Plus “political opponent”?. Since when has Alvin Bragg announced he was running for President against Trump?
About that… 
The U.S. isn’t quite as bad as that, but, unfortunately, it does make it much harder.
Nor should there be.
Consider:
By itself, a criminal conviction should not disqualify for lower offices, and same goes for the presidency.
Unless the crime was election related, like say calling a Secretary of State and asking to find 11,000 votes. Or inciting an insurrection. But what do I know, it’s not like he’s been charged with a crime for either of those acts.
In TFG’s world, you’re either a rabid supporter or a “political opponent”. There is no such thing as an honest, or disinterested, or honestly disinterested, party.
I agree with this, although maybe not for your reasons.
My standard may be – is the action bad enough that it would cause me to vote for a median Republican, if a Democrat had done it? In this case – yes. I would vote for Mitch McConnell over a Democrat who called a Secretary of State asking to find 11,000 votes. Democracy outweighs ideology for me.
This is a tough one.
Clearly, and with some detail, ordering supporters to violently overthrow the government is properly a crime. But incitement, especially with Trump’s vague language as an example (“Be There. Will Be Wild!”), seems to me like something that a 1970’s radicalism-friendly Democrat might have said before a demonstration that turned violent. I’m old-fashioned conservative enough to dislike that. But it shouldn’t necessarily be disqualifying when the alternative is, as it probably would be, a median 2023 Republican.
Under the U.S. Constution, someone who incited insurrection can be barred from office. The model here was Jeffereson Davis and his generals. They much more clearly incited specific acts of mass death insurrection than Trump has. The idea of stopping a lesser insurrectionist like Trump, from running for office, strikes me as highly anti-democratic.
P.S. Hope I’m not raining too hard on the parade of those who feel joy over the idea of Trump being held accountable. I just don’t have it in me to feel that.
Fair points. I was more thinking along the lines of the “fight like hell” business during the speech to the crowd, but I suppose that’s also in the gray area.
The guy literally called a private army together and sacked the Capitol. Banning him from running for the Presidency is anything but ‘anti-democratic’. My God, if a deposed Pope conspires to sack the Vatican, you don’t make him Pope again.
My casual comment back there about Trump’s continued eligibility to run for prez seems to be taking this thread a bit off topic, but I’ll just say one more thing and leave it at that. It’s obviously not just one action, but a whole string of criminality – the shady connections with Putin, the criminal financial malfeasance of his company, the manipulation of the FBI and Justice departments and the firing of Comey, the insurrection, the meddling in the election in Georgia, the whole ridiculous narrative of election lies, the incessant lying, the 30-odd charges stemming from the sleazy Stormy Daniels case, and much, much more.
Consider it from this perspective. A candidate for president is required by the Constitution to be a native-born American. Why? Because the founders feared that a citizen who was foreign-born might not have the complete undivided loyalty to the USA that was necessary in someone holding a position of such power. Yet Trump showed, in the infamous Helsinki summit, that he had greater loyalty to Vladimir Putin – an enemy of the US and now a wanted war criminal – than he did to his own country, to its security, and to its institutions, all of which he was happy to shit upon. He was happy to shatter all democratic norms in order to stay in power after being voted out in 2020. So I’m just expressing my amazement and disgust that he’s freely running for president again, and getting support for it.
It is amazing that he has a good chance of bring the next U.S. president despite all the obnoxious statements we all probable remember. But a lot of them had been uttered before he won in 2016.
What’s not amazing is that a demagogue can run in a democratic election. That’s normal democracy – the worst system except for all the rest. If Trump isn’t nominated, some other Republican will have an even better chance of winning in November 2024. It might even be another demagogue, maybe one who will spend as much time ginning up fear of trans youth as undocumented immigrants.
Or it might be a Republican who is a bit better (Haley). But I wouldn’t predict that. I think the safest thing for democracy is to let Trump run, regardless of what happens wIth the Bragg or other cases.
It may be getting a bit far afield, but …
We’ve all discussed why Biden’s and Pence’s “classified documents went home with me” situations are materially and profoundly different from Trump’s (essentially, the vastly different responses of each person upon either discovering, or being told, that classified material was wrongfully in their possession and must be returned).
The pre-insurrection events, similarly, get much needed context from the during- and after-insurrection actions by TFG, all militating toward his intent and guilt.
IOW: If you were the President, and you were NOT bothered by rioters attacking the Capitol of the United States of America on January 6th and trying to hang your Vice-President, then you are a profoundly broken man, or you were consciously attempting to foment an overthrow of the government, or both.
If you WERE bothered, then why would you spend hours eating burgers, watching the carnage unfold on Fox News, and trying to get Republican Senators on the phone to convince them to help you overthrow a legitimate election?
/hijack
You’re putting it too mildly. Trump took part in an act of war against the United States. That is the very definition of treason, under the Constitution.
Yep, last week I served on a jury in Dallas for a crime that happened in the summer of 2019. The defendant was arrested in the fall of 2020. If any of Trump’s trials take two and a half years after arraignment I’ll be very disappointed.
So much to the right for a public and speedy trial…
I’d imagine that saying “there are pending charges against me” makes it very difficult to find work. Being exonerated for a crime you didn’t committ could easily ruin you.
What makes you think that their right to a speedy trial was violated? Usually delays like that are because of negotiations from the defense. I’m sure that the first time seeing a judge was timely.
To be fair: what’s the backstory on that one? For all I know, the prosecution would’ve gladly put him on trial within a week of arresting him, and he’s the guy who said, please, sir, can I have some more time?
The right exists, but it can – and often is – waived by defendants. Usually it’s so their attorneys can be better prepared for trial. At other times, it’s employed solely as a weapon to delay proceedings. Can you guess which motivation I suspect Trump has?
Wait! Wait! I know this one!
Fair enough, but the story was posted as an example of the courts being so backed up that trials are delayed; I agree that we don’t know enough about this specific situation to know what the root cause was.
We in the jury didn’t get a very satisfactory explanation for the delays. It took over a year for him to be arrested because, well, something like… the crime happened in Dallas county but he lived in Collin county, and it got investigated and thrown over the wall to the part of the police that does arrests, and they were really behind and didn’t make it a priority (the charge was assault with a deadly weapon, the victim was shot in the arm with a handgun).
Then after that, the only explanation we were given as to why it took 2 1/2 more years to come to trial was “these things take time” and COVID.
ETA: these explanations came after the trial when the judge and attorneys came to talk to the jury.