#BYEDON 2020 - The End Better Fucking Be Near

[Sid]

This is not accurate, I am sure if Donald would be crucified that Melania would drink some expensive champagne while pissing at his feet.

Nope, that would not be the case.
Melania is no saint trapped in a cave with a monster.
She chose that monster and his cave.

 

[Soen Eber]

Nope, that would not be the case.
Melania is no saint trapped in a cave with a monster.
She chose that monster and his cave.

That would explain their distorted reality, perceiving shadows on a cave wall cast by a flickering fire as reality.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Nope, that would not be the case.
Melania is no saint trapped in a cave with a monster.
She chose that monster and his cave.

For me she's the proverbial gold digger and trophy wife. Yes, she chose her own cave. But this still does not prevent her over time from developing hatred against Trump.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Evernote link because paywall

ETA Thread

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Donald Trump's influence will evaporate once he leaves office. Here's why | Julius Krein

Those who believe in the invincibility of Trump’s personality cult hold a view of American democracy that is at once too cynical and too naïve

www.theguardian.com

 

[Veritable Quandry]

Donald Trump's influence will evaporate once he leaves office. Here's why | Julius Krein

Those who believe in the invincibility of Trump’s personality cult hold a view of American democracy that is at once too cynical and too naïve

www.theguardian.com

Trump will probably fade fairly quickly. If he has any influence after he leaves office, it will be because he gets an ego boost from holding rallies, and a cash boost from campaigning. The test would be how Trump-backed candidates do in 2022.

But Trumpian politics is going to linger like the stench of that fish sandwich lost under the car seat in January as August approaches. He simply took advantage of forces at work in the Republican Party long before he first identified as a Republican.

Reagan campaigned as a populist and amplified the racist dogwhistles that Nixon used to capture Southern Democrats unhappy with civil rights legislation. Gingrich added the politics of personal grievance and obstruction to the party. And the Tea Party movement turned that into an inability to compromise and a cult of victimhood. Trump was good at taking that mix and turning it up to 11.

What Trump did not do was the work to build a movement that can function without him at the center of power. We will probably see others try over the next decade or so, but demographics are catching up to the Republicans, and they will either revert to a broader Conservative party or die out until a new party fills that vacuum without the baggage that comes with the party name.

 

[Cindy Claveau]

Trump will probably fade fairly quickly. If he has any influence after he leaves office, it will be because he gets an ego boost from holding rallies, and a cash boost from campaigning. The test would be how Trump-backed candidates do in 2022.

More than one analyst has suggested that DT's going to be too busy with the plethora of lawsuits awaiting him to do much "campaigning".

I've got fingers crossed.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Oh wow, I didn't see this til now. That's a brave and painful move, especially in the Covid-depressed economy when literally every place really needs the money.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Donald Trump's influence will evaporate once he leaves office. Here's why | Julius Krein

Those who believe in the invincibility of Trump’s personality cult hold a view of American democracy that is at once too cynical and too naïve

www.theguardian.com

Too cynical?



HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAgaaaaaaaaaasssssp, breath, breath, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Trump will probably fade fairly quickly. If he has any influence after he leaves office, it will be because he gets an ego boost from holding rallies, and a cash boost from campaigning. The test would be how Trump-backed candidates do in 2022.

But Trumpian politics is going to linger like the stench of that fish sandwich lost under the car seat in January as August approaches. He simply took advantage of forces at work in the Republican Party long before he first identified as a Republican.

Reagan campaigned as a populist and amplified the racist dogwhistles that Nixon used to capture Southern Democrats unhappy with civil rights legislation. Gingrich added the politics of personal grievance and obstruction to the party. And the Tea Party movement turned that into an inability to compromise and a cult of victimhood. Trump was good at taking that mix and turning it up to 11.

What Trump did not do was the work to build a movement that can function without him at the center of power. We will probably see others try over the next decade or so, but demographics are catching up to the Republicans, and they will either revert to a broader Conservative party or die out until a new party fills that vacuum without the baggage that comes with the party name.

To my mind, the next phase is going to be a huge fight among the right.

Trump, I assume, will eventually slope off to run his own equivalent of Mussolini's Republic of Salò from Mar-a-Lago, while trying to keep the donations flowing in from the faithful and exact revenge on Mitch McConnell and any other Republican who has colluded with reality and accepted the election result, trying to retain his grip on the Republican Party with a view to maintaining his fantasy of making a comeback in 2024, or one of the family so doing, while he pursues the idea of starting Trump TV and whatever else he dreams up to occupy his retirement.

However, Mitch McConnell is likely to take a view on this, having got what he wanted and banked his wins, in the form of judgeships, and he'd now like his party back from the crazy people, thank you very much. Meanwhile other rightists and grifters, whether related to Trump or not, will want a piece of the action, and I assume aspiring Republican politicians, particularly those who hope to reach the top, won't want always to be looking over their shoulder at an always unpredictable Trump and will want to be free of his constant demands for humiliating displays of public loyalty to the dear leader.

There are also, I assume, other Republicans who, like the Lincoln Project and the never-Trump people generally, who want a right-wing, small government, Republican Party, but who also believe in democracy, the rule of law, an independent judiciary and basic decency and standards in public life, and presumably want to restore the Republicans to something people other than cranks and crooks can support.

Add to this Trump's impending legal and financial problems, which won't go away, and I think the US Republicans are going to spend rather more of the next four years fighting each other, and rather less fighting Biden and the Democrats, than we're maybe assuming.

 

[Sid]

The fact that his inner circle found it necessary to do the ‘person, woman, man, camera, TV.’ test with 45, strongly indicates he is a serious Alzheimer decease candidate.
There is a good chance, that the man won't even remember in a few years that he was the 'by far best president of the USA ever, denied a second term by huge voters fraud".

 

[Lexxi]

There are also, I assume, other Republicans who, like the Lincoln Project and the never-Trump people generally, who want a right-wing, small government, Republican Party, but who also believe in democracy, the rule of law, an independent judiciary and basic decency and standards in public life, and presumably want to restore the Republicans to something people other than cranks and crooks can support.

I was curious, so I looked up the Lincoln Project people. Four, it would appear, have left the Republican party (though, of course, they could go back).

Rick Wilson: listed as "former member of Republican Party" - wiki
George Conway: listed as "Independent (2018-present)" - wiki
Steve Schmidt: listed as "Independent (2018-2020); Democratic (2020-present)" - wiki
Reed Galen: "Independent political strategist" - Twitter

Ron Steslow: cannot find political party listed

John Weaver: still listed as a member of the Republican party
Jennifer Horn: still listed as a member of the Republican party
Mike Madrid: still listed as "Sacramento-based Republican strategist" as of a July 2 2020 article.

 

[Archer]

These guys "left" the GOP because it went way too off the rails even for them, but make no mistake they are still deeply conservative. They should in no way be considered anywhere close to being Democrats.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

I expect Kasich will end up leading the old guard Republicans, include the Lincoln Project types. He can talk about bipartisanship but is still a RWNJ, just with better suits and Wall Street connections. I expected him to do better in the 2016 primaries, but his decision to make a late announcement to use the poll bounce to ensure that he made the debate threshold backfired when Trump began to monopolize media attention.

Cruz and Rubio will compete for the reality-adjacent portion of the party, while I am almost looking forward to the moment Trump recedes and Don Jr and Kushner lead the clown-car pile-up to replace him. Rand Paul will continue to play an intellectual on TV as head of the traditional Libertarian wing of the party. Jim "I didn't see any molestation" Jordan and a few others will pull the Tea Party sect away from the wreckage of the Trump cult by appeal to his memory (even if he is still there).

It is going to be a glorious cluster-fuck. I just wish I could watch it at a distance.

eta: McConnell probably won't take a public position, but he controls enough campaign money to work behind the scenes to influence races. He is an ideological conservative who is not above using his office for petty obstruction and will use whatever factions are in power for his own ends, mostly judicial appointments and tax cuts.

 

[Free]

More loser bullshit from the Loser, except for an unusual bit: Brad R (that would be Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who we all know did the correct and legal thing by declaring Biden the winner in Georgia's presidential election) doesn't have a brother who works for "China."

 

[Free]

Oh, I did not think of that...

Michael Cohen says the associates Trump pardoned may now be forced to testify against him because they can no longer invoke the Fifth Amendment

President Donald Trump has pardoned dozens of people since November, including close allies such as Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, and Michael Flynn.

www.businessinsider.com

President Donald Trump's former lawyer and self-described fixer, Michael Cohen, has pointed out a way the president's windfall of pardons and commutations may come back to bite him after he leaves the White House.

Speaking with MSNBC on Monday, Cohen suggested that by pardoning former associates such as Michael Flynn and Roger Stone, Trump was giving prosecutors the power to force them to testify against him.

"This produces a very significant problem for Donald Trump in the fact that once you receive that pardon power, once you get that pardon, you're no longer able to invoke the Fifth Amendment — the right against self-incrimination — because you cannot be charged," Cohen said.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

More loser bullshit from the Loser, except for an unusual bit: Brad R (that would be Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who we all know did the correct and legal thing by declaring Biden the winner in Georgia's presidential election) doesn't have a brother who works for "China."

I don't think he even wrote those - maybe Jr or Murder Barbie did, but they make too much sense to be from Twitler himself; besides the capitalization is too close to being grammatical.

 

[Free]

I don't think he even wrote those - maybe Jr or Murder Barbie did, but they make too much sense to be from Twitler himself; besides the capitalization is too close to being grammatical.

Honestly I don't care if the composition was outsourced to starving teens in Bangladesh. It's on his Twitter account, and no ones deleted or amended it, so he certainly agrees with it.

 

[Free]

US pardons for Blackwater guards an “affront to justice” – UN experts

GENEVA (30 December 2020) - A group of UN experts* said the pardons granted to four convicted private security contractors for war crimes in Iraq violated US obligations under international law, and called on all States parties to the Geneva Conventions to condemn the pardons.

www.ohchr.org

A group of UN experts* said the pardons granted to four convicted private security contractors for war crimes in Iraq violated US obligations under international law, and called on all States parties to the Geneva Conventions to condemn the pardons.

The Blackwater Worldwide contractors were prosecuted and convicted of multiple criminal acts committed during a massacre at Nisour Square in Baghdad in 2007 which left 14 unarmed civilians dead and at least 17 wounded. In 2015 the US courts convicted Nicholas Slatten of first-degree murder, while Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard were convicted of voluntary and attempted manslaughter.

US President Donald Trump pardoned the four contractors on 22 December.

“Pardoning the Blackwater contractors is an affront to justice and to the victims of the Nisour Square massacre and their families,” said Jelena Aparac, Chair-Rapporteur of the Working Group on the use of mercenaries.

“The Geneva Conventions oblige States to hold war criminals accountable for their crimes, even when they act as private security contractors. These pardons violate US obligations under international law and more broadly undermine humanitarian law and human rights at a global level.

A shame nobody in the U.S. gives a crap about international law, until...1,784,171, 1,784,170, 1,784,169...

 

[Veritable Quandry]