Trump "frantic" as lawsuits fail and hopes for legislative coup dim

It will go nicely with in prison with the refrains of “I’m innocent” from all the other inmates.

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Does that seem vaguely possible for Trump? To be in a meeting and not talk?

I would suspect it’d be more a case of Trump waffles on and on in his usual incoherent stream of consciousness style, everyone else responds with vague platitudes about how he’s clearly just the greatest President ever and how it’s all too bad about the problems with the election and aren’t the Democrats terrible but without actually committing themselves to anything while trying to wheedle the discussion round to “Can we have some money please?”

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Don’t worry. I’m sure a sternly worded letter condemning all of this is in the works.

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His niece’s comment to the effect of “he has no way to process this” had a ‘truthy’ ring to me. That, or it hit me right in the Confirmation Bias. One of those.

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I can imagine a future in which Trump becomes “The Old Pretender” and Donald jr becomes “The Young Pretender” plotting for their return to their “rightful” throne.

@ottojas Welcome aboard, comrade.

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If we go there, I petition that MAGA types be renamed the Jerkobites.

eta: Wouldn’t Trump be the GREAT Pretender?

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Fork comity, it’s over rated.

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Toilet bowl politics is where you try to plug the drain before getting flushed.

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This is the scariest thing for me about the whole Trump nightmare. He revealed how much of the American system is just customs and people generally being respectful to each other and the spirit of the system. Newt Gingrich opened a crack in that facade, Mitch McConnell drove a wedge deep into it, and Trump kicked the door down. I honestly think McConnell is a bigger threat to democracy than Trump. He’s equally without morals, but also competent. McConnell has restrained himself a lot over the years, for fear of pushing too hard. Blocking Obama’s SCOTUS pick was a huge gamble for him. Post-Trump, that move barely makes the list of notable evil deeds. Imagine what he’s going to do now.

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Look out Georgia, something or other is coming your way, and it’s Biblical!

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The essence of politics is negotiation and compromise. But starting with Newt Gingrich and then Mitch McConnell and all the judicial activism and extreme gerrymandering since, the GOP has actively sought to undermine democratic norms. The post election court losses for Trump at the state level are only a precursor to the SCOTUS appeal. There we will finally see if the system has been truly corrupted by their decades of effort.

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Yeah, the complete disregard for respecting norms and the spirit in which the system was meant to function really reminds me of this:

I’d hate to live in a world where restaurants can no longer offer free chips because of jerks gaming the system, but that’s pretty much where we are.

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IANAL, but I’ve been told that because the cases continually get dismissed rather than heard, they can’t be appealed. I hope that’s true.

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I was also wondering about that: surely a case must at least have some merit for the SCOTUS to even entertain it, but we’re living in crazy times, sooo

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Obvious Anagram News Network.

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I don’t see the SCOTUS taking on cases that were dismissed (especially those requiring the plaintiff to pay the defendant’s legal expenses) by lower courts. They tend to take cases that have interesting legal twists, not cases without legs.

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You’re right, and there is work to do. But if both parties practice this and exacerbates it, we will never have a functional government again. It will be deadlocked legislators and executive orders. Unless one party manages to get a trifecta of the majority, and then they can run roughshod over half the nation.

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Yes, the tragedy of the commons, basically, except that it’s the foundation of the entire country that people are gaming for personal advantage. :sob:

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True, but it took Trump to get them to completely tip to the point of supporting the abandonment of political norms.

Ok, but what speech would you write that would reflect this?

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I’m afraid that means he’d get to keep his Twitter account, since he’d be an actual candidate and not just some random asshole. But hopefully Twitter’s ToS is different (i.e. more stringent) for candidates than it is for officeholders.

I think that’s it. Someone more competent won’t hamfist their way through it, nor brag (as much) about it while they do.

…“with prejudice” in the case of PA yesterday. :muscle:t3:

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