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Trump is calling for the arrest and trial of six Democrat lawmakers who posted a video telling the intelligence community not to follow unlawful orders,. The video claims that the current administration is threatening democracy and the constitution, and that the military "must refuse illegal orders."
Trump also apparently had another post that just said, "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH."
This is the first time I have genuinely increased the probability of a real civil war breaking out, this is an absolutely terrifying escalation by both sides. While the Democrats were hinting extremely obviously that the military / intelligence community should basically pull off a coup, I also think that Trump hinting back that they should be executed is way beyond the pale.
Hopefully we're still in nothing ever happens land? I for one do not want to live through a civil war.
I can't even tell who is baiting whom anymore.
This one reads like Trump rising to some sort of obvious bait, yet the Dems are getting further and further out over their skis with this whole "threatening Democracy" thing.
As far as I can tell, we just had an election held that produced winners that were not favorable to Trump, and there was not a single attempt to overturn those outcomes or halt the election or otherwise interfere in it.
Adding on the pleas to get the military to act in some very under-specified way and its genuinely annoying at this point to have to deal with the constant superposition of "Trump is literally inches away from becoming supreme leader of a fascist state unless we act NOW" and "by 'act now', we really just mean 'vote for Dems in the next election like a good citizen.'"
I dunno, Trump has actual reasons to be concerned about seditious behavior given how much as been revealed in just the past month about Dems (up to and including Barack Obama?) worked to hamstring him.
He's gone after Comey and Brennan using the standard, established criminal justice process, he didn't have them assassinated in their beds in the middle of the night.
But its also kinda incoherent to call for someone's arrest for Sedition while being the guy who is in charge of the agencies that would be arresting them.
Shit or get off the pot guys. All this sound and fury signifying nothing is just tedious.
Seems more like they're trying to urge the military not to act in a particular way.
And that way being to not follow lawful orders, which the urgers would like to insinuate are unlawful but are neither inclined to specify nor are they culpable for the consequences of a wrong judgement (though they will, of course, make much political propaganda about it).
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Sure, because he's not actually going to order their arrests. He's just bloviating in response to obvious bait. Truth Social seems to be his preferred outlet for doing so.
As mentioned, though, he HAS taken action against political enemies now, with Comey's indictment being an opening salvo.
But obviously arresting sitting congresspeople who haven't done a blatant crime is a much harder lift.
If my understanding is correct, Comey basically signed off on a witch hunt that he knew was baseless. And it wasted two to three years of the first Trump presidency.
If that is true or someone believes it to be true then he definitely should be prosecuted for that shit.
The other political opponent is that New York prosecutor (Letitia James?) that went after him for real estate fraud. It was a bogus case that lots of people are semi guilty of. He went after her for the exact same thing. It's the most tit-for-tat political retaliation ever.
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I had this thought too, but there seems to be a general pattern in the Trump administration of government via social media. Tweeting this stuff out may be the most effective way Trump has of directly communicating with US Attorney for DC Jeanine Pirro.
It seems to me that you and @faceh are framing this as though law and public sentiment are two distinct things, and are wondering why Trump is making appeals to public sentiment when he could simply use the law. But it is evident that the law is much weaker than legible public sentiment, even disregarding the legal mechanisms by which law emerges from public sentiment in the first place.
The current era is best understood as a massive, distributed search for ways to hurt the outgroup as badly as possible without getting in too much trouble. Coordinating public sentiment is the most effective method possible for reducing the amount of trouble one gets in when hurting the outgroup. The law is a whore, and public sentiment is the coin she trades in; if public sentiment is on-side, paper rules are no impediment at all.
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Yeah very much agree here. I'm tired of Trump communicating and signaling as if he is going to take serious action, then... not doing it?! It's kind of the worst of both worlds in that it gets the opposition riled up while winning no victories for his base. I don't understand it.
I understand it as Trump doing his version of constant A/B testing to see if there's any appetite for following through.
I don't know what his negotiating stance is in this case. Dems feel comfortable speaking out against him. Boohoo. Staff the agencies with as many friendly people as possible and fire as many of the rest as possible (which means fighting the Courts, granted) so there's minimal concern about mutiny.
Just keep doing things and if the best the Dems can muster is veiled non-threats then its safe to ignore that rather than give them new sound bites.
And if its time to kick things off by actually arresting them, then cowabunga it is, I've been ready for that for years now.
I think this is basically right. In addition Trump isn’t just A/B testing the base but the Republican leadership in Washington. I would guess it’s about 50/50 or 40/60 in his favor, with a little over half of Republicans still hoping we can go back to the days of “decency” and tax cuts.
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