Trump number 8

[Twed]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/12/ilhan-omar-democrats-trump-attacks-sanders-warren?CMP=share_btn_tw

Trump dog whistles, Pelosi's response is "that's very disrespectful to the Twin Towers" or something because she actually agrees with him.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Had to stay off twitter most of the day because the Ilhan Omar discourse was winding me up too much. She's one of the very few elected representatives in history to be a genuinely brave and admirable person, and the way that the Democratic party establishment throws her under the bus is sickening

Make no mistake about it, the racist bad faith smear campaigns the right are whipping up against her are motivated by the fact that they want her dead

[Urinal Cake]

They want to kill the message that's for sure. If Ilhan gets in the way well too bad.

Pelosi just transparently wants the Dems to go back to being the slightly nicer GOP. Not even the non-racist GOP.

I get the feeling the Democrats are going to split in 5 years time if Trump wins again.

[Mister Six]

I don't think they'll split - they know that means a Republican president indefinitely; it'll just be TINGE 2.0 except actually functional - but there is going to have to be a fucking reckoning with Pelosi and her ilk, the poisonous, cowardly shit that she is.

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

The Pelosi/Clinton wing still firmly controls 98% of the party and is in no real danger. The fact that their policies have no real constituency at the end of the day is not an impediment given the way American electoral politics functions (just as the Republicans have no real constituency from a policy perspective).

What's amusing is that Sanders could definitely win the presidential primary (on a platform that actually represents majoritarian sentiments) solely due to freak circumstances - first because the Clintons stopped anybody else (including Warren) from running in 2015-16, and now because too many people are running on the draw of getting to run against Trump.

[Urinal Cake]

As Sanders critics point out Sanders only became a practicing Democrat in 2016. Movements like Justice Democrats have succeeded in pulling the Democrats left. The split is already happening whether it becomes formalised is the question. If Trump wins, which Democratic faction will take over?
The Justice Democrats have much more in common with the Greens. Could it be possible that Omar, AOC etc decide to run as Independents/Greens etc next time? I mean the Democratic establishment has showed little loyalty to their own members.

[Blumf]

Bit out of date now (2012), but this might be interesting for a bit of historical context:

https://xkcd.com/1127/

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

Not sure how that graph could possibly be measured. Some of the Republicans in the 1860s were far more radical than, say, Bernie Sanders, but they are listed as members of a "right leaning" party?

[Blumf]

It's understandably messy. There's a guide to how ideological leaning is measured on the right of the image.

[Mister Six]

The Justice Democrats have much more in common with the Greens. Could it be possible that Omar, AOC etc decide to run as Independents/Greens etc next time? I mean the Democratic establishment has showed little loyalty to their own members.

No, they know there's no hope for them outside the Dems, at least for now, not with the way the US political system is. Turning the Democratic machine is easier than changing the entire structure of US politics.

[Satchmo Distel]

The GOP is also split, let's not forget.

[Dog Botherer]

The GOP is also split, let's not forget.

It's not really. There's those that completely agree with Trump and love him, and there's those that completely agree with him while finding him embarrassing. There's no ideological split like in the Democrats.

[Mister Six]

Be fair - there are also the ones that disagree with him but keep quiet about it because they put retaining their political career above standing by their vestigial, stunted principles.

[jobotic]

Not exactly in the clear regarding obstruction is he? Although fuck all will happen of course.

We heard Barr say earlier this morning that Mueller divides the second half of his report into 10 episodes of possible obstruction of justice by Trump. In fact, the special counsel lists 11 key issues, which he headlines as:

1) How the Trump campaign reacted to reports that Russia was trying to interfere with the 2016 presidential election on Trump's behalf, including response to WikiLeaks' dump of emails

2) How Trump behaved over the investigation into his first national security adviser Michael Flynn

3) Trump's reaction to the start of the FBI's investigation into potential links with Russia, including when he asked the then FBI director James Comey to "lift the cloud" over his presidency

4) The firing of Comey

5) Trump's efforts to have Mueller himself fired – a particularly ironic episode given the report's author

6) The president's on-going attempts to curtail Mueller's investigation and limit its remit

7) Trump's efforts to prevent details becoming public of the notorious Trump Tower meeting in June 2016 between his son Don Jr, son-in-law Jared Kusher and Paul Manafort with a group of Russians peddling dirt on Hillary Clinton

8) The president's bid to force Jeff Sessions, the then attorney general, to reverse his decision to recuse himself from the Russia inquiry and take back the reins of the investigation

9) A new detail this: How Trump not only ordered then White House counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller in June 2017, he then went on to order McGahn publicly to deny that he had told him to do so. (McGahn refused to do either.)

10) Trump's behavior towards Flynn after the latter began cooperating with investigators, including asking Flynn to give him a "heads up" if he knew "information that implicates the President".

11) The president's conduct towards his longtime lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, particularly after Cohen "flipped" and began cooperating with Mueller.

[Howj Begg]

The report shows clear evidence of many crimes and loads of criminal intent from Trump specifically. It's completely damning to any other person the planet, and would result in jail time. There's that section where Trump orders Flynn to get the emails. Flynn contacted Peter Smith, who is now dead.

[Urinal Cake]

So the way to 'get' Trump is on obstruction as he's a stupid paranoid.
It is possible now that he becomes so arrogant after this win that he'll get caught in future conduct.

[Perplexicon]

Remember a couple of weeks ago when Barr said "Trump didn't do it" and everyone was like "OH I GUESS THIS WAS NOTHING THEN". Even the redacted report reads a little bit differently, lol. No obstruction of justice except for the 11 counts of obstruction of justice.

[Twed]

I don't think anybody reasonably thought "this shows that Trump lad behaved exceptionally!". It's just that he can't reasonably be prosecuted for any of it (and people who care about progress should maybe move on and spend less energy on trying to find excuses for themselves and starting cabals to prevent the people's candidates being elected)

[greenman]

It's understandably messy. There's a guide to how ideological leaning is measured on the right of the image.

Seems like its really more a judgement relative to the era in question rather than an absolute position.

[Twed]

https://twitter.com/IPM_HQ/status/1118963120649789440

[jobotic]

Yeah we understand.

[Twed]

wrong

[Monsieur Verdoux]

edit: can't be bothered to get into it

[Twed]

What Twed says is very interesting and good, it's wrong of you to ever criticise him.

Thank you MV.

[Ferris]

wrong

I don't understand why you are so blasé and insistent about this. The guy probably committed crimes and is an unindicted co-conspirator in at least one federal probe (the others are ongoing). Why are you so determined that we all forget about it and focus on other things?

If it is just to "focus on policy" instead then, well; we're adults and we can do both. We can look at policy, and be sad about the fact that a very powerful criminal abused their power to pevert the system and get away with crimes. If he wasn't head of the executive branch he would have been prosecuted in several cases and be looking at significant jail time - that's just a fact, acknowledged by the DoJ. He's got away with it because he was willing to debase his office to save his own skin and you seem totally fine with that.

I'm not really interested in an argument so I won't bother replying, but I just wanted to say your position seems really weird to me.

[Twed]

If it is just to "focus on policy" instead then, well; we're adults and we can do both.

The we in this is not specifically you, and that we most definitely cannot do both. Most of that we actively does not want to focus on policy, and that's why this is today's biggest headlines. I don't think I'm blowing minds here, this is the most obvious 14-year-old-who-just-discovered-Chomsky reading of the situation (which doesn't make it any less correct).

What good comes of this, even The Resistance's biggest wet dreams come true? We get to say "oooooh, gotcha!" and then what? What badness becomes undone? Trump goes to jail and we get President Pence and the center-right is legitimised? That's much worse than now.

Do you understand what a massive selfish luxury it is to treat global politics as a soap opera?

[Monsieur Verdoux]

oh damn i did not realise that. fuck. gotta rethink some shit

[jobotic]

I don't disagree with you Twed and on the whole i like your posts , but can't we even mention Trump's actions without some take down of "The Resistance"? There's no leading Dems on here.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

there's probably some ground to be found between 'correctly identifying that this story is overblown by the liberal media and won't solve the most impactful structural issues (if any)' and 'loudly announcing at any given opportunity that you don't care about the most powerful people in the world doing crimes'

[chveik]

Do you understand what a massive selfish luxury it is to treat global politics as a soap opera?

lol