The Trump Post-Presidency and Insurrection

3/2 odds -- Fades into obscurity
5/1 odds -- Gets 5% of the vote in the 2024 presidential race and ruins the Republican candidate's chances of winning.
1,000/1 odds -- RNC Chair
10,000/1 odds -- wins 2024 presidential election

If Trump had not pushed the Big Lie, hosted the rally, and fed the Big Lie to an audience he knew was planning violence, the raiding of the Capitol would not have happened."The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the President. The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution."--Liz Cheney (a Republican, by the way)

Even Republicans can see how Trump incited an insurrection. Don Corleone just told his guys to make him an offer he couldn't refuse. He didn't say anything about extortion, right?

If you are going to accuse someone of inciting an insurrection then you need to establish that there was an insurrection. The videos are evidence of just that.The speech itself was just a part of the overall attempt to incite violence. The months long campaign of lying to his followers, the planning of the event, how the event was advertised, and so forth. Those are just as important. As with many things in life, context is important.Trump told his followers that Congress was taking their country away and that they had to march down to the Capitol and stop them. Who was surprised by the violence after that point? Not I. You could practically predict violence with near 100% accuracy after the months long campaign that was capped by that speech.

The Senate vote was not a vote on the truth of Trump's role in the insurrection.

I would be curious about your knowledge of what fascism is. If our two political parties were transported to 1930's Germany or Italy I think it would be pretty obvious which party would not fit in. Do you think it is Conservatives or Liberals that have been circulating conspiracy theories of Jewish influence in politics? Which is the most nationalistic of the two parties? Which party is calling for the banning of books in school libraries and the expulsion of gays and transexuals from school systems? Which party continually harkens back to some past society that they think was better than the one now? Which party fears the dilution of America culture by some conspiratorial invasion of outsiders?I think if you took a step back and used a neutral eye you would see what we do.

US Conservatives have also fawned all over the leader of the Italian Fascist party who recently became Prime Minister in Italy.https://www.dallasobserver.com/...ht-giorgia-meloni-14913043

The interesting part for us is that you project all of the characteristics of Conservatives onto Liberals as a way of ridiculing Liberals.

You give me hope in the human race, Phat. I'm not a conservative, but I fully respect the conservative positions even if I don't share them. The current GOP is not conservative in any traditional sense. I can't see how any Christian could be part of what the GOP currently represents. You compare what Trump says to what Jesus said in the Bible and they are polar opposites. I just don't get it. I also think many other people can see the hypocrisy in the church (at least those who are pro-Trump) right now which may explain why fewer people are going to church here in the US. Although I don't subscribe to apocalyptic prophecies, I can certainly see the comparisons to the anti-Christ.

The nail that sticks out gets hammered. Commentators were saying this very thing when he ran for pres in 2016. All he was doing was putting a spotlight on his finances and opening himself up to prosecution.

At least for legal fees, Trump is using PAC money. You would think that a political movement that speaks out against the elites wouldn't have poor people donating to a billionaire, but here we are. Cognitive dissonance doesn't seem to be a feature of MAGA.

As long as the lawyers stick to the law, I don't think any lawyer working for Trump should be looked down on. As a matter of basic rights, every defendant deserves the best defense they can get. To their credit, many high-ranking law offices take on the most heinous defendants in murder trials, and they often do it pro-bono in the name of fair justice.It's the lawyers that turn into propogandists that end up with egg on their face.

There are two other issues. First, he is known for not paying his legal bills. Two, he is likely to sink his entire defense strategy by what he says at rallies or on social media.I also wouldn't be surprised if Trump demands his lawyers to break the law on his behalf.

One could argue that the violent BLM protests could be placed on the doorstep of US liberals. I don't think it is as simple as that, but I think it should still be something that US liberals acknowledge and strive to reduce.As a counterpoint, the close election between Gore and Bush in 2000 had way more potential of being the product of a rigged election, but there weren't any Democrats participating in a violent protest at the US Capitol, or anywhere. Once the runway ran out for Gore he shook Bush's hand and supported the legitimacy of his election win (through clenched teeth). That was the end of it.

The debates and discussions about the BLM movement were strongly correlated with partisan politics. I don't know of any polls, but I would be absolutely surprised if the people in those protests were more than 5% Trump voters. Here in the PNW there were completely zany takeovers in Portland and Seattle, and again, I highly doubt those were Trump voters.All I was trying to point out is that crazy is not limited to just to conservatism. I think there is certainly a difference in quantity, however. I also think there is a difference in kind between the BLM movement and the 1/6 insurrection. It's one thing to protest excessive police brutality. It is quite another to use violence as a way of stopping the transfer of power in a democracy.