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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023

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Trump indicted with 4 counts over 2020 election

The indictment alleges that shortly after election day, Trump "pursued unlawful means" to subvert the election results.

The first conspiracy charge was handed down due to Trump's alleged use of "dishonesty, fraud, and deceit" to defraud the US.

The second was because of Trump's alleged attempts to "corruptly obstruct" the 6 January congressional proceeding of peaceful transfer of power to President Biden.

The third stems from allegations that Trump conspired against American's right to vote and to have their vote counted.

The other charge - obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding - involves Trump's alleged attempts to obstruct the certification of 2020 electoral results.

Why not?

Trump is perhaps the most hated man in America. He spent four years operating at the pinnacle of global power, an environment strewn with what are purported to be impartial legal tripwires placed to hinder abuses of power. He's incompetent and sloppy, arrogant, astonishingly vain, and defined by his contempt for anything that blocks his personal ambitions.

The people now indicting him achieved office through a population dozens of millions strong that uniformly believes that he's Satan incarnate, a criminal, a dangerous megalomaniac, a giant retarded toddler armed with a machine gun. They believe that his election was manifest evidence that our political system is deeply, perhaps irreparably broken. They see his Presidency as a disaster that needs to be cleaned up and then prevented from ever recurring. And again, he spent four years being, at the absolute best, sloppy and incompetent in an environment that purportedly is supposed to demand precision on pain of serious legal consequences.

Why not indict him, and jail him too while they're at it? How could doing so possibly be a bad idea? We're a nation of laws, right? He at least plausibly broke them, right? This is what the system does, these are the rules we all agreed to, what possible room could there be for complaint? And sure, there are some people, maybe even a lot of people who are too mind-killed to accept reality, and they're going to complain anyway. But what are they going to do about it?

Nothing, right?

The people doing this have the all the cards. They won the election, the bureaucracy is on-side, half the nation's voters have been screaming for this for four years. This is what power is for, to get good things done even when they're hard, even when bad people stand in the way! How could they not do exactly this, exactly now? If the bad people can't get it through their heads that they've fucking lost, then it becomes necessary to hammer the point, repeatedly and with vigor, until it finally sinks in. If they aren't getting it, then that means you aren't hammering hard enough. At some point in the escalation curve, they'll have to cave, won't they? That's how it works, isn't it? What possible reason could be imagined for doing anything else?

And if such a reason can't be imagined, why would you expect anything other than exactly this?

Also: What, should the entire apparatus of the civil state stand there, limp dick in hand, watching norm after law after precedent get dynamited?

The apparatus demands lubrication, and the only substance at hand is blood. It is good and necessary that blood should flow to feed the state. That is what the state is, that is what the state is for. The state is the threat of violence perpetrated against all by consent of all for the benefit of all.

There has been a defector; why should the government even exist if it can't punish one idiot failson of a fallen business empire?

There has been a defector; why should the government even exist if it can't punish one idiot failson of a fallen business empire?

Could you please speak more clearly? This reads like you're talking about Hunter rather than Donald.

I'm talking about Trump, although what I said could apply to either really, and speaking clearly takes all the fun out of it!

Not enough effort--for which you have been warned and banned before. Seven days off this time.

Not really, the Trump failson would be Don Jr or Eric. There are all sorts of negative things you can say about Trump, but failson isn't really an accurate insult.

I suppose Trump was long considered a failson by Trump Sr, although it’s hard to say any father would be disappointed in a son who ultimately became president.

If "was elected to the highest office of the most powerful nation in the world" isn't enough to stop someone from being a failson the insult is meaningless and applies to all living men.

I suppose Trump was long considered a failson by Trump Sr, although it’s hard to say any father would be disappointed in a son who ultimately became president.

Trump had four careers: as a GC in his father's real estate empire (where his success was recognised by Trump Sr who gave him early access to his inheritance), as a real estate developer in his own right (where he was a failure, but made money anyway due to the big run-up in NYC property prices), as a reality TV star, and as a politician. He was brilliantly successful in three of them, but I can see why his father might care most about the one he failed in.