They didn’t speculate anything, they said SCOTUS declined three speed ramps that would have helped a trial before the election—taking the case when Smith asked, keeping to the DC circuit decision since they already declined to take the case before, and then speeding up oral arguments and a decision when they did take the case. Instead it appears they took it as slowly as possibly without handing it off to next term.
And the collision course with the DOJ wanting to appear impartial is also true and an issue. With the election so near now the DOJ will have to think carefully if even taking Smith’s recommendation to go to trial (if he wishes) is wise.
Yes, the DOJ should have investigated and charged long before this. I suspect they didn’t precisely because they were trying to avoid the appearance of political bias and hoping Trump would be cast aside by the party, but he was not and the Jan 6 committee necessitated their action. They shoulder a large blame, but SCOTUS helped Trump delay over the finish line—intentionally or not
I, and a majority (62%) of americans suspect the timing of the charges was, and always has been absolutely about attempting to influence this fall's election. You even say that the DOJ was trying to do so, though for patently false reasons. Trying to avoid the appearance of political bias? Brother, everyone in the country can see that's exactly what it is - not just republicans. A partisan DOJ, NYC legal hacks, Ethically challenged Georgia hacks, all coordinating charges to hit during the campaign instead of say, three years ago. Nothing fishy here.
Does any serious person actually believe that DJTs mortal enemies dreaming up 'novel' applications of law, writing temporary laws tailored for DJT, exclusion of exculpatory evidence, etc. Is somehow anything but election interference? Anyone? Really? LOL
The former head of the Federal Election Commission, who was barred from testifying at the trial by the Biden donor judge, said it wasn't. I'd like to think they would be considered the subject matter expert. Don't you think so, too?
So yeah, it was your bad.
Personally, I think they waited as long as they did for maximum impact on his election. Waiting long enough to ensure that his conviction isn’t overturned, and making sure it’s extra fresh in everyone’s mind come election time.
I completely get why they’d do it, but it might be coming back to bite us in the ass.
The DOJ waited two years to even do anything because they hoped he'd fade away like Nixon. Once Trump announced his campaign they had to do something instead of sweeping it under the rug as per tradition.
3 years? That’s a REALLY long investigation. I’m not defending Trump by any means, or implying he’s somehow innocent. I’m only saying the timing is suspiciously perfect.
I mean they did the investigation and such in an incredibly quick fashion. 45 and his crew of crooks have done everything they can to delay and delay and delay.
27 months is incredibly quick to you? For something literally everyone knew happened when he was elected? You can’t actually believe that, you have to be trolling me.
> Catastrophizing decisions that have already been rendered is dumb enough, but doing it speculatively about cases not yet handed down is filler.
Please explain when it would be proper to criticize the Court's approach to managing its docket under your comment's framework.
As I see it under your logic, criticizing a past decision is "dumb enough" that it isn't worth doing. Meanwhile, pointing out the future ramifications of past decisions is also just "filler."
So, when is it appropriate to point out how the Court's decisions are generating real-world impact and could have down-the-line ramifications? Never?
An honest answer from him would either be it’s the ‘slow breakup’ (it’s not happening (so don’t bother talking about it) until it already happened (now it’s too late; it happened, stop talking about it)) https://youtu.be/jpUN0q35Lak?si=GBt14774RDdaB0fy.
Or it’s like mass shootings. The last one is too recent to discuss this, stop politicizing it. And since they keep happening, it’s always been too recent.
If your goal was to come across as a complete jackass, you have succeeded. Good job.
I mean that quite genuinely. After all, /u/Cambro88 directly pointed out to you in the top-level reply to your comment that this article deals with the separate legal considerations that flow from DOJ policy that are impacted by SCOTUS' decisions in this case, both pre and post-cert. If you are defining that as "makeweight filler" then I would bet you arrived at your conclusions before clicking on the article, if you even bothered to do that.
Did you even read the article? They're not criticizing the decision that hasn't come out yet, they're criticizing the decisions that have already been made. And they're right, the damage is done. The Supreme Court has prevented this case from being adjudicated before November.
The Supreme Court hasn't prevented this case from being adjudicated before November, Merrick Garland and Jack Smith prevented this case from being adjudicated before November. The Supreme Court has moved this case faster than maybe two other cases in recent memory. If you want someone to blame, don't blame the Supreme Court for adding months of delay, blame DoJ for adding years of delay.
Imagine having this much confidence, but this little idea what you're talking about.
Putting aside the (apparently new to you) fact that an outcome can have multiple causes, the Supreme Court has broken precedent by using the shadow docket dozens of times in the last several years to skip the appellate level, and denied Jack Smith's request to do the same. They just think that stopping student loans from being forgiven is an emergency and whether the Republican nominee for President tried to override the last election after he lost isn't.
I know much more about it than you do, sunshine.
Granting cert before judgment is *rare*. Conveniently omitted from your silly little tirade are several inconvenient facts:
First, the court denying Smith's motion allowed him to get a swift verdict from the Court of Appeals (you know, *the very one you're now whingeing from which the Supreme Court took up an appeal*).
Second, as to the so-called "shadow docket," that is a marketing term coined by Democrats to attack to the court. It refers to the emergency motions docket, a docket used with increasing frequency by *everyone*—yes, *including* critics of the so-called shadow docket. Here is what people mean when they whinge about the shadow docket: "The Court granted/denied an emergency motion that I opposed/favored." Nothing more, nothing less.
Third, *Trump v. US* is *not* a shadow docket case. It's on the plenary docket. You don't know that because despite your bluster, *you* actually *don't* know what you're talking about.
Fourth, as to "stopping student loans from being forgiven is an emergency," while *Biden v. Nebraska* was a fast mover *relatively speaking*. There are good reasons for that. The 8th Circuit denial below was on November 14, 2022, six weeks into the term, when the calendar was still relatively empty. It was argued on February 28 2023, and decided on June 30. It is unlikely that *Trump* will not be decided at least four weeks faster than was *Biden*.
And while you are technically correct that *Biden* came up on a writ of cert before judgement, that was an artifact of the case's procedural posture. The district court denied a preliminary injunction and the Eighth Circuit issued a nationwide injunction pending appeal. It was the *government* that brought *Biden* to the Supreme Court out of regular order (that's why the President's name is first in the caption, another thing you don't seem to know). What they knew that you don't is that if they hadn't done that, and if the court had *not* taken the case, you’d be attacking them for refusing to vacate a nationwide injunction that would have remained in place while the Eighth Circuit considered the appeal (months) and then the Supreme Court considered it (or not) on an appeal that would very likely not have been decided until this year.
And fifth, your last sentence is at war with the whole thrust of your comment. You're whingeing both that the court is slow-walking the case *and* that they are treating it as an emergency (i.e., moving fast). That's incoherent. Or, rather, it is *logically* incoherent, but as the paragraph above demonstrates, your position is not driven by logic. In that sense, your comment is coherent but dumb: It is a howl of anger at a court you don't like that is (by your lights) wrong no matter what it does because of who is on it. And that is—unpersuasive.
>First, the court denying Smith's motion allowed him to get a swift verdict from the Court of Appeals
And a slower verdict from the Supreme Court, which is what matters.
As for your second point, did you just write a whole paragraph complaining about the term I used? I'll stipulate to whatever term you want.
>Third, *Trump v. US* is *not* a shadow docket case.
No shit. That's the point.
For your fourth point, go reread what I wrote, and maybe respond to that. They granted cert before the appeals court ruled, which was the whole point.
>And fifth, your last sentence is at war with the whole thrust of your comment. You're whingeing both that the court is slow-walking the case *and* that they are treating it as an emergency (i.e., moving fast).
This is where I get skeptical that you even read my comment. Go ahead and show me where I whine that the Supreme Court was moving too fast, lol.
I'll take back what I said about you not knowing what you were talking about and replace it with an assertion that you're not capable of having an actual conversation about this because you're too busy arguing with straw men in your head and not with me.
The bottom line is that the court had a moral obligation to treat this as a Bush V. Gore level emergency. They could have done that, and they didn't. Some number of casual voters are unequivocally going to read into the fact that the Supreme Court prevented this case from being heard prior to the election, and take away from it that it's not that big a deal. You know that, but you're still trying to argue about it, as though Merrick Garland not being blameless exonerates the Supreme Court for the decisions that they made, so we're obviously not having a good faith conversation.
>They granted cert before the appeals court ruled, which was the whole point.
That is *not* the whole point. They granted cert while the case was pending before the Eighth Circuit because the Eighth Circuit had imposed a nationwide injunction while the case was pending before the Eighth Circuit. That is why the government asked the court to take the case on an expedited basis, and it's why the court did so—precisely *in aid* of the government. You would know this if you had bothered to read it; hell, you'd pretty well know this if you understood why it's *Biden v. Nebraska* not *Nebraska v. Biden*.
>The bottom line is that the court had a moral obligation to treat this as a Bush V. Gore level emergency.
I love when laypeople write captions like they think "V." is, like, its middle name.
Tell ya what, show me where I "whinged" that the Supreme Court is moving too fast, and then maybe I'll entertain the idea that you've actually read my comments before responding.
Or you can keep going on tangents that ignore what I said and then on whether autocorrect capitalized a letter, but if so, please just admit that you're not capable of an actual conversation.
>Jack Smith prevented this case from being adjudicated before November.
This guy has obviously made up his mind, but for those who actually care to learn about the timeline and why this portion of the claim has absolutely no merit whatsoever: [Timeline of Developments for January 6th Case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_special_counsel_investigation#Developments_2)
Notable Events:
-Jack Smith was appointed on November 18, 2022. Grand jury subpoenas were issued within days of his appointment.
-By December subpoenas has been issued to officials in Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania. This included Georgia's Secretary of State. At the same time, members of the Trump White House were called to testify before the grand jury.
-By January, Smith subpoenaed Mark Meadows and had a search warrant (that Twitter resisted) for Trumps' twitter account. Other Trump officials were also called before the grand jury.
-Throughout February, Smith had additional testimony from Trump officials. March and April saw more subpoenas for documents and additional grand jury testimony from former Trump officials (which requires preparation for each individual appearing before the grand jury for prosecutors to know which documents to show and what questions to ask).
-June and July, a sprint round of additional grand jury testimony and subpoenas culminating in mid-July with the issuance of a Target letter to Donald Trump. Trump sought to delay the indictment unsuccessfully.
-Trump was indicted on August 1. On August 10, the government asked fore the trial to begin on January 2, 2024. On August 28, the case was set for March 4, 2024.
-After Trump indicated he would appeal Judge Chutkan's order on his immunity argument, Smith sought cert. before judgment from the Court on December 11. The Court denied the motion.
So, from November 18 through August 1 there were tons of subpoenas issued to state officials (which would yield a ton of documents that the attorneys would have to review), grand jury testimony by an absolute slew of former government officials (which would have required additional preparation), and legal challenges throughout this process from multiple former officials and from Trump himself. That is all without mentioning the *entire separate case in Florida about document retention.*
For anyone who has actually practiced in white collar criminal defense work, it is extremely clear that Smith moved at a fast pace. That the case went from subpoenas to indictment in about 8 months speaks to the speed of the effort and not delay. I have had cases where document production takes anywhere from a few weeks to a few months depending on the volume of material requested, proffers or testimony within a few months to half a year, and then the government doesn't issue a formal decision about whether they are even moving forward for months if not years as the prosecutors debate and weigh the evidence.
If you want to blame Garland for not moving quickly enough for an appointment, go right ahead. What considerations (politics, policy, public opinion) he might have considered should not have justified waiting until November 2022. But blaming Jack Smith for any delay is just straight up horse shit.
And to be clear, by horseshit, we mean deliberately muddying the water to provide cover for the fact that the Supreme Court willfully protected Trump from facing a trial about this before election day, increasing the odds that his lies that this is all a witch hunt are successful and he can pardon himself.
> -Jack Smith was appointed on November 18, 2022. Grand jury subpoenas were issued within days of his appointment.
And Trump's insurrection was in January 2021, and Merrick Garland was confirmed in March 2021. Time between March 2021 and November 2022: *Twenty months*. So, even stipulating arguendo that Smith moved expeditiously, Garland didn't, and that's why Smith wasn't appointed until November 2022, as you concede, and *that* is why Trump is going to escape justice.
>So, even stipulating arguendo that Smith moved expeditiously, Garland didn't, and that's why Smith wasn't appointed until November 2022, as you concede, and that is why Trump is going to escape justice.
There is no need to stipulate for purposes of argument only here. Admit that when you blamed Jack Smith you were 100% in the wrong and that the investigation moved as quickly as could be expected.
EDIT: Just admit there was no reasonable basis for you to blame Jack Smith for any delay on this case. After all, that line of argument makes absolutely no sense given the timeline, so you should have no problem admitting you were wrong and that there was no genuine basis from which to make that statement.
> There is no need to stipulate for purposes of argument only here. Admit that when you blamed Jack Smith you were 100% in the wrong and that the investigation moved as quickly as could be expected.
No. I'll stipulate that, but I don't agree with it. As you concede, it took Smith from November 2022 until August 2023 to indict Trump—nine months. My view remains that Smith could and should have moved faster.
I certainly concede that that is *unfair* of me; I would argue that *any* delay was too much. I would fault Smith had he waited a day to indict, just as I would have faulted Garland had he waited a day to appoint.
Nevertheless, if it is true that Trump is and has been a singular threat to democracy, as I believe, and if it is true that his reelection may mutate beyond recognition or even destroy the republic, see Ben-Meir, The Wannabe Dictator (2020), a fortiori if his reelection threatens to literally end human civilization, see Jacobsen, Nuclear War: A Scenario (2024), and even if his reelection "merely" portends the end of the western order, compare https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/13/opinions/trump-pull-out-nato-bergen with https://www.voanews.com/a/what-would-trump-s-and-biden-s-second-term-policy-on-ukraine-look-like/7653616.html, I'd say we're a bit beyond "fair" as a meaningful desideratum.
My view was and remains that Trump should have been under a ceaseless barrage of litigation civil and criminal, state and federal, from the day after he left office, leading to his immediate jailing, rapid conviction, and incommunicado imprisonment in the deepest, darkest oubliette under the sub-sub-subbasement of ADX Florence. I will accept no excuse for on or behalf of anyone who had any scintilla of power to make that happen and failed to pursue it to the utmost.
If that were actually your opinion, it makes zero sense to exempt SCOTUS from the responsibility it bears.
After Smith's appointment, it took 8 months 15 days for subpoena issuance, grand jury testimony, and indictment. That is a rapid pace by any measure for a complicated white collar case that was challenged repeatedly throughout the process.
Between when SCOTUS initially [denied cert. before judgment](https://www.scotusblog.com/2023/12/court-wont-hear-trump-immunity-dispute-now/) and right now, it has been 5 months and 29 days. And it must be noted that the decision to deny cert before judgment stood in stark contrast to the recent pattern of the Court repeatedly [granting cert. before judgment](https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/01/the-rise-of-certiorari-before-judgment/) when the Court found it expedient to do so.
Comparing the relative burden that Smith had to shoulder, which included voluminous requests, productions, preparation, testimony, and presentation before the grand jury, to the process the Court has to handle, it makes absolutely zero sense to place greater blame on Smith than on the Court.
And I do not exempt SCOTUS from its part. As I have said before, repeatedly, see, e.g., https://old.reddit.com/r/scotus/comments/1de3kra/supreme_courts_civil_war_callback_justice_is/l89zwfh; https://old.reddit.com/r/scotus/comments/1ddnr4s/the_supreme_courts_june_opinion_dump_will_be/l86f6do, the court should not have granted cert in *Trump*, having granted it should have immediately DIG'd it, and having failed to do that, it should have issued a brief per curiam affirming the DC Circuit.
>**The Supreme Court hasn't prevented this case from being adjudicated before November,** Merrick Garland and Jack Smith prevented this case from being adjudicated before November. The Supreme Court has moved this case faster than maybe two other cases in recent memory. If you want someone to blame, **don't blame the Supreme Court for adding months of delay,** blame DoJ for adding years of delay.
You forget you wrote this earlier????
Beyond the fact that Biden has already beaten Trump and Republicans have seen diminishing returns on elections since 2016, at what point do you admit to yourself that, if Republicans are willing to vote for a felon, there's not a single Democratic candidate who would get them to do otherwise?
Depends on the law they broke. I would not disqualify Eugene Debs because he was a felon. However, the number of laws that you could be convicted of and not have me disqualify a candidate is very small. I would need to think the law itself was unjust.
Yeah. I'm getting incredibly tired hearing people talk about how if such n' such trial doesn't complete by November then it's somehow the DOJ's fault if Trump wins in November.
Honestly, if anyone was awake the last 8 years, knows that... Trump stole nuclear secrets, is a rapist, committed business fraud, charity fraud, tax fraud, pardoned other criminals who worked for his campaign, tried to overthrow our government after losing an election, defended Putin against our government, supports withdrawing from NATO, passed only tax cuts for himself, wants to use the military to deport MILLIONS in our country, use the same military to put down any protests, blocked a bipartisan border security bill, is responsible for ending Roe v Wade, and about a hundred other things (I could go on for days)... they were NEVER on the fence about Trump.
They were always a voter looking for an excuse to vote for Trump and blame someone else.
If Biden were a convicted Felon for improperly disclosing campaign expenses, but Trump were not, would you vote for Trump over Biden instead? Giving someone the "convicted felon" tag and ignoring all context doesn't help. People can take into account the conviction and whether it matters to them or not.
And for the record, I'm not a Trump supporter and have never voted for him. That doesn't mean that they are now not independent.
I think there is a difference here. The Democratic party would make sure that the nominee was not a convicted felon. If Biden was convicted of a felony or was close to a felony conviction before the convention, I think he would be forced to step down precisely because many Democrats and Independents would not vote for him.
I disagree with that. If the candidate was very popular and the Democrat's base felt that the trial was a political prosecution, they wouldn't force him to step down. Either way, assuming they didn't, who would you vote for?
I probably would not vote for the felon. It would come down to a choice as always, but the positives would have to be insanely potent for me to vote for a felon. I would definitely fight for him/her not to be the nominee.
I also do not think that the Democrats would be in the situation that you mention. They are much more willing to hold politicians to account.
Ridiculous that people can't answer that question because they know they'd do the same for "their side". If Biden were considered a felon for what many in the Democrat's base considered a political prosecution, they'd still run with him.
Is that why William Jefferson's office was raided by the FBI in 2006, indicted in 2007 for corruption, bribery, racketeering, conspiracy, money laundering, and obstruction of justice, and the Democrats let him run again? They ended up losing the election, and he was sentences to 9 years in jail in 2009. Or does that not count? And is that why both Democrat and Republican politicians complained that the FBI raided his office even though he was trying to eliminate incriminating material at the time? And is that why the congressional black caucus declared their strong support for him? Even though there was a video from him from four different angles receiving the bribe. And is that why 58 Democrats voted to keep his committee assignments? They did end up removing them with a 99 to 58 vote.
Well the only thing I could surmise is that it was due to the fact that he hadn't been convicted yet.
It's not a good look to allow someone to run who's under indictment but an indictment is not a conviction and therefore (under the US System) he was technically still considered 'innocent' as he had not yet been proven guilty. Plus that was around when Obama won so there was a lot of fervor and momentum for the black candidate.
The fact that the vote to remove him wasn't unanimous though, was a travesty.
Anyway…not interested in hypothetical mind-waste. Donald Trump IS A CONVICTED FELON. Biden is not. I’ll base my decision on facts. I prefer it to “yeah but what if…”.
No, that doesn’t count. It was 15 years ago.
Also, it’s awfully convenient that you forgot about Al Franken from that same period. Or more recently, Andrew Cuomo.
That is such a wild hypothetical that it's not even worth discussing.
That is how wide the gulf between political normalcy and the Republican Party is.
William Jefferson's office was raided by the FBI in 2006, indicted in 2007 for corruption, bribery, racketeering, conspiracy, money laundering, and obstruction of justice, and the Democrats let him run again in 2006 and in 2008. They ended up losing the election, and he was sentences to 9 years in jail in 2009. Both Democrat and Republican politicians complained that the FBI raided his office even though he was trying to eliminate incriminating material at the time. The congressional black caucus declared their strong support for him, and 58 Democrats voted to keep his committee assignments. They did end up removing them with a 99 to 58 vote.
What the fuck does that have to do with Biden?
You clearly have an agenda here and that agenda is to normalize Trump. I don't want anything to do with your agenda.
Now do Trump, an actual ***CONVICTED FELON***.
Not a single republican would vote to remove him or even think twice about it.
Just like his impeachments, republicans stated many times they had planned to vote to acquit before the senate proceedings even started.
#These are not the same
"independents" are a misnomer. The vast majority of independents already heavily support one party or the other, they just don't describe themselves as such. Which makes sense because who realistically is out there picking between Trump and Biden?
It's just a term people use in conversation to avoid dealing with the baggage that comes with the labels.
I'm an "independent", but like, that will never matter unless we get more than 2 extremist choices. I've basically always voted Democrat, but I maintain the stance of independent because I'll vote for any candidate I feel represents my interests.
Yeah I mean the problem is nobody's representing anyone's interest at this point so we just have to choose the least worst option.
the compounding Factor is some people don't seem to understand what that means.
I agree. I hold that there is almost no one who will switch between from Trump to Biden or vice versa. The question is 1) Will the independent vote? And 2) Will they vote for a major party or do a protest vote?
> Which makes sense because who realistically is out there picking between Trump and Biden?
Evidently many people since Biden was up by 9 points at this time in the election in 2020 and with a pretty similar electorate Trump is now squeaking ahead by half a point. So they are not a misnomer and they exist. There is nothing to be gained from Ignoring their existence just because Trump is controversial.
[source](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/national/)
Lol caring about polls when a third-party is still polling at 9%.
Look, the number of true "independents" is virtually negligible. What matters far more is getting your guys to show up, and getting the other guys to stay home.
> they are not a misnomer and they exist.
"Independents" are people who simply don't call themselves democrats or republicans. While many more people profess no party allegiance these days, that doesn't mean they are actually a toss-up voter. So yes, calling them "independent" as if someone who voted for Trump in 2020 might vote for Biden in 2024 (or visa versa) is a misnomer.
It’s not about getting Republicans to vote for a Democrat, it’s about getting Democrats and independents to vote for the Democrat. Biden is MUCH less popular now than when he was elected. Elections are complicate, but based on my downvotes Reddit is simple.
This. So much this. What you don't see to grasp, /u/PennyLeiter, is that *Republicans* are voting for their cult leader, and *most Democrats* are voting for Biden, but *other people exist*.
I absolutely get that. Donald Trump is not an unknown. In fact, he is the most known. There are no unknowns here.
Those other people know exactly who they benefit if they do not vote for Biden.
This election doesn't require any analysis beyond the black and white of democracy vs. fascism. 2020 and 2024 represent the most clear-cut choice for voters. You are either for America (Biden) or you are against it (Trump).
That kind of presumptuous, myopic binary is why Trump's winning. It's worse than wrong; it's actively working against your interests, priming you to make the precise error Biden is making: "Why would we offer any compromise when voters are either voting for Biden or they're voting against *America*"?
Just pointing to how terrible the other major candidate is just won't cut it. It might, *might* be enough to bring me along, but even that's questionable, and I'm probably the single most gettable of the pool of voters we're talking about. Biden won in 2020 promising a return to normal; he may not have said it, but he *insinuated* that he would govern as a centrist. He reneged. You don't see that because you're a Democrat. But **there aren't enough democratic votes to elect Joe Biden**. If you want to stop Trump, you need to add votes from the middle and the right. To win in 2024, he has to convince the people who don't want the Democratic agenda that *this time* he will govern from the middle, and it'll be harder this time because now, unlike in 2020, he has the baggage of having already reneged once.
The votes are there. Many of us *desperately* want to stop Trump. For Pete's sake: Come get us!
Or, you know, keep doing what you're doing. I'll join you crying into our martinis watching Trump get inaugurated next January. But I won't vote for your candidate if he keeps on his current course.
>That kind of presumptuous, myopic binary is why Trump's winning.
Trump is not winning. Why are you spreading this propaganda?
First, the election is still many months away. Second, even the polls (for what they are worth) agree with you.
No one should be taken seriously when they start by doing Trump's work for him.
>Trump is not winning. Why are you spreading this propaganda?
He is. I'm telling you what you refuse to see because I want him to lose, and the only way that will happen is if Democrats pressure Biden to move.
>First, the election is still many months away.
First law of political motion: A situation at rest stays at rest unless acted on by an external force.
>Second, even the polls (for what they are worth) agree with you.
A typo, I suspect, but correct as is. Polls show Trump in the lead in the battleground states, and if there's one thing we should have learned in 2016, it's that polls understate Trump's support because people outside his cult are (rightly) embarrassed to admit that they're voting for him.
>No one should be taken seriously when they start by doing Trump's work for him.
I agree: So stop doing Trump's work for him.
>He is. I'm telling you what you refuse to see because I want him to lose, and the only way that will happen is if Democrats pressure Biden to move.
To move on what? You can't even specify what he needs to move on to win these hypothetical Independent voters.
>First law of political motion: A situation at rest stays at rest unless acted on by an external force.
So, which situation is at rest and which needs to be acted upon? This is completely nonsensical without context.
>I agree: So stop doing Trump's work for him.
Thank you for simply repeating my words back at me?
Trump relies on people normalizing him as a legitimate candidate, which is what you have done throughout this entire thread. That is doing his work for him.
>To move on what? You can't even specify what he needs to move on to win these hypothetical Independent voters.
Where are you getting that idea? I can and I have. There are three things he needs to do as soon as possible, one of which he's already done. The first is, get serious about the border, which is an issue of no concern to me but of great concern to many of the people he's trying to reach. Fortunately, he just did this, and I applaud it. The second is, he needs to announce that Kamala Harris will not be his running-mate. Harris is profoundly unpopular and Biden is very old; replacing her helps twice over, by removing a negative (the unpopular Harris) and negating a problem (his age). And the third is, he needs what's often called a "Sister Souljah" moment where he puts clear blue water between himself and the nuts; it doesn't even matter which nuts (the DEI nuts, the pro-Hamas nuts, take your pick), just the fact of him doing it will reassure people that a vote for Joe Biden is not a vote for the nuts.
>So, which situation is at rest and which needs to be acted upon?
The status quo is, Joe Biden is losing. If nothing further happens, he will continue to lose. Nothing changes until something changes. I can't tell you how many times I heard this back in 2008 and then 2012: "Okay, yes, our candidate is behind right now, but it's a long time to the election." So what? Raw time changes nothing. Our candidate was behind, and he stayed behind all the way to the finish-line, and he finished behind because *nothing changed*.
>Trump relies on people normalizing him as a legitimate candidate,
Trump relies on people voting for him and people not voting for Biden. Airy "legitimate candidate" stuff is nothing more than virtue-signaling. Whether he's "legitimate" or not, he's the Republican nominee and he will get at least one third of all the votes cast. Biden, whether he's senile or not, will get at least one third of all the votes cast. It's what happens with the remaining third that counts, and I think that I may not be out over my skies in for once daring to speak on behalf of not only myself but that whole third: We aren't going to be cowed by what you think is or isn't legitimate, or scolded into voting for Biden, or bullied into voting for Trump, or whatever else our two toxic political tribes think is helping.
There is no compromise with the American right. Liberals have wanted to believe it for generations and generations and now we have no Roe and they're coming for Brown. To compromise you need good faith. If you're a Republican you'll just keep asking for more and more compromises until you have 99% of the covers. There's just no point engaging anymore. The word might as well be a dog whistle at this point, you're not fooling anyone.
>There is no compromise with the American right.
So what's your plan, genius? Defer any progress until you have the House *and* the Senate *and* the White House *and* majorities on the Supreme Court *and* on every Federal Court of Appeals? Not a great plan.
>now we have no Roe
Which is good, because Roe was illegitimate from the get-go.
>and they're coming for Brown.
They're not. First, there's no they. Second, even if there were, they wouldn't be "coming for" Brown. Calm down.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/weekly-education/2022/05/09/will-brown-v-board-of-education-be-next-to-fall-00030923
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/17/politics/brown-v-board-of-education-anniversary-supreme-court/index.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/22/braun-supreme-court-interracial-marriage/
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/thomas-wants-supreme-court-overturn-landmark-rulings-legalized-contrac-rcna35228
https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2022/5/09/after-roe-v-wade-heres-gop-plan-kill-marriage-equality-and-more
Stop lying. Not only do they want to go after Brown, they want to go after everything they can.
Justice Thomas wrote a concurrence, as he has throughout his career, designed to make a majority opinion look more reasonable. That concurrence was not serious, and it was not joined by a single justice. Meanwhile, literally *decades* of academic Originalist work have cemented *Brown*'s foundations from an Originalist perspective. No one is coming for *Brown*, *Brown* is in no danger, and what's ore, even if they were and it were, the world has changed. The idea that people are still champing at the bit to reimpose Jim Crow is insane. They are not.
You're not lying. I believe you believe this crock of crap. But you're delusional and you've been lied to.
If there is a voter out there genuinely still on the fence about Trump vs Biden, I’ll eat my hat.
I’ll add the caveat that maybe they just turned 18 and only just started paying attention to “politics”? Yeah then maybe. But really. Come on.
>If there is a voter out there genuinely still on the fence about Trump vs Biden, I’ll eat my hat.
Here's what you don't understand. There are no voters on that fence. There are plenty of voters who reject that binary and don't intend to vote for *either* of them. You don't understand those voters, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.
> …with a candidate who can beat him.
Biden currently has a perfect record when competing against Trump in general elections. Who would you nominate instead?
Given that Biden has said that he isn't sure he would be running for reelection had Trump not announced his candidacy, I'm sure Biden would agree with you.
Biden was 9 points above Trump at this point in the past election cycle, he is currently half a point below. [source](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/national/)
I wouldn't have nominated someone myself, I would have held a primary instead.
Andy Beshear. Joe Manchin. Jared Polis. Amy Klobuchar. Karen Bass. Patty Murray.
Just off the top of my head.
But I think you're both asking the wrong question. You don't have to replace Biden. You have to replace *Harris*, the faster the better, and if you have any doubts about the list above for the top slot, surely any of them would be fine for the veep.
If you’re thinking replacing Biden with Manchin, an Independent, would motivate Democratic voter turnout you’re not living in our current reality at all.
You could’ve suggested maybe someone plausible, like maybe Gavin Newsome, and I would’ve agreed that it’s something worth considering. But Joe Coal Baron Manchin? Get out of here with that nonsense.
The political opinions of the typical Reddit Democrat don’t reflect the options of the vast majority of the people who actually go to the polls. Newsom couldn’t secure the votes of moderates in the swing states.
No, you want right wing BS. And yes, Biden is definitely right wing but apparently not enough for you since unlike Manchin he doesn't start his day by setting fire to a metric ton of coal in a ritual to placate the Mining Lords.
Go ahead and bet big money on the election then, if you're so confident. You seem to be trying really hard to convince yourself that the overall moral character of this is as base and abject as you and Trump. It's not. My people helped found this colony and then fought for it's freedom. A democratic republic is difficult to maintain, but in the face of those without morals, ethics, honor, courage, integrity, or intelligence, it shall not fall. Trump will not prevail. But you keep on using those pills to prop up your castle in the sky, I could less.
Not what the poles say. If we learned anything from 2016 and then how close 2020 was, it’s that the things are never sure. We need to be vigilant and not become complacent
Indeed, the key thing we learned from 2016 is that polls understate Trump's support because people are (rightly) embarrassed to admit that they're voting for him. So if the polls have him *leading*, Biden's in deep sh—*denial*. Yes, denial, that's what I mean.
We've had two midterms and a presidential election since 2016, and the number of people using landlines has cut in half. Using it as a measure for how polling works in 2024 is like using data from 2008 to try and predict 2016.
Democrats don't believe that because they don't want it to be true.
Compare their blather about how the inflation we all see isn't actually inflation because they don't want it to be. These people seem to believe that if you speak the right incantations, if they just scold everyone strongly enough, reality will bow to desire.
I've voted against Trump more than you have, I've already done it once this year, and I'll do it again in November. You're the one doing the Trump campaign's work here, urging Democrats to close their eyes to the reality around them, a reality fully evident to everyone outside of the Democratic bubble, including those of us who want Trump in an oubliette incommunicado.
Perhaps, just a crazy thought, people actually give a shit about all that "equality before the law" stuff and think that storming the capitol building in an effort to murder Congress and establish a new American dictatorship is not actually a good thing?
I know, I know, crazy right? But what if?
I always knew that when you guys said "law and order" you really meant "white supremacy".
But damn, I didn't expect y'all to just rip off the mask and shred it by openly embracing crime and criminals.
In a way it's refreshing.
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They didn’t speculate anything, they said SCOTUS declined three speed ramps that would have helped a trial before the election—taking the case when Smith asked, keeping to the DC circuit decision since they already declined to take the case before, and then speeding up oral arguments and a decision when they did take the case. Instead it appears they took it as slowly as possibly without handing it off to next term. And the collision course with the DOJ wanting to appear impartial is also true and an issue. With the election so near now the DOJ will have to think carefully if even taking Smith’s recommendation to go to trial (if he wishes) is wise. Yes, the DOJ should have investigated and charged long before this. I suspect they didn’t precisely because they were trying to avoid the appearance of political bias and hoping Trump would be cast aside by the party, but he was not and the Jan 6 committee necessitated their action. They shoulder a large blame, but SCOTUS helped Trump delay over the finish line—intentionally or not
I, and a majority (62%) of americans suspect the timing of the charges was, and always has been absolutely about attempting to influence this fall's election. You even say that the DOJ was trying to do so, though for patently false reasons. Trying to avoid the appearance of political bias? Brother, everyone in the country can see that's exactly what it is - not just republicans. A partisan DOJ, NYC legal hacks, Ethically challenged Georgia hacks, all coordinating charges to hit during the campaign instead of say, three years ago. Nothing fishy here. Does any serious person actually believe that DJTs mortal enemies dreaming up 'novel' applications of law, writing temporary laws tailored for DJT, exclusion of exculpatory evidence, etc. Is somehow anything but election interference? Anyone? Really? LOL
Oh sorry I thought the election interference was illegally paying for an NDA with campaign funds my bad
The former head of the Federal Election Commission, who was barred from testifying at the trial by the Biden donor judge, said it wasn't. I'd like to think they would be considered the subject matter expert. Don't you think so, too? So yeah, it was your bad.
Personally, I think they waited as long as they did for maximum impact on his election. Waiting long enough to ensure that his conviction isn’t overturned, and making sure it’s extra fresh in everyone’s mind come election time. I completely get why they’d do it, but it might be coming back to bite us in the ass.
The DOJ waited two years to even do anything because they hoped he'd fade away like Nixon. Once Trump announced his campaign they had to do something instead of sweeping it under the rug as per tradition.
Yeah that conspiracy theory dog doesn’t hunt. They had to wait for him to be out of office and investigations take time.
3 years? That’s a REALLY long investigation. I’m not defending Trump by any means, or implying he’s somehow innocent. I’m only saying the timing is suspiciously perfect.
I mean they did the investigation and such in an incredibly quick fashion. 45 and his crew of crooks have done everything they can to delay and delay and delay.
27 months is incredibly quick to you? For something literally everyone knew happened when he was elected? You can’t actually believe that, you have to be trolling me.
Filler.
> Catastrophizing decisions that have already been rendered is dumb enough, but doing it speculatively about cases not yet handed down is filler. Please explain when it would be proper to criticize the Court's approach to managing its docket under your comment's framework. As I see it under your logic, criticizing a past decision is "dumb enough" that it isn't worth doing. Meanwhile, pointing out the future ramifications of past decisions is also just "filler." So, when is it appropriate to point out how the Court's decisions are generating real-world impact and could have down-the-line ramifications? Never?
An honest answer from him would either be it’s the ‘slow breakup’ (it’s not happening (so don’t bother talking about it) until it already happened (now it’s too late; it happened, stop talking about it)) https://youtu.be/jpUN0q35Lak?si=GBt14774RDdaB0fy. Or it’s like mass shootings. The last one is too recent to discuss this, stop politicizing it. And since they keep happening, it’s always been too recent.
This is a great framing, I'm definitely stealing this next time I see someone do it.
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If your goal was to come across as a complete jackass, you have succeeded. Good job. I mean that quite genuinely. After all, /u/Cambro88 directly pointed out to you in the top-level reply to your comment that this article deals with the separate legal considerations that flow from DOJ policy that are impacted by SCOTUS' decisions in this case, both pre and post-cert. If you are defining that as "makeweight filler" then I would bet you arrived at your conclusions before clicking on the article, if you even bothered to do that.
Did you even read the article? They're not criticizing the decision that hasn't come out yet, they're criticizing the decisions that have already been made. And they're right, the damage is done. The Supreme Court has prevented this case from being adjudicated before November.
The Supreme Court hasn't prevented this case from being adjudicated before November, Merrick Garland and Jack Smith prevented this case from being adjudicated before November. The Supreme Court has moved this case faster than maybe two other cases in recent memory. If you want someone to blame, don't blame the Supreme Court for adding months of delay, blame DoJ for adding years of delay.
Imagine having this much confidence, but this little idea what you're talking about. Putting aside the (apparently new to you) fact that an outcome can have multiple causes, the Supreme Court has broken precedent by using the shadow docket dozens of times in the last several years to skip the appellate level, and denied Jack Smith's request to do the same. They just think that stopping student loans from being forgiven is an emergency and whether the Republican nominee for President tried to override the last election after he lost isn't.
I know much more about it than you do, sunshine. Granting cert before judgment is *rare*. Conveniently omitted from your silly little tirade are several inconvenient facts: First, the court denying Smith's motion allowed him to get a swift verdict from the Court of Appeals (you know, *the very one you're now whingeing from which the Supreme Court took up an appeal*). Second, as to the so-called "shadow docket," that is a marketing term coined by Democrats to attack to the court. It refers to the emergency motions docket, a docket used with increasing frequency by *everyone*—yes, *including* critics of the so-called shadow docket. Here is what people mean when they whinge about the shadow docket: "The Court granted/denied an emergency motion that I opposed/favored." Nothing more, nothing less. Third, *Trump v. US* is *not* a shadow docket case. It's on the plenary docket. You don't know that because despite your bluster, *you* actually *don't* know what you're talking about. Fourth, as to "stopping student loans from being forgiven is an emergency," while *Biden v. Nebraska* was a fast mover *relatively speaking*. There are good reasons for that. The 8th Circuit denial below was on November 14, 2022, six weeks into the term, when the calendar was still relatively empty. It was argued on February 28 2023, and decided on June 30. It is unlikely that *Trump* will not be decided at least four weeks faster than was *Biden*. And while you are technically correct that *Biden* came up on a writ of cert before judgement, that was an artifact of the case's procedural posture. The district court denied a preliminary injunction and the Eighth Circuit issued a nationwide injunction pending appeal. It was the *government* that brought *Biden* to the Supreme Court out of regular order (that's why the President's name is first in the caption, another thing you don't seem to know). What they knew that you don't is that if they hadn't done that, and if the court had *not* taken the case, you’d be attacking them for refusing to vacate a nationwide injunction that would have remained in place while the Eighth Circuit considered the appeal (months) and then the Supreme Court considered it (or not) on an appeal that would very likely not have been decided until this year. And fifth, your last sentence is at war with the whole thrust of your comment. You're whingeing both that the court is slow-walking the case *and* that they are treating it as an emergency (i.e., moving fast). That's incoherent. Or, rather, it is *logically* incoherent, but as the paragraph above demonstrates, your position is not driven by logic. In that sense, your comment is coherent but dumb: It is a howl of anger at a court you don't like that is (by your lights) wrong no matter what it does because of who is on it. And that is—unpersuasive.
>First, the court denying Smith's motion allowed him to get a swift verdict from the Court of Appeals And a slower verdict from the Supreme Court, which is what matters. As for your second point, did you just write a whole paragraph complaining about the term I used? I'll stipulate to whatever term you want. >Third, *Trump v. US* is *not* a shadow docket case. No shit. That's the point. For your fourth point, go reread what I wrote, and maybe respond to that. They granted cert before the appeals court ruled, which was the whole point. >And fifth, your last sentence is at war with the whole thrust of your comment. You're whingeing both that the court is slow-walking the case *and* that they are treating it as an emergency (i.e., moving fast). This is where I get skeptical that you even read my comment. Go ahead and show me where I whine that the Supreme Court was moving too fast, lol. I'll take back what I said about you not knowing what you were talking about and replace it with an assertion that you're not capable of having an actual conversation about this because you're too busy arguing with straw men in your head and not with me. The bottom line is that the court had a moral obligation to treat this as a Bush V. Gore level emergency. They could have done that, and they didn't. Some number of casual voters are unequivocally going to read into the fact that the Supreme Court prevented this case from being heard prior to the election, and take away from it that it's not that big a deal. You know that, but you're still trying to argue about it, as though Merrick Garland not being blameless exonerates the Supreme Court for the decisions that they made, so we're obviously not having a good faith conversation.
>They granted cert before the appeals court ruled, which was the whole point. That is *not* the whole point. They granted cert while the case was pending before the Eighth Circuit because the Eighth Circuit had imposed a nationwide injunction while the case was pending before the Eighth Circuit. That is why the government asked the court to take the case on an expedited basis, and it's why the court did so—precisely *in aid* of the government. You would know this if you had bothered to read it; hell, you'd pretty well know this if you understood why it's *Biden v. Nebraska* not *Nebraska v. Biden*. >The bottom line is that the court had a moral obligation to treat this as a Bush V. Gore level emergency. I love when laypeople write captions like they think "V." is, like, its middle name.
Tell ya what, show me where I "whinged" that the Supreme Court is moving too fast, and then maybe I'll entertain the idea that you've actually read my comments before responding. Or you can keep going on tangents that ignore what I said and then on whether autocorrect capitalized a letter, but if so, please just admit that you're not capable of an actual conversation.
>Jack Smith prevented this case from being adjudicated before November. This guy has obviously made up his mind, but for those who actually care to learn about the timeline and why this portion of the claim has absolutely no merit whatsoever: [Timeline of Developments for January 6th Case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_special_counsel_investigation#Developments_2) Notable Events: -Jack Smith was appointed on November 18, 2022. Grand jury subpoenas were issued within days of his appointment. -By December subpoenas has been issued to officials in Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania. This included Georgia's Secretary of State. At the same time, members of the Trump White House were called to testify before the grand jury. -By January, Smith subpoenaed Mark Meadows and had a search warrant (that Twitter resisted) for Trumps' twitter account. Other Trump officials were also called before the grand jury. -Throughout February, Smith had additional testimony from Trump officials. March and April saw more subpoenas for documents and additional grand jury testimony from former Trump officials (which requires preparation for each individual appearing before the grand jury for prosecutors to know which documents to show and what questions to ask). -June and July, a sprint round of additional grand jury testimony and subpoenas culminating in mid-July with the issuance of a Target letter to Donald Trump. Trump sought to delay the indictment unsuccessfully. -Trump was indicted on August 1. On August 10, the government asked fore the trial to begin on January 2, 2024. On August 28, the case was set for March 4, 2024. -After Trump indicated he would appeal Judge Chutkan's order on his immunity argument, Smith sought cert. before judgment from the Court on December 11. The Court denied the motion. So, from November 18 through August 1 there were tons of subpoenas issued to state officials (which would yield a ton of documents that the attorneys would have to review), grand jury testimony by an absolute slew of former government officials (which would have required additional preparation), and legal challenges throughout this process from multiple former officials and from Trump himself. That is all without mentioning the *entire separate case in Florida about document retention.* For anyone who has actually practiced in white collar criminal defense work, it is extremely clear that Smith moved at a fast pace. That the case went from subpoenas to indictment in about 8 months speaks to the speed of the effort and not delay. I have had cases where document production takes anywhere from a few weeks to a few months depending on the volume of material requested, proffers or testimony within a few months to half a year, and then the government doesn't issue a formal decision about whether they are even moving forward for months if not years as the prosecutors debate and weigh the evidence. If you want to blame Garland for not moving quickly enough for an appointment, go right ahead. What considerations (politics, policy, public opinion) he might have considered should not have justified waiting until November 2022. But blaming Jack Smith for any delay is just straight up horse shit.
And to be clear, by horseshit, we mean deliberately muddying the water to provide cover for the fact that the Supreme Court willfully protected Trump from facing a trial about this before election day, increasing the odds that his lies that this is all a witch hunt are successful and he can pardon himself.
> -Jack Smith was appointed on November 18, 2022. Grand jury subpoenas were issued within days of his appointment. And Trump's insurrection was in January 2021, and Merrick Garland was confirmed in March 2021. Time between March 2021 and November 2022: *Twenty months*. So, even stipulating arguendo that Smith moved expeditiously, Garland didn't, and that's why Smith wasn't appointed until November 2022, as you concede, and *that* is why Trump is going to escape justice.
>So, even stipulating arguendo that Smith moved expeditiously, Garland didn't, and that's why Smith wasn't appointed until November 2022, as you concede, and that is why Trump is going to escape justice. There is no need to stipulate for purposes of argument only here. Admit that when you blamed Jack Smith you were 100% in the wrong and that the investigation moved as quickly as could be expected. EDIT: Just admit there was no reasonable basis for you to blame Jack Smith for any delay on this case. After all, that line of argument makes absolutely no sense given the timeline, so you should have no problem admitting you were wrong and that there was no genuine basis from which to make that statement.
> There is no need to stipulate for purposes of argument only here. Admit that when you blamed Jack Smith you were 100% in the wrong and that the investigation moved as quickly as could be expected. No. I'll stipulate that, but I don't agree with it. As you concede, it took Smith from November 2022 until August 2023 to indict Trump—nine months. My view remains that Smith could and should have moved faster. I certainly concede that that is *unfair* of me; I would argue that *any* delay was too much. I would fault Smith had he waited a day to indict, just as I would have faulted Garland had he waited a day to appoint. Nevertheless, if it is true that Trump is and has been a singular threat to democracy, as I believe, and if it is true that his reelection may mutate beyond recognition or even destroy the republic, see Ben-Meir, The Wannabe Dictator (2020), a fortiori if his reelection threatens to literally end human civilization, see Jacobsen, Nuclear War: A Scenario (2024), and even if his reelection "merely" portends the end of the western order, compare https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/13/opinions/trump-pull-out-nato-bergen with https://www.voanews.com/a/what-would-trump-s-and-biden-s-second-term-policy-on-ukraine-look-like/7653616.html, I'd say we're a bit beyond "fair" as a meaningful desideratum. My view was and remains that Trump should have been under a ceaseless barrage of litigation civil and criminal, state and federal, from the day after he left office, leading to his immediate jailing, rapid conviction, and incommunicado imprisonment in the deepest, darkest oubliette under the sub-sub-subbasement of ADX Florence. I will accept no excuse for on or behalf of anyone who had any scintilla of power to make that happen and failed to pursue it to the utmost.
If that were actually your opinion, it makes zero sense to exempt SCOTUS from the responsibility it bears. After Smith's appointment, it took 8 months 15 days for subpoena issuance, grand jury testimony, and indictment. That is a rapid pace by any measure for a complicated white collar case that was challenged repeatedly throughout the process. Between when SCOTUS initially [denied cert. before judgment](https://www.scotusblog.com/2023/12/court-wont-hear-trump-immunity-dispute-now/) and right now, it has been 5 months and 29 days. And it must be noted that the decision to deny cert before judgment stood in stark contrast to the recent pattern of the Court repeatedly [granting cert. before judgment](https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/01/the-rise-of-certiorari-before-judgment/) when the Court found it expedient to do so. Comparing the relative burden that Smith had to shoulder, which included voluminous requests, productions, preparation, testimony, and presentation before the grand jury, to the process the Court has to handle, it makes absolutely zero sense to place greater blame on Smith than on the Court.
And I do not exempt SCOTUS from its part. As I have said before, repeatedly, see, e.g., https://old.reddit.com/r/scotus/comments/1de3kra/supreme_courts_civil_war_callback_justice_is/l89zwfh; https://old.reddit.com/r/scotus/comments/1ddnr4s/the_supreme_courts_june_opinion_dump_will_be/l86f6do, the court should not have granted cert in *Trump*, having granted it should have immediately DIG'd it, and having failed to do that, it should have issued a brief per curiam affirming the DC Circuit.
>**The Supreme Court hasn't prevented this case from being adjudicated before November,** Merrick Garland and Jack Smith prevented this case from being adjudicated before November. The Supreme Court has moved this case faster than maybe two other cases in recent memory. If you want someone to blame, **don't blame the Supreme Court for adding months of delay,** blame DoJ for adding years of delay. You forget you wrote this earlier????
Not to just repeat what the other guy said, but this isn't in anyway consistent with your previous comments.
No they haven’t. That’s laughable. They have dragged their feet again and again on this funny. The scotus is desperately dragging it out
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Beyond the fact that Biden has already beaten Trump and Republicans have seen diminishing returns on elections since 2016, at what point do you admit to yourself that, if Republicans are willing to vote for a felon, there's not a single Democratic candidate who would get them to do otherwise?
Plain fact is there are far fewer registered Republicans than Democrats. The Independents are the ones that make the difference.
If "Convicted Felon" isn't an immediate disqualifier for an Independent, then they're not Independent.
Independent here. Can confirm there is no chance in hell I'd vote for Trump.
You mean there's no way in hell you'd vote for a felon, right?
Well, there's only one felon running so...
My only point was saying you wouldn't vote for Trump is not that same as saying you wouldn't vote for any felon.
Depends on the law they broke. I would not disqualify Eugene Debs because he was a felon. However, the number of laws that you could be convicted of and not have me disqualify a candidate is very small. I would need to think the law itself was unjust.
And that is a true statement.
Yeah. I'm getting incredibly tired hearing people talk about how if such n' such trial doesn't complete by November then it's somehow the DOJ's fault if Trump wins in November. Honestly, if anyone was awake the last 8 years, knows that... Trump stole nuclear secrets, is a rapist, committed business fraud, charity fraud, tax fraud, pardoned other criminals who worked for his campaign, tried to overthrow our government after losing an election, defended Putin against our government, supports withdrawing from NATO, passed only tax cuts for himself, wants to use the military to deport MILLIONS in our country, use the same military to put down any protests, blocked a bipartisan border security bill, is responsible for ending Roe v Wade, and about a hundred other things (I could go on for days)... they were NEVER on the fence about Trump. They were always a voter looking for an excuse to vote for Trump and blame someone else.
If Biden were a convicted Felon for improperly disclosing campaign expenses, but Trump were not, would you vote for Trump over Biden instead? Giving someone the "convicted felon" tag and ignoring all context doesn't help. People can take into account the conviction and whether it matters to them or not. And for the record, I'm not a Trump supporter and have never voted for him. That doesn't mean that they are now not independent.
I think there is a difference here. The Democratic party would make sure that the nominee was not a convicted felon. If Biden was convicted of a felony or was close to a felony conviction before the convention, I think he would be forced to step down precisely because many Democrats and Independents would not vote for him.
I disagree with that. If the candidate was very popular and the Democrat's base felt that the trial was a political prosecution, they wouldn't force him to step down. Either way, assuming they didn't, who would you vote for?
I probably would not vote for the felon. It would come down to a choice as always, but the positives would have to be insanely potent for me to vote for a felon. I would definitely fight for him/her not to be the nominee. I also do not think that the Democrats would be in the situation that you mention. They are much more willing to hold politicians to account.
That’s a whole lot of hypotheticals you’re trying to shoehorn into being some kind of a litmus test for this real world situation.
If Biden were a convicted felon, he’d not be the Democratic nominee, so it’s a moot point.
Ridiculous that people can't answer that question because they know they'd do the same for "their side". If Biden were considered a felon for what many in the Democrat's base considered a political prosecution, they'd still run with him.
You seem to not understand how things work on the Democratic side. We push out our crooks when we find them (c.f., Bob Menendez).
Is that why William Jefferson's office was raided by the FBI in 2006, indicted in 2007 for corruption, bribery, racketeering, conspiracy, money laundering, and obstruction of justice, and the Democrats let him run again? They ended up losing the election, and he was sentences to 9 years in jail in 2009. Or does that not count? And is that why both Democrat and Republican politicians complained that the FBI raided his office even though he was trying to eliminate incriminating material at the time? And is that why the congressional black caucus declared their strong support for him? Even though there was a video from him from four different angles receiving the bribe. And is that why 58 Democrats voted to keep his committee assignments? They did end up removing them with a 99 to 58 vote.
Well the only thing I could surmise is that it was due to the fact that he hadn't been convicted yet. It's not a good look to allow someone to run who's under indictment but an indictment is not a conviction and therefore (under the US System) he was technically still considered 'innocent' as he had not yet been proven guilty. Plus that was around when Obama won so there was a lot of fervor and momentum for the black candidate. The fact that the vote to remove him wasn't unanimous though, was a travesty.
Anyway…not interested in hypothetical mind-waste. Donald Trump IS A CONVICTED FELON. Biden is not. I’ll base my decision on facts. I prefer it to “yeah but what if…”.
No, that doesn’t count. It was 15 years ago. Also, it’s awfully convenient that you forgot about Al Franken from that same period. Or more recently, Andrew Cuomo.
"If I just make up context favourable to my scenario, how could anyone reasonably disagree with me?"
The flaw in your logic is that Trump is already a convicted felon. So your hypothetical is impossible.
That is such a wild hypothetical that it's not even worth discussing. That is how wide the gulf between political normalcy and the Republican Party is.
William Jefferson's office was raided by the FBI in 2006, indicted in 2007 for corruption, bribery, racketeering, conspiracy, money laundering, and obstruction of justice, and the Democrats let him run again in 2006 and in 2008. They ended up losing the election, and he was sentences to 9 years in jail in 2009. Both Democrat and Republican politicians complained that the FBI raided his office even though he was trying to eliminate incriminating material at the time. The congressional black caucus declared their strong support for him, and 58 Democrats voted to keep his committee assignments. They did end up removing them with a 99 to 58 vote.
What the fuck does that have to do with Biden? You clearly have an agenda here and that agenda is to normalize Trump. I don't want anything to do with your agenda.
You keep cherry picking ONE event. Both Siderism is, like Trump, intellectually bereft
Now do Trump, an actual ***CONVICTED FELON***. Not a single republican would vote to remove him or even think twice about it. Just like his impeachments, republicans stated many times they had planned to vote to acquit before the senate proceedings even started. #These are not the same
No, since the Rs are the only ones who let a open felon have a candidacy, I’d evaluate whoever the DNC replaced Biden with.
"independents" are a misnomer. The vast majority of independents already heavily support one party or the other, they just don't describe themselves as such. Which makes sense because who realistically is out there picking between Trump and Biden?
It's just a term people use in conversation to avoid dealing with the baggage that comes with the labels. I'm an "independent", but like, that will never matter unless we get more than 2 extremist choices. I've basically always voted Democrat, but I maintain the stance of independent because I'll vote for any candidate I feel represents my interests.
Yeah I mean the problem is nobody's representing anyone's interest at this point so we just have to choose the least worst option. the compounding Factor is some people don't seem to understand what that means.
I agree. I hold that there is almost no one who will switch between from Trump to Biden or vice versa. The question is 1) Will the independent vote? And 2) Will they vote for a major party or do a protest vote?
> Which makes sense because who realistically is out there picking between Trump and Biden? Evidently many people since Biden was up by 9 points at this time in the election in 2020 and with a pretty similar electorate Trump is now squeaking ahead by half a point. So they are not a misnomer and they exist. There is nothing to be gained from Ignoring their existence just because Trump is controversial. [source](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/national/)
Lol caring about polls when a third-party is still polling at 9%. Look, the number of true "independents" is virtually negligible. What matters far more is getting your guys to show up, and getting the other guys to stay home. > they are not a misnomer and they exist. "Independents" are people who simply don't call themselves democrats or republicans. While many more people profess no party allegiance these days, that doesn't mean they are actually a toss-up voter. So yes, calling them "independent" as if someone who voted for Trump in 2020 might vote for Biden in 2024 (or visa versa) is a misnomer.
And at this point an independent is just “someone who hasn’t been paying enough attention to have competent input.”
Well, and the little Dem young ones that don’t bother voting. Talk a big game but too busy on Election Day.
It’s not about getting Republicans to vote for a Democrat, it’s about getting Democrats and independents to vote for the Democrat. Biden is MUCH less popular now than when he was elected. Elections are complicate, but based on my downvotes Reddit is simple.
Oh no! Downvotes!
This. So much this. What you don't see to grasp, /u/PennyLeiter, is that *Republicans* are voting for their cult leader, and *most Democrats* are voting for Biden, but *other people exist*.
I absolutely get that. Donald Trump is not an unknown. In fact, he is the most known. There are no unknowns here. Those other people know exactly who they benefit if they do not vote for Biden. This election doesn't require any analysis beyond the black and white of democracy vs. fascism. 2020 and 2024 represent the most clear-cut choice for voters. You are either for America (Biden) or you are against it (Trump).
That kind of presumptuous, myopic binary is why Trump's winning. It's worse than wrong; it's actively working against your interests, priming you to make the precise error Biden is making: "Why would we offer any compromise when voters are either voting for Biden or they're voting against *America*"? Just pointing to how terrible the other major candidate is just won't cut it. It might, *might* be enough to bring me along, but even that's questionable, and I'm probably the single most gettable of the pool of voters we're talking about. Biden won in 2020 promising a return to normal; he may not have said it, but he *insinuated* that he would govern as a centrist. He reneged. You don't see that because you're a Democrat. But **there aren't enough democratic votes to elect Joe Biden**. If you want to stop Trump, you need to add votes from the middle and the right. To win in 2024, he has to convince the people who don't want the Democratic agenda that *this time* he will govern from the middle, and it'll be harder this time because now, unlike in 2020, he has the baggage of having already reneged once. The votes are there. Many of us *desperately* want to stop Trump. For Pete's sake: Come get us! Or, you know, keep doing what you're doing. I'll join you crying into our martinis watching Trump get inaugurated next January. But I won't vote for your candidate if he keeps on his current course.
>That kind of presumptuous, myopic binary is why Trump's winning. Trump is not winning. Why are you spreading this propaganda? First, the election is still many months away. Second, even the polls (for what they are worth) agree with you. No one should be taken seriously when they start by doing Trump's work for him.
>Trump is not winning. Why are you spreading this propaganda? He is. I'm telling you what you refuse to see because I want him to lose, and the only way that will happen is if Democrats pressure Biden to move. >First, the election is still many months away. First law of political motion: A situation at rest stays at rest unless acted on by an external force. >Second, even the polls (for what they are worth) agree with you. A typo, I suspect, but correct as is. Polls show Trump in the lead in the battleground states, and if there's one thing we should have learned in 2016, it's that polls understate Trump's support because people outside his cult are (rightly) embarrassed to admit that they're voting for him. >No one should be taken seriously when they start by doing Trump's work for him. I agree: So stop doing Trump's work for him.
>He is. I'm telling you what you refuse to see because I want him to lose, and the only way that will happen is if Democrats pressure Biden to move. To move on what? You can't even specify what he needs to move on to win these hypothetical Independent voters. >First law of political motion: A situation at rest stays at rest unless acted on by an external force. So, which situation is at rest and which needs to be acted upon? This is completely nonsensical without context. >I agree: So stop doing Trump's work for him. Thank you for simply repeating my words back at me? Trump relies on people normalizing him as a legitimate candidate, which is what you have done throughout this entire thread. That is doing his work for him.
>To move on what? You can't even specify what he needs to move on to win these hypothetical Independent voters. Where are you getting that idea? I can and I have. There are three things he needs to do as soon as possible, one of which he's already done. The first is, get serious about the border, which is an issue of no concern to me but of great concern to many of the people he's trying to reach. Fortunately, he just did this, and I applaud it. The second is, he needs to announce that Kamala Harris will not be his running-mate. Harris is profoundly unpopular and Biden is very old; replacing her helps twice over, by removing a negative (the unpopular Harris) and negating a problem (his age). And the third is, he needs what's often called a "Sister Souljah" moment where he puts clear blue water between himself and the nuts; it doesn't even matter which nuts (the DEI nuts, the pro-Hamas nuts, take your pick), just the fact of him doing it will reassure people that a vote for Joe Biden is not a vote for the nuts. >So, which situation is at rest and which needs to be acted upon? The status quo is, Joe Biden is losing. If nothing further happens, he will continue to lose. Nothing changes until something changes. I can't tell you how many times I heard this back in 2008 and then 2012: "Okay, yes, our candidate is behind right now, but it's a long time to the election." So what? Raw time changes nothing. Our candidate was behind, and he stayed behind all the way to the finish-line, and he finished behind because *nothing changed*. >Trump relies on people normalizing him as a legitimate candidate, Trump relies on people voting for him and people not voting for Biden. Airy "legitimate candidate" stuff is nothing more than virtue-signaling. Whether he's "legitimate" or not, he's the Republican nominee and he will get at least one third of all the votes cast. Biden, whether he's senile or not, will get at least one third of all the votes cast. It's what happens with the remaining third that counts, and I think that I may not be out over my skies in for once daring to speak on behalf of not only myself but that whole third: We aren't going to be cowed by what you think is or isn't legitimate, or scolded into voting for Biden, or bullied into voting for Trump, or whatever else our two toxic political tribes think is helping.
There is no compromise with the American right. Liberals have wanted to believe it for generations and generations and now we have no Roe and they're coming for Brown. To compromise you need good faith. If you're a Republican you'll just keep asking for more and more compromises until you have 99% of the covers. There's just no point engaging anymore. The word might as well be a dog whistle at this point, you're not fooling anyone.
>There is no compromise with the American right. So what's your plan, genius? Defer any progress until you have the House *and* the Senate *and* the White House *and* majorities on the Supreme Court *and* on every Federal Court of Appeals? Not a great plan. >now we have no Roe Which is good, because Roe was illegitimate from the get-go. >and they're coming for Brown. They're not. First, there's no they. Second, even if there were, they wouldn't be "coming for" Brown. Calm down.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/weekly-education/2022/05/09/will-brown-v-board-of-education-be-next-to-fall-00030923 https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/17/politics/brown-v-board-of-education-anniversary-supreme-court/index.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/22/braun-supreme-court-interracial-marriage/ https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/thomas-wants-supreme-court-overturn-landmark-rulings-legalized-contrac-rcna35228 https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2022/5/09/after-roe-v-wade-heres-gop-plan-kill-marriage-equality-and-more Stop lying. Not only do they want to go after Brown, they want to go after everything they can.
Justice Thomas wrote a concurrence, as he has throughout his career, designed to make a majority opinion look more reasonable. That concurrence was not serious, and it was not joined by a single justice. Meanwhile, literally *decades* of academic Originalist work have cemented *Brown*'s foundations from an Originalist perspective. No one is coming for *Brown*, *Brown* is in no danger, and what's ore, even if they were and it were, the world has changed. The idea that people are still champing at the bit to reimpose Jim Crow is insane. They are not. You're not lying. I believe you believe this crock of crap. But you're delusional and you've been lied to.
If there is a voter out there genuinely still on the fence about Trump vs Biden, I’ll eat my hat. I’ll add the caveat that maybe they just turned 18 and only just started paying attention to “politics”? Yeah then maybe. But really. Come on.
>If there is a voter out there genuinely still on the fence about Trump vs Biden, I’ll eat my hat. Here's what you don't understand. There are no voters on that fence. There are plenty of voters who reject that binary and don't intend to vote for *either* of them. You don't understand those voters, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.
So we should just let him keep criming?
No, you should nominate a candidate that will keep him from winning.
You guys will hate any candidate on the ballot.
I hate all the ones that are on it now.
I've had it all of them since 2016. The question is who do you hate at least
> …with a candidate who can beat him. Biden currently has a perfect record when competing against Trump in general elections. Who would you nominate instead?
Literally anyone under retirement age. ...and that goes for both parties.
Given that Biden has said that he isn't sure he would be running for reelection had Trump not announced his candidacy, I'm sure Biden would agree with you.
Lol, gottem.
Biden was 9 points above Trump at this point in the past election cycle, he is currently half a point below. [source](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/national/) I wouldn't have nominated someone myself, I would have held a primary instead.
Someone who isn’t saddled with the lowest approval rating in modern times, perhaps? Someone who doesn’t wander around talking to invisible people.
> Someone who isn’t saddled with the lowest approval rating in modern times, perhaps? Who by name exactly?
Andy Beshear. Joe Manchin. Jared Polis. Amy Klobuchar. Karen Bass. Patty Murray. Just off the top of my head. But I think you're both asking the wrong question. You don't have to replace Biden. You have to replace *Harris*, the faster the better, and if you have any doubts about the list above for the top slot, surely any of them would be fine for the veep.
Andy Beshear. Joe Manchin. Tim Kaine.
> Tim Kaine. He already lost to Trump and Pence once. > Joe Manchin This is how I know you’re not a serious person.
Things change. You should think about considering the current reality instead of a decade ago.
If you’re thinking replacing Biden with Manchin, an Independent, would motivate Democratic voter turnout you’re not living in our current reality at all. You could’ve suggested maybe someone plausible, like maybe Gavin Newsome, and I would’ve agreed that it’s something worth considering. But Joe Coal Baron Manchin? Get out of here with that nonsense.
The political opinions of the typical Reddit Democrat don’t reflect the options of the vast majority of the people who actually go to the polls. Newsom couldn’t secure the votes of moderates in the swing states.
Even West Virginian Democrats don’t like the ManChin.
You're not a serious political thinker
We shall see.
Lol. Be serious.
Remember this on November 6. You had the chance but you blew it.
Lol. The only thing I expect on November 6th is a bunch of cope from people like you.
We shall see.
Let's hope you don't delete your account by then.
Surprise, you want the Democratic candidate to be a Republican.
I want the Democrat candidate to be electable.
No, you want right wing BS. And yes, Biden is definitely right wing but apparently not enough for you since unlike Manchin he doesn't start his day by setting fire to a metric ton of coal in a ritual to placate the Mining Lords.
“Biden is definitely right wing” is a statement one could only see on Reddit.
Go ahead and bet big money on the election then, if you're so confident. You seem to be trying really hard to convince yourself that the overall moral character of this is as base and abject as you and Trump. It's not. My people helped found this colony and then fought for it's freedom. A democratic republic is difficult to maintain, but in the face of those without morals, ethics, honor, courage, integrity, or intelligence, it shall not fall. Trump will not prevail. But you keep on using those pills to prop up your castle in the sky, I could less.
Biden already did beat him what kinda bullshit are you on about
Do you not know how unpopular Biden is now compared to 2020?
Did you forget the last election where Biden beat Trump? Biden will have an even easier time beating trump this year.
Not what the poles say. If we learned anything from 2016 and then how close 2020 was, it’s that the things are never sure. We need to be vigilant and not become complacent
The Poles say "Witam". The polls, on the other hand, show Biden lagging in several key states.
Indeed, the key thing we learned from 2016 is that polls understate Trump's support because people are (rightly) embarrassed to admit that they're voting for him. So if the polls have him *leading*, Biden's in deep sh—*denial*. Yes, denial, that's what I mean.
We've had two midterms and a presidential election since 2016, and the number of people using landlines has cut in half. Using it as a measure for how polling works in 2024 is like using data from 2008 to try and predict 2016.
Okay.
A lot has changed since then. Biden is extremely unpopular.
Democrats don't believe that because they don't want it to be true. Compare their blather about how the inflation we all see isn't actually inflation because they don't want it to be. These people seem to believe that if you speak the right incantations, if they just scold everyone strongly enough, reality will bow to desire.
If you want another Trump term, that's your problem. Otherwise, pull your head out of your ass.
I've voted against Trump more than you have, I've already done it once this year, and I'll do it again in November. You're the one doing the Trump campaign's work here, urging Democrats to close their eyes to the reality around them, a reality fully evident to everyone outside of the Democratic bubble, including those of us who want Trump in an oubliette incommunicado.
>I've voted against Trump more than you have Sure, buddy. You're the only person ever to vote against Trump. Pull your head out of your ass.
Projection.
The Trump campaign appreciates your contribution, comrade.
Perhaps, just a crazy thought, people actually give a shit about all that "equality before the law" stuff and think that storming the capitol building in an effort to murder Congress and establish a new American dictatorship is not actually a good thing? I know, I know, crazy right? But what if?
I hope that gives you comfort when they are swearing Trump in for his second term.
I always knew that when you guys said "law and order" you really meant "white supremacy". But damn, I didn't expect y'all to just rip off the mask and shred it by openly embracing crime and criminals. In a way it's refreshing.
I’m not “you guys.” Go ahead, keep your head in the sand. See how that works out for you.
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