He should have been jailed for jackhammering the Bonwit Teller Building sculptures, back in the day.
It’s unclear if he meant that. He said Trump is illegitimate because of Russian hacking. Whether that means fair in the legal sense or fair in a moral sense is open to interpretation. As a contrast, Michael Moore said Trump is illegitimate because he lost by two million votes, which is a moral argument against the legitimacy of the EC as a means of choosing leaders, not its legality.
I voted “legitimate” because Trump is basically America made flesh.
Insufficient evidence. I have no idea whether he and his campaign did, in fact, collude with the Russians, but I think it is plausible that they did, and if evidence turns up that they did, I reserve the right to regard him as illegitimate.
You mean poster BigT hates President BigT?
Bwahahahaha.
So every Republican elected is due to a tainted election? Even Reagan who destroyed Mondale by 16,878,120 votes out of 92,032,824*?
You are funny.
Slee
*Note, I gave the overall vote total as, iirc, you seem to think it matters when it is the EC that counts. Reagan destroyed Mondale in EC as well, 525 to 13.
To the extent that the entire government is illegitimate, so is whoever is at the helm.
But Trump was elected legitimately according to the laws of the land at the time of his election, no matter what ill-gotten-but-accurate information Russia might have leaked during the campaign.
Well said. I have never felt that America deserved Trump, because I don’t believe in deserts, and regard that as being a rotten moral system, usurping the Prerogative of God, but sure as Hell, America matches Trump.
Not long ago I read of American hospitals still dumping the homeless — not for one minute would I suggest Trump would condone this, these are the actions of ordinary people; but a nation comfortable with cruelty can never see the Face of God.
And I saw nothing from either party manifesto ( save maybe from Bernie ) to suggest the desperately poor were a priority.
February 9, 2007; Los Angeles. A hospital van dropped off a homeless paraplegic man on Skid Row and left him crawling in the street with nothing more than a soiled gown and a broken colostomy bag, police said… Wikipedia
Voted “no” but I reserve the right to change my mind if more evidence comes out showing that foreign influence clearly altered the outcome. I find that to be very unlikely, but none-the-less I think it is possible.
He won and it’s over. The data is there. The electors have spoken. He may have not won the popular vote, but then again, so did George W. Bush, and nobody was complaining about those results.
Illegitimate President? I think not.
I sure hope you’re joking.
Trump won by the rules that were in place. That makes him the president.
I’d like to see some of those rules changed. I’d like our voting procedures to be so rigorous that there isn’t even any question about security, eligibility, or recounts. I’d like an end to gerrymandering. I’d like the nominees not to be picked just by Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. I’d like to have the same opportunity to meet with politicians as someone who donates a million dollars to their PAC.
I mean, the whole point of democracy is to try to tap into the will of the people. And if that will doesn’t always agree with my own, I can live with that. But I think we could make a lot of improvements to the process by which we measure it.
Well, what I mean by complaining, there wasn’t people protesting on December 19th, damaging businesses and having a low approval rating (didn’t George W. Bush get higher than 60% approval?)
In the spirit of bipartisanship, I’ll reach out to you across the aisle and link you to the dictionary, where you will be surprised and delighted to learn that words have many different meanings. I direct your attention especially to definitions 3 and 4b.
He went up to about 90% after 9/11
62% average in first term
37% average in second term
low point 25%
I don’t understand how someone who won’t release his tax record is eligible for public office but hey, it’s your country.
I believe that the vote count is correct. However, I also find it entirely plausible that Russian propaganda influenced many to sit out voting for Hillary. Minus that, we could plausibly have had a different president.
That doesn’t make Trump illegally the President. But it could be argued that it makes him illegitimately the President.
The difference being…?
The difference between property and stolen property. One is legitimate and the other isn’t.
If the election were stolen, then the President would not be legitimate (per some definitions of the word; as Left Hand of Dorkness pointed out, the dictionary offers several.)
Here’s an idea. Start your own thread or threads asking the question using other definitions rather than trying to shoehorn your own in to this one.
Suggestion offered in the spirit of bipartisanship.
Not necessarily the best example, but let’s say that a man is arrested for a heinous and gruesome murder. He’s legally charged, legally prosecuted, legally declared guilty by a randomly selected group of his peers, and legally jailed. Eventually, he is legally executed by the state.
But the reality is that someone else was guilty of the crime.
Was the man legally executed of the crime? Yes.
Was this execution based on the correct premises? No. The process failed. If the process had worked as intended, the correct person would have been executed.
“Legitimacy” isn’t really the correct word for this situation, hence why I said it could be “argued”. You would have to stretch the definition of the word a bit. But certainly, it’s reasonable to say that if it had really been an election by and for the American people - which is the intent - the result could have been different.