Many things went wrong in 2024 but a big problem for Harris and the Dems is that they did not have a good answer for "if Trump is a criminal and did all this corruption and crime, why didn't you put him in jail" (because there isn't a good answer.)
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There is a good answer, there is a process for convicting people and putting them in jail. That takes time. Plus, the Democrats are not law enforcement.
Kamala Harris is not Joe Biden and Joe Biden is not the head of the justice department. The rightwing obviously thought Trump would go to jail and only they could save him. There are a lot of answers to your strawman question, but you know that.
Yep. Also, the strategy of “we need a popular front against fascism that spend everyone from Angela Davis to Liz Cheney” probably would have worked better if the WH had actually acted like fascism was an imminent threat.
The worst part is they weren't lying. The theat is real, and imminent, and now our only hope of the Republic as we know it surviving is if we're lucky enough that the incoming gang of thugs trips over their own incompetence.
They just flat out failed to step up to the moment.
That Biden failed to weaponize the FBI and IRS against his political enemies is a complete failure. That Clarence Thomas's wife isn't in prison for interfering in court cases on behalf of wealthy defendants
Presidents can’t put people
In jail. That’s the whole point.
All the consternation liberals have about Trump jailing his political enemies is exactly what MAGA people felt during all the Trump investigations and trials.
Yes, Trump is a criminal and should be prosecuted, but not by a President.
Friend from outside the US asked me the same thing, I tried to explain that the SC got involved and judge Cannon shenanigans. It’s stupid, he is right, why didn’t they? It’s really hard for me to not see the Dems as controlled opposition at this point. I had this same feeling before the raid.
honestly, this might bother me more than his winning the election. I was prepared for many USians to be dumbasses, but not for members of the empowered elite at multiple levels to just shrug and not do their jobs
Merrick Garland should never enjoy a peaceful meal in public again, for starters.
I'll keep saying this even though it's hindsight: the Dems should have passed a resolution that Trump was ineligible to run again under the 14th ammendment in 2021 when they controlled Congress.
Before we all dunked him into oblivion, we should have taken a moment to ask that consultant for the Harris campaign when exactly it was enshrined into Democratic political theory that voters love a candy ass.
So is the attack on Dems the 2nd half of the plan to turn the country over to the GOP oligarchs and their king, or is it just an extra unexpected bonus for them?
The "good answer" is the separation of powers - a fundamental pillar of democracy that prevents tyranny, and which means that politicians can't just put people in jail.
But millions of Americans, caught up in the Trump 'madness of crowds' delusion, would have voted for him anyway.
"These things take time and people are working on it - but it's complicated by rulings issued by the Supreme Court justices that Trump appointed; rulings that make it harder to prosecute anyone for anything they did while serving as president." That's the correct answer - is it not a "good" answer?
Running as the tough prosecutor of transnational gangs while doubling down on giving a corrupt maniac mobster 20 billion plus dollars in weapons to do genocide
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The answer is the DOJ is not under the control of the Executive branch, for now. Under 45 you can fully expect that he will not have a problem dictating orders to the AG & the AG will follow those orders to the letter, just not the letter of the law.
I don’t know if that was the biggest problem (although it definitely chaps my ass). I am very concerned that Democrats turnout was down in blue states.
"ah well you see he happened to draw a judge he appointed who illegally dismissed the charges against him" and like the more you explain it the more feckless and weak you sound because why would you, the President of the United States, put up with that?
"Because every criminal is protected by due process from the arbitrary arrest and detention that protects you as well"
Update: Because every criminal was protected by due process from the arbitrary arrest and detention that protected you as well, but you chose to throw away those protections
One thing that is in common across many different explanations of 2024's result is POWER - Dems did not have the power to enact their agenda, didn't have the power to enforce the law, didn't have the power to protect democracy. But voters do not expect the governing party to lack these powers!
It's terrible that the term "fascism" has already been claimed by the worst people on the planet, because the Roman symbolism of the power of elected magistrates would actually be very appropriate here.
I kinda suspect some Dem strategists liked the idea of a split screen of Trump in a courthouse next to Trump campaigning and dragged out charges. They didn’t anticipate that 1. the media wasn’t going to make much hay out of the trials, and 2. the legal system would back down after July
Disagree, they did not have the WILL to USE the power they did have. Maybe you're right that by 2024 they had lost it, but over the last 4 years they did have it.
I honestly would say "because violence". You put Trump in jail and violence would start immediately. I think you would have to fight the propaganda first which for whatever reason they are still failing miserably to combat. Time has run out though imo, so we're gonna have to deal with violence.
key word here is 'looks.' It is indeed bad to imprison a former head of state if he is falsely accused of corruption for political reasons. But it is very very good to imprison high level officials for corruption if they are corrupt!
We tortured folks, man. We got Guantanamo, man. We drone struck three generations of the same family, man. We tear gassed a crowd outside the White House so he could take a photo, man. What exactly was the model we were holding on to?
The amount of foot dragging on this stuff was astounding. A literal insurrection at the Capitol happened, the planning of and encouragement of which very much took place in the open, and it still took Merrick Garland two years to really do anything about it. Gimmie a fucking break
Especially considering... it was an attempt to overturn an election and illegally install himself as the damn President! If that isn't worth expediting for the interest of national integrity, what the hell is?
Ask Bob Menendez and Henry Cuellar if they think the DoJ knows how to move faster than starting an investigation into a very public crime two full years after the event was broadcast on television.
yes, when I incited a mob to attack a government building I got a voicemail saying my crime was very important and a representative would be with me as soon as possible. That was years ago.
Voters love a clever end run around a villain -the media landscape has primed them for this- and the Dems only seem interested in direct applications, no sense of leverage or soft power.
I feel like the thing about the economy is that it’s good by the traditional Spreadsheet Guy metrics but feels bad to live in, and that short-circuits a lot of folks who are normally good at messaging.
Well why don't we impeach the Sergeant-at-arms?
Oh it doesn't work like that.
Well how does it work?
We appointed him.
Then appoint another one.
Oh we can't.
Why?
Norms.
Can we impeach Norms?
They did have the power for the entire years of 2021 and 2022 and they didn't do jack shit to protect us. The Jan. 6 committee never pointed fingers at the MAGA MOC who participated in this lawlessness. cc @adamkinzinger.bsky.social explain why you didn't do that?
We also saw this on abortion! Biden got 1000% blamed for Dobbs in the voters' minds because, well, it happened on his watch! "We vociferously defended the emergency room exception in certain states" okay, well, thanks, but people vote for the guy who makes real things happen, like em or not.
"Technically the FDA can independently decide on the REMS for abortion meds, it would be uncouth to tell them what to do" isn't a 30-second spot in the making.
Because presidents aren't dictators who dictate outcomes by fiat (for now anyway)? Are you saying the problem is people don't understand how the process works?
We have a large uneducated populace that wants a strong man, doesn’t care about democracy or the rule of law, & is racist, sexist, & superstitious. I was a teacher for a few years. My job was teaching adults & high school students how to read. I could see the US was heading for a huge fall.
They could have filed the stolen documents case in New Jersey, because Trump also stored documents at a residence there, instead of filing the case in DeSantis-Land.
When people say something like "You have to admit Biden isn't doing a good job", my answer remains "Sure. He should have had Trump arrested on January 20th, and executed on January 21st, along with everyone in the riot, the seven Senators that voted to block delegations, and 138 Representatives".
I mean, fuck the dems all the way and Fuck Trump 1000x harder, but seriously, to think Democrats don't have a good answer for why they didn't lock him up is BS
Trump is a criminal, going through the criminal justice process. The dems absolutely shouldn't have been fascists and bypassed the courts
There is a very good answer. He filed non stop delay tactics in every single trial. Plus, and most importantly, it's not the democrats or the president's job to put anyone in jail, that is the role of the courts. Respecting the separation of powers is a he'll of a good reason
Courts determine if someone should go to jail, but only when prosecutors do the work of asking/convincing them to. Prosecutors, part of the executive branch, drive the criminal justice system. And it was prosecutors who slow-rolled the efforts to hold Trump to account b/c of the optics.
No, it wasn't. Trump filed multiple pre-trial appeals in every case. The prosecutors fought them every time. Trump filed change of venue appeals, immunity appeals, and procedural appeals before the trials. Prosecutors didn't try to delay in any case
Oh yes, he certainly slowed things down, but DOJ didn't open an investigation into Trump specifically until after the National Archives requested it, and after the J6 Committee published its report, respectively. And then no indictments until Trump already announced he was running.
While true, Trump announced he was running for President in November of 2022, probably 6 months earlier than any candidate in history has ever announced a candidacy. Generally you don't announce you are running until the summer before the primaries start at the earliest
I don't know if this holds water, but I think when pence/McConnell/pelosi became the acting Pres after Jan 6, that was the one time they had the leaders and the public on board with action, like arresting him and doing a military tribunal of the crimes that were done in public view.
Trump lies about a lot of things, but when he says, “We need a border wall and tougher security on people coming because there is an invasion,” flouting Congress and courts makes him look like he means it.
If you say, “This man is a fascist and danger to democracy,” but say there’s nothing you can do beyond beg for more votes, then you congratulate him on his victory, smile and shake his hand, what else can people assume except that you never actually believed the danger you claimed?
ok yes but the national security apparatus, and the media, both of which can play a decisive role in impacting the results of elections (see: withdrawal from afghanistan) give the government more license to break the law for fascist ends than for liberal ends
do you think, then, that the Democratic focus on elections and votes rather than all of these other things that persist between and beyond elections is, perhaps, a mistake in strategy?
i mean the thing is if you want to wield the levers of power in this country you do in fact need to win elections. i think there is ample room to criticize democrats for not leveraging their electoral wins to that end, even acknowledging those limits
I think this answer was actually most needed by the Democratic base.
I suspect that a big part of the drop in turnout can be attributed to a dampening of enthusiasm based on how Dems acted helpless to do anything of consequence to him and his cronies.
They guy who avoided getting busted by manipulating the system, used delays and every trick in the book to delay justice until it was too late. There needed to be some sort of hard pushback on his delays, but now there never will be.
I guess that the Democrats were in a damned if you do, damned if they don't. 🤔
(1.) Justice takes time; (2.) Judges are political appointees; (3.) Both POTUS & VP multiple times tried to explain the unprecedented threat of Trump to the Republic, but we don't tend to lock up opponents here.
*Perhaps they were worried about National Unity in case his supporters kicked off? A lot of people still were incarcerated by association with Trump. Giuliani lost a lot of his wealth & legal career, and even Trump himself had legal charges.
All this tells me is that you wanted Biden to be the despot you're afraid Trump will be.
Biden couldn't unilaterally throw Trump in jail. Neither could Garland. Or Jack Smith. Fanny Willis did, but he was out immediately, and her case took just as long as the feds.
Because globally it looks bad to engage in imprisoning your opponent. Putin would’ve laughed with glee. So they depended on an intelligent electorate. More fool them.
When you bend over backwards to performatively demonstrate how apolitical a neutral process is, you have actually made it political just in the exact opposite way you were afraid of doing.
Every functional democracy would jail anyone who tried to overthrow it as soon as practicable. This is nonsense, Trump was nobody's opponent on January 20, 2021.
The introduction in Andrew Weismann and Melissa Murray’s book “The Trump Indictments” points out that many other respected democracies have indicted and imprisoned former leaders.
Bad as it might look to imprison your opponent, it looks far worse that this one has returned to power.
It doesn't actually, a lot of countries have put their former leaders in prison. A lot of States have too.
The media would have complained about it but that is a different issue & is tied to the fact that the media wanted trump back.
They had FOUR YEARS to get to the trials, any sane country would have thrown Trump headfirst into a stone jail cell for what he did on Jan 6th. They delayed for years and that's what allowed him to be "the opponent" in the first place. Not imprisoning someone because they ran for office is dumb.
This logic just insures that the political opposition can just do crimes with impunity. Also, obviously only runs one way- republican AG would certainly lock up a democratic nominee.
Do you - Hayley, a living, breathing, thinking person in the United States in 2024 - believe it "looks bad" to imprison opposition leaders if they are criminals?
As a response, this seems like a conflation of two different concepts:
-Kangaroo courts and false charges are bad and indicate that your system of government is corrupt and dictatorial.
-Real charges for real crimes will piss some people off, who will lie and say this means the first thing.
Given that the Constitution is a dead letter which exists to protect rich people from consequences now, I think we have to start with the evidence of our eyes and ears.
Trump is a criminal because of all those crimes he did right in front of all of us and then bragged about them in front of us.
I would've been 100% comfortable with locking his ass up and letting his lawyers engage in whatever legal maneuvering they see fit in order to try to get him freed.
If it's good enough for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, it's good enough for Donald Trump. And Trump had charges and was a flight risk.
Yes I am Merrick Garland and while I’m with you that we can’t be prosecuting Trump for his crimes( because Putin will laugh) I want to make sure I understand just how far the looks bad issue goes. Please help me
You know whenever I try to defend it I'm just struck with the fact that President Trump will face none of these hurdles when he goes after his enemies as he will face no consequences nor will the judges who enact his will.
Iam disappointed in Merrick Garland.
Doing nothing will be his legacy. We kept hearing about optics and president to justify the delays. My opinion is that the DOJ blew it
the night sky is orange with the flames of a firebombed manhattan. chuck schumer, his clothes in tatters and face soot-stained, but with a look of steely determination, asks the senate parliamentarian whether reconciliation can be used to defund elon musks fleet of drones
the good answer is that if you’re rich and powerful and the president, often times you get to act above the law. But lots of dems are also rich and powerful and occasionally the president so they’re afraid to say it
I'm just saying a lot of people assume that if Trump was really that bad he would be in jail. To a huge amount of people, the fact he's not in jail is proof he's not that bad.
This, standing alone, was almost certainly enough to change the outcome of the election. All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't manage what Garland/Biden accomplished with their negligence
President Biden wasn’t going to put Trump in prison. That’s the job for an independent DOJ. Trump used every judicial trick in the book to delay justice. When you’re rich and a white guy, they let you do it. At least New Yorkers convicted him. They know he’s a criminal.
If a large portion of the public doesn't understand something important, that becomes everyone's problem, and it ceases to really matter whether they *should* know better or not - the fact is that they don't, and that's a problem that won't be solved by simply insisting that they should.
But there is a perfectly good answer. It goes something like this: "We didn't weaponize the judiciary. We can't just 'put him in jail.' The courts, state and federal, were working deliberately and carefully to build a case against a wealthy, high-profile individual. It should not have been rushed."
Well, there is, but it is hard to come out and say that its because one of the two major political parties is an accomplice. That opens a whole new can of worms because we really don't have a mechanism for declaring a whole political party a criminal organization.
Are you kidding??? There's an excellent answer... It wasn't her job or the President's job to put anyone in jail. That is up to the courts and criminal justice system. That's who ya get mad at.
With all due respect, it'd be great if people understood the job of the president.
Subverting the rule of law to enforce the rule of law is also not a good answer. I do think that the Immunity Decision in Trump v. US will one day be viewed to be as illegitimate as Korematsu v. US and Plessy v. Ferguson. However, the courts will not save us from the voters.
He should have been prosecuted sooner but of course, the Dems didn’t want to go on the Revenge tour. They wanted to right the wrongs of Trump’s administration and got to work cleaning us his mess.
It would be pretty bad to ignore the law in reaction to a threat to the rule of law, and I strongly suspect it would not have had the political consequences you would want it to.
Whichever Democratic adviser it was who told VP Harris that her best answer was to say that she would do nothing any differently from President Biden should be fired.
They ran an entire campaign on how dangerous he is and then said “here you go,” when he won. He still hasn’t conceded the 2020 election, and I don’t see how he passes the 14th Amendment check to even be eligible for office.
The Democrats either didn’t believe what they said about Trump so they lied to us, or they did believe and just didn’t do shit about it. It’s Ford pardoning Nixon so we know this shit will happen again because there are no consequences at the top.
In a 2 party system with 1/2 the country don’t vote & the other 1/2 equally divided left & Right yet 1 party the R unites no matter what & the other half left in fight over every thing just about it’s wonder we ever win
"if Trump is a criminal and did all this corruption and crime, why didn't you put him in jail" (because there isn't a good answer.)"
How about that everyone is afraid of trump. Watch and see. trump is a bully. Eventually someone will knock his block off.
Putin perhaps ? Time will tell.
Because the court system took too long. Everything was on track to hear the case for his J6 indictment and the stolen documents case would have been reinstated but it's possible to delay, delay, delay court proceedings and they ran out the clock. What should they have done?
The first hearing they had wasn’t conducted until the summer! That’s several months too long to try to regain momentum and public consciousness. And to not bludgeon the public with way more hearings after was inexcusable too.
As was Pelosi's insistence on waiting to officially vote on impeachment charges and then fucking Chris "I want to go home for Valentine's Day" Coons stopping the Senate trial from hearing from witnesses so he could nope out of DC.
There is an excellent answer & it’s because that’s not how our legal system works. The president is not a dictator, & doesn’t get to throw people in jail. The reason Trump‘s voters don’t think it’s a good answer because they want a dictator & don’t have the slightest idea how our government works.
I just keep rolling Colorado and the 14th amendment and SCOTUS around in my brain and how him taking office seems to be just lighting the Constitution on fire, nothing means nothing anymore.
That was a really good effort by Colorado and one other state to use the 14th amendment - but the supreme court threw it out. That was a horrible outcome but given the right wing bent of the court they were giving Trump a pass on purpose. Shameful.
congratulations, you’re the sort of person who sees a home on fire and spends an hour arguing about whether it’s legitimate to use a fire extinguisher if you can’t find its last inspection date and meanwhile the house burns to ashes — this makes you qualified to be a highly paid dem consultant!
Much to the displeasure of those of us who worship anarcho-commie Satan. Don't group me with baby brained dipships like merrick garland and genocidal ghouls like Joe Biden.
The traditional penalty for trying and failing to overthrow a government is death. Pre-trial incarceration - as we do for much smaller crimes - and prosecution is unfailingly generous, and they couldn't manage even that.
Here in the broken city of New York, Daniel Penny is on trial for chokeholding a man to death, a "mere" 18 months after the crime. The state of New York also managed to convict the man we're talking about. But keep revealing yourself through belittlement.
If the legal process takes so long someone who definitely did a crime can get away with it by running down the clock, how useful is it at actually upholding the law?
Legal processes do not exist merely to be a process for process's sake, there's a goal that's supposed to be met.
The error is focusing on process instead of outcomes, and prioritizing accordingly.
I can't help thinking that if JB's first phone call every morning at 6 AM was "Is that traitor in cuffs yet?" it would have produced different outcomes
lol, lmfao even. "takes time" "POTUS doesn't _____" these things will last about seventeen seconds into the next admin and the difference isn't about anything but rules the dems made up for themselves
According to your analysis, millions and millions of Americans are idiots. But, again, the supposed criminal just got reelected. So maybe not that idiotic to think maybe he's not a criminal after all.
The judge in NYC explicitly refused to do sentencing b4 the election "because it might affect the election", as though explicitly turning the election into a referendum on whether to put him in prison didn't affect the election. And now the sentencing may get dropped in deference to his election win
Garland spent two years pleading with Trump to give back the classified documents so he wouldn't have to prosecute Trump over it, and only finally got moving there when we got the pictures of the docs at MaL. But he wasted no time appointing a special counsel on Hunter when the House GOP demanded it
You get that this is a problem, though, right?
If reaching a certain level of power makes legal judgments against you unenforceable-- because your cronies won't convict, or because you can keep a verdict postponed for so long it becomes irrelevant-- then the rule of law has ceased to apply.
liberals are very strong when it comes to illegally mass butchering arab children but very weak when it comes to legally imprisoning rich criminals. fascinating brains on the worst people alive
Our populous includes an enormous number of uneducated people who can’t even read at an adult level. They, and their billionaire overlords, are Republicans. They are waiting for their own golden toilets they believe immigrants have stolen from them. We are so fucked.
The median voter IS an idiot, and is swayed by demonstrations of power. That's the lesson that Dems should learn from this election. (And like decades of political history)
The US doesn’t believe it’s necessary to have a population that can read or think critically, & we never consider improving our educational system. We think of politics as merely herding cattle. And then we’re astonished that the cows can’t understand the consequences of their actions.
Merrick Garland needed to have prosecuted the case very differently. He so desperately wanted things to exist above board but that board no longer existed. When they did not impeach after the 6th that was the time to know that the Republican party would support it.
It needed to be loud and needed to be faster. Jack Smith was appointed on Nov 18th, 2022. 10 days after the midterm election. History is going to be asking what was occurring in the investigation prior to that and people are wrongly going to point at the House investigation.
Congress was not going to be body that would pursue Jan 6th. It could only advertise what had been done. I think Gaetz is being rewarded because Trump wanted McCarty dead politically because he let that happen. Gaetz delivered and now he gets to be the hangman.
Sure there is. We live in a country where the rich often get a Mulligan on their crimes. All Harris had to do was answer everything honestly. Even if her answers upset one group she is trying to win over. She blew the first question of her debate with trump and it was an easy one.
I mean, a peaceful transition doesn’t mean yucking it up with the Fascist, idk, the very very fucking LEAST Joe could do is stop smiling so goddamn much.
Joe Biden and his family are rich; they can go anywhere on Earth on January 21. He can live out his few remaining years in peace and comfort, watching from a distance while millions of people here in the U.S. and around the globe suffer and die for his naïveté and cowardice.
That’s not the point, though. He behaves like he doesn’t even realize he may have to flee, like everything is okie-dokie and nobody is going to try to break into his house and beat *him* with a hammer.
Absolutely not. The entire Democratic apparatus has been incredibly naive and never confronted the threat head on. They had four years to fix things but ultimately didn’t want to look bad.
And frankly, Biden et. al. have the means to escape the suffering.
I believe they still think they can reach the “center” and if they’re just “nice enough” to Trump that it’ll give dems a shot at peeling off MAGA voters in two years, and that’s just an entire onion of layers of disconnect.
They’re stuck on the belief this is all just politics as usual, that the right isn’t REALLY a bunch of fascists slavering for persecution and purges and genocide.
No legal answer will suffice here, because this is question about recognizing Trump's extra-Constitutional threat. The Biden Administration utterly failed to anticipate that this remains a huge issue for many Americans, including a lot of those who failed to turn out this November.
Wait, so your theory is that hundreds of thousands - or even millions - of people who recognize the threat Trump presents stayed home in November rather than voting against Trump because they think Biden did not recognize that threat?
Something that any moron can reason through is "what would happen to me if I did this?" and watching Trump walk free after doing a dozen things that would land an ordinary person in jail is going to have an impact
One of the reasons why voters decided to do that is because after four years of trials he had suffered no consequences from his many crimes, which would not be the case if you or I had committed the same crimes
someone asking that question hasn't been paying attention.
"IF trump is a criminal ...." is immediately ridiculous because he is (34 convictions.. remember? No IFs)
With the federal charges, Harris was not in a position to prosecute.
That was up to the DOJ. Continual delay tactics thwarted them
I know an attorney who's known Garland >20 years. When he told MG that people consider him a failure a couple of weeks ago, MG acted as if he'd never heard anyone give him that feedback before, and ended the conversation without any other response.
That ‘once-and-future President’ was treated by the Biden-era DoJ (and elected Dems broadly) as a title bestowing immunity from prosecution is not *the* reason that the Harris née Biden campaign lost, but it is fundamentally *the* reason that the Trump campaign won.
This was not a role for the White House, but what I can't understand is why none of these judges put him in pre-trial detention despite the risk to the entire country? The J6 case should've had plenty to throw him in the slammer and await trial. It boggles the mind why he was still free.
no he did not, judges decide whether to put a defendant in pre-trial detention, and both Trump and non-Trump appointed judges all declined to do so. Garland certainly could have been more aggressive in asking for it, but I doubt it would have made a difference.
That decision is up to the judge, but I guess the spectre of SCOTUS possibly ruling that he had immunity had kept them from exercising a firm hand with the defendant? I still don't understand the kid gloves treatment. Former president or not, it's a strong case against him.
Comments
https://youtu.be/RJR5uQpweko?si=xXRWr4bqIeSTOJse
Illegaln classified document retention. Illegal talks with foreign leaders to hurt Biden. Biden didn't stick up for the country or himself!
https://bsky.app/profile/lessdismalsci.bsky.social/post/3lamypxhpyc2z
They just flat out failed to step up to the moment.
In jail. That’s the whole point.
All the consternation liberals have about Trump jailing his political enemies is exactly what MAGA people felt during all the Trump investigations and trials.
Yes, Trump is a criminal and should be prosecuted, but not by a President.
Merrick Garland should never enjoy a peaceful meal in public again, for starters.
😎 if that's true then how come you let the most famous criminal in the world go scott free?
😐
😠
But millions of Americans, caught up in the Trump 'madness of crowds' delusion, would have voted for him anyway.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Update: Because every criminal was protected by due process from the arbitrary arrest and detention that protected you as well, but you chose to throw away those protections
but thats because he did a whole bunch of illegal stuff!.
stollen
People don't vote for parties that cannot powerfully state how they will help the voter.
https://bsky.app/profile/firenzefair.bsky.social/post/3lbaq4gdsac2x
you can come up with all the explanations for that you want, but if you can't do anything in four years your system has failed at a fundamental level
Look, US: You're not getting out of this one. In order for any of this legal stuff to work, you have to agree to not immediately reelect the fucker.
Ordinary people are suffering, and the chattering class barks back 'but the economy is great you're just stupid and wrong'.
So they voted for the guy who didn't say that.
Keep ignoring them, it's going great.
Oh it doesn't work like that.
Well how does it work?
We appointed him.
Then appoint another one.
Oh we can't.
Why?
Norms.
Can we impeach Norms?
~NYTimes
Democrats are COWARDS
Democrats decided to that going home for Valentine's day was more important than impeaching trump.
Biden had to be SHAMED into calling out Republicans and insurrectionists for their attack on democracy.
you can tell because all they ever do is say that they are, over and over
"Vote for me pls"
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-convicted-prison-sentence-new-york-criminal-trial/
Trump is a criminal, going through the criminal justice process. The dems absolutely shouldn't have been fascists and bypassed the courts
I suspect that a big part of the drop in turnout can be attributed to a dampening of enthusiasm based on how Dems acted helpless to do anything of consequence to him and his cronies.
(1.) Justice takes time; (2.) Judges are political appointees; (3.) Both POTUS & VP multiple times tried to explain the unprecedented threat of Trump to the Republic, but we don't tend to lock up opponents here.
Biden couldn't unilaterally throw Trump in jail. Neither could Garland. Or Jack Smith. Fanny Willis did, but he was out immediately, and her case took just as long as the feds.
Bad as it might look to imprison your opponent, it looks far worse that this one has returned to power.
The media would have complained about it but that is a different issue & is tied to the fact that the media wanted trump back.
Maybe we shouldn't give a shit about what makes Putin laugh?
-Kangaroo courts and false charges are bad and indicate that your system of government is corrupt and dictatorial.
-Real charges for real crimes will piss some people off, who will lie and say this means the first thing.
Trump is a criminal because of all those crimes he did right in front of all of us and then bragged about them in front of us.
If it's good enough for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, it's good enough for Donald Trump. And Trump had charges and was a flight risk.
If they could’ve tried Trump in 2022 or even 2023, he’s not even the nominee but because it dragged out they ended up in the worst of both worlds
I don’t want to look bad so who should I set a policy of never prosecuting?
Globally and historically, how many people who try what he tried even *live long enough* to be imprisoned?
I do think the country would see the legit need for prosecution
but I get it, and we did just learn that millions of people don't care about his legal trouble anyway
Doing nothing will be his legacy. We kept hearing about optics and president to justify the delays. My opinion is that the DOJ blew it
¿Qué Pasa?
There will never be a reason that makes sense. Ever.
https://www.publicnotice.co/p/merrick-garland-failures-explained
With all due respect, it'd be great if people understood the job of the president.
As explained in this letter, it proves that Trump and his MAGA cronies have cheated.
Free Speech For People
https://freespeechforpeople.org › ...PDF
The Honorable Kamala Harris
And *both* took that call for justice and solemnly declared "We're not going to respond to the demands of the mob! This is a democracy of laws!"
Merrick Garland at the DoJ?
Fani Willis at the Georgia DA?
Alvin Bragg at the Manhattan DA?
Each of them independently failed to put Trump in jail. Bragg came closest but he had more time: that crime occurred eight years ago.
Maybe the job is harder than you think.
The Ls refuse to stay on strategy
The Ls refuse to use the same playbook
If we could add the benefits of Substack & Threads like an edit button this app would be primo
In 2016 DT won, we were in shock like now. We did the same blame game & had we stayed the course we would have lost 2018 & 2020
Luckily we started to listen beyond the static & started to focus on how to win
It’s not hard
Vote blue no matter who
If DT doesn’t succeed at turning us into the United States of Russia we can still flip seats & flip the House & senate
In fighting is dangerous to our brand & Demographics
We hopped right on board to divide our coalitions
Lets place blame where it belongs on the Republicans
The people on the left carry the water for maga
No one is blaming Republicans for holding their own to account
They allowed Trump to run in the first place even after an insurrection
How about that everyone is afraid of trump. Watch and see. trump is a bully. Eventually someone will knock his block off.
Putin perhaps ? Time will tell.
https://bsky.app/profile/sknowsthatp.bsky.social/post/3kkmfd5xgsk2w
The wheels of justice grind slowly, but they are grinding.
#nojusticenopeace
Does anyone else wonder what would have happened if Kamala's ads were just clips of Trump:
- Saying the grab em by the pussy line
- Jan 6
- Inject bleach for COVID
- Dead people in mobile freezers
And the like, instead of all the hopeful shit we got instead?
"Welp, we investigated, but it takes too long to finish, so he can run again 🤷"
Are we even a serious country anymore?
https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/11/11/how-garland-whinger-ankush-khardoris-willful-impotence-helps-trump-evade-accountability/
Legal processes do not exist merely to be a process for process's sake, there's a goal that's supposed to be met.
I can't help thinking that if JB's first phone call every morning at 6 AM was "Is that traitor in cuffs yet?" it would have produced different outcomes
If reaching a certain level of power makes legal judgments against you unenforceable-- because your cronies won't convict, or because you can keep a verdict postponed for so long it becomes irrelevant-- then the rule of law has ceased to apply.
I don't know who said this but they are right
After we collectively failed by allowing him into office, it's a bit silly to complain about what follows.
And frankly, Biden et. al. have the means to escape the suffering.
What sense does that make????
Also, he was suffering consequences.
"IF trump is a criminal ...." is immediately ridiculous because he is (34 convictions.. remember? No IFs)
With the federal charges, Harris was not in a position to prosecute.
That was up to the DOJ. Continual delay tactics thwarted them
+ We are now finding more about Gaetz. There's witnesses. How is it the DOJ did nothing. 🤬