Politikk, religion og samfunn President Donald J. Trump - Quo vadis? (Del 2)

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  • Dr Dong

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    Robert Mueller submitted his final report as the special counsel more than a year ago. But even now—in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and the Administration’s tragically bungled response to it, and the mass demonstrations following the killings by police of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many others—President Trump remains obsessed with what he recently called, on Twitter, the “Greatest Political Crime in the History of the U.S., the Russian Witch-Hunt.” In the past several months, the President has mobilized his Administration and its supporters to prove that, from its inception, the F.B.I.’s investigation into possible ties between his 2016 campaign and the Russian government was flawed, or worse. Attorney General William Barr has directed John Durham, the United States Attorney in Connecticut, to conduct a criminal investigation into whether F.B.I. officials, or anyone else, engaged in misconduct at the outset. Senator Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has also convened hearings on the investigation’s origins.

    The President has tweeted about Mueller more than three hundred times, and has repeatedly referred to the special counsel’s investigation as a “scam” and a “hoax.” Barr and Graham agree that the Mueller investigation was illegitimate in conception and excessive in execution—in Barr’s words, “a grave injustice” that was “unprecedented in American history.” According to the Administration, Mueller and his team displayed an unseemly eagerness to uncover crimes that never existed. In fact, the opposite is true. Mueller had an abundance of legitimate targets to investigate, and his failures emerged from an excess of caution, not of zeal. Especially when it came to Trump, Mueller avoided confrontations that he should have welcomed. He never issued a grand-jury subpoena for the President’s testimony, and even though his office built a compelling case for Trump’s having committed obstruction of justice, Mueller came up with reasons not to say so in his report. In light of this, Trump shouldn’t be denouncing Mueller—he should be thanking him.

    […]

    In other words, far from authorizing a wide-ranging investigation of the President and his allies, the Justice Department directed Mueller to limit his probe to individuals who were reasonably suspected of committing crimes. Temperamentally as well as professionally, Mueller was inclined to follow this advice. The very notion of a criminal investigation lasting more than eight years, as the Whitewater case had, was repellent to him, as was Starr’s seemingly desperate search to find something to pin on his target. Persistent news leaks from Starr’s office and Starr’s frequent sessions with reporters in the driveway of his home, in suburban Virginia, were also anathema to Mueller, who began his inquiry by imposing a comprehensive press blackout.

    According to McCabe, there appeared to be possible prosecutable cases against Papadopoulos and Flynn, for false statements, and against Manafort, for financial improprieties. (In the first several months of the investigation, Mueller won guilty pleas from Papadopoulos and Flynn and secured a pair of wide-ranging indictments against Manafort, who was later convicted in one case and pleaded guilty in the other. In 2020, the Trump Administration sought to drop the case against Flynn, even though he had pleaded guilty.) Mueller decided to take on the range of issues he discussed with McCabe but little else. He also brought indictments against more than a score of Russians for attempts to interfere in the 2016 election, but they certainly would not agree to appear in an American courtroom.

    Trump’s political adversaries, unaware of Mueller’s determination to run a brisk, narrow investigation, became invested in the expectation that he would uncover such sweeping and devastating proof of criminal misdeeds that a misbegotten Presidency would be forced to come to an end. There were “Mueller Time” T-shirts and Robert Mueller action figures—G.I. Joes for the MSNBC set. It was all the better that Mueller was a Republican and no one’s idea of a political partisan. But Trump’s fiercest defenders and Mueller’s most devoted fans misjudged the special counsel from the beginning.

    Mueller did not use the F.B.I. information as a catalyst for a deeper examination of Trump’s history and personal finances. Nor did he demand to see Trump’s taxes, or examine the roots of his special affinity for Putin’s Russia. Most important, Mueller declined to issue a grand-jury subpoena for Trump’s testimony, and excluded from his report a conclusion that Trump had committed crimes. These two decisions are the most revealing, and defining, failures of Mueller’s tenure as special counsel.

    […]

    Which side was right? In truth, no one knew. But if Mueller had issued the subpoena in January, 2018, there was a chance that the Supreme Court would have carried out an expedited review and issued its decision by the end of June, when the investigation would have been just a year old. Mueller may have been concerned about dragging things out, but no one could have fairly accused him of doing so had he subpoenaed Trump at that time. And Trump’s testimony would certainly have been the most important piece of evidence in this investigation.


    Instead, Mueller kept negotiating for an interview. Later, he wrote in his report, “We thus weighed the costs of potentially lengthy constitutional litigation, with resulting delay in finishing our investigation, against the anticipated benefits for our investigation and report.” But Mueller himself was responsible for much of the delay. In this critical moment, he showed weakness, and Trump pounced. After his lawyers refused the Camp David interview, he began to attack Mueller. “The Mueller probe should never have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no crime,” he tweeted in March, 2018, in one of his first direct attacks on the special counsel. “WITCH HUNT!”

    […]

    Giuliani said that he might agree to allow the President to answer written questions, but only about his actions during the campaign. Everything he did as President was covered by executive privilege.

    Not so, Mueller said. They went back and forth over this familiar ground.

    Finally, Giuliani said, “What are you going to do? Are you going to subpoena the President?”

    Mueller said, “We’ll get back to you.” More weeks passed.

    Mueller eventually capitulated on a grand-jury subpoena and on an oral interview. Then he gave up on questions about Trump’s actions as President. Finally, Trump’s lawyers presented Mueller with a take-it-or-leave-it proposal: Trump would answer only written questions, and only about matters that took place before he became President. Mueller took it.

    […]

    Mueller had uncovered extensive evidence that Trump had repeatedly committed the crime of obstruction of justice. To take just the most prominent examples: Trump told Comey to stop the investigation of Flynn (“Let this go”). When Comey didn’t stop the Russia investigation, Trump fired him. Trump instructed his former aide Corey Lewandowski to tell Attorney General Sessions to limit the special-counsel investigation. Most important, Trump told Don McGahn, the White House counsel, to arrange for Mueller to be fired and then, months later, told McGahn to lie about the earlier order. (Both Lewandowski and McGahn declined to help engineer Comey’s firing.)

    The impeachment proceedings against Nixon and Clinton were rooted in charges of obstruction of justice, and Trump’s offenses were even broader and more enduring. Moreover, Mueller’s staff had analyzed in detail whether each of Trump’s actions met the criteria for obstruction of justice, and in the report the special counsel asserted that, in at least these four instances, it did. But Mueller still stopped short of saying that Trump had committed the crime.

    Mueller’s team faced a dilemma. If Mueller had brought criminal charges against Trump, the President would have had the chance to defend himself in court, but, in light of the O.L.C’s opinion, Mueller could not charge Trump. So Mueller decided not to say whether Trump committed a crime, because he was never going to face an actual trial. The report stated, “A prosecutor’s judgment that crimes were committed, but that no charges will be brought, affords no such adversarial opportunity for public name-clearing before an impartial adjudicator.” In other words, in a gesture of fairness to the President, Mueller withheld a final verdict.

    That still left the issue of what Mueller should say about Trump’s conduct. His judgment was announced in what became the most famous paragraph of the report:

    Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President’s conduct. The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment. At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.
    Nothing in Mueller’s mandate required him to reach such a confusing and inconclusive final judgment on the most important issue before him. As a prosecutor, his job was to determine whether the evidence was sufficient to bring cases. The O.L.C.’s opinion prohibited Mueller from bringing a case, but Mueller gave Trump an unnecessary gift: he did not even say whether the evidence supported a prosecution. Mueller’s compromising language had another ill effect. Because it was so difficult to parse, it opened the door for the report to be misrepresented by countless partisans acting in bad faith, including the Attorney General of the United States.

    (og så er det barr)

    For those who knew Barr, especially in recent years, a letter he wrote on June 8, 2018, did not come as a great surprise. (The letter became public six months later, soon after Barr’s nomination.) It was a memorandum of more than ten thousand words, addressed to Rosenstein and Steven Engel, who led the O.L.C. Even the subject line—“Mueller’s ‘Obstruction’ Theory”—dripped with contempt. “I am writing as a former official deeply concerned with the institutions of the Presidency and the Department of Justice,” it began. “I realize that I am in the dark about many facts, but I hope my views may be useful.” The gist was that much of Mueller’s investigation was illegitimate. Barr said that Trump’s decision to fire Comey was within his power as President. Mueller’s approach to the inquiry, Barr wrote, “would have grave consequences far beyond the immediate confines of this case and would do lasting damage to the Presidency and to the administration of law within the Executive branch.” Six months after Barr wrote his letter, Trump nominated him for a return engagement as Attorney General.

    […]

    This, too, was accurate. Barr went on, “Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and I have concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.” In other words, Mueller hadn’t reached a conclusion on whether Trump committed a crime, but Barr had. In just two days, without speaking to the authors of the report about their evidence or their conclusions, Barr and Rosenstein asserted that they had digested hundreds of pages of dense findings and decided that the President had not committed a crime. The letter was an obvious act of sabotage against Mueller and an extraordinary gift to the President. By leaving the disclosure of the report and its conclusions entirely up to Barr, Mueller had brought this disaster on himself and his staff.

    […]

    Barr continued to diminish Mueller’s report and to dilute its impact. Trump finally had an Attorney General who put the President’s personal and political well-being ahead of the national interest, the traditions of the Justice Department, and the rule of law. But Barr was able to dismantle the Mueller report only because the special counsel and his staff had made it easy for him to do so. Robert Mueller forfeited the opportunity to speak clearly and directly about Trump’s crimes, and Barr filled the silence with his high-volume exoneration. Mueller’s investigation was no witch hunt; his report was, ultimately, a surrender. ♦

     
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    defacto

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    Det var det ikke mange som hadde trodd var mulig for snart 4 år siden...
    Du verden som tiden flyr og lista blir stadig lavere.
    Annotation.png
     

    Groove

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    Det var fuldt muligt for 4 eller 8 eller flere år siden. Det er problemet, der sker intet. Trump er ikke problemet, han har gjort det mere synligt. Det virker som om østkyst pressen har vågnet at en tornerosesøvn og opdaget noget og giver budbringeren skylden.

    Hvis der ikke ændres i folks dagligdag og deres rammer lokalt, sker der intet. OG der er sådan der er, hvid eller sort præsident.

    Jeg bryder mig ikke om Trump, men han er ikke problemet. Men pressen kan ikke styre sig, de angriber ham og styrker dermed hans position hos hans vælgere.
     

    defacto

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    Selvsagt er Trump problemet. Han er ikke årsaken, men han er problemet!
    Og nei, dette var IKKE mulig for 4 år siden!
     

    Disqutabel

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    Det var fuldt muligt for 4 eller 8 eller flere år siden. Det er problemet, der sker intet. Trump er ikke problemet, han har gjort det mere synligt. Det virker som om østkyst pressen har vågnet at en tornerosesøvn og opdaget noget og giver budbringeren skylden.

    Hvis der ikke ændres i folks dagligdag og deres rammer lokalt, sker der intet. OG der er sådan der er, hvid eller sort præsident.

    Jeg bryder mig ikke om Trump, men han er ikke problemet. Men pressen kan ikke styre sig, de angriber ham og styrker dermed hans position hos hans vælgere.
    Ja, her tilslutter jeg meg defacto, din analyse her overser en stor del av helheten.

    Joda, årsakene er mange, og Trump har selvsagt ikke skylda for at det har blitt mulig å velge et så fullstendig uskikket menneske til en posisjon med såpass mye makt. Trump er allikevel i seg selv en stor del av problemet; han forstår ikke politikk, han har ekstremt lav menneskeforståelse, han er kunnskapsløs, han er sykelig selvopptatt, og han tror på fullt alvor at han både vet og forstår det meste. Om ikke disse tingene til sammen er et problem, dersom man har såpass mye makt som Trump, ja, da vet ikke jeg hva som er problematisk her i verden. Og pressen..., altså, det er pressens fordømte plikt å si fra når makten ikke forstår virkeligheten, når de lyver og bedrar, når de vender makten mot folket. Selvsagt skal ikke pressen styre seg i sånne tilfeller!! Hva mener du de skulle gjort? Latt som ikkeno' mens helvete bryter løs rundt ørene på dem??
     

    Groove

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    Trump siger faktisk det han vil...og det ser ikke godt ud. Problemet er de politikere der i de sidste 100år har snakket for ændringer, men intet gjort...
     

    Disqutabel

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    Trump siger faktisk det han vil...og det ser ikke godt ud. Problemet er de politikere der i de sidste 100år har snakket for ændringer, men intet gjort...
    Joda, masse er gjort, men det er ikke nødvendigvis slik at alt har vært så innmari smart. Min oppfatning er jo såpass banal at jeg oppriktig mener alle land burde etterstrebe parlamentarisme og fordelingspolitikk, mens USA stort sett har gjort det motsatte. På 60-tallet hadde USA en sterkere fordelingspolitikk enn i dag, deretter har deres utenlandsgjeld økt enormt, mens skattetrykket for de rikeste har falt like drastisk. Fattigdommen har økt, de sosiale problemer likeså. I de nordiske land har vi derimot økt velstand, senket kriminalitet og fattigdom.
    Det er som to forskjellige verdner. Men uansett er Trumpismen fullstengig feil medisin til feil tid. Velgerne har enten fullstendig misforstått, eller blitt lurt trill rundt.
     

    Groove

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    Enig i en del, men vælgerne er jo i protest imod de politikere der ikke har gjort noget...det udnytter Trump...

    Var de etablerede politikere reelle, ville sagen jo være nem for dem, men deres interesser er skjulte...så Trump er stadig med i spillet.
     

    defacto

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    Nja.....er ikke så sikker på at alle er der. Joda, det er mange som velger potethuet i protest, men de fleste av hans velgere er hvite våpenfanatikere og religiøse. Og du kødder ikke med våpen og religion i statene...
    Han er ingen av delene, men spiller på det og vet at de logrer.
     

    Asbjørn

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    ...men de utgjør maksimalt 20-25 % av befolkningen, og den prosenten krymper for hvert år som går. Trump forsøker seg på en skrekkvariant av «the southern strategy» som fungerte bra for republikanerne på 1970- og -80-tallet, men demografien er ikke med ham. For å få det til å fungere må han sikre at alle andre holdes borte fra stemmeurnene, og selv det vil bli krevende.
     

    AndersR

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    Pyttsann, bare 70-80 millioner altså? det er jo nesten ingen.
    Husk at det var under 140 millioner som stemte under sist presidentvalg.
     

    Dr Dong

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    Groove

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    Pyttsann, bare 70-80 millioner altså? det er jo nesten ingen.
    Husk at det var under 140 millioner som stemte under sist presidentvalg.
    Det er en vigtig pointe...hvis alle dem der "burde" stemme demokratisk, gjorde det, var Trump chanceløs. Grunden til de ikke gør det, er at de ikke har tro på en reel forandring fra deres "egne"...
     

    Asbjørn

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    Pyttsann, bare 70-80 millioner altså? det er jo nesten ingen.
    Husk at det var under 140 millioner som stemte under sist presidentvalg.
    Jeg burde nok skrevet 20-25 % av de stemmeberettigede. Det er grunnfjellet hans. Og det krymper.
     

    AndersR

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    Jeg burde nok skrevet 20-25 % av de stemmeberettigede. Det er grunnfjellet hans. Og det krymper.
    25% er det som norges største parti har som oppslutning.
    Du vet, de som har statsministeren.

    25% er absurd mye.

    Se for deg om Alliansen hadde scora fem prosent på neste stortingsvalg. Det hadde vært ramaskrik uten like. Og her sitter vi og ufarliggjør 20-25% av amerikanske velgere?
     

    Asbjørn

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    Nei, de er åpenbart farlige nok, men <25 % i et land med topartisystem er ikke det samme som 25 % hos oss. Poenget er at Trump kan fyre opp under «basen sin» så mye han bare vil, men han behøver veldig lav valgdeltagelse for at det skal holde. Hvis galskapen hans motiverer like mange på den andre siden til å møte opp for å stemme taper han. The Southern Strategy er ikke hva den var i Nixons dager, men det ser ikke ut til at noen har forklart det for Trump.
     

    Asbjørn

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    Det er flere som er litt uklare på slike konsepter, i dette tilfellet 1-3 juli 1863. Mon tro hva de som deltok der ville ment om at USAs president sier dette på dagen 157 år senere:
    President Trump reaffirmed late Tuesday that he would veto this year’s proposed $740 billion annual defense bill if an amendment is included that would require the Pentagon to change the names of bases named for Confederate military leaders, his strongest rebuke against the measure amid a national reckoning over systemic racism.
     

    Terje-A

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    Trump: "We're doing a great job. Coronavirus is going to just disappear. I hope".
     

    Terje-A

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    Valget i USA kan bli spennende..
    Bl.a.
    Brinkley er enda mer bekymret og spør seg om Trump overhodet vil forlate Det hvite hus om han taper.

    – Trump er i gang med å legge grunnlaget veldig klart for at han ikke vil forlate Det hvite hus. Jeg tror han er ferd med å gjøre scenen klar for å si: «Jeg går ikke. Valget var juks».
     

    otare

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    Republikanerne er i ferd med å flytte over til et nytt sosialt medium da de ikke liker at de blir faktasjekket. De vil gjerne kunne fortsette å lyve og spre konspirasjonsteorier uten at noen legger seg bort i det. Det som skjer i USA nå er ekstremt farlig. EU må bli sterkere, og vi må bli medlem av EU så fort som fy!

     

    AndersR

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    – Trump er i gang med å legge grunnlaget veldig klart for at han ikke vil forlate Det hvite hus. Jeg tror han er ferd med å gjøre scenen klar for å si: «Jeg går ikke. Valget var juks».
    Neida, ingen fare. Jeg har nemlig lest på noe som heter hifisentralen at det ikke går an, fordi det er skrevet på et papir et sted.
     

    Hardingfele

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    Neida, ingen fare. Jeg har nemlig lest på noe som heter hifisentralen at det ikke går an, fordi det er skrevet på et papir et sted.
    Prosedyren er da ganske klar. Etter at Electoral College har utnevnt presidenten går embedet til denne, enten til sittende eller ny. Administrasjonsapparatet begynner da å tilrettelegge for continuance eller transition. I sistnevnte tilfelle har den nye presidenten full innsynsrett og dennes overgangsstab begynner å overta styringen. Formelt skjer dette først ved innsettelsesseremonien i januar. Dersom presidenten skulle forsøke å bli sittende i Det ovale kontor vil han og hans folk bli ryddet ut av Det hvite hus med makt.

    Trump kan muligens bli den første som utprøver disse forordningene.

    (Under innsettelsesseremonien går det en virvelvind av folk gjennom Det hvite hus for å fjerne spor av den forrige og gjøre klart for den nye).
     

    Terje-A

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    Spilleregler gjelder ikke lenger, strikken er tøyd over lang tid, ikke bare av Trump. Derfor er det ikke lenger forskjell på rett og galt, den nye normalen er det fullstendige unormale. Egoisme og en plutokleptokratisk ånd er det som råder. Sukk. :(
     

    AndersR

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    Dessverre har jeg mer tro på at Terje-A har rett i denne saken.
     

    Dr Dong

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    pilen peker mot nederlag ved valget.

    gop og andre medskyldige og profitører, har jeg vanskelig å se for meg stå til rette etter et trumpnederlag.

    da står vi igjen med med fire muligheter (eller flere):

    1. vinne valg med valgfusk. kan ikke tenke meg noe annet at reaksjonen på det blir opprør av et eller annet slag. det er neppe bare en part i den opprørsbevegelsen.

    2. foreta palassrevolusjon. nå skjer det så mange utskiftninger i institusjonene, og sjefsutrydder barr er nesten i en posisjon hvor han er hevet over loven, om da ikke fyren blir stil for riksrett, noe kujonen nadler ikke synes å ville begi seg ut på.

    3. få satt i bruk all den ildkraften som basen og andre medløpere besitter. litt borgerkrig.

    4. hele usofa revner; florida som nytt hovedsete for mafiaen. men kan slikt skje uten krigen?

    eller kanskje ingen av delene.
    mer til problematikken «trump forsvinner ikke frivillig»:


    It is increasingly looking as if Joe Biden can beat President Donald Trump in November. The president seems more and more out of step with the national mood, from his handling of the pandemic to his response to racially biased policing, not to mention a wide array of other issues. Even in key swing states, Trump is losing ground that will be difficult for him to make up.

    For Trump, there are two broad pathways to maintaining power. First, we can already see very clearly a strategy designed to suppress voter turnout with the purging of registration rolls of large numbers of mostly urban voters; efforts to suppress mail-in ballots, which are more necessary than ever, given COVID-19; a re-election apparatus that is training 50,000 poll watchers for the purpose of challenging citizens' right to vote on Election Day; and significant efforts to make in-person voting in urban areas as cumbersome as possible in order to have long lines that discourage people from exercising their voting rights.

    The second pathway to subverting the election is even more ominous—but we must be cognizant of it because Trump is already laying the groundwork for how he can lose the popular vote, and even lose in the key swing states necessary for an Electoral College victory, but still remain president.

    This spring, HBO aired The Plot Against America, based on the Philip Roth novel of how an authoritarian president could grab control of the United States government using emergency powers that no one could foresee. Recent press reports have revealed the compilation by the Brennan Center at New York University of an extensive list of presidential emergency powers that might be inappropriately invoked in a national security crisis. Attorney General William Barr, known for his extremist view of the expanse of presidential power, is widely believed to be developing a Justice Department opinion arguing that the president can exercise emergency powers in certain national security situations, while stating that the courts, being extremely reluctant to intervene in the sphere of a national security emergency, would allow the president to proceed unchecked.

    Something like the following scenario is not just possible but increasingly probable because it is clear Trump will do anything to avoid the moniker he hates more than any other: "loser."

    Trump actually tweeted on June 22: "Rigged 2020 election: millions of mail-in ballots will be printed by foreign countries, and others. It will be the scandal of our times!" With this, Trump has begun to lay the groundwork for the step-by-step process by which he holds on to the presidency after he has clearly lost the election:

    1. Biden wins the popular vote, and carries the key swing states of Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania by decent but not overwhelming margins.
    2. Trump immediately declares that the voting was rigged, that there was mail-in ballot fraud and that the Chinese were behind a plan to provide fraudulent mail-in ballots and other "election hacking" throughout the four key swing states that gave Biden his victory.
    3. Having railed against the Chinese throughout the campaign, calling Biden "soft on China," Trump delivers his narrative claiming the Chinese have interfered in the U.S. election.
    4. Trump indicates this is a major national security issue, and he invokes emergency powers, directing the Justice Department to investigate the alleged activity in the swing states. The legal justification for the presidential powers he invokes has already been developed and issued by Barr.
    5. The investigation is intended to tick down the clock toward December 14, the deadline when each state's Electoral College electors must be appointed. This is the very issue that the Supreme Court harped on in Bush v. Gore in ruling that the election process had to be brought to a close, thus forbidding the further counting of Florida ballots.
    6. All four swing states have Republican control of both their upper and lower houses of their state legislatures. Those state legislatures refuse to allow any Electoral College slate to be certified until the "national security" investigation is complete.
    7. The Democrats will have begun a legal action to certify the results in those four states, and the appointment of the Biden slate of electors, arguing that Trump has manufactured a national security emergency in order to create the ensuing chaos.
    8. The issue goes up to the Supreme Court, which unlike the 2000 election does not decide the election in favor of the Republicans. However, it indicates again that the December 14 Electoral College deadline must be met; that the president's national security powers legally authorize him to investigate potential foreign country intrusion into the national election; and if no Electoral College slate can be certified by any state by December 14, the Electoral College must meet anyway and cast its votes.
    9. The Electoral College meets, and without the electors from those four states being represented, neither Biden nor Trump has sufficient votes to get an Electoral College majority.
    10. The election is thrown into the House of Representatives, pursuant to the Constitution. Under the relevant constitutional process, the vote in the House is by state delegation, where each delegation casts one vote, which is determined by the majority of the representatives in that state.
    11. Currently, there are 26 states that have a majority Republican House delegation. 23 states have a majority Democratic delegation. There is one state, Pennsylvania, that has an evenly split delegation. Even if the Democrats were to pick up seats in Pennsylvania and hold all their 2018 House gains, the Republicans would have a 26 to 24 delegation majority.
    12. This vote would enable Trump to retain the presidency.
    We cannot let ourselves believe that this is a far-fetched scenario. We have just seen Trump threaten to invoke emergency powers under the Insurrection Act of 1807 to call up the U.S. military against domestic protesters. The remarkable apology by Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley, stating that it was wrong to create a perception that the military would get directly involved in a domestic political protest and intervene against American civilians, underscores the corrupt use of executive powers Trump is willing to employ. As Fareed Zakaria recently said in summing up the lessons of former national security adviser John Bolton's new book: "Donald Trump will pay any price, make any deal, bend any rule, to assure his own survival and success."

    So what do we do as citizens to face the impending reality of The Plot Against America? We must "out" this scenario—and do so loudly and consistently. We have an imperative to build a "people's firewall" that reaches deeply across the country and reflects public revulsion at the potential for Trump to undermine our entire democratic system of governance.

    Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, should immediately ask the Judiciary, Commerce, Armed Services and Intelligence Committees to hold hearings on how steps can be taken to safeguard against this scenario, especially how to confront any invocation of emergency powers by the president.

    There needs to be an outpouring at all levels of society that this will not be tolerated—from government officials and lawmakers at all levels; to civic associations and civil rights groups; to business groups and trade associations, who have to recognize the economic chaos that would result from this kind of coup; to lawyers, academics and student groups practiced in resisting government policies; and, of course, to the editorial voices of the press, both local and national.

    The recent resistance of our military establishment is an encouraging sign and necessary component of the "people's firewall." The president has to know there will be overwhelming resistance to any post-election chaos to undermine our constitutional order. He must know that the "people's firewall" will not yield to lawlessness. He has to be confronted with the reality that The Plot Against America must remain a work of fiction.
     

    Asbjørn

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    ^ Det er ikke så veldig mye man kan gjøre utenfra for å stoppe et slikt scenarie hvis det først settes i bevegelse. Det er jo hele poenget med å gjøre det. Det du beskriver er en logisk fortsettelse av maktmisbruket. Det forutsetter riktignok at GOP i Kongressen ser seg tjent med å gjennomføre det, noe som på langt nær er sikkert. Trump begynner å bli bra radioaktiv, og panikken begynner å bre seg.

    Det forutsetter også at Biden vinner med et begrenset antall valgmannsstemmer i vippestater med republikansk guvernør. Akkurat nå er Biden jevnt til og med i Texas, så det er minst like sannsynlig at Trump vil bli begravd av et takras. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/

    Jeg ser ikke helt hvordan det skulle jevne seg ut før november. Corona-pandemien kommer til å bli mye verre før den begynner å bli bedre, ekstratilskuddene av offentlige penger kommer til å ta slutt, og Trump kommer til å føre en sak for Høyesterett om å avskaffe helseforsikringen for de som har blitt arbeidsledige. Til høsten er det minst like sannsynlig at USAs økonomi er på vei inn i en tung depresjon som at Trump kan hovere over en mirakuløs oppgangstid.

    Valgkampen hans som sådan er også i deep shit. Trump har mislyktes fullstendig med å klistre en etikett på Biden, men er i stedet vid åpen for innkommende ild. «Self absorbed» ser ut til å klebe bra. Bidens taler er kårdestikk der Trump veiver rundt seg med et sprukkent balltre. Det er Trump som har klistret en etikett på seg selv. Selv forsøkene hans på å beskrive Biden som senil bakfyrer. Mannen viser seg å være i stand til å uttrykke logiske tankerekker i grammatikalsk sammenhengende setninger, hvilket ikke kan sies om Trump selv.

    I nominasjonsvalgene til Kongressen ser det ut til at demokratene foretrekker moderate kandidater med vinnerpotensiale (f eks Amy McGrath), mens de få gjenværende republikanerne stemmer frem QAnon-gærninger (f eks Lauren Boebert). Det er ikke så mye der heller som tyder på at GOP er i ferd med å utvide velgergrunnlaget utover de mest rabiate Trump-tilhengerne.

    Senatsflertallet er også innen rekkevidde for demokratene, og jeg tror ikke Trump har spesielt mye lyst til å fortsette som president med begge hus av Kongressen i demokratenes hender. Da vil han bli gransket fra drøvel til hemorroider, og alt han har forsøkt å holde skjult om sine økonomiske fiaskoer og misligheter vil bli utbasunert i åpne høringer. Han vil bli så diskreditert at de færreste republikanere vil ta sjansen på å støtte ham i neste impeachment.

    Oppsummert: Makten til faktisk å gjøre noe med det ligger hos velgerne. Trump og hans spyttslikkende GOP må tape så grundig at det ikke er verdt forsøket. Hvis jeg var GOP-strateg ville jeg vært veldig, veldig bekymret nå.
     
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    Fenalaar

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    Hmm - Trumps twitter-kårdestøt ser nå mere og mere ut som en nybegynner med Nunchaku - det er mest farlig for han selv. Må det bare bli værre og værre, så selv de republikanske senatorene tar avstand...

    Johan-Kr
     

    Asbjørn

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    Trump-greia fungerer rett og slett ikke lenger. Comeback-rallyet i Tulsa ble en flopp, og nå er tidligere presidentkandidat Herman Cain innlagt på sykehus med Covid som han formodentlig pådro seg der. Til natten vil Trump forsøke å sette fyr på Mt Rushmore, og i august skal han stappe en arena i Jacksonville, FL full med jublende tilhengere uten masker og sosial distansering. Det var selve poenget med å legge deler av landsmøtet til Florida, men det er nettopp de samme grunnene til at Covid nå har eksponensiell økning i Florida. Ganske mange av de tilhengerne kommer ikke til å være i stand til å stemme på noen som helst i november. Dette er langt bortenfor noen South Park-episode allerede.

    La ham bare holde på. Det er den best mulige valgkampen for Biden.


    Jim Donelon, president of the Democratic Club of St. Petersburg, said he cannot recall another election in his lifetime when he felt as much enthusiasm among Democrats. Much of it, he said, springs from a disgust for the President and a demand for change.
    "Trump is our biggest ally, as far as I'm concerned," said Donelon, 77. "He's turning out people who have never been interested in politics before."
     
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    Dr Dong

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    eller som noen sier:

    Trump *is* functionally a king.

    hvis trump «taper», hvor skal hans delaktige gjøre av seg? og trump selv er mentalt skrudd sammen til at det ikke eksisterer tap; dog muligens felles fortapelse.

    tillegg:

    uten å bli profet – som jo mange ble da trump kom inn –, så er de vel ved et veiskille som deles i tre: en kan gå med trump inn i undergangen; en kan avskaffe trump og fortsette faenskapet med en humant ansikt, eller en kan snu litt opp ned på ting. den andre er bare en utsettelse for de to andre.

    det litt artige er at det siste er den mulige gjenopplivingen av den republikanske tanke (aka res publica). med tanke på den problematikk som tidligere ble reist om borgeres reduksjon til konsumenter, og at staten overtaes av selskapene, så har de amerikanske republikanere en lang vei å gå; på samme måte som demokratene.

    det fins bare en frihetlig statsform: der enhver borger avkreves å gi sitt liv for selvbestemmelsen og ikke overvekten.
     
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    Hardingfele

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    Jeg skal gjenta meg selv.

    USA har straks over 4% av verdens befolkning og forbruker over 30% av verdens ressurser (aggregert snitt over mange ressursslag).

    Landet kan aldri tilpasse seg en "rettferdig" andel av hva kloden har å by på, i et verdenssamfunn som ikke lenger har plass til en hegemon som USA. Hva dette vil føre til er uoverskuelig. Landet kan finne på å melde fra i klartekst om at det vil fortsette å ta til seg og bruke sin militærmakt i enda større utstrekning for å sikre sin nødvendige ressurstilgang. Dersom Trump ikke var kokt kål mellom ørene kunne han fått landet med på et slikt prosjekt, det er jo hva han faktisk melder når han er tilsynelatende sammenhengende i sine utsagn (og ikke en gang mellom linjene). Men han har ikke evnene som skal til for å gi folket det realpolitiske motet som skal til for å totalt bryte med konvensjoner for internasjonalt samkvem.

    Et alternativ er å erkjenne at USA ikke er en nasjon, men en føderasjon, av selvstendige delstater som har avstått selvstyre for føderasjonen, men som har rett til å tilbakekalle dette, enkeltvis eller kollektivt (gjennom en konstitusjonell konvensjon). Devolusjon av makt tilbake til delstatene som ikke er med på et uttalt imperialt verdensprosjekt er en mulighet.

    Hva som ikke er mulig, er å innbille seg at USA kan fortsette samlet og koherent gitt skillelinjene som nå sliter folket og regionene fra hverandre.
     
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