If they approve Trump’s eligibility before the Jan 6th case is decided, and he’s found guilty, then you will have the absurd situation of the Supreme Court pre-emptively approving of a candidate who has been found guilty of trying to subvert the election process.

That would be hilarious.

That's why I wonder if they will consider the case before the resolution of the January 6th proceedings. It seems completely illogical that they could. After all, if he's found guilty (which seems likely considering the massive weight of evidence), then even without reference to the 14th Amendment, you will have a situation where an ostensible candidate will have been found guilty of trying to subvert the very process that he's supposedly participating in.

That's why I wonder if they will consider the case before the resolution of the January 6th proceedings. It seems completely illogical that they could. After all, if he's found guilty (which seems likely considering the massive weight of evidence), then even without reference to the 14th Amendment, you will have a situation where an ostensible candidate will have been found guilty of trying to subvert the very process that he's supposedly participating in. — Wayfarer

Would a guilty or non-guilty charge become a reality before election gets going? It seems they actually need a proper sentence before they could conclude the decision proper or not, but if the sentencing is after any election machine gets going that might screw up their ability to decide in the matter.

Would be easier for them to actually just ditch him and get another candidate into action, but I'm not sure republicans would dare to lose the maga-fanatics voting base.

Would a guilty or non-guilty charge become a reality before election gets going? — Christoffer

Indeed - the trial for the January 6th insurrection was originally scheduled for March 4th. Trump's lawyers are frantically trying to delay it through legal maneuvers but the Department of Justice is pushing very hard to stick as close to that date as possible. It is expected to have a duration of 4-6 weeks. If he's found guilty there will no doubt be an appeal but he will still have been convicted of a felony at that time.

The Republican Party has long since passed the point of no return with Trump. If they'd voted to convict after his second impeachment, he would have been disqualified from office for life, but they all caved in to 'the base'. They've all become totally corrupted by the Trump cult, there is no future for them other than electoral wipeout.

Seems to me Haley might come out of the wreckage a viable candidate. De Santis is a proven looser, Chris Christie a spolier. But whatever happens, you can bet it's going to be ugly.

Seems to me Haley might come out of the wreckage a viable candidate. — Wayfarer

She is trying to appeal to all sides. I don't think it is a winning strategy.

She said she would pardon Trump. She will not be able to distance herself from him.

I'm impressed! You are actually admitting members of the Trump cult are stupid! We've gotten through to you!

Now we get to watch in real time as they interfere so egregiously in the election that it puts a few Russian Facebook ads to shame. This steal is so brazen that it ought to make Putin blush. But they’ve only exposed themselves in the most stupid fashion. They trod all over everything they’ve claimed to hold so sacred. The Russia hoax, the Ukraine hoax, now the insurrection hoax, reveal themselves to be little more than a Potemkin village so their base can feel better about themselves as their Obergruppenführers rip apart whatever was left of their country. It’s beautiful to watch.

You kind of sound like you're on acid.

She said she would pardon Trump. She will not be able to distance herself from him. — Fooloso4

All true, and highly lamentable. Although whomever is President cannot grant pardons for the election interference case brought in Georgia. But as I keep saying, I'm still convinced Trump's candidacy will collapse under the weight of his legal challenges.

I will add, one of the most depressing and disgraceful episodes in recent American political history was the alactrity with which Haley and the others raised their hands when asked if they would support Trump should he be the eventual candidate in the first Candidates Debate (with the notable exception of Chris Christie and one other who has since dropped out). They're all hypocrites in my view.

I've already shown you that the only "Russian hoax" was the one perpetrated by Trump. Understandably, you didn't respond, because deep down, you know the facts are not on your side.

My thought for the day in relation to Donald Trump is this: loyalty is the enemy of honesty. Loyalty is very important to Trump and Trump supporters. But that culture of loyalty is deeply corrosive to honesty. Imagine that you were a Trump staffer in early December 2020 and you believed Trump lost the election, but you are in a room full of other Trump supporters when Trump asked you, "Tell me the truth. Do you think we lost the election?" What would you say? I think you'd feel an enormous amount of social pressure to say, "No sir! We won!" or "We didn't lose it, but they tried to steal it" or something like that. If you didn't reply with something similar, you'd be cast out as an apostate RINO. When you are loyal to a person, you want to please that person, and not contradict them. But if you are honest, it is inevitable that sometimes you will disagree with other people. The desire to be honest may corrode your own perception of the truth because it alters what you desire the truth to be.

I would say the only exception to this maxim "loyalty is the enemy of honesty" is if what you are loyal to is the truth. One should be loyal to the truth, not to other people, or movements, or political parties. The truth can be ugly, and make enemies for you, but in the end it will win and is the only thing worth being loyal to. That sounds like something Marcus Aurelius would have written... I'm going to have to do some research on that.

No offense, but my eyes just glaze over when I watch you take everything at face value and repeat it. I just lose interest. Your facts are appeals to authority. Deep down you know how obsequious it is.

One should be loyal to the truth, not to other people, or movements, or political parties. — GRWelsh

While I agree with most of what you have said, loyalty to "the truth" is often loyalty to an ideology called "truth". When it and people stand on opposite sides the consequences are inhuman

While I agree with most of what you have said, loyalty to "the truth" is often loyalty to an ideology called "truth". When it and people stand on opposite sides the consequences are inhuman — Fooloso4

Yes, that's a good point. Being loyal to the truth may indeed be too lofty of a principle. Jordan Peterson very wisely said, and I am paraphrasing here, that we may not always know the truth, but we know when we're being dishonest -- and we can choose to refrain from doing that. I think that is closer to what I want to get across, here. I would revise what I wrote above to say we should be loyal only to the truth while recognizing that we may indeed not always know what the truth is, so at the very least we can strive to be honest with ourselves and with others.

You parrott Trump's nonsense about a "Russia Hoax", unable to refute the facts I gave you. How is that an appeal to authority? Use of the term seems an appeal to an idiot.

As one of the few Trump supporters on this forum, you have the opportunity to show that a reasonable person could support Trump. But all you do is to repeat Trump's talking points, and deny facts when they're presented to you.

Jordan Peterson very wisely said, and I am paraphrasing here, that we may not always know the truth, but we know when we're being dishonest ... — GRWelsh

I think it is often the case that we do not know when we are being dishonest, especially to one's self about our self.

I think that some who have been caught in Trump's web of deceit have moved almost imperceptibly to a position of holding his lies as truth. From small seemingly harmless and insignificant things to greater lies claiming to be the truth. A counterbalance to what the Trump propaganda machine has told them are the big important lies.

I think it is possible to self-deceive and to gradually change one's views according to what wants to be true. The world is full of that. But, there are also times when we know we are being deceitful, including to ourselves. Those are the moments when one can make a choice. I think a lot of Trump supporters have had that opportunity to either go along with the election fraud claim, or pull back from it. If it isn't "true" for you then you are cast out of the movement as disloyal. So, I think there is a lot of social pressure among Trump supporters to tentatively try to believe it, or at least not disbelieve it, and then try to find reasons or evidence to support it. You can especially hear this from Republicans who would dodge the question of whether they believed there was widespread voter fraud with comments like "It's important to have secure elections" or "there were a lot of questionable things related to the election that are worth investigating" or "the way the mainstream media and social media censor information is a form of election tampering." You can tell they don't believe the widespread voter fraud claim yet also don't want to contradict it... They want to appear as loyal allies.

Your facts are appeals to authority. Deep down you know how obsequious it is. — NOS4A2

The sources you use rely upon what they credit as reliable witnesses to facts. It often sounds like you are working for some of them.

The ready contempt is bountiful there. If what you are doing is different from that, how can a reader of your comments know that?

re: Criminal Defendent/Fraudster/Loser-1:

2023 was the Year of Felony Indictments. :cool:

2024 is the Year of Convictions (& Bankruptcy). :fire:

*Happy New Fear, MAGAts!*

(Don't drop dead, Donnie, before 20Jan2025.) :sweat:

Not an original thought among them.

Whoever said it first had an original thought.

Great legal (& political) minds think alike! Truth hurts MAGAts, doesn't it? :victory: :mask:

You can literally watch the propaganda as it move from one vector to the other.

Those who believe he is a good business manager bought into a false image and are ignorant of his "small loan" from his father (one million dollars plus) his business failures, his cheating, his stiffing contractors, his misrepresentations, and his "business strategy of repeated bankruptcies.

He covers his failure to deliver on promises by making further promises. — Fooloso4

On the contrary, his, let's call that "specific business practices" are possibly what many people can relate to the most, because they themselves use those practices or wish they could.

It seems to be easier to propose that people are basically good, but weak; than to consider the possibility that people are basically evil and strong.
— baker
Both are distortions. Some people are basically good and others are not. Some are strong or weak in some ways but not others. There is no correlation between being weak or strong and good or bad.

I'm talking about what some of Trumps' critics might find more acceptable. It is easier on the ego of those of Trumps' critics to say that Trump has "mislead" or "deceived" people than to consider the possibility that many people already are that way, with or without Trump.

I'd go further and call this crap a cultural or human thing. Democracy has always contained the possibility of its own undoing, it just takes a majority vote of someone non- or anti-democratic. — jorndoe

More than this: people are typically not democratic to begin with. They like democracy insofar it means that the political option they favor can win (and for a short enough period of time to avoid bearing responsibility for their actions in any meaningful way). But they resent democracy when it means that they will be ruled by a party they don't like.

Democracy brings out the worst in people. It pits people against eachother. It breeds hostility. It encourages adversarial thinking. It pushes simplistic us vs. them thinking.

It is easier on the ego of those of Trumps' critics to say that Trump has "mislead" or "deceived" people than to consider the possibility that many people already are that way, with or without Trump. — baker

For a number of Trump voters, being put in a "basket of deplorables" by H Clinton was a critical factor in their support. But there were others who gladly wore the "I don't care" sweatshirts.

Seeing the contrasting reactions suggests that a coalition of different views amongst the supporters had more to do with the results than critics assuming a common connection that was not there.

Explain why you refer to Kirshner's tweet as "propaganda". (def: information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.)
Kirshner is an experienced former Federal Prosecutor who has examined the Trump cases (filings, rulings, etc), so it seems a plausible prediction, irrespective of the fact he's biased against Trump. FWIW, he correctly predicted the verdict in the Sexual Predator lawsuit.

By contrast, Trump wrote this on "Truth" Social:

It’s becoming more and more obvious to me why the “Crazed” Democrats are allowing millions and millions of totally unvetted migrants into our once great Country. IT’S SO THEY CAN VOTE, VOTE, VOTE. They are signing them up at a rapid pace, without even knowing who the hell they are. It all makes sense now. Republicans better wake up and do something, before it is too late. Are you listening Mitch McConnell?

I don't see how anyone could deny that THIS is propaganda. It's clearly misleading (at least), and intended to promote and publicize a particular political cause.

Related: Trump paid me to find voter fraud. Then he lied after I found 2020 election wasn't stolen.

Love it. Magats will of course ignore, but this just goes to show what's been obvious the whole time: Trump didn't believe the election was stolen because of evidence, trump started with the conclusion that the election was stolen and has been doing everything in his power to make his followers and America believe the conclusion too.

He is a threat to democracy.