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sonicsuns · 4 months ago

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Fantasy Tim Walz speech

(To my conservative friends: We can still be friends even if we disagree on politics. This is my perspective on Trump, expressed through an imaginary Tim Walz speech. If you have a different perspective that's ok. Just because I insult Trump doesn't mean that I'm insulting you personally.)

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Look, folks. I understand that there are a lot of people out there who disagree with me on some issues. Really, I get it! This is a democracy, after all, and it's normal to disagree.

And I can understand why you might want to support someone who's got different ideas than me and Kamala. That's fine. I understand that.

But does it have to be Donald Trump??

[Crowd laughs and cheers]

You really wanna vote for this weirdo again? A man who says it's ok to "terminate" the Constitution just to bring himself to power again? A man with a felony list a mile long? You really want this bozo rambling on about nothing, tweeting nonsense in the middle of the night? Is this really who you want for President?

I don't know how he got the job in the first place. Well, I guess I do. Because the truth is most voters voted against him in 2016. He only snuck in because of the Electoral College, but that's neither here nor there.

The real question is how he ever got nominated in the first place. Here's a man with no experience, no idea how to govern, why did they pick him for the top of the ticket?

I'm starting to think that Trump was a DEI hire, you know what I mean? [laughs]

Somebody must've said "We need more weird people in the Republican Party! Let's find the weirdest, creepiest guy we can and make him President of the United States! So they looked long and hard for the weirdest, creepiest man they could find, and they settled on Donald J. Trump!

[Crowd laughs and cheers]

Look, people, I'm all for representation. But you've gotta pick someone who can actually do the job! Someone like Kamala Harris!

[Crowd cheers]

Kamala was an elected prosecutor, then a senator, then the Vice President and now she's running for President! She's got a track record! She's done a lot of good! If you disagree with some of that, fine! We can talk about it. Maybe you'll get us to change our minds on a few things.

But don't put the weirdo in the White House!

[Crowd cheers]

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(There are a lot of good ways to be "weird" and there are a lot of nasty people who denounce "weirdness". But Trump is not weird in a good way. Trump is weird in a "destablize democracy because I can't bear to admit that I lost an election" kind of way.)

#politics #trump #harris #walz #speech

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sonicsuns · 5 months ago

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America is in danger

Two days ago, the Supreme Court gave the President sweeping immunity from criminal charges. You can read the ruling here, and you'll find links to media coverage here.

This ruling is a severe threat to the rule of law in America, especially with Donald Trump still on the loose and aiming to return to the White House.

Let's be clear: Democrats are not perfect. Sometimes they get swept up in dumb ideas. Some of them are corrupt. Yes, I'm deeply concerned about war crimes in Gaza (though I don't trust Trump to make the war crimes stop.) And yes, Joe Biden should step down so a healthier Democrat can take his place as the nominee.

But at least the Democrats believe in democracy. Most Republicans don't.

Many Republicans think they believe in democracy, but in reality they believe in Trump. Roughly two-thirds of Republicans say that Trump won the 2020 Presidential Election, despite abundant evidence to the contrary.

Let's examine this in detail. There are three main pillars for election integrity in America.

First we have the election administrators, chosen because they were deemed trustworthy enough to count the votes. This group ranges from the the lowest-level volunteers up through a variety of supervisors, managers and certifiers. This pillar says that Joe Biden won the election. (A small handful resisted that conclusion but they were overruled by everyone else.)

Second, we have law enforcement. Stealing elections is illegal in every state, and if the cops have evidence against someone they can charge them with a crime. But nobody has charged, let alone proven, that there was ever an illegal pro-Biden scheme large enough to potentially tip the results in even a single state, let alone the national results. Even Trump's attorney general, Bill Bar, concluded that the results were legitimate. Bill Barr was Trump's bulldog! Do you seriously think he betrayed both Trump and America all of a sudden? No! He said the results were legit because the results were actually legit. In that moment, he decided that his loyalty to America outweighed his loyalty to Trump. (Absurdly, he now says that he'll vote for Trump.)

Third, we have the courts, specifically designed to stand apart from politics. At both state and federal levels, Trump lost every meaningful case he ever put forth. Even judges appointed by Trump himself said his claims were nonsense. (The fraud claims were so absurd that Giuliani eventually got disbarred over them!) So again, Biden's victory was confirmed.

And yes, I have seen a bunch of viral videos where people make dramatic claims of election fraud. None of them stood up to closer scrutiny when I looked into it. The election deniers may think they have a mountain of evidence, but in reality they have a mountain of nonsense.

The Electoral College certified Biden's win in December 2020, because Biden actually won the election. He did not win via fraud or misconduct, nor did he win Trump-style where you lose the popular vote but still win the electoral vote due to a constitutional glitch. Biden won the old-fashioned way: By actually getting more votes than his opponent.

And what did Trump do? He just kept lying about it.

Even his own paid experts had told him that Biden's win was legitimate, and then he turned around and lied about what the experts told him. He knew full well that he had lost. He has never cared about democracy or the rule of law. He only pretends to care when it suits him.

At one point he seriously considered ordering the military to seize voting machines and essentially declare Trump the winner by fiat. He did not issue that order, but the mere fact that he considered it is chilling.

What he did do was organize slates of false electors to cast fraudulent electoral votes for him. He also ordered the Department of Justice to make false claims of fraud, telling them: "Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen."

On Jan 6th 2021 he urged his followers to march on the Capitol Building, where Congress was certifying the election results. And yes, he did say that they should march "peacefully". But when the crowd grew violent, when they started smashing windows and trespassing and physically threatening Congress, Trump waited three hours before he gave the order to stop it. He knew what he was doing. He wanted his people to physically intimidate members of Congress, in hopes that they would be scared enough to steal the election for him.

And you know what? He made a scary amount of progress! 139 House Republicans — more than half of the Republicans in the House — voted to overturn the election results. (The Senate was comparatively sane, but even there 8 Republicans objected to the results.)

And when Trump was impeached for incitement to insurrection, the Republicans shielded him. He got away with it.

At the time, I hoped that this was the lowest point. I hoped that more people would understand the truth of the election once they'd had a year or two to think about it and once Covid was no longer stressing them out. But here we are, more than 3 years later and the pandemic long over, and two-thirds of Republicans are still opposed to democracy (at least when Donald Trump is involved.)

This brings me back to the Supreme Court.

On July 1st the court ruled that Presidents are essentially above the law. It recognized three categories of activity that Presidents can engage in: (1) "core constitutional powers", (2) other powers "within the outer perimeter of his official responsibilities", and (3) "unofficial conduct". The first category has "absolutely immunity", the second category is "at least preemptively immune", and the third group is not immune.

At first glance this may seem very dry and technical and nonthreatening. But trust me, it's a gateway to hell.

The court specifically said that:

"Trump is absolutely immune from prosecution for the alleged conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials." (page 5)

The "alleged conduct" is that he ordered the DOJ to break the law, commit fraud and help him STEAL AN ELECTION.

The court isn't merely saying "We don't think Trump actually committed this crime." They're saying "Even if Trump did commit this crime, he can't be punished for it."

So once again: According to SCOTUS, the President can order his minions to break the law, and he can't be prosecuted. He has "absolute immunity".

If that isn't an invitation for Presidents to abuse their powers, I don't know what is!

As for the other categories, the phrasing "at least presumptive immunity" implies that the court will happily bump the immunity level from "presumptive" to "absolute" whenever they feel like it. And apparently almost nothing the President does is "unofficial", seeing as the court specifically ruled that "most of a President’s public communications are likely to fall comfortably within the outer perimeter of his official responsibilities." Meaning that Trump can tweet out "Go commit crimes!" and this court will probably render him immune. The court refused to declare any of Trump's conduct to be beyond immunity. Something things were judged immune, and other things were judged worthy of additional review. This is a recipie for disaster.

Incidentally, the Constitution provides no immunity at all for Presidents. There is limited immunity for members of Congress, but nothing at all for the President. This is on purpose! As Sotomayor points out in her dissent, it was well understood since the founding that Presidents can in fact be prosecuted for crimes. Heck, the constitution clearly references this in the Impeachment Clause!

Also, the Constitution specifically says that the President "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed". But according to SCOTUS, he's still free to order government officials to break laws. The Constitutional mandate to obey the law has been turned into permission to break the law.

This is the worst decision since Dredd Scott. A President who can break laws with impunity is a dictator in the making. And it's not as if impeachment will pose any threat to Trump; the Senate already made it clear that they're not willing to convict him!

And as it stands, Trump has an even chance of winning back the White House this November.

Look, people. I try to be understanding. I know that sometimes Trump has been criticized unfairly in the past. I know that sometimes some Democrats push stupid ideas like "abolish the police" (though Biden was never in that camp, nor were most democrats). I know that a lot of Republican voters are lovely people in their day-to-day lives. I know that a lot of them mean well. But even so, Trump is a demagogue. He has amassed a cult-like following and he will abuse whatever power he gets. He already tried to steal an election. Just imagine what he'll do with this new immunity.

(If you're worried about war crimes in Gaza, consider the historical fact that dictatorships commit far more war crimes than democracies. There's no telling what evil deeds America's vast military might do if democracy crumbles!)

I also understand different schools of Constitutional interpretation. I see the appeal of textualism and originalism, and I see how Roe v. Wade outraged a lot of people who either (a) believe that a fetus is a baby, and/or (b) believe that the court invented a "right to abortion" which doesn't exist in the Constitution's text. But nothing in the text of the Constitution makes Presidents immune. Nothing in history says that the framers of the Constitution wanted Presidents to have immunity. I simply cannot trust any of the six justices who joined this oppressive ruling. Even when they've agreed with me in the past (shoutout to Gorsuch for protecting LGBT people in the workplace), that means almost nothing now. The Sinister Six are either willfully corrupt or else they're so stupid that it hardly makes a difference.

The district court said Trump is not immune. The appeals panel unanimously agreed that Trump is not immune. Ordinarily I would assume the Supremes know better that their inferiors, but this ruling is so absurd that it shatters any trust I once had in the Supreme Court.

The only way out of this is to vote for a Democrat (either Biden or whoever replaces him) in November. That's the only way to stop Trump. A Trump victory would place America even further along the path to dictatorship. If he takes office, you won't necessarily see dramatic change in the first day or two. But in the span of four years?? There's no telling what horrors Trump might unleash. Stealing elections. Censoring the internet. Warantless wiretapping. Throwing his enemies in jail without trial. Maybe even assassinating his rivals.

Even if Trump doesn't do all that himself, he'll lay the groundwork for whoever comes next. There's always another would-be dictator waiting in the wings.

Liberty is not guaranteed.

So if you're American, I beg you: VOTE BLUE this November. It's the best hope we have.

#politics #trump #biden #election #immunity

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