Traitor Watch - The 45 & 47 Thread

wonko the sane?

You may test that assumption at your convinience.
Citizen

Axaday

Well-known member
Citizen
It drives me nuts that there are people trying to figure out which candidate to vote for. She isn't Trump or Biden. What else do you want?
 

abates

unfortunate shark issues
Citizen
just_us_league.jpg
Totally normal and not weird thing to post to social media.
 

The Mighty Mollusk

Scream all you like, 'cause we're all mad here
Citizen
A lot of people are afraid to try taking him to court because they know his cult will immediately cause problems for them. Which is pretty much terrorism, but the courts are glacially slow to do anything about it, and the cult isn't.
 

Axaday

Well-known member
Citizen
Some of this I have been mulling for a while and even said here, but I came to a moment of clarity while texting with my brother. A Facebook friend of mine had bemoaned last week that Kamala hadn't done an interview to really tell policy ideas. He's a difficult character politically, because he is definitely voting for Kamala and definitely voting. He would definitely have voted for Biden. But he spends a lot of time on Facebook complaining about Democrats not doing what he wants and failing and so forth and he lives in a state that is usually in play. It irritates me sometimes. Kamala is in a weird spot because she had sublimated her politics to Biden. We know they weren't the same, but it wasn't her place to be publicly disagreeing with him and probably to some extent he has genuinely persuaded her on things. Maybe she really has decided we can't ban fracking, for instance. Maybe she used to think we had to. Or maybe she only said so in 2019 because she was trying to win a Democratic Primary.


I haven't paid close enough attention, but I know when I was a kid we would get phone calls were someone would try to persuade one of my parents on an issue. The decline of land lines maybe would have sidelined that anyway, but there is a much more important trend. I guess it would be silly to say it is as new a Cambridge Analytica, but that was the first time I understood it and I'm realizing more and more that CA hit the nail on the head and everyone who wants to succeed at American politics now had better understand. I am sure my dad didn't watch Kamala's interview. He doesn't need to. He doesn't like Trump, the man. He knows that he isn't someone he would be friends with. But he is familiar enough with the party platforms that he doesn't need more detailed information and he is committed enough to the GOP one that he is definitely voting for Trump and definitely voting. He is a member of a huge army of people who can be counted on to deliver 200 electoral votes to Trump. I didn't realize it until today that as much as I look down on that, I am a member of the huge army of people who can be counted on to deliver 200 electoral votes to Harris. I'll catch some clips of her show in the coming days, but I didn't need to watch it either. I don't think she'll accomplish the majority of her ideas anyway. I don't care about many of her positions. I just think we'll be better off with a Democrat in the White House than a Republican, and particularly Trump.

My brother mentioned how mystifying the undecided voter is and I felt, not for the first time, that we get a big exaggeration on the size of that demographic. The real undecided vote is the "I am undecided whether I will make it my top priority to go vote". The campaigns both know they aren't going to get their other 70 electoral votes by explaining policy. That's not what Cambridge Analytica did either. They went to the people on their side and scared them. That's much more effective. The Republicans need to tell the people who already agree with them that the Democrats are going to make groceries and gas prices spiral out of control and they're going to keep shoving WEIRD PEOPLE with WEIRD BEHAVIORS down their throats. That isn't something we don't talk about here. But really what does Kamala talk about and what was Biden talking about before dropping out? Trump is going to sign a national abortion ban. Trump will dismantle democracy. Neither of those is really true and saying them doesn't do anything for a genuine policy fence-rider. But it is the stuff that makes the people already on your side make sure they don't forget to vote.
 

wonko the sane?

You may test that assumption at your convinience.
Citizen
My dude; trump has already attempted a coup... which saw people killed, and has been bragging about being a dictator on day 1. He will ABSOLUTELY dismantle your democracy, and is in fact ALREADY ATTEMPTING IT: and the warning is even more dire because disenfranchising voters was literally the republican playbook since nixon. They have no problems taking it to extremes before eliminating it altogether. They do not want to represent, they want to be kings and RULE YOU.

Don't believe me? There's a reason he's disavowing his connection to project 2025... despite lauding it originally. They know it's political cyanide to talk about it openly. So now he knows nothing, despite liking some of the stuff in it. Never mind that it was written by some trump admin people. A group which is split between god like adoration and complete hate with no gray area.

When a politician in your own country says something like "The other guy is going to dismantle democracy" sure, it's probably hyperbole. When your countries allies are saying the same thing and preparing for that reality maybe you need to start taking the statements a trifle more seriously.

The US does not exist in a vacuum, and has a ridiculously outsized power to affect global prosperity and safety. Your wake up call was when NATO, the organization the US created and spearheaded: started working out long term plans for ukraine that the US could not disrupt.

You are not taking the threat in front of you seriously enough. This is not just another "most important election" (even though I know you hear this literally every two years), in the US democratic cycle. This is the most important election of this century, for everyone not just the US.
 

Axaday

Well-known member
Citizen
Trump wasn't trying to end Democracy on Jan 6. He didn't mind doing some damage to it, but what he was trying to do was obscure the fact that he had failed. If he wins this one, he'll never have to worry about failing again in a Presidential election. He literally couldn't give 2 poops what happens after he gets his two terms. But even if he wanted to become a dictator 4 years ago, he didn't get away it. Not even to the end of one day. And he wouldn't if he tried.

It was always true that Roe v Wade used a sideways trick to bypass the clear fact that the Constitution gave the federal government no authority to manage abortion. Many important Supreme Court decisions have done that with good intentions and gotten away with it and Roe did for several decades, but Dobbs is Constitutionally correct. If you want a national red light or green light on this issue, you have to do a Constitutional Amendment. If GOP got both house of Congress and the White House and passed a national abortion ban, Dobbs would BE the precedent used to strike it down.

- Genuine reasons to vote against Trump and largely boring policy things. But other legit reasons are his affect on culture and civility, erosion of trust in important institutions, his criminal status, and his bad character.

Edit - Trump gets so overcomplicated. He's a boy with a terrible father who grew up and got the resources he needed to try to validate himself in big ways. He doesn't want to control the nation or the world. He was the President of the United States for 4 years and he stumbled out of bed at 10:30, ignored his briefings, did a few meetings, spent the evening yelling at his TV and went golfing every weekend. He left power and control on the table. He just wanted to prove that he was a winner and that he mattered. I'm not saying he didn't do bad. Of course he did. He's a buffoon and the barbarism he needed to unleash to ride into the White House had a loose rein. He hurt people and he'd hurt people again if it served his interest. But his interest is not to get a lot of work for himself. He just wants to demonstrate that he is an excellent human being and be told so by a crowd. He cannot suffer the indignity of losing or being a 1 term President, if there is something to be done about it, but he is really hoping to be a retired 2-term President in 4 1/2 and soak that up for the rest of his life.
 
Last edited:

Ironbite4

Well-known member
Citizen
..................Axaday have you not been paying attention to anything Trump has done? Or are you just giving him that much of a benefit of the doubt? The man adores men like Kim Jon Un and Putin. He wants to be like them. Men who's power is never ever questioned by the masses. That's what Trump wants. And you think he'll be satisfied by 2 terms? THE MAN DOES NOT CARE ABOUT THE LAW! HE JUST WANTS TO REMAIN IN POWER FOREVER!

Ironbite-please, look at what he wants now that he's had a taste of power and this time around, he wants to be El Presidente.
 

wonko the sane?

You may test that assumption at your convinience.
Citizen
You know one trumps quotes I like? That one he said where they'd "work out a deal" to get him a third term.

Trump has no intention of leaving the white house in anything other than a bodybag. You are not taking this seriously, please listen to what he's saying, and use your critical thinking skills knowing his records.

This is an existential crisis for the entire planet and only americans are getting a say in what comes next. Trump is literally quoting and rebroadcasting jive from Qannon, which is a ******* death cult. Literally every single rally he's ever done he's skipped out on the cheque, and always used music illegally. He a convicted fraud, a convicted rapist, a known and documented racist, a thief, a well documented liar AND A TRAITOR who's only even running because of his coopting half your political class.

You are not taking this seriously enough. Good your thinking in philosophical terms for most of it; but if you aren't scared of what a trump term 2 means, you are not paying attention.
 

Pale Rider

...and Hell followed with him.
Citizen
It's also worth reminding everyone that Trump faces real prison time if he doesn't win this year or if he ever leaves office again. If ever there was a motive for him to destroy democracy...
 

Axaday

Well-known member
Citizen
You know one trumps quotes I like? That one he said where they'd "work out a deal" to get him a third term.

Trump has no intention of leaving the white house in anything other than a bodybag. You are not taking this seriously, please listen to what he's saying, and use your critical thinking skills knowing his records.

This is an existential crisis for the entire planet and only americans are getting a say in what comes next. Trump is literally quoting and rebroadcasting jive from Qannon, which is a ******* death cult. Literally every single rally he's ever done he's skipped out on the cheque, and always used music illegally. He a convicted fraud, a convicted rapist, a known and documented racist, a thief, a well documented liar AND A TRAITOR who's only even running because of his coopting half your political class.

You are not taking this seriously enough. Good your thinking in philosophical terms for most of it; but if you aren't scared of what a trump term 2 means, you are not paying attention.
I am not cheering for the guy. I am not saying he's okay or alright. We should not reelect this man under an circumstance.

But first and foremost, he is buffoon. He IS fascinated with Putin and other strong men. For sure he is. But he wouldn't have any idea what to do with their kind of power. He had a lot of power and he had no idea what to do with it. All he cared about was the status and adulation. He didn't control anything except crowds when he was on a stage. He didn't even know until books started coming out that aides were pocketing papers so he wouldn't sign them. He would give a verbal order and not get a paper to sign and forget about it. POTUS gets a detailed briefing every day of the most important things happening domestically and abroad. Classified stuff. The absolute biggest stuff anywhere. He asked for those to be shorter and they still said he wasn't paying attention. He doesn't repost Q-Anon because he believes it. He doesn't even understand it. He likes them because they like him. He wrecked a lot of stuff with bluster and speeches and neglected alliances, but only got a couple of major legislative things done. He didn't know how to make things happen. He had absolutely no art of the deal. He had no clue how to handle Covid, no clue how to handle Afghanistan, no clue how to handle Ukraine. He loved his rallies and photo-ops and tweets and couldn't stand it when someone said publicly that they didn't like him and he would call them names for it. When he got a chance to nominate a judge, he picked from a list provided for him by conservatives and this has been and will be the biggest impact he had, The effects of that will last a long time.

He delayed on January 6. I don't think he knew how much trouble that crowd would cause when they went to the Capital. I think he hoped they would have an intimidating effect on Mike Pence. I don't think he expected a riot. Nor do I think he minded very much. But it was impressed on him before the end of the day that he needed to try to calm things down and he did that in a lackluster fashion that he hoped wouldn't make his biggest fans stop adoring him and he more or less got that. There was never any chance that his coup was going to succeed. Luckily it stopped at Mike Pence because he was a grownup, but the courts would've gotten involved next if necessary. All Cruz was accomplishing was possibly a 2 week delay that would have screwed up transition even more, but would have elapsed and been worked out. What he did that day was bad, all of it, but it wasn't actually a near scrape with our republic falling. It was a selfish buffoon showing what he was.

I just can't emphasize enough. The guy was POTUS. The so-called most powerful man in the world and he hardly bothered with it. He didn't want to do work. He didn't lead. He didn't wield power. He didn't broker deals. He wasn't even in control of his own White House. He cannot accomplish the sorts of things people are afraid he will.
 


Top Bottom