The senate acquits Trump

[Frylock]

If you can't be convicted over a violent coup attempt then there is something seriously wrong with this country.

Abolish the senate and abolish the electoral college. Republicans need to pay for siding with a traitor.

[snowyowl]

I don't understand how someone can be impeached who isn't president any more. If he's broken the law then prosecute him in a regular court like anyone else. But he doesn't hold any public office to be removed from, so what's the point, apart from scoring political points? 

[DocWatts]

9 minutes ago, snowyowl said:

I don't understand how someone can be impeached who isn't president any more. If he's broken the law then prosecute him in a regular court like anyone else. But he doesn't hold any public office to be removed from, so what's the point, apart from scoring political points? 

I agree that if our system was working as intended, he would be on trial in criminal court on charges of Treason for inciting an Insurrection that lead to deaths, and put the lives of many more in danger.

Impeachment specifically has some additional penalties which are extremely important, and justified under the circumstances:

(1) Most importantly, he would be ineligible to run for President again in the future, and he would be barred from holding any other Public Office.

(2) He would lose his Presidential Pension as well as Secret Service Protection. In addition, his would no longer have his travel expenses reimbursed with public funds.

(3) Another important aspect of an Impeachment Trial is to expose Trump's crimes in an open and public forum for the nation to see. It also attempts to set a precedent of Accountability for public servants who commit crimes while in Office. 

[snowyowl]

@DocWatts interesting points, thanks. So it seems that impeachment isn't limited to people currently holding a public office, and any US citizen can in theory be impeached to prevent them getting elected in the future? Could be they have set a precedent, even if it wasn't ultimately successful. Or does the law say you need to have held office in the past? 

That's another thing, does it still count as impeachment even if it doesn't get passed? They're talking about this as his second impeachment even though the first one failed too. Or maybe I've misunderstood all this

Edited February 13, 2021 by snowyowl

[DocWatts]

20 minutes ago, snowyowl said:

@DocWatts interesting points, thanks. So it seems that impeachment isn't limited to people currently holding a public office, and any US citizen can in theory be impeached to prevent them getting elected in the future? Could be they have set a precedent, even if it wasn't ultimately successful. 

That's another thing, does it still count as impeachment even if it doesn't get passed? They're talking about this as his second impeachment even though the first one failed too. Or maybe I've misunderstood all this

It's a little bit more complicated than that. Impeachment is something that was designed specifically for elected public officials, but most of the time when people in the US refer to Impeachment, they're usually specifically referring to Presidential Impeachment.

So how it works is that 67 Senators (two thirds majority) would have to vote to convict. But then after that it's another simple majority Vote (51 Senators) to strip the Impeached President of his ability to run for office again, strip him of his pension, etc (something that would almost certainly happen if he were to be impeached, the additional Vote being more of a formality).

In theory any US Citizen could be put on Criminal Trial for Treason, but Impeachment is just for elected officials. We have a weird patchwork of laws here, but in most States convicted felons lose thier Right to Vote and lose thier Right to hold Public Office.

One other point about Impeachment is that counter intuitively Impeachment doesn't carry with it Criminal Charges, so my initial point was that in addition to being Impeached, Trump should also be held criminally liable for citing a violent insurrection. 

Edited February 13, 2021 by DocWatts

[Hardkill]

Who here is worried about Trump being able to run again in 2024?

[snowyowl]

30 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

but Impeachment is just for elected officials.

I do get the need for a process to remove rogue politicians. What interests me about this case is the grey areas. I mean, Trump made his speech (whether it was incitement or not I don't know), before Biden was sworn in, so I think that means Trump was still technically the President, but the impeachment process didn't happen until after he left office. Anyway, I guess that point was considered by the lawyers and senators. 

Another point is the strategy behind it. Is it better go ahead with the impeachment on the point of principle, and give Trump the extra publicity and possible martyrdom which may enrage his supporters again? Or to just begin the process of ignoring him, moving on, treating him as yesterday's man, so the right wing Republicans may look to to someone else? 

Edited February 13, 2021 by snowyowl

[Leo Gura]

30 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

Who here is worried about Trump being able to run again in 2024?

Let me him run and lose again. His con won't work twice. Biden is doing a decent job and most people will see that.

[DocWatts]

The problem isn't that he'll win, the problem is that he'll continue to occupy the public spotlight to spread misinformation, and that when he loses we'll see more outbursts of violence from his Cult like followers. Let's hope that his ban from Social Media sticks...

[Preety_India]

6 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Let me him run and lose again. His con won't work twice. Biden is doing a decent job and most people will see that.

When are you running for President? 

 

[Willie]

6 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Let me him run and lose again. His con won't work twice. Biden is doing a decent job and most people will see that.

I’m not worried about Trump winning again, I’m worried about his ability to run at all. It validates the coup attempt and conspiracies of voter fraud against him. It’s just where we are as a country. It worries me.

[Joel3102]

Whilst he should have been convicted, this might work out well for the Democrats. If Trump runs as a third party he'll split the right vote, which would be great

Edited February 14, 2021 by Joel3102

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, DocWatts said:

The problem isn't that he'll win, the problem is that he'll continue to occupy the public spotlight to spread misinformation, and that when he loses we'll see more outbursts of violence from his Cult like followers. Let's hope that his ban from Social Media sticks...

Well, you can't gag him. But social media nor news media will be so kind to him any more.

The media is onto his con game now.

And the Biden admin won't allow MAGAs to storm any gov building any more.

And he got lawsuits incoming. So I say he's cooked.

[Hardkill]

53 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Let me him run and lose again. His con won't work twice. Biden is doing a decent job and most people will see that.

Well, then let's keeping hoping that Biden keeping doing well as President.

47 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

The problem isn't that he'll win, the problem is that he'll continue to occupy the public spotlight to spread misinformation, and that when he loses we'll see more outbursts of violence from his Cult like followers. Let's hope that his ban from Social Media sticks...

Yeah, I am still worry about the possible negative consequences of Trump's second acquittal. However, the Twitter company has already made it very clear that even if Trump were to run and win the 2024 presidential election, he would still be permanently banned from ever using Twitter again. 

47 minutes ago, Willie said:

I’m not worried about Trump winning again, I’m worried about his ability to run at all. It validates the coup attempt and conspiracies of voter fraud against him. It’s just where we are as a country. It worries me.

Indeed, it's truly disgusting and abominable how much criminal activity Trump has been able to get away with. I also really hope that all of these right-wing conspiracy theorists will not be emboldened by Trump's acquittal. The GOP absolutely needs to be destroyed and the Dems need take some kind of ferocious revenge on them.

 

38 minutes ago, Joel3102 said:

Whilst he should have been convicted, this might work out well for the Democrats. If Trump runs as a third party he'll split the right vote, which would be great

It doesn't look like he will run a third party of his own according to sources such as this one: https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/24/politics/trump-republican-party/

However, some sources have said that there is a good chance that Trump might ruin the GOP's chances of winning any more big elections in the future: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/01/trump-third-party-patriot-party-mcconnell-gop.html

 

 

[Matt23]

1 hour ago, DocWatts said:

The problem isn't that he'll win, the problem is that he'll continue to occupy the public spotlight to spread misinformation, and that when he loses we'll see more outbursts of violence from his Cult like followers.

@DocWatts Also consider that, if he was impeached, then his followers might have retaliated even stronger and become even more entrenched in their views and negative behaviors.  This acquittal might have diffused quite a bit of turmoil.  Perhaps.  Of course we never know.

[DocWatts]

9 minutes ago, Matt23 said:

@DocWatts Also consider that, if he was impeached, then his followers might have retaliated even stronger and become even more entrenched in their views and negative behaviors.  This acquittal might have diffused quite a bit of turmoil.  Perhaps.  Of course we never know.

That's the great counter-factual that we can't really be sure of.

I guess I would counter that Trump's acquittal and its corresponding weakening of the Rule of Law outweighs the potential negative effects of further antagonizing Trump's Cult-like followers. But of course it's difficult to back up such a claim, as quantifying how much Harm each would be likely to cause is a seemingly impossible task.

Edited February 14, 2021 by DocWatts

[Lyubov]

let those garbage senators go on the history book

[Leo Gura]

I think the real danger is not Trump but some new Trump-like figure who will try to emerge and seize hold of the foolish right-wing herd.

The right-wing is not going away but it is going to have to mutate and adapt in the post-Trump era. It will need a new variation on the con.

[Hardkill]

17 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

I think the real danger is not Trump but some new Trump-like figure who will try to emerge and seize hold of the foolish right-wing herd.

That’s why I definitely think that it will be better if we had some sort of commission that would screened crazy and/dumb candidates. 

I mean, how the hell did our country end up having two Republican presidents in a row who both turned out to be the worst presidents ever in US history ? Before the beginning of the new millennium, no Republican president was ever as incompetent or dangerous as either George W. Bush or Trump, except for Warren G. Harding in the early 1920s. Even the Republican crook, Richard Nixon, was still a competent president who wasn’t a danger to the American people like Trump or Bush was.

Edited February 14, 2021 by Hardkill

[Leo Gura]

10 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

no Republican president was ever as bad as either George W. Bush or Trump.

Regan and Nixon were pretty bad in many ways.

The Republican base has become so mindless, unprincipled, and regressive that anyone they are passionate about and manage to elect will be a terrible leader. Stages Blue & Orange have started to exhaust themselves like a burned up sun. And now they spew out toxic material as they resist the evolution into Green. Blue & Orange have run out of good ideas so all they're left with is an absurd clinging to their old ways, which become more and more outdated and unworkable with every decade.