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This reminds me of another person who confidently prognosticated, back in the day, that Trump would be in jail within a matter of weeks. It didn't happen.
More seriously, the tit-for-tat has set in. I see the House of Representatives have voted to proceed with impeachment inquiry against Biden. And it was all done on party lines: Republicans voting 'yes', Democrats voting 'no'.
So the lesson about using the system to get the political opponents has been learned, and the other side is deciding to play now.
Is there something serious there for Biden to answer? Who can tell, now? It's all been reduced to partisan weaponry. Before anyone starts gloating over "Trump is going to jail!", they should look at this. What's to stop multiple attempts to 'get' Biden, including persuading some state attorney to grandstand about taking a prosecution? The playbook has been set out as to how to do it.
I also remember that person. And you may recall that at that time I did not make those sorts of silly predictions. Judge me on my own words rather than Impassionata's, if you don't mind.
The situation is different now. We don't merely have an investigation. We have 91 felony charges. We have a trial date. We have clear and compelling evidence that he did exactly what he's alleged to have done. He's been repeatedly sanctioned for breaching bail conditions. We've already seen courts in civil cases find that he committed sexual assault, fraud, and insurrection. He's defending himself with the nonsense argument that he is absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for any crime he committed as President. SCOTUS is not stalling for him. Four of his co-conspirators have already plead guilty. The walls actually are closing in.
To top it off, there's no one on Trump's side who seems to be able to offer a credible legal argument for his innocence. What we get, both from pro-Trump commentators and from Trump's own legal team, are accusations of political bias and election interference. That stuff can rile up the base but it doesn't win trials.
Even today, the truth still matters sometimes. Trump was never going to be jailed on the timeframes Impassionata suggested even if he was obviously guilty, but the reason why he wasn't jailed at all is because Trump didn't actually collude with Russia. However Trump did actually try to overturn the 2020 election. He did it openly, he did it shamelessly, and you saw it with your own two eyes.
Yes, there's a lot of noise and rancour. But underneath it there is also reality. And the reality is about as bleak for Trump as it is for George Santos and Bob Menendez.
My Vibe-Analysis based opinion: if he's going to jail, he's going only if he loses the election. Jailing him before the election is suicidal, to my knowledge it doesn't actually prevent him from running, and it would actually increase his chances of winning. Convicting someone, only to lose to them would be a massive humiliation to the establishment, and I don't know if they want to roll the dice on that one.
Jailing him after he wins might work, but would also lower the legitimacy of the establishment, and might backfire, if Trump picks some lunatic for VP.
The only way this works is if you let Trump supporters hype themselves up for the campaign, beat them in an obviously fair election, and then jail the guy when everybody's deflated post-defeat.
How so? I'm not so sure about it increasing Trump's chances of winning — I'm from Alaska; I remember what happened with Ted Stevens, and that was a much more egregious case of patent railroading.
And, indeed having him win from in jail would indeed be a problem for the establishment, but what then comes to my mind is the case of Tsar Nicholas II.
Never heard of the dude, but the reason the reaction to Trump's conviction might be worse than Steven's case, is because the knives were out for Trump for 8 years straight, to an absurd degree. It got so bad, that for all I know they got an actual case against him now, and I still think the proper response would be to vote for him, in retaliation for the circus show we've been put through.
I don't want to come off as callous, but they can kill him for all I care. The more officially, the better.
the problem is if they do kill trump then you can't vote for him. you will probably just end up accidentally voting for an establishment candidate in the end even if you try your best not to.
I don't know if that matters much. It's not like my hopes are that Trump wins and manages to fix anything, the point is to convince people that the establishment is illegitimate, and we need to build alternatives.
Why? What is "legitimacy," anyway? The difference between "Don Corleone" and "King Vito I" isn't that one has "legitimacy" and the other doesn't, it's whether or not there's a bigger, stronger "stationary bandit." Whatever group can most credibly tell you "follow this rule or I hurt you" is the government (and that's what "government" simply is).
I wish I could remember where I encountered the argument that Westerners deeply misunderstand the "Mandate of Heaven," mistaking it for a Chinese "divine right of kings" when it's really a much more materialist concept. That what it really means is that "legitimacy" follows from — is a product of — the de facto exercise of imperial power. Whoever most performs the functions of government (however badly) is the government (until someone else is actually doing it better).
…but what makes you think this is possible? Both in terms of the forces in opposition, and the qualities of the people in question?
I'm not saying the government is well-versed in leadership strategy. Surely, though, you can see why there would want to be a façade over this reality. There has to be an attempt at showing that the government is doing things to improve the lives of the people it rules.
I'm not interested in a stick-only approach - I want carrots. This is how a government would get more of my compliance. This is how you would get me to not press the red button and vote for Trump as he sits in a cell. I'm still convinced that his win in 2016 was mostly driven by the populace trying to signal this: "more carrots, or else".
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