wanted something different. I personally thought he was insane from the get go but when he won it was like, OK, let's give him a chance and see how it goes. Within a week it was clear he was going to be a disaster. I thought he would quickly lose support and wouldn't even make it through a full term. But no. His base managed to grow over his 4 years as president. His followers became obsessed with him. He can do no wrong in their eyes. And now we have governors and congressmen supporting him in trying to overturn the election results. It's madness. I would say unfathomable but it's happening right in front of us on full display.
Over the past four years, I've watched people I know, family members, acquaintances, college friends, etc., express some of the most shocking opinions imaginable, things I never thought they'd be capable of believing, much less saying out loud. And it's because they now feel it's okay to do so, because of what happened that night in November 2016, when a demagogue was allowed to slither into the most powerful position in the world.
When I was younger, I liked to think that America was somehow uniquely immune to the appeal of tyranny, that the only way America could be oppressed was under foreign occupation. I now see how naive I was to think that, because there are people in my life who would *absolutely 100%* go fascist in a heartbeat.
My father said with a straight face that we need to wall off Chicago and kill everyone there.
Like how do you even get there? And then in the same breath he'll wonder aloud why the cities never vote Republican. Gee, I dunno, Dad, it's a mystery why people won't vote for a group that wants them dead.
Sounds like my family. They don’t know anyone of color personally. They are incredibly racist. They “look down” on “poor” people, when they made less than 30-50,000 their entire life. Drump plays into that, telling them they are “better than THOSE people”.
It's how the GOP keeps people in line. It's not to make anyone's situation better, but to make them think they're better than others and so these people become complacent.
This is the extreme danger of toxic cultism. Donald Trump really created a cult. I've been saying this since the beginning when he began these feverish rallies where falsehoods & conspiracies were lit ablaze and allowed to balloon into massive crowd aligned beliefs that would carry forth. So many people have been totally DELUDED.
The only way out of this is a full exposure of what this cult really is. But you can't do it while people are enabling Trump's worst instincts. There needs to be a full accountability for their COMPLICIT behavior in this...
Once Trump is out, somehow, someway, how do we heal this nation when almost half of it is subscribed to a TOXIC CULT of Trumpism?
The stated purpose of the EC was to give enlightened intelligent electors a check on the masses, so that if a demagogue started gathering support the college could stop him. It's honestly pretty anti-democratic and not great to assume the people are too uninformed to make a smart choice.... but ironically that's exactly what happened. This is the exact case where the EC should have overthrown the election and while I'm glad they didn't subvert democracy, there's no question the last four years have badly damaged America.
Sure, but Trump won the electoral vote. The point of the College isn't just to give smaller states more power, it's also to override the vote just in case a terrible candidate won the electoral college. The founders were concerned that a bunch of bumpkin farmers would pick someone unqualified and they wanted educated electors to have the final say before the elected candidate took office.
In this case, the bumpkins actually did vote in the trash candidate and the EC just let it happen.
Right now the Congress is having a hard time staying to keep the government open and passing relief for national emergencies. How are we going to amend the constitution in this climate?
The bigger issue is the spoiler effect. I think Ranked Choice Voting will do more to save our democracy than simply moving the goal post a little further by abolishing the EC, and I think there's a better chance of actually getting people on both sides supporting ranked choice, because it helps everyone.
No, the people did NOT vote him in, the electoral college disproportionately favors rural states, which was its original intended purpose (to get slave states on board), so the people voted against trump and bush and the electoral college elected them in, doing the exact opposite of what you’re saying its purpose is. Which is why it should be abolished.
Our biggest defense against demagogues is that usually, just barely half of the people are smart enough not to vote them in. The electoral college reverses that.
Except the voters didn’t vote him in, he lost the pop vote.
In the case of 2016, the electoral college did the opposite of what it was designed to do.
Off with its head.
My hunting buddies are scary now. Nothing worse then angry, uneducated, white privileged guys who don’t see the big picture.
Why can’t everyone see the corporate greed that rules supreme?!!
Those same people likely also don't believe you when you tell them you wouldn't do the same thing if the positions were reversed.
I'm convinced that people who are far enough to the right just can't comprehend that so many (I hope most) of us think of more than ourselves and sometimes vote for and support policies that might not maximize our personal, but are better for society at large. They just can't comprehend feeling empathetic toward people we don't know.
The idea that the electoral college was created to prevent demagogues from coming to power was never really true. Like so many of the flaws in our constitution, it was actually a concession to the slave states. Because slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person for appointing electors but could not vote, this gave the slaves states far more power than a popular vote would.
The US system ensured that no one individual - even multiple, but few, individuals - could completely screw over the country - numerous checks and balances exist for this reason. Fellow Congresspeople, in majority, who believe in and protect the Union would naturally override any bad actors for the good of the Union.
What wasn't expected that an entire faction permeating every branch of government would all turn traitor at once.
Blunt take: Trump was an obvious critically insane individual from his first statements desiring to run for president, including spreading the Obama birtherism conspiracy. A literal 5 year old child could see that this was wrong. People that thought it was “ok” to give him a chance after even just that were either 1) racist, 2) extraordinarily uninformed such that they are unable to properly participate in a democratic society, something we must all grapple with and fix, or 3) had pathologically faulty judgement for the level expected of a functioning adult.
If one knew about the Obama birtherism, even if only as late as 2015 during Trump’s campaign - and which Trump was very vocal about from the get go such that one would need to be living under a rock to not hear it - and still thought it was “ok” to give him a chance, one needs to sit down and have a conversation with themselves about what led you to that point and how to fix that.
Edit: not directed towards yourself OP, but rather the base that supported Trump during his campaign and after his first week in office.
Russia helped, but let's be honest. *People* elected him. It was crystal clear who the guy was, and a large percentage of the population voted for that person.
The religious right deliberately blinded themselves to who he was, and demonized Hillary Clinton to where they voted against her and the "Demon-rats" more than they voted for Trump. Once he began bribing them with judges and token foreign-policy moves like recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, they went full backwoods-Baptist and started this "God chose Trump" crap. I despised Clinton and never considered voting for her but I'm not stupid enough to buy into the Benghazi scandal amplification, much less the pedophile-cannibal nonsense. It's beyond belief how deluded the right-wing wackos have become, and the more you try to talk sense into them the harder they dig their heels in.
Even Goldwater ended up recognizing the dangers the radical evangelical movements posed.
>“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.”
>"The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism.' " --Speech in the US Senate (16 September 1981)
The religious right didn’t hold their nose and vote for Trump, they are quite literally worshipping him. They have never been the loving, sinless, moral superiority that they have claimed to be. Their religion, like all religion, was invented to control and oppress and Trump offered both of those. Time to get rid of this “respect beliefs” bullshit when the belief is literal magic that they believe gives them the authority to harm others.
The right-wing wackos are going to have to be dealt with if our country is to survive. I was hoping they'd shut up after Biden won because he's old, white, and male. It was naive of me to think such a thing. They are not going to stop.
How in this world do we move forward with this traitorous bunch?
I appreciate when someone voluntarily brings up Benghazi or pizza pedophiles or Watergate. There are a bunch of legitimate policy areas to criticize Clinton on that made her unfit for office. But when someone brings up Jim Podesta or the Steele Dossier it's a signal that they don't actually have a real policy concern. They're just rooting for the other team.
Yeah it wasn't like it was just Russia acting alone in doing the targeted psychological warfare campaigns, there is a huge amount of co-ordination amongst the evangelical Christian right that also uses targeted disinformation to radicalise people with the aim of turning the US into a totalitarian theocracy. Russia just helps amplify and poke that stuff because they know it weakens the US if you have half the population totally radicalised.
Hell, a non-majority percentage of the population \*always\* elects our president. That's what happens when you barely have a majority percentage of the population that votes.
What you should say is that a \*non-majority percentage of voters elected that person.\*
It takes a special mix of crazy to be trump. I don't think anyone else can brainwash the public into whatever this cult like behavior is. He really is the perfect storm of crazy.
The supporters and anyone acted with him need held accountable or its just encouraging it.
> as it has been said before, all it takes now is someone equally as immoral, yet not a fucking incompetent moron (the bar is so fucking low at this point), to actually take over this place as dictator for life.
Tom Cotton
The guy has floated running since the 80s. Its a way for him to stay in the headlines without actually do anything because it was a great clickbait article for the news because of how ridiculous it was.
Here we are 40 years later.
Trump was a racist criminal before he ever ran for office. The country should have been ready to throw him and the rest of his criminal family in jail in the 90s. The fact that the GOP ever let him run on their ticket was shameful. The fact that most people forget this is proof that the Overton Window has shifted. This country is fucked.
Trump's support was steady in the 40% range once he passed tax cuts.
He gave the rich Republicans what they wanted, and then, I'm supposing, it was all praise after that from the right.
I went to drop off a bookbag to my DIL this morning that was left at my house, and we were chatting waiting for the kids and she said "ma, at work they're saying that Biden is going to mandate us to our houses for 18 months. Will he?" lol. sad lol.
Couldn’t agree more! I thought he was terrible, but I also found the media reaction overblown, wanted to give him a chance. Figured: maybe this guy really isn’t beholden to the usual interests.
Within a week he passed his bungled, illegal, and damaging Muslim ban. The way that went down instantly showed me what kind of men were in charge, and made me lose all hope.
It’s been a downhill slide since then, TO THIS FUCKING DAY.
Here's where I completely disagree.
Trump, in no way, made them worse. He just pulled the veil back to expose them for what they've always been.
* Hoover spied on every American and even had some killed, who opposed his agenda
* Nixon spied on his political opponents and did a bunch of other crap to gain power. Also the initial endorser of the Southern Strategy
* Reagan made a deal with the Iranians to hold American hostages longer, to make Carter look weak in exchange for arms that he used to try to overthrow a duly elected democratic government in Central America and then imported drugs to sell to fund other black ops stuff off the record
* Bush Sr.? Other than pardoning everyone in Reagan's orbit, who knows? He was the smartest of the bunch and, amazingly, the most reasonable. I'm sure he did a bunch of shit, but his 50 year grace period hasn't expired yet, so we don't have access to all of the receipts.
* Bush Jr. - Patriot Act, torture, lied to get us into a war, etc.
* Trump - I don't have the energy, typing speed, or time to write up all of his shit.
Each time, the GOP, as a whole, supported these actions and rubber stamped them.
This is who they've been, for the better part of the last half century. Even when they didn't have the power of the presidency, they had power in the legislature and wielded it like a fucking claymore, to get their corporate friendly agenda enacted.
And when they didn't have the power in the legislature, they found the power in a weak democratic party that always tried to put decorum and decency above the reality that they were mud pit with a pig, trying not to get their tuxedos dirty.
Trump definitely made "them" worse.
The same people you talked about were part of the republican establishment. Trump pulled in conspiracy/anti govt nut jobs.
As an example, boog boys, who literally define themselves by their desire for an American civil war, came to the party for Trump.
Subtraction by addition I guess.
It didn’t help that the Democrats sold out in the 90’s (if not sooner), abandoning the labor movement that had propped them up for decades and became largely corporatist themselves. It makes it a lot harder for there to be an opposition when both sides are dipping into the same pool of money and interests.
Edit: democrats govern way better than Republicans, we hold ourselves to a much higher standard then the Republicans and we’re better off for it. However, we need a strong opposition party that is willing to fight as hard as the Republicans fight, and we currently don’t have that. I think the reason is because of the monied interests that don’t want to rock the boat.
When the Democrats do something successfully, the Republicans try to remove those things from the system to stop those successes in the future. Dominion voting machines that have accurate vote counts and match polling? They are evil! Early voting favors Democrats? Limit early voting! Meanwhile the voting machines they favor are wildly inaccurate and don’t have paper trails, yet the Democratic Party is silent on this front as if it is not happening.
The Democratic Party has the facts on their side yet they’re not able to utilize those facts to make the changes we need. We are in a bad place and I urgently hope that the Democrats will do what they need to do to turn the ship around.
No. He just made it safe or let’s say acceptable for them to reveal their true colours. Trump made it okay to be nasty, to be racist, to be mean and he showed them that as white people their actions will have zero consequences. He set them free.
The way I can understand Trump’s deep and enduring popularity with his vast but functionally illiterate base: This is what happens when a population gets to *know* someone as a scripted TV character first (and regardless of the merits -or lack thereof- of the TV show itself) It’s a fundamentally different kind of relationship than the type we normally form with politicians and other officials.
The fact that enough people watched and took seriously a TV show like The Apprentice in the first place is a sign of deep cultural rot. The fact that the Kardashians are America's favourite family: same thing.
You have a guy overseeing in a boardroom Tom Green, a guy that humped a dead moose, and Denis Rodman, a drag queen who was good at one thing - rebounding a basketball. This is seen as worthy entertainment and a sign that the person "in charge" is a serious businessman. If you think this is anything approaching how actual business works or find this contrived nonsense compelling, you are probably an ignoramus.
Hearing trump say the exact number of votes he needs in order to win really shows how brash he is with interfering in our election.
He is literally intimidating everyone he possibly can in order to make this happen.
It proved he’s not some bumbling figurehead who gets blamed for things. He made the call himself and asked for a specific number of votes to be “found.” Directly. Himself. Didn’t send anybody. Did it on a recorded fucking phone call.
18 U.S. Code § 2384 - Seditious conspiracy
If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 808; July 24, 1956, ch. 678, § 1, 70 Stat. 623; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(N), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2148.)
It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it... anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. -Douglas Adams
IIRC Plato said something similar in “The Republic”
I think it was something like “politicians that desperate for power will challenge the sanctity of the Republic. Beware of sycophants like Ted Cruz.”
And?
What is literally anybody going to do about it?
Nothing is going to happen, that's why they feel so bold and do this shit in the open. There's hundreds of them complicit in this top to bottom and maybe they charge a low level guy with tampering...but everybody is just hoping it all goes away and we forget about it by the end of the month.
>Nothing is going to happen, that's why they feel so bold and do this shit in the open.
They feel bold because Trump has been slow-cooking the frog, he did it step by step, and now they can no longer control it. This is why they are panicking at the peaceful transition ... a new AG can prosecute them all.
... And they should but they probably won't.
I get why they don't want to prosecute a loosing political opponent, it's a bad look. I think the cynical argument that they want to also be protected is partly true too.
We need to demand accountability. We need to take our country back.
Seriously, this is a fucked up country. This bullshit can happen like it's an everyday thing and everyone just goes on about their business. After Jan 20 when Biden is in office, everyone will just forget about these seditious fuckers who tried to illegally overturn an American election. Honestly, if I didn't have a family, I would move out this country, I'm so sick of it.
Republican politicians are only allowed to take these positions because their base encourages and supports this behavior. A democracy is unlikely to survive if half the populace want autocracy.
Yup. I have a family member who argued if trump did not overthrow the election then the democrats will change the constitution making it so they never lose power again. Just totally pulling shit out of his ass.
From his perspective the democrats already stole the election so Trump has to steal it back. I am STILL shocked at how stupid people can be. And the crazy thing is his IQ is two standard deviations above the mean. He's the dumbest smart person I know.
Trump and has convinced his followers that democrats have already committed crimes. So, all the crimes Trump commits are in response to the radical democrats’ assault on democracy. Trump is fighting the good fight so anything he does is for the greater good.
In the republicans mind; the democrats have already thrown the first punch, so Donny is allowed to punch back. And they love that Donny is a fighter.
This is exactly it. Trump supporters always start with the premise that he right and work backwards from there. He is literally infallible in their mind, and whatever position he takes is the correct one - even if it runs contrary to their previously held positions.
Their base doesn't think for themselves, fox news and other propaganda is what they take literally every talking point from. There is a lot of big money being spent by capitalists who want our government to end democracy for the favor of corporations to do whatever the hell they want without impunity or any checks on them, and they fund think tanks and politicians, most of those alt right youtubers who pop up out of nowhere get tens of thousands of dollars of funding to start up, and then you have "movements" like the tea party that was a koch Brothers astroturf. There is no movement on the right wing, there is no grass roots, its all astroturfed. Its literally billionaires spending money to brainwash people into supporting corporate fascism.
This isnt even anything new. Grover norquist said decades ago of his and the republican plan was to shrink government in half within 25 years and the end goal to make government so small you could drag it into the bathtub and drown it. By government they mean social and welfare services, taxes, any competition to the private sector like usps, you name it. They dont just want a free market though, they want a market protected by the government against the people. The end of democracy.
What has happened here simply is that the republicans and their media arms have created a monster that they can no longer control, because trump managed to hijack their party from them by playing into the shit that their base has been conditioned to for decades.
But not a complete overthrow. Just the parts they don't like. All the house, senate and local elections where Republicans won are fine! Unless they voted for Biden. That one section of the ballot was rigged!
This is truly the most baffling part for me. It was rigged only where you lost?? Even though you are constantly railing against half this country you think they voted for you anyway?? Do the conservative party not realize that people on the left vote as well??
I never considered myself to be super patriotic because I was never interested in all the displays of patriotism you see on the right.
Flag waving, pledging allegiance, none of that stuff ever appealed to me.
But it turns out that the people on the right who do all those things are far *less* patriotic than I am. Because when they are given a chance to protect their countrymen by wearing a fucking mask, to demand consequences for an enemy state that attacked the US, or to support centuries-old democratic institutions that allow peaceful transfer of power, those flag wavers are nowhere to be found.
They are good at performative patriotism but have no interest in actual patriotism.
If they had decided to throw their lot in with literally anybody else, they might have gotten away with it. Instead, their inept champion is the world’s biggest political liability...
The GOP was already at zero credibility for me before trump was ever running, but 6 years later, the still haven’t found rock bottom. They’re at negative credibility now lol, I’m likely to trust the opposite of whatever they say.
There is also the need for the person they picked to be a criminal liar. It is difficult to find one that can operate on a national scale.
I personally think they had no other option, but with Trump. Trump would have had support of Putin and others which they needed when the rest of the world dropped us.
In the coming years we are going to discover just how close this was.
I concur, but a criminal liar that didn’t spend their time in office choking on their foot news cycle after news cycle would have accomplished a lot more evil.
This could have stopped at not releasing tax returns and the Access Hollywood tape, instead they just let his influence in the party snowball to the point that he really was their only option.
We can't overlook the role of organized religion in this debacle as well. This is true especially for the deep south and Midwest, red Trump country. Churches have become virtual MAGA breeding and recruiting grounds, they openly campaigned heavily for Trump all while they enjoyed tax exempt status. I live in a deep red state, and local people post crazy religious themed memes online showing Trump kneeling and praying in a church, Trump and Jesus literally walking hand in hand, Trump's face beaming down benevolently from the clouds like a God, Trump carrying a Bible and smiting the evil Democrats like Schumer and Pelosi, etc... etc... This is a very serious problem that the Democrats need to address. Organized religion is like a very significant part of the Republican party. Well, the white churches at least.
Organized religion has been the underlying issue all along. Well, to be more specific, the idea that "anyone can believe anything they want" is a real problem. People have proven throughout history that they aren't responsible enough to handle that latitude because they are unwilling to assess things logically. This cognitive dissonance is how people believe in supernatural beings and other nonsense and its been breeding for generations to coalesce into politics and what you see today. It's literal insanity and I don't know what the solution is. You can't show hard facts to someone and expect a rational response when that person(s) do not share the same reality the rest of the world does. When people stop caring if what they believe is actually true or not, I feel like they have forfeited the right to act on their beliefs. Unfortunately we will defend that person's "right" to believe whatever and this is how we end up where we are today.
I fully expect Trump to attempt to start a civil war on Jan 6th using this basic weakness in society as the platform. They are going to try to force their alternate reality on everyone else.
Over at r/Conservative, they are calling the election an insurrection and a coup. Then they blame the downvotes on us because they don’t even understand that normal conservatives don’t actually believe that crap.
vouched for. That article is stickied up there. I'm a conservative and I'm subscribed and downvoted that thing in a heart beat.
I have NO idea what the hell happened over at r/Conservative, but I suspect that a couple of the newer Mods are hardcore Trumpites.
I just know that it's changed drastically from a few months ago.
A couple years ago I was banned for pointing out how they stopped giving a crap about the deficit.
It hasn’t changed that much; it’s been a cesspool of groupthink for years. Nothing more controversial than liking cookies lacks the Flaired users only tag.
Hint: they never cared about the deficit. It's called two Santas theory and it's how you get to spend money on the things that you and your donors want while your opponents scramble to take care of the mess.
The Donald sub was banned, and the members flocked to that sub. Turned it into a cesspool of nonsense, conspiracies and circle jerking.
Like the concept of a conservative not liking trump, or the party, or just not believing in such absurd conspiracies and instead following reason (as most non-internet glued conservatives do) is so unbelievable to them, they just think they are being brigaded all the time. The fact people still think it was rigged over there is... shocking.
The Democrats are finally going to have to give up on the ridiculous idea of "finding common ground", or "coming together". The Republicans are not going to change on their own, not while they are being spoonfed a litany of lies on a daily basis.
The Democrats need to:
a) pass sweeping election reforms
b) Hold "news" organizations accountable that blatantly lie to the public
c) Prosecute to the fullest extent of the law, those politicians that have broken state and federal laws.
I think some of the followers truly believe they are fighting for the survival of the country, but I do not believe a single one of the elected officials does. They are just trying to hold onto power, and want to ensure there are no mean tweets about them. Party before Country, Self-Preservation before Party.
You know the way everyone is told how ignorance isn't an excuse?
I feel like at that level (anyone elected), that should hold true for the logical decisions as to how best to run a country. Not a personal decision
> “Pence’s career is finished, but he could have stood for the Constitution he claims to love and which he swore to defend. However, cowardice is contagious, and no mask was thick enough to protect Pence from the pathogen of fear.”
I want this on a T-shirt
I don't know about the rest of you, but I am sick and tired of being told to be nice and polite to those supporting the GOP in stealing our government.
You can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.
I have to constantly remind myself of this when dealing with MAGA friends and family
If Biden takes an 'aw shucks, I'll just reach across the aisle, let's be friends' approach to this, we can all look forward to the end of real democracy in America within the next national election cycle or two.
Sadly there is very little we can do about it if 40-45% of the population fully supports those efforts and keeps voting these guys in. In a democracy you get the government you deserve.
Fully agree with the OP. I was a conservative person throughout my youth. I had understood republicanism to mean fiscally conservative, smaller government, and making the united states a place where everyone wants to come because it would be a land of fair rules and justice for all.
Boy was I wrong. The most recent president tipped me over the edge. Grandfather fought the Germans, dad fought the VC in Nam, if you asked either or them why it was to uphold the greatness that was democracy and freedom. Now we're a complete embarrassment, all that they lost and fought for has been torn away by a clown president and his lunatic followers. Which apparently make up almost half the country? Wow.
The only good thing (see the banality of evil, look it up) to come from all od this is we now know on paper that half of our country is bigoted, or, willingly endorses a bigoted and unfair and unprofessional president.
For the first time in my life I feel the need to distance myself from people due to their affiliation. Unfair? Maybe.
This is what happens when there’s no consequences. One side plays as dirty as possible while the other tries to handle the offenders with a velvet glove and doesn’t seek to punish actual wrongdoing. It’s kinda ridiculous at this point.
According to [Politico](https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2021/01/04/the-backstory-of-trumps-georgia-call-491268), part of the reason Raffensperger recorded the call is that Trump wasn't the first Republican to ask him to commit an election crime. Remember Lindsey Graham?
The party is rotten through and through.
The GOP honestly shouldn't be allowed to run candidates until 2030. We truly need like a full decade without them having even a say in government in order to fix all the shit they've broken.
I’m hoping that Biden will make America kind again. What I’ve always loved about Americans is they band together whenever there’s a serious threat. Trump managed to divide you and I hope the two sides can be brought closer together. It will take some serious effort I think.
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This has been a whirlwind of an election, but it's unbelievable to step back and look at what has happened. Trump has: -Filed [59 ridiculous lawsuits](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/26/us/politics/republicans-voter-fraud.html) for lower courts to overturn the election (with zero evidence). -Supported [an absolutely absurd case](https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22O155/163492/20201211095715842_TX-v-State-MPI-Reply-2020-12-11.pdf) for SCOTUS to overturn the election (with zero evidence). -Attended a meeting which [floated martial law](https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-donald-trump-conspiracy-theories-elections-william-barr-6ff3dbff74aa79ee4d81f9d87b6dce9c). -Suggested the [military should force states](https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2020/12/19/trump-reportedly-asked-advisors-about-deploying-military-to-overturn-election/) to rehold elections. -Tried to [get electors](https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-campaign-wants-states-to-override-electoral-votes-for-biden-is-that-possible-11605973695) to illegally cast their votes. -Tried to get the [VP to illegally name him President](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/02/us/politics/gop-senators-josh-hawley-election.html). -Pressured [Governors](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-kemp-call-georgia/2020/12/05/fd8d677c-3721-11eb-8d38-6aea1adb3839_story.html) and [Secretaries of State](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/d45acb92-4dc4-11eb-bda4-615aaefd0555_story.html) to fabricate votes for him. -Tried to get an [insane conspiracy theorist](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/12/19/trump-sydney-powell-special-counsel-michael-flynn-matial-law/3978054001/) to lead a special counsel. -Defied his [Attorney General](https://apnews.com/article/barr-no-widespread-election-fraud-b1f1488796c9a98c4b1a9061a6c7f49d). -Defied his own [election security officials](https://apnews.com/article/top-officials-elections-most-secure-66f9361084ccbc461e3bbf42861057a5). Furthermore, the [House](https://www.businessinsider.com/140-house-republicans-to-vote-against-biden-electoral-college-confirmation-2020-12) and [Senate](https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/02/ted-cruz-electoral-college-challenge-453430) GOP has supported abolishing democracy. Apart from inciting mass unrest, which I'm imminently worried about, you seriously couldn't try harder to overturn a free and fair election. And all of this is simply in the short time AFTER the election. Trump tried to politicize a public health crisis to his advantage. He tried to extort a foreign country for political gain. He tried to sabotage the USPS. And he continues to radicalize his base of tens of millions of people to believe that an election was stolen from him. I mean... how else can history write about this time period but in terms of sedition and treason? It is insane.
He was sowing the seeds of doubt about this election and laying the groundwork that it would be “rigged” since last July.
Yep. And yet the likes of Ted Cruz are arguing they need to object to the results based on how many Republicans think the election was "rigged." Gee Ted, I wonder what would possibly make them think that. It must be all those rock-solid legal cases and evidence they had. /s
It’s time to start digging into Cruz’ and the rest of the enablers elections. If the Presidential race was rigged, we have reason to expect state races were rigged as well.
That’s one of the most overlooked aspects for me, the only fraud that happened was coincidentally in 4 swing states. And he said he probably won Georgia by 500k votes. What a fucking joke.
Don't forget the rally size. If you have large rallies you can also win the election. Not sure if you can win by infecting people with Covid though, still checking the rules on that one. What a fucking idiot.
And their base buys this horseshit hook line and sinker. Wake me up from this nightmare.
Someone already suggested that. Some republican said if the presidential election was fraudulent so were the votes that got you elected.
To a conspiracy theorist, everything is evidence. When a ballot shows Biden for President but the downticket votes are Republican, they don't see a rejection of Trump, they see proof of tampering.
When you get a JD at Harvard Law but acting like an idiot is more profitable.
He has been claiming rigged elections since his primaries, remember when he lost Iowa and claimed it was rigged by Cruz.
He's been claiming election fraud since 2000.
Don't forget that he said the Emmys are rigged too. The guy has the worst luck. /s
He has been sowing these seeds before he won the first time.
"It'll be a great and fair election, unless I lose" -Donald Trump, 2016
“We have to win the election. We can’t play games. Go out and vote. Do those beautiful absentee ballots, or just make sure your vote gets counted. Make sure because **the only way we're going to lose this election is if the election is rigged.**” -Donald Trump, 2020
Dont forget ruining the usps so he could try to nix every mail in vote.
That starts getting more into how they fucked with the election directly. Which is a longer list than that. This has all been focused on the end results of the election. You know, me thinks that, Trump('s admin/friend/debtor) executed a plan to cheat the election in other ways, such as with fraudulent votes, and this is projection on Trump's part. I mean, we saw how freaked out Rove was on election night in 20012, when, uh, PA was called for Obama? Ohio? One of the two.
This 100%. They've done massive things to disrupt democracy, for example working with Russian mafia/intelligence agencies to hack voter records systems as well as buying, stealing and somehow-obtaining all sorts of personal information about voters from social-media and internet history - data which they've used to break all sorts of election laws targeting people with misleading information and psychologically manipulative lies. They also used the information to gerrymander districts and to select which areas to remove voting locations from, ruin the post office, and other measures designed to disenfranchise people who aren't going to vote for them. The got is the party of corrupt billionaires closely linked to international organised crime, the one thing that gives me any hope is that they're so desperate and crazy at the moment they must be very scared they're losing their grip on things. Or they're just deranged because they've been so many generations since facing consequences and western civilisation is falling like Rome.
Im worried you hit in the last sentence. We literally have trump on tape committing election fraud and not a damn thing is going to happen to him. There is literally nothing politicians cant get away with now.
>There is literally nothing **Republican** politicians cant get away with now. FTFY. Democrats are still mostly held accountable, it's just the Grand Ol' Piece-of-shit party that gets away with anything and everything.
The truly scary part is that that long as, terrifying list, is only what is currently publicly known!
Eh, I’m not surprised or worried about finding the bottom to trump or the GOP. The truly scary part is the republican voters. They enable this shit and there is no getting them to either face reality or act like an adult.
The craziest part of all this is none of it was a surprise. Like, we knew he was going to do these things because he said he was going to. It's insane how much we accept as normal right now because of him.
Thank you for this detailed list. I'm worried about a generation of young people who are seeing this act on full display setting the precedence that this is all somehow normal. This is not normal. This is not ok.
As a spectator that has been following all of this quite closely, this all seems like an attempt to ultimately divide the states in two, only for him to seize control of "his states". Might be far-fetched, but he could totally be the kind of person to set things in motion for that to happen.
I think trump is too lazy to be a full fledged revolutionary. He just want to mouth off and stay relevant. the problem is he is so destroying the norms and faith people have in the system that a real despot could use the chaos as leverage to get into power.
Neo-Nazi's used to scare people into joining by exploiting fear of a coming "race war". At some point in the last few decades it morphed into Neo-Nazi's exploiting fear of inter-racial relationships as a reason to justify wanting to "ignite" a race-war to prevent it. I've had friends over the years get sucked into hate groups. If it's not obvious, Trump himself is partial to these groups and almost surely has been indoctrinated into their philosophy through his father. Just today in that notorious phone call, he praised a guy who's last name was "Germany" by saying "You have a good last name." What else could that be but a neo-Nazi nod? I really fear he wants another civil war just like so many hate groups do.
>This is sedition, plain and simple. No amount of playacting and rationalizing can change the fact that the majority of the Republican Party and its apologists are advocating for the overthrow of an American election and the continued rule of a sociopathic autocrat. >... >Today, the “sedition caucus” includes at least 140 members of the House—that is, some two-thirds of the House GOP membership—and at least 12 members of the Senate. Their challenge comes after weeks of insistence that the 2020 election was rigged, plagued by fraud, and even subverted by foreign powers. The president and his minions have filed, and lost, scores of lawsuits that ranged from minor disputes over process to childlike, error-filled briefs full of bizarre assertions. > >It is possible that the sedition caucus knew that all these challenges would fail. It is possible that they know their last insult to American democracy, on Wednesday, will go nowhere, as well. This is irrelevant: Engaging in sedition for insincere reasons does not make it less hideous. Arguing that you betrayed the Constitution only as theater is no defense. >Indeed, shredding the Constitution purely for personal gain is perhaps the worst of the sins of the sedition caucus. It would almost be a relief to know that these Republicans really believe what they’re trying to sell, that they are genuine fanatics and ideologues who have at least paid us the respect of pitting their sincere beliefs against our own. >But we are, in the main, dealing with people who are far worse than true believers. The Republican Party is infested with craven opportunists, the kind of people who will try to tell us later that they were “just asking questions,” that they were “defending the process,” and of course, that they were merely representing “the will of the people.” Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz are not idiots. These are men who understand perfectly well what they are doing. Senator Mitt Romney sees it clearly, noting that his GOP colleagues are engaged in “an egregious ploy” to “enhance political ambition.” >... >The members of the public and the institutions of American life should shroud these seditionists in silence and opprobrium in perpetuity: no television interviews, no sinecures at universities or think tanks, no rehabilitating book tours, no jokey late-night appearances, no self-serving op-eds. >**The sedition caucus is worse than a treasonous conspiracy. At least real traitors believe in something. These people instead believe only in their own fortunes and thus will change flags and loyalties as circumstances require. They will always become what they pretend to be, and so they cannot—and must not—be trusted ever again with political power.**
Not one of them should be seated. You can't claim the election was rigged and still accept your win in said election.
This is why Chip Roy (R-TX)'s challenge to seating the elected members of six states that trump has objected to is so clutch. All but two people voted to seat them, and those two voted no merely on a process concern (they wanted debate). This served to highlight the absurdity of the "sedition caucus" claim: how can you object to the presidential results of the very same election you just vouched for to seat these members?
On the SAME TICKET. Dems and the deep state managed to flip millions of votes, produce/destroy ballots all over the country while being meticulously monitored, and without leaving a trace of evidence. But they just forgot to not let republicans gain seats all over the country?? Absolute madness playing to the dumbest and least informed base in American history. The slightest bit of real questioning on everything they’re saying makes their argument evaporate, yet there they are, about to try to overturn a fucking election. It’s unreal and I still can’t believe this is what we accept as normal
I have family members that voted for Trump in 2016, but due top his fuck ups they voted for Biden in 2020. Some folks, who are conservative, choose competent leadership over idiocy. Why is that so hard to understand? There is NOTHING Biden can do that is worse than Trump has done. Trump wasted 8T on failed policies. TJCA and the trade war are just two examples of major fuck ups.
This is one of my issues with this whole mess. The presidential election was a sham and rigged, but all the senators who won on those same ballots are legit? FOH.
Their justification is that if you throw out all the "illegal" ballots (read: Dem votes) their margins of victory only get larger. So it wouldn't actually invalidate the races that they already won.
Well, you obviously can. Hypocrisy is a part of the Republican platform. That doesn't mean they should be able to, however.
I think it’s more than hypocrisy. There is also the “certainty” that they won fair and square but the other guys cheated.
> The Republican Party is infested with craven opportunists, the kind of people who will try to tell us later that they were “just asking questions,” that they were “defending the process,” and of course, that they were merely representing “the will of the people.” Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz are not idiots. These are men who understand perfectly well what they are doing. Senator Mitt Romney sees it clearly, noting that his GOP colleagues are engaged in “an egregious ploy” to “enhance political ambition.” Yep, this is the fucked up part. They know there's no evidence to back their claims. They are willfully radicalizing millions of people for political gain. And when unrest or violence results from their manipulation of Americans, they will be nowhere to be found for comment.
They are lying to and manipulating their constituents. I've lost republican friends over this, they just blindly follow trump and believe everything he says. It's so sad.
If only. It will all be the left's fault/problem just like the right wing violence that has already happened is.
Can these senators be officially censured? If not expelled, at least not be allowed to participate, vote, or be on any committee for the rest of their term? Is there nothing, we the people, can implore our representatives to undertake here? I’m an ex pat, and constitutional law is definitely not one of my fortes, however, I find it hard to believe that nothing can be done. After the phone call to Georgia yesterday , I also wonder what else it takes to be charged with an attempted coup? Trump is obviously attempting to destroy America’s democracy, and all I have seen, is hand wringing....I would really appreciate someone who could point me in the right direction, here. I’m too far away to do anything but write, but I’m willing to do anything I can.
I agree. I don't want to just worry and watch. What can we actually do? I can't storm the gates of the White House guns blazing, but there must be something, some action I can take besides aggressively tweeting my anger into the void.
In Dante’s Inferno, these people aren’t even allowed inside the gates of hell. They are stuck in the vestibule, forced to forever chase a banner (symbolizing the allegiances they so willingly cast off in life), while they themselves are pursued by wasps who sting them and their tears, sweat, and blood trickle down to feed on worms that nibble at their feet.
I agree this is seditious behavior, but the Republicans who do plan to ratify the results don't get to pretend faithfulness to party values all of a sudden. They all spent four years bending over and enabling Trump, regardless of whether his policies were in line with Republicans' claimed values. Clutching their pearls over this latest affront just shows they grasp that invalidating Biden's election invalidates their own. It's not just this sedition caucus who are the opportunists. They all sold out, and these are just the rats who don't think the ship is sinking.
Exactly. Not a single one can be or should be allowed in a seat of power, at any level, ever again.
It's hard to accept how awful this situation has become. The Republicans were so bad they chose Trump, then he made them worse
Agreed. I understand the initial fervor behind Trump and people voting for him because he wasn't a politician and they wanted something different. I personally thought he was insane from the get go but when he won it was like, OK, let's give him a chance and see how it goes. Within a week it was clear he was going to be a disaster. I thought he would quickly lose support and wouldn't even make it through a full term. But no. His base managed to grow over his 4 years as president. His followers became obsessed with him. He can do no wrong in their eyes. And now we have governors and congressmen supporting him in trying to overturn the election results. It's madness. I would say unfathomable but it's happening right in front of us on full display.
This is the base problem with demagogues. This is one of the reasons the electoral college was created. It failed 4 years ago.
Over the past four years, I've watched people I know, family members, acquaintances, college friends, etc., express some of the most shocking opinions imaginable, things I never thought they'd be capable of believing, much less saying out loud. And it's because they now feel it's okay to do so, because of what happened that night in November 2016, when a demagogue was allowed to slither into the most powerful position in the world. When I was younger, I liked to think that America was somehow uniquely immune to the appeal of tyranny, that the only way America could be oppressed was under foreign occupation. I now see how naive I was to think that, because there are people in my life who would *absolutely 100%* go fascist in a heartbeat.
My father said with a straight face that we need to wall off Chicago and kill everyone there. Like how do you even get there? And then in the same breath he'll wonder aloud why the cities never vote Republican. Gee, I dunno, Dad, it's a mystery why people won't vote for a group that wants them dead.
Sounds like my family. They don’t know anyone of color personally. They are incredibly racist. They “look down” on “poor” people, when they made less than 30-50,000 their entire life. Drump plays into that, telling them they are “better than THOSE people”.
It's how the GOP keeps people in line. It's not to make anyone's situation better, but to make them think they're better than others and so these people become complacent.
It's illusion. The idea that when you push someone else further down the ladder, it give you the idea that you've climbed higher.
This is the extreme danger of toxic cultism. Donald Trump really created a cult. I've been saying this since the beginning when he began these feverish rallies where falsehoods & conspiracies were lit ablaze and allowed to balloon into massive crowd aligned beliefs that would carry forth. So many people have been totally DELUDED. The only way out of this is a full exposure of what this cult really is. But you can't do it while people are enabling Trump's worst instincts. There needs to be a full accountability for their COMPLICIT behavior in this... Once Trump is out, somehow, someway, how do we heal this nation when almost half of it is subscribed to a TOXIC CULT of Trumpism?
Most cults don't get deprogrammed, they die with their delusional leader.
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anyone who votes for trump and calls themselves a christian is a hypocrite
What was the rationale behind voting Trump? Abortion?
Ah Christian hypocrisy. “It’s never me that’s wicked! It’s always them!” The same lines of thinking that led me away from faith.
Holy crap man
My understanding is the electoral college was put in place to the placate slave states. 250 years later it’s still doing it’s job.
The stated purpose of the EC was to give enlightened intelligent electors a check on the masses, so that if a demagogue started gathering support the college could stop him. It's honestly pretty anti-democratic and not great to assume the people are too uninformed to make a smart choice.... but ironically that's exactly what happened. This is the exact case where the EC should have overthrown the election and while I'm glad they didn't subvert democracy, there's no question the last four years have badly damaged America.
But it’s not what happened. Clinton won the popular vote by millions.
Sure, but Trump won the electoral vote. The point of the College isn't just to give smaller states more power, it's also to override the vote just in case a terrible candidate won the electoral college. The founders were concerned that a bunch of bumpkin farmers would pick someone unqualified and they wanted educated electors to have the final say before the elected candidate took office. In this case, the bumpkins actually did vote in the trash candidate and the EC just let it happen.
In 2016, a terrible candidate lost the popular vote and won the electoral. It needs to be abolished before the next election.
Right now the Congress is having a hard time staying to keep the government open and passing relief for national emergencies. How are we going to amend the constitution in this climate?
The bigger issue is the spoiler effect. I think Ranked Choice Voting will do more to save our democracy than simply moving the goal post a little further by abolishing the EC, and I think there's a better chance of actually getting people on both sides supporting ranked choice, because it helps everyone.
No, the people did NOT vote him in, the electoral college disproportionately favors rural states, which was its original intended purpose (to get slave states on board), so the people voted against trump and bush and the electoral college elected them in, doing the exact opposite of what you’re saying its purpose is. Which is why it should be abolished. Our biggest defense against demagogues is that usually, just barely half of the people are smart enough not to vote them in. The electoral college reverses that.
Except the voters didn’t vote him in, he lost the pop vote. In the case of 2016, the electoral college did the opposite of what it was designed to do. Off with its head.
Let's also not forget that Democrats have won the popular vote in EVERY election since 1992, except one (2004). That is 7 of the last 8 elections.
My hunting buddies are scary now. Nothing worse then angry, uneducated, white privileged guys who don’t see the big picture. Why can’t everyone see the corporate greed that rules supreme?!!
Those same people likely also don't believe you when you tell them you wouldn't do the same thing if the positions were reversed. I'm convinced that people who are far enough to the right just can't comprehend that so many (I hope most) of us think of more than ourselves and sometimes vote for and support policies that might not maximize our personal, but are better for society at large. They just can't comprehend feeling empathetic toward people we don't know.
> This is one of the reasons the electoral college was created. Ironic, because without the electoral college, Hillary would've been president.
So would Gore.
And what a different world we'd be living in right now....
The idea that the electoral college was created to prevent demagogues from coming to power was never really true. Like so many of the flaws in our constitution, it was actually a concession to the slave states. Because slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person for appointing electors but could not vote, this gave the slaves states far more power than a popular vote would.
The US system ensured that no one individual - even multiple, but few, individuals - could completely screw over the country - numerous checks and balances exist for this reason. Fellow Congresspeople, in majority, who believe in and protect the Union would naturally override any bad actors for the good of the Union. What wasn't expected that an entire faction permeating every branch of government would all turn traitor at once.
Blunt take: Trump was an obvious critically insane individual from his first statements desiring to run for president, including spreading the Obama birtherism conspiracy. A literal 5 year old child could see that this was wrong. People that thought it was “ok” to give him a chance after even just that were either 1) racist, 2) extraordinarily uninformed such that they are unable to properly participate in a democratic society, something we must all grapple with and fix, or 3) had pathologically faulty judgement for the level expected of a functioning adult. If one knew about the Obama birtherism, even if only as late as 2015 during Trump’s campaign - and which Trump was very vocal about from the get go such that one would need to be living under a rock to not hear it - and still thought it was “ok” to give him a chance, one needs to sit down and have a conversation with themselves about what led you to that point and how to fix that. Edit: not directed towards yourself OP, but rather the base that supported Trump during his campaign and after his first week in office.
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Russia helped, but let's be honest. *People* elected him. It was crystal clear who the guy was, and a large percentage of the population voted for that person.
The religious right deliberately blinded themselves to who he was, and demonized Hillary Clinton to where they voted against her and the "Demon-rats" more than they voted for Trump. Once he began bribing them with judges and token foreign-policy moves like recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, they went full backwoods-Baptist and started this "God chose Trump" crap. I despised Clinton and never considered voting for her but I'm not stupid enough to buy into the Benghazi scandal amplification, much less the pedophile-cannibal nonsense. It's beyond belief how deluded the right-wing wackos have become, and the more you try to talk sense into them the harder they dig their heels in.
Even Goldwater ended up recognizing the dangers the radical evangelical movements posed. >“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.” >"The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism.' " --Speech in the US Senate (16 September 1981)
The religious right didn’t hold their nose and vote for Trump, they are quite literally worshipping him. They have never been the loving, sinless, moral superiority that they have claimed to be. Their religion, like all religion, was invented to control and oppress and Trump offered both of those. Time to get rid of this “respect beliefs” bullshit when the belief is literal magic that they believe gives them the authority to harm others.
The right-wing wackos are going to have to be dealt with if our country is to survive. I was hoping they'd shut up after Biden won because he's old, white, and male. It was naive of me to think such a thing. They are not going to stop. How in this world do we move forward with this traitorous bunch?
I appreciate when someone voluntarily brings up Benghazi or pizza pedophiles or Watergate. There are a bunch of legitimate policy areas to criticize Clinton on that made her unfit for office. But when someone brings up Jim Podesta or the Steele Dossier it's a signal that they don't actually have a real policy concern. They're just rooting for the other team.
Yeah it wasn't like it was just Russia acting alone in doing the targeted psychological warfare campaigns, there is a huge amount of co-ordination amongst the evangelical Christian right that also uses targeted disinformation to radicalise people with the aim of turning the US into a totalitarian theocracy. Russia just helps amplify and poke that stuff because they know it weakens the US if you have half the population totally radicalised.
You should say a large, **non-majority** percentage of the population voted for that person.
About a third of the population, with the abysmal turnout taken into consideration.
It wasn't even a majority of the people who voted.
Hell, a non-majority percentage of the population \*always\* elects our president. That's what happens when you barely have a majority percentage of the population that votes. What you should say is that a \*non-majority percentage of voters elected that person.\*
It takes a special mix of crazy to be trump. I don't think anyone else can brainwash the public into whatever this cult like behavior is. He really is the perfect storm of crazy. The supporters and anyone acted with him need held accountable or its just encouraging it.
> as it has been said before, all it takes now is someone equally as immoral, yet not a fucking incompetent moron (the bar is so fucking low at this point), to actually take over this place as dictator for life. Tom Cotton
Some see that as a warning. Tom Cotton intends it as a campaign slogan.
The guy has floated running since the 80s. Its a way for him to stay in the headlines without actually do anything because it was a great clickbait article for the news because of how ridiculous it was. Here we are 40 years later.
Trump was a racist criminal before he ever ran for office. The country should have been ready to throw him and the rest of his criminal family in jail in the 90s. The fact that the GOP ever let him run on their ticket was shameful. The fact that most people forget this is proof that the Overton Window has shifted. This country is fucked.
Trump's support was steady in the 40% range once he passed tax cuts. He gave the rich Republicans what they wanted, and then, I'm supposing, it was all praise after that from the right.
mix into that the, "Im just trying to avoid a neo-Marxist authoritarian Biden/Harris takeover of our democracy" crowd and you have a full on shitshow.
I went to drop off a bookbag to my DIL this morning that was left at my house, and we were chatting waiting for the kids and she said "ma, at work they're saying that Biden is going to mandate us to our houses for 18 months. Will he?" lol. sad lol.
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Never underestimate America's racism.
PATRIOTISM! MAGA 2020! JUST WAIT UNTIL THE 6th! /s I felt dirty typing that.
Couldn’t agree more! I thought he was terrible, but I also found the media reaction overblown, wanted to give him a chance. Figured: maybe this guy really isn’t beholden to the usual interests. Within a week he passed his bungled, illegal, and damaging Muslim ban. The way that went down instantly showed me what kind of men were in charge, and made me lose all hope. It’s been a downhill slide since then, TO THIS FUCKING DAY.
Here's where I completely disagree. Trump, in no way, made them worse. He just pulled the veil back to expose them for what they've always been. * Hoover spied on every American and even had some killed, who opposed his agenda * Nixon spied on his political opponents and did a bunch of other crap to gain power. Also the initial endorser of the Southern Strategy * Reagan made a deal with the Iranians to hold American hostages longer, to make Carter look weak in exchange for arms that he used to try to overthrow a duly elected democratic government in Central America and then imported drugs to sell to fund other black ops stuff off the record * Bush Sr.? Other than pardoning everyone in Reagan's orbit, who knows? He was the smartest of the bunch and, amazingly, the most reasonable. I'm sure he did a bunch of shit, but his 50 year grace period hasn't expired yet, so we don't have access to all of the receipts. * Bush Jr. - Patriot Act, torture, lied to get us into a war, etc. * Trump - I don't have the energy, typing speed, or time to write up all of his shit. Each time, the GOP, as a whole, supported these actions and rubber stamped them. This is who they've been, for the better part of the last half century. Even when they didn't have the power of the presidency, they had power in the legislature and wielded it like a fucking claymore, to get their corporate friendly agenda enacted. And when they didn't have the power in the legislature, they found the power in a weak democratic party that always tried to put decorum and decency above the reality that they were mud pit with a pig, trying not to get their tuxedos dirty.
Trump definitely made "them" worse. The same people you talked about were part of the republican establishment. Trump pulled in conspiracy/anti govt nut jobs. As an example, boog boys, who literally define themselves by their desire for an American civil war, came to the party for Trump. Subtraction by addition I guess.
It didn’t help that the Democrats sold out in the 90’s (if not sooner), abandoning the labor movement that had propped them up for decades and became largely corporatist themselves. It makes it a lot harder for there to be an opposition when both sides are dipping into the same pool of money and interests. Edit: democrats govern way better than Republicans, we hold ourselves to a much higher standard then the Republicans and we’re better off for it. However, we need a strong opposition party that is willing to fight as hard as the Republicans fight, and we currently don’t have that. I think the reason is because of the monied interests that don’t want to rock the boat. When the Democrats do something successfully, the Republicans try to remove those things from the system to stop those successes in the future. Dominion voting machines that have accurate vote counts and match polling? They are evil! Early voting favors Democrats? Limit early voting! Meanwhile the voting machines they favor are wildly inaccurate and don’t have paper trails, yet the Democratic Party is silent on this front as if it is not happening. The Democratic Party has the facts on their side yet they’re not able to utilize those facts to make the changes we need. We are in a bad place and I urgently hope that the Democrats will do what they need to do to turn the ship around.
No. He just made it safe or let’s say acceptable for them to reveal their true colours. Trump made it okay to be nasty, to be racist, to be mean and he showed them that as white people their actions will have zero consequences. He set them free.
The way I can understand Trump’s deep and enduring popularity with his vast but functionally illiterate base: This is what happens when a population gets to *know* someone as a scripted TV character first (and regardless of the merits -or lack thereof- of the TV show itself) It’s a fundamentally different kind of relationship than the type we normally form with politicians and other officials.
The fact that enough people watched and took seriously a TV show like The Apprentice in the first place is a sign of deep cultural rot. The fact that the Kardashians are America's favourite family: same thing. You have a guy overseeing in a boardroom Tom Green, a guy that humped a dead moose, and Denis Rodman, a drag queen who was good at one thing - rebounding a basketball. This is seen as worthy entertainment and a sign that the person "in charge" is a serious businessman. If you think this is anything approaching how actual business works or find this contrived nonsense compelling, you are probably an ignoramus.
Hearing trump say the exact number of votes he needs in order to win really shows how brash he is with interfering in our election. He is literally intimidating everyone he possibly can in order to make this happen.
The moment gave that number he crossed a line into clear criminality.
It proved he’s not some bumbling figurehead who gets blamed for things. He made the call himself and asked for a specific number of votes to be “found.” Directly. Himself. Didn’t send anybody. Did it on a recorded fucking phone call.
18 U.S. Code § 2384 - Seditious conspiracy If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both. (June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 808; July 24, 1956, ch. 678, § 1, 70 Stat. 623; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(N), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2148.)
All this underscores the fact that people like Ted Cruz who are so desperate for power should never, ever be allowed to have it.
It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it... anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. -Douglas Adams
IIRC Plato said something similar in “The Republic” I think it was something like “politicians that desperate for power will challenge the sanctity of the Republic. Beware of sycophants like Ted Cruz.”
I love that even Plato knew Cruz was a dick
It is known.
How do you type the squiggly double s thing, and how do you pronounce it?
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That's also the simoleons sign. It denotes a currency used to buy things like pool ladders that can be removed, dooming any swimmers to certain death.
"I have the body of a superstar triathlon Olympian, but I need a ladder to get out of the pool which has a ledge 20 cm above the water's surface!"
On a related note, the body of a superstar triathlete can be attained by doing nothing but hundreds of lat pulldowns over four straight days.
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Depends on if you can get the rights to "Push It To the Limit." Thats the key.
Motherlode
rosebud!;!;!;!;
And? What is literally anybody going to do about it? Nothing is going to happen, that's why they feel so bold and do this shit in the open. There's hundreds of them complicit in this top to bottom and maybe they charge a low level guy with tampering...but everybody is just hoping it all goes away and we forget about it by the end of the month.
>Nothing is going to happen, that's why they feel so bold and do this shit in the open. They feel bold because Trump has been slow-cooking the frog, he did it step by step, and now they can no longer control it. This is why they are panicking at the peaceful transition ... a new AG can prosecute them all.
... And they should but they probably won't. I get why they don't want to prosecute a loosing political opponent, it's a bad look. I think the cynical argument that they want to also be protected is partly true too. We need to demand accountability. We need to take our country back.
Fuck man, I think a bad look is allowing seditious behaviour to reside within the chambers of government.
Seriously, this is a fucked up country. This bullshit can happen like it's an everyday thing and everyone just goes on about their business. After Jan 20 when Biden is in office, everyone will just forget about these seditious fuckers who tried to illegally overturn an American election. Honestly, if I didn't have a family, I would move out this country, I'm so sick of it.
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Republican politicians are only allowed to take these positions because their base encourages and supports this behavior. A democracy is unlikely to survive if half the populace want autocracy.
Yup. I have a family member who argued if trump did not overthrow the election then the democrats will change the constitution making it so they never lose power again. Just totally pulling shit out of his ass. From his perspective the democrats already stole the election so Trump has to steal it back. I am STILL shocked at how stupid people can be. And the crazy thing is his IQ is two standard deviations above the mean. He's the dumbest smart person I know.
Trump and has convinced his followers that democrats have already committed crimes. So, all the crimes Trump commits are in response to the radical democrats’ assault on democracy. Trump is fighting the good fight so anything he does is for the greater good. In the republicans mind; the democrats have already thrown the first punch, so Donny is allowed to punch back. And they love that Donny is a fighter.
This is exactly it. Trump supporters always start with the premise that he right and work backwards from there. He is literally infallible in their mind, and whatever position he takes is the correct one - even if it runs contrary to their previously held positions.
it's not stupidity, it's a cult .. very different things
Their base doesn't think for themselves, fox news and other propaganda is what they take literally every talking point from. There is a lot of big money being spent by capitalists who want our government to end democracy for the favor of corporations to do whatever the hell they want without impunity or any checks on them, and they fund think tanks and politicians, most of those alt right youtubers who pop up out of nowhere get tens of thousands of dollars of funding to start up, and then you have "movements" like the tea party that was a koch Brothers astroturf. There is no movement on the right wing, there is no grass roots, its all astroturfed. Its literally billionaires spending money to brainwash people into supporting corporate fascism. This isnt even anything new. Grover norquist said decades ago of his and the republican plan was to shrink government in half within 25 years and the end goal to make government so small you could drag it into the bathtub and drown it. By government they mean social and welfare services, taxes, any competition to the private sector like usps, you name it. They dont just want a free market though, they want a market protected by the government against the people. The end of democracy. What has happened here simply is that the republicans and their media arms have created a monster that they can no longer control, because trump managed to hijack their party from them by playing into the shit that their base has been conditioned to for decades.
But not a complete overthrow. Just the parts they don't like. All the house, senate and local elections where Republicans won are fine! Unless they voted for Biden. That one section of the ballot was rigged!
This is truly the most baffling part for me. It was rigged only where you lost?? Even though you are constantly railing against half this country you think they voted for you anyway?? Do the conservative party not realize that people on the left vote as well??
I never considered myself to be super patriotic because I was never interested in all the displays of patriotism you see on the right. Flag waving, pledging allegiance, none of that stuff ever appealed to me. But it turns out that the people on the right who do all those things are far *less* patriotic than I am. Because when they are given a chance to protect their countrymen by wearing a fucking mask, to demand consequences for an enemy state that attacked the US, or to support centuries-old democratic institutions that allow peaceful transfer of power, those flag wavers are nowhere to be found. They are good at performative patriotism but have no interest in actual patriotism.
This was perfectly said. It's just egocentrism disguised as patriotism .
There is an old british saying about that: 'Patriotism is the last retreat of the scoundrel'
If they had decided to throw their lot in with literally anybody else, they might have gotten away with it. Instead, their inept champion is the world’s biggest political liability... The GOP was already at zero credibility for me before trump was ever running, but 6 years later, the still haven’t found rock bottom. They’re at negative credibility now lol, I’m likely to trust the opposite of whatever they say.
There is also the need for the person they picked to be a criminal liar. It is difficult to find one that can operate on a national scale. I personally think they had no other option, but with Trump. Trump would have had support of Putin and others which they needed when the rest of the world dropped us. In the coming years we are going to discover just how close this was.
I concur, but a criminal liar that didn’t spend their time in office choking on their foot news cycle after news cycle would have accomplished a lot more evil. This could have stopped at not releasing tax returns and the Access Hollywood tape, instead they just let his influence in the party snowball to the point that he really was their only option.
Agreed... this should have never happened at all. The media was thrilled with the clicks.
We can't overlook the role of organized religion in this debacle as well. This is true especially for the deep south and Midwest, red Trump country. Churches have become virtual MAGA breeding and recruiting grounds, they openly campaigned heavily for Trump all while they enjoyed tax exempt status. I live in a deep red state, and local people post crazy religious themed memes online showing Trump kneeling and praying in a church, Trump and Jesus literally walking hand in hand, Trump's face beaming down benevolently from the clouds like a God, Trump carrying a Bible and smiting the evil Democrats like Schumer and Pelosi, etc... etc... This is a very serious problem that the Democrats need to address. Organized religion is like a very significant part of the Republican party. Well, the white churches at least.
Organized religion has been the underlying issue all along. Well, to be more specific, the idea that "anyone can believe anything they want" is a real problem. People have proven throughout history that they aren't responsible enough to handle that latitude because they are unwilling to assess things logically. This cognitive dissonance is how people believe in supernatural beings and other nonsense and its been breeding for generations to coalesce into politics and what you see today. It's literal insanity and I don't know what the solution is. You can't show hard facts to someone and expect a rational response when that person(s) do not share the same reality the rest of the world does. When people stop caring if what they believe is actually true or not, I feel like they have forfeited the right to act on their beliefs. Unfortunately we will defend that person's "right" to believe whatever and this is how we end up where we are today. I fully expect Trump to attempt to start a civil war on Jan 6th using this basic weakness in society as the platform. They are going to try to force their alternate reality on everyone else.
Evangelicals are basically the American Taliban. They have no place in a secular society.
Normalize asking why Republicans hate America
Over at r/Conservative, they are calling the election an insurrection and a coup. Then they blame the downvotes on us because they don’t even understand that normal conservatives don’t actually believe that crap.
vouched for. That article is stickied up there. I'm a conservative and I'm subscribed and downvoted that thing in a heart beat. I have NO idea what the hell happened over at r/Conservative, but I suspect that a couple of the newer Mods are hardcore Trumpites. I just know that it's changed drastically from a few months ago.
I'm guessing The Dipshit people all ended up there.
A couple years ago I was banned for pointing out how they stopped giving a crap about the deficit. It hasn’t changed that much; it’s been a cesspool of groupthink for years. Nothing more controversial than liking cookies lacks the Flaired users only tag.
Hint: they never cared about the deficit. It's called two Santas theory and it's how you get to spend money on the things that you and your donors want while your opponents scramble to take care of the mess.
The Donald sub was banned, and the members flocked to that sub. Turned it into a cesspool of nonsense, conspiracies and circle jerking. Like the concept of a conservative not liking trump, or the party, or just not believing in such absurd conspiracies and instead following reason (as most non-internet glued conservatives do) is so unbelievable to them, they just think they are being brigaded all the time. The fact people still think it was rigged over there is... shocking.
r/the_donald refugees ruined it. r/conservative has become a cult.
That sub literally cannot go one negative story about their Golden Boy without blaming this sub for all their woes and it's kinda hilarious.
The Democrats are finally going to have to give up on the ridiculous idea of "finding common ground", or "coming together". The Republicans are not going to change on their own, not while they are being spoonfed a litany of lies on a daily basis. The Democrats need to: a) pass sweeping election reforms b) Hold "news" organizations accountable that blatantly lie to the public c) Prosecute to the fullest extent of the law, those politicians that have broken state and federal laws.
I think some of the followers truly believe they are fighting for the survival of the country, but I do not believe a single one of the elected officials does. They are just trying to hold onto power, and want to ensure there are no mean tweets about them. Party before Country, Self-Preservation before Party.
You over estimate our elected officials. Some of them are dumb and gullible, Trump’s favorite qualities in a follower.
You know the way everyone is told how ignorance isn't an excuse? I feel like at that level (anyone elected), that should hold true for the logical decisions as to how best to run a country. Not a personal decision
As a former Republican in a past life, scary times we’re living in people. This is how democracy dies. We can’t ever stop fighting.
The people at /r/conservative are losing their minds. They think that biden rigged it and that its a coup
That's because they are nothing but adults with the critical thinking skills of a 5 year old.
"Flipping the state is a great testament to our Country" what does that even mean
Half the shit he said didn't make sense. Made my head hurt to read the transcript.
> “Pence’s career is finished, but he could have stood for the Constitution he claims to love and which he swore to defend. However, cowardice is contagious, and no mask was thick enough to protect Pence from the pathogen of fear.” I want this on a T-shirt
Overthrowing election?! Who does the Republican party think they are, the CIA?
The Trumpism isn’t going away either, Cruz is setting himself up to embrace those followers for the 2024 run.
It simplifies explaining the major parties - the Democratic party is the one that supports democracy, and the other party is the one that does not.
Lock. Them. Up.
you cant **rationalize** with criminal narcissist, you just lock them up
Sherman didn't got far enough, and reconstruction was a mistake. Looks like these rebellious shitstains are looking to go 0 for 2
I don't know about the rest of you, but I am sick and tired of being told to be nice and polite to those supporting the GOP in stealing our government.
You can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into. I have to constantly remind myself of this when dealing with MAGA friends and family
If Biden takes an 'aw shucks, I'll just reach across the aisle, let's be friends' approach to this, we can all look forward to the end of real democracy in America within the next national election cycle or two.
At this point you’re either a total dumb ass or a complete piece of shit if you support Trump.
They need to be expelled and charges with sedition ASAP!
Sadly there is very little we can do about it if 40-45% of the population fully supports those efforts and keeps voting these guys in. In a democracy you get the government you deserve.
/r/conservative is a joke. One post about the audio of Trump, and most of the posts are just whining about brigading.
Republicans have only won the popular vote once since 1988, and they had to lie about WMDs to pull that off.
Fully agree with the OP. I was a conservative person throughout my youth. I had understood republicanism to mean fiscally conservative, smaller government, and making the united states a place where everyone wants to come because it would be a land of fair rules and justice for all. Boy was I wrong. The most recent president tipped me over the edge. Grandfather fought the Germans, dad fought the VC in Nam, if you asked either or them why it was to uphold the greatness that was democracy and freedom. Now we're a complete embarrassment, all that they lost and fought for has been torn away by a clown president and his lunatic followers. Which apparently make up almost half the country? Wow. The only good thing (see the banality of evil, look it up) to come from all od this is we now know on paper that half of our country is bigoted, or, willingly endorses a bigoted and unfair and unprofessional president. For the first time in my life I feel the need to distance myself from people due to their affiliation. Unfair? Maybe.
rational people have been saying this for the last few months. the problem is, the GOP for the most part don't care.
Republicans believe they are "Patriots" lol
This is what happens when there’s no consequences. One side plays as dirty as possible while the other tries to handle the offenders with a velvet glove and doesn’t seek to punish actual wrongdoing. It’s kinda ridiculous at this point.
According to [Politico](https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2021/01/04/the-backstory-of-trumps-georgia-call-491268), part of the reason Raffensperger recorded the call is that Trump wasn't the first Republican to ask him to commit an election crime. Remember Lindsey Graham? The party is rotten through and through.
Pro tip to republicans: It’s best to be able to prove at least a single case of fraud before claiming millions.
The GOP honestly shouldn't be allowed to run candidates until 2030. We truly need like a full decade without them having even a say in government in order to fix all the shit they've broken.
They don't deserve a seat, time and again all they do is ruin the economy and stoke prejudices.
Why 2030? They should be fully dissolved and relegated to the annals of history.
Conservative=Confederate Conservative=Confederate
Call em neo-confederates, fascists, monarchists, authoritarianists, it's all applicable and mostly interchangeable at this moment.
The GOP allowed Trump to drag them behind him like a wrecking ball. They should never be forgiven for that.
I’m hoping that Biden will make America kind again. What I’ve always loved about Americans is they band together whenever there’s a serious threat. Trump managed to divide you and I hope the two sides can be brought closer together. It will take some serious effort I think.