China was a potential threat to the US global technological, industrial and military superiority, but since the 10 year change of leadership was abandoned I don't think they are a real threat anymore. Their dictator will concentrate on keeping his power and not on developing the country.
I'm no Trump fanatic, but I still do not understand what people's real problem is with him either. Most of their problems seem to be made up. You can see it most clearly in the Jan 6th committee, who were committed by any means to suggesting that Trump incited violence even though he directly and plainly called for peaceful protest and spoke against violence that day, yet they showed none of that during the "trials".
And aside from that - pretending fraud isn't real or is an impossibility in an American election is incredibly naive. That's like saying Chicago can't have gun violence. Elections should absolutely be questioned and audited regularly.
Sure there's no problem with that. But that's not what Trump and his team did.
Trump claimed there was fraud so loudly not because he wanted to find actual fraud (which he had no reason to believe existed), but because he wanted people to be very concerned with the idea the election was potentially fraudulent. He wanted people to be concerned with this idea because it legitimized his true motivations - he wanted power for himself.
Trump's team didn't actually want to find fraud; no, their goal was to create an environment of suspicion about fraud, but they had absolutely no intention whatsoever to prove their case. We know this because in all of the 60+ court cases they brought, they never alleged fraud, let alone attempted to prove it. If they did, they would have revealed they had zero evidence for their claims. Of course for this reason, they lost every single case (except I think an early PA case that didn't even relate to claims of fraud).
And it needs to be said that the elections were investigated. Georgia investigated every claim made by the President, and found none of them credible. If Trump were genuinely concerned with finding fraud and simply questioning the results of the election, he would have been satisfied with their process. But the process didn't end up with him winning Georgia, so he wasn't satisfied, to the point that he threatened Georgia elections officials with prosecution when they refused to overturn his loss there.
So yes, when it comes to elections generally, they should absolutely be questioned and audited regularly. But we must also say in the same breath that we cannot let disingenuous concerns about "election integrity" actually undermine elections. That's a problem too, which has demonstrably lead to a coup attempt and violent insurrection. So I would say "voter fraud hysteria" is actually a worse problem than voter fraud itself, which is proven to be rare and hasn't caused any coups or insurrections.
You'll need an industrial grade lube to get a slope that slippery.
> And aside from that - pretending fraud isn't real or is an impossibility in an American election is incredibly naive. That's like saying Chicago can't have gun violence.
Nice and a strawman too.
> Elections should absolutely be questioned and audited regularly.
Ballot counting is watched by representatives of both parties. Neutral third parties agree that systemic voter fraud is unlikely to be happening at scale, and we do try to catch the dumbasses that try to cheat on an individual scale fairly easily. We can also add a false equivalence to your rapid fire fallacies.
"Questioning" an election is not the same thing as decrying fraud and trying to convince courts to overturn the results when you have no evidence of fraud.
It's quite another to go to a court, not because you have evidence, but because you want to avail yourself of their power to overturn the election by making some convincing argument. Or, short of that, to use the context of a court battle to give a patina of legitimacy to otherwise baseless accusations and FUD (lawyers are great at making bullshit sound convincing in a lawsuit).
That's what the Trump team did, and those are not the kind of people we should be letting near power (those who show an eager willingness to use institutions corruptly).
"No, ban the vocal disbelievers from social media, and ban their candidates from participating. Or imprison them."
Virtually every other institution has lost credibility in public opinion polls. Why should elections be any different? The losing side will always cry foul, as they have for multiple elections now: 2000, 2004, 2016 and 2020. It is tempting to look the other way, when the one you voted for happened to win.
Dems response to this was not good in my opinion. There is obviously a large population of voters that believe that fowl play is happening in elections, instead of working to increase transparency - there are a lot of things we can do like increased auditing or coming up with a more open way to verify votes - they doubled down and are attacking those who are asking questions. These are fellow Americans, they should not be demonized, we should work to improve election integrity and openness, increase everyones' confidence in election integrity.
Were you not alive for Bush v. Gore ? All of us on the left denied the legitimacy of that election, loudly, repeatedly, and I don't remember that being considered an "enormous threat to the nature of democracy".
If you believe this is what Jan 6 was about, you didn't pay attention to what the Committee found.
In fact it was an administrative coup first, which involved various state GOP parties, various GOP House Reps (Biggs, Gosar, Greene, and Jordan among them), various GOP Senators (Johnson and Cruz among them), the White House (President, Vice President, Chief of Staff, and various lawyers including Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, and Sidney Powell). It was a conspiracy to commit fraud at the highest levels of the government, and the Committee lays it all out.
Trump knew he lost the election very early on, but wanted to stay in power nonetheless. He admits this to many advisors and the Jan6 committee proves this through under-oath testimony which is not hearsay. They've released the transcripts, you can read them for yourself.
John Eastman comes to him with a plan. This was the coup plot he called the "Green Bay Sweep":
- Forge state certificates of the vote electing Trump, transmit them to the VP. This is illegal.
- Have senators and house members object to real certificates of the vote electing Biden. This is legal
- Have VP toss out real certificates. He does not have the power to do this.
- These contests start a clock, that when it runs out, if a President Elect is not certified, it goes to state delegations for a majority vote. Republicans controlled the majority of state delegations at the time, so they would have installed Trump despite him losing the popular and electoral college votes.
- The next step would probably be the Democrats would sue, it would make it to SCOTUS, and SCOTUS at that point likely wouldn't have taken the case, citing separation of powers (Constitution makes clear the only way to remove POTUS is impeachment or 25th amendment. SCOTUS has no power to do so, and how would they enforce it anyway?). DOJ wouldn't prosecute anyone because it would be controlled by Trump. This would have effectively ended democracy in America.
BTW that speech in question? Why did he need everyone there on Jan6? To pressure Pence. He was the key to the whole thing, as he was tasked with overstepping his clear duties as VP at the Jan6 vote counting ceremony, and in doing so would have violated the Constitution. But in the days leading up to Jan6, Pence made clear to Trump that he was going to do the right thing, and that would have been the end of Trump's administrative coup plot. That's where the insurrection comes in.
The Jan6 committee found that Trump knew the audience were armed. He instructed his SS to stop taking their weapons. He told the audience to go to the Capitol and "fight like hell". He told them there was a massive fraud and the election was stole, and the rules are very different in those circumstances. He was preceded by his lawyer, who told the audience that a "trial by combat" was in order. He instructed them to go to the Capitol to obstruct the vote count ("stop the steal"), which was exactly what his administrative coup plot required.
And they did. They did everything Trump wanted, and he played his part by sitting back and letting it happen, instead of doing, well.... anything. Well, aside from further inciting the mob over Twitter as he watched them attack the Capitol on TV. He did do that.
It would have worked too if it wasn't for two things:
1. Pence didn't leave the Capitol.
2. McConnell/Pelosi reconvened the Senate/House and they worked through the night to certify Biden as President Elect.
If those two things hadn't happened, Trump's plan (really Eastman's) could have very well worked, and we'd be living in a very different country right now.
That is why people don't like Trump -- because he's the kind of person (an authoritarian wannabe dictator) who worked to make that happen. We were saying so the whole time, yet people somehow still don't see it even after an attempted coup, only because he said the word "peaceful" once in an otherwise bloodthirsty and completely fraudulent series of speeches. There was no voter fraud and Trump knew that. Lying to a mob you know is armed that they are being defrauded, and telling them what to do about it, is incitement.
And if he gets elected again, he'll do it again except next time he'll have the benefit of experience; failed insurrections usually beget successful ones if the insurrectionists are left unprosecuted and free to try again.
> He told the audience to go to the Capitol and "fight like hell"
You're using the quoted part with the first part of your sentence to spread false information. Anybody that reads the full quote and context of the speech [2] knows he wasn't talking about fighting at the Capitol. Biden and Harris have said "fight like hell" many times, but nobody uses their quotes out of context to insinuate advocacy for some theoretical coup.
Everything the President said related to the activities at the Capitol was about keeping it peaceful.
On Jan 6, 2021, the President tweeted:
"Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!" [0]
and
"I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!" [1]
In addition, at the rally prior to the protest at the Capitol, he said:
"I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard." [2]
> The Jan6 committee found that Trump knew the audience were armed.
Armed with what? Firearms? And how could he know that? Exactly zero protestors at the Capitol were found to have been carrying firearms.
> That's where the insurrection comes in.
"insurrection" | noun | a violent uprising against an authority or government
Surely an actual insurrection would have involved at least one protestor bringing at least one firearm.
> Trump knew he lost the election very early on, but wanted to stay in power nonetheless.
The whole claim that he tried to stay in power is facially absurd. He didn't try to stay in power... he willingly handed over power as evidenced by the fact that there was a peaceful transition of power.
It's fine to disapprove of Trump, but this rambling unproven conspiracy stuff the January 6th Committee did was on a whole new level. Their entire goal was to get Trump disqualified and tarnish his image, no matter where the facts actually led.
[0] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/13469041109693153...
[1] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/13469127807005777...
[2] https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/966396848/read-trumps-jan-6-s...
> What you're bringing up--particularly the actions of the Senators, Representatives, and lawyers--are legitimate and legal avenues to pursue if one disputes election results.
Of course legislators and lawyers enjoy certain rights. However, those rights are not without limitations. For example, it's fine for a lawyer to file a lawsuit, but it's not fine to do so frivolously or fraudulently. Doing so would incur professional consequences. And indeed, Trump's lawyers who worked with him have faced professional consequences for their roles: Giuliani has lost his right to practice law in NY [1], and Sidney Powell is currently undergoing professional review [2] which might result in the same.
> Democrats have used those avenues in the past, too.
As for legislators, it's fine for them to raise an objection about an election. They enjoy that right. They can do so for a legitimate reason, or than can do so to make a political statement, as you note Democrats have done. What they can't do is use their position to obstruct the proceeding with corrupt intent.
In order for an objection to be raised, a House Rep and Senator must both object. This happened in this case and is fine. But the reasons for their objections had already been litigated. By the 1/6 ceremony, exactly 0 claims of fraud were raised in the appropriate venue (a courtroom), so to raise them exclusively on cable news and the House floor does not evidence a good faith concern about "election integrity".
I'm not the only one who thought the role of various House members on and surrounding 1/6 was suspect; we know several of them sought pardons, and they all have yet to answer why. Why seek a pardon if you don't have consciousness of guilt?
Furthermore, while it may be the right of some state lawmakers to certify federal elections, it's not okay for them to do so in a clandestine and manner in order to transmit a fraudulent certificate of the vote to the Vice President. That happened and it's not okay.
> You're using the quoted part with the first part of your sentence to spread false information.
If we're going to take the out-of-context utterance of the word "peaceful" during a speech to be prima-facie evidence of the intent of the speaker to be peaceful, then we must also take the out-of-context utterance of the word "fight" to be evidence of intent of violence.
The context of the event was that Trump summoned those people to that place based on a lie, one he knew to be false. There was and still is no proof of any of his claims. Not a single one. To stand up there and repeat them in front of a massive crowd is to effect a fraud. He then asked them to do something very specific: march to the Capitol, and "stop the steal", which was a euphemism for obstructing the proceeding. And how did he want them to do it? Trump told them. He said that because of the fraud (for which he had no evidence) that it was fair to play by a very "different" set of rules. Different how? Well Rudy had told them just minutes before: "Trial by combat!" (he screamed to thunderous applause from the armed crowed).
Then Trump directed them to the Capitol, and combat ensued. If you read the court transcripts, defendant after defendant says they thought they were doing what Trump wanted. They thought they were acting on the orders of POTUS.
This is a pretty cut and dry cause and effect. He got people mad over a lie, told them what to do about it, and then watched it happen, as they did exactly what he wanted.
> Everything the President said related to the activities at the Capitol was about keeping it peaceful.
I notice you've left out the crucial tweet he sent during the riots, wherein he expressed displeasure at his VP's failure to follow the plan, which was met by the crowd with renewed calls for violence and death.
Look, I am well aware of the tweets you are posting here. But to determine Trump's state of mind that day it's not enough to look at his Tweets, we have to look at what he did that day. Talk is cheap as they say. In the intervening 3 hours while Trump watched the violence unfold on TV, he did nothing to thwart the violence. When insurrectionists are invading the building and lawmakers are barricading themselves in their offices, a limp-wristed tweet about "peace" isn't enough.
> Armed with what? Firearms? And how could he know that?
An aide to Trump's Chief of Staff heard Trump say the following before his event:
"When we were in the offstage tent, I was part of a conversation, I was in the vicinity of a conversation where I overheard the president say something to the effect of, ‘I don’t effing care if they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me, take the effing mags [magnetometers] away, let my people in, they can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in, take the effing mags away,’" [3]
> Exactly zero protestors at the Capitol were found to have been carrying firearms.
You need to update yourself on the facts, as this is not true; there were plenty of guns there that day [4][5]. People did bring guns, and police radio chatter played during the 1/6 hearings makes clear that police were aware on that day of armed individuals in the crowd (some setting up positions in trees).
Here's a running list of gun arrests around the 6th that are tied to insurrectionists [6].
The 1/6 committee details what the Secret Service collected that day:
“Secret Service confiscated a haul of weapons from the 28,000 spectators who did pass through the magnetometers: 242 cannisters of pepper spray, 269 knives or blades, 18 brass knuckles, 18 tasers, 6 pieces of body armor, 3 gas masks, 30 batons or blunt instruments, and 17 miscellaneous items like scissors, needles, or screwdrivers,” [7]
> a violent uprising against an authority or government Surely an actual insurrection would have involved at least one protestor bringing at least one firearm.
Well, they had guns, as I've proven. But even if they hadn't, the definition you quoted fits perfectly because the day was plenty violent. People died and were brutally maimed. You can't show me the videos of that day and ask me to believe it wasn't violent.
> The whole claim that he tried to stay in power is facially absurd. He didn't try to stay in power... he willingly handed over power as evidenced by the fact that there was a peaceful transition of power.
It blows my mind for you to say this, it really does. Because in my reality, 1/6 was the end of the streak of peaceful transitions of power in America. We really are coexisting in two different realities.
To be clear, the actual transition of power for POTUS happens on 1/6 during the counting of the certificates of the vote, not 1/20 at the inauguration. According to the US Constitution, on 1/20 the President's term expires automatically, and the Presidency is transferred to the next in the line of succession. On 1/20/2021, that would have been President Elect Biden. So no matter what Trump did on that day, he was done as POTUS at noon.
The only way to prevent that from happening would be to make sure he was next in line, and the last time to do that before it was set in stone was on 1/6 at the joint session of Congress, by either outright stealing it (by Pence abusing his power) or by at least delaying it (using the mob) to give more time for him to convince states to decertify their elections. Read this law for how that would work [9].
This is why the transition of power was not peaceful. That Trump slinked away to Florida on 1/20 without incident doesn't erase that what he tried to do on 1/6 was use violence to stay in power.
> the January 6th Committee did was on a whole new level. Their entire goal was to get Trump disqualified and tarnish his image, no matter where the facts actually led.
I've heard these charges against the committee, and I just don't see how that comports with the evidence they produced. It's one thing to make charges of bias and a persecution complex emanating from the committee, but you can't say the same for their under-oath witnesses, who were ex-Trump administration officials, top-ranking state GOP officials and lawmakers, law enforcement officers, non-partisan election officials, and regular citizens. They elicited truthful testimony from these individuals which painted a picture that is not good for Trump.
It seems to me that you haven't read the Committee's report, nor watched their public hearings. If you had, you would have been aware of simple facts like the possession of guns by insurrectionists. I really think you should and with an open mind. You might come away with a different perception of their work, because they let the evidence, witness testimony, and depositions do most of the talking.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/07/rudy-giulianis-dc-law-licens...
[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2022/06/23/sidney-...
[3] https://news.yahoo.com/cassidy-hutchinson-january-6-trump-we...
[4] https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/politifact/202...
[6] https://www.thetrace.org/2021/01/capitol-riot-firearms-arres...
[7] https://nypost.com/2022/12/23/capitol-riot-report-details-we...
[8] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/oath-kee...