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Since my post last week for which I was explicitly not warned at that time, I thought I would address the particulars of the criticism, mainly that,
First, there is nothing stopping anyone from disagreeing, but I figure I should present and defend my thesis.
Donald Trump is guilty of winning the 2016 election, and for this crime he will be hounded by Democrats until the end of his days. The crime of winning in 2016 was the rationale for the Russia collusion hoax, it prompted the Mueller investigation (which produced nothing actionable), it was the reason for his first impeachment (not the appropriate anti-corruption measures he was taking against his likely 2020 opposition), and it is the reason he was indicted last week.
Plenty of people commit plenty of crimes, and I'm sure Trump is technically guilty of many things, but the same can be said of Obama, Bush, and Clinton, as well as she-Clinton and VP Biden, though not themselves Presidents. The same can be said of many, many people at all levels of the legislative and executive branches. Presidents are not prosecuted, and for good reason, until now, so the difference cannot be the scale of the crime, but must be some other factor. The obvious and clear factor, judging on the last seven years of evidence, is that Trump is unduly and irrationally hated by the powers that be, and that he is specifically marked for destruction in a way most others are shielded.
From Victor Davis Hansen:
VDH goes on to list six problems with this prosecution, before 20 examples of crimes that have gone unprosecuted, from the people I've mentioned as well as various spooks and spies.
If we look at the indictment itself, and the person responsible for it, Alvin Bragg, you see more evidence of my thesis.
Here's the kind of thing he chooses to prosecute:
This is the kind of anarcho-tyranny that one would expect when you view the world through a comprehensive lens that allows for understand my claim. That Alvin Bragg doesn't give a shit about the law, he's just there to settle scores and punish those he can find. The law is powerless to help, but boy can they punish when they get around to it. Alvin Bragg, for what's it worth, is another Soros-funded prosecutor. Soros at least gets his money's worth, as every single DA I've ever seen associated with him and his money is using their discretion is release violent criminals and prosecute normal citizens. The man has a type.
Everything about this perfectly fits the model that I've developed over the last seven years for understand what happens to people when confronted with Donald Trump. Trump engenders hatred and revulsion unmatched by anyone in my lifetime, the source of that hatred is his 2016 election win, and that people like Bragg can't help themselves but act on it.
Maybe one day events will not fit this model, but today is not that day.
For those of you who don't share this model, or don't share this view, how can you explain the lack of prosecutions of other executive branch employees in the past? How can you explain the two impeachments and long-lingering investigation? How can you explain the one-sided coverage by once-respectable media outlets? How can you explain anything that's happened since 2016? I didn't use to rely on this explanation, but after a certain amount of time, it becomes the simplest explanation, and I have stopped fighting it.
I’ll agree to a point. I think these are absolutely crimes, however, I don’t believe that anyone else of his social status would have been prosecuted on them. And I think a lot of it is that he doesn’t really fit the culture of the Washington Elites. He’s a Clampett, more or less. He’s the guy who talks in braggadocio, eats steak with ketchup, and does political theater in burlesque. He’s a White Trash President. He’s supposed to be understated, nuanced, culturally sophisticated, prefer Professional Managerial Class food, clothes, music, and entertainment. He’s not supposed to mock political opponents on Twitter like a 4chan troll, he’s not supposed to openly kill our enemies with drone strikes (although a plausibly deniable death carried out by the CIA that nobody knows about is fine, there are rules to kanly).
Had Trump had the demeanor of Desantis, I don’t think they’d have lost their minds, they’d have opposed him, but it would not have been as much of an open scorched earth warfare as it is with Trump. Desantis would have to deal with more quiet opposition, more subtle, and more fitting of another PMC cultured politician. He wouldn’t be investigated with a breathless “is this long nightmare finally over?”
I agree that his white trash manner is extra inflammatory to the PMC, but I thinking you're only 80% of the way to explaining their hatred. The final bit is that people like him aren't supposed to win. They're supposed to lose, they're relics of a backwards evil bygone era. If people like him win, it could undo all the salami-slicing, Nudges™, and demoralization works that has been wrought upon the plebs. They'll stop seeing the Glorious Technocratic Bugpod Future as an inevitability and maybe even stop feeling powerless, and then maybe they'll even finally try to do something about it all. And so Trump can't be allowed to get away with it, he has to be dealt with like Winston, and the old Party Members -- not martyred, but degraded, hounded, dragged through the mud, abused until he's a shell of his former self, so that everyone else can see that this is what happens to people who oppose Progress, even very rich well connected people who get elected to the most powerful office in the world. Any wealthy conservative considering a future presidential run will now be keenly aware of what happens if he should step outside the controlled opposition pen and will doubtless think twice.
Edit: Re-reading this, it sounds like I'm accusing my outgroup of being part of a vast conspiracy and bent on ruthlessly crushing an enemy for defying their power, but I'm not. Rather they're unwittingly part of an SSC-style prospiracy. The people who feel this way don't consciously think they're channeling O'Brien, they think they're Standing Up for Democratic Norms or whatever rationalization works for them.
Res Ipsa Loquitur
Memes about eating bugs and living in pods sound unhinged to normies and non-alt-rightists in the same way and for the same reason that Handmaid's Tale memes sound unhinged to normies and non-wokists - it is a call to resist a non-existent conspiracy.
Re. bugs, I move in circles where people would eat a bug in exchange for a Davos invite, and I haven't met anyone who regularly eats insects, or who lobbies for other people to eat insects. I am aware there was once a WEF panel on the advantages of insect protein, but as of the current year, the "meat is animal cruelty and climate change" crowd are pushing fake-meat products like Beyond Burgers.
Re. pods, it isn't even obvious what this means - there was a long thread on this forum discussing the confusion where it eventually became clear that "living in the pod" meant that WEF elites wanted non-elites to live in much less square footage than American suburbanites would consider acceptable. There are two problems with this one - the first is that if it took a 10+ post forum thread to explain it to a sympathetic audience on this forum, then normies who hear "I will not live in the pod" are just going to be confused. The second is that, although "non-elites should live in something smaller than the cookie-cutter 3000 sq ft suburban McMansion favoured by middle-class Texans" is indeed an idea held by most WEF attendees, the smaller homes they are promoting do not fall within the ordinary English meaning of the word "pod".
If you look at the Tiny House Movement, only one of the pictures on that wiki page is podlike. The Berkeley shared houses where the so-called "Rationalists" have weird sex while reading overlong Harry Potter fanfics are not pods. A 700 sq ft apartment in a converted industrial building is not a pod. A 1500 sq ft New Urbanist rowhouse is definitely not a pod.
I'm not really sure what your point is other than that "Glorious Technocratic Bugpod Future" is a somewhat uncharitable phrasing, which I will concede. Would you prefer "Glorious Technocratic Soyshack Future" instead? I don't want to eat bugs or fake meat, I don't want to live in a pod or in whatever square footage that globalists deem adequate for plebians like me. We can argue over whether the Planet Health Diet must necessarily include insect protein, or where the precise line between "studio" and "pod" lies, but that doesn't seem very productive.
You literally cited the WEF in response to both points, so I think "non-existent" doesn't hold water. And the WEF is not some isolated crackpot think tank, they have many influential members and connections. Do I think that we're all going to be rounded up in FEMA camps next year where we will be forced to live in shipping containers and eat crickets for breakfast lunch and dinner? No. But do I think tha a subset of global elites wants to drastically downgrade my standard of living and my dietary health and, worse yet, feel themselves morally compelled to and fully justified in doing so? Yes, because they say so themselves.
You noticed that your post triggered your own "this is an unhinged conspiracy theory" buttons - I was trying to point out why discussion of bugs and pods triggers those buttons. I only mentioned the WEF because I have spent enough time on this forum to know that the bugpod meme originated with anti-WEF conspiracy theorists.
The socially conservative right in American really does want to roll back certain feminist achievements (notably abortion), and feminists are behaving rationally when they organise against this, but talking about handmaids sounds unhinged.
The establishment left really do want to change the world in ways which mean people eat somewhat less animal meat, and somewhat more people live in dense urban places (which usually implies a consumption bundle including less square feet of housing per person), and the Red Tribe right are behaving rationally when they organise against this, but talking about bugs and pods sounds unhinged, for the reasons I gave in the previous post.
Part of the point of this forum is that we write like we are having a productive debate (even if we are not) and not like we are having an unhinged vent (even if we are). In the context of your post, "ProgressTM" or "The Arc of the Moral UniverseTM" or "Total Blue Tribe Victory" would have got the point across.
This is a fair point.
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