The 45th POTUS - Donald J. Trump

[Self]

Thanks, McDig. I needed that talk. Almost started listening to goth bands, this week.

[epilogue]

Thank you, McP. Sincerely. Thank you.

[Peeps]

oh by no means did i mean to imply it doesnt matter

but for his rabid fan base everything the witnesses laid out landed on deaf ears

then fox has this on their screen



which only furthers their belief that mr orange nuts is telling the truth and would never lie to the common man

hell, people are still convinced that mexico will pay for the wall, china will pay the tariffs and that his taxes are under audit so he cant release them never mind he has asked the SC to block them being turned over

for his fan base there isnt anything that cant be explained away and this is even truer for the GOP

[bune]

The worth of impeachment hearings was never about the hope of a senate conviction. It was about exposing publicly the extent to which the administration is willing to abuse power in order to keep power, increasing public awareness of the ways they go about doing that, and keeping them too busy trying to cover up the last transgression to immediately hop into a new scheme. Remember that the Ukraine extortion game didn't come up until the Mueller investigation was finally over and Trump believed that the pressure was off....so why take the pressure off?

Also, I think it's important to reject the (seemingly reasonable) attitude that it ultimately doesn't matter because the Republican Senate won't convict him, or that "nothing matters" because presidential misdeeds repeatedly get exposed but not consequenced. This feels painfully true, but it is a dangerous attitude...especially when it is being echo-chambered by so very many people, often on public platforms.

I believe it is dangerous for two reasons:

1. The endless exposure of wrongdoing has unquestionably been a big part of why this president's polling is the worst on record. When Republicans take major losses in Virginia, Kentucky, and Louisiana even after major White House support pushes, moments like these hearings are a part of the story of why. Our pessimism has the power to unintentionally kill that weapon. Remember how nervous House Democrats were about starting impeachment? Why was that? Because the Republican Senate won't convict, "so it doesn't matter." They internalized voters' weary frustration, and it nearly paralyzed them.

The last thing you want is for the cancer of hopelessness to metastasize in the attitudes of leadership, media, or voters.

2. The conclusion of the "what's the point if they won't convict him" attitude is ultimately that Republicans are the arbiter of whether something matters. Did they react to the terrible thing? No? Then it's decided. Move on.

This is an insane attitude to adopt, in a world where Republicans in office are responding to a voting group who consume propaganda almost exclusively. When you say "The president shot someone on 5th avenue today. Did he lose any Republican votes? No? lol nothing matters," you're saying the shooting doesn't matter because it didn't change anything among those Republicans. They got to decide whether the scandal of their creation was important or not. You gave them that. And the thing is, "does it matter" and "did it change the national political story" are not questions that will (or should) always have the same answer.

"Did it change anything?" That's a question that the current Republican party, by and large, currently controls (although the reverse is also true: if they can't find a way to change their disastrous and generational unpopularity, these are more or less their final days of power).

"Did it matter," though? You decide that. Only you. And your answer reveals who you are.

I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the fawning they're doing on "independent" voters.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4 ... dependents

[McParadigm]

oh by no means did i mean to imply it doesnt matter

I didn't mean to imply that I was talking about you, although with the chronology of the posts I can see why I should have stated that directly.

[verb_to_trust]

I needed that pick me up. Thanks Mcp.


So in other news I see Lindsey Graham is initiating investigations into the Bidens. So I ask, why the fuck did Mayor Cousin Fucker, Gordon No Chin and others have to even try and do what they did?. The mirage of impropriety to feed the base is all they are really after. Why do this drug deal with a foreign country? The only thing that I can come up with is that they feel they are above the law.

[tree_]

I haven't been checking in til recently and I'm pretty out of touch with the general populations' views, thinking my own to basically be common sense. Are there seriously people who still think Trump is not crooked as all hell? Seriously? How can anyone take what Gym, Nunes, etc. were arguing during the hearings at ALL SERIOUSLY?! What in the hell is wrong with people? This isn't about party. People shouldn't be allowed to get away with this kind of thing. This is why I stay away. So frustrating.

[McParadigm]

The worth of impeachment hearings was never about the hope of a senate conviction. It was about exposing publicly the extent to which the administration is willing to abuse power in order to keep power, increasing public awareness of the ways they go about doing that, and keeping them too busy trying to cover up the last transgression to immediately hop into a new scheme. Remember that the Ukraine extortion game didn't come up until the Mueller investigation was finally over and Trump believed that the pressure was off....so why take the pressure off?

Also, I think it's important to reject the (seemingly reasonable) attitude that it ultimately doesn't matter because the Republican Senate won't convict him, or that "nothing matters" because presidential misdeeds repeatedly get exposed but not consequenced. This feels painfully true, but it is a dangerous attitude...especially when it is being echo-chambered by so very many people, often on public platforms.

I believe it is dangerous for two reasons:

1. The endless exposure of wrongdoing has unquestionably been a big part of why this president's polling is the worst on record. When Republicans take major losses in Virginia, Kentucky, and Louisiana even after major White House support pushes, moments like these hearings are a part of the story of why. Our pessimism has the power to unintentionally kill that weapon. Remember how nervous House Democrats were about starting impeachment? Why was that? Because the Republican Senate won't convict, "so it doesn't matter." They internalized voters' weary frustration, and it nearly paralyzed them.

The last thing you want is for the cancer of hopelessness to metastasize in the attitudes of leadership, media, or voters.

2. The conclusion of the "what's the point if they won't convict him" attitude is ultimately that Republicans are the arbiter of whether something matters. Did they react to the terrible thing? No? Then it's decided. Move on.

This is an insane attitude to adopt, in a world where Republicans in office are responding to a voting group who consume propaganda almost exclusively. When you say "The president shot someone on 5th avenue today. Did he lose any Republican votes? No? lol nothing matters," you're saying the shooting doesn't matter because it didn't change anything among those Republicans. They got to decide whether the scandal of their creation was important or not. You gave them that. And the thing is, "does it matter" and "did it change the national political story" are not questions that will (or should) always have the same answer.

"Did it change anything?" That's a question that the current Republican party, by and large, currently controls (although the reverse is also true: if they can't find a way to change their disastrous and generational unpopularity, these are more or less their final days of power).

"Did it matter," though? You decide that. Only you. And your answer reveals who you are.

I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the fawning they're doing on "independent" voters.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4 ... dependents

Individual polls will always make for better headlines than the trend, but even a reliable polling institution sometimes gets bad data. You can see the skew of Emerson's most recent batch of respondents, in how their general election results track:

[bune]

I feel like the independents and 'undecided' voters at this point are wasting everyone's time.

[verb_to_trust]

I haven't been checking in til recently and I'm pretty out of touch with the general populations' views, thinking my own to basically be common sense. Are there seriously people who still think Trump is not crooked as all hell? Seriously? How can anyone take what Gym, Nunes, etc. were arguing during the hearings at ALL SERIOUSLY?! What in the hell is wrong with people? This isn't about party. People shouldn't be allowed to get away with this kind of thing. This is why I stay away. So frustrating.

Not only this, but there are a large number of people out there who deny Russian meddling.

[tree_]

These are literally the times of Idiocracy. The idiots are winning. I still hold, moreso now than ever, that people should have to pass certain tests and meet certain standards to have/raise children. We have to raise the IQ of the population.

[tree_]

I haven't been checking in til recently and I'm pretty out of touch with the general populations' views, thinking my own to basically be common sense. Are there seriously people who still think Trump is not crooked as all hell? Seriously? How can anyone take what Gym, Nunes, etc. were arguing during the hearings at ALL SERIOUSLY?! What in the hell is wrong with people? This isn't about party. People shouldn't be allowed to get away with this kind of thing. This is why I stay away. So frustrating.

Not only this, but there are a large number of people out there who deny Russian meddling.

Russians and their propaganda and meddling have fused with Republican party. Nunes, Gym, etc. made that clear throughout the hearing. This is bad.

[McParadigm]

I haven't been checking in til recently and I'm pretty out of touch with the general populations' views, thinking my own to basically be common sense. Are there seriously people who still think Trump is not crooked as all hell? Seriously? How can anyone take what Gym, Nunes, etc. were arguing during the hearings at ALL SERIOUSLY?! What in the hell is wrong with people? This isn't about party. People shouldn't be allowed to get away with this kind of thing. This is why I stay away. So frustrating.

Not only this, but there are a large number of people out there who deny Russian meddling.

Russians and their propaganda and meddling have fused with Republican party. Nunes, Gym, etc. made that clear throughout the hearing. This is bad.

Well said.

[bune]

fucking finally.

[Superblood Wolfmoon]

So in other news I see Lindsey Graham is initiating investigations into the Bidens.

This is priceless, considering how these same assholes looked under every rock for something on anyone in the Obama administration, yet oddly enough never investigated this at the time.

[epilogue]

Great thread. Susan Simpson is a national treasure (and a helluva lawyer).

[McParadigm]

[tragabigzanda]

dumb yet impressive. Should I crosspost in the Steely Dan thread?

[bune]

Bolton on Twitter: his last tweet was the day after he resigned.

Until this morning.

[McParadigm]

Wow. Before this presidency, I would honestly never have imagined a situation where an impeachment inquiry into a presidential power abuse scandal involving the extortion of another country to purposefully distort the public’s ability to make an informed decision in a national election was co-chaired by someone who was involved in the effort....and simply refused to recuse.