Trump makes the argument that this is the campaign season and therefore the people have a right to know. Therefore he should be able to publish discovery material.
Heres an idea, why not have a speedy trial then? Get all the case material out to the public.
Trump makes the argument that this is the campaign season and therefore the people have a right to know. Therefore he should be able to publish discovery material.
Heres an idea, why not have a speedy trial then? Get all the case material out to the public.
What someone else posted, publish parts of classified documents in an attempt to prove they should not be classified. Meaning, Trump should have declassified them but forgot to. By publishing them the claim will become they can't be classified if the public has them.
Trump wants to do what the GOP kangaroo caucus is doing. Cherry pick isolated tidbits out of context and get them on Fox News to spin them as something else. And they want to do it pretrial because their opponents can’t debunk it because they are the only ones with the material. And the DOJ is not interested in arguing it in the media.
But left/right ideological schema and appeals endure practically and methodologically because they continue to capture very important realities about how power works in capitalist societies in particular.
For instance, it is odd to say that more privileged segments of professional and wage workers don't resonate with concepts of natural hierarchy when you consider how these workers typically understand their own success in capitalist labor markets, and how they orient themselves on the questions of material redistribution in general (they are usually against it in fundamental ways). US politics today can be understood largely in terms of the myth of meritocratic wealth distribution held by affluent liberals on one hand (a belief in a natural hierarchy of "merit", usually understood in terms of intelligence and skill) and adherence to cruder ideas about human difference and inequality (race and gender) on the other (right) hand. Both sets of beliefs are mobilized to explain differences in wealth and income distribution (and the power distribution that accompanies it) within modern capitalist class systems-- systems of the kind that the concept of "left vs right" was developed to make sense of, and will continue to be very useful in making sense of until such time as we no longer live under modern capitalism.
This "beyond left vs right" business is usually just a way of trying to deny, politically or methodologically, that we're still living under capitalism with all that this entails about the distribution of wealth and power-- the things that really define any society. This, BTW, is why we need to insist on the difference between "liberals", who are often just as committed to naturalizing capitalist class inequality as conservatives are, albeit in their own terms, and the left proper, which wants to question it.
That's all well and good, but the sub-thread was about vision of the "newly radicalized GOP" and I don't see how one gets there without looking at the broad motivations of the electorate's factions.
When Trump was nominated in 2016, my comment was that the GOP had lost control of their movement conservative base. In this view the GOP is largely run by the elite pro-business class that has to cultivate enough popular support to get/maintain power. For decades they've cultivated the religious right using abortion as a wedge issue without delivering much and with Trump they made big gains in the blue collar class with largely a populist anti-immigration message and more broadly with a anti-(big-)government message. The issue is that movement electorates tend to have a narrow focus (the movement) with little regard to the consequences of achieving their goals. That is, movement's focus isn't on holding power so much as it is in achieving narrow victories which will probably hurt their electoral chances going forward.
The traditional pro-business conservative intent on maintaining power is, for now, riding along in the back seat of movement conservatives who don't really have a broad vision of or a particular interest in democratic governance.
You're absolutely right that the rise of Trump represented as loss of control of the GOP "merchant elite" establishment to an insurgent right wing populist base, a control it has not been able to reassert. Trump even initially alienated elements of the old conservative intelligentsia (around, e.g., the National Review). But the rise of a figure like Trump was a very long time coming within the larger conservative movement, starting way back with the right wing opposition to Reagan as, ultimately, too bipartisan and too generally sunny in his view of America and American culture. Figures like Gingrich and Pat Buchanan tried to ride this right wing tiger, both ultimately unsuccessfully, relative to their oversized aspirations. They were were ultimately succeeded by G W Bush, arguably the last Reaganite GOP standard bearer, but one with some purchase on the movement right. After Bush did his time, the establishment denied the right wing of the party base a properly firebrand social conservative leader, offering up instead the erratic John McCain and the milquetoast Mitt Romney in succession. This, much of the base felt, lead directly to the election and re-election of Barack Obama, in many ways their worst nightmare (not least because his appeal created the possibility of reconstituting the old New Deal Democratic electoral bloc that left the GOP out of executive power for almost 40 years). And the GOP was genuinely in a very bad place post-Obama, with the Trump candidacy representing a lark not dissimilar to celebrity stunt candidacies of the past. When the establishment once again tried to ram a boring and weak candidate down their throat (remember when Jeb Bush was their guy?) they lost it and fell in wholesale with the thrillingly transgressive D. Trump.
But, three things:
1. Both the old merchant elite who used to control the GOP and the movement intelligentsia were not long at all in warming to Trump, particularly in the absence of ANY other figure within the party with legitimate national appeal. The alternative was another Democratic president with another 4-8 years to rebuild the old New Deal majority.
2. The conservative movement base may seem as though it lacks particular focus or vision and is only focused on immediate electoral success, but it has actually been active in some form for many decades on its two main political projects-- ending what's left of the New Deal and Great Society programs ("big government") and overthrowing the separation of church and state. It saw Trump's surprise success as an important opening-- one that it has so far made the most of. It is NOT only focused on short term electoral successes, even if its vision for the country is ultimately unrealizable. It's going to make life miserable for a lot of ordinary people for many years to come before this is all over.
3. The Democratic Party post-Bill Clinton was never going to do a thing to rebuild the old New Deal majority (by e.g. undoing Reagan era labor reforms and passing single-payer health care). Instead, it opened the door wide to right wing populism by offering American workers, many of whom only a few years before had been willing to take a chance on Barack Obama, absolutely nothing but the old lesser-evilism, neo-liberal bromides, and warmed over P.C. niceties. And it wasn't as though working people flocked to Trumpism (it was and continues to be largely a movement of "rich people from poor places"). But just enough ordinary working people in just the right places got sick enough of the Democrats and their politics of urban and suburban elite meritocracy to take a chance on a faux populist like Trump. Most continued to not vote or engage in politics at all (except for a small minority of engaged workers on the left of the Democratic Party). But it doesn't take much at all to shift the knife-edge balance of US federal partisan politics. Only a true mass mobilization of new voters could alter this reality, and neither party seems willing or able to undertake this challenge. Both remain vehicles for elite prerogatives in their respective ways, and the country will continue to suffer for it. This is how empires collapse, BTW. From within.
This fifty-plus page thread is largely a dispute between one particular poster of fanatic disposition and everyone else. It reassures me that Trump is on the losing side of every argument and we will see that in the courts.
Smith did his job. Tie up Trump with a bunch of indictments based on total nonsesnse (just like the impeachments and Mueller investigation) Deflect from the mountains of evidence that Biden is compromised. Have a look at the Biden Laptop Report at marcopolousa.org.
Trump makes the argument that this is the campaign season and therefore the people have a right to know. Therefore he should be able to publish discovery material.
Heres an idea, why not have a speedy trial then? Get all the case material out to the public.
The "speedy trial" would have to be fitted in amongst all the other legal proceedings he will be facing next year. I don't know how any of you can be entertaining the fact that you have a one-man crime-wave running again as President. What a country.
Trump makes the argument that this is the campaign season and therefore the people have a right to know. Therefore he should be able to publish discovery material.
Heres an idea, why not have a speedy trial then? Get all the case material out to the public.
What someone else posted, publish parts of classified documents in an attempt to prove they should not be classified. Meaning, Trump should have declassified them but forgot to. By publishing them the claim will become they can't be classified if the public has them.
Nope. Doesn't work like that. They were classified when Trump had them. That is what matters legally.
Smith did his job. Tie up Trump with a bunch of indictments based on total nonsesnse (just like the impeachments and Mueller investigation) Deflect from the mountains of evidence that Biden is compromised. Have a look at the Biden Laptop Report at marcopolousa.org.
There is only one criminal here and he is facing a mountain of legal proceedings. I look forward to him swinging.
3. Obstruction or attempt to obstruct an official proceeding
4. Conspiracy against rights
I wasn't old enough to vote for or against him so I say this as someone who is just watching from the sidelines, but these all sound way too vague to take seriously. Bottom line is he has free speech rights to claim he won the election regardless of what the correct vote count is.
Free speech isn't a license to lie, defraud, etc.
Also, it's a protection against government overreach, not a protection of government overreach.
2. The conservative movement base may seem as though it lacks particular focus or vision and is only focused on immediate electoral success, but it has actually been active in some form for many decades on its two main political projects-- ending what's left of the New Deal and Great Society programs ("big government") and overthrowing the separation of church and state. It saw Trump's surprise success as an important opening-- one that it has so far made the most of. It is NOT only focused on short term electoral successes, even if its vision for the country is ultimately unrealizable. It's going to make life miserable for a lot of ordinary people for many years to come before this is all over.
. . .
Perhaps I wasn't clear, but I'm trying to differentiate between "conservative movement" and "movement conservatives".
"Conservative movement" may well have a broad vision of governance that requires continued electoral success.
"Movement conservatives" are narrowly focused on a specific goal, the movement, and may pursue it to the ultimate detriment of the conservative movement and broader governance.
As a case in point, pledging to restrict abortion has been an effective tool to pull votes from the religious right for decades. Actually doing so is very likely to hurt the GOP in the polls. Similarly, actual meaningful cuts to popular New Deal/Great Society programs like social security and medicare would be hugely unpopular. People are opposed to "big government" only to the extent that they perceive it benefits somebody who isn't their self.
I really appreciate your thoughts in this thread, unusually good stuff for LR.
2. The conservative movement base may seem as though it lacks particular focus or vision and is only focused on immediate electoral success, but it has actually been active in some form for many decades on its two main political projects-- ending what's left of the New Deal and Great Society programs ("big government") and overthrowing the separation of church and state. It saw Trump's surprise success as an important opening-- one that it has so far made the most of. It is NOT only focused on short term electoral successes, even if its vision for the country is ultimately unrealizable. It's going to make life miserable for a lot of ordinary people for many years to come before this is all over.
. . .
Perhaps I wasn't clear, but I'm trying to differentiate between "conservative movement" and "movement conservatives".
"Conservative movement" may well have a broad vision of governance that requires continued electoral success.
"Movement conservatives" are narrowly focused on a specific goal, the movement, and may pursue it to the ultimate detriment of the conservative movement and broader governance.
As a case in point, pledging to restrict abortion has been an effective tool to pull votes from the religious right for decades. Actually doing so is very likely to hurt the GOP in the polls. Similarly, actual meaningful cuts to popular New Deal/Great Society programs like social security and medicare would be hugely unpopular. People are opposed to "big government" only to the extent that they perceive it benefits somebody who isn't their self.
I really appreciate your thoughts in this thread, unusually good stuff for LR.
You are effectively saying that self-interest is more a feature of the right. One might then add that the left have a tendency to think they know what's good for others - though they can be wrong about that.
Perhaps I wasn't clear, but I'm trying to differentiate between "conservative movement" and "movement conservatives".
"Conservative movement" may well have a broad vision of governance that requires continued electoral success.
"Movement conservatives" are narrowly focused on a specific goal, the movement, and may pursue it to the ultimate detriment of the conservative movement and broader governance.
As a case in point, pledging to restrict abortion has been an effective tool to pull votes from the religious right for decades. Actually doing so is very likely to hurt the GOP in the polls. Similarly, actual meaningful cuts to popular New Deal/Great Society programs like social security and medicare would be hugely unpopular. People are opposed to "big government" only to the extent that they perceive it benefits somebody who isn't their self.
I really appreciate your thoughts in this thread, unusually good stuff for LR.
You are effectively saying that self-interest is more a feature of the right. One might then add that the left have a tendency to think they know what's good for others - though they can be wrong about that.
"One might then add that the left have a tendency to think they know what's good for others - though they can be wrong about that", Armsti.
Armsti, I am disappointed in you. But I agree the left has a TENDENCY to think they know what's good for you but seriously the right has an obsession in thinking they know what's good for you.
They will decide if you can have an abortion, they think you should be exposed to their prayers in school, they think you shouldn't be gay or trans, they think there are things about race you shouldn't read, they think they know the best school curriculum for you, and it goes on and on.
(I am using Armsti instead of Armstronglivs because it seems more friendly and approachable and being on the left, I think its better for you, but that's just my tendency)
"They will decide if you can have an abortion, they think you should be exposed to their prayers in school, they think you shouldn't be gay or trans, they think there are things about race you shouldn't read, they think they know the best school curriculum for you, and it goes on and on."
Did you get permission to use the De Santis campaign promises ??
That's all well and good, but the sub-thread was about vision of the "newly radicalized GOP" and I don't see how one gets there without looking at the broad motivations of the electorate's factions.
When Trump was nominated in 2016, my comment was that the GOP had lost control of their movement conservative base. In this view the GOP is largely run by the elite pro-business class that has to cultivate enough popular support to get/maintain power. For decades they've cultivated the religious right using abortion as a wedge issue without delivering much and with Trump they made big gains in the blue collar class with largely a populist anti-immigration message and more broadly with a anti-(big-)government message. The issue is that movement electorates tend to have a narrow focus (the movement) with little regard to the consequences of achieving their goals. That is, movement's focus isn't on holding power so much as it is in achieving narrow victories which will probably hurt their electoral chances going forward.
The traditional pro-business conservative intent on maintaining power is, for now, riding along in the back seat of movement conservatives who don't really have a broad vision of or a particular interest in democratic governance.
You're absolutely right that the rise of Trump represented as loss of control of the GOP "merchant elite" establishment to an insurgent right wing populist base, a control it has not been able to reassert. Trump even initially alienated elements of the old conservative intelligentsia (around, e.g., the National Review). But the rise of a figure like Trump was a very long time coming within the larger conservative movement, starting way back with the right wing opposition to Reagan as, ultimately, too bipartisan and too generally sunny in his view of America and American culture. Figures like Gingrich and Pat Buchanan tried to ride this right wing tiger, both ultimately unsuccessfully, relative to their oversized aspirations. They were were ultimately succeeded by G W Bush, arguably the last Reaganite GOP standard bearer, but one with some purchase on the movement right. After Bush did his time, the establishment denied the right wing of the party base a properly firebrand social conservative leader, offering up instead the erratic John McCain and the milquetoast Mitt Romney in succession. This, much of the base felt, lead directly to the election and re-election of Barack Obama, in many ways their worst nightmare (not least because his appeal created the possibility of reconstituting the old New Deal Democratic electoral bloc that left the GOP out of executive power for almost 40 years). And the GOP was genuinely in a very bad place post-Obama, with the Trump candidacy representing a lark not dissimilar to celebrity stunt candidacies of the past. When the establishment once again tried to ram a boring and weak candidate down their throat (remember when Jeb Bush was their guy?) they lost it and fell in wholesale with the thrillingly transgressive D. Trump.
But, three things:
1. Both the old merchant elite who used to control the GOP and the movement intelligentsia were not long at all in warming to Trump, particularly in the absence of ANY other figure within the party with legitimate national appeal. The alternative was another Democratic president with another 4-8 years to rebuild the old New Deal majority.
2. The conservative movement base may seem as though it lacks particular focus or vision and is only focused on immediate electoral success, but it has actually been active in some form for many decades on its two main political projects-- ending what's left of the New Deal and Great Society programs ("big government") and overthrowing the separation of church and state. It saw Trump's surprise success as an important opening-- one that it has so far made the most of. It is NOT only focused on short term electoral successes, even if its vision for the country is ultimately unrealizable. It's going to make life miserable for a lot of ordinary people for many years to come before this is all over.
3. The Democratic Party post-Bill Clinton was never going to do a thing to rebuild the old New Deal majority (by e.g. undoing Reagan era labor reforms and passing single-payer health care). Instead, it opened the door wide to right wing populism by offering American workers, many of whom only a few years before had been willing to take a chance on Barack Obama, absolutely nothing but the old lesser-evilism, neo-liberal bromides, and warmed over P.C. niceties. And it wasn't as though working people flocked to Trumpism (it was and continues to be largely a movement of "rich people from poor places"). But just enough ordinary working people in just the right places got sick enough of the Democrats and their politics of urban and suburban elite meritocracy to take a chance on a faux populist like Trump. Most continued to not vote or engage in politics at all (except for a small minority of engaged workers on the left of the Democratic Party). But it doesn't take much at all to shift the knife-edge balance of US federal partisan politics. Only a true mass mobilization of new voters could alter this reality, and neither party seems willing or able to undertake this challenge. Both remain vehicles for elite prerogatives in their respective ways, and the country will continue to suffer for it. This is how empires collapse, BTW. From within.
I appreciate the long and thoughtful post.
I try to simplify complexity as much as possible to better explain what is happening.
1. Big donors rule politics, not politicians and not the base. They write the checks and therefore they ultimately call the shots. As if funding their people upfront isn't enough, they also continue to pay for them via lobbysts when they are in office.
2. Grass roots and populist types like Bernie and Trump are a big problem for these donors because they can raise funds directly from the base.
3. The GOP had been promising blood to the angry base for decades and not delivering. The stars aligned for Trump.
4. The big donors had no choice but to publicly get behind him... and it paid off nicely. The Rs also had to get behind him or otherwise risk losing.
5. Now Trump is a loser who very likely won't win. The big donors don't like losers, so they will prefer to sit the next one out then to waste their money. The base still very much likes him, but there are now too many who are disappointed and won't be playing. This means he will still be able to raise money, but it's an open grift and his legal bills are piling up.
6. The old GOP establishment lost control of the base and they don't hold enough central power to expell Trump and Trumpism. Turkey neck is mentally gone and McQarty is barely holding on. There is no quetion the GQP will collapse, but the real problem is they can't even rip the bandaid off.
7. The Ds can only beat themselves here, a bit like 2016. A low turnout election might mean trouble. I think the WH will safely remain blue, but they will need to fire up voters going into 2024 if they plan to hold majorities.
Smith did his job. Tie up Trump with a bunch of indictments based on total nonsesnse (just like the impeachments and Mueller investigation) Deflect from the mountains of evidence that Biden is compromised. Have a look at the Biden Laptop Report at marcopolousa.org.
