this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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[–] [email protected] 291 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Yep. They’re starting already. This will not end well and Matt Gaetz should be impeached from office. A sitting member of government should not be calling for violence against said government. They’re getting more bold and dangerous with their statements. By the time Trump loses the next election they’ll be inciting them to war.

[–] [email protected] 123 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Genuinely, don’t bank on them losing. We can’t afford to underestimate the mass appeal of strongman rhetoric. It’s completely fucked. But this exact approach has worked as a precursor to a lot of authoritarian regimes.

[–] [email protected] 91 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I can't believe how many people I'm seeing who automatically assume that it's going to be an auto-lose for the right in the upcoming election. Do they not remember how everyone had this exact sentiment in 2015? We can't let ourselves fall any further by losing again to someone we thought couldn't win.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We should compare against the 2020 election, not 2016.

Have voters who supported Biden in 2020 switched to supporting Trump in 2024? I think not. If anything, I think recent news may have convinced a few Trump supporters to switch sides (potentially to a third party, which is still a win for Biden).

Still, it's important that people actually get out and vote, because the margins are slim in a few important states. PA and GA come to mind.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago

It's not so much that people will switch sides, it's that they won't vote at all. I know so many people who thought voting in 2016 was worthless because Trump was never going to win. Anyone who views voting as a hassle is a lot less likely to do it if they think that the results are guaranteed, so we need to be mindful that we thought that exact same thing in 2016, which caused us to get the worst president ever, and I personally believe we only won 2020 not because people switched sides, but because so many people who never bothered to vote before finally went out and did it to stop Trump.

[–] [email protected] 70 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This will not end well

Especially not with the FBI still not aligning itself fully with democracy.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The DOJ's been trying to play both sides too

In the weeks before Jan. 6, Trump supporters boasted publicly that they had submitted fake electors on his behalf, but the Justice Department declined to investigate the matter in February 2021, The Post found. The department did not actively probe the effort for nearly a year, and the FBI did not open an investigation of the electors scheme until April 2022, about 15 months after the attack.

The Justice Department’s painstaking approach to investigating Trump can be traced to Garland’s desire to turn the page from missteps, bruising attacks and allegations of partisanship in the department’s recent investigations of both Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

Inside Justice, however, some lawyers have complained that the attorney general’s determination to steer clear of any claims of political motive has chilled efforts to investigate the former president. “You couldn’t use the T word,” said one former Justice official briefed on prosecutors’ discussions.

[–] eestileib 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I can't believe people are still trying to defend Garland. That coward should be out doing a job he has the stomach for, like, say, tailoring.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

I have never defended him. I'm ashamed of the current DOJ and AG. The state attorneys had way more balls than Garland ever did. And the fact that he'll go after Hunter Biden (for barely anything) to not appear "political" when half our government is Republican seditionists is laughable.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 year ago

They're getting bold because nothing happens to them.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Matt Gaetz should be impeached from office

He should also be in prison for sex trafficking of minors, but I guess that's a different discussion.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

He's wealthy and politically connected. Not gonna happen. My country is screwed.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (6 children)

This is what I don’t get. What’s the end game here? Why are people so hell bent on Trump winning? Do these politicians not see the ship sinking? What possible motivation could be keeping these people loyal to him? I’m not talking about the regular constituents but the other republican officials in office? What the hell do they stand to gain here?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

Because they are part of a cult that has infiltrated government for decades to turn it into a christofascist state and they're at their endgame.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's mass delusion. They're operating primarily on lies and fantasy instead of any reality.

In other words, trying to apply logical reasoning to their perspective is not going to work.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

They're at the point of being scooby doo villains, all that's left is for them to say, "And I would have gotten away with it too, if not for you meddling leftists" as they're being arrested for treason.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Because the only other option, losing, means that they're losers and they can't accept that. It's not any more complicated than that.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

He who rides the tiger can never dismount.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Because they have made a deal with the devil and throwing in the towel means payment comes due. Thanks to the southern strategy Republicans hitched their proverbial wagon to the Christian extremists (who make up the bulk of the racists the southern strategy is predicated on). Decades of propaganda by the likes of Fox "News", Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, and Glenn Beck has left their party deeply mired with conspiracy theorists and people with only a tenuous grasp of reality, and an equal number of grifters and con artists preying on those same vulnerable populations. These people are the backbone of Trumps support and they have for various reasons completely embraced him in some cases even as a literal messiah. The Republican party is already struggling to attract enough voters to continue to win elections without resorting to voter fraud, they literally can not afford to give up a single voter, and turning against Trump at this point would shatter their party.

Trump is an existential threat to the Republican party, but one that perversely they can't publicly attack without inciting the very thing that would destroy them. Like Frakenstein they've created a monster, and now it has turned on them. They're frantically trying to keep its ire focused anywhere but on themselves and just hoping it does more damage to their opponents than it does to them before they can think up some way to contain or kill it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

They want a race war. They want concentration camps and mass killings of anyone they deem a liberal. Reinstate slavery and to hurt a lot of people. That's their in game. It's a playbook written on writing a tidal wave of hate and emotions.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

They want freaking Gilead. I used to think that was just wild hyperbole, but good god are these right wing loonies scary.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago