He’s actively, deliberately ignorant, with profound narcissism functioning as a mental impairment. He has no ideology, no philosophy, no core than self-gratification. Such a person could be a “traitor,” but I don’t think it’s really particularly productive to get into dictionary pissing contests over it. He’s harmful and his only concerns are his own fame and assets.
I am willing to bet Bricker has Article III, Section 3 of the US Constitution ready to deploy:
By definition a traitor is a person who commits treason so in the US the above is the answer to, “What it means to be a traitor.” (At least legally…rhetorically it is whatever you want it to be.)
The trick then is to define what constitutes an “enemy” to the US and what constitutes “aid and comfort” for this purpose.
It would be just as easy to argue that FDR was working for Hitler and was just really bad at it.
In order to even entertain such crazy notions one should be able to point to actions which he has taken that advance the interests of Russia at the expense of American interests, the fact that no one has should show you this is just another crazy conspiracy theory.
Perhaps “Treason” is a better word? Traitor has multiple connotations and baggage. Treason is helping the enemy.
Russia is an enemy. Maybe an enemy that we can do business with, and co-exist with, but still an enemy.
Trump just spent the past week publicly driving a wedge into the NATO alliance, calling into question the base tenet of NATO mutual defense, and on a global stage declared support for Putin over the US intelligence community. Treason seems to be a fair summation.
Accepting Russia’s aid to win the election (if demonstrated to be true) was arguably an act of treason all by itself. Would an enemy really offer such aid without a quid-pro-quo?
Even if Putin’s only real goal was to install the biggest idiot possible in the White House, Trump has fulfilled his wildest dreams.
Trump is like a government worker with gambling debts in the bad old days, who could be subject to blackmail. Or who had some “morals” problem. Is it easier to go along with the person who knows my secret or suffer the consequences. His empire would fall apart if the banks under Putin’s control called his loans. I bet that is more of a factor than the piss tape.
He is stupid, yes, or more accurately does not have enough attention span to read an entire intelligence briefing, but you don’t know a PhD from Georgetown to know the value of NATO and that Canadians are better friends of the US than Russians.
Traitor? Maybe not. Traitorous. Definitely.
Maybe we could use definition #1 but definition #2 is the one with possible legal consequences.
Well, just talking about my gut interpretation, and not about the letter of any law, treason consists of attempting to subvert or undermine your country’s government and/or national interests; taking actions which have the predictable result of making your country subservient to a foreign power.
I could certainly offer a definition of national interests, but I don’t believe it’s possible to arrive at any definition that would be universally agreed upon.
I would hope we could nearly universally agree that secretly accepting aid from foreign intelligence agents to gain an advantage in your political campaign, in exchange for agreeing to allow those agents to dictate foreign policy once you are elected, is acting against the national interest.
WRT Vietnam, the vast majority of both the people who believed it was important for our country to demonstrate resolve against Communism and the people who believed that the war was bankrupting us, killing our sons for no useful purpose, and degrading our moral stature were sincerely trying to uphold the national interest as they understood it, and thus were not traitors. Even if their methods of protest involved violent crimes, that would not necessarily make them traitors.
There was a tiny minority of people who wanted to foment a violent Communist revolution, and viewed participation in war protests as a means to that end. I would say they could fairly be considered traitors, and if they were actually knowingly receiving advice, direction and/or financial support from agents of a foreign government, then definitely traitors.
I would suggest weakening the US relationship with NATO (which Trump did) and the US starting a trade war among its closest trading partners (which Trump seems to be trying to do) are definitely in the best interests of Russia.
Not to mention further polarizing the US electorate and undermining the media (which Trump does practically daily). All great destabilizing things Russia likes to see (they worked towards that goal after all).
More concretely Trump opposed sanctions against Russia.
The news conference where he threw over his own country’s security analysts to support Putin was just a couple of days ago! You might find it easy to argue that FDR was working for Hitler, but anyone with actual respect for and knowledge of history wouldn’t support such a weak argument.
He is a traitor, albeit not in the strict legal sense.
I used to think maybe he was just stupid. There is no longer any question that Trump is doing the bidding of the Russian Federation, and deliberately betraying his country to do so. Why I do not know, but there is no other reasonable explanation.
I can. Russian attacked the United States in an effort to damage its apparatus of state and destabilize it as a nation. Trump’s duty as President is to fight back, to prevent further attacks, and to incorporate this ongoing threat into the American plan of national defense. Instead he has deliberately helped Russia in its efforts to attack the USA. He has done this by denying their role in the attack, denying its existence, and refusing to take action to prevent further attacks. Those are the actions of a traitor, in the general sense.
Trump defenders seem to insist that “enemy” can only apply to a nation with whom we are in a formally declared state of war, and since we are not at war with Russia, he can’t have committed treason, therefore STUPID LIBTARDS HURR HURR HURR.
Of course, that’s ridiculous. It might be relevant to a discussion involving actual criminal charges of treason, but that’s IMO goalpost moving to distract from alleged-but-increasingly-plausible conduct which clearly (a)meets the common sense definition of treason and (b) involves the commission of multiple serious felonies.
The Rosenbergs, for instance, were clearly traitors, despite the fact that AFAIK they were never literally charged with the crime of treason, but were convicted of “espionage”.
So I think Trump is a traitor, and will refer to him as such in ordinary conversation, but if he ends up going to prison with convictions for money laundering and being an unregistered agent of a foreign power rather than treason, I won’t mind.
The stupidest thing I’ve heard in the last couple of days? The fairy tale Trumpettes tell themselves and others that Trump laid down the law in that private meeting with Putin, then pretended to defer to him in public just to let Putin save face. ( :rolleyes: 'til the cows come home).
Steve Chapman in today’s Trib had this to say:
Thought it well phrased.
That’s perfect.
This has already been explained repeatedly and at length.
Except that “treason” has a specific legal definition under the Constitution. If I wanted your opinion, I’d post in IMHO or MPSIMS.
If you wanted a factual answer you should have posted in GQ, and if you wanted a legal opinion you should have gone to The Supreme Court…and even they would deliberate rather than give a snap judgment.
One which has been met.
The definition of “High crimes and misdemeanors” is a little more open-ended.
He is acting in Russia’s best interests and against the US’s best interests, and is doing so without care that he is acting against the US’s best interests. There is likely some law that he is violating in doing so, and he has certainly violated many other laws, and continues to do so.
None of that, however, meets the Constitution’s definition of treason. There are other, more colloquial, definitions of treason which do match, but none of those other definitions is as relevant as the definition in the Constitution.
Furthermore, declaring him a traitor is a tactical blunder, because his supporters have an easy defense against that specific charge, and by defending against that charge, it enables them to simultaneously pretend that all of the many other charges don’t exist, and that his accusers are unhinged.
Call him a sexual assailant, call him a tax evader, call him an obstructor of justice, call him a fraudster, and yes, call him a foreign agent. But don’t call him a traitor.