We have the best government money can buy.

When Trump was first "elected" in 2016, the very first thing they did was dismiss the emoluments clause so he could take office--and that was just the beginning.

We saw it this very year with how quickly the courts threw out the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment. It's not the least bit ambiguous. But as we were already knee-deep in the election cycle, the courts bent over backwards to keep Trump on the ballot (even the courts that ruled he engaged in insurrection), solely because of his sheer popularity--not out of any obligation or responsibility to uphold the law.

We're seeing court cases thrown into the trash left and right. The SCOTUS creating entirely new precedent for presidents just to protect this single individual (in other instances, his loyalists, or even his entire party) from accountability.

We've seen so much similar shit play out time and time again, too many times over the last 8 years to count. Yes, the law and the Constitution are technically supposed to prevent these things. But none of it matters when this shit isn't enforced, when the guardrails have been destroyed, or when the people willing to abuse their power to circumvent the law are the very same people in charge of making these decisions.

No, the law and the Constitution alone are not enough to save us. But they should be, and in a better world, they would be.

And sadly, we'll see civil disobedience. By this time next year. Hope I'm wrong.

Let's go! I'm ready Jan 20 to boycott as much as possible, including Netflix. Never was a "Prime" member, but ready to stop the occasional Amazon orders. Got my Progressiveshopper.com bookmark and have been shifting my purchases to bluer companies.

ya know?

I think there were GOP who could have been easily peeled off to support impeachment if the charges & groundwork were laid out and the committee were assembled & operating with more neutrality, etc. Instead, Congress & the media tried to speak it into existence through repetition something that didn't match the charges being brought.

Assault, trespassing, property damage, etc. was what was coming out of the AG's office. These are protest-gone-bad charges. The # of weapons charges was minuscule and for a country that loves it's assault weapons, I'm not aware of a single charge that was brought for bringing one. Why did the largest gun-owning demographic not bring weapons to their afternoon insurrection, and why did they literally disperse before sundown? By evening the place was well-policed and militarized and we were blessed to count the electoral votes in favor of Joe Biden.

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Now you can either take the angle that Garland was a fuckup or complicit, and that Biden was a failure for keeping him, and that they failed to bring the charges the media said were appropriate.

I however, don't think that little of either man--particularly not Biden.

So I'm left to the conclusion that the same way the media overplayed the "End of Democracy" and "Hitler" narratives--that Biden clearly doesn't believe, based on his genteel behavior during the transition--the media overplayed the "Insurrection" narrative.

It's Biden's way of hinting that its political shelf life has expired and it's time to focus somewhere else.

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You ask for examples of the GOP/Drumpf following the law, and the examples are probably more plentiful than first blush. Roe was the law of the land for decades, and they plotted for decades to change it. TFG was brought into Georgia and had his mug shot taken, was admonished and sanctioned in court by state judges, and has been issued hundreds of millions in fines and judgements. If he hadn't won there's a good chance he would have gone to prison. His Muslim travel ban had to be revised because of court intervention. His taxes were exposed to Congressional oversight. Some of his DACA actions were blocked by courts. His home was safely searched by the FBI.

There were even instances where his staff blocked him, like when Cohn blocked him from withdrawing from KORUS by literally stealing the agreement he was going to sign. (Gary Cohn is still alive and wealthy.)

Our government works because power is dispersed. I think we are far too defeatist and emotional about our prospects sometimes. As you can see above there are plentiful examples of the system keeping the GQP in check and we'd be foolish to deny ourselves of the fact that they exist.

I'll end with this thought: someone failed utterly in never bringing Logan Act charges against him. It's on far more solid legal footing than nearly all the cases that were in play.

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-logan-act-viktor-orban-meeting-1924738

what little they followed the law was for the first time around and prior to Project 2025. As far as a conclusion that labeling !/6 as insurrection is incorrect or overblown the fact it was unsuccessful or called off doesn't change what it was by definition. It was an organized, violent attempt by a mass of people, arguably to have included elected officials in the planning/execution, to overthrow a legal election for the leader of the country and to install a leader of their choosing by illegal and violent means.

If anything has been "overdone" it is the downplaying of the seriousness of what was done. Joe Biden's current reaction is no proof for or against the extremism of the incoming ghouls and those who feel comparisons to Hitler and his rise are "overdone" are most likely to have not lived through dictators taking power except from afar. When it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it is a good bet it is a duck regardless of the year, the color of the feathers or which pond it's in. It is a tired trope of those who downplay 1/6 to claim it was "protest gone wrong". They chased members of Congress into retreat behind locked doors and then broke the side glass in an effort to get at them. Only a fool would think, given the violence already used, that they were just going to tell the officials their complaints. Finally someone used some sense and shot and killed one who was trying to launch herself through the shattered glass opening. Then they scattered like the cowardly scum they are.

The largest criticism I have for the actual day of 1/6 is that the Capitol Police should have fired their weapons at these people the moment they breached the doors at the entrances. But in the most glaring example of deferential treatment for white people it didn't happen and nobody in this country can seriously claim that shots would not have been fired if this had been a nearly all black crowd storming the Capitol of the US.