• HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    This is such a stupid and irresponsible article.

    First, Trump has to be found guilty.

    Second, he has to be found guilty before the elections.

    Third, he has to lose the election (which is more or less a toss-up), because if he wins the election, he’ll pardon himself on all federal charges.

    Fourth, even if all of that other shit happens, he has to be ordered to report to jail immediately after sentencing, without waiting for an appeal that will certainly be attempted.

    This relies on so many things happening in just the right order that it’s functionally speculation.

    If Putin “accidentally” hits a NATO target while trying to strike Ukraine, and if NATO responds in kind, and if Putin reacts to NATO’s response by launching nuclear weapons, and if NATO countries respond by launching a full-scale nuclear attach on Russia, then the world will have global thermonuclear war and humanity will have solved human-created climate change via nuclear winter! Yeah, it’s all possible, but it’s not probable.

    • Smoogs@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Let’s throw some more logs on this fire….

      Donald Trump has been charged with 37 criminal counts covering seven different violations of federal law

      The election is nov 2024

      The trial starts in august 2023

      There are at least 10 other candidates running for republican

      • CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        And this pardon would only apply to a federal conviction while Trump is facing charges in both state and federal courts.

        • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          The NYS charges are a joke. Yes, it’s a crime, but it’s also the kind of thing that would normally get pled out to the level of a parking ticket if it was a one-off thing. Which this appears to be. (One-off, in this case, meaning that they don’t have multiple instances to charge him with.) It looks political, because it probably is. Jail time is incredibly unlikely, even if the case wraps prior to the election.

          Fani Willis here in GA will have a pretty solid case, assuming that the grand jury indicts (which is probable). But that case will probably get bumped in favor of the federal charges, and would be unlikely to go to trial, and be concluded prior to the election. And if Trump wins prior to the trial being concluded, then a conviction won’t matter. Yeah, he can’t pardon himself from state charges, but he’s not going to prison while he’s in office.

      • TheDoozer@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It will be interesting what happens if Trump primaries during the trial, gets picked up for the Republican nomination, then gets convicted and sent to prison. Does it just go to the #2 in the primaries? Will the right galvanize behind their second choice? Will a bunch of Forever Trumpers be upset enough to just not vote? With Trump out of the race, will the Left have enough momentum without Trump as the villain to vote against (yeah, I get the alternative is DeSantis, who is not exactly popular with anyone who doesn’t think Romney is a Leftist)?

        Should be interesting if he ends up convicted.

    • ashok36@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      he has to lose the election (which is more or less a toss-up)

      I don’t see how Trump wins in 2024. He lost, badly, in 2020 and that’s with the incumbent advantage. Now Biden has the incumbent advantage and isn’t restricted to campaigning from his basement because some asshole fucked up the response to a pandemic. Meanwhile Trump is hemorrhaging cash paying for lawyers to defend him from multiple ongoing and imminent criminal indictments. He’ll find time to hold his stupid rallies every couple of days but he will be distracted and unfocused (even for Trump). He’s performed worse than the last time every election since 2016 (2018 lost the house, 2020 lost the presidency and the senate, 2022 all his favored candidates lost and Rs didn’t get the Senate back and barely won the House).

      The 2024 race is Biden’s to lose and unless there’s some sort of health issue that takes him out or there’s a huge scandal that actually has some substance to it, I think he walks away with it.

      • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Straw polls are pretty close right now. While I like to hope that Biden would win, since Biden has been pretty innocuous–not good, not bad, just more of the same normalcy that we had prior to Trump–that’s just not a sure thing.

      • b_n@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I want to believe, I really do. But people were saying this prior to him winning the first election… And the second.

        Let’s just hope he doesn’t get elected 🤞

          • banneryear1868@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I think it’s more the pandemic that contributed to the Democrats winning the presidency, also the margins are so small with most voters locked in. Hopefully Trump doesn’t pull through but I doubt the Rs are picking anyone else to run. Historical chances usually the incumbent wins.

            • eldavi@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              i hate biden so much for fucking my life so permanently that the perverse side of me wants trump to win because my career and financial stability has improved DRAMATICALLY, directly because of trumps actions when he was president.

              i’m not going to vote for biden and will do everything in my power to advocate for voting against biden to everyone i know (and i’ve recently been deeply touched to learn that it works because they know and care for me on a personal level); but this time i won’t hold it against them if any for trump.

              • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                I’m curious. Can you explain how exactly Biden being president has fucked your “life so permanently”?

                Also, how did your career and financial stability improve DRAMATICALLY solely because of Trump?

                • eldavi@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  copy/pasted from previous interaction: *he supported doma, dont-ask-dont-tell, and spearheaded permanent student loan debt.

                  so when i graduated high, school military service was not an option because because of don’t-ask-don’t-tell and my parents were migrant farm workers who had no provisions for me. so the only option left to me was to go to college where i racked up enough permanently undischargable student loan debt that grew exponentially between the 2008 and covid collapses thanks to biden’s student loan debt bill. I’ll be paying for it for the rest of my life as a result.

                  between 2008 and covid, i wanted to marry another immigrant who had no legal status and, thanks to doma, i couldn’t marry and sponsor him so he got deported. he moved on and got married when it was politically convenient for biden to decide that gay marriage was okay and i’m too old of an incouragable fart to date.*

                  And my financial stability improved because his dipshit unilateral embargoes and actions forced companies to react and I’ve been one of the beneficiaries of those reactions at a time when it was clear that my industry was turtling to protect their bank accounts.

                  • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
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                    1 year ago

                    I appreciate you explaining in detail. I have serious doubts that Trump has dramatically helped anyone in the LGBT community in the country though.

              • banneryear1868@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Trump presided during a time of relatively stable economic recovery shortly after the last speculative bubble burst. I don’t believe the two major parties are that different on the economic front, they’re basically supported by the same donors and none of their policies really affect the status quo. For the US voter they offer a choice between different culture war factions, which is basically how it’s been since Reagan.

                • Dark_Blade@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Oh yeah, the economy. Whether or not it’s his fault, Biden will most likely be held ‘guilty’ by the court of public opinion for the current economic crisis.

                  • Feathercrown@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    The economy’s actually better than it’s been in a while, media keeps trying to spin it as “But it could all go downhill!” but it keeps going up instead

      • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        …But they aren’t. Trump currently leads in polls for the Republican nomination by something like 30 points over DeSantis (who I think would be even worse than Trump). The next closest contender, Vivek Ramaswamy, is currently polling in the single digits.

        Moreover, the people that vote in primaries do not look like the people that vote in general elections; primaries are going to attract people with the strongest political feelings, and those tend to be Trump loyalists.

        And finally, Republican primaries are won by plurality, not majority. Trump won the primaries in 2016 by consistently winning 35% or so of the vote, with three other candidates splitting the rest. Even if Trump was the last place candidate by the remaining 65% of Republican primary voters, he still won because he was the first choice for 35% or so. If Republicans did ranked-choice primaries, he’d probably lose. But they don’t, and they won’t.

          • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Per my prior comment, in straw polls, Biden and Trump are pretty closely matched. Trump has a larger unfavorability rating (which is good if you don’t want him re-elected), but their favorability ratings are pretty damn close. Definitely way too close for me.

            I’m not a Biden fan; I’d much rather see Cornell West running as the Democratic nominee, rather than as a Green (not that he’s electable, given Republicans). But I would far, far rather see Biden than Trump. Neither one gets the country where it needs to be, but Trump is actively working to make the country worse. If people think that Trump doesn’t have a chance in hell of winning–which is what happened in 2016–then they’ll get complacent. Every goddamned person in this country needs to understand that Trump is an existential threat, much like the heat dome over 1/2 of the US.

    • LakesLem@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Yes and bearing in mind that at this point justice is probably considered a “woke” concept and he’ll get cheered on.

      • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        We’re definitely seeing that in the conservative bubble; that why anyone that wants to be in serious contention for the Republican nomination has to say that it’s a “witch hunt”.

        Personally, I wish it was; I’d love to see Trump pressed with stones until he confessed.