Traitor Watch - The 45 & 47 Thread

[Pocket]

I wouldn't be too worried about this fall. Trump can piss and moan performatively all he wants about who does and doesn't get elected to other offices, but it's not like he cares about Congress anymore. Anything he wants to do these days, he'll just sign an executive order, and I don't expect that to change. But for the same reason, I don't see him willingly giving up the Presidency while he still lives and breathes. In 2020 he could just run a normal campaign and arrogantly assume he couldn't possibly lose. In 2028 he is mandated to step down and let another Republican run, and I just can't see him doing that. Can you? Look me in the avatar and tell me you can see him doing that.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Trump is only going to leave the white house in body bag. He himself can't ever admit he lost at something (despite the fact he's horrible at everything.) and the regime around him absolutely need him as a scape goat. They will literally weekend at bernie's trumps fat ass to keep the regime going.

That said: given how much voter share the democrats are taking, and trump continuing his insanity will only increase it, no one will actively help trump contest or protest the mids. No one of ability or persuasion anyway. Lindsey graham probably won't shut up about it, but... it's lindsey graham. NOGAF.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

He's term limited. When he leaves the White House it will have nothing to do with losing.

 

[abates]

Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado says she's turned the prize over to Trump. Who you may recall had her country bombed and its leader abducted recently.

Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)

María Corina Machado on her meeting with Trump: “I presented the president of the United States with the Nobel Peace Prize”

bsky.app

Not that that's how that works.

 

[Pocket]

I didn't even realize the actual winner was from Venezuela... do you think that was the real motivation behind this whole operation?

 

[Ungnome]

No, the motivation was oil and giving Trump an ego boost. Makes him feel big to order men to bomb another country and abduct their leader. Little bit of revenge thrown in too, since Maduro was critical of Trump.

 

[Ironbite4]

She wants to run the country. She's part of the opposition and expected Trump to name her El Presidente. So when he turned around and appointed NOBODY! and the VP took over as per succession rules, she's trying this in order to be named leader.

Ironbite-I hope the Nobel Committee retracts the award so all Trump has is a shiny medal.

 

[abates]

All he has is a shiny medal. The Nobel Committee has made it clear awards cannot be transferred:

A Nobel Prize cannot be revoked, shared, or transferred - Nobel Peace Prize

www.nobelpeaceprize.org

Trump can have his name engraved on the medal if he wants, but the official record will not say he was the recipient.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Trump will still vandalize it with his name.

 

[The Mighty Mollusk]

All he cares about is having the shiny in his grubby little hands. At most, finding out that it's illegitimate will get an angry tweet, but everything does, so that's nothing special.

 

[Ungnome]

Having a second hand Nobel medal doesn't make one a Nobel Laurate, be fun to point that out to him at every opportunity....

 

[Pocket]

She wants to run the country. She's part of the opposition and expected Trump to name her El Presidente. So when he turned around and appointed NOBODY! and the VP took over as per succession rules, she's trying this in order to be named leader.

Well that doesn't give me a whole lot of faith in the Nobel Committee's judgment. Did she actually do anything to earn the prize, or is this a repeat of the Obama thing where they gave it to someone merely for being the opposition to someone they hated?

Not that I envy their position; some years—maybe most, even—nobody actually does anything significant to further the cause of peace, so it's either refuse to give it out to anyone to send a message or...actually no, if I were in their position, that's exactly what I'd do.

 

[Pale Rider]

FB friend:

When Trump suspends elections, the billionaire-controlled media will normalize it, just like they've normalized every other shitty, corrupt, treasonous, or criminal thing he's done in his worthless life.

They'll tell you he just wants to "ensure the integrity of the election process" or some jive. They'll tell you he had no choice. They'll tell you that no matter how this looks, it's actually in keeping with the highest principles of representative democracy and human rights.

And the worst part is that half the population is so ignorant, so weak-minded, so utterly stupefied by years of believing that "think for yourself" means "choose your own influencer" that they'll fall for it.

Re: Venezuela and Greenland

In fairness to Trump, seizing peoples' land just because you want it is entirely consistent with the actual founding values of the USA.

Helping Renee Good's killer get off scot-free is an important part of their plan. When he gets off scot-free, the message will be clear: "we can execute you in public, with the whole world watching, and get away with it".

We warned you that Trump wanted a Gestapo, and you thought we were just being dramatic.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

I'm ready to hear one theory as to what mechanism Trump has to suspend elections. Unless there is an actual mechanism to do it, dooming about it is useless.

 

[Wheelimus]

I think so far the only mechanism is a whiny Truth Social post saying we shouldn't have midterms. Because he knows he's going to lose badly. So yeah, doom and gloom isn't helping.

 

[Fullstrength Motleypuss]

I'm ready to hear one theory as to what mechanism Trump has to suspend elections. Unless there is an actual mechanism to do it, dooming about it is useless.

He's doing pretty much everything else he wants to and nobody has stopped him (and I mean REALLY stopped him, not temporarily inconvenienced him). Why would this be any different?

 

[Ungnome]

He was forced to remove the national guard from a few states. He's trying to figure out a way to put them back, but hasn't yet.

https://www.justsecurity.org/107087/tracker-litigation-legal-challenges-trump-administration/ a list of challenges to his deeds with a breakdown of where the challenges currently stand.

 

[Fullstrength Motleypuss]

Yet none of that has really stopped him, only inconvenienced.

 

[Ungnome]

He had to pull troops out of states.... It did stop him. He hasn't found a way to put them back in yet, despite trying. It's why he keeps bringing up the insurrection act. It's a Hail Mary to try and get around the restrictions and could very likely fail if he actually tries. Same goes for his takeover of Greenland. Went from sending troops in to trying to spend like 700 billion to buy it....

 

[Pocket]

I'm ready to hear one theory as to what mechanism Trump has to suspend elections. Unless there is an actual mechanism to do it, dooming about it is useless.

Oh, he won't. There'll still be an "election"; I'm willing to just straight-up say that Facebook Guy is objectively wrong this time. De facto dictators love having "elections" that are hilariously rigged in their favor. Putin does it; Saddam Hussein did it... and an egotist like Donald Trump is absolutely that sort. Being able to say that a contest happened and he won it is even more important to him than the prize itself.

But in his case, I also suspect he'll work his way up to stealing it like he worked his way up to almost stealing it in 2020. He'll start by stealing the Republican nomination by demanding they let him run even though it's patently against the Constitution, and they'll let him do it because they're his party. As in he owns them, and they know it, and they'd rather trust his power to bulldoze every roadblock in his way than their ability to find someone else to run that people actually want to vote for. Then he'll threaten military action against any state that doesn't include him on the ballot. Then, when he just barely loses to whoever the Democrats are stupid enough to run against him, he'll resort to increasingly drastic action, and this time, he won't eventually give up.