2020 US Election

  On 10/16/2024 at 1:29 AM, Walter Ostanek said:

I am half expecting the US to attain Somali levels of violent dysfunction if not have an actual civil war in the next few years. Which is a bummer because I live like an hours' drive from the US. I find it nuts how few people in Canada are taking that possibility seriously or thinking about what it would mean for us. Though honestly a serious chunk of this country is itching to throw in its lot with one or other yanqui faction, if they don't already think that we're part of the US

I totally see where you're coming from but I think that the chances of that happening are very low because, in my perhaps naive view, that kind of extreme violent dysfunction is much more likely to happen in places where citizens' basic needs (food, housing, jobs, etc.) are severely lacking, hence the motivation for large numbers of people resorting to extreme measures.

I look at the majority of the most vocal Trump supporters and they look like they would get winded walking a quarter mile or "intellectually winded" trying to organize anything remotely complicated so yeah they'll bitch and moan at rallies but I think they lack the motivation to really organize anything more than like what happened on Jan 6th (which was bad but could've been much worse with more organization).

There are tons of wildcards here like if Trump wins and his cronies are in power then yeah consolidating power at those levels could change the whole thing but I'm just talking about citizen-initiated action.

i know it's petty but this shit is just funny

still hoping he has a stroke on stage at one of his rallies. 

  On 10/15/2024 at 11:54 PM, may be rude said:

you say feds... technically that includes trump and his executive branch crew including various conspirators in his set of conspiracies. so yes feds were involved in jan 6 if you mean trump and his posse.

trump shut down investigations into himself and his people. he pushed for fbi to investigate political enemies of his. there are a lot of employees but to imagine an extensive conspiracy acting against their boss is far-fetched.

you ask why he wouldn't use fbi and cia to stage a real insurrection, he did abuse power and we don't know the full extent of that. we don't know that he didn't misuse FBI or CIA as part of his efforts to do a coup. there are limits to what people can get away with and to what people will go along with.

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lots of good and fair points in your response, but I am still not swayed and suspect the possibility that federal officers (or their confidential informants) were there and that they were pushing for things to become violent, not only to make Trump look bad but (and I am pushing things pretty far into Dale Gribble style nutter conspiracy here), but to make all of his supporters come across to the other half of the country as backwoods, violent, fascist idiots, all for the purposes of continuing to sow division in the overall electorate, keep the people divided against themselves, and give democrats the opportunity to campaign on the so-called coup. I do not view it as a coup. Five Trump supporters got killed, there was some rough rioting that did not escalate into wide-spread violence or people getting killed en masse, and a bunch of misguided idiots were taking selfies in the senate chamber. What do you think their plan was after that? Were they going to occupy the building and start executing politicians, and then mobilize a military force against citizens who are registered as democrats and then fight the US military all so that Trump could take his place as dictator of America?

But to get back to the issue with the feds. The FBI has like 35,000 people, granted a lot of those are probably desk jockeys. They have lots of registered informants, and they probably have other private contractors given that it is an American capitalistic bureaucracy and they always end up dipping into the private sector. To believe that all of these people were Trump loyalists is naive imo. There would have been a lot of feds who did not get purged after Trump was initially elected who had plenty reason to resent Trump. A lot of the theories surrounding the JFK assassination, including the one from Don DeLillo in his fictional novel of Oswald's life (titled Libra), a lot of people suspect it was a small band of rogue CIA agents who put things together, without the knowledge of agency leadership. Whether or not this is true for JFK, shit like this happens all the time. In terms of foreign policy, the CIA has done some incredibly reckless, destabilizing things without the president's knowledge, both for reasons of plausible deniability for the president and also because there were powerful members in the institution who disagreed with the president at the time and were able to hide behind top-secret classification and other obfuscations if journalists or anyone else started asking questions. CIA involvement in 1948 Italian general election is an example of this where president did not know.

To be honest, I think that Trump's recorded phone call to the Georgia secretary of state asking for him to produce votes out of thin air is more incriminating than anything that happened on January 6th. I do not buy the standard narrative that no funny stuff from the feds was going on, and same with the pipe bomb until I see conclusive proof to the contrary (and I will not hold my breath, as no one cares about it any more and FBI and DOJ have all but closed the case on that one).

Anyhoo, I am very suspicious when it comes to the us government, especially at the federal level. You have not convinced me may be rude. Far from it! I do not think you know who you are dealing with. I am paranoid weirdo who post animal pictures on idm forum, and don't forget it! This is basically who you are dealing with:

  On 10/17/2024 at 1:56 AM, decibal cooper said:

I am still not swayed and suspect the possibility that federal officers (or their confidential informants) were there and that they were pushing for things to become violent, not only to make Trump look bad but (and I am pushing things pretty far into Dale Gribble style nutter conspiracy here), but to make all of his supporters come across to the other half of the country as backwoods, violent, fascist idiots, all for the purposes of continuing to sow division in the overall electorate, keep the people divided against themselves, and give democrats the opportunity to campaign on the so-called coup

does that really sound believable to you? sorry but that's just really bad fiction. it sounds like you admit that this is your imagination.

  On 10/17/2024 at 1:56 AM, decibal cooper said:

I do not view it as a coup. Five Trump supporters got killed, there was some rough rioting that did not escalate into wide-spread violence or people getting killed en masse, and a bunch of misguided idiots were taking selfies in the senate chamber. What do you think their plan was after that? Were they going to occupy the building and start executing politicians, and then mobilize a military force against citizens who are registered as democrats and then fight the US military all so that Trump could take his place as dictator of America?

glad you asked. jan 6 was one component of trump's coup attempt. it had 6 major components. the jan 6 component was him sending the mob to the capitol, having reason to anticipate a violent storming of the capitol during the joint session of congress. he then refused to call them off for 3 hours though he did tweet that pence did the wrong thing while pence was hiding with his secret service in the capitol. Trump tweeted at 2:24 p.m.: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done.” objectives included:

• pressuring congress members to vote against certifying the votes of some states. that's what congress was doing that afternoon, voting to certify each state, and some trumpists in each house of congress tried to act like some states shouldn't be certified but not as many as trump wanted for his plan. trump was calling congress members while the capitol was being stormed, lobbying them to vote against certifying some states.  
• cause the capitol to be evacuated and the certification to be delayed, with 14 days left until inauguration day, and trump contesting the election with some congress members backing him up.
• pressure pence to do what trump was asking of him, to not count slates of electors from some states, throwing the decision to the house of representatives, for a vote by delegation, by which trump would be expected to win.
• delay the certification by some other effect of the storming, such as the slates of electors being stolen or something else. 

so, the pence pressure part was another component of the plan. trump had devised a plan along with attorney john eastman, to pressure pence to refuse to certify the slates of electors from some states on january 6th. check out the eastman memos. trump was continually pressuring pence about this very emphatically, as reported by many people who witnessed trump putting extreme pressure on pence to go along with the plan. pence actually published a public letter to trump early in the morning of january 6th laying out his reasoning for why he would refuse to go along with trump's plan

another component was trump spreading the lies, which he knew were junk. the special counsel documents linked below describe extensive evidence of this.

another component was trump threatening georgia secretary of state with prosecution by doj if he didn't find him 11,000 votes. here's the link to that phone call

another component was trying to use doj to send letters to states saying their election results were tainted, encouraging them to have their legislatures reconsider how they cast their slates of electors. see the jeff clark letter

another component was orchestrating fake slates of electors being sent to congress, which falsely said trump won the states. multiple states also considered this activity to be crimes and have pressed charges. giuliani was orchestrating it. several of these false slates of electors looked the same because they were based on the same document template. giuliani was orchestrating that across seven states

those are the 6 big pieces of trump's coup attempt. 

you may be interested to review the special counsel filing recently unsealed by judge chutkan, in trump's federal criminal trial for the coup. it's a long and detailed filing resulting from the supreme court's immunity ruling, and ordered by the judge. pages 3-85 describe the parts of the coup charged in the indictment. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-jack-smiths-unsealed-court-filing-that-says-trump-resorted-to-crimes-after-2020-election

here's the indictment itself. it's a good read offering a succinct overview of the crimes. this is the superceding indictment, slightly revised after the supreme court's immunity ruling: https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000191-9582-d690-a9f3-dfff52f50000

the same judge ordered that the appendices of the recent filing also be unsealed. should be coming out soon. 

kamala did a great job. here's the full interview i think

someone was posting about wanting an adversarial interview. there's an adversarial interview. brett's best points were weak and kamala's points were much stronger

Q: Given the amount of the mounting evidence of climate change, do you still believe it's a hoax?

Trump: I get awards environmental awards for the way I build it for the water, the way I use the water, the sand, the mixing of the sand and the water, I mean, many different, but I've had many awards over the years for environmental, the way I've built because you know about building, that's what you do. It's very important to me… The real global warming that we have to worry about is nuclear. The water is coming up an eighth of an inch over 300 years, the ocean is gonna rise and, you know, nobody knows if that's true or not, but they're worried about the ocean rising an eighth of an inch or a quarter of an inch in 300 years

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2024/oct/17/donald-trump-january-6-riot-kamala-harris-us-election-politics-news?page=with:block-6711317d8f084087b63c05c0#block-6711317d8f084087b63c05c0

  On 10/17/2024 at 6:34 PM, ARPA said:

Q: Given the amount of the mounting evidence of climate change, do you still believe it's a hoax?

Trump: I get awards environmental awards for the way I build it for the water, the way I use the water, the sand, the mixing of the sand and the water, I mean, many different, but I've had many awards over the years for environmental, the way I've built because you know about building, that's what you do. It's very important to me… The real global warming that we have to worry about is nuclear. The water is coming up an eighth of an inch over 300 years, the ocean is gonna rise and, you know, nobody knows if that's true or not, but they're worried about the ocean rising an eighth of an inch or a quarter of an inch in 300 years

  Reveal hidden contents

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2024/oct/17/donald-trump-january-6-riot-kamala-harris-us-election-politics-news?page=with:block-6711317d8f084087b63c05c0#block-6711317d8f084087b63c05c0

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  On 10/17/2024 at 5:19 AM, may be rude said:

kamala did a great job. here's the full interview i think

 

someone was posting about wanting an adversarial interview. there's an adversarial interview. brett's best points were weak and kamala's points were much stronger

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  On 10/18/2024 at 1:34 AM, ignatius said:

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Why so many views?  Because she doesn't do interviews.  Means little, just the way everything she said was by the line teleprompter fed.  She will lose voters because of her general unlikeableness.   Don't like her or Trump but ask yourself who is going to drag you down in endless warfare and deep state  politics.  She's been in charge for 3/4 years, fuck all has happened to make things better for anybody.

this was pretty good, you can tell clearly when she's got a little pep in her step (& when she's caught on her back foot as well, for better or worse...)

  On 10/18/2024 at 2:16 AM, arti said:

Why so many views?  Because she doesn't do interviews. 

she's starting to do a lot of interviews now

  On 10/18/2024 at 2:16 AM, arti said:

Means little, just the way everything she said was by the line teleprompter fed. 

what? she wasn't using a teleprompter in the fox interview

  On 10/18/2024 at 2:16 AM, arti said:

Don't like her or Trump but ask yourself who is going to drag you down in endless warfare and deep state  politics

trump continued the war in afghanistan, and tried to start a civil war in the US. 

  On 10/18/2024 at 2:16 AM, arti said:

She's been in charge for 3/4 years, fuck all has happened to make things better for anybody.

the biden harris administration recovered the country from covid, recovered the economy from recession, recovered inflation back to the normal rate, left afghanistan, passed the biggest climate change legislation in history. jobs are booming, the economy is very strong.

that all stands in stark contrast to the dystopia that was the trump administration. quite bizarre how dark that got and how fast. dude spread covid to set the stage for his coup because he's compromised by putin. he was stoking unrest while trying to use the military to deal with unrest.

come on man you're not helping. trump's compromised by putin, he tried a coup, and he caused covid to be way worse than it needed to be

  On 10/18/2024 at 2:16 AM, arti said:

Why so many views?  Because she doesn't do interviews.  Means little, just the way everything she said was by the line teleprompter fed.  She will lose voters because of her general unlikeableness.   Don't like her or Trump but ask yourself who is going to drag you down in endless warfare and deep state  politics.  She's been in charge for 3/4 years, fuck all has happened to make things better for anybody.

she's been doing interviews for the last month.. weeks? howard stern, podcasts, Fox, 60 minutes.. what else..? she's been on a media blitz essentially. "general unlikeableness" is your perception. i'm sure lot's of people see her in lot's of different ways. i'm not a fan of anyone but if it means i don't have to listen or see trump anymore i'll vote for them. he's toxic sludge and will take bribes hand over fist. 

trump already said he'd bomb iran to dust. you think he'd be better than harris? ymmv of course but i'd rather have someone at least connected to reality who has some experience.. but whatever... 

she hasn't "been in charge". i don't think you understand the vice president's role in the executive branch. 

trump's own Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, said it seems like trump may be blackmailed by putin

woodward goes on to talk about how bizarre it was that trump was given such an urgent and clear warning about covid, yet he did the opposite of the correct thing with covid continually. when there was only 1 case in the US, trump was warned that 650,000 people could die from it. he then spent months telling people not to worry about it, subverting the messages from experts, and actively stopping the federal government from helping with covid whenever possible.

  On 10/18/2024 at 1:35 PM, may be rude said:

trump's own Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, said it seems like trump may be blackmailed by putin

 

woodward goes on to talk about how bizarre it was that trump was given such an urgent and clear warning about covid, yet he did the opposite of the correct thing with covid continually. when there was only 1 case in the US, trump was warned that 650,000 people could die from it. he then spent months telling people not to worry about it, subverting the messages from experts, and actively stopping the federal government from helping with covid whenever possible.

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also says trump has no plan. says one thing one day and next thing next day and just makes shit up. has no goal or whatever. .just whatever comes into his mind.. he does. has no team to help run the country and thinks he can do it alone. trump is an idiot and a psychopath. he tries to do it all himself.

it seems to me that he doesn't actually want to be president. if you view all the crazy stuff he's been saying recently (and his bizarre behavior) through this lens, then it actually makes sense why he's behaving this way. he's hoping he loses so he doesn't have to deal with the headaches of the oval office. he has no plan for anything because he is secretly hoping he doesn't win. he'd rather be holing it up at mar-a-lago with other rich boys and grifting all the maga fanatics with his crap products and NFT trading cards. sure the arrogant narcissist part of him doesn't want to lose a fight, but I bet if he were actually able to speak the truth for a minute, he'd agree loafing about at his florida palace sounds far better than role playing as a politician for 4 more years.

  On 10/18/2024 at 7:03 PM, zero said:

it seems to me that he doesn't actually want to be president. if you view all the crazy stuff he's been saying recently (and his bizarre behavior) through this lens, then it actually makes sense why he's behaving this way.

he also seemed to be trying to lose in 2016 and in 2020

in 2016 he seemed to be trying to lose by doing several things that seemed like things you would do if you were trying to lose, not trying to win, like

• insulting john mccain for being a prisoner of war
• insulting a fallen american gold star soldier because he was muslim
• doing an impression of a disabled journalist, making fun of the disability 

it was noticeable and strange to me at the time. i had a list of around 20 things, trying to find it. i did note it in a 2017 post here.

michael cohen said that trump wasn't trying to win. cohen said trump did the 2016 campaign as a publicity stunt.

in 2020, he seemed to be trying to lose by doing a terrible job at managing the pandemic response. he would have easily won if he just listened to the experts and let them do their thing, rather than actively getting in their way, continually for months

it seems strange, but it is yet another thing that fits perfectly with the theory that trump is a compromised individual leveraged into being wielded like a puppet by his blackmailer. by that theory, he would want to appear to be doing as instructed, but he may dread what we would be used for, and try to weasel out of it in a way that he could deny

but aside from all that, it's clear that one motivation for running this time is to claim that the federal prosecutions of him were politically motivated. he announced in 2022, 2 years ahead of the election, which is quite early. it's unusual and odd for a presidential candidate to announce so early. at that time it was evident that doj was investigating trump's involvement in jan 6. trump announced on nov 16 2022 and AG garland appointed special counsel jack smith on nov 18 2022

I think he may realize how legally fucked he is if he loses

  On 10/18/2024 at 8:22 PM, Hi Guys said:

I think he may realize how legally fucked he is if he loses

i think his primary motivations are staying out of jail, exacting revenge on people he views as persecuting him, grifting the fuck out of the president's office and generally having dominance over people so he can exploit everything for personal gain and glorification.

  On 10/18/2024 at 7:45 PM, may be rude said:

michael cohen said that trump wasn't trying to win. cohen said trump did the 2016 campaign as a publicity stunt.

100% agree. I know I posted on here before that this was all a bad dinner joke that spiraled massively out of control. I don't think he expected that acting like a complete jackass up on stage would unintentionally create the maga movement. the movement of course was pushed along by fox news and the far right propaganda machine championing him constantly, creating this mythical version of trump that doesn't actually exist. which is perfect cover for a lifetime grifter like trump. they helped sell the successful businessman ethos, his incredible ability to "school" his opponents by hurling insults at them. the evangelical right bought in and lumped him in the same category as a divine cosmic being sent to save them all. this is all awesome if you're a washed up NYC con man. I mean even if he does lose the election, he's grifted millions (billions?) of dollars from people in this country, and will continue to do so as long as he's alive... I don't buy into all the legal threats heading his way. he will never serve jail time or be financially ruined for the crap he's done. he can always head to Moscow if shit ever really does hit the fan for him.

  On 10/18/2024 at 9:42 PM, zero said:

he will never serve jail time or be financially ruined

yeah.. i think the fear of it is motivating him though. paying a big fine, looking the fool and being put in handcuffs or something and perp walked would be insufferable for him. a serious indignity.. worse than shitting his diaper. his image is everything.

i really hope the stories going around about him being really exhausted are true. so, maybe he'll take a bunch of that OTC UK Sudafed and stroke out and fucking die already. 

he's gotta be the worst possible choice for america and the world. just an absolute fucking shit stain. 

lols.. trump sitting on a towel to protect the white couch from his shit stains. 

  On 10/18/2024 at 10:00 PM, ignatius said:

yeah.. i think the fear of it is motivating him though. paying a big fine, looking the fool and being put in handcuffs or something and perp walked would be insufferable for him. a serious indignity.. worse than shitting his diaper. his image is everything.

 

hard to tell if it's fear motivating him, or just that he hates losing at anything due to his massive ego. I'm sure he will grift to pay any fines. remember the mugshot? that did nothing long term, even worked in his favor. half of the country supports him no matter what. his image is already horrific to 50%, and the other 50% shrug everything he does off, support him anyway. logic doesn't factor in here at all with his supporters. even if he were to go to jail, he'd be treated like a king...remember this is the Back to the Future II alternate facts universe we are currently in politically in this country. 

  On 10/18/2024 at 1:35 PM, may be rude said:

trump's own Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, said it seems like trump may be blackmailed by putin

 

woodward goes on to talk about how bizarre it was that trump was given such an urgent and clear warning about covid, yet he did the opposite of the correct thing with covid continually. when there was only 1 case in the US, trump was warned that 650,000 people could die from it. he then spent months telling people not to worry about it, subverting the messages from experts, and actively stopping the federal government from helping with covid whenever possible.

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I dunno, Trump is so teflon that what kind of blackmail could anyone have on him that would even move the needle with his base?  I mean, we've already covered mocking the disabled, veterans, Christians, women; pornstar infidelity, and so much more etc. and these people still vote for him, so what can someone have on him that he would perceive as so damaging that he would act differently compared to the so many examples where he just doesn't give a fuck because he knows he's so teflon?  It just doesn't play to me but I could be totally wrong.

And I totally agree that it seems like he does not want, and never really wanted to, be president.  He wants / wanted the title and power but that's it, certainly not the work and responsibility.