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US Politics: They're Gunnin' 4 Us


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46 minutes ago, DMC said:

Yes, John Edwards was found not guilty.  BY THE WAY, his political career was completely and utterly destroyed.  Getting indicted is NOT good for a politician running for office.  Full stop.  And yes, that includes Trump.  The Mueller investigation was plainly damaging to him politically - not to mention crippled his ability to govern - even though he was able to claim at the end he was "exonerated."  As was both of his impeachments, even if the Senate "exonerated" him. 

I agreed with everything else you said, but this part I think you need a reality check. John Edwards was a standard Democratic politician. Scandals like this kill those. Heck, scandals even less powerful kill democratic politicians and even some Republican politicians all the time. 

But a scandal like this for Trump? I don't know that it is reasonable to say that it'll hurt him. Gonna Godwin this thread right now and point out how jailing Hitler did not hurt him in the least politically and made him in many ways more attractive. There is a point where you're running as the anti-government person and being indicted makes you more genuine in that respect. 

It's not clear how damaging the second impeachment was to him (as it happened after he lost the election) but I think we can all agree that if the first impeachment or the Mueller probe were damaging it was not significantly so. And maybe that's okay! Maybe a small amount of damage is all that's needed. But it ain't gonna kill Trump's political career. Especially from a New York judicial system he's already painted as the most biased and corrupt in the country.

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5 minutes ago, Fez said:

And I think this will help in in the Republican primary now. And if Trump's the nominee, sure I think he's weaker than most other Republicans, but any nominee has a shot.

This will absolutely help him in the primary and he's going to make bank off of it. The more interesting question is how will the more series cases impact him if he's indicted. Those could actually sink him in the primary.

Regardless, this is not good news in any way for Trump if he makes it to the GE.

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Also, I am entirely onboard with prosecuting fascists for being fascists. It's weird, hard-to-explain campaign violations that I'm less interested in.

Not really. Don't get lost in the details and just establish a long pattern of criminal behavior with a side of, "Hey, remember when he was bribing a porn star because he was fucking her while his wife was home with their newborn and he did this all to deceive YOU."

Edited by Tywin et al.
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1 minute ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

John Edwards was a standard Democratic politician. Scandals like this kill those. Heck, scandals even less powerful kill democratic politicians and even some Republican politicians all the time. 

I was responding to the example Fez used.  Do I think this indictment will necessarily "kill" Trump politically?  Of course not.  The overall thrust was to emphasize I don't think it will help helm.  Now, do I think it will hurt him?  Yes, but likely only marginally so -- in how I described at the end of that post.

2 minutes ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

Gonna Godwin this thread right now and point out how jailing Hitler did not hurt him in the least politically and made him in many ways more attractive.

Was waiting for this, didn't expect it to be you.  The Beer Hall Putsch was in November 1923.  Hitler published Mein Kampf in 1925-6.  He became Chancellor in 1933.  That timeframe doesn't really relate to being indicted for giving hush money to an adult film star -- let alone Trump writing a book in prison. 

More importantly, Mein Kampf made Hitler a national figure.  Trump already is and has been for a long time.  His victimhood is tired, and the American people are very tired of it.  They have demonstrated this empirically in three straight election cycles.  The comparison of Trump to Hitler - at least in this context - ranges from irrelevant to absurd.

8 minutes ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

I think we can all agree that if the first impeachment or the Mueller probe were damaging it was not significantly so.

Oh I think they were "significantly" damaging, sure.  (Albeit I suppose we all have different definitions of significant.)  He lost reelection.  Wasn't it you that kept on harping on how rare that was in this day and age?  And during a national crisis to boot.  When plenty of Republican-leaning voters turned out and split their tickets - voting for GOP nominees down-ballot, but voting against Trump.

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16 minutes ago, Fez said:

I think Republicans rallying around him due to it was the only thing keeping him afloat when he was losing support over the ACA repeal fiasco.

Er, huh?  So you're talking summer 2017 when McCain put his thumb down?  Yeah, I was thinking, like, the years after that when the Mueller investigation continually bogged him down with the periodic reports of all the people they were convicting.  And BTW, Cohen's prosecution was not a "weaponization" of the Trump DOJ.  That's..a shocking misunderstanding of Cohen's prosecution.

As for this helping Trump in the primaries -- maybe right now.  We'll see in the long run.  I frankly don't really give a shit as long as the alternative is DeSantis.

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7 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Why are we still taking him seriously as a likely Presidential candidate? Simply because he's an alternative to Trump?

We didn't want to take Trump seriously as a likely presidential candidate for a very long time - and rightly so.  That didn't turn out so well.  Good to keep an open mind when it comes to the GOP primary.

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1 minute ago, DMC said:

We didn't want to take Trump seriously as a likely presidential candidate for a very long time - and rightly so.  That didn't turn out so well.  Good to keep an open mind when it comes to the GOP primary.

Yes. Yes. But there feels like there is some sort of difference here. Trump was looker on as a joke. Rightly so. Except the media took his celebrity and made it a thing. And then that dark, hidden, unspoken of part of the Republican bade realized that guy would do and sat anything to win and they ran with it because he legitimized them. And then it was too late for the rest of us.

DeSantis is being shown, again and again, that he's not a very good politician and he's not even any kind of national celebrity. That mainstream, a loose term to be certain, Republicans think he's the answer to Trump? He can't even fight against a company like Disney correctly...and they think he can stand up to Trump?  

But regardless, you're correct. No complacency. That I agree with.

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22 minutes ago, DMC said:

Oh I think they were "significantly" damaging, sure.  (Albeit I suppose we all have different definitions of significant.)  He lost reelection.  Wasn't it you that kept on harping on how rare that was in this day and age?  And during a national crisis to boot.  When plenty of Republican-leaning voters turned out and split their tickets - voting for GOP nominees down-ballot, but voting against Trump.

I think that it is rare that he lost the election - but I don't think that you can reasonably put most of that weight on the damage caused by Mueller or by the first impeachment. My suspicion is that most of that weight was borne by Covid sucking, and as a secondary factor having a fairly good amount of turnout. That said there were plenty of reasons to be angry at Trump in November of 2020; I don't know that any one was particularly or significantly damaging. One way that you can judge this is by seeing what kind of attacks Biden and democrats were doing - and it wasn't just about the impeachment. It was as a rule about something nebulous around 'character' and while I'm sure impeachment factored in there, it certainly was not the only thing and it might not have been even a major factor. Was that more important than the 'on both sides' statement after Charlottesville? Was his behavior with George Floyd more important? Was his debate behavior more important? At some point I think it's not reasonable to say any one thing was crucial or significant in harming Trump. 

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2 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

DeSantis is being shown, again and again, that he's not a very good politician and he's not even any kind of national celebrity.

Trump's not a very good politician either.  Don't get me wrong - I have plenty of doubts about DeSantis.  But he knows how to control the media -- and even literally try to change the relationship between government and media through certain legislation he's proposed -- and he knows how to keep the base fired up.  

1 minute ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

but I don't think that you can reasonably put most of that weight on the damage caused by Mueller or by the first impeachment.

I wasn't putting "most of the weight" on it, I just said both the Mueller investigation AND the impeachments hurt him politically rather than resulted in "blowback" that somehow helped politically.  You're picking nits.

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2 minutes ago, DMC said:

I wasn't putting "most of the weight" on it, I just said both the Mueller investigation AND the impeachments hurt him politically rather than resulted in "blowback" that somehow helped politically.  You're picking nits.

I guess? I said that it wasn't significant; you said it was. 

In any case I agree with you about the blowback. Even if that were an issue that we should care about it still should not ever preclude not taking action. Might have to be real careful, make sure you're double and triple checking your work and aren't pulling him over for a tail light, but people like Trump have two modes - either they're getting away with as much lawbreaking as they can, or they're bitching about not getting away with it no matter what it is. There is never going to be appeasement. The best you can hope for is following the rules and not getting caught up in something extra stupid. 

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23 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

DeSantis just got pants by Disney. Why are we still taking him seriously as a likely Presidential candidate? Simply because he's an alternative to Trump? Republicans should be laughing at that guy...but then again, they're Republicans...

Because he's the most likely alternative. That said, he's stepped on every rake possible in the last few weeks and the FL legislature might make him totally unelectable in the GE. 

22 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

 

 

Not to be a downer, but different outlets are reporting all kinds of numbers. I think it's safe to assume he's going to face a lot of counts, but it's best to wait until we see the actually charging documents.

6 minutes ago, DMC said:

and he knows how to keep the base fired up.  

True, but he's a wet blanket when it comes to charisma. For all of Trump's faults, he was entertaining as hell. Ron is just cringe.

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3 minutes ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

In any case I agree with you about the blowback.

K.  Like I said, we all have different definitions of "significant," so I really don't think we disagree at all here.  I, personally, think "marginal" and "significant" are fairly synonymous when we're talking about electoral effects.  I imagine most others here don't, but that's just how I was trained.  Like a dog.  A staring at data and election demographics on the computer as if it was another dog outside the window freely enjoying the outside (who the fuck does he think he is?!?) dog.

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Hmmm...Maddow points out that DeSantis declaring, "Florida won't abided by any extradition requests" (ignoring the Constitution doesn't allow for that) is the kind of political theatre that he needs to gin up. 

 

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9 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Because he's the most likely alternative. That said, he's stepped on every rake possible in the last few weeks and the FL legislature might make him totally unelectable in the GE. 

Not to be a downer, but different outlets are reporting all kinds of numbers. I think it's safe to assume he's going to face a lot of counts, but it's best to wait until we see the actually charging documents.

 

The 30+ number seems to be pretty solid...at the moment. But I won't debate you on those merits!

DeSantis has apparently also moved to get the Florida law that says he can't be Governor and run for President repealed tonight...?  Regardless, there might not be much left of him to officially run once Disney is done with him...

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7 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

The 30+ number seems to be pretty solid...at the moment. But I won't debate you on those merits!

It appears likely that it will be a large number, but the individual charges could be minor in nature and scope. Hence why it's best to just wait and see what the legal eagles make of it once we know what's real.

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DeSantis has apparently also moved to get the Florida law that says he can't be Governor and run for President repealed tonight...?  Regardless, there might not be much left of him to officially run once Disney is done with him...

This was always an inevitability. I wouldn't read too much into it.

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8 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

It appears likely that it will be a large number, but the individual charges could be minor in nature and scope. Hence why it's best to just wait and see what the legal eagles make of it once we know what's real.

This was always an inevitability. I wouldn't read too much into it.

Oh I await the actual list.

Too much into it? Maybe not, but he sure did find the right time to try to slip it through quietly and then tried to chum the water with a different story....

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2 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Too much into it? Maybe not, but he sure did find the right time to try to slip it through quietly and then tried to chum the water with a different story....

There have been reports for months that he was going to do exactly this. And frankly, I'm not sure how much strategic news dumps work these days. The whole "Release bad news on a Friday afternoon" doesn't carry the same weight as it did 20 years ago (or even five for that matter). 

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