Law enforcement officer convicted of criminal contempt for defying a court order. Pardoned a month after the conviction.
The water is officially boiling now.
So much for the Party of Law and Order.
Ominous pairing of user name and thread .
We now officially have a democratically elected authoritarian president. Trump’s authoritarianism is no longer the speculation of pundits; it is happening right now in real time. And unlike Nixon’s occasional dalliances with despotism, congress is failing to rein him in. We are now at the Constitutional crisis stage.
Yup. A lot of the rest of his schtick has just been jabbering.
This proves he does not give a flying fuck. About anything. He might as well go ahead and pardon himself, his whole family and anybody who voted for him.
This is Trump signaling anyone in trouble with the Russian investigation that he’s got their back as long as they don’t cooperate.
I saw that suggestion in the news too, but I’m not sure it’s really to the point. Mainly because I’ve seen zero evidence to support that Trump ever does ANYTHING by craft. He appears at all times, to blurt out or lash out or issue executive orders, in a purely immediate reaction to events, based on who he is most trying to appear pleasing to at that moment. Then later, when there’s a negative backlash, he doesn’t come out with an explanation that clarifies, or with an apology for a mistake, he instead either lashes out in another direction, or comes up with some new distraction.
So far, I think that this pardon is another attempt by Trump to very crudely appeal to his core 30%, by allowing someone who is ignoring the laws of the land in ways pleasing to them, to get a free pass. Nothing more than that, exactly the same way that he appeased them with his Charlottesville statements. No thought for consequences or craft of any kind, just the thought “hey, if I do this, those guys will LOVE ME!!!”
If the president of the United States can employ agents to act outside of the Constitution without fear of consequence, exactly how is the president’s power checked anymore?
I’ll bet it’s more about sticking it to Flake and McCain than any long term plan.
It might be that at least partially, but I think it’s really just more of a trend that we’ve observed from the start, which is that Trump is an authoritarian president. Trump might be sending the wink and nod to the likes of Flynn and Manafort, but they might decide it’s not in their interests to take that bet. It doesn’t matter one way or the other. What the pardoning of a state-level official flagrantly violating federal criminal law is that Trump doesn’t believe in the rule of law. He believes in making up his own rules. He doesn’t believe in the Constitution. He doesn’t believe in the courts. He doesn’t believe the idea that nobody is above the law – he absolutely believes that he is above the law and so are anyone of those whom he consider to be allies, as long as they remain allies of course (that rarely happens of course, because authoritarians live in a world in which their behavior constantly breeds enmity and distrust, to the point where they have zero friends except for their close family, and they don’t necessarily trust them either).
And this is part of the danger. The people who believe that their interests are now aligned with Trump don’t realize the danger they’re creating for themselves, so they tolerate it, and go along with it because they are deluded into the belief that they ultimately have the power to put the brakes on an authoritarian when they go ‘too far’. In reality, when democracy backslides into the abyss of authoritarianism, there is a period of disorientation. People looking around at each other and asking “Is this really happening?” “Did we just see what I thought we just saw?” It’s bystander effect, not unlike those stories of when people sitting in a restaurant watch a thug walk in, get into an argument with the shopkeeper and beat the shit out of him while everyone just stares at each other and watches in disbelief and horror. What we need to understand here is this: Trump is sending two signals at the same time. One is that he will protect his allies (his interests, more to the point), but he will also absolutely punish his enemies. Above the law is above the law. And the rule of man is the rule of man. The rules are whatever the authoritarian says they are. Congress and the institutions in the government have only a limited amount of time to stop this. It’s not a matter of this possibly turning into a national emergency…this IS a national emergency.
This is more of a rant than a discussion topic. Typically I’d move to the Pit but there is already a thread there and merging them would be messy. I’m closing this and suggesting people who wish to participate do so in that thread.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=829652
Discussion about the impact or other Arpaio related subjects is fine and if that’s what is desired feel free to start a non-ranty thread, most likely in GD.
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