I'd like to see a short about what the meetings were like. "look! There's a roof someone could shoot our principal from!" "Hmmm.. yes, but anyone who tries to shoot the president will know were just as good as the men so they'd never try to shoot from such an obvious spot." "Gadzooks you're right! How could I be so foolish?!"
Near as I can tell with 15 seconds of research, this is true.
I told my 2 year old that Joe had dropped out and endorsed Kamala and he said "That seems like a highly suspicious decision. Clearly she only got 2% of the vote in the primaries in 2020, she simply isn't electable and everyone knows it. I wonder if this is a strategic decision whereby the Democrats will essentially throw Kamala Harris into the volcano proverbially speaking so they don't damage the credibility of any candidates with any chance of winning 2028?"
My prediction is "historic loss".
This isn't because of her gender or skin color, it's because she's insufferable and incompetent and without a demented old man to hide behind the media's noodly arms are simply not capable of carrying that much water.
This isn't because of her gender or skin color, it's because she's insufferable and incompetent and without a demented old man to hide behind the media's noodly arms are simply not capable of carrying that much water.
A lot of people say something along the lines of "If you have a gut feeling that something's wrong, it probably is".
Problem is you can't come into a courtroom with a gut feeling, you need evidence. If past instances were any indication, we'll probably find out the truth after it's completely impotent to know.
Problem is you can't come into a courtroom with a gut feeling, you need evidence. If past instances were any indication, we'll probably find out the truth after it's completely impotent to know.
You're right, and I think both parties need to be held to account a lot more for what they do in that regard. They wait until they're no longer in power to introduce legislation then blame the other party for not passing it when they had the capacity to pass it often just a few years prior.
I think we can also further break it down to two more questions, subjective and objective, and look at the points of view as right brained vs. left brained.
The objective question of "was the election actually legitimate" goes to whether the action of overturning an election is right or wrong. Overturning a legitimate election would be wrong regardless of your personal viewpoint, and not overturning an illegitimate election would be right regardless of your personal viewpoint.
But the subjective question of "Did Trump think the election was actually legitimate" goes to whether his part in doing so would be tyrannical or not. If he honestly believed that the election had been illegitimate, then even if he's wrong he's not being tyrannical to push back against it, and if he honestly didn't believe that the election had been illegitimate, then he's tyrannical to push back against it even if it did turn out to be illegitimate.
At this point, I do think that the election of 2020 was legitimate insofar as the election itself was generally properly handled, but in the moment I had questions of my own, and part of those questions were reasonable given the illegal and unethical methods we'd seen used throughout the Trump presidency and in particular during 2020. I think the thing that won the 2020 election was the establishment media attack machine more than anything, but that's unfortunately legitimate and legal and not a reason to overturn anything. I do think that Trump thought he was doing the right thing, however even if he was wrong, making it a good thing he ultimately failed to overturn the election.
There was lots of circumstantial evidence, that just didn't end up translating into real evidence of wrongdoing. Some of the circumstantial evidence was really damning, such as election workers caught on tape saying some really bad things or the photo of an election observer using binoculars.
There are two parts of the brain, one of them being logical and the other one being emotional. Circumstantial evidence is not persuasive to the logical part of the brain, but it can be extremely persuasive to the emotional part of the brain. And there was overwhelming circumstantial evidence that something weird was going on with the 2020 election. For example, changing the way that the election was done at the last second, the severe disconnect between the number of people at Trump rallies compared to Biden rallies, videos showing election officials saying really questionable things, the photograph of an election observer being forced to use binoculars to observe, not to mention the overwhelming piece of circumstantial evidence that was the summer of Love riots which were actively assisted by the Democratic establishment. Now none of these will hold up in court because they don't actually prove anything. They are entirely logically inconsistent with anything going wrong. However, emotionally they set off all kinds of alarm bells. Now myself being a more logical person, ultimately I do need to have the real evidence of wrongdoing to say something happened. Donald Trump doesn't strike me as a logical person, he strikes me as extremely emotional. I think that's part of his appeal. That's also why he often says things that are factually wrong, because he's an emotional guy and he's appealing to emotion. (By the way, that's not a justification for saying stuff that's false, it's just an explanation of it.) so for an extremely emotional guy like him, I think that the circumstantial evidence is more than enough to convince him conclusively that there were shenanigans in the elections, so it probably was a sincerely held belief on his part regardless of whether that was objectively the case.
"The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World" is a book by psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist, published in 2009. The book explores the differences between the two hemispheres of the brain. The right hemisphere is referred to in the book as the "Master," it is responsible for holistic thinking, context, empathy, and an understanding of the broader picture. It is more connected to the real, lived experience and the embodied world. The left hemisphere is referred to as the "Emissary," it specializes in analytical thinking, language, abstraction, and breaking things down into parts. It deals with details, categorization, and is more focused on manipulation of the world rather than experiencing it.
From a left-brained perspective, the election wasn't stolen because there was no evidence of it being directly stolen in the moments of 2020, but from a right brained perspective the election was stolen from 2016 onwards, and the stolen election only got worse as time went on because the will of the people that had voted for Donald Trump had been subverted by forces that thought that they knew better.
From a right-brained perspective, the lack of specific evidence for a specific part of the narrative doesn't disprove the narrative because there's overwhelming evidence from a holistic standpoint including overwhelming evidence of lawlessness from the Democrats leading up to the election, as well as open pronouncements from many people that they're going to do whatever it takes to beat Trump presumably including fraud or criminal activity.
Western society is extremely right brained, and there's a good reason for that: autistic right-brained viewpoints have built some of the most powerful weapons and technologies the human race has ever seen. The thing is, that doesn't make it dominantly correct, it's just one of two worldviews. So the right brain can say that the election wasn't stolen, and the left brain can say that it was, and in spite of the fact that they're saying opposite things, they are both within their own purview correct.
Now some people might say "but obviously the facts and figures brain is more correct", and that's exactly the attitude of the left brain, since of of the traits of the left brain is it thinks it's the smarter side of the brain. In reality, the holistic part of the brain often realizes things before the analytical part of the brain. That's why the dominant ideologies for most of human history were holistic religions heavy on symbolism and light on facts and figures and analytical data.
One obvious problem with this whole analysis is that taking right brain analysis and trying to stuff it into a left brain legal system just isn't going to work, and it didn't work and rightfully so. Much like someone who brings their car to an auto mechanic and starts demanding certain mechanical procedures get done because they know that there's a problem but they don't know really what problem or how to fix it, Trump continuing to insist on using the specific legal remedies for problems that obviously existed but would probably not be resolved by the tools he was hoping to use, he was never going to get the outcome he wanted. On the other hand, he's not a lawyer he's a real estate magnate. An auto mechanic would have a better idea of how certain tools would work in certain situations, and a lawyer would work better in certain situations as well. While some of Trump's advisors did tell him that there was no chance of these tools working, some very well-established and respected lawyers told him they could work.
The objective question of "was the election actually legitimate" goes to whether the action of overturning an election is right or wrong. Overturning a legitimate election would be wrong regardless of your personal viewpoint, and not overturning an illegitimate election would be right regardless of your personal viewpoint.
But the subjective question of "Did Trump think the election was actually legitimate" goes to whether his part in doing so would be tyrannical or not. If he honestly believed that the election had been illegitimate, then even if he's wrong he's not being tyrannical to push back against it, and if he honestly didn't believe that the election had been illegitimate, then he's tyrannical to push back against it even if it did turn out to be illegitimate.
At this point, I do think that the election of 2020 was legitimate insofar as the election itself was generally properly handled, but in the moment I had questions of my own, and part of those questions were reasonable given the illegal and unethical methods we'd seen used throughout the Trump presidency and in particular during 2020. I think the thing that won the 2020 election was the establishment media attack machine more than anything, but that's unfortunately legitimate and legal and not a reason to overturn anything. I do think that Trump thought he was doing the right thing, however even if he was wrong, making it a good thing he ultimately failed to overturn the election.
There was lots of circumstantial evidence, that just didn't end up translating into real evidence of wrongdoing. Some of the circumstantial evidence was really damning, such as election workers caught on tape saying some really bad things or the photo of an election observer using binoculars.
There are two parts of the brain, one of them being logical and the other one being emotional. Circumstantial evidence is not persuasive to the logical part of the brain, but it can be extremely persuasive to the emotional part of the brain. And there was overwhelming circumstantial evidence that something weird was going on with the 2020 election. For example, changing the way that the election was done at the last second, the severe disconnect between the number of people at Trump rallies compared to Biden rallies, videos showing election officials saying really questionable things, the photograph of an election observer being forced to use binoculars to observe, not to mention the overwhelming piece of circumstantial evidence that was the summer of Love riots which were actively assisted by the Democratic establishment. Now none of these will hold up in court because they don't actually prove anything. They are entirely logically inconsistent with anything going wrong. However, emotionally they set off all kinds of alarm bells. Now myself being a more logical person, ultimately I do need to have the real evidence of wrongdoing to say something happened. Donald Trump doesn't strike me as a logical person, he strikes me as extremely emotional. I think that's part of his appeal. That's also why he often says things that are factually wrong, because he's an emotional guy and he's appealing to emotion. (By the way, that's not a justification for saying stuff that's false, it's just an explanation of it.) so for an extremely emotional guy like him, I think that the circumstantial evidence is more than enough to convince him conclusively that there were shenanigans in the elections, so it probably was a sincerely held belief on his part regardless of whether that was objectively the case.
"The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World" is a book by psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist, published in 2009. The book explores the differences between the two hemispheres of the brain. The right hemisphere is referred to in the book as the "Master," it is responsible for holistic thinking, context, empathy, and an understanding of the broader picture. It is more connected to the real, lived experience and the embodied world. The left hemisphere is referred to as the "Emissary," it specializes in analytical thinking, language, abstraction, and breaking things down into parts. It deals with details, categorization, and is more focused on manipulation of the world rather than experiencing it.
From a left-brained perspective, the election wasn't stolen because there was no evidence of it being directly stolen in the moments of 2020, but from a right brained perspective the election was stolen from 2016 onwards, and the stolen election only got worse as time went on because the will of the people that had voted for Donald Trump had been subverted by forces that thought that they knew better.
From a right-brained perspective, the lack of specific evidence for a specific part of the narrative doesn't disprove the narrative because there's overwhelming evidence from a holistic standpoint including overwhelming evidence of lawlessness from the Democrats leading up to the election, as well as open pronouncements from many people that they're going to do whatever it takes to beat Trump presumably including fraud or criminal activity.
Western society is extremely right brained, and there's a good reason for that: autistic right-brained viewpoints have built some of the most powerful weapons and technologies the human race has ever seen. The thing is, that doesn't make it dominantly correct, it's just one of two worldviews. So the right brain can say that the election wasn't stolen, and the left brain can say that it was, and in spite of the fact that they're saying opposite things, they are both within their own purview correct.
Now some people might say "but obviously the facts and figures brain is more correct", and that's exactly the attitude of the left brain, since of of the traits of the left brain is it thinks it's the smarter side of the brain. In reality, the holistic part of the brain often realizes things before the analytical part of the brain. That's why the dominant ideologies for most of human history were holistic religions heavy on symbolism and light on facts and figures and analytical data.
One obvious problem with this whole analysis is that taking right brain analysis and trying to stuff it into a left brain legal system just isn't going to work, and it didn't work and rightfully so. Much like someone who brings their car to an auto mechanic and starts demanding certain mechanical procedures get done because they know that there's a problem but they don't know really what problem or how to fix it, Trump continuing to insist on using the specific legal remedies for problems that obviously existed but would probably not be resolved by the tools he was hoping to use, he was never going to get the outcome he wanted. On the other hand, he's not a lawyer he's a real estate magnate. An auto mechanic would have a better idea of how certain tools would work in certain situations, and a lawyer would work better in certain situations as well. While some of Trump's advisors did tell him that there was no chance of these tools working, some very well-established and respected lawyers told him they could work.
I figured that an unfounded lazy ad hominem was what I was going to get back, which is why I explained my viewpoint in detail and sourced all the facts, often using news sources and even articles that are adversarial to my position.
Since I've already addressed what you're saying I'll rest my case.
Since I've already addressed what you're saying I'll rest my case.
Ngl, it'll hurt but most Western countries need to do a bunch of unpopular things: namely, increasing taxes and cutting spending.
Nobody will like it because nobody will be getting what they want, but that's the cost of not balancing budgets for decades at a time. The next 25 years can't be like the last 25 years.
Nobody will like it because nobody will be getting what they want, but that's the cost of not balancing budgets for decades at a time. The next 25 years can't be like the last 25 years.
Trump is not a Pinochet and that's easily and definitely provable.
Some might claim Donald Trump is a Pinochet because he contested the election. Does that make most Democrats a Stalin, given that they've contested every presidential election they lost for the past 25 years?[1][2][3]
I should also mention that some might point out the fact that Donald Trump was accusing the election of having unprecedented fraud, and that seems unusual, but the reality is that the 2020 election was unprecedented in many ways. Practices such as mailing voting[4] and drop boxes[5] which have not been widely used in elections for generations of the American project(Absentee ballots did exist since colonial times, but were limited to just a few situations such as military service until California became the first state to have no-reason absentee ballots in 1978, hundreds of years after the founding of the United States, but even then it's not normal to have the level of mail-in voting used in 2020) because it is known that they are potential sources of fraud and corruption were used with the covid-19 pandemic being the state of justification. The majority of cases brought by Trump or his supporters never had any hearing on the merits[6]. This fits since pretty famously courts almost never want to interfere in elections at all[7]. COVID-19 was used as a justification in at least one case for keeping election observers at an unreasonably long distance away and a Pennsylvania judge agreed, telling the city to allow observers to be closer, a ruling the city appealed[8]. In retrospect it seems probable that many of the other claims such as observers being kept out were false and based on false rumors, it wasn't as if all the claims were entirely baseless -- a famous photo showed one election observer using binoculars to observe because they were kept so far away[9]. I suspect that the fact the world had spent the year under the tyrannical boot of government COVID restrictions and double standards or the insanity of the summer of love riots that seemed to include a lot of shady backroom dealings and open crossing of red lines such as imposing censorship on social media platforms in ways that hadn't previously been seen, and many things called "conspiracy theories" of the time ended up being fully true in the aftermath. Even if we end up agreeing he was wrong, being wrong about something but having a sincerely held belief doesn't make someone a dictator. If you sincerely believed that you lost the election due to cheating, wouldn't it be only commendable to use every legal means available to you to push to resolve that, up to and including peaceful protests to ask the certification process to be paused?
Some people say that stating his beliefs led to the January 6th riots, but I'd say there was a lot that led to that, including the 6 months of riots the Democrats cheered on and supported including financially. The establishment media also contributed to the Jan 6 riots by their absurd lies leading up to the election including fact checks that call something false but started with "while it is true that"...
The Democrats ended up spending four years attacking Donald Trump based on the Steele dossier, which was something that was fabricated from whole cloth by Hillary Clinton's campaign which was later fined for the election fraud by the FEC[10].
They also ended up pushing back in 2000 and 2004 -- pretty much every election they lose they end up contesting, and they used their fraudulent manufactured evidence of election manipulation from 2016 to stymie the president, and in the process used the process to lock up Trump's allies[11]. I was a supporter of the Democrats at the time and a default liberal.[lol] I distinctly recall lots of people continually saying Bush stole the election, the Supreme court stole it for him, he wasn't a legitimate president. 2004 saw the Democrats criticizing voting machines, ironically. (you know, when I voted it was a piece of paper and a pencil, why do we need hanging chads and specially packaged PCs pretending to be special voting machines?)
Another interesting thing, is that Donald Trump had every opportunity to be an actual Pinochet. You might not remember the 6 months (by some measures over a year)[12] of violent riots that were explicitly supported by the democrats including fundraising to keep the violent criminals out of jail[13], but pepperidge farm remembers.
During those 6 months of riots, and there were two classes of crime that absolutely would have given Trump justification to use his role as Commander in Chief of the armed forces to go in there and declare martial law. They were crimes that shocked the conscience, such as the young black girl who was murdered by a mob for the crime of stopping their car in the wrong place [14], or the apartment building burned down by the mob with people inside as protesters blocked first responders[15]. In the end, over 1000 buildings burned or were damaged in the twin cities, resulting in over 130 million dollars in damage[16]. Despite few charges being laid, the state asked the federal government for money to aid repairs, claiming the riots caused over 500 million dollars in damage and over 1500 businesses affected.[17] Minneapolis wasn't the only city affected, the riots spread to many cities, including the aforementioned Atlanta. Many of these events would be considered crimes against humanity, and pure justification to take any means necessary to end.
Besides the crimes against the people, there were also a number of crimes against the government that would have justified taking action. The rioters destroyed and burned down police departments[18], firebombed a courthouse[19], and attacked the Whitehouse so violently the president was evacuated to a protective bunker[20].
In fact myself, and many other people wanted Trump to send in the military with lead bullets not to shut down peaceful protests but to immediately and decisively and any violent riots or other political violence. You can judge people like me, but I had a friend in Minneapolis at the time telling me the stories behind the buildings that were burned down and I empathized because I would never want that happening to my home. In spite of our wishes, he did not do that. He instead readied the troops and waited for the request to the federal government in accordance with federal law[21]. Donald Trump specifically did not deploy the troops, it was the governors who deployed the troops in the end[22].
Now you might be saying "of course Donald Trump didn't send in the troops, he couldn't possibly do that!" But there is precedent. Famously, president Johnson sent federal troops into Alabama against the wishes of its segregationist governor in 1965 to enforce desegregation[23].
But that again brings us back to the fundamental problem: you might not like it, but Trump just wasn't a dictator. He had a situation that could have justified extraordinary dictatorial measures, and he didn't do that. He could have declared martial law, he didn't do that. He could have tried to use the same logic Democrats used to implement questionable election to fully cancel the elections, and he didn't. Even his so-called "coup" appeared to be to ask citizens to peacefully and patriotically make their voices heard[24] to make use of part of the process intended to put a pause on something if there were questionable events. Trump's last post on Twitter before he was banned was a video saying "you have to go home now," and "We have to have peace, we have to have law and order, we have to respect our great people in law and order. We don't want anyone hurt."[25] . Agree with his politics or not, there was a lot he could have done along dictatorial lines and he did not. Contrast with mine fuhrer Justin Trudeau, who went faced with the most peaceful protests in world history violated the law to employ the emergencies act[26] to seize dissidents bank accounts, and paid the media to take his side[27]. See? That's how you do dictatorship!
It's ironic, the left says support for Donald Trump is a cult, but every right winger I know has major criticisms of him and his presidency. One of those criticisms is that he wasn't nearly dictatorial enough! Compare for example many court cases he lost[28] and just accepted the loss. Meanwhile, Biden is doing everything he can to cancel student loan debt except the one thing he's constitutionally supposed to do: get Congress to set aside the money for it[29].
Another thing to look at is contrast with how his opponents behave. They claimed Trump would abuse the legal system against his opponents[30], but he didn't -- meanwhile they've indicted him for more crimes than Al Capone[31], and his recent conviction was openly and aggressively politically motivated. He was elected saying he would prosecute Hillary Clinton, but Letitia James was elected saying she would prosecute Donald Trump and did[32] and Alvin Brag was elected saying he would prosecute Donald Trump and he did[33]. They claimed he'd become a military dictator, but it wasn't until Biden was inaugurated that Washington DC started looking like Pyongyang, filled with troops[34] and barbed wire fences[35]. They claimed he told his followers to bad things but he said "peacefully and patriotically make yourselves heard" and when the protest turned into a riot he said "go home[...]we have to respect our great people in law and order" while the current sitting vice president said of rioters "beware" since "they're not gonna stop [...] And they should not"[36]
So to conclude, I've presented overwhelming evidence often citing opposing news sources proving that while everyone would likely agree his presidency was imperfect and he's an imperfect person, Trump had overwhelming chances to be the tyrant people claim he wanted to be but refused to take those chances to do so and instead obeyed the law that limited his actions. He could have done many of the things he was accused of wanting to do, but did not. Meanwhile, many of the things he was accused of wanting to do have been done by his opponents in the aftermath of his presidency. What Donald Trump had more than most presidents of the past century is an actively hostile establishment against him including an establishment media whose entire raison d'etre became attacking him. Ironically, in attacking this one man, they've burned through decades of goodwill and done far more damage to themselves than even a hypothetical dictator Trump could have. He's not a Pinochet, and the American people appear on track to agree, potentially re-electing him in November.
Keep in mind that this discussion is all taking place in a thread about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump that occurred last week[37]. While it is appearing now that the attempt was not politically motivated, a lot of people are showing their colors in that they would have preferred it be successful and there's thousands of millions of posts saying "aw, if only the shooter hadn't missed".
As a fantastic example of the hostile establishment, Donald Trump had just been shot -- he had in fact been shot, he saw the bullet coming towards him, he felt the pain, he was still bleeding, and his reaction was to pump his fist and scream "fight fight fight" -- and CNN attacked him, saying "that's not the message we want to be sending right now"[38]. I ask you whether the establishment media would have ever made such a criticism if Joe Biden was the one still bleeding from a bullet that nearly killed him reacted like that? It's an inhuman expectation that someone would spout whatever the "right" thing to say is. Ever gotten punched in the face unexpectedly? How elouquent are you immediately afterwards? Have you ever just avoided getting murdered? Me either, but I bet I wouldn't be so equoquent either because neither of us are robots.
[1] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2012/06/yes-bush-v-gore-did-steal-the-election.html
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/01/us/the-2004-campaign-complaints-charges-of-dirty-tricks-fraud-and-voter.html
[3] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/russia-investigation/
[4] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/how-will-we-vote-outbreak-revives-debate-on-mail-in-ballots
[5] https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/rise-ballot-drop-boxes-due-coronavirus
[6] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aqorZ61AYFqZU-EDQBBzjqfvAoC5nKcB/view
[7] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/19/us/politics/when-courts-overturn-elections.html
[8] https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/dem-petition-pa.pdf
[9] https://www.inquirer.com/photo/convention-center-plays-host-phillys-ballot-counting-20201103.html
[10] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-campaign-democratic-party-fined-fec-clears-steele-dossier-author-of-wrongdoing/
[11] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/muellers-case-against-paul-manafort-explained
[lol] https://fbxl.net/issue1/ped.html
[12] https://ghostarchive.org/archive/9geA1
[13] https://www.facebook.com/KamalaHarris/posts/if-youre-able-to-chip-in-now-to-the-minnesota-freedom-fund-to-help-post-bail-for/10158943194687923/
[14] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/us/atlanta-mayor-8-year-old-killed.html
[15] https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jun/2/will-smith-va-police-chief-says-rioters-blocked-fi/
[16] https://minnesotareformer.com/2021/05/27/one-year-later-few-charges-for-the-arson-and-destruction/
[17] https://apnews.com/article/442bb3509625e13df3afb06b8e652163
[18] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/03/us/minneapolis-government-george-floyd.html
[19] https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/long-lake-man-gets-5-years-for-firebombing-courthouse-during-george-floyd-riots
[20] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/politics/trump-protests-george-floyd.html
[21] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-says-military-ready-willing-able-ready-deploy-minneapolis-amid-n1219656
[22] https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/01/politics/fact-check-trump-walz-minnesota-national-guard/index.html
[23] https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/lbj-sends-federal-troops-to-alabama
[24] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/us/trump-speech-riot.html
[25] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/blog/electoral-college-certification-updates-n1252864/ncrd1253120?canonicalCard=true
[26] https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/federal-court-rules-emergencies-act-invocation-not-justified-1.6738624
[27] https://www.youtube.com/live/o6ZuJoUf6sE?si=zyHQcIxbD-Kie7Ek&t=2335
[28] https://policyintegrity.org/trump-court-roundup
[29] https://www.npr.org/2024/07/19/g-s1-12173/federal-appeals-court-blocks-remainder-biden-student-debt-relief-plan
[30] https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-investigations/trump-has-threatened-dozens-of-times-to-use-the-government-to-target-political-enemies/
[31] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/07/donald-trump-legal-cases-charges/675531/
[32] https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/incoming-new-york-ag-wants-to-go-after-trump-and-his-family-on-state-crimes/
[33] https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/20/politics/bragg-new-york-trump/index.html
[34] https://www.npr.org/sections/insurrection-at-the-capitol/2021/01/16/957642610/unprecedented-number-of-troops-descend-on-washington-d-c-for-bidens-inauguration
[35] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/nations-capital-turned-fortress-washington-ahead-inauguration/story?id=75259761
[36] https://americanmind.org/features/ending-the-blm-revolution/theyre-not-gonna-stop/
[37] https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/14/politics/timeline-trump-rally-shooting-dg/index.html
[38] https://www.newsweek.com/cnn-response-donald-trump-shooting-sparks-fury-1924905
Some might claim Donald Trump is a Pinochet because he contested the election. Does that make most Democrats a Stalin, given that they've contested every presidential election they lost for the past 25 years?[1][2][3]
I should also mention that some might point out the fact that Donald Trump was accusing the election of having unprecedented fraud, and that seems unusual, but the reality is that the 2020 election was unprecedented in many ways. Practices such as mailing voting[4] and drop boxes[5] which have not been widely used in elections for generations of the American project(Absentee ballots did exist since colonial times, but were limited to just a few situations such as military service until California became the first state to have no-reason absentee ballots in 1978, hundreds of years after the founding of the United States, but even then it's not normal to have the level of mail-in voting used in 2020) because it is known that they are potential sources of fraud and corruption were used with the covid-19 pandemic being the state of justification. The majority of cases brought by Trump or his supporters never had any hearing on the merits[6]. This fits since pretty famously courts almost never want to interfere in elections at all[7]. COVID-19 was used as a justification in at least one case for keeping election observers at an unreasonably long distance away and a Pennsylvania judge agreed, telling the city to allow observers to be closer, a ruling the city appealed[8]. In retrospect it seems probable that many of the other claims such as observers being kept out were false and based on false rumors, it wasn't as if all the claims were entirely baseless -- a famous photo showed one election observer using binoculars to observe because they were kept so far away[9]. I suspect that the fact the world had spent the year under the tyrannical boot of government COVID restrictions and double standards or the insanity of the summer of love riots that seemed to include a lot of shady backroom dealings and open crossing of red lines such as imposing censorship on social media platforms in ways that hadn't previously been seen, and many things called "conspiracy theories" of the time ended up being fully true in the aftermath. Even if we end up agreeing he was wrong, being wrong about something but having a sincerely held belief doesn't make someone a dictator. If you sincerely believed that you lost the election due to cheating, wouldn't it be only commendable to use every legal means available to you to push to resolve that, up to and including peaceful protests to ask the certification process to be paused?
Some people say that stating his beliefs led to the January 6th riots, but I'd say there was a lot that led to that, including the 6 months of riots the Democrats cheered on and supported including financially. The establishment media also contributed to the Jan 6 riots by their absurd lies leading up to the election including fact checks that call something false but started with "while it is true that"...
The Democrats ended up spending four years attacking Donald Trump based on the Steele dossier, which was something that was fabricated from whole cloth by Hillary Clinton's campaign which was later fined for the election fraud by the FEC[10].
They also ended up pushing back in 2000 and 2004 -- pretty much every election they lose they end up contesting, and they used their fraudulent manufactured evidence of election manipulation from 2016 to stymie the president, and in the process used the process to lock up Trump's allies[11]. I was a supporter of the Democrats at the time and a default liberal.[lol] I distinctly recall lots of people continually saying Bush stole the election, the Supreme court stole it for him, he wasn't a legitimate president. 2004 saw the Democrats criticizing voting machines, ironically. (you know, when I voted it was a piece of paper and a pencil, why do we need hanging chads and specially packaged PCs pretending to be special voting machines?)
Another interesting thing, is that Donald Trump had every opportunity to be an actual Pinochet. You might not remember the 6 months (by some measures over a year)[12] of violent riots that were explicitly supported by the democrats including fundraising to keep the violent criminals out of jail[13], but pepperidge farm remembers.
During those 6 months of riots, and there were two classes of crime that absolutely would have given Trump justification to use his role as Commander in Chief of the armed forces to go in there and declare martial law. They were crimes that shocked the conscience, such as the young black girl who was murdered by a mob for the crime of stopping their car in the wrong place [14], or the apartment building burned down by the mob with people inside as protesters blocked first responders[15]. In the end, over 1000 buildings burned or were damaged in the twin cities, resulting in over 130 million dollars in damage[16]. Despite few charges being laid, the state asked the federal government for money to aid repairs, claiming the riots caused over 500 million dollars in damage and over 1500 businesses affected.[17] Minneapolis wasn't the only city affected, the riots spread to many cities, including the aforementioned Atlanta. Many of these events would be considered crimes against humanity, and pure justification to take any means necessary to end.
Besides the crimes against the people, there were also a number of crimes against the government that would have justified taking action. The rioters destroyed and burned down police departments[18], firebombed a courthouse[19], and attacked the Whitehouse so violently the president was evacuated to a protective bunker[20].
In fact myself, and many other people wanted Trump to send in the military with lead bullets not to shut down peaceful protests but to immediately and decisively and any violent riots or other political violence. You can judge people like me, but I had a friend in Minneapolis at the time telling me the stories behind the buildings that were burned down and I empathized because I would never want that happening to my home. In spite of our wishes, he did not do that. He instead readied the troops and waited for the request to the federal government in accordance with federal law[21]. Donald Trump specifically did not deploy the troops, it was the governors who deployed the troops in the end[22].
Now you might be saying "of course Donald Trump didn't send in the troops, he couldn't possibly do that!" But there is precedent. Famously, president Johnson sent federal troops into Alabama against the wishes of its segregationist governor in 1965 to enforce desegregation[23].
But that again brings us back to the fundamental problem: you might not like it, but Trump just wasn't a dictator. He had a situation that could have justified extraordinary dictatorial measures, and he didn't do that. He could have declared martial law, he didn't do that. He could have tried to use the same logic Democrats used to implement questionable election to fully cancel the elections, and he didn't. Even his so-called "coup" appeared to be to ask citizens to peacefully and patriotically make their voices heard[24] to make use of part of the process intended to put a pause on something if there were questionable events. Trump's last post on Twitter before he was banned was a video saying "you have to go home now," and "We have to have peace, we have to have law and order, we have to respect our great people in law and order. We don't want anyone hurt."[25] . Agree with his politics or not, there was a lot he could have done along dictatorial lines and he did not. Contrast with mine fuhrer Justin Trudeau, who went faced with the most peaceful protests in world history violated the law to employ the emergencies act[26] to seize dissidents bank accounts, and paid the media to take his side[27]. See? That's how you do dictatorship!
It's ironic, the left says support for Donald Trump is a cult, but every right winger I know has major criticisms of him and his presidency. One of those criticisms is that he wasn't nearly dictatorial enough! Compare for example many court cases he lost[28] and just accepted the loss. Meanwhile, Biden is doing everything he can to cancel student loan debt except the one thing he's constitutionally supposed to do: get Congress to set aside the money for it[29].
Another thing to look at is contrast with how his opponents behave. They claimed Trump would abuse the legal system against his opponents[30], but he didn't -- meanwhile they've indicted him for more crimes than Al Capone[31], and his recent conviction was openly and aggressively politically motivated. He was elected saying he would prosecute Hillary Clinton, but Letitia James was elected saying she would prosecute Donald Trump and did[32] and Alvin Brag was elected saying he would prosecute Donald Trump and he did[33]. They claimed he'd become a military dictator, but it wasn't until Biden was inaugurated that Washington DC started looking like Pyongyang, filled with troops[34] and barbed wire fences[35]. They claimed he told his followers to bad things but he said "peacefully and patriotically make yourselves heard" and when the protest turned into a riot he said "go home[...]we have to respect our great people in law and order" while the current sitting vice president said of rioters "beware" since "they're not gonna stop [...] And they should not"[36]
So to conclude, I've presented overwhelming evidence often citing opposing news sources proving that while everyone would likely agree his presidency was imperfect and he's an imperfect person, Trump had overwhelming chances to be the tyrant people claim he wanted to be but refused to take those chances to do so and instead obeyed the law that limited his actions. He could have done many of the things he was accused of wanting to do, but did not. Meanwhile, many of the things he was accused of wanting to do have been done by his opponents in the aftermath of his presidency. What Donald Trump had more than most presidents of the past century is an actively hostile establishment against him including an establishment media whose entire raison d'etre became attacking him. Ironically, in attacking this one man, they've burned through decades of goodwill and done far more damage to themselves than even a hypothetical dictator Trump could have. He's not a Pinochet, and the American people appear on track to agree, potentially re-electing him in November.
Keep in mind that this discussion is all taking place in a thread about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump that occurred last week[37]. While it is appearing now that the attempt was not politically motivated, a lot of people are showing their colors in that they would have preferred it be successful and there's thousands of millions of posts saying "aw, if only the shooter hadn't missed".
As a fantastic example of the hostile establishment, Donald Trump had just been shot -- he had in fact been shot, he saw the bullet coming towards him, he felt the pain, he was still bleeding, and his reaction was to pump his fist and scream "fight fight fight" -- and CNN attacked him, saying "that's not the message we want to be sending right now"[38]. I ask you whether the establishment media would have ever made such a criticism if Joe Biden was the one still bleeding from a bullet that nearly killed him reacted like that? It's an inhuman expectation that someone would spout whatever the "right" thing to say is. Ever gotten punched in the face unexpectedly? How elouquent are you immediately afterwards? Have you ever just avoided getting murdered? Me either, but I bet I wouldn't be so equoquent either because neither of us are robots.
[1] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2012/06/yes-bush-v-gore-did-steal-the-election.html
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/01/us/the-2004-campaign-complaints-charges-of-dirty-tricks-fraud-and-voter.html
[3] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/russia-investigation/
[4] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/how-will-we-vote-outbreak-revives-debate-on-mail-in-ballots
[5] https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/rise-ballot-drop-boxes-due-coronavirus
[6] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aqorZ61AYFqZU-EDQBBzjqfvAoC5nKcB/view
[7] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/19/us/politics/when-courts-overturn-elections.html
[8] https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/dem-petition-pa.pdf
[9] https://www.inquirer.com/photo/convention-center-plays-host-phillys-ballot-counting-20201103.html
[10] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-campaign-democratic-party-fined-fec-clears-steele-dossier-author-of-wrongdoing/
[11] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/muellers-case-against-paul-manafort-explained
[lol] https://fbxl.net/issue1/ped.html
[12] https://ghostarchive.org/archive/9geA1
[13] https://www.facebook.com/KamalaHarris/posts/if-youre-able-to-chip-in-now-to-the-minnesota-freedom-fund-to-help-post-bail-for/10158943194687923/
[14] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/us/atlanta-mayor-8-year-old-killed.html
[15] https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jun/2/will-smith-va-police-chief-says-rioters-blocked-fi/
[16] https://minnesotareformer.com/2021/05/27/one-year-later-few-charges-for-the-arson-and-destruction/
[17] https://apnews.com/article/442bb3509625e13df3afb06b8e652163
[18] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/03/us/minneapolis-government-george-floyd.html
[19] https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/long-lake-man-gets-5-years-for-firebombing-courthouse-during-george-floyd-riots
[20] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/politics/trump-protests-george-floyd.html
[21] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-says-military-ready-willing-able-ready-deploy-minneapolis-amid-n1219656
[22] https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/01/politics/fact-check-trump-walz-minnesota-national-guard/index.html
[23] https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/lbj-sends-federal-troops-to-alabama
[24] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/us/trump-speech-riot.html
[25] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/blog/electoral-college-certification-updates-n1252864/ncrd1253120?canonicalCard=true
[26] https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/federal-court-rules-emergencies-act-invocation-not-justified-1.6738624
[27] https://www.youtube.com/live/o6ZuJoUf6sE?si=zyHQcIxbD-Kie7Ek&t=2335
[28] https://policyintegrity.org/trump-court-roundup
[29] https://www.npr.org/2024/07/19/g-s1-12173/federal-appeals-court-blocks-remainder-biden-student-debt-relief-plan
[30] https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-investigations/trump-has-threatened-dozens-of-times-to-use-the-government-to-target-political-enemies/
[31] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/07/donald-trump-legal-cases-charges/675531/
[32] https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/incoming-new-york-ag-wants-to-go-after-trump-and-his-family-on-state-crimes/
[33] https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/20/politics/bragg-new-york-trump/index.html
[34] https://www.npr.org/sections/insurrection-at-the-capitol/2021/01/16/957642610/unprecedented-number-of-troops-descend-on-washington-d-c-for-bidens-inauguration
[35] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/nations-capital-turned-fortress-washington-ahead-inauguration/story?id=75259761
[36] https://americanmind.org/features/ending-the-blm-revolution/theyre-not-gonna-stop/
[37] https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/14/politics/timeline-trump-rally-shooting-dg/index.html
[38] https://www.newsweek.com/cnn-response-donald-trump-shooting-sparks-fury-1924905
Geez, would having this said to her by the soon vice president be scarring enough for shoe to want to Canadian healthcare herself?
Hoo! No kidding they see us coming!!
It the idea that youd put smart features that last 3 years on a TV that could last 20 is asinine...
It the idea that youd put smart features that last 3 years on a TV that could last 20 is asinine...
I'm dreading the day I need to buy a new TV, because I don't think they even make non smart TVs anymore. Maybe for industrial applications?
White domestic supremacists believe that only the white race has what it really takes to reach the pinnacle of cooking and cleaning around the house.
Last election I voted in was a checkmark on a piece of paper, and we knew the results by morning.
Yes, air gapped means it's physically disconnected from the outside world.
In addition, if you wanted to maintain the air gap but wanted realtime aggregation of data you could use a device called a data diode which can write but cannot read, for example by sending data down a fiber optic with only a transmit line at the device and only a receive line on the reciever that plugs into the state network.
In addition, if you wanted to maintain the air gap but wanted realtime aggregation of data you could use a device called a data diode which can write but cannot read, for example by sending data down a fiber optic with only a transmit line at the device and only a receive line on the reciever that plugs into the state network.
I find the common defense of Biden to be really funny.
"He's been at meetings! With important people!"
People sleep through meetings with important people every single day that's not a defense.
"He's been at meetings! With important people!"
People sleep through meetings with important people every single day that's not a defense.