I get the feeling after watching the analysis from CNN that the SC doesn’t want to have anything to do with a case that is going to interfere with a democratic election.
If I have understood what they have been saying, it seems like the SC will be close to, if not, unanimous in keeping Trump on the ballot.
Would get trashed in a Federal election. Lots of skeletons in his closet, including alienating his own progressive wing, marital infidelity, betraying a friend, you name it. The awkward Guilfoyle connection.
Basically no capacity at all to speak to somewhere around 38 states, and he is almost a poster child for the GOP talking point ‘coastal elites’. I personally know several GOP strategists who would dream of him as the Democratic candidate.
If he thought he had a snowball’s chance in Hell, he would have challenged Biden. As it is, he is hoping for a sea change and waiting for 2028.
There is a subtext there. A lot of the hard questions have come from the more liberal justices, and you can bet they are going to do a great deal with any judgement against Colorado to assert the priority of the Federal government against the States - and make that precedent. In the normal course, that Federalist Society majority would be deferring to Colorado’s right to make their own decisions, but Trump has enough sway they might just be compelled to hand Kagan the pen.
You’re right that the misuse of language on both sides is detrimental to constructive debate. Presumably you feel equally appalled by the labelling of Democrats as Communist and extreme left wingers.
Trump is not, at this stage, a Nazi, he lacks a clear policy of racial superiority or any sign of working towards a final solution.
However, if you have studied the rise of the Nazis, there are clear parallels with his methods and rhetoric. The mass rallies, use of threats and violence, attacks on the press, use of insults like ‘scum’ and ‘vermin’ and so on. His reaction to losing the 2020 election has not been that of a believer in Democracy, but rather that of a petulant narcissist who would not hesitate to bend any rules were he to regain power.
In January 1933 the SPD had 120 seats in the Reichstag. By the middle of the year the party was illegal and most of it’s delegates were in exile or in concentration camps. The Nazis didn’t start with gas chambers, they presented themselves as patriots who wanted to restore law and order and make Germany great again.
Exactly.
If you don’t think there is a fascistic bent to Trump, you’ve got rocks in your head.
It should be mentioned that the special council that accused Biden of having memory loss and forgetting the date of his son’s death is a registered Republican and Trump appointee.
Some of the things mentioned in the report, such as the line about his son, seem politically motivated to me.
Neither did the Nazis when they first came to power, did they?
They had a clear policy of racial superiority and were organising boycotts of Jewish businesses for example.
Trump hasn’t explicitly stated white supremacy or called for action against black interests that I know of.
It wouldn’t be a surprise though.
I exaggerated on purpose. He is a neo-fascist technically speaking, not even a proper one. He is never going to embrace all aspects of proper fascism.
The point however is that he is so, so bad and immoral that beating him is of critical importance.
He leads a straight out Charles Lindbergh faction in MAGA and the establishment is cowed by them, not very unlike how conservatives in Germany were cowed by NSDAP and the populist euphoria they created. There are quite a lot of analogies even though Trump himself is not technically a National Socialist. But he did actually rant about the purity of blood the other day. Do I believe that he enact a Final Solution regarding political opposing groups ? No, but at the same time I dont really belive morals would be holding him back if some how it was politically and technically expedient. Different time though. And the movement he leads are in every possible way, intellectually and philosophically inferior to the old nazis and couldnt create proper nazism (or even proper fascism) even if they tried, since it requires a highly competent leadership and beurocracy as well as old fashioned militant dicipline; which both he and the idiots in MAGA lacks.
But even though he is not a competent Adolf Hitler or do not specifically want to eradicate specific ethic groups or sterilize weak people (he would lose half his base) , he is authoritarian, wants ro reshape the US to become Authoritarian Nationalist and want to allign it with other Nationalist states, such as Russia, on a purely transactional basis. His policy is to destroy old alliances and focus on pure transactions. Which is not only against US interests, but creates all sorts of massive problems for every state which is not a right wing autocracy.
US society will also further unravel under him and there is likely to be a lot of social instability and probably violence. He leads, or at least is the figure head of, a cult (one of several analogies with the 30s).
But sure, he is not Hitler and Maga is not Sturmabteilung. History never ever repeats itself, but often it can rhyme more than a bit.
Yes. Nazism was an ideology and Hitler truly believed in it. Trump is a narcissistic opportunist who will say and do whatever it takes to get power and adulation.
Indeed. Trump is not very ideological himself and certainly not a fanatic.
Perhaps the true danger for Americans, if one ignores the rest of the world, is that he would shape society in an etno Nationalist direction while being an authoritarian; thus putting in place the foundations for the rise of an actual competent authoritarian, an actual believer, to later succeed him and hijack the neo fascist movement that worship him a decade down the line. Because these people do not belive in facts, they believe in National Truth and National Myth.
Hi Magnus, agree wholeheartedly with your post and only doing this because you write so bloody well in your (second?) language:
In this context would sound better to say ‘analogues’ or ‘similarities’
Well it’s often defined as the policies of his own party so that’s QED. If you read Eatwell on fascism, you may prefer a more complex and contradictory definition and it was perhaps less a case of intellectual ‘belief’ as emotion, feeling and disposition. I would suggest Trump may fit this latter definition better; alternatively I’d say were (heaven forbid) historians to talk of a Maga ideology in the future then many would similarly say Trump truly believed in it.
Sorry. I type fast and forget to spell check. I am also aware that I sometimes even write truly stupid errors like “was” when there should be “were”. When I spot it afterwards I edit, but I don’t always see it.
My oral English is several light years better than my grammar (I don’t make these stupid mistakes when I speak and my pronounciation is actually very good, but I have always been error prone in writing, sadly). This is also, perhaps not so incidentally, true in Norwegian.
Magnus your english is awesome.
And for me in English!
It’s good, as in I can write long academic texts in English and have done so a lot (and I also write fiction fairly well in English I have been told), but I have bad grammar-instinct and sometimes mix up how a few words are written; which is very unfortunate.
I have a very good intuitive ear for English and languages though, but that’s not entirely the same as grammar, I am afraid.
It’s difficult to tell, because there’s so much bluster and sloganeering from Trump that it’s hard to pin down what he really thinks, but it seems clear that his primary focus is himself and it’s likely that he’d change his mind on a policy if it threatened to lose him popularity.
English is incredibly unintuitive with all its irregular exceptions and it must be a nightmare to learn as a non native speaker. I can’t speak anything but English and can’t imagine mastering a second language. Well done you.
My vocabulary is certainly better than my grammar 
I’ve just never been good at grammar. In any language really, including my mother tongue. I have a very good memory regarding a lot of subjects, but grammar has always been a weakness of mine and I tend to forget grammar rules. My English is almost purely intuitive/instinctive and my vocabulary is from reading a lot of novels and speaking the language quite often. I am terrible at the actual rules of a language.