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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025

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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.

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.

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.

Oh, the Letitia James case. The 34 FELONIES!!! case. I've always disliked Trump, but the way his political rivals and enemies have gone after him is just ludicrous.

The solemn, po-faced repetition (which I have encountered elsewhere just recently) that he committed 34 FELONIES!!! is risible. "Okay, what did he do?" "Mortgage fraud!" "Okay, that's one crime, and the other 33?" "Mortgage fraud!"

34 charges for one offence are not at all the same as 34 different and separate crimes. Murdering one person is wrong, but it's not the same as murdering thirty-four people, but this is the equivalence they are trying to make. I'm not even sure that it is a crime as such, since Wikipedia calls it the "New York business fraud lawsuit" which sounds more like a civil than criminal case, and this bit confuses me:

Investigators stated that the "focus of the subpoena, and the investigation, is Mr. Trump's statement of financial condition," alleging that Trump's financial statements were used to secure more than $300 million in loans, and that these "were generally inflated as part of a pattern to suggest that Mr. Trump's net worth was higher than it otherwise would have appeared".

So they charged him with... lying about being richer than he was in fact? And that turned into 34 FELONIES!!!!?

Or am I completely wrong and the 34 FELONIES!!! is the "paying hush money to the porn star" campaign finance case? Even so, the same applies: 34 charges for one offence not the same as 34 different offences in different crimes.

Or am I completely wrong and the 34 FELONIES!!! is the "paying hush money to the porn star" campaign finance case? Even so, the same applies: 34 charges for one offence not the same as 34 different offences in different crimes.

Correct. The THIRTY FOUR FELONIES was purportedly because he mislabeled the expenses in his own accounting book and thereby defrauded himself to retroactively cheat in the election that had already happened.

The mortgage fraud one was where his claimed value of a property used as collateral was different from what a partisan hack Democrat judge was willing to claim it was, and that this constituted fraud against the bank that was testifying on Trump's behalf, and therefor the state of NY was entitled to damages in the amount of the highest possible theoretical value that Trump could have benefited, multiplied by the highest theoretically possible return on investment he could have made with that difference in the intervening years (which would have been far outside the statute of limitations, but I believe they got around that changing the law for the express and exclusive purpose of Getting Trump).

Thanks for the clarification, there have been so many cases and accusations I get muddled.

I do think the 34 FELONIES thing is disingenuous because it refers to one over-arching crime. The impression it is intended to leave is that Trump has committed all these BIG SERIOUS CRIMES in a series of BIG SERIOUS CRIMES, but it's really THIS ONE CASE.

I think most people laugh at it, though.