Okay. Trump has zero problem doing things that everyone agrees he can't do. Doing something that only "not everyone" agrees he can't do will be a cakewalk for him.
Predction: Trump will be pardoned by Biden if he wins
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Okay. Trump has zero problem doing things that everyone agrees he can't do. Doing something that only "not everyone" agrees he can't do will be a cakewalk for him.
There are two important differences between then and now:
1. In sufficient part, the GOP wasn't comprised of cultists and enablers.
2. There wasn't a massive alternate fact bubble.
Indeed. But that won't stop him. It's a freebie. All upside, no downside.
This is a very dangerous comparison and shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what Trump is doing.
Nixon's approval rating dropped like a rock when what Nixon had done made it into the public eye. Over a (relatively) short period of time Nixon, who history often forgets was massively popular (we will never see an EC spread like 1972 again), lost popularity because of a rapid fire sequences of events (The Saturday Night Massacre, the release of the tapes, the smoking gun tape, etc) that brought information about what Nixon was doing into the public eye. There never was any big social discussion about what whether or not what Nixon was doing was wrong.
Trump could not be further from this. What he's doing isn't being hidden, indeed he's publicly bragging about it. Trump has fifty "Nixon Moments" before breakfast on an average day.
Trump openly admitted to doing what he was impeached for doing what about 4, 5 days was it into this impeachment proceedings and he's still in office.
There's no smoking gun with Trump because he's holding the gun in his hand and firing it all the time while screaming "LOOKIT ME I'M SHOOTING THE GUN RIGHT NOW! EVERYBODY SEE ME SHOOTING THE GUN! WATCH ME SHOOT THE GUN!"
Nixon didn't "LOL lookit the triggered libs" for a bunch of reality denying cultists.
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Puppycow
Penultimate Amazing
Actually 1984 was even more lopsided in the EC, but narrower in the popular vote. Reagan won 49 states in 84. Nixon also won 49 in 72, but the state he lost had more electors.
That whirring sound you hear is Howard Baker spinning in his grave.
Warrant prosecution is easy. When somebody breaks the law. Obviously we don't have a Gods eye view, so it comes down to our subjective judgement of the claims. I doubt we will agree on very much here when we are talking about Trump.
Sure, but are we going to agree that that is what has happened? I doubt it.
Oh, well.... this is a different question from whether a prosecution is warranted. People aren't prosecuted for things that they could be prosecuted for all the time. Rioters are let go by the DA. Whole cities decide to make themselves sanctuaries from particular laws. The President is empowered to pardon people for crimes. If you want the law applied equally to everybody, then there is a much bigger problem than Trump here. In any case, the practical consequences of convicting a President, or an ex-President of a crime, particularly one relating to their time in office is much bigger than the consequences of convicting some random nobody of a crime. Those consequences would be considered by the Washington creatures who make these kinds of calls and influence these kinds of decisions.
While not agreeing with the details, I agree that it is going to be harder to convince people. They certainly aren't going to take the word of journalists in the way they once did. What you would need to do to get him out of office early, or make it anything other than a political nightmare to prosecute him for something significant that he did in office once he's out of office is the same as was required with Nixon. The fact that it may be harder to achieve now is unfortunate for you if you want it to happen.
You may well believe all of that. It doesn't matter. The practical reality at the moment is that no President with his kind of approval is remotely likely to be removed from office. No ex-President with his approval is remotely likely to be prosecuted for their actions in office, once they are out of office. The Republican base will view it in exactly the same way as the Democrat base would if Trump had had Obama locked up. The fact that you think locking up Trump would be legitimate and locking up Obama wouldn't be doesn't matter, even if in some Platonic world of objective legal Truth you are in the right. They would think you are in the wrong, and the consequences will be exactly the same as if you were in the wrong.
I just don't think you are going to be able to lock him up without first having his supporters abandon him.
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rockysmith76
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You fixed nothing, tunnel vision leads to blindness.
Because it was more politically convenient for them to block it than to help the Democrats?
I'm not saying that it is impossible for any evidence to come to light that will cause his supporters to abandon him, just that that needs to happen before he is at risk.That is more the "Trump's supporters are cultists" position that seems to be popular on the forum. If they are correct, then his approval won't drop and I really don't see Trump suffering any significant legal consequence coming to him.
Maybe they have been holding back some shocking, cast iron evidence this whole time?
rockysmith76
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You miss their only point, orange man bad, its all they have, no plan for the future, just the omb vortex.
Foster Zygote
Dental Floss Tycoon
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You've shown that "orange man bad" is pretty much all you have. It may as well be your mantra. It's your knee-jerk response to any criticism of Trump. Ive already asked you to provide an actual logical argument in support of your claims in another thread, and you didn't respond further. You keep claiming that you aren't a Trump supporter and that you think he sucks, but any time anyone else gives a specific example of his suckage, you mockingly dismiss them with "orange man bad".
Steve
Penultimate Amazing
Well, rockysmith76 consistently refers to Trump as “orange man”. Maybe that is an indication that he doesn’t really like the dude. But you are correct, he has very little to say other than that. And while he may not like Trump, he apparently likes criticism of Trump even less.
I really want to understand what the concept of "I don't like Trump" means coming from people who defend him at every single argumentative chance.
Venom
Philosopher
And why the "other side" is somehow more concerning even with Trump at his worst.
If the half-Kenyan president behaved like Trump we already know what the reaction would be.
fishbob
Seasonally Disaffected
If Biden were to pardon Trump, the Nazis wouldn't feel the need to crawl back under their rocks.
A better option would be for Trump and his entire entourage to depart for some non-extradition country. Which is fine with me - the Trumpists who can afford it can go with him, the rest can crawl back under their rocks.
As you may guess, I would really like the lot of them back under their rocks. I'm just willing to settle for having them leave. And take their rocks with them.
The most likely charge is obtaining millions of dollars of loans fraudulently from banks by overstating the value of his properties. Tax returns from the same period understating the values of his properties will show that these were deliberate acts.
It will be easy to frame this as common or garden mortgage fraud.
Money laundering would probably involve selling properties to well-connected Russians at way above the market price. Proving this was deliberate will be much harder.
I'm sure that the billing for the use of Trump's properties has been padded and that there will be fraud cases.
The alternative is "the President (and his family and his friends) is above the law".
Hence I suspect a focus on financial crimes especially from before taking office, rather than official acts while in power - there won't be a prosecution of Trump for conspiring to deprive citizens of their right to vote, or for poor treatment of immigrants.
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That isn't what I said. The impeachment went ahead, it just wasn't ever going to go anywhere unless they convinced a good number of Trumps supporters to abandon him. Similar will with any other prosecution that is going to do more than slap him on the wrist.
Nixon's approval was at around 25% for 6 months before he stepped down. Through that time the public support for impeaching him climbed and climbed until close to a super majority were in favour. That was before the Supreme court ordered the tapes be released. Trump has survived Russiagate without his base giving up on, he has survived impeachment without his base giving up on him. It's not that I don't think that something that would have the impact of the Watergate tapes couldn't exist, it's just that if it did... wouldn't they have used it to try and impeach him by now?
It's a tired, worn out old subject... but if there was some terrible bit of evidence that would damn him in the witnesses the senate said "no" to, then maybe the house should have gone to the Supreme Court so that the witnesses were compelled to attend.... as happened when the Watergate tapes were released. In any case, not letting the Democrats choose the main story in the news cycle and then run it for as long as they wanted doesn't mean they thought it was ultimately going to prove anything.
I don't think this is going to be a good thing to get him for. Watergate was a clear crime that everybody could immediately understand and see was a crime. A burglary. You then have Nixon on tape making it clear that he knew about the burglary and was trying to hush it up.
To what audience? A burglary has the advantage that it doesn't need framing. If Trumps approval is going to go down, you have to convince a bunch of people who are predisposed to think accusations against Trump are dishonestly framed and that the swamp are trying to get him.
Practically speaking that is all but the case anyway.