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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   25500 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 16, 2023

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It's really weird to me how many people (including Trump himself) can apparently only see these cases through the lens of their political implications.

The plan isn't to smear or discredit Trump and therefore make him unpopular. It's to lock him up for the rest of his life.

It's to lock him up for the rest of his life.

See, the problem is that doing this will actually make Trump's cause stronger, and while they would like it if he was locked up for the rest of his life... that's not something they're going to be able to do before the election without severe and serious consequences. I agree that they aren't doing this to discredit him and make him unpopular, but I never actually made that claim. The claim that I made was that the goal is to hamper his ability to campaign - and that's actually a very reasonable assumption, especially when you know the broader history of the efforts from within the government to defeat him.

that's not something they're going to be able to do before the election without severe and serious consequences

The documents case and the Georgia case will take longer because they're more complex, but it seems pretty clear the federal Jan 6 trial will happen in March. It'll take a while, and sentencing will take a while after that, but he's most likely going to be in prison during the conventions. Consequences be damned.

Consequences be damned.

That would be extremely good for Trump's chances at re-election, but I don't actually hope for this outcome because I think the destruction of norms governing the prosecution of opposition candidates is far worse.

That would be extremely good for Trump's chances at re-election

Not necessarily. It would be extremely good for Trump's popular support, but a conviction here would be used to buttress the efforts to take him off the ballot under Amendment XIV. Doesn't matter how many people support him if he can't be voted for.

Of course, that doesn't make it a good idea; the real result of taking Trump-as-Republican-nominee off the ballot isn't "Democrats win by default", but rather "civil war".

Honestly, I only see three ways out of this without Boogaloo: the Democrats can realise this is literal suicide and relent, the Republicans can nominate someone not Donald Trump Sr., or Trump is not able to run for reasons other than "banned" (e.g. being dead).

I don't understand why the "boogaloo" option is being seen as suicide for Democrats. Rebellions frequently end extremely badly for the rebels.

Actual civil war in America would be suicide for the Democrats and Republicans both. The winners of Civil War 2 would be China and Russia, with Hamas getting a consolation prize as the flow of US aid to Israel gets turned off. The losers would be everyone who has to live in the country, as every pre-existing division in society gets thrown into stark relief by the breakdown of the infrastructure which supplies power, internet communication, water, oil and food. There's no real way to defend those in the US in the context of a civil war, and the nature of the conflict as rural food producing regions fighting against import-reliant cities portends an incredibly nasty fight for everyone involved.

Basically this.

To answer @AshLael's question, the problem for the Democrats/Professional Managerial Class is that "the rebels" are likely be in physical control of a lot of critical resources and infrastructure.

There's also the part where Reds and Blues value different elements of society in different amounts, and speaking very generally, a lot of the delicate, high-complexity parts are valued much more by blues than reds, while the more durable, lower-complexity elements are valued more by reds than by blues. If this is the case, then significant disruption of our current delicate, high-complexity society would tend to advantage Reds over Blues, all else being equal.

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