But I am most certainly not saying “It can’t happen here.” I am trying to look it in the eyes.
It takes two to tango. The goldfish doesn’t have to be “good” at things. The agency of dictatorship comes from the people who let it happen. Donald is an idiot. He’s surfing on a wave on the surface of a bubble.
Now are you better off not seriously and realistically addressing the various motives and risks in this play of bad actors? Or do you just want to hang it up and say “Those darned republicans. Oh Well…” Because I think that’s the way to dictatorship.
Agreed, at least with the last part. I think we’re approaching the same result from two different angles. I don’t think that anyone here is saying “oh well, nothing to be done then”
And by the same token, what we’re saying is that you should not simply assume that the Republicans in congress are going to do anything. We can’t count on them to do the right thing, because most assuredly they will put themselves above party, and party above country.
A big problem is that they do not work for all of their constituents. Due to extreme gerrrymandering, their only concern is with the primary, not with the general election. Therefore, they are only concerned with their republican voters. And a huge percentage of those are Trump-bots. So they will not do anything to disturb those voters who will put them through the primary. This is how the 25% of brain dead goober Trump supporters are actually controlling things. Herin lies the danger - that the Republicans in congress will do NOTHING, even if Trump pardons everyone and fires Mueller.
This is not to say that we should do nothing. In fact, this is a wake up call that we CANNOT count on elected representatives to do the right thing, and therefore we need to DO SOMETHING…
Yes, but note that the ‘gut Medicaid’ versions of the health-care bills did NOT slide through as easily as we might have predicted they might: GOP Senators and Representives DID respond, to some degree at least, to constituent calls, letters, protests, and town-hall confrontations. It’s not impossible that a naked power grab of the sort under discussion—Trump pardoning himself and firing Mueller—would result in similar demonstrations of voter ire.
True. Fareed Zakaria had an amazing segment near the end of today’s “GPS” show (which is due for another repeat later, I think) about proposals for redistricting on objective statistical grounds, objections to which would stand out as shamefully partisan. (It’s not yet linkable–neither the segment nor the transcript is yet up, but since you mentioned gerrymandering I wanted to offer a heads-up about the piece. Here’s the link for the show itself: Fareed Zakaria GPS, Sundays at 10am & 1pm ET - CNN
thanks for this. Partisan gerrymandering (to the extent that we’ve seen recently) is, IMO, one of the most dangerous, undemocratic abuses that exist in US politics today.
Then once he pardons them, Senate committees haul them up to testify about the Russian connection, they can’t plead the 5th anymore, and therefore drop some major bombshells which further erode’s Trump’s public and congressional support?
Treason prosecutions on any level are rare, and I can only think of two convictions in the US for state treason statutes (Rhode Island v Dorr and Virginia v Brown), and in both those cases, they were insurrectionary. (Thomas Dorr refused to recognize a governor of Rhode Island elected under a constitution that restricted voter rights, and set up his own, rival government, and John Brown attacked an arsenal and tried to provoke a slave uprising).
So I wouldn’t be surprised if there was no case law whatsoever on it. Your other problem, beyond that of preemption, is that state treason laws, obviously, define treason against that specific state. So, a Virginia prosecution would have to show that the defendant gave aid and comfort to the enemies of Virginia (Like, say, the NC Tar Heels, or the state of Maryland, or tourists who stand on the left on Metro escalators), vs just enemies of the US.
They would simply refuse to go before a Senate committee, as the Trump Pardon would have proved that they are innocent (sic). The Senate would huff and puff and do nothing.
“We must now put this whole unfortunate incident behind us, as to continue would be of detriment to the country. It is a distraction, and we must now get down to business.” (Quick - put me in touch with Kushner and Trump Jr. They know some guys in Moscow, - my election is coming up and I need all the help I can get)
Actually I think that refusing to answer questions, while they are totally free to do so without legal jeopardy, would seriously piss off quite a few Republicans. There are folks like McCain, Grassley, Flake, Collins, and several others who have zero patience for such arrogance.
Remember: Jared Kushner can be impeached in the exact same way that Jeff Sessions or Donald Trump could be impeached. I think the sort of arrogance you are hypothesizing would lead to several vacancies in the Executive Branch (even if nothing could be done about Flynn or Don Jr.)
They could also be called to testify under the umbrella investigation concerning Russia’s actions during the 2016 election. You don’t need to be under investigation yourself in order to have valuable information needed by the committee doing the investigation.
“could be” being the operative words. They would not be, as congress has no balls. They would simply want to make the whole thing go away.
As I said earlier, what we’ll hear then from the politicians is " We must now put this whole unfortunate incident behind us, as to continue would be of detriment to the country. It is a distraction, and we must now get down to business."
That’s correct. If they had a pardon in hand, they can’t plead the Fifth. And if not, then from a political standpoint, pleading the Fifth is difficult if you’re trying simultaneously to insist you’ve done nothing wrong.
After Trump pardons the lot, could they then simply refuse to testify before any group or committee about anything to do with Russia? If there are legal repercussions, they could be pretty sure that Trump would just pardon them again for that, and also, they would know that the Trump tweets and Trump-media would be pushing very hard on the them of “This is just a witch hunt now, it’s all over, nothing to see here, the real story is about the leaks, what about Hillary”
But if he pardons everyone, then isn’t he admitting that it’s actually not a witch hunt? If they’ve done nothing wrong there wouldn’t be any need for pardons. So I think the “just a witch hunt” and “nothingburger” defenses would be rendered moot once pardons are issued? I guess bald faced bullshitting is pretty much all they’ve been doing so far though…
“You see, I HAD to pardon them all BECAUSE it was a witch hunt. They were totally innocent, but Hillary and her deep state minions were going to railroad them, and disrupt my amazing, wonderful presidency that has been the best ever, and has accomplished more than anyone else, ever.”
Of course that makes no sense to you and to me, and to anyone else with a modicum of sense. But it will appeal to the Trump base, and will give the Republican congress-toads the fig-leaf to start the process of ignoring the whole mess.