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Donald Trump - MAGAtwat news and discussion

I do wonder what would happen if Trump gets jailed or otherwise taken out of the running - will the masses rise up in revolt on Washington, or would they lose all momentum without Trump? Could they rally round someone else immediately, or could someone else see an opportunity and keep the MAGA bullshit-wagon rolling in some form?
Trump's just a symptom of a far bigger and older problem that ails the US. Imho, the genie won't be going back in the bottle and yes, as you say, someone else will see an opportunity to harness the rage.
 
Trump's just a symptom of a far bigger and older problem that ails the US. Imho, the genie won't be going back in the bottle and yes, as you say, someone else will see an opportunity to harness the rage.
I can see someone trying, but will they succeed necessarily. I mean, Trump has a unique combination of total lack of self awareness or really having any principles except 'Donald J Trump wins everything'; I wonder if others might somehow seem too earnest in comparison compared to Trump's raging ego that appeals so much to people who are failing so hard at life.

My guess is that if Trump did fall out of the running, no one could immediately take on his mantle, but someone could build up to a similar following in a few years.
 
My guess is that if Trump did fall out of the running, no one could immediately take on his mantle, but someone could build up to a similar following in a few years.

Absolutely no doubt that there are a few outright nutters in the Republican party that the American right would get behind if Trump was jailed. Though I can't see him being that easily put behind bars... and I would assume there would be a lot of violence from his supporters in protest if such a sentence was handed out.
 
I wonder if others might somehow seem too earnest in comparison
i think that's a good observation, lots of people who voted for him the first time did so because he was willing to wreck it. anybody in office now, however trumpian, is just another politician.

compared to Trump's raging ego that appeals so much to people who are failing so hard at life.

Trump's core vote is solidly middle-class suburban. they're not failing, they just hate the libs.
 
Trump's core vote is solidly middle-class suburban. they're not failing, they just hate the libs.
Perhaps they are sometimes located in failing places, though. So the world around them appears to be constantly worsening.
 
Trump's core vote is solidly middle-class suburban. they're not failing, they just hate the libs.
Does that mean we can criticise Trump voters without worrying about JD McClatchy? (I mean, 100 years ago I thought he had something worth listening to, however uncomfortable, but now not so sure realising it's just the same old.)
 
Perhaps they are sometimes located in failing places, though. So the world around them appears to be constantly worsening.

that would apply for the first group i mentioned: "nothing else is working so why not" is the quote i remember. for the second group a constantly worsening world is one where the libs and the trans and the migrants "are in control of everything now and we need to take our country back".
 
I do wonder what would happen if Trump gets jailed or otherwise taken out of the running...

According to reports I've read, and seen on TV, if he's jailed that doesn't stop him from running, and in theory doesn't stop him leading the country from his cell, although if elected he would probably just pardon himself and get released. Although, I guess, the party may find some way of stopping him, if he's jailed.

The situation is simply down to no one never considering such a situation would arise, so there's nothing in the constitution to stop it.
 
Have been wondering where to put this and it applies just as much to Europe, but here seems as good a place as any. Not read it all because it's huge but the central idea seems logical enough:

You've reminded me of the "Long Shadow" podcast series, which traced the rise of Trump's supporters and the Proud Boys and the like back to early, initially isolated cases where people fought against law enforcement because of gun related incidents or land ownership disputes.
 
According to reports I've read, and seen on TV, if he's jailed that doesn't stop him from running, and in theory doesn't stop him leading the country from his cell, although if elected he would probably just pardon himself and get released. Although, I guess, the party may find some way of stopping him, if he's jailed.

The situation is simply down to no one never considering such a situation would arise, so there's nothing in the constitution to stop it.
Which is why Trump's legal team found themselves answering seemingly bonkers questions the other day on things like, could a President order the assassination of an opponent with immunity (the current life raft being clung to) and it wasn't a very convincing response. The Constitution is being tested in ways it was not supposed to
 
I do wonder what would happen if Trump gets jailed or otherwise taken out of the running - will the masses rise up in revolt on Washington, or would they lose all momentum without Trump? Could they rally round someone else immediately, or could someone else see an opportunity and keep the MAGA bullshit-wagon rolling in some form?
Never forget that other Trumps are available, including the erudite and witty Don junior.
 
According to reports I've read, and seen on TV, if he's jailed that doesn't stop him from running, and in theory doesn't stop him leading the country from his cell, although if elected he would probably just pardon himself and get released. Although, I guess, the party may find some way of stopping him, if he's jailed.

The situation is simply down to no one never considering such a situation would arise, so there's nothing in the constitution to stop it.
It seems so bizarre that they have conditions about no one born outside America being POTUS, but have never specified no convicted felons. You'd have thought the latter would be a bit more of an issue.
 

So true. Even if Trump is too thick and narcissistic to permanently lock in his sadistic vision of governance in the US his victory in itself will represent a moral and epistemic collapse unparalleled in a democracy. The truth is cheap in politics, but most dishonest politicians anchor their claims in some sort of reality, Trump doesn't just just mislead, Trump inverts reality in a manner that would make Orwell's Big Brother blush. Whilst many politicians are hypocrites, at least hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. Trumpism is the tribute that vice plays to vice. To borrow a phrase from Trotsky, Trumpism is 'capitalist society is puking up the undigested barbarism'. Trump doesn't just lie, he bullshits. Like his puppet master Putin, him and his minions spray a firehose of falsehood so relentlessly his critics cannot keep track of his misinformation. The future of civilisation hangs in the balance. Trump and his deranged cult (aka the Republican Party) must be totally wiped out as a political force by any means necessary.
Does that include violence? Because their side are entirely comfortable with deploying violence to further their aims.
According to reports I've read, and seen on TV, if he's jailed that doesn't stop him from running, and in theory doesn't stop him leading the country from his cell, although if elected he would probably just pardon himself and get released. Although, I guess, the party may find some way of stopping him, if he's jailed.

The situation is simply down to no one never considering such a situation would arise, so there's nothing in the constitution to stop it.
The party has been utterly powerless and, in most cases, totally complicit in the face of him and his supporters thus far. What makes you think they will acquire morals, principles, or even a spine by that point?
It seems so bizarre that they have conditions about no one born outside America being POTUS, but have never specified no convicted felons. You'd have thought the latter would be a bit more of an issue.
TBF, when they wrote it they were expecting it to be a living, breathing document that would get amended and updated as circumstance rquired. They could not forsee the ossification of their political process, the rampant and overwhelming corruption abroad in the system, and their living, breathing democratic document effectively being a reanimated corpse. They were, after all, a bunch of 17th century plantation owners, lawyers, and former soldiers; not omipotent beings capable of predicting every outcome (including ones that would have been an utter anathema to them when they wrote it).
 
I can see someone trying, but will they succeed necessarily. I mean, Trump has a unique combination of total lack of self awareness or really having any principles except 'Donald J Trump wins everything'; I wonder if others might somehow seem too earnest in comparison compared to Trump's raging ego that appeals so much to people who are failing so hard at life.

My guess is that if Trump did fall out of the running, no one could immediately take on his mantle, but someone could build up to a similar following in a few years.

I am not sure they would, at least from the same position Trump is (as in from the far right).

The bedrock of his appeal amongst the population is the very real phenomenon of most of the US population watching as they get poorer, less healthy and further behind the rich with each passing year. They are becoming increasingly aware of how much the system is rigged against them. Of course Trump himself, and especially his donors and backers, have no intention of arresting that decline (if anything they want to make it even worse) - but they have been able to harness that anger because the political establishment refuses to acknowledge the need for change, and will try and crush anyone who steps outside of what it seems acceptable. Even that will only last for a few years though, before people recognize that the change that was promised is not coming from him.
 
The party has been utterly powerless and, in most cases, totally complicit in the face of him and his supporters thus far. What makes you think they will acquire morals, principles, or even a spine by that point?

I don't think they will necessarily, that's why I said, ' the party may find some way of stopping him.'
 
It seems so bizarre that they have conditions about no one born outside America being POTUS, but have never specified no convicted felons. You'd have thought the latter would be a bit more of an issue.
Not really. They'd just fought their way free from a colonial power. Would have been more worried about having another British blow in running things than some hero of the resistance who'd been a political prisoner
 
Dunno about that. I reckon the "saboteurs are stealing it from you" line has a pretty long shelf life.

It does - I mean they've been using it for decades - but they won't be able to keep using it with any plausibility if they are the ones in power.
 
It seems so bizarre that they have conditions about no one born outside America being POTUS, but have never specified no convicted felons. You'd have thought the latter would be a bit more of an issue.

Banning people with felony convictions from the presidency doesn't seem to be a particularly common feature of other countries' constitutions, though France insists that they "not be ineligible by reason of criminal conviction or judicial decision" - and also, for some reason, that they have a bank account

 
Banning people with felony convictions from the presidency doesn't seem to be a particularly common feature of other countries' constitutions, though France insists that they "not be ineligible by reason of criminal conviction or judicial decision" - and also, for some reason, that they have a bank account


I can understand the bank account rule. When financial matters are so opaque that you can't observe any visible means of support then you really have to wonder what they're hiding. Recently in the US, the new speaker of the House didn't note any personal bank accounts on his disclosure statement.* You would think that someone who lives in a house, has a wife and children, might have money coming in and going out somewhere.

* turns out he just didn't disclose them, which raises other issues.
 
I can understand the bank account rule. When financial matters are so opaque that you can't observe any visible means of support then you really have to wonder what they're hiding. Recently in the US, the new speaker of the House didn't note any personal bank accounts on his disclosure statement.* You would think that someone who lives in a house, has a wife and children, might have money coming in and going out somewhere.

* turns out he just didn't disclose them, which raises other issues.

Makes sense, I like how they've codified that level of mistrust in their constitution
 
Makes sense, I like how they've codified that level of mistrust in their constitution

They tried to some extent to do that with the constitution, by separating power. Over the years more and more power has been shifted to the executive branch, by both Republican and Democratic Presidents. That's been done without any real pushback. I don't think they really accounted for someone as morally bankrupt as Trump, however.
 
If he thought that he could get more power and adulation from flipping sides he'd do it in a heartbeat. I doubt if that would ever happen. There's part of the far right that equate him right up there with Jesus.
Fash-Jesus is such a strange concept. Real Jesus is too "woke" and liberal, but Fash-Jesus will deliver America from the radical Marxists, border hoppers and groomers who want to devour your children.
 
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