Tom Rinaldo
Tom Rinaldo's JournalTrump's huge legal costs are a huge bonanza for all Democratic candidates
Go Fund Me pages that need to be supported to help poor billionaire Trump, $400 sneakers that must be bought and worn to affirm one's 's cult loyalty to Trump, the RNC soon to be put under the direct control of Trump kin about to empty its coffers to pay Trump's lawyers,. Some GOP candidates may be well enough connected to get the funds they need to compete in November, but you know damn well hundreds of others will be hurting this fall as the Trump Grift, Graft and Greed ,machine vacuums up any available dollars left to be found in the wallets of his gullible followers.
Trump's lawyers are providing a true public service by diverting all of that money into their own well tailored vest pockets, beyond the reach of Republican pols from school board candidates on up. And Trumps' fleecing of the right wing masses is still in its early stages. What's next, Trump beer for Mom and Dad and Mar-a-Lago themed doll houses and toy Trump Jets for the kiddies?
GOP party loyalty is a lagging indicator. The diehards are the last to die
Independents have swung more toward Biden in large part because more and more ex-Republicans now consider themselves Independents. Relatively sane people feel out of place in a party that increasingly manifests as crazed and craven simultaneously. So they leave. Which leaves extremists left holding the bag. Which means any remaining Republicans are loath to find any common ground with Democrats who they increasingly view as "the enemy." Which just drives more even semi-sane Republicans out of that party fold, making the party more extreme still.
So it's not surprising that the current crop of "establishment Republicans" are so stridently Trump loyalists. They appeal to an ever narrower sliver of voters in order to remain in power, since they can't win in a general election without getting past a Republican primary first. Meanwhile State Party officials are selected by hard core party activists who have purged voices of reason from their ranks in behind closed doors showdowns, so there's no room for sanity left inside of Republican Party structures either.
The Republican Party is in the early to middle stages of a death spiral, boiling itself down to a toxic sludge. They must undermine democracy to keep their hold on power. Trump is as much a product of that dynamic as he is a driver of it.
"Hypocrisy, thy name is Republican"
Anyone want to play a game?
DU offers a cornucopia of news tidbits showcasing the hypocrisy of note worthy Republicans, at both the local and national levels. I thought it might be fun to launch a thread that gathers together, in one place, as many illustrative examples of glaring Republican hypocrisy as possible. Potential examples are almost infinite, I realize, but I think if we set a target of 25 blatant instances, that would offer an impressive cumulative indictment of Republican values.
Anything distinct examples of Republican hypocrisy from the last six months or so is fair game to include, whether breaking or recycled news. The goal isn't so much to tell us anything that we don't already know, but to connect the hypocritical dots to present a vivid picture of today's Republican Party.
OK, this is the from a different thread now up on DU. It 's something almost everyone has already heard of by now, but it is a damn good example, agreed? Anyway, it's what got me thinking along these lines. I invite you to add other examples, be they of religious, sexual, political or any other form of hypocrisy expressed. Republicans in Congress have been busy beavers in this regard
"Former Florida GOP chair Christian Ziegler and his wife, Bridget—known for promoting “family values” and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric—first had a sexual encounter with his rape accuser in 2021 as they “hunted” for a threesome partner, the Daily Beast reports."
Our freedom to protest U.S and/or Israel policy toward the Palestinians may be temporary
It is pretty much assured under President Biden, but severely in doubt if Trump regains the Presidency. I hope those who might consider withholding their votes from Biden in November keep that in mind. Trump is already threatening to take over Democratic run cities to fight crime. He has plans to use the U.S. military to crush "civil unrest". To Trump that means suppressing and criminalizing overwhelmingly peaceful protests. Trump also wants to reinstate his Muslim ban. With some window dressing changes and a more sympathetic Supreme Court he probably can if he wins in November. He is not at all sympathetic to Palestinians, nor to those who protest on their behalf.
White Americans, and to a significantly lesser extent non-White Americans, take for granted. certain liberties. Anti-establishment protestors here face harassment (and in relatively rare instances much worse) but we do not live in anything resembling Putin's Russia, or Xi's China. Yet.
There are many things wrong in America. They will not improve if our ability to freely protest and organize is crushed by an authoritarian regime. When dictators come to power they tend to stay in power for a very long time. Think Franco in Spain. Think Pinochet in Chile. Think Putin in Russia. There are literally dozens of examples.
We have so much work to do; work to establish racial justice, work to combat economic inequality, work to restore reproductive rights, work to prevent runaway climate change, solidarity work for oppressed people of this world. But protecting our democracy underlies all of it. In my youth I protested the foreign policy of a Democratic President; LBJ. And yes, under similar circumstances I would do so again if necessary. But I then watched as Richard Nixon succeeded LBJ in the White House. I didn't do enough to prevent it, and much harm came from that. Little did I know at the time that many decades later an authoritarian threat far greater than Richard Nixon would threaten our very democracy.
I would have had to be 21 in 1968 to vote for Hubert H. Humphrey, and I wasn't. Most likely though I wouldn't have even if I was eligible to vote. I probably would have backed a left wing protest candidate. I still remember having felt that way then, and why. I get why someone might do that, but I wouldn't make that mistake now. We can't let the next Supreme Court Justice be another right wing ideologue. We can't squander the critical next four years with a pro fossil fuel energy policy. And we can't risk losing our democracy in the 2024 elections. There is no promise that we could win it back four years later if we do.
It is not essential that anyone who does not feel so inclined show personal loyalty to Joe Biden. But it is essential that he win a second term. In a democracy, should we still be blessed to have a fully functioning one come this time next year, we can work to change U.S. policy, we can even oppose our President regarding it. In a dictatorship we can't, not without the very real threat of long term imprisonment or death. My message to disillusioned leftists is simple. Protest every other day of the year if your convictions demand it, but on November 8th vote for Joe Biden.
Love that Haley beat Trump at his own game
Even if she did it in a less dishonest way. Jumping on the air early with her victory/concession speech won her the maximum eyeballs in the best possible light, allowing her to frame the results as a win, early in the night while the public was still paying attention. That's Tramp's game plan for elections, and she shoved it in his face.
LBJ got 48% of the vote in the 1968 New Hampshire Democratic Primary
That was enough of the vote for him to win it, but not enough of the vote for him to stay in the race, and he subsequently withdrew. Let's see how well Trump does in New Hampshire. Trump only got 51% of the vote in Iowa. Yes LBJ was the incumbent President in 1968, and therefore the degree of support he got from his party in NH was deemed disturbingly low. Trump is not the incumbent, but he is the most recent Republican ex-President and roughly two thirds of Republicans think Biden illegally deposed him, and that Trump should rightfully be President today. The fact that Trump may do no better in New Hampshire than LBJ did when he was "forced" to abandon his bid for President is unlikely to be viewed through that lens, but it hardly indicates that Trump will enter the 2024 campaign in a strong position.
Prediction: 2024 Presidential campaign will break hard against Trump by Labor Day
Currently Trump benefits from the ideal media environment for a grievance saturated crusade. There are tons of far reaching publicity featuring prosecutors out to get him, much of it driven by Trump himself, with far less coverage focused on actual evidence of the crimes Trump committed. In large part that's because prosecutors have not yet presented their case before juries concerning the most serious charges against Trump. The mainstream press covers what's been revealed to date, but mostly only political junkies and hard core anti-Trump partisans are following that prior to actual trials. Meanwhile Trump's base lives predominantly inside a right wing media bubble. And inside that bubble Trump poses as a heroic figure, standing strong against the deep state and a vast left wing conspiracy.
The fact that there is at least the semblance of a Republican primary battle for the Republican nomination, while barely a thought is given to formal Democratic challenges to Biden, works strongly to Trump's advantage. It provides a spotlight for Trump to remain front and center before Republican voters, while his main purported rivals for the nomination continually show him deference, muting direct criticism of Trump while praising the overall impact of his prior time in office.
Much has been said and written in recent years about how Americans now self segregate themselves into separate partisan media audiences. That effect is at its peak during a national primary season. In regards to Trump himself, there has been almost no downside for him to date from the primaries, with his Republican rivals focusing the bulk of their fire on each other, and not on Trump. To some inevitable extent, that will soon begin to shift over the next month or two as the Republican field of candidates continues to shrink, and any remaining "viable" candidates are forced to run against Trump directly rather than remain embroiled in a war for second place.
But the biggest impending change is the presidential campaign itself, after the candidates are selected. It is one of the few remaining periods of time when the isolated media bubbles that increasing numbers of Americans live inside of become at least partially permeable. Well over a billion dollars will be spent by each side communicating its narrative to the American public. And that doesn't take into account the tons of "free" media attention that will be lavished on the presidential election. Biden will have ample new opportunities to make his case directly to the American people, and Trump will be both challenged, and exposed, in ways that he has stage managed against, to his base, over the last year. The national political terrain though will soon be shifting, in ways that intrinsically are threatening to Trump. By Labor Day or thereabouts, I predict, that will be abundantly clear
If there are GOP voters afraid to admit that they don't support Trump (EDITED)
They will be under represented in the Iowa results. NOTE: The initial OP was inaccurate in describing the Iowa Republican Caucus process. It described the process Democrats had been using in Iowa in prior Presidential election years, which involved physically standing with a group who shared your support for a specific candidate. But Republicans use a different process (thank you to those who pointed this out) that theoretically ensures voter privacy but appears subject to potential abuse of that privacy.
The Des Moines Register describes it:
"...In fact, there’s not even a traditional ballot. Republicans typically hand out blank slips of paper, and caucusgoers write down the name of whomever they want to be president...
...Caucus participants write down the name of their preferred candidate for president on the sheet of paper and hand it in...
The results are taken to a table at the front or back of the room and tallied immediately. A representative from each campaign is invited to watch."
Speeches are given at the caucus on behalf of the various candidates before voting begins. Anyone uncomfortable with public acting might have to do some anyway to not be outed as Anti-Trump by their responses, assuming of course that they don't back Trump. Unlike at an actual polling booth, it seems there are no real safeguards against, for an example, an inquisitive spouse attempting to see who their partner is writing in on that blank sheet of paper. Depending on one's personal circumstances, some might find it risky to attempt to write in their true preference for President.
A President, plotting with 34 Senators, can try to overthrow the government without fear of law, according to Trump
They can all be in on it together. If the coup succeeds, well they win. But If it fails then the President can't be criminally prosecuted unless he is first impeached and convicted in the Senate, according to the claim being made by Trump's defense..The Senate needs 67 votes to convict an impeached So 34 Senators enlisting in the coup makes it bullet proof, so to speak. Though Senators who take part in such a plot do not enjoy the same theoretical "Presidential immunity " that Trump claims that he has, they can all be pardoned by the same President who they refused to convict, and thus they too would be beyond the reach of the law.
Far fetched? Not really, if the Court's uphold Trump's logic. Senator's representing just 17 States, including a lot of the most sparsely populated states in the country, could band together to issue Trump (or some future dictatorially inclined President) that Get Out of Jail Free Card in return for a pledge of a pardon should the coup fall short. The United States has not yet reached that degree of organized lunacy, but it is speeding in that direction at break neck speed. If the Courts ruled to allow Presidential immunity, and Trump somehow got back in office, he would have four years to organize that kind of virtually risk free coup.
The GOP blasted Biden when the Taliban overran Kabul.
The GOP blasted Obama when Isis overran Mosul.
The GOP stands in the way of Ukraine receiving the arms needed to defend themselves now.
Who will they blast if the Russians overrun Kiev?
Stupid question, I know. Biden of course. But it won't work. There is not now, nor will there be later, any confusion over who is standing with Ukraine, and who isn't.
For now, for most, Ukraine is just another far away place where some people are suffering. The war in Gaza has largely pushed the war in Ukraine out of "front page" news coverage. All of that changes though if and when Russian troops start to resume making significant territorial conquests inside Ukraine. Especially if any collapse of Ukrainian defenses can directly be traced to the supply of American provided armaments drying up.
In case Republicans haven't noticed Ukrainians for the most part are Caucasian and Christian. They look like Europeans because, well, because they ARE Europeans. Which means they pretty much look like the people Republicans count on as "their base." Aside from the physical risks associated with combat, of course, the international media faces no impediments to covering brutal Russian advances in Ukraine, should they occur. It would not be like trying to cover a Chinese crackdown in Tiananmen Square. The world WILL be watching, and that includes the American electorate.
If Republican political brinkmanship goes awry, and Russia subsequently rolls over Ukrainian defenses, it will be Republicans held to account when the question inevitably gets posed; "Who lost Ukraine?" And like the fallout from the fall of South Vietnam, the consequences will reverberate for a generation.
Profile Information
Member since: Mon Oct 20, 2003, 06:39 PMNumber of posts: 22,912
