Agree - I’ll amend to say it’s unnecessary for me.
No one act. It’s an overall balance of the harm (or potential harm, since with a guy like Trump the range of what might conceivably happen is very very broad) versus the potential benefits.
FTR I personally would be very pleased if Trump was impeached immediately - or even better - if he died tomorrow (a lot faster and less messy). But I appreciate that people can disagree about such matters without being traitors.
You should too. The notion that people who disagree with your assessments and values in political matters are “traitors” is itself “a threat to our nation”.
Not every proposition is subject to debate, or has two legitimate “sides.”
Generally, of course, you are right. People can disagree politically without being “traitors.”
Would you say, “I don’t think the University of Mississippi should exclude black students, and I would like to see it desegregated immediately, but I can see how some may disagree without being racists.”
As established repeatedly, these are not normal times. There is no legitimate argument that Trump is not incompetent, unethical, and dangerous. Those who fail to acknowledge it are either spineless, corrupt themselves, or guilty of knowingly supporting someone who is putting our nation in unprecedented peril.
Not to mention that the idea of Trump as a pig-ignorant, laughably unqualified buffoon who’s prone to dishonesty, temper tantrums, rash and uninformed decisions, juvenile mockery and self-aggrandizing behavior is so completely at odds with what we do know about the man, right? Just call it what it is, Bob: fiction!
It all depends on the disagreement. If Trump were to order action to start the mass murder of immigrants, then hopefully you’d agree that those Republicans in office who did not push back on this as hard as they could could be reasonably described as traitors (rhetorically, not legally, speaking). Somewhere between this and a 2% disagreement on the highest marginal tax rate lies the present circumstances, and folks are going to disagree what qualifies as “traitorous” and “a threat to our nation”.
Maybe we’re using the term “traitor” differently. As I understand it, a traitor is someone who appreciates that his actions harm his country but does it anyway, whether for personal gain or for other reasons.
Someone who supported mass murder of immigrants wouldn’t be a traitor unless they agreed that this harmed the country. Their support would reflect badly on them in other ways, of course. But nothing to do with treason.
I think the number of Trump supporters who appreciate that - on balance - Trump is harmful to the country but support him for personal gain or other reasons is minuscule at most.
I don’t think the disagreement is about my assessment of the threat. Such disagreement does not make one a traitor. I think most GOP Senators rightly believe most of what Woodward reports here.
What makes one a traitor is seeing the obvious facts (sharing my assessment) but concluding that lining your pockets (Collins, others) or pursuing petty policy goals (Ryan, others) is worth risking core things which cannot be easily fixed. That willingness to put party over country is treachery, in my book.
I agree with the last sentence. These people have actually met Trump :).
But they might believe that “most of what Woodward reports here” is very unlikely to actually result in serious harm to the nation. That’s my best guess (as to what they believe).
In addition, they might also believe that there’s not much they can do in terms of opposition (short of impeachment) that would lessen the threat to the nation. The Trump craziness of the type Woodward describes is not something GOP senators have control over.
For better or worse (mostly the latter, of course) Trump was legitimately elected, and as long as he’s here there’s no reason for any legislator to oppose legislation that he or she thinks will benefit the country just in the name of futile opposition to Trump.
The only meaningful opposition is impeachment or 25th Amendment. I suppose if Woodward’s book spurs politicians into action on either of these fronts, that would be a positive. But I don’t know if that will happen (for a combination of technical and political reasons).
I understand “traitor” as someone who betrays the country and its people and aids the enemy. Based on our history, I think the greatest enemy, by far, of the American people, are white supremacists – thus aiding and abetting white supremacists is traitorous. So that’s why I think it fits for the mass-murder hypothetical.
But more broadly speaking, I think “traitor” is being used nowadays as someone doing significant medium and long-term harm to the country, and betraying various principles that have guided the country, which also very reasonably fits Trump and those who aid and abet him, IMO.
Agreed.
I agree, Rick, and I had the same reaction. Republican Senators could end this by switching their party affiliation. The Very Serious and Concerned senators like Sasse & Flake, who love to give speeches about how bad Trump is refuse to take any action against him.
That makes them complicit.
That doesn’t strike me as a belief one can reasonably reach if you accept the predicate facts. Is the idea that some staffer will always save the day by relying on Trump’s lack of object permanence?
Even if they concluded that the only leverage they had was impeachment (and I do not agree and doubt they agree), then doing things like blocking and messing with congressional investigations is treacherous (see, e.g., Nunes, others). By and large, they do not believe that the public should be informed about what Trump has done and is doing. Paul Ryan claims not even to read the news about Trump.
OK, I don’t want to quibble over semantics but will just note my belief that the term is commonly used along the lines I described, and another use risks confusing the matter.
Ditto, but would further note that by this definition all liberals would be traitors from a conservative perspective and vice versa. I don’t think this is helpful.
Which is why pointless speeches and fleeing their jobs are the acts of complicit traitors.
Nah, do it Orient Express-style during a staff meeting. One man, one stab. White togas preferred, but not strictly necessary.
Since this is my OP, I’d like to express that the talk of assassination is gross. We need more rule of law, not less.
I don’t think so – before Trump I would not have characterized most Republicans in office as “betraying various principles that have guided the country” (the only ones who might qualify would be nuts like Steve King and Louie Gohmert), and I’d only have characterized some of them as “doing significant medium and long-term harm to the country”.
One way or another. And most issues are not such high stakes.
Nunes is a House member and you were talking about GOP senators - the Senate investigation has been depicted by the media as largely bipartisan and sober. But even as to Nunes, what exactly has Nunes done in this regard? He’s pushed back on the Russia issue, that’s all. (As noted at length in other threads, I don’t think Trump colluded with Russians to hack the election, but that doesn’t mean I think Trump is not an emotionally stunted and unstable incompetent and unqualified idiot. These are separate issues.)
As others have noted in this thread, it’s not like this stuff is a secret. For anyone receptive to the possibility, Trump’s inadequacies are pretty obvious. I don’t see that GOP leaders have suppressed this, or tried to.
I agree with this, because the precedent of political assassinations is itself extremely damaging to the country. But it’s also true that Trump’s death would definitely make the country and the world a better place. So while it’s terrible precedent to actually kill him, that shouldn’t mean one can’t just hope he just dies on his own. 
Completely agree. We don’t want him martyred. He belongs in prison.
Thirded.