the trial and its effects

zn wrote:

Republicans, on the other hand, are sticking with Trump no matter the consequences because they simply can’t imagine a world in which they have to appeal to anything beyond white identity to win elections.

I think that is true for some of them, but not all of them. This is an interesting ground for speculation. I think they are simply calculating that they cannot afford to piss off the Trump base because if they do, they will lose just like Loeffler and Perdue. They are in a pickle, and they are lining up with the noisiest, most visible part of the Republican party out of fear.

If I was arguing for the Democrats, I would try to get them to fear siding with Trump. Everybody saw it. The % of people who think that Trump’s behavior is justifiable is pretty low. And the senators know this. They were there. So this isn’t about “voting one’s conscience.” Those Republican senators are not interested in the principles at stake (with the exception of Sasse, Romney, and maybe a couple of others). They are only interested in their own political position, their own political futures. If I was making an appeal to the Republican senators, and genuinely hoped they would vote to convict, I would make the argument that the Trump ship is going down. He has been cut off from his social media platforms, and has no way to fan the flames of his supporters any more. And he is now already facing the first of what is likely to be multiple legal/criminal challenges in multiple states for a variety of actions including tax fraud, racketeering, and financial defaults. I would argue that the further we get away from the Trump presidency and the heat of the moment, the more public opinion is going to see the dismal failings of a man who is headed to ruin, and when they go up for re-election in 2 years, 4 years, or 6 years, a vote to acquit Donald Trump in the face of – frankly – overwhelming evidence…well, that’s going to be an anchor on their future, not a boost. I would make an argument that if they are really concerned about their own political future, they safer bet is to vote to convict.

Another point of interest here is that the Democrats aren’t calling in witnesses. The GOP was shitting itself at the prospect, and my guess is that is because witnesses would have testified about who knew what and when, exposing the complicity (or outright support) of the Capitol police and several GOP congressmen, both in the House and Senate. It would have ripped the GOP in half, and decimated the party. But they would not have gone down without taking as many Democrats as possible down with them by bringing up ANYTHING they had on them, no matter how irrelevant to the Jan. 6 incident. I suspect the Dems caved on this in order to preserve “stability.” But that’s just armchair speculation. They have certainly been very careful to confine the case to Trump alone, however, and even tried to make the case that the GOP is not responsible as a whole.

Zooey wrote:

zn wrote:

Republicans, on the other hand, are sticking with Trump no matter the consequences because they simply can’t imagine a world in which they have to appeal to anything beyond white identity to win elections.

Another point of interest here is that the Democrats aren’t calling in witnesses. The GOP was shitting itself at the prospect, and my guess is that is because witnesses would have testified about who knew what and when, exposing the complicity (or outright support) of the Capitol police and several GOP congressmen, both in the House and Senate. It would have ripped the GOP in half, and decimated the party. But they would not have gone down without taking as many Democrats as possible down with them by bringing up ANYTHING they had on them, no matter how irrelevant to the Jan. 6 incident. I suspect the Dems caved on this in order to preserve “stability.” But that’s just armchair speculation. They have certainly been very careful to confine the case to Trump alone, however, and even tried to make the case that the GOP is not responsible as a whole.

I think the Dems did an excellent job overall with their presentation, but witnesses likely would have made it better. You make good points by saying they may have feared some sort of general exposure of non-germane issues. Who knows?

But my earlier take has only been solidified. Trump should have been arrested on January 6th, along with Nosferatu, Gosar, Cawthorne, Taylor-Greene, Boebert, Gohmert and anyone who worked for/with Trump to foment the coup. In fact, it’s appalling to me still that he’s able to walk about as if he didn’t use violence to cling to power. He did. And there’s not a shadow of doubt about that for me.

Whether folks despise Biden, see him as “meh,” or support him, is irrelevant. This is about Trump’s endless criminality and sociopathic actions. Not throwing him in jail for what he’s done just sets the table for a smarter, more clever, more “subtle” coup leader in the future, and that’s going to come from the far-right again.

That means POCs and “the left” will be in even more (existential) danger next time.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Billy_T.

I assume the Dems know they cant get a conviction. I mean, they cant.
It wont even be close. So its not about a conviction and never was.

So what are they doing?

Well its ‘politics.’ They want to hurt
the Republicans as much as they can, discredit as many Reps
as they can. Its theater, and hard-ball-partisan-politics.

I listened to some of a Trump-Lawyer’s argument while
i was in my car today. It was an excellent argument i thought.
He played an audio of a gazillion Dems saying inflammatory,
pro-violence rhetoric, and then he argued it all should be
protected by the 1st Amendment, and that it was unfortunate
that the rhetoric on both sides has reached this point.

I dont have an opinion on whether trump should be convicted,
because my brain just wont go there anymore — the entire
corrupt, murderous capitalist system should be convicted.

I just can down-shift my brain to consider whether
Trump is guilty, or one part of the system is ‘guilty,’
when the entire system has
reached a dystopian-imperialist-kill-the-poor state.

I mean, to me, its like if in 1941, if Mengele
put Goebbels on trial. Sure, Goebbels is guilty,
but…WTF? The entire system was genocidal.

I’ve just gone over the edge.
No coming back.

w
v

Also, while pretty much every politician lies up a storm, no one in history has ever come close to Trump. And his lies kill. The Dems just aren’t in the same universe when it comes to that.

Above and beyond the usual lies of omission our media tend to ignore, Trump was documented with more than 30,000 instances while president.

Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims as president. Nearly half came in his final year.

I feel like a massive weight is lifted from me now, just to be able to deal again with the usual political bullshit. While Trump was in office, we had all of that plus his own epic, never-before-seen level of mendacity, sadism and sociopathology.

wv wrote:

I assume the Dems know they cant get a conviction. I mean, they cant.
It wont even be close. So its not about a conviction and never was.

So what are they doing?

Well its ‘politics.’ They want to hurt
the Republicans as much as they can, discredit as many Reps
as they can. Its theater, and hard-ball-partisan-politics.

If they really wanted to hurt them, they would have brought in witnesses. Witnesses would not only say, “Yeah, we have evidence that there were contacts between the WH and the Proud Boys,” they would also end up inevitably talking about what they know about the Capitol police’s complicity, and the tours of the building given by the fascist boys Jordan, Gosar, Gaetz and others the day before. Cruz and Hawley would be dragged into it. The Democrats had the ability in their hands to smack a deadly blow to the GOP. They didn’t. I speculated earlier as to Why, but they could have dragged the entire thing out in the open, and blown the top off the GOP. Instead, they declined to call witnesses, and made it very clear in their arguments that the congress was NOT on trial, only Trump, trying to give them an Out. It IS theatre, and they DO want to deal a blow, but unlike…the police, say…they are only interested in restraining the GOP, not executing it.

wv wrote:

I listened to some of a Trump-Lawyer’s argument while
i was in my car today. It was an excellent argument i thought.
He played an audio of a gazillion Dems saying inflammatory,
pro-violence rhetoric, and then he argued it all should be
protected by the 1st Amendment, and that it was unfortunate
that the rhetoric on both sides has reached this point.

I agree with Billy’s response to this, and will add that the difference is that Trump did this from the beginning. He has sanctioned violence at rallies and in other speeches, minimized the violence of right wing extremists (Charlottesville, etc), refused to condemn the Michigan action, told his violent thugs to “stand back and stand by,” and preposterously incited his base by repeatedly and falsely claiming that the election was stolen. He called for the rally at the Capitol, told them to march on the Capitol, tweeted in advance it was going to be Big and Wild. He has channeled all this anger, and directed it against the government, and it is completely disingenuous to pretend that the Democrats calls to “fight for justice” are equitable.

The first amendment does not protect the right to incite criminal behavior.

Well, I havent followed any of this theater very closely,
so that being said, I thought from the beginning that
Trump stopped short of ‘inciting’ that crowd
in a way that could be proven ‘criminal.’
He never said any of the magic words necessary
for a criminal conviction, in my view.

He didnt expressly tell them to gouge out cops eyes
or bash in windows or bring pipe bombs, etc, etc.

He just didnt.

Did he secretly want them to bring down the government
and make him King of the World? Sure, no doubt.
But he has always been craftier than people
give him credit for. His words are open to interpretation.
They just are. Lots of Reps did NOT force their way
into the Capital Bldng. Why didnt they?
Because they didnt interpret his words in a way
that would lead them toward violence.

You could not get 12 people on a jury to agree on
any of this. Trust me. A prosecutor would be
lucky to get 8 out of 12.

Now maybe there’s ‘other’ evidence I’m not aware of
but if we are just going by trumps weasel words?
Nah, its not enough. He went right up to the line — and
didnt cross it. Which is typical for Trump.
He’s a master at it.

Just my opinion.

w
v

Billy_T wrote:

Biden stopped the XL pipeline, for instance, reversed dozens of Trump’s earth-killing orders, stopped our support of the Saudi’s war in Yemen, and is actually trying to defeat the pandemic. Environmentalists are hopeful, for the first time in years, that progressive change is possible.

I read somewhere that Warren Buffet contributed millions of dollars to Biden’s campaign.

And the Buffett is the owner of Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway Company, the largest freight railroad in North America, and the one person who benefits the most financially from the transport of oil from Alberta to Texas, the route of the XL Pipeline.

Furthermore, the news of the XL cancellation has overshadowed the news that Biden has approved 31 new drilling permits on federal lands and coastal waters ALREADY. Here’s an article from Rigzone, the oil industry employment clearinghouse.

So… environmentalists might just want to join wvram in going “over the edge,” because pinning one’s hopes on Joe Biden’s environmental progressivism is questionable.

These books scared the hell out of me, and should be required reading for decision-makers:

Naomi Klein’s On Fire.

THE UNINHABITABLE EARTH by David Wallace-Wells

And Jason Hickel’s The Divide.

(Probably can’t post three links together, so I won’t try.)

The last one is excellent on global inequality as well. Actually, that’s its main topic, but it includes a great deal of info on climate change and environmental destruction too.

Going back to what WV said about the difficulty of convicting people in a court of law, I thought Trump’s call to the Georgia Secretary of State was an excellent example. He knew exactly what Trump wanted him to do, which is why he leaked the audio to protect himself from his own legal liabilities.

Trump said everything but “steal the votes for me, or else.” He walked right up to that line, almost crossed it several times, and did threaten him. But he may well have couched his rhetoric in enough double-speak to get away with it. I have no idea, but I do know he shouldn’t be able to.

Here’s the full transcript and audio of the call between Trump and Raffensperger

So, again, Trump set the stage for an insurrection, wanted it to happen, and developments over night say he and McCarthy got into a shouting match about Trump’s refusal to do anything to stop the melee. There is no question Trump used his own zombie horde as a battering ram to attempt a coup. It’s beyond obvious, based on years of whipping his base into a (white) army of the permanently aggrieved, angry and irrational.

I think it’s imperative to shut down the rise of fascism in America, right now, this instant. While we leftists can easily multitask, hold feet to the fire all over the map, this should be our priority. As long as we have capitalism in place, we’ll have empire and corporate pols. They’ll always be there. But the fascist menace starts with that status quo, that corporatism, that love of capitalism and empire, and adds the ugliest of ideologies on top of it.

If they “win,” we won’t have a chance in hell of battling against corporate power, which is at least possible under the rule of centrist Dems. At least the battle is possible. Under fascist rule, we’d all be underground, if not in more dire straits.

Just my two cents, etc.

Billy_T wrote:

Going back to… Trump’s call to the Georgia Secretary of State was an excellent example. He knew exactly what Trump wanted him to do, which is why he leaked the audio to protect himself from his own legal liabilities.

Trump said everything but “steal the votes for me, or else.” He walked right up to that line, almost crossed it several times, and did threaten him. But he may well have couched his rhetoric in enough double-speak to get away with it. I have no idea, but I do know he shouldn’t be able to.
.

==============

Exactly. I listened to that call carefully, three times,
and its typical Trump. Brilliant-Crafty-Evil Trump.
He went right up to the line. And didnt cross it.
He does that ALL the TIME.

If you are a Dem it seems ‘obvious’ that he crossed the line.
But if you are anything but a Dem, it aint so obvious
and there’s just a bit of ‘reasonable doubt.’

So, Dems will always vote to convict,
but not many Reps, and some Indies wont either.

Think about Malcolm X, the Black Panthers,
some of the Radical 60’s folks — they said a lot
of stuff that went right up..to…the…line.

w
v

If anybody comes across a plausible explanation for why the Democrats stopped short of calling witnesses, I’d like to see it.

Billy_T wrote:

The only thing I can think of is there may have been pressure from the Biden admin to move on, to get it over with, so they could pursue their nominees and agenda. That’s about it.

All of that said, 57-43 is a strong indictment against Trump, though the right will spin that as a victory, as “vindication.”

I also can’t help thinking anyone who voted to protect Trump is the lowest of low. It basically says that protecting Trump is more important than their own lives, the lives of their families, their colleagues, staff, and their families. Trump literally sent the mob to kill them all. And, once they were in middle of the melee, McCarthy and others begged him to stop it, and he wouldn’t. He refused to protect the House and Senate from a potential massacre.

The vote was so easy. Should have been 100 to 0.

I think they voted to protect themselves, not Trump. I think there is little love of Trump anywhere in Washington. McConnell spoke for a lot of people in the GOP yesterday. In any event, I think their votes will come back to bite a few of them (in purple states) because the vote to acquit Trump is going to look worse and worse as time goes on.

Zooey,

That makes sense. Protecting themselves while protecting Trump in effect. But it’s a perverse bargain. They wouldn’t be in danger if not for Trump. Not politically or literally. And that part puzzles me. The GOP, if it wanted to, could shut Trump down, along with his entire base, if they got on the same page against him, as they are now pretending to be for him.

They’re generally really good at messaging and a united front, unlike the Dems. Why not kill Frankenstein’s monster while they have the chance? . . . and they had that chance dozens of times in the last 5 years.

In my view, Trump’s base would have fallen in line with an anti-Trump message too, at least eventually. They’re all too easily led by the nose. Anyone who can be convinced that satanic cannibals with space lasers rule the world can be convinced of pretty much anything.

Oh, well. My gut tells me that America, right now, is the most gaslit nation in the world, by miles, and perhaps all time. That’s not gonna turn out well.

It’s the end of the world as we know it…

Really.

The following is an Op-Ed, and by a centrist pundit. But it all strikes me as accurate, factual, truthful and to the point. It also points to the WTF nature of the GOP reaction,

(I’m pasting the whole thing, given recent changes at accessing articles at the WaPo):

Opinion: Trump left them to die. 43 Senate Republicans still licked his boots.

Opinion by
Dana Milbank
Columnist
Feb. 13, 2021 at 6:37 p.m. EST

In the end, the darkest truth of Donald Trump’s crime came to light.

As his marauders sacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 in their bloody attempt to overturn the election, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy called the then-president and pleaded for Trump to call off the attack.

Trump refused, essentially telling McCarthy he got what he deserved. Trump was, in effect, content to let members of Congress die.

That damning account, in a statement Friday night from Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (Wash.), a Republican who defended Trump during his first impeachment, momentarily threw the Senate’s impeachment trial into chaos on its final day.

Trump’s lawyers, in their slashing, largely fictitious defense, claimed that Trump was “horrified” by the violence, hadn’t known that Vice President Mike Pence was in danger and took “immediate steps” to counter the rioting.
AD

But Herrera Beutler revealed such claims to be a lie. When McCarthy “finally reached the president on January 6 and asked him to publicly and forcefully call off the riot, the president initially repeated the falsehood that it was antifa that had breached the Capitol,” she wrote. McCarthy, she continued, “refuted that and told the president that these were Trump supporters. That’s when, according to McCarthy, the president said: ‘Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.’ ”
McConnell says Trump ‘still liable for things he did’ while president
On Feb. 13, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said former president Trump could still be held accountable within the criminal justice system. (The Washington Post)

Her account wasn’t seriously or substantively refuted. On Saturday afternoon, senators agreed that Herrera Beutler’s statement would be entered into the trial record as evidence.

Even knowing this, most Republican senators, as long expected, voted to acquit Trump, a craven surrender to the political imperative not to cross the demagogue. But the impeachment trial was not in vain, for it revealed the ugly truth: Trump knew lawmakers’ lives were in danger from his violent supporters, and instead of helping the people’s representatives escape harm, Trump scoffed.
AD

Republicans scrambled to limit the damage of Herrera Beutler’s revelation. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who had feigned being open to conviction, abandoned the pretense and, minutes before the Senate convened Saturday, emailed his Republican colleagues that he would vote to acquit.

On the Senate floor, Trump counsel Michael van der Veen, a personal-injury lawyer by day, tried in every way to demonstrate his indignation at the late revelation. He shouted. He growled. He gesticulated madly. He pounded the lectern. He stomped. He spat out words: “Antics.” “Rumor.” “Report.” “Innuendo.” “False narrative!” He actually declared that “it doesn’t matter what happened after the insurgence into the Capitol building.” So what if Trump scoffed at McCarthy’s desperate entreaty to save lawmakers’ lives?

Sputtering like the Looney Tunes character Sylvester the Cat, van der Veen declared: “Nancy Pelosi’s deposition needs to be taken. Vice President Harris’s deposition absolutely needs to be taken. And not by Zoom. None of these depositions should be done by Zoom. We didn’t do this hearing by Zoom! These depositions should be done — in person, in my office, in Philly-delphia!”

Sufferin’ succotash!

Laughter broke out in the chamber.

“I don’t know why you’re laughing,” he responded. “It is civil process. … I’ll slap subpoenas on a good number of people.” He seemed to think he was arguing a slip-and-fall case in the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas.

Republicans joined the theatrics.

On the Senate floor, Sen. Ron Johnson (Wis.), an always-Trumper, was seen pointing at Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah) and saying “blame you” in a raised voice. Romney was one of five Republicans who joined all 50 Democrats in voting to allow witness testimony.

Sen. Mike Lee (Utah), another Trump ally, interrupted a presentation to complain that the House impeachment managers “said something that’s not true” — never mind that the Senate had sat in silence during hours of falsehoods from Trump’s team.

After Herrera Beutler’s revelations sparked a vote for witnesses, Senate leaders brokered a compromise to keep the impeachment trial from spiraling into endless discovery. Herrera Beutler’s statement would be admitted as evidence, but this would “not constitute a concession by either party as for the truth of the matters asserted by the other party.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the lead impeachment manager, claimed that “this uncontradicted statement” provided “further decisive evidence of [Trump’s] intent to incite the insurrection.”

Van der Veen, in response, howled about due process and fairness being “violently breached” — interesting words, given what his client did.

When the yeas and nays were counted, seven Senate Republicans joined Herrera Beutler in her courageous stand, voting along with all 50 Democrats to convict Trump. The other 43 Republicans, some of whom, like McConnell, feebly denounced Trump’s conduct even as they acquitted him, now have the cowardly distinction of licking the boots of the man who left them to die.