Donald Trump - GUILTY!

Kyonn said:
As much as I hate Trump I think things like this do more harm then good. Adds fuel to his conspiracy fueled fire. He hasn't been convicted of a crime yet. It's punishment without due process.
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Agreed. Although he clearly instigated the whole thing, its a bad look to attempt to selectively ban him from certain states. Nevermind that he wouldn't have a shot at winning those states anyway.
 
Raoul said:
Interestingly, Trump apparently had COVID during the first debate with Biden; concealed it, almost as if he didn't care if Biden caught it from him.
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There is no apparently about it
 
So, Trump probably gets to stall court cases until after the election, since the SC will delay it all by taking this case?
 
Kyonn said:
As much as I hate Trump I think things like this do more harm then good. Adds fuel to his conspiracy fueled fire. He hasn't been convicted of a crime yet. It's punishment without due process.
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This was done to politicians of the “Confederacy” without them being convicted of anything.

“Historical precedent also confirms that a criminal conviction is not required for an individual to be disqualified under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. No one who has been formally disqualified under Section 3 was charged under the criminal “rebellion or insurrection” statute (18 U.S.C. § 2383) or its predecessors.”

https://www.citizensforethics.org/r...eports/past-14th-amendment-disqualifications/

Several judges, even conservatives judges, think it qualifies, I think it’s pretty hard to argue they’re so far off.

I expect the text and email train will show a high level of coordination between the Trump camp and those looking to foment insurrection.
 
langster said:
I think what's making it worse is it's only happening in blue states. From recollection though, Biden only won Michigan by about 3% last time. Roughly 200,000 votes I think it was, but still, a blue state none the less. Although I think those voting for Trump are going to do so regardless and those against him definitely won't be coming out to vote for him no matter what happens. I honestly don't think he, or anyone else can shift his numbers too much.

I think it's Biden's numbers that are looking more uncertain. The large number of undecided seems to be Democrat voters and some independents who have worries about Joe's health and ability to last another 5 years. The Israel/Gaza situation will have a factor, but I'm not certain it could be the deciding one, but that's not to say it couldn't as if it puts off 1 or 2% of Biden voters and it's a low turnout then it could have an impact. I think ensuring Democrats turn out in high numbers to vote is going to be the biggest challenge. Although I could easily be misunderstanding things, but that's how I have interpreted things from what I have been seeing and reading.
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It was brought to court in Colorado by a group of Republicans. In Maine, the SoS is legal bound when a lawsuit is filed re: the 14th. Amendment to move forward with it. Not sure of the particular machinations in Illinois. Alas, it is indeed unfortunate these are all blue states.

Biden has been comfortably outperforming Trump in the primaries. Could you point me to the undecideds who will be against Biden?

Israel / Gaza will have an quite small impact on the general election outside of Michigan.
 
Beans said:
This was done to politicians of the “Confederacy” without them being convicted of anything.

“Historical precedent also confirms that a criminal conviction is not required for an individual to be disqualified under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. No one who has been formally disqualified under Section 3 was charged under the criminal “rebellion or insurrection” statute (18 U.S.C. § 2383) or its predecessors.”

https://www.citizensforethics.org/r...eports/past-14th-amendment-disqualifications/

Several judges, even conservatives judges, think it qualifies, I think it’s pretty hard to argue they’re so far off.

I expect the text and email train will show a high level of coordination between the Trump camp and those looking to foment insurrection.
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There is zero chance these rulings survive SCOTUS
 
Morty_ said:
So, Trump probably gets to stall court cases until after the election, since the SC will delay it all by taking this case?
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The US Constitution needs a serious overhaul. Neither the general election process nor the nomination of the SC judges are democratic.

Trump nominated 3 judges and has the supreme court in his pocket. It's actually a joke.
 
B. Munich said:
The US Constitution needs a serious overhaul. Neither the general election process nor the nomination of the SC judges are democratic.

Trump nominated 3 judges and has the supreme court in his pocket. It's actually a joke.
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The house should elect judges if anything, at least in theory it is democratic, the senate largely represents empty land , not democratic at all.
 
Morty_ said:
The house should elect judges if anything, at least in theory it is democratic,
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Better than only guy, the president, having this power. And it should be by a 2/3 majority.

Morty_ said:
the senate largely represents empty land , not democratic at all.
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Never understood that every state irrespectively of it's size and population gets the same number of senators.

The popular vote should decide who will be the next president and not some electors from each state optimized by gerrymandering.

Especially if a race is close like Michigan 2016, it is totally undemocratic that the winner will get all votes.
 
langster said:
Just seeing posts like this and reports on MSNBC and CNN saying that the amount of uncommited should be a concern to Dems
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They are unhappy with Biden's handling of the Gaza conflict. Point taken. But do they really believe by voting for Trump or not voting say all (which in the end is also a vote for Trump) things get better? If Trump wins the election, they will be in for a bad surprise.
 
B. Munich said:
They are unhappy with Biden's handling of the Gaza conflict. Point taken. But do they really believe by voting for Trump or not voting say all (which in the end is also a vote for Trump) things get better? If Trump wins the election, they will be in for a bad surprise.
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It depends on what you mean by "things." Israel/Gaza itself, no. But Trump is not a wildcard, he was already president. Biden is president now and people don't approve of his presidency in general, not just Israel/Gaza.
 
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Iker Quesadillas said:
It depends on what you mean by "things." Trump is not a wildcard, he was already president.
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I'm not familiar with the particular situation in Michigan. I thought they were mainly Muslim protest votes to show their dissatisfaction of the handling of the Gaza conflict.
Trump moved the embassy to Jerusalem and is a buddy of Netanjahu. His son in law in Jewish. Do they really believe he will be the better man to resolve the crisis?
Just at the disaster he left in Afghanistan after making one of his famous deals.

Iker Quesadillas said:
Biden is president now and people don't approve of his presidency in general, not just Israel/Gaza
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Fair enough but I thought these 100k uncommitted votes mostly came from the big Muslim population in Michigan.

Again I'm no expert here and just an interested observer of the train wreck thus upcoming election will be.
 
In theory it's a very good thing. It sends a clear message that the Biden team need to change tact or lose these voters. And potentially lose Michigan.

This primary gives a great opportunity to do this without actually electing Trump.

In my opinion, doing the same in the actual election and getting Trump back in is classic cutting off the nose to spite the face.
 
B. Munich said:
I'm not familiar with the particular situation in Michigan. I thought they were mainly Muslim protest votes to show their dissatisfaction of the handling of the Gaza conflict.
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The Arab American population in Michigan is only 225k (per census reporting) and the Muslim population is estimated to be around the same (including people who aren't of voting age). Uncommitted got 101k votes, and got at least 8% in every single county in Michigan. It's highly unlikely that it was mostly Arabs/Muslims.

This is not a criticism of you, as I'm sure you simply read the argument somewhere, but the idea that "it's just Arabs who care about this" is just denial. Denial that used to be "nobody cares about this except irrelevant hippies." It mostly comes from center-aligned liberals who largely agree with the administration and don't want to accept its a legitimate contentious issue.

B. Munich said:
Trump moved the embassy to Jerusalem and is a buddy of Netanjahu. His son in law in Jewish. Do they really believe he will be the better man to resolve the crisis? Just at the disaster he left in Afghanistan after making one of his famous deals.
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The issue is like I said, people disapprove of Biden in general. If you think they are both terrible/unacceptable on Israel/Gaza then you will look at other things.
What liberals often dismiss is that when people look at other things, they might conclude that Trump is either the better option or not much worse than Biden. Because Trump is unpopular, but has never been as uniquely unpopular and repellent as liberals hoped he'd be.

According to this Zogby poll, Biden was trending down among Arab Americans even before the Israel/Gaza war. His favorability had dropped by 27 points from 2020 to April 2023 and took a further 18 point drop after the Israel/Gaza war.
 
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Iker Quesadillas said:
The Arab American population in Michigan is only 225k (per census reporting) and the Muslim population is estimated to be around the same (including people who aren't of voting age). Uncommitted got 101k votes, and got at least 8% in every single county in Michigan. It's highly unlikely that it was mostly Arabs/Muslims.

This is not a criticism of you, as I'm sure you simply read the argument somewhere, but the idea that "it's just Arabs who care about this" is just denial. Denial that used to be "nobody cares about this except irrelevant hippies." It is denial, from people who either support the Biden administration's handling of the Gaza conflict (and don't want to accept how unpopular their position is among Democratic voters), and from people who don't support it but were not ready to defend a genuinely unpopular and poor course of action.
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Yes, definitely. I'd expect a very significant share of the protest vote to also come from people on the left that actually see the Israel-Gaza situation, and the role of the US, for what it is. Many of these will be millenials.

This is just speculation, but I would guess that these leftist/millenial type protest voters will be quite likely to vote Biden in the general anyway, whereas the Arab American voters are more of an actual risk in November.
 
Beachryan said:
In theory it's a very good thing. It sends a clear message that the Biden team need to change tact or lose these voters. And potentially lose Michigan.

This primary gives a great opportunity to do this without actually electing Trump.

In my opinion, doing the same in the actual election and getting Trump back in is classic cutting off the nose to spite the face.
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I think it is about the long term. If you vote for Biden in this election you are essentially telling democrats you get the brown/Muslim people vote whatever you do. You can commit genocide against brown/Muslim people and they will still vote for you. I understand this genocide isn't the priority for most people, but for some people it is important.

I think Trump is pretty much unelectable and the democrats unfortunately have nothing to fear from their handling of this situation. But even if he wins, it is not going to change anything for the current genocide but when the next genocide comes along, may be the democrats will not go 100% in on it and will try to at least not send weapons. Trump came in power before, America is still thriving compared to rest of the world. America will still be thriving after Trump's second term if it came to be.
 
B. Munich said:
Better than only guy, the president, having this power. And it should be by a 2/3 majority.


Never understood that every state irrespectively of it's size and population gets the same number of senators.

The popular vote should decide who will be the next president and not some electors from each state optimized by gerrymandering.

Especially if a race is close like Michigan 2016, it is totally undemocratic that the winner will get all votes.
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The electoral college is awful, and is also much of the reason why turnout in elections is so low in the US, i believe.

On the presidential level, voting only actually matters in like 5-6 states, must suck for the rest, to know that all the attention will be given to a handful of states, not because they are actually more important than any other, no, but because an old, outdated system has decided that they are.
 
B. Munich said:
They are unhappy with Biden's handling of the Gaza conflict. Point taken. But do they really believe by voting for Trump or not voting say all (which in the end is also a vote for Trump) things get better? If Trump wins the election, they will be in for a bad surprise.
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They are unhappy because the man who is asking for their votes is supporting genocide. It's a bit more serious than just a disagreement about the handling of a conflict.

This idea that supporting genocide or not is just a political disagreement is bonkers.

Politicians have to earn their votes by doing what their voters want. In this case, stopping a genocide should be an easy goal, instead the US have behaved like absolute psychopaths. If biden loses it's because he failed to behave like a human being with a tiny bit of human empathy, not because his potential voters are idiots who think trump would be better.
 
maniak said:
They are unhappy because the man who is asking for their votes is supporting genocide. It's a bit more serious than just a disagreement about the handling of a conflict.

This idea that supporting genocide or not is just a political disagreement is bonkers.

Politicians have to earn their votes by doing what their voters want. In this case, stopping a genocide should be an easy goal, instead the US have behaved like absolute psychopaths. If biden loses it's because he failed to behave like a human being with a tiny bit of human empathy, not because his potential voters are idiots who think trump would be better.
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How is Biden supporting genocide?

What could Biden, or any other POTUS in that particular situation, do to prevent that genocide from happening?
 
Krakenzero said:
How is Biden supporting genocide?

What could Biden, or any other POTUS in that particular situation, do to prevent that genocide from happening?
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He could stop sending financial aid to israel, he could stop sending military equipment to israel, he could publicly criticize israel like he did with russia and could not veto UNSC resolutions asking for an immediate cease fire. He has done none of this, he has sent money, weapons and diplomatic cover, so he is supporting it.
 
Krakenzero said:
How is Biden supporting genocide?

What could Biden, or any other POTUS in that particular situation, do to prevent that genocide from happening?
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Lots of stuff, but the two obvious ones would be cutting all foreign add, including the military one to Israel, and not vetoing Security Council resolutions.
 
B. Munich said:
Better than only guy, the president, having this power. And it should be by a 2/3 majority.


Never understood that every state irrespectively of it's size and population gets the same number of senators.

The popular vote should decide who will be the next president and not some electors from each state optimized by gerrymandering.

Especially if a race is close like Michigan 2016, it is totally undemocratic that the winner will get all votes.
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That is not how gerrymandering works.
 
B. Munich said:
Better than only guy, the president, having this power. And it should be by a 2/3 majority.


Never understood that every state irrespectively of it's size and population gets the same number of senators.

The popular vote should decide who will be the next president and not some electors from each state optimized by gerrymandering.

Especially if a race is close like Michigan 2016, it is totally undemocratic that the winner will get all votes.
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USA is a Federation of States. That's the formal definition.

Compare the USA to the EU. A single EU country, even Malta, can block any measure. In the USA, a single State cannot block anything, but yes, individual States have power. The rules of how the various branches of State and Federal government work, and who has jurisdiction in what, are very complicated. But the USA is certainly democratic. The EU is also democratic, but with different rules. (The EU rules are about 200 years newer, but I am not sure if they are any better than the USA rules...) In any case, Russia and China are not democratic, USA and EU are democratic.

Democracy does not mean that you have the simplest thing someone can imagine, perhaps only Ancient Athens worked like that. In modern, complicated countries with millions of people, you have complicated rules. Certainly, a lot of things can be improved, both in the USA and in the EU, but it is not easy, and sometimes changes with good intentions have bad results.

Let me add that the USA system is very hard to change, and this is by design. If a Hitler appears (or a Trump) he cannot destroy the system. He can try, but it will not be easy to change the system, because there are many balances.
 
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That’s a strong signal sent by voters to the dem establishment.
Also, to those asking what Biden could do in the current war, the buck stops with the president. He’s gotta own up and take responsibility for his government’s (in)actions.
 
maniak said:
He could stop sending financial aid to israel, he could stop sending military equipment to israel, he could publicly criticize israel like he did with russia and could not veto UNSC resolutions asking for an immediate cease fire. He has done none of this, he has sent money, weapons and diplomatic cover, so he is supporting it.
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Revan said:
Lots of stuff, but the two obvious ones would be cutting all foreign add, including the military one to Israel, and not vetoing Security Council resolutions.
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And what of those things would stop the genocide from happening? The financial aid and military equipment that didn't stop Russia, the public criticism or the UN resolution?
 
Krakenzero said:
And what of those things would stop the genocide from happening? The financial aid and military equipment that didn't stop Russia, the public criticism or the UN resolution?
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And that is not saying about the possibility of Israel eventually turning away from the US if the reaction is too forceful, even after Netanyahu. It already happened with Egypt falling out with the Soviet Union back in the 1970s and eventually aligning with the US by the end of the same decade, leading to greater loss of Soviet influence in the region afterwards. What many people don't understand is that geopolitics is a 4D chess game, and that means you need to think several moves ahead of time. Netanyahu is about to be finished sooner than later, but doing anything kneejerk that would make Israel align away from the West even in the post-Netanyahu era would be a costly geopolitical move.

Seriously, WTF are we doing spilling off-topic here?
 
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Krakenzero said:
What could Biden, or any other POTUS in that particular situation, do to prevent that genocide from happening?
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Krakenzero said:
And what of those things would stop the genocide from happening? The financial aid and military equipment that didn't stop Russia, the public criticism or the UN resolution?
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The argument you are making is the one the Biden administration has been making, and it has not worked particularly well. His approval rating on Israel/Gaza is middling. He only has about 50% approval on the issue among Democratic party voters (see here, here). This is a man whose main skill is supposed to be his long experience in government. He should be experienced enough to sell actions on Israel/Palestine (an issue that's been ongoing for his entire career) to the public, but he can't do it.

The only positive thing you can say about his numbers is that they're not dramatically worse than they are in normal circumstances. But that's not great comfort in an election year.

Anyway all this stuff oughta be moved to the Elections thread, it's got nothing to do with Donald Trump.
 
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Iker Quesadillas said:
He should be experienced enough to sell actions on Israel/Palestine (an issue that's been ongoing for his entire career) to the public, but he can't do it.
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You could also use your statement as an argument that there isn't any (quick) fix of this conflict. Nobody in over 70 years was able to come with an agenda all involved parties will accept.
 
Nobody is asking Biden to fix the Israel/Palestine conflict over the long weekend. But absent morality, we are not even getting basic competence.
 
langster said:


Just seeing posts like this and reports on MSNBC and CNN saying that the amount of uncommited should be a concern to Dems.
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It's one state, Michigan, that has the most undecideds. It's not nearly as systemic nationwide. Michigan is not a mirror to the rest of the nation.
 
If Biden was to purely listen to his potential voters on the Gaza conflict, he'd be doing no different no? Upsetting the Jewish population holds more risk to a sitting president?
 
calodo2003 said:
How are they not 'hardly comparable?' Biden has garnered more of a percentage of Dems than Trump has Repubs in every primary this far iirc.
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They are not comparable because Biden is running as an incumbent in a non-competitive coronation primary. Trump is running as an actual candidate in what was supposed to be a competitive primary, but is no longer one. They are not the same thing. The comparison is further complicated by the fact that Trump is a former president running in his own party's primary, which is unprecedented in the modern era of primaries. So we don't even have other primaries to compare his performance to.

calodo2003 said:
Biden has garnered more of a percentage of Dems than Trump has Repubs in every primary this far iirc.
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Trump has gotten substantially more actual votes than Biden has. Trump has gotten 1.5 million votes. Biden has gotten less than 1 million votes. That would suggest Trump is performing more strongly than Biden, as you win the election with actual votes... except of course it suggests no such thing because the two primaries are different and cannot be directly compared.
 
Simbo said:
If Biden was to purely listen to his potential voters on the Gaza conflict, he'd be doing no different no? Upsetting the Jewish population holds more risk to a sitting president?
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As someone pointed out in another thread, it's not the Jewish population per se, as much as it is the Christian evangelicals that strongly support Israel's actions in Gaza. And it's not just Arab Americans that are opposed to it, it's also very much younger, left-leaning voters in general. So you can't really just boil it down to number of Jewish voters vs. Arab American voters.

If you think about it purely electorally it becomes quite messy, because it's all about the slim margins in swing states. If Biden was to lose Michigan because of this it could mean the difference between winning and losing the election (all hypothetical of course). On the other hand, could he lose some evangelical support in states like Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada or Wisconsin that he won with razor thin margins in 2020, by going tougher on Israel? Who knows. Maybe they are die-hard Trump anyway.
 
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