The willingness to undermine whatever integrity of our legal system remains to go after Trump on the premise that he's "evil" just goes to show you how crazed DemocRATS are. They don't care about the harm they'll do to trust in institutions; it's all about tying Trump's hands. Considering, as others have pointed out, we KNOW what 4 years of Trump was like vs. almost 4 really bad years of Biden, the doddering, wokeshevik authoritarian. That is why people are rejecting Biden and his "transgender," anti-religion, anti-parent, anti-American, policies, not to mention his absolutely disastrous meddling with the economy that was WAY better before he came along. Oh, and let's not forget the revelations of his career-long graft.
John should be ashamed of himself, but, he and his ilk won't be.
John strikes me as an elitist snob who refuses to consider information that might undermine his ideological world view and sense of intellectual superiority. The first time this unhappy thought occurred to me was when I was listening to a discussion about the first Trump impeachment on an episode of the old Glenn Show in October 2019. Glenn observed that when Trump asked Ukranian president Zelensky for "a favor," Trump referred to Crowdstrike and the DNC server, i.e., was seeking information relating to Russiagate. John dismissed Glenn's point with these words: "Why would he be so concerned about that now? He lives in the present eating his Cheetos. Why does he all of a sudden want to redress something that happened two or three years ago with no relevance to what's going on now?" (Audio of 10/13/2019 Glenn Show at 9:15). The Dems' Russiagate fraud had "no relevance"--is that what John really thinks?
Trump's election caused the establishment to go into anaphylactic shock. The venom in the bee's sting does not cause excessive harm; rather, it is the body's overreaction that results in death.
Russiagate was, at best, a Clinton campaign/DNC disinformation op run against the American public and the press. Again, that is the best case scenario-evidence is emerging that US intelligence agencies were looking for a pretext to surveil the Trump campaign before he was even nominated. This false accusation roiled the body politic for two years, long after its proponents knew its falsehood.
Impeachment One was a similar overreaction. Re-reading the Trump-Zelensky transcript with today's knowledge shows how flimsy the allegations were. Trump and Zelensky gave each other tongue baths, then Trump briefly mentioned rumors of Biden family corruption and asks Zelensky to help determine how true they are. The resulting impeachment was again, an excessive overreaction.
The second impeachment was a show trial, with exculpatory evidence withheld and later destroyed. The prosecution's strongest witness' testimony was hearsay.
E Jean Carroll cannot remember what year her alleged assault took place and yet gets a $80 million settlement.
Trump was convicted and fined $300+ million for fraud, yet no one can point to any entity that was actually harmed. This conviction is so blatantly politically motivated that the governor had to make a public announcement that no one else had to worry about being charged with this crime.
Bragg's case is similarly unique in its statutory interpretation.
The fact that a SOS in Maine can run a trial "in her head" and convict Trump so she can kick him off the ballot is beyond Soviet.
In the meantime, this collective that lost its hive mind with Trump's election has gone all in on censorship of the Internet. Its immigration policies are a declaration of war on the poorest Americans. Its insistence on fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian man and the US dollar is destroying Ukraine and bankrupting us.
During WWII, Churchill said, “If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.” The establishment have destroyed all norms in their attempt to get Trump and punish his supporters; the least I can do is vote for the man.
You must know that Trump never "suggested to the American public that maybe injecting disinfectants could be a cure". He stated that disinfectants kill Covid and wondered aloud whether science could somehow be used the same way. Which "lies" did Trump relate to the public? You know very well which "experts" advised Trump- Fauxi etal. Your sudden ignorance is not credible. Do you REALLY think that the rollout could have happened without the development? Is the technician who injects the drug more important than the scientist who developed it? Ridiculous.
Should the Courts (the States!) keep Trump off the Ballot?
It's a tragically ridiculous question.
The answer, of course, is no, no way, not at all, not ever, not in the least, never, absolutely not, how could we even consider such horribly totalitarian insanity? Shall we simply turn the country over to our Designated Betters, those who are so absolutely sure that they know best, what's best for us? (Please sir, tell me what to do!) Gall, temerity, arrogance -- I'm not sure there's a word strong enough to express my disgust at such a ludicrously dangerous idea.
The otherwise esteemed McWhorter tells us that Trump is uniquely evil (until, that is, he tells us he's too stupid to be Evil (which is a silly qualifier anyway.... Evil is evil regardless of IQ or SAT score)); he insists the man is 'uniquely incompetent'.
Shall we ask, 'Who says?' Incompetent by what standard? John's? The Harvard Faculty's? The Editorial Board of the Times? The night-shift workforce at GM's? Who on earth died and made them king?
And yet.... by any objective measure: fortune, fame, or power -- it'd be difficult to find anyone who's more competent in all 3 than Trump himself. When he walks to lunch he's mobbed by the media. We hear every word he utters (sensible and nonsensical alike). Millions flock to his rallies. In terms of media name count, he ranks consistently in the Top 5 for easily the last 8 years. Doesn't that kind of success (he was elected President after all) require at least some level of competence?
John may not much appreciate how that fortune/fame/power is exercised & applied....but that is entirely a separate issue which has nothing to do with so-called competence and everything to do with how that competence is directed & intended. If Trump were out there, still being Trump, but strongly & positively endorsing -- in typical Trumpian fashion -- climate change accommodation, green energy, DIE amplification, Globalization, and all the rest of the Left's favorite causes, would we still describe him as uniquely incompetent?
I suspect not. Especially since we scatter flowers in the paths of otherwise total nincompoops who support & endorse the Narrative the Left prefers. (Can we say Greta T? John Kerry? Al Gore?)
John then speaks about how this 'unique incompetence' is made uniquely dangerous by its amplification through Social Media to persuade the Deplorables that he's Good. Glenn quite reasonably points out that Trump's opponents could equally use that same social media to persuade those same people that the man is, in fact, bad. But NO, John's insists, 'suasion doesn't work'.
So how is all that possible?
I'm uniquely incompetent, but so tremendously skilled that I can persuade millions of people to vote for me...and vote against much more competent individuals who are so uniquely klutzy that they cannot persuade those same voters, using the same media, that they're not klutzy but competent?
Doesn't that seem rather impossible?
I'm really really bad (uniquely bad) but so amazingly good that my suasion works and yours doesn't?
No! To argue that MY (uniquely competent) judgment of your worth is so perfect and flawless that I should be able to prevent you from being on a ballot (because if you're there all the Other People might vote for you) is simply unacceptable. The otherwise esteemed Mr. McWhorter, for whom I have a tremendous admiration, should be ashamed. Such thinking is beneath him. It should be beneath all of us.
Tragically, and very alarmingly, it's not.
But of course, if I'm Yertle the Turtle, king of all that I see, who better to judge ... just ask me!
This is a great comment! But, honestly, why do you have a tremendous admiration for Mr. McWhorter? He's a pretty cowardly man, a conformist, even his smug voice modulation tells about his attitude towards himself and others. I still remember how he demonstratively and categorically refused to even touch a topic of transgenderism - a minefield too dangerous for his comfy niche. He writes meaningless pieces for NYT, while the paper doesn't even allow comments for his slightly controversial - but, God forbid, not too controversial - takes. But at least he showed that he does have some sincere feelings - he instinctively blurted them out, not being quick enough to catch himself.: "morons", "unique evil". Despite everything, it's much more pleasant to see and hear a real person.
Thanks! I understand your perspective completely, and have agreed with it more often than not when it comes to his work.... but he has written some insightful material, and has challenged orthodoxy (at least occasionally)...so I'm still granting a certain 'benefit of the doubt'. (I've not seen the T-G stuff, if you happen to have a link, that'd be helpful)
But he clearly & absolutely must wake-up to what he is actually saying here and recant. It's hateful, autocratic, nonsense and anti-democratic to the extreme. If he continues to hold to it, you're right -- I need to drop that 'tremendous admiration'; he's not who I thought he was.
I don't remember exactly in which episode John displayed his total scare of T-G topic, it wasn't very recently. Glenn at that time was laughing at his craven stance, and John has since changed his posture - at least he's not refusing participate in discussions. Of course he's careful, but it would be silly to expect him to be J. K. Rowling, Ricky Gervais or Chaya Raichik.
Sorry -- are we talking about the same John McWhorter? Let me make a defense of Mr. McWhorter that Mr. McWhorter doesn't need me to make.
Mr. McWhorter and Mr. Loury and I may not agree on all topics. But anyone who calls either of them cowardly and conformist I consider to be both cowardly and conformist...cowardly because insults are used instead of arguments, conformist because only partisan drones would resort to such hackery.
In contrast Mr. McWhorter and Mr. Loury present their cases very well. In this case I disagree with Mr. McWhorter on the courts as well. But let's take up the mantle of his argument. How have the Democrats done anything extra-judicial? How have they done anything by prosecuting Trump that is outside the established law? I agree that the progressive prosecutors are playing a dangerous game. But Dems argued the Republicans were playing a dangerous game with the Clinton impeachment in the late 90s. Republicans argued they were within the law as well.
And even though I agree with the Supreme Court's interpretation that the 14th Amendment does not allow states to remove a candidate, one could argue that the Federal System where states play a very prominent role with electors shouldn't prevent states from the right to remove candidates. I disagree with this argument but that shouldn't mean reasonable people can't disagree with this as well.
I don't know why you are putting Glenn and John together in your comment - I never said anything bad about Glenn. He's one of the most respected people for me. Or are you trying to make it look worse than it is pretending that I criticize both of them?
I don't think I used insults towards John, I expressed my opinion - the opinion based on my impressions from his avoiding tough answers and carefully navigating different topics in order to not put himself under possible attacks of his camp and thus damaging his established existence.
When everybody walks on the red light but you fine only your political opponent - I consider it extra-judicial.
By the way, I didn't check, maybe you know: has there been a single case like Engoron's?
And of course you can argue that anything that some political forces want to use is OK, even when ALL Justices, even liberal ones, see as legally wrong.
Not without an extremely valid Constitutional reason.
I suspect John was being hyperbolic, but part of me understands where he is coming from.
A society will (sometimes) color outside of its lines to avoid potential existential catastrophe. (Ask POTUS #16.)
If John honestly thinks Trump is that, why wouldn't he support running roughshod if necessary?
I have an extremely low opinion of Trump, Trumpism, the current-day GOP and much of its orbit, but I can't bring myself to say Trump's reelection will redound to America's demise. That sounds rather over the top.
I will certainly think less of this place if Trump gets back in. But is he that kind of a threat to the nation ultimately? I can’t say that.
Entrenched superpowers don't flip so readily. But anything is possible, and in fairness, we have seen America flip a lot in recent years. We seem less grounded. Maybe it’s just me.
Are Democrats doing what Machiavelli warned Republics about? Machiavelli had good advice in his Discourses on Livy and The History of Florence. Florence banished politicians and entire parties that usually resulted in no good -- though I'm not equating today's situation with Trump to that of Florence or Rome. But Machiavelli still showed what can happen when banishment creeps in. At the very least, we perhaps should pay attention to what can happen down the road.
As he wrote here in his Discourses: "(Some) combined against Cosimo (de Medici) and banished him from Florence. And so it came about that the partisans of Cosimo, angry at the wrong done him, soon afterwards recalled him and made him prince of the republic, a dignity he never would have reached but for this open opposition. The very same thing happened in Rome in the case of Cæsar. For his services having gained him the good-will of Pompey and other citizens, their favour was presently turned to fear, as Cicero testifies where he says that 'it was late that Pompey began to fear Cæsar.' This fear led men to think of remedies, and the remedies to which they resorted accelerated the destruction of the republic."
Both parties seem to be slouching toward revenge as a false principle while the fear of hypocrisy as a test of true principle has been kicked aside as a sign of weakness.
Machiavelli included revenge in what he labeled "this terrible doctrine." (Machiavelli was a big supporter of Republics.)
Trump was a President for four years - what bad has happened to the country? Does it even compare to the evil that Obama brought with the emergence of BLM? As Thomas Sowell said: racism was on a life support before then. Just check out the major newspapers: number of mentions of the word "racism" in a year increased 5 times since 2008, being flat for decades before. Or the evils that current progressive ideology brings with denying biology, meritocracy, moral norms, laws of the country and fairness of justice system?
The intellectual unraveling of the Republican Party? We can begin there.
Mitt Romney is an outcast. Marjorie Taylor is a star. That is not a coincidence.
The GOP has never been more pathetic at the national level in terms of seriousness, decency, logic and sanity. Jan6th made perfect sense under Trump. But Jan6th would never have happened under any other POTUS, D or R.
Again, not a coincidence.
And yes, the GOP has never been more accommodating to White identity politics. Self-avowed White nationalists--meaning people who call *themselves* White identitarians and White nationalists--had never been more psyched over a presidential candidate.
Again, not a coincidence.
Trust me, I know. I was once a proud Black Republican.
"evil that Obama brought"
I can't even pretend to take this phrase seriously.
"number of mentions of the word "racism" in a year increased 5 times since 2008"
Source?
"racism was on a life support before then"
Sowell's actual quote: "Racism is not dead, but it is on life support — kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as 'racists.'"
You misquoted him. Sowell never said "before then" or "before Obama".
"the evils that current progressive ideology brings"
If you want me to criticize the left, I can. I have. Still do.
Truthfully, I have spent the lion's share of my adult life doing just that. But that's not what I was talking about here.
More importantly, today is not yesterday. There is a reason why an iconic conservative columnist like George Will encouraged America to vote against Trump in 2020. Life is different now.
This is not about "right" versus "left". Even Trump knows that.
So, the bad of those four years: Mitt Romney is an outcast. Marjorie Taylor is a star.
That's the worst that happened to the peoples' lives? Doesn't it mean you have nothing serious to say?
Jan 6 was already after Biden was elected. I asked about the four years of the presidency.
Honestly, I don't know what White identity politics is. Would you be kind to explain?
"evil that Obama brought" - "can't even pretend to take this phrase seriously." - is that your argument? Then why are you arguing at all, just say you don't want to argue and that's it.
Obama divided the country. You don't consider that an evil? Or you sincerely think that race wasn't intentionally and purposefully used in Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown lies?
I didn't put quotes on Thomas Sowell words - I used the meaning.
I don't want you to criticize the left - I want you to compare the evils the left had brought to our society with evils of the right.
Castrating children? Porn in schools libraries? Men competing with women in sports?
Pure political trials? Defunding police? Segregated dorms, meetings and graduations? Removing statues of Thomas Jefferson? Demanding submission to idiotic pronouns? Teaching young kids that white people are oppressors?
For starters, you not taking me seriously is a badge of honor.
"Mitt Romney is an outcast. Marjorie Taylor is a star. That's the worst that happened to the peoples' lives?"
I didn't say "that was the worst that happened to the people's lives" (whatever that means). You just pretended I did, kind of like you did with Sowell.
The fact that Mitt is an outcast and Marjorie is a star is (obviously) an indicator of what has happened to the GOP. It is a microcosm. That was my point. And the fact that the GOP is one of the only two major political parties in the US is not a small thing.
Moreover, if you think Marjorie and Mitt are equals in terms of decency, intellect and sanity, you are certainly entitled to your opinion. But in doing so you illustrate my point in ways I could never.
"I asked about the four years of the presidency"
Trump was president from January 20, 2017 to January 20, 2021. That includes January 6, 2021.
And to be clear, Jan6th transpired because a bunch of lunatics wanted to *stop* Biden from *becoming* POTUS, and it did not come out of nowhere. Clearly, a lot of brainwashing led people to that point. This cult-like attachment to Trump was in place years prior.
"I don't know what White identity politics is. Would you be kind to explain?"
Have you ever heard of identity politics? (or for that matter, Google?) Well, try to imagine a White version of identity politics.
It is politics based on group identity. It is appealing to a group based on their identity, which could be race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or a number of other things.
An extreme version of White identity politics would be the Klan. A less extreme version would be American Renaissance. A lesser extreme version would be people fearing diminution of their group and wanting to do something about it.
More importantly, it is about the demagogue who manipulates those groups and their fears.
""evil that Obama brought" - "can't even pretend to take this phrase seriously." - is that your argument?"
When you said "the evil that Obama brought", it sounded so ridiculous to me that I chose not to dignify the statement with a response. I respond to flat-earthers in a similar way.
The idea that Obama divided the country is a silly old Republican/rightist trope based on next-to-nothing. Granted, it's a popular belief--I'll give you that--but it's also profoundly stupid.
How does one divide something that was already divided for centuries? It's not like America was some racially harmonious utopia before Obama.
Plus, hearing this charge from folks who don't seem to have any problem with Trump dividing the country is truly astonishing. (Well, not so much these days.)
"I didn't put quotes on Thomas Sowell words - I used the meaning."
But how do you know Sowell meant 'since then'? (Again, he didn't actually say that.)
At best, you're ascribing an opinion to Sowell that he didn't express. That is called an assumption (and a bad one if you ask me).
"I want you to compare the evils the left had brought to our society with evils of the right."
I just told you it wasn't about left versus right to me, but you want me to do this? Why?
My original post wasn't about left versus right either. My primary concern is not about left versus right. For Pete's sake, economically, *I* am on the right compared to Trump's tariffs-loving azz. Again, it ain't about left versus right.
Sorry, you don't provide any facts about what was bad in people's lives in four years of Trump's Presidency - as I read it the main evil that had happened, happened in the last two weeks of Trump's official term.
You don't want to talk about Obama dividing the country because the Earth is not flat. It's funny, because for me it is as obvious as the fact that the Earth is round.
Of course America wasn't some racially harmonious utopia before Obama, and of course it never will be. But Obama made it much worse than it was in a few decades before him. Your argument is duplicitous - if you live in a rainy area it doesn't mean you cannot flood your house.
You talk in general abstractions - I gave you some concrete examples of the evils the left brought to us. Can you please give some concrete examples of evils of life in Trump's years of Presidency? That was the question that started the whole debate. A really simple question. If you cannot - or don't want to - name something specific, please just say so and we will amicably end this discussion.
First of all you aren't interested in facts. Your response to these facts will prove that you aren't:
1. By April 2020, 2,000 Americans were dying every day due to Covid, and that number went up long before it went down. The total number of Americans killed two decades of disastrously chosen wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was under 10,000, it took less than a week in Trump's American to see the same level of American death.
Before the wave of death started, Trump prclaimed things like: “A lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat—as the heat comes in” and “The number of people infected is going very substantially down, not up.” “The 15 cases within a couple of days, is going to be down to zero.” On March 13, 2020, the President of the United States said, regarding Covid, “I don’t take responsibility at all.”
Just over a month later, he suggested that Covid could be solved by having people inject themselves with disinfectants.
Before Covid hit, the unemployemtnrate was 4.4%. Today it lower, 3.9%. In fact unemployment has been under 4% for the past 24 months, the longest such stretch in the US in literally decades.
American real (ie, adjusted for inflation) household weath increased by 37% from 2019 to 2022. That didn't happen in 2020 under Trump.
2020 saw one of the largest increases in the murder rate in US history, that was on Trump's watch. It has since declined, and the decline from 2022 to 2023 is one of the largest declines in history. Other violent crime also declined markedly from 2022 to 2023.
Joe Biden, not Donald Trump, pulled US troops out of Afghanistan and has not deployed them elsewhere.
That is by no means an exhaustive list. But anyone who says life was better 4 years ago is not paying attention.
We are going to end this amicably regardless. But to be clear, the fact that I don't impress you or make sense to you, or whatever, is not a problem (for me) whatsoever. Trust me when I tell you the feeling is beyond mutual.
But before I say anything else, I never said anything about "evil"--that's your word. I use words like stupid, indecent and insane to describe Trumpism.
That said, it is a fact that Trump inspired White nationalists and their sympathizers on a level we have never seen in the modern era of US politics, especially in the GOP. Pundits on Fox News were complaining about Trump's alt-right fan base LONG before ANYBODY on MSNBC or CNN, mainly because these new bloods (or back-from-the-dead bloods) were attacking traditional conservatives and conservative outlets first.
Ask Dana Perino.
But you don't have to take her OR my word for it. Ask David Duke. Ask Richard Spencer. Ask Jared Taylor. Ask anyone who follows or sympathizes with those characters or their organizations.
How did Trump appeal to them and their sympathizers? By speaking to them in their language and never apologizing for it--it was demagoguery.
"But Charles!!! What do you mean??? That's so abstract!!!"
One example: Trump is the same bonehead who championed that Obama birtherism nonsense for YEARS, and didn't give it up until a couple of months before the 2016 election (when it didn't matter anymore).
What do you think that was? Owning the libs?
Look. I wouldn't care if we were talking about a mayor's race in some random town, population 3000, but instead we are talking about the United States of America, a superpower with nuclear weapons. Unserious, stupid, crazy clowns spreading bs and encouraging millions of folks to bathe in it is...I won't say "evil"...but a damned shame.
But if that's where America is headed, it is what it is. At the end of the day, Trump (or Trumpism) took over the GOP. I think even you will concede that. The GOP is now indubitably a reflection of Trump. And I reiterate, the GOP remains one of the only two major political parties in the US. That is significant.
And if you don't think that Jan6th was an indication of something akin to a cancer, I don't know what to tell you.
I guess that will do it, Theo. I sound like a joke to you. You sound like a joke to me. THE END.
Trump has already been President. The peace and prosperity we attained under his leadership was the opposite of disaster. Where was John during Trump's term? Napping to NPR?
Three years of unprecedented peace and prosperity, Who handled Covid well? Trump unfortunately relied on the experts like Fauxi. He did get the medications produced in record time., or did you forget that?
I'm curious which "experts" advised Trump to lie about what he knew to the public, downplay the potential severity of Covid, and suggest to the American public that maybe injecting disinfectants could be a cure?
The vaccines were developed on Trump's watch, but the extremely successful rollout of the vaccines was run by the Biden Admin.
Do you really believe that distribution of the "vaccines" was more difficult or more important than their development in unprecedented record time? Trump suggested that since disinfectants killed the virus, perhaps scientists might find a way to use disinfectants. He never suggested self-injection.
Heck, if mismanaging the world's Covid response was a criteria that disqualified one from leadership... there would only be about 5 people left, who would be in charge of everything.
Everyone's Covid response, combined, was -- with very rare exception -- a Cluster.
It's more than fair to say that Trump didn't respond well to the pandemic. Some of his comments were absolutely insane. That said, most of America's public health "experts" didn't respond well to the pandemic either. Fauci acknowledged that "something went wrong" in an interview he did with the University of Nebraska Medical Center in April of 2023:
Truth be told, America doesn't respond well to problems. We lurch from crisis to crisis because our political system is broken and our leaders don't have the skill sets needed to solve problems.
2. I don't want to sell him short, but I'm skeptical that our current HHS leader could have conceived of and executed Operation Warp Speed as well as his predecessor. Former HHS Secretary Azar had been a pharmaceutical industry executive before he took office. Current HHS Secretary Becerra has spent most of his time since graduating from law school in politics. Maybe he and his team could have done as well at developing a vaccine, but that's a tough sell.
3. More people died from Covid during Biden's first year in office, with the benefit of vaccines, than during Trump's last year in office without them. Here are the number of Covid deaths, by year, according to the CDC:
There's a separate conversation to be had about the effectiveness of the lock downs and all the side effects (e.g., learning losses suffered by school kids, economic impacts, etc.) that came with them. There's also a conversation to be had about whether Covid relief packages caused the inflation spike that peaked in June of 2022 at 9.1%, a 40-year high.
It never ceases to amaze me John can be so smart and yet so blinded by TDS.
Imagine someone saying "I think Obama needs to be removed from the ballot because we are living in unprecedented times with social media where voters can be persuaded in ways they couldn't before and it's dangerous"
The original targets of Amrndment 14.3 were confederate officers and officeholders who had obviously engaged in insurrection (the civil War) nor did they deny that they had done so: they were proud of it. Section 5 of amendment 14 allows it to Congress to enforce 14.3, and they did so with the insurrection act which is currently federal 18:2383. Trump has not even been charged with insurrection, or even incitement to insurrection, under 18:2383 and he of course denies guilt. That’s a complete different situation from that of the old Confederates. There are questions of fact in Trump’s case that only a formal jury trial can resolve.
But In fact not only has Trump not been indicted under 18:2383 for Jan 6, no one in the entire country has been indicted under 18: 2383 for Jan 6. No one in tbe entire country has been indicted for insurrection for Jan 6—let alone convicted for it. That’s a legal fact.
If Trump were indicted and convicted under 18:2383,—insurrection—then he would automatically be removed from ballots on the basis of section 3 of the 14th amendment. It would be self-enforcing. Until that happens, as much as I dislike Trump, he has a right to remain on the ballot.
Re the Trump v. Anderson case: The Supreme Court in my reading made the correct decision to keep Trump on the Colorado ballot. The justices answered a simple question as to whether the 14th amendment permitted the federal government rather than the states to remove a candidate or officeholder. The states cannot thanks to the qualifier that appears in five amendments in the Bill of Rights: "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."
Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson criticized the majority for delving into the area reserved for future cases. This is a fair point. However the majority did leave for a future case the most important and most obvious question: Is the president in Section 3 implied to be among those officials specifically barred from holding office after an insurrection? A very strong argument says No. As former attorney general Michael Mukasey pointed out, the drafters of the 14th amendment took out president and vice-president from the list in Section 3 which reads "No person shall be a Senator...." followed by a list of other specific officials in descending importance of offices specific to a state. Why are only offices specific to a state listed? The nation as a whole doesn't choose senators, representatives and other officials from the state. The nation does choose the president and vice-president, and a nation can defeat the candidate even if it were Jefferson Davis or Robert E Lee. The nation cannot defeat a senator, representative, etc. I would be happy to change my opinion with evidence that disproves this especially from the comments from those who wrote the 14th Amendment or those who debated it.
In any case the majority did not go there and left this question for a future case.
Trump has not been convicted of anything, so removing him from ballots would be REALLY BAD.
I find it to be unconscionable that ANYONE could support efforts to remove Trump from the ballot because you don't like him. Where would it end? It wouldn't. But I guess that's the country we live in now - people on the left accept using elected office and lawfare to punish political opponents.
I don't like Biden, and can argue that he should be removed from ballots for allowing an invasion and aiding and abetting our enemies but wouldn't do so. John is completely, utterly, and irrevocably wrong on this one. He would feel good if it happens, but he'll be one of the first ones to howl wildly should one of his politicians get booted off the ballot, even if it was for a justifiable reason.
That fact that this is even being seriously considered by some is an indication that we are probably, as a country, beyond saving. The next generation will be living in one of three countries that used to comprise the United States of America.
That isn't the basis for wating to remove him from the ballot. Anyone who subscribes to legal formalism based in original public meaning and textualism must believe he should be struck from the ballot as a simple matter of law.
What SCOTUS did this week in not striking him was an exercise in judicial pragmatism/consequentalism, which are usually dirty words in conservative circles.
If you force me to answer, I would say that SCOTUS did the correct thing, although their reasoning was outcome-determinative nonsense. But it is a legit hard issue for those who think "living constitutionalism" is bad.
How is it a "simple matter of law". Are allegations enough? If so, Biden should be off the ballot. And if you want to base it on "original public meaning", you are limited to anyone still alive from the Civil War Confederacy.
That actually may be a good solution: kick them both off, and about 400 other scoundrels.
And you have inferred that their reasoning was outcome determinative. You don't know that for a fact. Personally, I think it was horse trading.
Finally, I think it is quite naive to think that these legal cases are about law and not politics. Lawfare has been the Dems primary weapon for the last 20+ years. I hope Republicans are finally getting in that game.
I agree it was, to some degree, horse trading, but I think it was outcome determinative horse trading. They reached a reasonable 9-0 outcome but the majority went further than it needed to in a way that tortured logic.
"Are allegations enough?"
No, which is why a civil trial was held in Colorado.
The "determinative" factor was the need for 9 votes, not a majority. Without horse trading, it would have been 6-3, but Roberts figured he needed 9-0. And that didn't work - so he gave up a couple of other cases for nothing. Because you will never get a compromise from liberals.
The willingness to undermine whatever integrity of our legal system remains to go after Trump on the premise that he's "evil" just goes to show you how crazed DemocRATS are. They don't care about the harm they'll do to trust in institutions; it's all about tying Trump's hands. Considering, as others have pointed out, we KNOW what 4 years of Trump was like vs. almost 4 really bad years of Biden, the doddering, wokeshevik authoritarian. That is why people are rejecting Biden and his "transgender," anti-religion, anti-parent, anti-American, policies, not to mention his absolutely disastrous meddling with the economy that was WAY better before he came along. Oh, and let's not forget the revelations of his career-long graft.
John should be ashamed of himself, but, he and his ilk won't be.
I love listening to John bash Trump .. he has no idea he is describing Obama.
John strikes me as an elitist snob who refuses to consider information that might undermine his ideological world view and sense of intellectual superiority. The first time this unhappy thought occurred to me was when I was listening to a discussion about the first Trump impeachment on an episode of the old Glenn Show in October 2019. Glenn observed that when Trump asked Ukranian president Zelensky for "a favor," Trump referred to Crowdstrike and the DNC server, i.e., was seeking information relating to Russiagate. John dismissed Glenn's point with these words: "Why would he be so concerned about that now? He lives in the present eating his Cheetos. Why does he all of a sudden want to redress something that happened two or three years ago with no relevance to what's going on now?" (Audio of 10/13/2019 Glenn Show at 9:15). The Dems' Russiagate fraud had "no relevance"--is that what John really thinks?
Trump's election caused the establishment to go into anaphylactic shock. The venom in the bee's sting does not cause excessive harm; rather, it is the body's overreaction that results in death.
Russiagate was, at best, a Clinton campaign/DNC disinformation op run against the American public and the press. Again, that is the best case scenario-evidence is emerging that US intelligence agencies were looking for a pretext to surveil the Trump campaign before he was even nominated. This false accusation roiled the body politic for two years, long after its proponents knew its falsehood.
Impeachment One was a similar overreaction. Re-reading the Trump-Zelensky transcript with today's knowledge shows how flimsy the allegations were. Trump and Zelensky gave each other tongue baths, then Trump briefly mentioned rumors of Biden family corruption and asks Zelensky to help determine how true they are. The resulting impeachment was again, an excessive overreaction.
The second impeachment was a show trial, with exculpatory evidence withheld and later destroyed. The prosecution's strongest witness' testimony was hearsay.
E Jean Carroll cannot remember what year her alleged assault took place and yet gets a $80 million settlement.
Trump was convicted and fined $300+ million for fraud, yet no one can point to any entity that was actually harmed. This conviction is so blatantly politically motivated that the governor had to make a public announcement that no one else had to worry about being charged with this crime.
Bragg's case is similarly unique in its statutory interpretation.
The fact that a SOS in Maine can run a trial "in her head" and convict Trump so she can kick him off the ballot is beyond Soviet.
In the meantime, this collective that lost its hive mind with Trump's election has gone all in on censorship of the Internet. Its immigration policies are a declaration of war on the poorest Americans. Its insistence on fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian man and the US dollar is destroying Ukraine and bankrupting us.
During WWII, Churchill said, “If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.” The establishment have destroyed all norms in their attempt to get Trump and punish his supporters; the least I can do is vote for the man.
You must know that Trump never "suggested to the American public that maybe injecting disinfectants could be a cure". He stated that disinfectants kill Covid and wondered aloud whether science could somehow be used the same way. Which "lies" did Trump relate to the public? You know very well which "experts" advised Trump- Fauxi etal. Your sudden ignorance is not credible. Do you REALLY think that the rollout could have happened without the development? Is the technician who injects the drug more important than the scientist who developed it? Ridiculous.
Should the Courts (the States!) keep Trump off the Ballot?
It's a tragically ridiculous question.
The answer, of course, is no, no way, not at all, not ever, not in the least, never, absolutely not, how could we even consider such horribly totalitarian insanity? Shall we simply turn the country over to our Designated Betters, those who are so absolutely sure that they know best, what's best for us? (Please sir, tell me what to do!) Gall, temerity, arrogance -- I'm not sure there's a word strong enough to express my disgust at such a ludicrously dangerous idea.
The otherwise esteemed McWhorter tells us that Trump is uniquely evil (until, that is, he tells us he's too stupid to be Evil (which is a silly qualifier anyway.... Evil is evil regardless of IQ or SAT score)); he insists the man is 'uniquely incompetent'.
Shall we ask, 'Who says?' Incompetent by what standard? John's? The Harvard Faculty's? The Editorial Board of the Times? The night-shift workforce at GM's? Who on earth died and made them king?
And yet.... by any objective measure: fortune, fame, or power -- it'd be difficult to find anyone who's more competent in all 3 than Trump himself. When he walks to lunch he's mobbed by the media. We hear every word he utters (sensible and nonsensical alike). Millions flock to his rallies. In terms of media name count, he ranks consistently in the Top 5 for easily the last 8 years. Doesn't that kind of success (he was elected President after all) require at least some level of competence?
John may not much appreciate how that fortune/fame/power is exercised & applied....but that is entirely a separate issue which has nothing to do with so-called competence and everything to do with how that competence is directed & intended. If Trump were out there, still being Trump, but strongly & positively endorsing -- in typical Trumpian fashion -- climate change accommodation, green energy, DIE amplification, Globalization, and all the rest of the Left's favorite causes, would we still describe him as uniquely incompetent?
I suspect not. Especially since we scatter flowers in the paths of otherwise total nincompoops who support & endorse the Narrative the Left prefers. (Can we say Greta T? John Kerry? Al Gore?)
John then speaks about how this 'unique incompetence' is made uniquely dangerous by its amplification through Social Media to persuade the Deplorables that he's Good. Glenn quite reasonably points out that Trump's opponents could equally use that same social media to persuade those same people that the man is, in fact, bad. But NO, John's insists, 'suasion doesn't work'.
So how is all that possible?
I'm uniquely incompetent, but so tremendously skilled that I can persuade millions of people to vote for me...and vote against much more competent individuals who are so uniquely klutzy that they cannot persuade those same voters, using the same media, that they're not klutzy but competent?
Doesn't that seem rather impossible?
I'm really really bad (uniquely bad) but so amazingly good that my suasion works and yours doesn't?
No! To argue that MY (uniquely competent) judgment of your worth is so perfect and flawless that I should be able to prevent you from being on a ballot (because if you're there all the Other People might vote for you) is simply unacceptable. The otherwise esteemed Mr. McWhorter, for whom I have a tremendous admiration, should be ashamed. Such thinking is beneath him. It should be beneath all of us.
Tragically, and very alarmingly, it's not.
But of course, if I'm Yertle the Turtle, king of all that I see, who better to judge ... just ask me!
This is a great comment! But, honestly, why do you have a tremendous admiration for Mr. McWhorter? He's a pretty cowardly man, a conformist, even his smug voice modulation tells about his attitude towards himself and others. I still remember how he demonstratively and categorically refused to even touch a topic of transgenderism - a minefield too dangerous for his comfy niche. He writes meaningless pieces for NYT, while the paper doesn't even allow comments for his slightly controversial - but, God forbid, not too controversial - takes. But at least he showed that he does have some sincere feelings - he instinctively blurted them out, not being quick enough to catch himself.: "morons", "unique evil". Despite everything, it's much more pleasant to see and hear a real person.
Thanks! I understand your perspective completely, and have agreed with it more often than not when it comes to his work.... but he has written some insightful material, and has challenged orthodoxy (at least occasionally)...so I'm still granting a certain 'benefit of the doubt'. (I've not seen the T-G stuff, if you happen to have a link, that'd be helpful)
But he clearly & absolutely must wake-up to what he is actually saying here and recant. It's hateful, autocratic, nonsense and anti-democratic to the extreme. If he continues to hold to it, you're right -- I need to drop that 'tremendous admiration'; he's not who I thought he was.
I don't remember exactly in which episode John displayed his total scare of T-G topic, it wasn't very recently. Glenn at that time was laughing at his craven stance, and John has since changed his posture - at least he's not refusing participate in discussions. Of course he's careful, but it would be silly to expect him to be J. K. Rowling, Ricky Gervais or Chaya Raichik.
Sorry -- are we talking about the same John McWhorter? Let me make a defense of Mr. McWhorter that Mr. McWhorter doesn't need me to make.
Mr. McWhorter and Mr. Loury and I may not agree on all topics. But anyone who calls either of them cowardly and conformist I consider to be both cowardly and conformist...cowardly because insults are used instead of arguments, conformist because only partisan drones would resort to such hackery.
In contrast Mr. McWhorter and Mr. Loury present their cases very well. In this case I disagree with Mr. McWhorter on the courts as well. But let's take up the mantle of his argument. How have the Democrats done anything extra-judicial? How have they done anything by prosecuting Trump that is outside the established law? I agree that the progressive prosecutors are playing a dangerous game. But Dems argued the Republicans were playing a dangerous game with the Clinton impeachment in the late 90s. Republicans argued they were within the law as well.
And even though I agree with the Supreme Court's interpretation that the 14th Amendment does not allow states to remove a candidate, one could argue that the Federal System where states play a very prominent role with electors shouldn't prevent states from the right to remove candidates. I disagree with this argument but that shouldn't mean reasonable people can't disagree with this as well.
I don't know why you are putting Glenn and John together in your comment - I never said anything bad about Glenn. He's one of the most respected people for me. Or are you trying to make it look worse than it is pretending that I criticize both of them?
I don't think I used insults towards John, I expressed my opinion - the opinion based on my impressions from his avoiding tough answers and carefully navigating different topics in order to not put himself under possible attacks of his camp and thus damaging his established existence.
When everybody walks on the red light but you fine only your political opponent - I consider it extra-judicial.
By the way, I didn't check, maybe you know: has there been a single case like Engoron's?
And of course you can argue that anything that some political forces want to use is OK, even when ALL Justices, even liberal ones, see as legally wrong.
Wrong yes. Cowardly and conformist, no.
"Should the Courts Keep Trump Off the Ballot?"
Not without an extremely valid Constitutional reason.
I suspect John was being hyperbolic, but part of me understands where he is coming from.
A society will (sometimes) color outside of its lines to avoid potential existential catastrophe. (Ask POTUS #16.)
If John honestly thinks Trump is that, why wouldn't he support running roughshod if necessary?
I have an extremely low opinion of Trump, Trumpism, the current-day GOP and much of its orbit, but I can't bring myself to say Trump's reelection will redound to America's demise. That sounds rather over the top.
I will certainly think less of this place if Trump gets back in. But is he that kind of a threat to the nation ultimately? I can’t say that.
Entrenched superpowers don't flip so readily. But anything is possible, and in fairness, we have seen America flip a lot in recent years. We seem less grounded. Maybe it’s just me.
Are Democrats doing what Machiavelli warned Republics about? Machiavelli had good advice in his Discourses on Livy and The History of Florence. Florence banished politicians and entire parties that usually resulted in no good -- though I'm not equating today's situation with Trump to that of Florence or Rome. But Machiavelli still showed what can happen when banishment creeps in. At the very least, we perhaps should pay attention to what can happen down the road.
As he wrote here in his Discourses: "(Some) combined against Cosimo (de Medici) and banished him from Florence. And so it came about that the partisans of Cosimo, angry at the wrong done him, soon afterwards recalled him and made him prince of the republic, a dignity he never would have reached but for this open opposition. The very same thing happened in Rome in the case of Cæsar. For his services having gained him the good-will of Pompey and other citizens, their favour was presently turned to fear, as Cicero testifies where he says that 'it was late that Pompey began to fear Cæsar.' This fear led men to think of remedies, and the remedies to which they resorted accelerated the destruction of the republic."
This is what I call putting humanity into perspective, Scott =)
Democrats (or the left) absolutely share some responsibility for our current state of affairs.
I *like* to believe cooler and smarter heads can/will (eventually) prevail. But that might be a flaw in my thought process.
Both parties seem to be slouching toward revenge as a false principle while the fear of hypocrisy as a test of true principle has been kicked aside as a sign of weakness.
Machiavelli included revenge in what he labeled "this terrible doctrine." (Machiavelli was a big supporter of Republics.)
Agree. Let's hope.
Trump was a President for four years - what bad has happened to the country? Does it even compare to the evil that Obama brought with the emergence of BLM? As Thomas Sowell said: racism was on a life support before then. Just check out the major newspapers: number of mentions of the word "racism" in a year increased 5 times since 2008, being flat for decades before. Or the evils that current progressive ideology brings with denying biology, meritocracy, moral norms, laws of the country and fairness of justice system?
"what bad has happened to the country?"
The intellectual unraveling of the Republican Party? We can begin there.
Mitt Romney is an outcast. Marjorie Taylor is a star. That is not a coincidence.
The GOP has never been more pathetic at the national level in terms of seriousness, decency, logic and sanity. Jan6th made perfect sense under Trump. But Jan6th would never have happened under any other POTUS, D or R.
Again, not a coincidence.
And yes, the GOP has never been more accommodating to White identity politics. Self-avowed White nationalists--meaning people who call *themselves* White identitarians and White nationalists--had never been more psyched over a presidential candidate.
Again, not a coincidence.
Trust me, I know. I was once a proud Black Republican.
"evil that Obama brought"
I can't even pretend to take this phrase seriously.
"number of mentions of the word "racism" in a year increased 5 times since 2008"
Source?
"racism was on a life support before then"
Sowell's actual quote: "Racism is not dead, but it is on life support — kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as 'racists.'"
You misquoted him. Sowell never said "before then" or "before Obama".
"the evils that current progressive ideology brings"
If you want me to criticize the left, I can. I have. Still do.
Truthfully, I have spent the lion's share of my adult life doing just that. But that's not what I was talking about here.
More importantly, today is not yesterday. There is a reason why an iconic conservative columnist like George Will encouraged America to vote against Trump in 2020. Life is different now.
This is not about "right" versus "left". Even Trump knows that.
So, the bad of those four years: Mitt Romney is an outcast. Marjorie Taylor is a star.
That's the worst that happened to the peoples' lives? Doesn't it mean you have nothing serious to say?
Jan 6 was already after Biden was elected. I asked about the four years of the presidency.
Honestly, I don't know what White identity politics is. Would you be kind to explain?
"evil that Obama brought" - "can't even pretend to take this phrase seriously." - is that your argument? Then why are you arguing at all, just say you don't want to argue and that's it.
Obama divided the country. You don't consider that an evil? Or you sincerely think that race wasn't intentionally and purposefully used in Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown lies?
I didn't put quotes on Thomas Sowell words - I used the meaning.
"number of mentions of the word "racism" in a year increased 5 times since 2008" - Source? https://www.politifact.com/article/2023/may/16/does-a-graphic-showing-use-of-words-about-racism-p/
I don't want you to criticize the left - I want you to compare the evils the left had brought to our society with evils of the right.
Castrating children? Porn in schools libraries? Men competing with women in sports?
Pure political trials? Defunding police? Segregated dorms, meetings and graduations? Removing statues of Thomas Jefferson? Demanding submission to idiotic pronouns? Teaching young kids that white people are oppressors?
For starters, you not taking me seriously is a badge of honor.
"Mitt Romney is an outcast. Marjorie Taylor is a star. That's the worst that happened to the peoples' lives?"
I didn't say "that was the worst that happened to the people's lives" (whatever that means). You just pretended I did, kind of like you did with Sowell.
The fact that Mitt is an outcast and Marjorie is a star is (obviously) an indicator of what has happened to the GOP. It is a microcosm. That was my point. And the fact that the GOP is one of the only two major political parties in the US is not a small thing.
Moreover, if you think Marjorie and Mitt are equals in terms of decency, intellect and sanity, you are certainly entitled to your opinion. But in doing so you illustrate my point in ways I could never.
"I asked about the four years of the presidency"
Trump was president from January 20, 2017 to January 20, 2021. That includes January 6, 2021.
And to be clear, Jan6th transpired because a bunch of lunatics wanted to *stop* Biden from *becoming* POTUS, and it did not come out of nowhere. Clearly, a lot of brainwashing led people to that point. This cult-like attachment to Trump was in place years prior.
"I don't know what White identity politics is. Would you be kind to explain?"
Have you ever heard of identity politics? (or for that matter, Google?) Well, try to imagine a White version of identity politics.
It is politics based on group identity. It is appealing to a group based on their identity, which could be race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or a number of other things.
An extreme version of White identity politics would be the Klan. A less extreme version would be American Renaissance. A lesser extreme version would be people fearing diminution of their group and wanting to do something about it.
More importantly, it is about the demagogue who manipulates those groups and their fears.
""evil that Obama brought" - "can't even pretend to take this phrase seriously." - is that your argument?"
When you said "the evil that Obama brought", it sounded so ridiculous to me that I chose not to dignify the statement with a response. I respond to flat-earthers in a similar way.
The idea that Obama divided the country is a silly old Republican/rightist trope based on next-to-nothing. Granted, it's a popular belief--I'll give you that--but it's also profoundly stupid.
How does one divide something that was already divided for centuries? It's not like America was some racially harmonious utopia before Obama.
Plus, hearing this charge from folks who don't seem to have any problem with Trump dividing the country is truly astonishing. (Well, not so much these days.)
"I didn't put quotes on Thomas Sowell words - I used the meaning."
But how do you know Sowell meant 'since then'? (Again, he didn't actually say that.)
At best, you're ascribing an opinion to Sowell that he didn't express. That is called an assumption (and a bad one if you ask me).
"I want you to compare the evils the left had brought to our society with evils of the right."
I just told you it wasn't about left versus right to me, but you want me to do this? Why?
My original post wasn't about left versus right either. My primary concern is not about left versus right. For Pete's sake, economically, *I* am on the right compared to Trump's tariffs-loving azz. Again, it ain't about left versus right.
Not for me anyway.
Sorry, you don't provide any facts about what was bad in people's lives in four years of Trump's Presidency - as I read it the main evil that had happened, happened in the last two weeks of Trump's official term.
You don't want to talk about Obama dividing the country because the Earth is not flat. It's funny, because for me it is as obvious as the fact that the Earth is round.
Of course America wasn't some racially harmonious utopia before Obama, and of course it never will be. But Obama made it much worse than it was in a few decades before him. Your argument is duplicitous - if you live in a rainy area it doesn't mean you cannot flood your house.
You talk in general abstractions - I gave you some concrete examples of the evils the left brought to us. Can you please give some concrete examples of evils of life in Trump's years of Presidency? That was the question that started the whole debate. A really simple question. If you cannot - or don't want to - name something specific, please just say so and we will amicably end this discussion.
First of all you aren't interested in facts. Your response to these facts will prove that you aren't:
1. By April 2020, 2,000 Americans were dying every day due to Covid, and that number went up long before it went down. The total number of Americans killed two decades of disastrously chosen wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was under 10,000, it took less than a week in Trump's American to see the same level of American death.
Before the wave of death started, Trump prclaimed things like: “A lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat—as the heat comes in” and “The number of people infected is going very substantially down, not up.” “The 15 cases within a couple of days, is going to be down to zero.” On March 13, 2020, the President of the United States said, regarding Covid, “I don’t take responsibility at all.”
Just over a month later, he suggested that Covid could be solved by having people inject themselves with disinfectants.
Before Covid hit, the unemployemtnrate was 4.4%. Today it lower, 3.9%. In fact unemployment has been under 4% for the past 24 months, the longest such stretch in the US in literally decades.
American real (ie, adjusted for inflation) household weath increased by 37% from 2019 to 2022. That didn't happen in 2020 under Trump.
2020 saw one of the largest increases in the murder rate in US history, that was on Trump's watch. It has since declined, and the decline from 2022 to 2023 is one of the largest declines in history. Other violent crime also declined markedly from 2022 to 2023.
Joe Biden, not Donald Trump, pulled US troops out of Afghanistan and has not deployed them elsewhere.
That is by no means an exhaustive list. But anyone who says life was better 4 years ago is not paying attention.
We are going to end this amicably regardless. But to be clear, the fact that I don't impress you or make sense to you, or whatever, is not a problem (for me) whatsoever. Trust me when I tell you the feeling is beyond mutual.
But before I say anything else, I never said anything about "evil"--that's your word. I use words like stupid, indecent and insane to describe Trumpism.
That said, it is a fact that Trump inspired White nationalists and their sympathizers on a level we have never seen in the modern era of US politics, especially in the GOP. Pundits on Fox News were complaining about Trump's alt-right fan base LONG before ANYBODY on MSNBC or CNN, mainly because these new bloods (or back-from-the-dead bloods) were attacking traditional conservatives and conservative outlets first.
Ask Dana Perino.
But you don't have to take her OR my word for it. Ask David Duke. Ask Richard Spencer. Ask Jared Taylor. Ask anyone who follows or sympathizes with those characters or their organizations.
How did Trump appeal to them and their sympathizers? By speaking to them in their language and never apologizing for it--it was demagoguery.
"But Charles!!! What do you mean??? That's so abstract!!!"
One example: Trump is the same bonehead who championed that Obama birtherism nonsense for YEARS, and didn't give it up until a couple of months before the 2016 election (when it didn't matter anymore).
What do you think that was? Owning the libs?
Look. I wouldn't care if we were talking about a mayor's race in some random town, population 3000, but instead we are talking about the United States of America, a superpower with nuclear weapons. Unserious, stupid, crazy clowns spreading bs and encouraging millions of folks to bathe in it is...I won't say "evil"...but a damned shame.
But if that's where America is headed, it is what it is. At the end of the day, Trump (or Trumpism) took over the GOP. I think even you will concede that. The GOP is now indubitably a reflection of Trump. And I reiterate, the GOP remains one of the only two major political parties in the US. That is significant.
And if you don't think that Jan6th was an indication of something akin to a cancer, I don't know what to tell you.
I guess that will do it, Theo. I sound like a joke to you. You sound like a joke to me. THE END.
And just for a small tragic joke, what has our society came to:
Oscars Now Have D.E.I. Rules
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/08/us/oscars-oppenheimer-dei-diversity.html
John, Sam Harris and the elites have a good case of TDS.
If Trump is reelected, it will be a modern Count of Monte Cristo story.
A remake well worth
watching.
I think that when it comes right down to it, our Constituion is working the way it was envisioned.
It's a freakin' messy process that seems to take too long. But the wheels are still turning!
I find it invigorating. This election sure will be interesting, regardless if who wins.
Trump has already been President. The peace and prosperity we attained under his leadership was the opposite of disaster. Where was John during Trump's term? Napping to NPR?
During 2020, John was probably noting that things kind of sucked in the US.
You didn't like Covid ? Golly gee.
It amazes me how Trump fans give him a complete pass for his terrible mismanagement of that crisis.
Three years of unprecedented peace and prosperity, Who handled Covid well? Trump unfortunately relied on the experts like Fauxi. He did get the medications produced in record time., or did you forget that?
I'm curious which "experts" advised Trump to lie about what he knew to the public, downplay the potential severity of Covid, and suggest to the American public that maybe injecting disinfectants could be a cure?
The vaccines were developed on Trump's watch, but the extremely successful rollout of the vaccines was run by the Biden Admin.
Do you really believe that distribution of the "vaccines" was more difficult or more important than their development in unprecedented record time? Trump suggested that since disinfectants killed the virus, perhaps scientists might find a way to use disinfectants. He never suggested self-injection.
Heck, if mismanaging the world's Covid response was a criteria that disqualified one from leadership... there would only be about 5 people left, who would be in charge of everything.
Everyone's Covid response, combined, was -- with very rare exception -- a Cluster.
Do you think it would have been reasonable, in March 2020, for any nation al leader to simply dismiss Covid as a problem?
I'm reluctant to jump into this thread, but a couple of things should be pointed out:
1. Fauci described the risks associated with the coronavirus as "minuscule" in February of 2020:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/02/17/nih-disease-official-anthony-fauci-risk-of-coronavirus-in-u-s-is-minuscule-skip-mask-and-wash-hands/4787209002/
His positions evolved over time. Here's a timeline from Axios:
https://www.axios.com/2022/04/27/covid-timeline-told-through-fauci-predictions
It's more than fair to say that Trump didn't respond well to the pandemic. Some of his comments were absolutely insane. That said, most of America's public health "experts" didn't respond well to the pandemic either. Fauci acknowledged that "something went wrong" in an interview he did with the University of Nebraska Medical Center in April of 2023:
https://www.unmc.edu/healthsecurity/transmission/2023/04/25/dr-fauci-looks-back-something-clearly-went-wrong/
Truth be told, America doesn't respond well to problems. We lurch from crisis to crisis because our political system is broken and our leaders don't have the skill sets needed to solve problems.
2. I don't want to sell him short, but I'm skeptical that our current HHS leader could have conceived of and executed Operation Warp Speed as well as his predecessor. Former HHS Secretary Azar had been a pharmaceutical industry executive before he took office. Current HHS Secretary Becerra has spent most of his time since graduating from law school in politics. Maybe he and his team could have done as well at developing a vaccine, but that's a tough sell.
3. More people died from Covid during Biden's first year in office, with the benefit of vaccines, than during Trump's last year in office without them. Here are the number of Covid deaths, by year, according to the CDC:
2020: 384,536
2021: 462,193
2022: 244,986
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7218a4.htm
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7218a4.htm#T1_down
There's a separate conversation to be had about the effectiveness of the lock downs and all the side effects (e.g., learning losses suffered by school kids, economic impacts, etc.) that came with them. There's also a conversation to be had about whether Covid relief packages caused the inflation spike that peaked in June of 2022 at 9.1%, a 40-year high.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/13/economy/cpi-inflation-june/index.html
The overall point is that neither president, if we're being objective, did a good job of managing the pandemic.
I'm pretty sure John's opinion of Trump is not based on Trump's management of Covid. It's just pure animalistic hatred.
"Trump is unique evil" - John McWhorter
It never ceases to amaze me John can be so smart and yet so blinded by TDS.
Imagine someone saying "I think Obama needs to be removed from the ballot because we are living in unprecedented times with social media where voters can be persuaded in ways they couldn't before and it's dangerous"
"TDS" is a phrase Trump supports use to avoid havng to make an actual argument on facts.
The original targets of Amrndment 14.3 were confederate officers and officeholders who had obviously engaged in insurrection (the civil War) nor did they deny that they had done so: they were proud of it. Section 5 of amendment 14 allows it to Congress to enforce 14.3, and they did so with the insurrection act which is currently federal 18:2383. Trump has not even been charged with insurrection, or even incitement to insurrection, under 18:2383 and he of course denies guilt. That’s a complete different situation from that of the old Confederates. There are questions of fact in Trump’s case that only a formal jury trial can resolve.
But In fact not only has Trump not been indicted under 18:2383 for Jan 6, no one in the entire country has been indicted under 18: 2383 for Jan 6. No one in tbe entire country has been indicted for insurrection for Jan 6—let alone convicted for it. That’s a legal fact.
If Trump were indicted and convicted under 18:2383,—insurrection—then he would automatically be removed from ballots on the basis of section 3 of the 14th amendment. It would be self-enforcing. Until that happens, as much as I dislike Trump, he has a right to remain on the ballot.
Re the Trump v. Anderson case: The Supreme Court in my reading made the correct decision to keep Trump on the Colorado ballot. The justices answered a simple question as to whether the 14th amendment permitted the federal government rather than the states to remove a candidate or officeholder. The states cannot thanks to the qualifier that appears in five amendments in the Bill of Rights: "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."
Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson criticized the majority for delving into the area reserved for future cases. This is a fair point. However the majority did leave for a future case the most important and most obvious question: Is the president in Section 3 implied to be among those officials specifically barred from holding office after an insurrection? A very strong argument says No. As former attorney general Michael Mukasey pointed out, the drafters of the 14th amendment took out president and vice-president from the list in Section 3 which reads "No person shall be a Senator...." followed by a list of other specific officials in descending importance of offices specific to a state. Why are only offices specific to a state listed? The nation as a whole doesn't choose senators, representatives and other officials from the state. The nation does choose the president and vice-president, and a nation can defeat the candidate even if it were Jefferson Davis or Robert E Lee. The nation cannot defeat a senator, representative, etc. I would be happy to change my opinion with evidence that disproves this especially from the comments from those who wrote the 14th Amendment or those who debated it.
In any case the majority did not go there and left this question for a future case.
Trump has not been convicted of anything, so removing him from ballots would be REALLY BAD.
I find it to be unconscionable that ANYONE could support efforts to remove Trump from the ballot because you don't like him. Where would it end? It wouldn't. But I guess that's the country we live in now - people on the left accept using elected office and lawfare to punish political opponents.
I don't like Biden, and can argue that he should be removed from ballots for allowing an invasion and aiding and abetting our enemies but wouldn't do so. John is completely, utterly, and irrevocably wrong on this one. He would feel good if it happens, but he'll be one of the first ones to howl wildly should one of his politicians get booted off the ballot, even if it was for a justifiable reason.
That fact that this is even being seriously considered by some is an indication that we are probably, as a country, beyond saving. The next generation will be living in one of three countries that used to comprise the United States of America.
"because you don't like him"
That isn't the basis for wating to remove him from the ballot. Anyone who subscribes to legal formalism based in original public meaning and textualism must believe he should be struck from the ballot as a simple matter of law.
What SCOTUS did this week in not striking him was an exercise in judicial pragmatism/consequentalism, which are usually dirty words in conservative circles.
If you force me to answer, I would say that SCOTUS did the correct thing, although their reasoning was outcome-determinative nonsense. But it is a legit hard issue for those who think "living constitutionalism" is bad.
How is it a "simple matter of law". Are allegations enough? If so, Biden should be off the ballot. And if you want to base it on "original public meaning", you are limited to anyone still alive from the Civil War Confederacy.
That actually may be a good solution: kick them both off, and about 400 other scoundrels.
And you have inferred that their reasoning was outcome determinative. You don't know that for a fact. Personally, I think it was horse trading.
Finally, I think it is quite naive to think that these legal cases are about law and not politics. Lawfare has been the Dems primary weapon for the last 20+ years. I hope Republicans are finally getting in that game.
I agree it was, to some degree, horse trading, but I think it was outcome determinative horse trading. They reached a reasonable 9-0 outcome but the majority went further than it needed to in a way that tortured logic.
"Are allegations enough?"
No, which is why a civil trial was held in Colorado.
The "determinative" factor was the need for 9 votes, not a majority. Without horse trading, it would have been 6-3, but Roberts figured he needed 9-0. And that didn't work - so he gave up a couple of other cases for nothing. Because you will never get a compromise from liberals.
"Because you will never get a compromise from liberals."
Simply false.
Blatantly true.
Here's the dem version of "compromise":
I demand that you give me $10!
No
Ok, let's compromise and you can give me only $7. See, I just gave you $3. You should thank me.