So let’s say we let him run to avoid a violent backlash.
What happens if he loses? We let him overturn the election to avoid another violent backlash?
All we’re doing is proving to the fascists that we will kowtow to them if they are angry and violent enough. If we want to remain a free-ish country we’re going to have to piss them off at some point by doing the right thing, and we’ll need to deal with the fallout.
And if he wins the fascists will take that as endorsement. Whatever they would have done via backlash will become the norm since their present supports it.
I really think people either forgot or still don’t understand just how close the insurrection was to succeeding. Change one part of Mike Pence’s story and we’d be in a whole different – and much darker – timeline. There’s plenty of evidence that suggests a different outcome if a similar coup is attempted this time. The law is on our side, and so are states’ rights, we need to enforce them.
By ‘deal with the fallout’, of course you mean apply the law to criminals. Arrest them, charge them, send them to court, let them be convicted, and serve their sentences. Justice delayed is justice denied.
I personally can’t wait. All the 2nd Amendment idiots trying to take on the police and military?
It’d be glorious.
I personally can’t wait. All the 2nd Amendment idiots trying to take on the police and military?
Well, I’ve got some news for you.
House Republicans All Vote Against Neo-Nazi Probe of Military, Police
The call is coming from inside the house
How many police and military do you think are 2nd amendment idiots?
Being a traitor and being police/military is not the same. I’m suspicious of police AF but betraying your country is a bigger leap than liking guns.
Betraying my country? I’m saving it from this woke mind virus trying to overthrow the people’s will! /s
Through a lot of the recent bullshit, the police were shaking hands with Proud Boys and turning their heads to miss crimes committed by them. Multiple police forces were entirely dismantled and rebuilt because there were zero salvageable members of them. And that only happened when their behavior got too much national attention.
The “boys club” that is the police takes the above and makes it worse. For most cops, if 1/3 of their force is all doing something, they’re going along with it out of fear of rejection or even fear of reprisal.
didn’t think that one through much did you?
Which we deals with the fallout though? Would you, as an individual, risk being their target? That’s the hard part. Easy to say we as a society shouldn’t cave, but would you like to be name dropped by Trump as the enemy?
I’ve seen your and other similar comments getting a lot of downvotes. Are people suggesting it’s acceptable innocent people have to fear for their and their family’s safety, because they choose to uphold the law?
They’re going to be violent; it’s only a matter of when, how much, and for how long. Kicking the can down the road puts “when” further away by making “how much” and “for how long” much worse.
Right? Jan 6 was a taste.
It was comically incompetent but almost successful. They had a practice run, the next time will be better (for them) if we let this continue. Gotta rip the bandage off at some point.
One thing I’ve wondered about is if the police that were part of the maga following have come to their senses AT ALL after having hundreds/thousands of people threaten them, beat them, etc when they were supposed to be “on the same side” during the January 6th nonsense.
So much of that uprising, protest, whatever you think it should be called, would’ve normally been squashed before people ever made it to the capital building if the police would’ve responded in a similar fashion to the many much smaller protests that came before it.
I highly doubt it, they probably figure anyone causing trouble was actually antifa.
It was comically incompetent
It was done so undercover and with a hamstrung/compliant law enforcement that national security didn’t see it coming, although General Milly seems to have anticipated it. Right wing terrorists are treated with gentle hands. They will be much more careful and thorough the next time. They are telegraphing it every day through Republican speak. Listen closely.
But that’s how we solve every problem in life.
Something something always do the right then when we have no other choice.
Rudy has already hinted at violence Republicans are priming the cult. Tonight the rural red folk are out at night practicing with their night scoped rifles. Prepare accordingly.
Good point, though I would counter that there’s a lot of blustering about taking our country back but I haven’t seen many serious attempts or people capable of actually planning and executing such a thing, and I’ve had a good bit of contact with what y’all would consider to be American far right rebels.
For all I know, the far righties talking about their revolution is about as productive as the tankies talking about theirs. Nobody sees a future in this country where the workers seize the means of production and we actually eat the rich, right?
Nobody sees a future in this country where the workers seize the means of production and we actually eat the rich, right?
Comrade, I think you might be lost. I’m confident there are plenty of people on Lemmy who 100% envision such a future – I can’t be the only one!
Well, it’s Lemmy, so in all honesty I’d say that there definitely are a lot of tankies here who are as delusional as the far right MAGA idiots. Blind adherence to ideology makes madmen of us all, just as does a cult of personality like Trump’s.
Enlighten us, what’s your ideology? The status quo ?
If the backlash is the scary imagine how frightening the presidency would be. Fucking cowards.
Remember how frightening the first one was. You know, with the Nazi “very fine people” and giving Putin a BJ on international TV and trying to destroy NATO and…
Pick your poison:
Backlash now from an angry mob
Full-swing shift into an oppressive authoritarian state once he’s elected
Many of these politicians are hoping that it will be someone else’s problem.
For them, the poisons are:
A) Backlash now and get possibly killed
B) Meh. Let someone else deal with it after I retire
Keep in mind that in 2020, many of the Republican Secretaries of State were threatened for not giving the election to Trump. They did the right thing and got death threats over it.
When people stand their ground, we have to remember that they are the last line of defense against democracy. I don’t say that lightly. Many Republicans saw the resistance and either replaced these people or wrote laws to make overturning an election easier.
If the Republicans see that they have lost, it won’t be another January 6th. It will be a bloodless coup because they’ve already done the work to bring themselves into power.
And that’s why this election is not only important but potentially dangerous. I don’t know many liberals who are willing to put their lives on the line to stand up to fascism. Myself included. I’d like to believe I would. But I don’t know if I could if it came down to it.
There won’t be a " bloodless coup." It won’t happen because there is only one president at a time, so no matter how the election goes, Biden sits alone at the levers of ultimate power until Trump is sworn in.
The only way a “bloodless coup” could happen is with the full foreknowledge and cooperation of the US military’s senior officer corps, but that’s impossible both because it’s too difficult to coordinate, and because the senior officer corps absolutely despises Trump as a liar and a coward and for many other reasons that I’m sure will occur to you when you think back on his presidency.
He is widely seen as a gutless incompetent and deeply dishonorable idiot.
I don’t know many liberals who are willing to put their lives on the line to stand up to fascism. Myself included. I’d like to believe I would. But I don’t know if I could if it came down to it.
I’m with you on that. Honestly, I don’t think I’d trust someone who sounded sure on that. They’re either lying to themselves or a little too eager for violence.
Your comment is bang on. The rise of Hitler and Mussolini in the 1930s should be mandatory reading for everyone. I bet less than 5% of the US population know how the Fascists came to power in Germany and Italy. Most people probably don’t realize that Hitler was a populist who rose to power through legal means and then used a false flag operation to jail his opponents and seize power permanently, again using legal means. It would be all too easy for Trump to replicate that scenario if he gets the presidency again. If he gets elected legally (or at least with the appearance of legality), and then uses false flag operation to take out a good chunk of Congress, he could terrify the public and declare martial law. January 6 shows that he has the kind of supporters that would be willing to do something like that. In that scenario, even the US military probably wouldn’t stop him.
What a lot of liberals often forget is that our constitution is just a piece of paper. What makes it powerful is the honesty of people in power to execute it to the best of their abilities.
We may disagree with how we accomplish our goals, but so long as we agree that the constitutional is worth protecting, we can dialogue.
The Republicans have shit on the constitution, and have threatened to institute a government based on dogma, where everything is made up and justice is only for the chosen few.
Some have said, “Well, at least I can change it from the inside.”
My response has been, “Well, why haven’t you?”
The sad thing is that the GOP has become overrun by a small minority who have a dispositional amount of influence. We need good spirited debate in this country. But the GOP is more concerned with power than they are with governing.
I’ve been saying for almost 20 years that there will be a civil war in my lifetime. I fear that we’re getting closer and closer.
Exactly right. It is frightening to think what could happen if Trump gets re-elected. He will have zero incentive to moderate his approach. I wonder if anyone has a plan to prevent Trump from pulling a Hitler, and if that plan could survive his planned purge of the highest levels of the bureaucracy. It is incredible to think that the US is that close to sleepwalking into fascism and a civil war (again).
I also “fear backlash” if he runs and loses the election. He won’t hesitate to get his followers to commit acts of violence. According to the logic of the “for fear of backlash we should allow him to run” people, we should just annoint Trump President for Life. After all, we can’t do anything that might cause MAGA to become violent, right? /s
Being a little sarcy there pal? Telling everyone too? Totally warranted
It’s a habit I formed back when I frequented Reddit. You sometimes couldn’t tell if someone was being serious or not and since I didn’t want anyone to mistake my sarcasm for MAGA-ism, I used /s liberally.
I think it’s useful. It’s not uncommon for people to not pick up on written sarcasm. I actually think we should adopt diacritics that denote emotion. Like emojis but more systematic.
There was…
I forgot what it was, maybe an upside exclamation point?
But there was something to denote sarcasm besides /s way back in the olden days too
That’d be less insufferable, but ultimately there’s no point in being sarcastic if you’re gonna tank it right at the end.
Why does that matter? If you’re not convinced you can be effectively sarcastic then don’t be sarcastic. Putting that at the end is tantamount to going ‘LOOOOOOOOOOOL JK DON’T DOWNDOOT PLZZ!!!’.
Why die on this hill? It’s so very, very pointless.
No, it’s not, that stupid thing highlights several different problems, chief of which being that people would rather ruin a joke than risk being downvoted.
This is the kind of trend that’ll just stunt weak, impressionable, scared people’s cognition and impact their poor communicative skills further.
We just need to rip the band-aid off and do it now before the election while we still have somebody semi-sensible in the Whitehouse, rather than wait for things to play out during the election. It’s already going to be a chaotic time then, with everything being up in the air. Just push it now so we know what to expect walking into that shit. Otherwise we’re going to be sleepwalking into that election potentially on the cusp of turning into a dictatorship virtually overnight.
No insurrectionists in any elected office. Makes perfect sense one would wish to have this key point in one’s constitution, heck, even from the beginning. What about insurrectionists who were appointed by insurrectionist(s)? Seems pretty dubious. We need to either remove the insurrectionist appointees, or expand the SCOTUS to water down the insurrectionists in government. Putin must be chortling in his cocoa puffs.
Yes, we need to remove Scotus and retry all those cases
No insurrectionists in any elected office.
TBH in hindsight, this was only ever a milquetoast alternative to the gallows.
Imagine the alternative timeline in which confederate leaders didn’t get to go back to their states and become governors, senators, KKK members, in which the confederacy didn’t get to install one of their own by putting a bullet in Lincoln’s brain, who would then subsequently veto legislation from congress that sought to prevent southern states from re-establishing with the same leadership that led up to the confederacy.
For that matter, Andrew Johnson as Lincoln’s VP had every appearance of signaling a unity ticket (see? we will give concessions if you participate in good faith!) but in retrospect he was effectively the confederacy’s deepest mole and most powerful enabler.
Imagine, if you will, the timeline in which confederate leaders were hanged and the confederacy was in fact dismantled vs. being protected from consequence
It boils down to this: You don’t stop MAGA violence by giving in, but the opposite. You stop it by fighting back and holding people accountable. Removing Trump from the ballot, as the law requires, is a first step. It sends a strong message to MAGA: This is what happens when you use violence to get your way. By not taking his name off the ballot, states are signaling that they will accede to violent threats. We should not be surprised if rewarding MAGA violence means we see more of it.
Yeuup
Basically, for evil to success is needed that the good doesn’t do anything.
Giving them concessions because you’re afraid they’ll act badly tells them to act badly when they want concessions.
The right course of action is to make acting badly (like participating in a coup, or engaging in political violence or threats of it) have painful consequences.
I have no idea why concessions are still being made to these assholes.
They’re the political equivalent of the pan handlers you give five dollars to on the way into a gas station. And by the time you walk out they forgot you already gave them money and give you the same story.
They can get their way 99.99% of the time, but that 0.01% of the time you hold them to the same standard as everyone else, they start screaming they’re being persecuted.
Fuck em. They act the same no matter what so just don’t give them anything. It’s still the same amount of terroristic threats in the end.
getting more than everyone else and then crying oppression is baked into conservative dna. it’s the essence of the movement.
Whatever happened to not negotiating with terrorists? These people are terrorists. If they break the law, charge them for their crimes.
They’re all domestic terrorists, they admitted as much at CPAC; I have no idea why anyone is willing to negotiate or even take them at their word.
Awful lot of extra words for “terrorists”.
Because that’s exactly what they are threatening, doxing, death threat, shooting up clubs hell even tried to attack the FBi and of course the attempt to overthrow the government… Literally the most successful terrorist there ever was and we still won’t call it at face value for what the maga group is…
https://apnews.com/article/fbi-cincinnati-armed-man-b4701596a0eb9770e3b29e95328f5704
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/blame-abc-news-finds-17-cases-invoking-trump/story?id=58912889
Literally the most successful terrorist there ever was
Definitely not. He wasn’t successful at all.
Terrorism is to drive change and action through the threat of terror/fear etc.
He’s not in jail, his blinded followers barely got punished for the severity of their crimes and we are all sitting here talking about if it’s democratic to not put him in the ballot and fucking contemplating the very real prospect of a “one day dictator”
What other terrorist group has driven so much change in their favor? Do we all think Binladin was maybe on to something? How about ISIS …?
He is closest to really overthrowing this whole ship, unless maybe we all vote for the oldest president there ever was…
We are on a knifes edge and it’s fucking horrifying and baffling. This isn’t 2020 we all know the “it will never happen” thoughts of trump getting elected were wrong and we shouldn’t delude ourselves with thinking this will never happen either… The highest court in the land is stacked and taking bribes now openly with no consequences, our past president almost assuredly sold nuclear secrets and still lives and allowed to fuck this whole country… What higher power do you think is soundly going to hold people accountable and uphold the law, cause I don’t see it.
He’s not in jail,
Many terrorist leaders are not.
his blinded followers barely got punished for the severity of their crimes
Most of the violent offenders were suitably punished. I
we are all sitting here talking about if it’s democratic to not put him in the ballot
The best place for terrorists is on the ballot because that reduces their ability to call for violence.
and fucking contemplating the very real prospect of a “one day dictator”
Trump has already been president. He wasn’t very good. Certainly not dictator level.
What other terrorist group has driven so much change in their favor?
All? I see very little changes. What are MAGA demands for change?
Do we all think Binladin was maybe on to something? How about ISIS …?
Totally different league to Trump.
He is closest to really overthrowing this whole ship,
He’s already been captain once. He spent the time golfing and watching TV.
We are on a knifes edge
The knife has already fallen. Stacking the Supreme Court was the only real damage and that would have happened regardless of the republican candidate.
What higher power do you think is soundly going to hold people accountable and uphold the law.
The electorate.
I don’t think it’s entirely about “fear of backlash”. I think the real fear people are expressing is the fear of the election appearing rigged, Ahmadinejad-style. If the Republicans nominate Trump, and he goes unconsidered with “unknown numbers” of write-in votes in enough states to affect the election, he would obviously argue that he actually won on votes and might even be convincing to non-Republicans.
When the Colorado Supreme Court decided against Trump, it was a split decision by an all-Democrat panel that questioned what “due process” should be on the matter. There’s so many ways that this can be spun nationally or internationally by the modern equivalent of the way the South created sympathy through propaganda after the Civil War that survives today. Hundreds of millions of people throughout the world will likely question the legitimacy of the president or US elections after this matter no matter who wins or how chips fall.
BUT, there’s also no right answer, and none of the above reasons are sufficient to just put Trump back on the ballot and hope. It should never have gotten to this. Someone that is publicly believed by a significant percent of America to not be eligible should not have party support in the first place. And if it did, Congress should have stepped in before now.
Ultimately, the Republicans are again objectively hurting America for their own agenda.
If Republicans want a candidate on the ballot, they can nominate someone who didn’t start an insurrection. They have no shortage of choices for other candidates. If anything, that’s why the rulings should be laid out right now before the Republican Iowa Caucus.
In a vacuum, I could see the point of the world not seeing the US President as being democratically elected. In practice, this is only going to be an issue for countries that have their own problems with fascist political parties, and I’m not inclined to care.
I think it’s far simpler than that. Biden doesn’t win 2024 if his opponent isn’t Trump, his entire campaign message is designed to go head to head with Trump and only Trump. The dems don’t want him to be removed from enough ballots that someone else wins the republican primary.
I fear allowing the ignorant and uneducated to be part of the conversation.
Donald Trump is not qualified to be considered a decent human being let alone president.
It becomes a reason if it were to work… - hence why they keep trotting it out I suppose, just to see what sticks.
