US Elections 2020

[broncofan]

What I find interesting is that Trump doesn't seem to care whether his lies sound plausible, whereas most practised liars put some effort into appearing plausible and avoiding obvious inconsistencies. He's definitely a believer in the Goebbels dictum that if you tell a big enough lie and keep repeating it people will come to believe it.

I thought about this over the past couple of weeks. In particular, what you say about Goebbels because it never really made intuitive sense to me. Why is a lie more believable if it's outlandish? How do you make it plausible if you are also making it "big"?

Maybe there's a difference between telling a lie to a single person and having to lie to millions of people where any inconsistency, even a small and calculated one, will eventually be exposed. If you lie to the public, you need their complicity in the lie. They have to want to believe you, it has to be consistent with their biases, and by making it big you inflame the emotions that have overpowered their reason. Anyone who is willing to believe Barack Obama is a Communist would also believe he's a Stalinist and has built gulags. So why not say the latter? The people you're lying to want you to succeed in lying. They're only going to complain about being lied to when it leads them to doom or accountability.

One thing that the Trump era has shown is that there are very few things in our system that provide a clear scorecard to measure a politician's performance. Trump is like the guy who pretends to push the train as it leaves the station and it really did take a disaster to show he does nothing useful and is completely unfit for anything except reality tv. Sad!

On a serious note though, with the House, the Presidency, and 50 Democratic Senators the outcome has been excellent. If the Republicans are only bluffing about completely dismantling our Constitutional form of government this strategy would appear to be a failure. Their move.

[broncofan]

All Americans who care about our system of government owe a huge debt of appreciation to Stacey Abrams. She helped get out the vote in Georgia during the Presidential election. And her efforts during the Senate run-off likely made the difference and are the reason Mitch McConnell is no longer Senate Majority Leader. Super grateful about that.

[broncofan]

Trump incited his supporters to storm the Capitol building. They breached security, entered the chamber, and some man wearing an animal skin took photo ops. While this was going on there was no support for the capitol police, who were outnumbered. Trump controls the National Guard who were not called until this had gone on for a while.

He has spent two months stoking this violence. His fellow Republicans from Jordan to Cruz to Graham helped him do it by feeding the public obvious lies and conspiracy theories. It wasn't bad enough when he nearly got Governor Whitmer killed. He has now caused a breach of our capitol building and then slow played the response.

He should be impeached and removed, however symbolic the act seems. He should also be prosecuted for any crimes he has committed without favor.

Edit: Trump just released a statement still claiming fraud or which there's no evidence. Republicans should initiate impeachment against their own guy. This is absolute insanity.

[Stavros]

If the President does not resign immediately, but given the way he has spoke of Pence, could the VP fulfill his duties in certifying the result of the election in Congress, and then resign? Can an Impeachment be done within 24-48 hours?

[broncofan]

I don't know too much about impeachment procedures but if we try to move ahead with it we'll hear more. I think it's likely Trump won't have federal law enforcement track down and arrest everyone who was in the Capitol. But it's important everyone who was pictured in there is located, arrested and prosecuted after January 21st.

[blackchubby38]

If the President does not resign immediately, but given the way he has spoke of Pence, could the VP fulfill his duties in certifying the result of the election in Congress, and then resign? Can an Impeachment be done within 24-48 hours?

Supposedly it is possible to do an impeachment within 24-48 hours.

But I think the invoking the 25th Amendment is also on table.

[blackchubby38]

I don't know too much about impeachment procedures but if we try to move ahead with it we'll hear more. I think it's likely Trump won't have federal law enforcement track down and arrest everyone who was in the Capitol. But it's important everyone who was pictured in there is located, arrested and prosecuted after January 21st.

Apparently the FBI and Secret Service are already on the scene. So I don't think you have to wait until after the 21st for them to be located and arrested.

[broncofan]

Apparently the FBI and Secret Service are already on the scene. So I don't think you have to wait until after the 21st for them to be located and arrested.

This started five hours ago though. I followed it from that time and it took several hours before the national guard were dispatched and even then not at Trump's behest. There are a lot of good career law enforcement but whether they are going to pursue some of the people who left is not clear.

Trump is still the head the executive branch for 15 days. And his response to people entering our capitol and his tweets calling them patriots doesn't instill confidence in me that everyone would be pursued as vigorously as they should if he has any discretion left.

[broncofan]

I'm saying all that because I saw video of people who breached the building freely leaving and several reporters on twitter said people had been allowed to leave. Maybe they'll be pursued but if not now it has to be a priority to arrest anyone who breached the entrance no matter how long they hung around.

People broke into our capitol, broke stuff, fired weapons, wrote murder the media on a wall, carried the confederate flag into the chamber, wore Nazi insignia. And so far I read only about a dozen have been arrested. That's already wrong.

[filghy2]

Supposedly it is possible to do an impeachment within 24-48 hours.

But I think the invoking the 25th Amendment is also on table.

Surely the penny must now have finally dropped for saner Republicans that this is not going to end well for the party. Trump will happily take them down with him. The McConnell strategy of appeasing Trump and his fanatical supporters just encourages them to go further. If a split in the party is inevitable why not bring it on now rather than waiting until things get even worse?

That said, I doubt they will do anything meaningful. Habits of paralysis because any action is risky are hard to break.