I have absolutely no doubt we do, I agree with a lot of the things I’ve seen you post in other threads.
For me I don’t care who you or anyone else supports. I work in Northern Maine so I have lots of friends who are Trump supporters so when I respond to your posts it doesn’t bother me what political angle you’re approaching it from, I just think some of the arguments you have made in this thread are not sound.
Trump has damaged people’s lives, his rhetoric is poisonous, he would enable an even more aggressive Russia and China and he has many times threatened to lessen or totally destroy democracy. It’s not “Trump Derangement Syndrome” to want him to lose the election or face punishment for crimes he has committed and doesn’t even deny committing.
My view of Trump is based on many years of observation. He is not a new phenomenon. He is a known quantity. Very much so.
As such it is incredible to me that he has conned so many people into believing in him, and doing his bidding.
The main ‘trial’ I am looking forward to is the Presidential Election. My hope is that there will be enough people to stop him, and if he loses, I think that will be it for him. He will become increasingly irrelevant (though what he has spawned will sadly not be irrelevant).
As for this trial, I just want to see justice done. Nobody should be above the law. If he is found to be innocent, so be it. I can accept that. If he is found guilty, I expect the lowest end of the tariffs, plus a tangled appeals process, so it won’t hit him before the election.
I think it all boils down to the election. If he loses, he’s done. And at that point the other trials will be coming his way too. If he wins, woweeee. His first stint will have been a trainee course as to what he can get away with. The second stint doesn’t bear thinking about.
Someone with trump derangement syndrome would never have any friends that support trump. They would in fact stop being friends with them. I know this as I have 2nd hand experience of this. I dont particularly want trump to win, I would have preferred DeSantis and then later changed my mind to Haley. I do however think trump is a better choice over Biden, once it was clear that Biden was the other option. I dont have a political angle as I unfortunately have no skin in the game.
To me guilt is not black and white, and most definitely has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. I think that this in particular is a fantastic foundation for law, and unfortunately there are going to be times where people get away with crimes. All I have been trying to say is that I don’t see any evidence that makes him without doubt guilty in a court of law. I believe some of my specific arguments might be invalid, and I think it’s a moot point as all my stronger beliefs would have to be invalid for me to change my mind. I have a general belief, based on x amounts of reasoning, with the knowledge that they are not all right.
Maybe you can understand it from my perspective if you continuously read 99% reasons why he definitely is guilty while dismissing any reasoning of the arguments against guilt. 99% vs 1% is an improbable statistic in this thread especially when you consider the general consensus outside this site.
I get that but you also have approached every one of these trials as political hit jobs by the Democratic party, going so far as to say that the only reason he is on trial is because he’s running for President, so the bar you would have required for evidence would be insanely high - and probably impossible - to meet.
I just think its unfair of you to accuse others of being hard-headed and that they’ve already decided Trump’s guilt, when you’ve already done the same just with the opposite conclusion.
What bothers me about Trump is his apparent inability to accept laws apply to him too.
Also he himself has said he will be a dictator on the first day.How than can actually ring true, let alone happen beggars belief.He is going to be extremely busy on that day!
It feels trite and juvenile to say it in this day and age, but…facts!!
None of this is remotely controversial and I simply cannot understand - nor do I want to, to be honest - how any reasonable person is unable arrive at the above position.
I would add that I am particularly offended on an intellectual level by the notion that the world’s most transparent grifter gives a shit about the tens of millions of people in America without healthcare/childcare and who cannot put food on the table.
He has, perhaps irretrievably, damaged the political discourse of the world we all inhabit.
It is not derangement at all to want to see him get his comeuppance. In fact, it would probably give me a little bit of hope.
And I explained to you earlier that had you done so (in this particular trial) , i.e. " I have read no direct proof that he paid Cohen AND that it was marked as payment towards the non-disclosures." then he would in fact have broken no state laws and he would not even be on trial. That was your great gotcha moment , and it was a nonsense. He still might had legal exposure to breaking campaign finance laws and indeed the entire subterfuge was , in part , to immunise himself against that. But the (much more serious ) matter that has resulted in him being charged is for falsifying business accounts which you somehow contend he didn’t do because it wasn’t marked as a hush money payment. Had he done so then he wouldn’t have falsified the records. Do you see how illogical your argument is ?
You adopt this persona of objectivity when in fact you display none whatsoever in your contentions and your attitude. It has reached a point for me where I think you’re not really arguing in good faith but rather doing this for your own amusement.
You can prove me wrong of course and address that singular point that you think points to Trump’s innocence but which actually does nothing of the sort.
Edit: There is also the possibility that Trump is found guilty of the falsification ( a misdemanour) but not guity of the felony (the furtherance of the other crime , i.e. to influence the election). Note that the falsification is the most easily provable because they’ve got the documents.
I used “possibly” because that is literally what this trial is about.
That is quite insulting to be honest but I’ll let it slide. No I dont think that way. I think there’s a significant amount of evidence out there to question Trumps level of both intelligence and idiocy. This is a person in charge of the largest economy and arsenal in the world. You’d hope he has a good bit common sense at least but to be fair it’s only by the grace of those he surrounds himself with that has really kept him out of trouble (sort of). Could you imagine the mess he’d be in if Cohen hadn’t dealt with Stormy on his behalf? He was stupid enough to keep classified documents anywhere and everywhere is another example.
Furthermore, any semi intelligent person with an ounce of humility that found themselves “in charge” during a world wide pandemic would take an interest in that virus and maybe try and learn a thing or two about it. They would also take a lot of advice from those that do know what they’re talking about. Trump did not. Johnson here in the UK did the same. Both are idiots.
The problem is that our democracies are founded on the principle that people are generally honourable. And mostly people have been. It’s only in recent years that we’ve discovered, thanks to people like Trump and Johnson, that our democracies are incredibly vulnerable to people who are entirely dishonourable, venal and untruthful turning up and driving a fucking coach and horse through our processes and practices.
We’ve got a hell of a job rebuilding our institutions to withstand these attacks.
And please don’t blame people who vote for Trump. Yes, it’s frustrating and you want to fucking shake them. But creating poverty and inequality and then turning that poverty against an imaginary target for political and personal gain has been a project of the right for decades. It’s the reason why we had Brexit in the UK. These people are conned, and you don’t blame the conned - you blame the conman.
The trial resumes shortly. Michael Cohen will take the stand once again to finish his cross examination by the defence. After that both prosecution and defence are given a chance to ‘re-direct’ the jury. Then we will see if the defence calls any witnesses and if the man himself decides to take the stand (don’t hold your breath).
We could have closing statements as early as Tuesday and a verdict any time after that.
Edit : ‘Justice Merchan says that it’s become apparent that closings will not take place tomorrow. It’s looking more like evidence, testimony and all other business before closings will happen this week and closing arguments will take place next Tuesday.’ - NYT
I’m of the firm belief that the politicians who win elections reflect the mindset of the majority who voted them in.
There’s a sizable amount of people who were always conservative/republican. That’s not anything wrong in itself. The fact that there aren’t enough republicans who are willing to vote for democrats is telling though. And quite a lot of these republican voters do come from more privileged backgrounds.
Moreover, according to what is arguably the next-best measure of class, household income, Trump supporters didn’t look overwhelmingly “working class” during the primaries. To the contrary, many polls showed that Trump supporters were mostly affluent Republicans. For example, a March 2016 NBC survey that we analyzed showed that only a third of Trump supporters had household incomes at or below the national median of about $50,000. Another third made $50,000 to $100,000, and another third made $100,000 or more and that was true even when we limited the analysis to only non-Hispanic whites. If being working class means being in the bottom half of the income distribution, the vast majority of Trump supporters during the primaries were not working class.
Sure. But then republicans rarely if ever get the majority vote. Republicans have a more unified voting bank though and that makes the difference.
I do believe that the system is skewed when a vote in say California matters less than a vote in maybe one of the red states with lesser population etc.