• silverbax@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I’ve thought for years - long before Trump ever ran for president - that he’s just a trust fund kid who spends his annual allowance on pretending to be a business man.

        Basically he just flew around the country in a private plane, wore a bad suit and claimed to be in business, but no business he ever engaged in actually made money. His family real estate holdings existed before he was playing ‘business’ and his own investments have either failed completely or, in the case of New York real estate, underperformed compared to the market.

        His family made him rich by the time he was nine years old, and he wrote a book about what a great businessman he was (despite not actually having built any of that wealth himself) and then he just pretended to be a business magnate until NBC came along and let him do it on television.

        There is a significant number of people who can’t differentiate between image and reality. If a writer creates horror books, they believe that writer is secretly a serial killer or similar. If an actor plays a stripper in a movie, they believe that actor really is someone who would work in the sex trade. They can’t imagine it’s an illusion. So for them, Trump is a magnate despite the evidence.

        • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          If a writer creates horror books, they believe that writer is secretly a serial killer or similar

          Philip K. Dick complained about people accusing him of being some sorta drug pusher cult leader given how much of works deals with religious themes and drug themes. Poor guy was a paranoid schizophrenic and definitely didn’t need harassment for the crime of being a good writer.

    • Out of any appointment, Trump views his Supreme Court nominations as exceptionally disloyal. They’ll be among the first victims of his retribution.

      I think they’ll come down hard against him.

        • Telorand@reddthat.com
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          1 year ago

          I think you are right to be cynical, but I agree that I don’t think it’s likely they’ll throw him a bone on this. The arguments against him are pretty cut and dry, because in no way can you construe that it’s within a president’s duties to overturn or influence election results.

          The Supreme Court loves States’ Rights, and allowing Trump immunity here runs afoul of their beloved doctrine.

  • IHeartBadCode@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    There is absolutely no reason to rush this sham to trial except to injure President Trump and tens of millions of his supporters.

    Because if Trump is elected President there stands a chance that a President Trump would attempt to pardon himself from any former crimes related to his attempt to overthrow the US Government.

    There are zero ways someone can convince me of any of the following:

    • That Jan. 6th was anything but an attempt by the current President to thwart the process by which Congress counts the Electoral Votes
    • That such a move was not in line with an attempt to install the then-President’s will over the mandate of the prescribed means by which we elect a President (which I’m no fan of the Electoral College, but until we get rid of it that’s how we do it).
    • That such an attempt somehow doesn’t arise to a coup.
    • That the Founder’s of our Nation and the people that drafted the 14th Amendment, meant for this kind of abuse to go unpunished.
    • That anyone who has one ounce of understanding of the law believes that a person seeking Presidency should have the power to go unpunished or even worse, the power to remove any and all punishment related to an attempt to undo the order established in the Constitution of the United States.

    There’s just zero logical sense to a notion that a President can do anything with impunity, sky’s the limit. There is no historical basis on even the loosest interpretation of the intent of the Founding fathers of this nation that supports this notion. And even knowing that, man I have very little hope that SCOTUS is actually going to pull though on this. I honestly think they’re going to find some very niche technical weasel words to grant Trump literal absolution on his crimes.

    And then that’s just it. There’s no meaning to law, if there exists a single person who can be above it all. Law makes no sense if there’s a single person who can ignore it. That’s was one of the major sticking points for us leaving the Kingdom way back and starting our own country. The President was never meant to be a King and if SCOTUS grants that immunity, I mean we’ve got a King in all but name. That’s just how it is.

    It’s surreal that we’re here now. That the question laid before the highest Court of this Country is this one. And literally any other composition of the Court I wouldn’t think twice about it because that answer would be a “hell no” without a nanosecond of delay. But I couldn’t honestly tell anyone how SCOTUS will weigh in on this, but if they say “yes”, it’s over, there’s no way anyone can ever prosecute Trump for literally any crime even to the end of time. And I just cannot imagine that any Founding father thought, “Yeap, this is exactly how I intended things to go.”

    I mean fuck, I don’t think people honestly appreciate how massive this question before the Court is. It’s literally asking “Do we have a President or do we have a King?” And fuck, I couldn’t tell you how they’re going to rule. A coin flip would be as likely a correct answer as the current Court could possibly muster. And even worse, I have a feeling they’re going to try an apply a very specific ruling here even though Jack Smith’s request is much broader in scope. And then that’s just going to indicate that “it’s a King if SCOTUS says so” which would be an even worse outcome.

    • rustydomino@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      If SCOTUS rules like you worry they will, Dark Brandon better start taking the nuclear option with some shit. After all, he would be above the law.

    • Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      A lot of it can be largely predicted by the Conservative bias. Vaguely speaking what really defines the left and right politically is it’s veiw on the distribution of power. The left is for spreading power horizontally, strengthening democratic processes. The right is more about consolidation and reinforcing the hierarchy of power. What that heirachy is can change depending on time and place - monarchy, nobility, land ownership the intelligencia, the rich or “us” whatever “us” is that distinguishes from “them” (religious background, race, sexuallity etc. etc.). But to them the hierarchy is natural and one aspires to it, not attempt to dissolve it.

      Once you separate the grift designed to get people to buy in from the actual objectives of conservatism it becomes a lot easier to see that this was always the aim. They want a king because power flows from the king to his most faithful servants and his devout petitioners first and is weilded against those who oppose. The redistribution of the resources and power back into a heirachy has certain predictable beneficiaries where democracy scatters power over a wide and unpredictable plain.

      Once the system is lousy with people who fundamentally do not believe in democracy and do not have to pretend to the masses to support and nurture democratic society it is basically game over.