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> Trump did nothing of that sort for four years This just isn't true. Look at how he proposed to force the sale of Tiktok USA to Microsoft: purely dictatorial.

by ecjhdnc2025 2y ago

> Trump did nothing of that sort for four years This just isn't true. Look at how he proposed to force the sale of Tiktok USA to Microsoft: purely dictatorial. And there was an enormous amount of pure strongman talk, which is a harbinger of dictatorialism. He wasn't merely "grossly negligent" on January 6th, and anyone sane knows that. Simply because: there is no legal way the Vice President could intervene. Everything that happened on January 6th was planned, promoted (including by Trump -- "will be wild") and deliberately focussed to put pressure on Pence to act illegally. "Mike Pence didn't have the courage". Trump even wanted armed people to be able to gather in the protest (because they weren't coming for him). > If Trump was left alone after losing 2020, I'm pretty sure people would have moved on Except with all the bits where he and his campaign tried everything possible including illegal means to stay in power, on a multi-state basis. Normal presidents don't ring up the people who run elections and ask them to "find" votes.

proc0 2y ago
I disagree and most of that sounds like a biased take that is heavily influenced by all the lies and smears that were constantly being pushed for 8 years. Let's back up before he ran for president. He was a celebrity, a businessman, appeared in movies, had a reality TV show. As soon as he wins against all projections, they start smearing him about colluding with Russia... which if true is literally treason!!... except it was all a lie and nobody cared afterward, and he was never charged with treason, and then everyone just forgot about it. If it were true we would have had president Pence. Yet nobody apologized or said "oh, i guess this was a huge lie and we messed up", absolute silence. Instead they used that as an excuse to attack him for four years, and when he lost in 2020, only THEN they admitted it was not true. To me, this is a key event. Show me Trump colluded with Russia, and why people forgot this is treason and should be punished... or explain why nobody is holding people accountable for such a huge lie. If they lied about that they can lie about anything, and they have. Trump is by no means a great candidate, but he is the only candidate that can withstand all of this smearing and lying, which has never happened to any other president before.
- ecjhdnc2025 2y ago
  Do you disagree that Trump pressured the Georgia elections people to find him votes? On a phone call? Because he very clearly did. He had no business making that call at all otherwise. And lots of people were on it and were in no doubt about what it was about. Do you disagree that his campaign -- headed by him, reporting to him, with him aware of it -- created fake slates of electors to try to steal electoral college votes? Because that seems pretty obviously to have happened. Do you disagree that Trump knew the January 6th protests would lead to people marching on the Capitol? Do you think it plausible he didn't know and wasn't advised what would happen? He had no business organising that march otherwise -- there was nothing that could happen on January 6th to change the outcome that wasn't against the constitution. -- The Russia collusion stuff was not, in fact, all a lie, at all. https://time.com/5556331/mueller-investigation-indictments-guilty-pleas/ https://time.com/5556331/mueller-investigation-indictments-g... People were convicted for actively misleading the FBI about their contacts with Russia, so it could not be prosecuted properly. That's pretty serious (and it has precedents: Scooter Libby for example). Mueller just pulled the final punches. Including that Trump -- then a sitting president -- lied to the investigation. Nobody has ever "admitted that it is not true" because nobody knows for sure except probably the people who lied to the FBI about pretty much everything. But there is a hell of a stink (and that stink started with Manafort, who -- surprise surprise -- Trump tried to recruit again for this cycle, and who got the 2016 RNC platform changed to stop promising to arm Ukraine)
  - proc0 2y ago
    None of those charges are related to what was widely reported that Russia helped Trump win the election. It was also admitted that the entire investigation was inconclusive at best, and the fact remains that it would have been an historic corruption scandal that could have removed Trump from office. They tried extremely hard and the best they could do was find some minor charges on Trump's team. There is a clear double standard, in my opinion. Let's not forget the Steele dossier that as far as I know was full of lies, yet that is not investigated and the media just forgets about it after using it to play dirty politics and smear not just Trump but everyone who is around him or supports him. > Do you disagree that Trump pressured the Georgia elections people to find him votes? On a phone call? Yeah he did, but the context is that Trump thinks there was election fraud, and millions of people also had the same concerns. Even if there was misinformation on all of this, it's still within the realm of possibility that Trump believed it and was delusional about it. Being delusional and aggressive about it is completely different than intentionally stealing an election. As I mentioned before, this could have been enough for people to move on from Trump, but it seemed as if the government establishment was fully committed to going after Trump for everything and anything and has turned him into a martyr. > Do you disagree that his campaign -- headed by him, reporting to him, with him aware of it -- created fake slates of electors to try to steal electoral college votes? Because that seems pretty obviously to have happened. They were alternate slates, and this has happened before in 1960 (Nixon) and 2020. There is precedent for what Trump was trying to do, and pursuing every legal path aggressively is still completely different than trying to end democracy. In the worst case scenario, it would have been like Bush/Gore in 2020 and he would have served another 4 years. There is no chance at all of becoming dictator or changing the system. The US system with the constitution and division of power cannot be easily subverted! > Do you disagree that Trump knew the January 6th protests would lead to people marching on the Capitol? Do you think it plausible he didn't know and wasn't advised what would happen? He had no business organising that march otherwise -- there was nothing that could happen on January 6th to change the outcome that wasn't against the constitution. It was clearly meant to be a protest to show support and then it devolved into a large riot. Here is what does not make sense: that Trump planned a half-assed insurrection just to have plausible deniability. That does not make sense, either you go in planning a full insurrection with a militia and/or the backing of the military, or you don't. I think Trump is ruthless businessman that often thinks and behaves like a CEO, which is completely different than career politicians. What is really happening is that the system does not want an outsider as a leader, they want another career politician that will be predictable and controllable. I think the biggest difference in perspective here has to do with trust in the existing institutions. People who give Trump the benefit of the doubt are seeing institutions that are corrupt and will do anything to remain in power. I think this a justified perspective given all of the things that the US government has been involved with over the years from unjustified wars, lying to the American people (i.e. Iraq), and surveilling and manipulating American citizens (i.e. NSA). There is overwhelming evidence that we have a corrupt system that is fighting as hard as it can against this one individual that is representing millions of people. What is more unbelievable to me is that Trump somehow convinced millions of people to support completely different issues than what they really care about. Trump is adopting the issues people care about and people are finally feeling that they have some kind of representation, and the system is pushing back as hard as it can.

proc0 2y ago

I disagree and most of that sounds like a biased take that is heavily influenced by all the lies and smears that were constantly being pushed for 8 years. Let's back up before he ran for president. He was a celebrity, a businessman, appeared in movies, had a reality TV show. As soon as he wins against all projections, they start smearing him about colluding with Russia... which if true is literally treason!!... except it was all a lie and nobody cared afterward, and he was never charged with treason, and then everyone just forgot about it. If it were true we would have had president Pence. Yet nobody apologized or said "oh, i guess this was a huge lie and we messed up", absolute silence. Instead they used that as an excuse to attack him for four years, and when he lost in 2020, only THEN they admitted it was not true. To me, this is a key event. Show me Trump colluded with Russia, and why people forgot this is treason and should be punished... or explain why nobody is holding people accountable for such a huge lie. If they lied about that they can lie about anything, and they have. Trump is by no means a great candidate, but he is the only candidate that can withstand all of this smearing and lying, which has never happened to any other president before.

ecjhdnc2025 2y ago
Do you disagree that Trump pressured the Georgia elections people to find him votes? On a phone call? Because he very clearly did. He had no business making that call at all otherwise. And lots of people were on it and were in no doubt about what it was about. Do you disagree that his campaign -- headed by him, reporting to him, with him aware of it -- created fake slates of electors to try to steal electoral college votes? Because that seems pretty obviously to have happened. Do you disagree that Trump knew the January 6th protests would lead to people marching on the Capitol? Do you think it plausible he didn't know and wasn't advised what would happen? He had no business organising that march otherwise -- there was nothing that could happen on January 6th to change the outcome that wasn't against the constitution. -- The Russia collusion stuff was not, in fact, all a lie, at all. https://time.com/5556331/mueller-investigation-indictments-guilty-pleas/ https://time.com/5556331/mueller-investigation-indictments-g... People were convicted for actively misleading the FBI about their contacts with Russia, so it could not be prosecuted properly. That's pretty serious (and it has precedents: Scooter Libby for example). Mueller just pulled the final punches. Including that Trump -- then a sitting president -- lied to the investigation. Nobody has ever "admitted that it is not true" because nobody knows for sure except probably the people who lied to the FBI about pretty much everything. But there is a hell of a stink (and that stink started with Manafort, who -- surprise surprise -- Trump tried to recruit again for this cycle, and who got the 2016 RNC platform changed to stop promising to arm Ukraine)
- proc0 2y ago
  None of those charges are related to what was widely reported that Russia helped Trump win the election. It was also admitted that the entire investigation was inconclusive at best, and the fact remains that it would have been an historic corruption scandal that could have removed Trump from office. They tried extremely hard and the best they could do was find some minor charges on Trump's team. There is a clear double standard, in my opinion. Let's not forget the Steele dossier that as far as I know was full of lies, yet that is not investigated and the media just forgets about it after using it to play dirty politics and smear not just Trump but everyone who is around him or supports him. > Do you disagree that Trump pressured the Georgia elections people to find him votes? On a phone call? Yeah he did, but the context is that Trump thinks there was election fraud, and millions of people also had the same concerns. Even if there was misinformation on all of this, it's still within the realm of possibility that Trump believed it and was delusional about it. Being delusional and aggressive about it is completely different than intentionally stealing an election. As I mentioned before, this could have been enough for people to move on from Trump, but it seemed as if the government establishment was fully committed to going after Trump for everything and anything and has turned him into a martyr. > Do you disagree that his campaign -- headed by him, reporting to him, with him aware of it -- created fake slates of electors to try to steal electoral college votes? Because that seems pretty obviously to have happened. They were alternate slates, and this has happened before in 1960 (Nixon) and 2020. There is precedent for what Trump was trying to do, and pursuing every legal path aggressively is still completely different than trying to end democracy. In the worst case scenario, it would have been like Bush/Gore in 2020 and he would have served another 4 years. There is no chance at all of becoming dictator or changing the system. The US system with the constitution and division of power cannot be easily subverted! > Do you disagree that Trump knew the January 6th protests would lead to people marching on the Capitol? Do you think it plausible he didn't know and wasn't advised what would happen? He had no business organising that march otherwise -- there was nothing that could happen on January 6th to change the outcome that wasn't against the constitution. It was clearly meant to be a protest to show support and then it devolved into a large riot. Here is what does not make sense: that Trump planned a half-assed insurrection just to have plausible deniability. That does not make sense, either you go in planning a full insurrection with a militia and/or the backing of the military, or you don't. I think Trump is ruthless businessman that often thinks and behaves like a CEO, which is completely different than career politicians. What is really happening is that the system does not want an outsider as a leader, they want another career politician that will be predictable and controllable. I think the biggest difference in perspective here has to do with trust in the existing institutions. People who give Trump the benefit of the doubt are seeing institutions that are corrupt and will do anything to remain in power. I think this a justified perspective given all of the things that the US government has been involved with over the years from unjustified wars, lying to the American people (i.e. Iraq), and surveilling and manipulating American citizens (i.e. NSA). There is overwhelming evidence that we have a corrupt system that is fighting as hard as it can against this one individual that is representing millions of people. What is more unbelievable to me is that Trump somehow convinced millions of people to support completely different issues than what they really care about. Trump is adopting the issues people care about and people are finally feeling that they have some kind of representation, and the system is pushing back as hard as it can.