Apathy over Trump's Power Grab

Politics & Elections
21

As do I.
When I first heard about this scandal, I could not wait for it to appear on the SDMB! This was going to be an epic thread and I would ride it from the first post forward. - - - And - - Then - - Time - - Passed - - - And Passed - - - And Passed.

Recently I was tempted to start a thread here in P&E entitled something like:
Finally; bulletproof evidence of wrong doing by Trump! Corruption and Scandal with witnesses! Convictions and jail time assured, no escaping justice this time!

I literally figured everyone played the whole thread out in their heads in twenty seconds; irrefutable evidence from unimpeachable witnesses (just like the Mueller Probe, the first impeachment, the second impeachment, the frivolous lawsuits, the January 6th Insurrection, the Georgia phone call that was FUCKING RECORDED, the grab them by the . . . recording for that matter, the possibility of a military coup as General Milley feared, and at least a dozen other political life stopping events I have forgotten).

Twelve hundred posts which would almost exclusively say: “Trump will die of old age before spending one day in court over this!”

I actually want to comment upon every post in this thread, but I will say this instead. The Georgia phone call (and one here to AZ as well) and this well documented call where there is none of the Mafia code talk bullshit Trump and Giuliani are famous for. He flat out asked for a favor that could only be taken one way and named potential co-conspirators.

I do think there is a reasonable expectation that a year or two from now criminal charges can be made against Trump and he may know what it feels like to sit in the defense chair and be in a court where there is more than stolen money at risk.

Since I have never been right about any single prediction concerning Trump-- I am not betting the farm on this. I guess saying it SHOULD happen even if it will not, would just reveal how naive I am, right?

22

A lot of us have outrage fatigue. I’ve gotten used to the fact that this country is going to, at best, give Trump a slap on the wrist for engaging in treason. Which means the next republican candidate will be as against Democracy as Trump but more intelligent.

I don’t see any of that changing. We need serious investigations and long prison sentences for lots of people. That’ll never happen, all that’ll happen is the next Trump will learn what the first one did wrong and not make the same mistakes.

23

IMHO outrage fatigue is only part of it.

For me, it is the constant confirmation that we really don’t have any institutions in place to REALLY hold this behavior accountable. Sure, we have laws, and Senate/Congressional rules and protocols, but recent history has shown that they all crumble in the face of true tests. Layer into that the fact that a large portion of our citizenry really does not understand or respect any of that, as long as “their side” is on top.

So, it’s not really fatigue, or apathy, it is powerlessness in the face of reality.

24

Excellent point, as evidenced by the epic struggle by Congress to simply get hold of Trump’s tax returns. There’s apparently no limit to the ways someone can legally delay, thwart and ultimately nullify what should be a slam dunk order.

25

There is a limit, and America has long known that this was how things worked: justice is determined by social standing and by wealth. If Trump ran out of money, he’d have a much harder time throwing those roadblocks up any more.

26

But he’ll never run out of money because the GOP and its supporters seem poised to support him indefinitely.

27

Whatever. The point is that this is how justice works in America and how it has always worked in America.

28

I don’t think it’s “outrage exhaustion” either. I’m not sure there’s a good word for it. I still care, but what’s the point in becoming outraged? As others have said, it’s a certainty that this will have no effect on his supporters, and everyone else is already convinced he’s a bag of shit, so what’s the point in getting worked up? No amount of passion will make the slightest bit of difference.

So, add it to the list, and just get out the vote, so we can expel as many of his supporters from office as possible. There’s no point in arguing with people who’ve decided to just ignore all the evidence we might try to show them. It’s time to just ignore them.

29

Some additional points from Hedges here:

The implication is that the country is run by two political parties which work for the very rich, who in turn essentially control much of the U.S. economy.

30

I suspect that the apathy and exhaustion over Trump is directly linked to the fact that Trump has suffered virtually no real consequences for his lifetime of incompetence, mendacity, crime & corruption.

31

I think most of us would gladly suffer the consequences of our actions if it meant more money, power & influence no matter what we did wrong or how badly we screwed up.

32

^This.

Everybody (except those in their Messiah’s thrall) knows Trump is a corrupt, self-serving criminal. Everyone knows that he exhibits symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. His lack of conscience may indicate he is a sociopath. His crimes are known and documented. But when it came time to call him to task for just one of those crimes in his first impeachment, and his more obvious treason (Yes, treason) in his second impeachment, the bodies that exist to carry out our nation’s laws let him off the hook. Both times. I’m not apathetic over what Trump did and does. I have lost faith that our so-called ‘representative’ will (not ‘can’; will) do anything about it.

Mark my words, and you may quote me on this: Trump will never spend a day in prison. Any consequences he faces will be inconsequential. Trump and his thralls have destroyed the United States so thoroughly that I don’t believe it can be rebuilt in my lifetime.

33

See, from the point of view of a modern conservative, that’s a win-win.

34

The problem with holding him accountable is that it isn’t even clear that Trump broke the law by doing this. The legal system really wasn’t designed to prosecute offenses that could only possibly be committed by one person.

The assumption was the public outcry and impeachment would be the means to make the president accountable for their actions. But the law didn’t/couldn’t account for the possibility that the “jury” would ignore all evidence and justice in favor of tribalist allegiance. Just as our criminal court system wasn’t able to handle cases like the Emmet Till murder.

The Democrats really need to start drafting a bill that specifically targets presidential abuse of power. It would put the Republicans in an interesting position. It would be hard to portray as partisan, since the person it would currently apply to is a Democrat, and while it would be obvious to everyone that it was really created as a repudiation of Trump, it would be hard to argue that that was the case without in the process admitting that Trump did in fact act unethically. It probably would fall to the senate filibuster since abuse of power is something that the Republicans want as an option for the next time they are in office, but it would be fun watching them tie themselves in knots trying to justify it.

35

I concur and wouldn’t have bothered to post mine if I’d read what @Icarus wrote.

I think it was less a destruction and more the revelation of how inadequate the guardrails of American democracy really are.

36

See, this is what I’m talking about when I say it’s time to just ignore the Trumpsters. Because it’s literally not hard for them to argue exactly this. When they have no interest in engaging in honest debate or discussion, with the intention of determining the honestly best course of action, they can say anything they want to that serves their ends. We’ve seem them do it, for god’s sake, saying “X and Not-X!” in the same argument, over and over again.

You cannot debate someone who has no real interest in debate. We need to stop even trying.

37

What can I say? It didn’t surprise me at all. I was pretty sure it, or something similar, was happening at the time it happened. How many times have journalists jumped because Trump failed to parse his words carefully enough? Is it that much worse than everything else?

Unfortunately, law enforcement seems to have bought into the Republican definition of free speech - which is “Republicans can’t in trouble for saying things”. It doesn’t matter what you say. Trump could give North Korea out nuclear codes over the phone and the FBI would say “Trump has the right to free speech”.

Chris Wray is a tool, and Biden should lose confidence in him and kick him to the curb. I’m not buying his “I only stuck the tip in the Constitution and wiggled it around a little a few times because if I didn’t, Trump would have fired me and hired someone that would’ve given the Constitution an enthusiastic rogering on a daily basis” excuse, the excuse that is immensely popular among “good” Republicans.

There were what, 12, 14, criminal referrals that allegedly emerged from the Mueller investigation? How did that pan out? They arrested one Democratic lobbyist, Greg Craig, for failing to register as a foreign agent, because it wasn’t fair that they arrested a bunch of Republicans without arresting a Democrat. Of course it was a totally trumped-up charge because Craig had disclosed his work to the DOJ and was told he didn’t have to register. He got off, as did Andrew McCabe, but both cases were pure harassment.

But when the entire Trump campaign staff took a meeting with someone that claimed to be an agent of the Russian government for the express purpose of obtaining incriminating information on a US citizen, that was cool — because free speech now means there are no consequences whatsoever for talking.

Let’s see what else the FBI was cool with:

They were cool with Trump using the National Enquirer as his private detective agency, getting them to harass journalists (Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski) and using the material they collected in an attempt to extort them into changing their coverage.

And when Trump maligned FBI agents,including publicly humiliating them over an extramarital affair, did Wray saw one word in their defense? No. Wray was perfectly content to let Trump call his entire agency corrupt constantly without publicly defending them to any extent, even though it put the lives and livelihoods of the men and women that worked for him at risk

Then there was the time that Trump’s son-in-law worked withthevNational Enquirer and a senior official of a foreign nation to hack the phone of the owner of a major news outlet in order to squash coverage of the murder of journalist, and to destroy the newspaper owners marriage in the process, because that’s what happens if you go up against Trump. The totality of the law enforcement response was…….nothing, sending the message “that’s what happens when you go against Trump, so don’t go against Trump.

And then there was the concerted three year long effort by the President and his friends to profit from Eastern European corruption at the expense of the energy security of Western Europe, which included extorting the leader of a foreign nation. That’s pretty cool with Wray’s FBI, I guess….because extortion is just speech……freedom of speech, again.

Then there’s all the little things, which would be groundbreaking scandals in any Presidency. The time Trump goons forcibly invaded and robbed a doctors office in order to retrieve his medical records. The whole Michael Cohen/Stormy Daniels thing.

But I’m rambling. I could go on for pages. And they’ll never do anything. There are probably too many sedition loyalists imbedded in high level law enforcement

Ok, I’m ranting. I know it was mostly the DOJ, but I’m still not giving Wray a pass for playing along to keep his job. Especially since he hasn’t gotten any better.

It’s obvious they have no intention of looking at anything regarding the lead up to January 6th. Did you hear Wray testify? I’m paraphrasing, but he said stuff like “ Everybody that was there had a different motive and a different reason for being there”. When asked if he was aware that Trump wanted to stop the certification of the election he furrowed his brow like he was trying to remember something obscure and said something to the effect of “I think I might have read something like that on the Internet”.

So I don’t know that I’ve given up, exactly — but I’m in a wait and see mode. Because the one thing I do know is things change, we will not be in this position in a year or three. Things will die down, or they will escalate and the DOJ and FBI are setting the stage for escalation, as apparently mustering an army to attack Congress and murder Mike Pence no longer rises to the level of “illegal”.

There will probably be another attack, another incident of some sort, maybe they’ll storm the Maricopa County offices and murder a bunch Democrats in order to seize routers. Who knows? It’s either going to die down or escalate, it doesn’t seem to be dying down and federal law enforcement seems lukewarm about the whole sedition thing. Maybe they’ll take it more seriously next time

38

An excellent summary.

39

Well, yes, this is just an episode of:

Survivor DC - Immunity Island

40

See, I’m kinda over this thinking. Why can’t we be the judges? Isn’t judging someone for wrongdoing, and making them pay a price, the very definition of “justice”? Why can’t a President who actively worked to overturn election results, who inspired a violent mob to storm the Capitol with the intent to hang the Vice President and members of Congress, who has clearly done six treasonable things before breakfast … why can’t that guy stand trial? Why can’t we defend our established system of democracy? Why can’t we show that there are serious consequences for any person that tries to pull these kinds of election-stealing shenanigans in our country?

Letting “history” be the judge just means somebody smarter, cleverer, and more capable will probably pull this off before we get to that point in “history.”

(I’m not calling you out specifically, bobot, I’ve seen this “history will judge Trump” line a bunch of times, and I just think it’s wrong.)