• nbailey@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    37
    ·
    1 year ago

    It’s important to remember at this point that being bad at crime is not a valid defense.

    If you mug a guy and immediately drop the wallet down a storm drain, you’ve still committed robbery. If you steal a car but lock the keys in it, it’s still theft. If you attempt to overthrow your own government and can’t organize people to actually pull it off, you’ve still committed treason.

    Trump, despite being a career criminal, is still really shit at being a criminal. Some people will construe his failure to execute with innocence - it is not. It’s incompetence.

    • AfterAll@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’m oh so thankful Trump was both an incompetent criminal and an incompetent tyrant. Competence could have done unimaginable damage to the US and to the world.

      • Gray@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Which is why Ron Desantis terrifies me. It doesn’t look good for him right now, but I wouldn’t have said things looked good for Trump in the summer of 2015 either. And all it would take is for one of these smart tyrants to win a freak election like 2016 and it would be Trump all over again, but much worse.

    • Designate@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      Trump is not necessarily the only corrupt president ever, he is just stupid enough to let it get out in public.

    • starrox@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Not to say you are wrong with anything you’re saying… But I am asolutely confident that pigs will learn to fly before he gets convicted for treason. Did he commit it? A clear “yes” from me (non-American but I dont think that matters; it is basically an accepted fact among all that understand what “treason” usually means in a country-context). Will the prosecutors be able to prove it through a brigade of lawyers? I dont think so.

      • JuBe@beehaw.orgM
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        I’m not a lawyer elsewhere in the world, but the United States has a very specific and very narrow definition for what is considered “treason.” Article III, § 3 of the Constitution states that

        Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort . . . .

        I’m not an expert in this area, but from some legal analysis I’ve come across, another hurdle to convicting on treason is that in order to have an “enemy,” there needs to be an official declaration of war.

        • ritswd@beehaw.org
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Yeah, people have been using the words treason / sedition / insurrection interchangeably. January 6th is obviously not treason, but it’s understandable that people meant something else and got confused.