PowerSwitch

Folks,

I thought we need to start a thread on this very important topic.

Clearly Trump is going to get the Republican nomination. Even if he gets convicted on some of the dozens of charges he faces, his supporters will see this as yet another attempt to deny him the second term he as already won in 2020 (in their eyes). He has already stuffed the supreme court with deeply conservative and reactionary judges, and the individual states that are republican controlled are being inreasingly staffed with openly pro trump election officials. The US democratic system has been far less democratic than even our first past the post system for many decades, but it is now more than ever being undermined by partisan rule making at the state level. (this goes the other way in Democrat states).

Biden is clearly showing his age. He was the compromise candidate that Democrats selected to defeat Trump last time by taking the middle ground, but he should have been much tougher and had Trump locked up back in 2021 after the capitol riots for sedition. He is now seen as weak and deeply out of touch,

Trump 2 would be a thousand times worse than Trump 1. He will want revenge and he will engineer a state of emergency and try to make himself dictator. Civil war is a real possibility.

This is not unconnected with the thread I posted earlier about suppression of free speech. (viewtopic.php?f=1&p=336301#p336301)

Reddit is the biggest debate-friendly social media platform, and it has a site-wide policy of suspending and banning people who express political views that are deemed "too right wing" by the leftist authority structure at Reddit. This is done without users knowing which right-of-centre political view got them suspended, which forces people who hold such views into a position where they fear they can't say anything that the left will find controversial. Elon Musk bought Twitter as a desperate solution to exactly the same problem at that site.

For people on the right this leads to a (justified) belief that there is a left-wing conspiracy against them and for people on the left it leads to wildly under-estimating the level of public support for things they deem "too right wing". In other words, the left's systematic attempt to suppress the right's free speech on social media is putting rocket boosters under Trump's campaign at the same time as blinding the left to the true scale of the threat.

It is even affecting me. When I think about it in this context, I'd quite like to see Trump win. It's also why I will probably vote for Reform UK in the general election, even though I think their economic policies are bonkers.

Hmm. The USA. I watched the film Idiocracy a few years ago. If re-released it would be classed as a current affairs documentary. Trump is merely a symptom.
Murika is what happens when your ancestors deport their religious loons there, then leave them to it having forgotten to include education packs in their luggage.

Ralphw2 wrote: ↑25 Feb 2024, 20:50
Trump 2 would be a thousand times worse than Trump 1. He will want revenge and he will engineer a state of emergency and try to make himself dictator. Civil war is a real possibility.

If he gets in it will be a real shit show as he attempts to implement the will of about 50% of the US population.

What's to go wrong? How will the Men in Black respond?

My views on this have changed recently, as a result of my views also changing on the topic of accelerationism. I've been neutral towards accelerationism until now, but I am rapidly coming to the conclusion the the US version of western culture isn't worth saving. I would actively like to see the United States descend into civil war. If the best the US left/centre can offer as an alternative is Joe Biden then they deserve Donald Trump.

Bring it on. I don't care anymore.

The US court is struggling to find jury members who declare themselves unopinionated in relation to Trump. Given that Trump constantly calls the trial a political witch hunt, and the fact that a recent opinion poll reported that 30 percent of Trumps gun owning supporters said they were prepared to resort to violence if they believed that US democracy was at stake, then I would do anything to avoid calling Trump a criminal in front of a US court. I would consider it the equivalent of pinning an "aim here" sign over my heart.

UndercoverElephant wrote: ↑27 Feb 2024, 09:20 I would actively like to see the United States descend into civil war. If the best the US left/centre can offer as an alternative is Joe Biden then they deserve Donald Trump.

Bring it on. I don't care anymore.

I'm no lover of the US or their politics, but we need to be very wary of wishing for a 2nd US Civil War...
The US acts as a counter-weight to China, Russia, Iran, N. Korea, Saudi and a whole host of other actors...
Many (esp. China) would happily stand in to fill the vacuum, and that would be far far worse...

Mark wrote: ↑17 Apr 2024, 10:35 The US acts as a counter-weight to China, Russia, Iran, N. Korea, Saudi and a whole host of other actors...
Many (esp. China) would happily stand in to fill the vacuum, and that would be far far worse...

I'm sure you'd understand that large parts of the world would be disinclined to agree with that, with good reason.

invalid wrote: ↑17 Apr 2024, 17:29

Mark wrote: ↑17 Apr 2024, 10:35 The US acts as a counter-weight to China, Russia, Iran, N. Korea, Saudi and a whole host of other actors...
Many (esp. China) would happily stand in to fill the vacuum, and that would be far far worse...

I'm sure you'd understand that large parts of the world would be disinclined to agree with that, with good reason.

Yeah. The reason is that they fear a knock on the door from state-sponsored thugs if they don't agree.

invalid wrote: ↑17 Apr 2024, 17:29

Mark wrote: ↑17 Apr 2024, 10:35 The US acts as a counter-weight to China, Russia, Iran, N. Korea, Saudi and a whole host of other actors...
Many (esp. China) would happily stand in to fill the vacuum, and that would be far far worse...

I'm sure you'd understand that large parts of the world would be disinclined to agree with that, with good reason.

You disagree with it because you're a Russian troll, spy, sympathiser, whatever...
But remember, you certainly wouldn't have the freedom to post on a board like this if you lived there...

Would I want to see unrestrained regimes in the countries listed above, and a host of others ?
Certainly not, and neither would the vast majority of their long suffering peoples either......

Also, look at places where US influence is declining and Chinese influence is growing (eg most of Africa)
The people there defo aren't liking what they're seeing...
Out of the frying pan, but into the fire...

Trump found guilty on all 34 charges of election money fraud. Trump says I was framed.

Will this drive more support his way, or are there a few percent of potential Trump voters who will simply conclude that a convicted criminal can't be president?

Is there a legal path to him running for president? If there is i don't think the ruling will harm his chances.

clv101 wrote: ↑30 May 2024, 23:02 Will this drive more support his way, or are there a few percent of potential Trump voters who will simply conclude that a convicted criminal can't be president?

There must be a small number who will either decide that a convicted criminal shouldn't be president and/or that he shouldn't have been cheating on his wife with a porn star. And it doesn't have to be many to swing the result decisively away from Trump.

I think Trump is going to lose, but the verdict on the US political system is damning nevertheless. That 40% (guess) of the US electorate is willing to believe this was a politically-motivated show trial, and that voting for Trump can somehow confirm his innocence, actually confirms that the US electorate isn't fit to vote. There's doubtless a large crossover with people who think climate change is communist conspiracy and/or that young earth creationism is true.

mr brightside wrote: ↑31 May 2024, 06:53 Is there a legal path to him running for president?

Yes. In the US you cannot vote if you are a convicted criminal, but you can run for President.