Invoke deez.
They are garbage people who deserve to be called on the carpet to answer for their crimes against democracy.
Fuck them.
It is good to give into your hate. It will give you the strength you need in the days to come.
Then how is Bloomberg supposed to keep his money his money?
Timex
6580
I’m not sure exactly why folks are getting all worked up.
We all knew that this was going to end this way. For… Like… As long as impeachment was even discussed.
Did you guys actually think the Senate was going to impeach Trump?
Fascism is the last ditch effort of the moneyed ruling class to hang onto power in the face of a working class revolt. The theme of the 2016 election was populism. There was a growing sense of frustration on both sides of the aisle and so on the left you had a true populist in Sanders (who did not win the nomination but came close enough that we can legitimately say there was a significant populist sentiment in the left) and in the right you had the faux populism of fascism.
Trump is a true fascist in the literal sense of the word. The Republican Party are simply power hungry zealots with authoritarian leanings.
Thus far, what has been demonstrated is that the Republican base is just fine with authoritarianism at a minimum and likely fascism. (No one even talks about family separation anymore.). It also demonstrated the lesson learned from other countries in the modern world that have slipped into authoritarianism— Our institutions will not save us. Not the press, not the courts, not the justice department, not the checks and balances, not the constitution.
We have also learned that Russian influence goes beyond Trump and has infiltrated the Republican Party as a whole and that they have no interest in checking that influence or securing us against more direct interference.
We have learned that truth no longer matters and that they can behave as they like with impunity. Worse, they have been repeatedly rewarded for their bad behavior (hello Justice Kavanaugh.)
Do they have the balls and competence to go fully, outwardly authoritarian? I don’t know but they took a big step in direction these last weeks. Maybe. If they don’t need to, if they can win the elections through sheer divisiveness, misinformation, slander and voter suppression, I suspect they’d prefer to continue the charade and keep chipping away slowly.
robc04
6583
What you say sounds right on the money. And depressing. And I started watching the Handmaid’s Tale.
What’s makes all this even crazier is that the republican party isn’t even good for much of their rabid base. They aren’t doing anything to help the working class people, yet it’s many of these people who flock to trump and that party.
Thanks for your perspective.
'Cause Pence totally woulda started putting liberal judges in there.
I think it’s the brazeness of no witnesses, a first for a Senate impeachment trial. Sure, Trump would’ve still been acquitted but at least the additional evidence introduced into the public narrative would’ve put more pressure on the GOP to spin and justify their votes. They knew it, and decided thumbing their noses at precedent and the very body to which they’ve been elected was the electorally safer route.
No but there’s inevitably a certain letdown.
Tomorrow, back to the fight.
So here’s the thing. They don’t need to.
And that’s the real issue at the heart of it, sadly.
Because a conservative court was able to rule in favor of Citizen’s United, and because that same court was happy to strip out the protections of the Voting Rights Act, and because that same court is poised to tell the US Census Bureau to go ahead and add a citizenship question…they don’t need to.
While voters who may not follow things super closely watch to see if the bad guy tries to cut the head off of the good guy, instead they slowly drain the blood and ability to live from the good guy instead over a period of time so that there’s no need to cut the head off at all.
That’s not to say – or even imply – that “all is lost”. But it does underscore that the task at hand won’t be easy, and will require great effort from everyone who truly loves what this country can be.
robc04
6588
My worry is that they will be ready to handle it if there is a big backlash against them in the coming elections. A strong majority of Americans wanted to have witnesses called and they shot it down. I’m not super hopeful that there will be a big backlash because it has become so obvious what the republican party is, but I think it’s possible. I’m worried that it will be too late to shut them down because there are too many shitbags in power.
Along with everything that Trig mentions, a fractured opposition is the biggest a big danger with trump getting a 2nd term (and setting aside outright rigging of results which I suppose there’s a non-zero chance for that happening. Although disinformation peddled on Facebook is also a big concern. Ok, there are a lot of dangers.)
Aside from trump stroking out at a MAGA rally, my fervent hope is that everyone unifies behind the eventual nominee regardless of who that is. I don’t care if they’re too moderate or too establishment or too liberal or too whatever. Save that fight for another day.
Hard to figure Parnas out. In normal times, the stuff he is offering would be offered to the DOJ in order to make a deal. That he’s touting it publicly suggests that this DOJ doesn’t want to give him a deal. So I think what he’s doing is broadly advertising what he has in order to force them to deal.
Tim_N
6591
Just because you expect the worst doesn’t mean you should not care when the worst happens.
E.g. if trump wins in November noone will like the guy that says “why are you so sad anyway? Everyone knew trump would win, been saying it for months.”
Further, this vote wasn’t a vote to acquit, it was to present relevant evidence. While obviously it would never sway any sitting Republican Senator, it still might have ended up politically damaging (I say might because these days who knows.)
A more cynical person than I might suggest that by making public evidence that the President* was directly involved in the activities for which he is being prosecuted (and heaping more evidence on the impeachment pile), he hopes to get the President’s* fixer - the ostensible Attorney General of the United States - to drop his prosecution.
All of this.
I’ve seen plenty of smart legal folks weigh in, and none can figure out exactly what it is Parnas is doing. As Scott says, if the info he has is really good and checks out, it’s info that his attorney should be teasing in a DOJ deal. But that would be behind closed doors, and be pretty hush-hush.
That he’s simultaneously advertising this info and also giving some of it away for free could suggest a number of scenarios, from the mundane to the absolutely crazy, in which “absolutely crazy” shouldn’t be 100% discounted as a possibility.
It’s also possible the evidence may not have panned out quite as Democrats hoped, that Bolton was gilding the lily to sell books or that Lev Parnas would make claims that could be rebutted.
By not allowing either to give witness testimony, it may end up being just as politically damaging anyway to some vulnerable Republican senators in November. Not saying it will be, but the possibility exists.
