US Politics: Sitting in Judgement

[Zorral]

How Mark Meadows Became the Least Trusted Man in Washington
The untold story of the rise and fall of Trump’s former chief of staff — and his role in the prosecutions that may determine the 2024 election.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/08/magazine/mark-meadows-trump-prosecution.html

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.... There is reason for Trump to be fretful about Meadows. Court documents that remain under seal but whose contents I’m familiar with confirm that Meadows did in fact receive an immunity order, signed on March 20, 2023, by Chief Judge James E. Boasberg of the District Court in Washington, to testify before a federal grand jury three days later. The order acknowledges that Meadows would most likely have taken the Fifth Amendment if not granted immunity to testify. Meadows did not simply honor a subpoena request with a single obligatory interview with federal prosecutors; rather, he spoke expansively to them and then, the next day, testified before the grand jury for approximately six hours. It is also the case that Meadows is not named as a co-defendant in the Trump indictment, which instead describes him more than once in the favorable terms of a truth-telling chief of staff who did not indulge Trump’s fever dream of a stolen election.

Moreover, according to the ABC News report, Meadows privately contradicted to prosecutors portions of his own 2021 book, “The Chief’s Chief,” especially the chapter about the 2020 election titled, “The Long Con,” which begins with the sentence “I knew he didn’t lose.” The news report was sufficiently credible to Meadows’s conservative publishing house, All Seasons Press, that it promptly filed a lawsuit, claiming breach of contract for his waffling on the 2020 election narrative.

The question of what Meadows may have said, and might say on a witness stand, has significant implications for Trump’s fate in the federal trial, which was scheduled to start March 4 but was recently removed from the court calendar. A firsthand verification from Trump’s former top aide that the president knew that he lost the election but proceeded with efforts to overturn the results anyway might by itself sway the jury to find Trump guilty and send him to prison. In turn, some polls have suggested that a guilty verdict might cost Trump enough votes from independent voters to deny him an election victory — and thus the ability to pardon himself. All of which is to say that Trump’s entire fate could depend on what it means to Mark Meadows, then and now, to be “the chief’s chief.” ....

At the same time, this very question possesses a geometric sort of logic that circumscribes the entirety of the Trump era. From the beginning of the 2016 campaign to the present day, a dominant theme has been how, in Trump world, the banal duplicity a person tends to experience in a political operation has reached a kind of baroque late-stage Darwinism. Even before Trump was nominated, one of his top aides during his candidacy lamented to me how the campaign infighting had devolved into a real-life “Hunger Games.” By 2019, with senior aides warring over power and proximity to the Oval Office and multiple former White House staff members having already published score-settling books (one of them titled, “Team of Vipers”), it had become axiomatic that the surest means of ascent in the Trump White House lay in demonstrating your loyalty to the boss, often by demonstrating someone else’s disloyalty, a ritual of backslapping followed by back-stabbing.

At this exercise, no one excelled like Mark Meadows. His political résumé carries immense weight on the right: four-term congressman, a founder of the House Freedom Caucus, bête noire of Speaker John Boehner and Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Trump’s only chief of staff never to have been replaced and, finally, an indicted martyr to the 2020 election-denial cause. That he achieved all this in a decade’s time hints at an uncommon skill set. Meadows himself elaborated on this talent during freshman orientation for newly elected members of Congress in 2012, asking a far more seasoned legislator in the presence of other staff members, “Have you seen the movie ‘A Beautiful Mind’?” Then, to make clear that Meadows was comparing himself to the movie’s brilliant protagonist, he continued, “My gift is reading people and seeing things other people don’t.”

A more complete examination ...

 

Edited February 11 by Zorral

[Rorshach]

Not read the whole thing yet, but I'm not surprised that Trump's allies thinks in Mob Terminology

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Some Trump affiliates suggested to me that Meadows had merely gotten by with the minimum in complying with a federal subpoena, and that this by itself did not prove he was a rat.

 

[Kalbear]

On Trump and putin, you have to also understand that one of the only things Trump is genuinely afraid of is the world ending via nuclear war. He doesn't fear going after smaller countries as any bully doesn't, but the notion that he could just die like that and his world be over is terrifying to him. He shares this trait and this willingness with Elon Musk - an absolute willingness to appease putin and avoid anything particularly causing conflict.

Trump also admires putin and what kind of power putin wields, and would naturally be an ally the same way bolsonaro was - but the fear of him is not something I've seen covered here as much.

[SeanF]

@Phylum of AlexandriaI think the problem with critical theory is that it turns everything into who/whom.

Morality becomes a tool by which those in power justify their suppression of those without.

[Fragile Bird]

4 hours ago, Zorral said:

 

And surely, Fragile Bird -- you must be jesting.  We even had a long back-and-forth about that Michelle Obama running thing not long ago and how silly to even entertain such and idea was.

Come on! We’re talking about Republicans! Making Michelle a boogy man just in case would seem logical to those brains!

[Phylum of Alexandria]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

@Phylum of AlexandriaI think the problem with critical theory is that it turns everything into who/whom.

Morality becomes a tool by which those in power justify their suppression of those without.

I don't have a problem with it per se. The problem for me is when it's treated as an escape from, or alternative to, liberal society rather than a helpful check on it. When it does that, it resembles a separatist religion more than a philosophical framework.

[Tywin et al.]

5 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I truly believe the GOP in general has accepted Putins dark money in many cases. One of the flunky Trump sons commented in a interview once how the Trumps get all the finance and cash they could ever need from Russia.

Putin owns the maga movement imo.

Ah here it is, it was idiot Eric-

 

The Hill

https://thehill.com › news › 332270...

Eric Trump in 2014: 'We have all the funding we need out of ...

 

May 7, 2017 — He said, 'Well, we don't rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.' I said, 'Really?' And he

Yep. The Trumps in general are transactional, not principled. They'd take money from the leadership of every government they shit on if it could find its way into their pockets. They're truly empty souls. I thought Tiffany might be "the good one" but she's shown she's willing to do the same. 

[The Anti-Targ]

So, 2024 looks like a repeat of 2016 with the narrative trying to convince many progressives to vote for Biden being he's the lesser of two evils. Only now we have the accelerationist philosophy much more to the fore, which might lead some progressives to not vote or perhaps even vote Trump to get this nightmare over with sooner so that building back form the ashes can start. 

Quite the conundrum, do you try to prop up for as long as you can an obviously failing system by voting for the least indecent people who thrust themselves onto the ballot paper, or do you stand aside and watch it all burn down, which is going to happen no matter what you do? Try to figure out the path of least suffering I suppose and go with that.

[ThinkerX]

6 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

So, 2024 looks like a repeat of 2016 with the narrative trying to convince many progressives to vote for Biden being he's the lesser of two evils. Only now we have the accelerationist philosophy much more to the fore, which might lead some progressives to not vote or perhaps even vote Trump to get this nightmare over with sooner so that building back form the ashes can start. 

Quite the conundrum, do you try to prop up for as long as you can an obviously failing system by voting for the least indecent people who thrust themselves onto the ballot paper, or do you stand aside and watch it all burn down, which is going to happen no matter what you do? Try to figure out the path of least suffering I suppose and go with that.

Taylor Swift will save the day (and the country) by signing up several hundred thousand young voters in swing states - who will vote Democrat (because of student loan forgiveness and disgust at the GOP's stance on minorities/gays/abortion.)

(then she endorses AOC for president for 2028)

 

[Phylum of Alexandria]

2 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

so that building back form the ashes can start. 

That's the major flaw in the logic right there. As it always it with the revolutionary mindset. It will be so much worse, not just for us but for the entire world. And given the military might of the US, I don't know if building back will be possible. So by all means lets give the nuclear codes back to the deranged fascist and hope we can put Humpty Dumpty together again.

[Larry of the Lawn]

2 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

So, 2024 looks like a repeat of 2016 with the narrative trying to convince many progressives to vote for Biden being he's the lesser of two evils. Only now we have the accelerationist philosophy much more to the fore, which might lead some progressives to not vote or perhaps even vote Trump to get this nightmare over with sooner so that building back form the ashes can start. 

Quite the conundrum, do you try to prop up for as long as you can an obviously failing system by voting for the least indecent people who thrust themselves onto the ballot paper, or do you stand aside and watch it all burn down, which is going to happen no matter what you do? Try to figure out the path of least suffering I suppose and go with that.

This is not going to happen.  No progressive is going to vote for Trump.  People might stay home or not vote for President but no progressive is going to vote for Trump.  

[The Anti-Targ]

6 minutes ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

That's the major flaw in the logic right there. As it always it with the revolutionary mindset. It will be so much worse, not just for us but for the entire world. And given the military might of the US, I don't know if building back will be possible. So by all means lets give the nuclear codes back to the deranged fascist and hope we can put Humpty Dumpty together again.

If people are to be believed in saying the one thing Trump is deathly afraid of is nuclear war and that he will lick Putin's erogenous zones to avoid it, it could be argued that he's the least dangerous person to possess the launch codes. One hopes he's as afraid of nuclear war with China as he is with Russia though. I guess he's less personally financially invested in China so maybe he thinks Chinese nukes are different to Russian nukes.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

1 hour ago, Larry of the Lawn said:

This is not going to happen.  No progressive is going to vote for Trump.  People might stay home or not vote for President but no progressive is going to vote for Trump.  

Trump managed to snag a fair number of 2012 Obama voters in 2016. And yeah, quite a few of them stayed home.

One of the most underreported stories of 2016 was the number of voters who didn't stay home but instead voted 3rd party. The Libertarians and Greens saw a massive jump that year. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

I think theres a lot of anger at both parties for not offering a competent candidate when theres so much at stake in the World right now.

Trump must be stopped.....but really...... your giving us a guy that cant even outpoll the fascist and these are our choices?

I am disgusted with both parties and Biden shouldve had the principle to have bowed out long ago instead of putting us at risk of seeing the crime family back in power.

We are good and screwed.

[Kalbear]

13 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Trump managed to snag a fair number of 2012 Obama voters in 2016. And yeah, quite a few of them stayed home.

Sure, but they'd hardly be considered progressives. 

Mostly they stayed home in key areas or voted for stein. 

 

[Kalbear]

Just now, DireWolfSpirit said:

 

I am disgusted with both parties and Biden shouldve had the principle to have bowed out long ago instead of putting us at risk of seeing the crime family back in power.

We are good and screwed.

And once again are you threatening to not vote for Biden if he runs? Just curious if you changed your mind.

[DireWolfSpirit]

48 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

And once again are you threatening to not vote for Biden if he runs? Just curious if you changed your mind.

No I will not vote for either corpse, not that it will matter, the Democrats have boxed us into being defeated by offering us someone so unpopular he cannot outpoll a criminal.  

Biden shouldve stepped aside, theres no way a candidate couldnt have been produced thats more popular than Trump. It was pure greed for him to cling to the office in his diminished capacity, voters arent having him.

What swing state do think Biden can win?

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

50 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

No I will not vote for either corpse, not that it will matter, the Democrats have boxed us into being defeated by offering us someone so unpopular he cannot outpoll a criminal.  

Biden shouldve stepped aside, theres no way a candidate couldnt have been produced thats more popular than Trump. It was pure greed for him to cling to the office in his diminished capacity, voters arent having him.

What swing state do think Biden can win?

Bernie Sanders is still looking pretty spry. Just sayin'

[House Balstroko]

1 hour ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I think theres a lot of anger at both parties for not offering a competent candidate when theres so much at stake in the World right now.

Trump must be stopped.....but really...... your giving us a guy that cant even outpoll the fascist and these are our choices?

I am disgusted with both parties and Biden shouldve had the principle to have bowed out long ago instead of putting us at risk of seeing the crime family back in power.

We are good and screwed.

I don’t follow your logic. What makes you think that a different candidate would automatically solve the issue at hand. I would love to see another candidate replace Biden, though I’m not convinced it’s the best course of action at this point. Then again, I’m not American so I have no input.

[ThinkerX]

1 hour ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

No I will not vote for either corpse, not that it will matter, the Democrats have boxed us into being defeated by offering us someone so unpopular he cannot outpoll a criminal.  

Biden shouldve stepped aside, theres no way a candidate couldnt have been produced thats more popular than Trump. It was pure greed for him to cling to the office in his diminished capacity, voters arent having him.

What swing state do think Biden can win?

Given that Trump is actively ticking off swing voters, Biden can probably win most or all of the swing states. 

That said, while Biden might begin his second term in 2025, there is at least an even chance that Harris will finish it.