It feels like every pick of this administration is just someone who has a motivation for corruption.
replies(6):
No; the problem with Trump is the specific types of laws he broke. He broke laws around honesty, fair dealing, obstruction of justice, and, of course, the integrity of elections and our democratic process. He is, very plainly, opposed to democracy and the rule of law, preferring to replace it with cronyism and nepotism.
That's why he's bad for the country, not simply "because he's a convicted criminal."
"In-groups who are protected by the law, but not bound by it, alongside out-groups who are bound by the law, but not protected by it."
He may have been convicted, but he faced no consequences. He was not bound by the law, so not only did his convictions and investigations not deter him, the lack of consequences emboldened him.
Convicted criminal + blatant lies = disregard for society, disregard for people, disregard for rules/norms/laws. It all adds up to who he is and what he values and represents.
NOBODY should be surprised at this administration's disregard for society. You should be actually surprised if he does anything good/lawful.
During Trump 1, there were some adults in the room -- congress seemed to be less complacent, the cabinet appointees had more independent (and more pragmatic) judgement, and the scale of purges across the government felt like nothing compared to what's currently going on.
There's none of that now. Congress is complacent and arguably complicit in an ongoing constitutional crisis, the admin is just breaking a number of laws without even putting in the work to have plausible deniability, and with every passing day the corruption's growing to levels that many of us who've been born and raised in the modern economic west just haven't seen in a few generations.
I'm sorry, I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say here.
Are you saying it's normal or acceptable to have your expectations be that a "convicted criminal" is automatically a bad person?
If so, then particularly given the large and very-well-documented racial biases in arrest, prosecution, and conviction for crimes here in the US, perhaps you should consider adjusting those expectations?
If not, then please actually say what you mean clearly.
That you think we should not be "cancelling" anti-vaxxers and your implication of we should listen to anti-vaxxers (because they "dare to think differently", as if this is about their dyed hair color or something) says a lot about you. And that you use "canceling" in quotes because you can't point to a real thing "liberals" did.
> As a result they kicked off from public discourse huge groups of electorate, polarizing society.
OHHHHH, the liberals are the one who polarized society? Not Trump from the start saying these people are my enemies? Your right-wing bias is showing
> There were topics that you just could not discussed, twitter (pre Musk) was looking to it, same Facebook or Youtube (still, good luck having a monetized film with the forbidden word like Gaza Strip), similarly mainstream media.
And there are now topics that can't be discussed on Twitter (post-Musk) like the word "cisgender". And Facebook and Youtube had TONS of anti-vax misinformation, anti-abortion groups, and general right-wing algorithmic boosting. That maybe "some" topics aren't allowed then but a ton of others still are is you trying to pick one spoon out of a pile of knives and saying its full of spoons.
What other topics could not be discussed? The value of white supremacy? How homosexuality is a choice? That the Jews run the world? Be specific please.
If there are anyone on the (currently) winning side in this Congress who aren't a bunch of greedy, self-serving boot lickers they better step up soon. I can't imagine someone like John McCain would remain silent in this environment. Best case scenario: history will forget most of these assholes; if not, it will not be kind.
After he won I started reading more about who these people were and what they were planning to do and sold all my stocks after the inauguration, there was no way it was going to be a normal presidency, even compared to the last one.
I expected a repeat of his first term. Which honestly was quite uneventful. This is not.
Even when the candidate speaks of people not having to vote again in the future, if they just vote for him this last time?
I mean, I'm not even in the US and probably missed a lot of stuff that happened during the election. But no one around here is surprised about what's happening now, surely most of the US population was that aware too?
I believe what the parent comment is trying to say is: someone who committed crimes in the past has evinced a lack of respect for the law, and is therefore more likely to commit crimes in the future than someone with a history of law-abiding.
"Bad person" is a value judgement, which is besides the point.
They were quite candid with their intent. Aside from him casually/flippantly brushing off Project 2025 during his campaign (when it was clear that his campaign was deeply connected to it), it was tremendously obvious to anybody paying attention that things would be much different during round two, and in a more aggressive manner.
You had your head in the sand. If you voted for him, this is your fault. Damn you.
Downvotes be damned.
Anyone that expects this will only last four years hasn't been paying attention on history books.
Collins, McConnell, and Murkowski have been voting against the administration for more traditional Republican policy, sometimes.[3]
Nine Republican Reps blocked H.Res 282[4] because it would have killed bipartisan H.Res 164[5] and that caused the House Republican leaders to cancel votes for the whole week.
It's not all lockstep boot licking. Just mostly.
[1] https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/202550
[2] https://xcancel.com/RepThomasMassie/status/18995193281369747...
[3] https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1...
[4] https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/202587
[5] https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-resolutio...
What's the point of phrasing this as though you're off to the gallows for your beliefs? It's an internet forum.
Case in point:
https://sandersinstitute.org/event/bernie-sanders-arrest-at-...
Convicted of resisting arrest.
I figure the people who want the US to withdraw from the global stage have been working on Trump ever since 1987 when he paid for that full page pro-tariff ad in the New York Times. Power hungry maniacs are a dime a dozen, but ones that are also hell bent on committing economic suicide are a scarce resource and need to be nurtured with care if you want them to actually do it.
It's what I'd do if the US was bullying me around. It's a well tested play (refined during the US interventions in South America in the 70's and 80's).
Keeping it impersonal (and only understanding/analyzing "how" the elections were won/lost), I think that "Trump didn't win". Instead "Democrats lost", took a risky bet and to quote the meme "the risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math". [0]
[0]: https://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/963/073/e2...
EDIT: I think it was Bill Burr that said on his (latest) SNL monologue "you would think that after the assassination attempt they would just give it to him" (because yes, that was a critical security failure, and so badly designed (the "security" of the event") that one could easily be tricked into thinking that it was purposeful)(a proper Hanlon's razor)
Now, they've taken that cue and just turned the dial to an 11. There's currently very little resistance, and in the places where there is, they've just flat out ignored it. Of course the snowball is going to pick up speed
He spent the majority of his term being blocked from doing completely problematic stuff by his staff who he increasingly fired or resigned.
He finally got the end of his term with many more yes-men and started doing things like impounding funds for Ukraine.
The first thing he does at the start of term 2 is more impoundment. Like sure, Day 1 Year 1 Trump doesn't bleed into Day 1 year 5 but Day 364 Year 4 bleeds into Day 1 Year 5 pretty well.
I still can't believe we had an "alternative facts" moment and that somehow that pales compared to the rest.
So all those that didn't vote, obviously didn't hate what Trump proposed enough to vote against him.
This doesn't even count the global pandemic.
Setting all that aside, everything he's done is something he campaigned on.
Those positions are diametrically opposed.
The 3rd Amendment exists for a reason. The police of colonial times _were_ the Redcoats. They _were_ soldiers working for the king. Modern police serve the same function and have basically the same powers. They are not peace officers - they are soldiers, and I hope one day the people living in this country wake up and say "no more".
He didn't have "his" people in place to help him the first time because much of the establishment at the time was still Romney/Bush/McCain/McConnell types and they kept a firm hand on the reigns of power and often undercut his ability to do things because they felt like he was an aberration.
This time around, there is no "primary opposition" (intraparty conflict) in any meaningful way. He wants, they do, it is truly Trump's party.
I don't personally buy into this framing, but it sure seems like millions of people do since points at results
This was among the greatest threats to democratic self governance in well over a century.
I'd say that Trump 2.0 is more eventful than Trump 1.0, but I absolutely would not call Trump 1.0 uneventful.
But there's only one POTUS. There are multiple people out there who could do a decent job of being POTUS. Many of them are not convicted felons. We wouldn't lose much if we filtered out the entire convicted-felon category from this particular job.
This rationale doesn't apply to any other person in a similar state in Florida, it was just for Trump.
I could put on a mask and stay at home for COVID, but I can't do much about shunning our allies, disrupting the world economy, disappearing people, electing a cabinet of highly unqualifed individuals, putting the SCOTUS in pocket, etc. I can advocate, stay informed, support my community, etc., but this feels on another level than the first term and that's what I meant by my comment.
He gets the police to arrest this opposition candidate, let's say for marijuana possession with the intent to sell (a felony), and with procedural chicanery ensures that the court trying the case is run by a Trump-appointed judge.
The opposition candidate is convicted of this charge.
Under your suggestion, they would then become ineligible to be elected.
It gets even worse if the corrupt President has a compliant Congress (which it seemed like he did for a little while, but that's less sure now). If he can ram through a new law making "criticizing the sitting President" a felony, then basically anyone who would oppose him and his regime would clearly be guilty.
In general, the sitting government decides what is a crime and what is not. If you make a law that says that those convicted of crimes cannot run for public office—either "any public office" or "only this specific public office"—then the sitting government, if it is seeking to act in its own interests rather than those of the people, has a perverse incentive to preferentially criminalize things that those who disagree with them are more likely to do, and to encourage (or coerce) bias in policing and trials to ensure conviction.
A headline from the times during that same year: TRUMP GIVES A VAGUE HINT OF CANDIDACY (https://archive.is/xF2pW)
As much as I dislike advertising in general, and specifically the opinions in that ad, I think that whether the New York Times was willing to publish it is not the important detail here.
This was at a time when the US and China were working together to keep the USSR in check while at the same time the US was sending weapons to Taiwan so that they could be used to keep China in check. So imagine being China in 1991. The USSR has just fallen, so they're no longer a threat, but US-sold weapons are still being pointed at you from Taiwan. You'd want the US to leave you alone and stop arming your enemies. And here's this candidate who wants the US to step off the world stage and focus instead on what it can build alone at home.
It seems pretty likely that they'd be in favor of getting Trump elected. Whether they ultimately did is an open question, but if so then it's not shame on the New York Times, but shame on us for not better protecting ourselves against foreign interference.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:42jq5uvg6p2shi5gqifor22e/po...
Barely mentions the stock market crash.
I wasn’t looking forward to his inauguration, but I did expect him to not care about the rest of the world for another 4 years.
