But in more borderline wordings, as in the Harvard/Harris example, one can’t know it is an illegitimate poll without getting into the details of how the questions were developed.
My only slightly wild guess is that there were some other question wordings tried and they resulted in too many respondents declining to answer, or only answering with a request for a follow up.
Also, if Trump somehow loses the nomination, and President DeSantis or Scott pardons Trump, what reason will he give? Actual innocence? Nope. National unity.
To get to what the polling finding means: While there is a lot of polarization in America, it is not as great as one might think reading threads like this. Some two-time Trump voters care so much about protecting classified documents that they will be pleased if DJT is fairly convicted and jailed for it (William Barr). And some kindhearted consistent Democratic voters will be comfortable with almost any proposed pardon of anyone.
Remember, the classification of the documents is not an element of the crime. It must pertain to the national defense. So, you are right, it doesn’t matter if it’s China or Iran, but it can’t be a Lemon Cake recipe. The defense lawyers don’t have to take the government’s word for it.
I think the nation needs to understand the seriousness of the threat to national security posed by his theft of the documents and likely sharing of them with inappropriate people. Redact all the names of individuals and nations involved along and redact enough to prevent people from working out those names. Make the redacted portion public. Then show a less redacted portion in court.
A pardon should be off the table. Hitler went to prison, got out, and took over his country. We don’t want to repeat that. Lock him up with the maxium sentences for each and every charge for which he will be convicted of. He is a greater threat to the US than the confederacy and Hitler combined. He cannot be allowed anywhere near any public office again.
I dare say you’re correct. Republican voters only care about hurting people different from themselves and owning the libs. Nothing else matters. If they have to throw away democracy in order to oppress others, that’s a price they’re all too willing to pay.
Why not? Someone somewhere decided the recipe should be classified, the document containing it was duly marked, and the person taking it knew that it was so marked. The fact that the person taking it might have thought it was over-classified is irrelevant. There are procedures in place for challenging classifications and getting something declassified. Doing it with one’s mind doesn’t count.
My understanding has been that they have to prove they’re national defense secrets because they charged him with willful retention of national defense documents.
I assume they could have charged him with mishandling (or whatever) of classified material and then just the fact that they’re classified would be all that’s needed.
At least that’s how I’m making sense of it. I have to assume if I had a banana that was marked Top Secret, I’d be in trouble and no one would have to prove whether or not it should have been classified, just that it was.
How can I identify Classified National Security Information?
There are three basic tests that you can apply to determine whether a document contains classified information:
…
There should be a classification marking on the top and bottom of every page of the document. Very old documents may have markings only on the top of the first page. In more recent documents, individual paragraphs may also be marked with markings like “(S)” for Secret or “(C)” for Confidential.
The document should not be marked as declassified. A declassification marking should look like an official stamp that indicates the name and office of the person who authorized the declassification action. A copy of a declassified document from the National Archives and Records Administration should include a marking that includes a project number starting with “NND” or “NW.”
It is National Security Information if has been declared such, and is properly marked. You may not like ‘Take our word for it,’ but that’s the way it works. Something is classified, and the agency responsible tells you it is. Consider this: ‘How do I know whether that container contains a lethal amount of plutonium? You have to let me look inside.’ Isn’t it more reasonable to take the word of the container’s ‘owner’?
Trump’s lawyers, upon recognizing that he has no case, will impress upon the DOJ the difficulties, both practical and political, of sentencing Trump to prison time or even house arrest. Imposing a sentence that requires him to stay home during campaign season is not a good look, politically. Imposing a jail sentence that starts after the election, a sentence that will be suspended or deferred if he wins, turns the 2024 election into a referendum on sending Trump to jail. Then you have the Secret Service issue.
They will manage to negotiate a plea deal - no contest and some sort of suspended sentence for the 31 counts of willful rentention, probably.
Trump will spin that as a win, spouting stuff stuff like I beat the DOJ, they don’t get their kangaroo court trial” and “The DOJ realized they were wrong and let me off without doing anything, I can go where I want and do what I want” and “I willfully retained the documents because they were mine, Bill Clinton’s sock drawer”, he’ll get no pushback for publicly contradicting his plea.
We’ll get to yuck it up every time he has to go see his probation officer but it won’t hurt him politically.
I just spent half an hour reading all about the Sandy Berger case. I hate to say this, but it’s damning. He should have done jail time, for sure*.
(He was trying to destroy archival documents that the congressional 9/11 hearings commission was about to read — documents that he and/or Bill
Clinton felt suggested the Clinton Administration hadn’t dealt with Al Qaeda forcefully enough. It’s weird, because one of the documents showed how well the administration had thwarted the Millenium multi-plane bombing olan, and had implemented security and intelligence improvements in its wake. There was one email where Berger/Clinton chose to not launch some proposed attack on Bin Laden — I guess that could have been politically damaging to the historical record/legacy.)
*Legally and morally this doesn’t absolve Trump of anything, for sure — but it is useful ammo for his supporters, regarding sentencing.
It’s not a difficult question. “Are you in favor of pardoning Trump?” Everyone knows what that question means. It’s impossible to misinterpret. The only way that question could possibly test poorly would be if they found that there were too many people saying “no”, when that’s not the answer they were looking for.
Still, we can learn something from @PhillyGuy’s defense of the phrasing of the question, which is “How do push-polls work?” With a question carefully phrased to evoke one particular response, you or I might still go “What a bullshit question, designed to get me to answer it in a predictable way!”, but others will say, “Sounds fair to me, and when you put it like that, yeah, I’ll go with ‘saving the country years of divisiveness and strife.’” If the question were more loaded, more folks would suss its goal out, and if it were less loaded, it wouldn’t get the desired response.
I hear you — but I should mention that Berger did tell a bunch of lies to hide his misdeeds, so for a certain time period (a week or two?), even that had parallels. Certainly, when first caught, he didn’t “fully cooperate” like Biden or Pence.
Please take your discussion re the validity of polls and polling methods elsewhere.
I’m also going to mention that you both have a propensity to take threads off topic and don’t closely regard the actual subjects under discussion before posting what you want.
Please be mindful of this, because the hijackings are getting tedious.
Maybe — because I for one doubt the threat is that great. Even a normal President should only be given policy papers, not raw reports from spies with clearly identifiable information. I suspect that Trump got even less.
I don’t buy your great man theory. Germans did not believe they were defeated on the battlefield in 1918, so a second round was inevitable, with blame for the loss in 1918 put on the shadowy power of the Jews. Consider:
If the U.S. is set for authoritarianism, DeSantis can do it better than Trump, simply because of being a lot younger. Saying lock ‘em up may work for authoritarians, but it won’t stop them. If Trump is guilty, convict him, but thinking it will do anything to stop a slide into authoritarianism makes no sense to me.