Survey on Trump-targeted nuisance lawsuits

[Bricker]

@CairoCarol

I’d be interested to hear from Bricker how he feels about the results so far.

Bricker: Is the fact that a solid 2/3 of respondents either disagree or strongly disagree in line with what you expected the Dope denizens to say? Or did you think that overall we’d be more of the mindset, “Bring it on, because Trump is such an asshole he deserves any grief we can fling at him, fair or not?”

Yes, I did think that.

But I’m not sure these results rule that out. For example:

@Little_Nemo

I voted disagree but I’ll admit to mixed feelings on this one.

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I feel Trump is a terrible President. Ideally, we could deal with that within our existing legal system. Congress would hold investigations to determine if there is merit to the serious allegations that have been made against Trump and then if the allegations are found to be true, they would remove him from office. Trump is not too big a problem for our legal system to handle.

The problem is the system isn’t being used. Trump himself infamously said that he could commit murder and his supporters would still defend him. And Congress seems more interested in defending the Republican Party than defending the United States.

Nuisance lawsuits are a bad thing but they’re not illegal. (Which makes it ironic that Bricker, of all people, is posting this poll.) And I’m at least considering that these particular lawsuits might be serving a good purpose by bringing public attention to Trump’s wrongdoings and thereby eroding the base of true believers which allows him to ignore the law. If Trump’s popularity dips then the rest of the political and legal system might become willing to do its job.

That’s an example of a person who voted disagree but in discussion reveals more willingness to tolerate lawsuits that don’t actually win because they serve secondary goals more in line with “Bring it on,” although certainly more nuanced.

[John_Mace]

The poster you were responding to already noted that disagreement wasn’t unanimous. I’m not sure what you think is so remarkable about the fact that you found an example, or even few examples, of folks who want to annoy Trump for whatever reason. It’s a rare position that you can’t find a few people around her to agree with.

[snoe]

@Bricker

Yes, I did think that.

But I’m not sure these results rule that out. For example:

It’s almost as though this survey was inevitably going to provide some evidence of your opponents’ supposed intellectual dishonesty, no matter what the overall results.

[Little_Nemo]

@Doug_K

Yes they are, although it’s a civil tort. It’s called malicious proseution.

I don’t think this meets that standard. The charges involved here are not baseless or frivolous.

[Little_Nemo]

@Bricker

That’s an example of a person who voted disagree but in discussion reveals more willingness to tolerate lawsuits that don’t actually win because they serve secondary goals more in line with “Bring it on,” although certainly more nuanced.

I said I disagree and I meant it.

But - and this is an attitude that’s too rarely seen in political discussions - I try to understand both sides of the argument before deciding how I personally feel.

[Doug_K]

@Little_Nemo

I don’t think this meets that standard. The charges involved here are not baseless or frivolous.

This was a response to this:

@Little_Nemo

Nuisance lawsuits are a bad thing but they’re not illegal.

Nuisance suits are baseless and/or frivolous.

[DigitalC]

I disagree with the sentiment because i think the majority of the lawsuits are absolutely merited.

[D.E.S.K.Top668]

While I may not agree that your specific examples are baseless and/or frivolous, I went with “Strongly Disagree” because I loathe nuisance lawsuits on principle, regardless of who is being targeted.

[Roland_Orzabal]

The trouble here is that the sentiment is actually two sentiments, one of which I agree with, and another which I don’t.

I certainly do care whether the allegations being levied against Trump are valid. If they aren’t, he should face no penalty, and I’ll even go so far as to say that if those who brought them against him can be found to have reasonably known that they were invalid, those people should face legal penalties for their actions. I believe this about allegations against any person, Trump included.

On the other hand, Trump is a bag of dogshit, and anything that happens that momentarily prevents him from doing anything further to harm the country at least has that going for it, whatever else I may think of its other merits (or lack thereof).

So, I disagree with the first sentence and agree with the second. To be a good sport, I picked the middle poll option anyway.

ETA: To be clear, I don’t approve of filing baseless lawsuits against Trump (or anyone else) even if I otherwise approve of the results. The ends never justify the means. Doesn’t make the ends inherently bad, though.

[RTFirefly]

@Bricker

“I don’t really care if the lawsuits against Trump – emoluments, First Amendment Twitter blocking, etc – are truly merited or not. Even if they’re baseless, they serve an important public goal in distracting Trump and making him spend energy defending himself, and the more time he does that, the less he has to create messes in governing the country.”

I see quotation marks. Are you quoting someone else, or yourself? Or are you quoting what the imaginary liberal in your head says, that you think matches up with what a lot of real liberals are saying?

One real problem with the first quoted sentence is that for most of us, the only way we know for sure how substantive a lawsuit is, is what happens when it gets to court.

And speaking for myself, such suits occupy a very tiny corner of my Trump-related thoughts, especially given that a more serious investigation is underway that (a) appears to be taking on the most serious Constitutional and legal issues related to this Administration, and (b) seems to be doing a far better job of distracting Trump than all those other suits put together could possibly do.