Romney on Pardoning Trump

[Morley]

If "the voters" refers to ordinary American people who put a cross next to Trump's name on the ballot paper, you know very well that more of them voted for Clinton than voted for Trump (65,844,954 (48.2%) to his 62,979,879 (46.1%)). And when Trump faced Biden, more voted for Biden than for Trump.

What decided the election in Trump's favour when he ran against Clinton was not "the voters" in the normal sense of the term. It was the electoral college system, which gives completely disproportionate weight to voters in small states. Had the decision been left to "the voters" rather than to the college, Trump would not have been president. He has never won a majority of "the voters".

This autumn, we may once more see Trump rejected by "the voters", but put into office by the college, despite that being against the popular will. But if that happens, ajax will be just fine about that, amirite?

Well yes. This electoral college was ratified after being secured with the blood, work, and treasure of my ancestors. I'm a Viginian. Even then we didn't want New York choosing our President every four years.

You're a West Virginian. You-all liked the Union so much that you broke off and formed your own state, all out of allegiance to the North.

[Doctor Steuss]

Wild seeing someone saying "let the voters decide" while simultaneously genuflecting to the Electoral College, which was partially designed to circumvent what the voters decide, just in case a Ship of Fools scenario happened, and literally makes partisan minority votes within states null-and-void regarding the outcome of elections. Party-line Republican voters in Massachusetts don't get to decide who is going to be President, simply because of their zip code.

Outside of swing and purple states, the voters don't get to decide, because of the Electoral College. Even then, the decision is ultimately up to how the state has designed its Elector system.

[Chap]

If "the voters" refers to ordinary American people who put a cross next to Trump's name on the ballot paper, you know very well that more of them voted for Clinton than voted for Trump (65,844,954 (48.2%) to his 62,979,879 (46.1%)). And when Trump faced Biden, more voted for Biden than for Trump.

What decided the election in Trump's favour when he ran against Clinton was not "the voters" in the normal sense of the term. It was the electoral college system, which gives completely disproportionate weight to voters in small states. Had the decision been left to "the voters" rather than to the college, Trump would not have been president. He has never won a majority of "the voters".

This autumn, we may once more see Trump rejected by "the voters", but put into office by the college, despite that being against the popular will. But if that happens, ajax will be just fine about that, amirite?

Well yes. This electoral college was ratified after being secured with the blood, work, and treasure of my ancestors. I'm a Viginian. Even then we didn't want New York choosing our President every four years.

Gottit. So you don't want to leave the choice of President to the voters. You want to leave it to a different body, which is apparently designed to ensure that the choice of the majority of voters is frustrated by a mechanism put in place to avoid the President being elected by a direct democratic process.

So the answer to your question:

Why don't you let the voters decide if Trump should be president?

Is simply "because ajax18 does not want the choice to be made by the voters".

Thanks for clarifying.

[Dr Exiled]

Yet Trump left office in Jan 2021 like he was supposed to do. I'm not voting for him and am going to vote for Kennedy, however, reality is something that was lost with all of the exaggerations surrounding Trump and how the Russians supposedly stole the election for him. It's continued since.

The upshot with the Russians and their puppet Donald Trump is not that they didn’t attempt to interfere in the election at the public request of Trump himself, but that Clinton was such a weak candidate and should in no way have been threatened by such interference. Only a supremely poor politician would lose to Trump, and Hillary Clinton is a great administrator who sucks as a politician.

To assume that all of the same factors are at play here is, sorry to say, stupid. Trump’s continuing and increasingly serious assaults on the Constitution and democracy make the accusation of Russian interference at Trump’s public request look like Kinderspiel.

Other than the corporate media's endless repetition of this theme, where is it? It isn't there. He bitched about the election and still believes he won. That isn't a crime, although we have a bunch of BS lawsuits claiming otherwise and they are going down in flames in the court of public opinion:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/ (take a look at the polling on the right of the page)

Biden should drop out and probably will after the debates.

[Dr Exiled]

These cases were brought based on political calculations, not on any real threat to democracy. I know that's a tough pill to swallow, that one side would use the judicial system politically, but that's what happened and it isn't working out. Romney's advice will prove wise. It would have allowed for people to continue to believe Trump is guilty of whatever without having to show any proof at trial.

I don't agree. I know of no cases when Democrats have used the judicial system politically against their opponents when there was no credible evidence of lawbreaking by them. If and when such cases exist, they deserve to be opposed and condemned every bit as vigorously as when Republicans do it! Some Trump's actions were so obviously wrong and illegal, it would have been a great miscarriage of justice were he not prosecuted and held to account for them! If you really believe Trump and his openly stated intentions and agenda, should he be elected, are no threat to democracy, you are either hopelessly naïve or badly misinformed (assuming, of course, that you are not yourself fundamentally opposed to the very idea of democracy).

What do you think democracy is? Voting for the correct person or the ability to vote? This is why the "threat to democracy" meme is so misplaced. There is no basis for it. It's why all the arguments for this idea are low on evidence and high on emotion, e.g., "how could you think such a thing?" "Take a look at the endless repetition of the meme, isn't that enough to make smart people fall in line?"

Seems like Mormonism to me.

[Dr Exiled]

These cases were brought based on political calculations, not on any real threat to democracy.

The fake electors schemes and the attack on the Capital are hardly partisan issues. They are fundamental threats to the system itself. If you wish to declare yourself as opposed to the systems of government as I suspect is the case, by all means. But don't confuse the legal actions against the failed coup attempt to be partisanship which is what you imply in your use of the word political above.

Extremely exaggerated. Coup? Without the military? You and your cohorts are lost in a delusion of Trump derangement syndrome. I get not liking Trump, I'm not voting for him. However, give me a break on this coup nonsense. It never was the case. Bitching about the election and organizing a protest where some acted poorly is not a coup. Please take a look at what our CIA has done in countless countries across the world, like Iran, Nicaragua, Bolivia, etc. and compare. There was absolutely no "threat to democracy" on J6. Here is a typical video and there are probably a whole host of videos that are still being suppressed that show a different picture than what your group "chooses" to believe. https://rumble.com/v10o9g5-incredible-m ... nter-.html

You guys would get held up over the internet.

[Dr Exiled]

He left office largely due to the strength of the institutions of our democracy. Institutions he and others have spent the last four years seeking to further undermine and weaken.

You confuse his incompetence with lack of intent.

Exactly. It blows my mind how people don't understand this. He's stated his intent numerous times. In 2016 he made the mistake of appointing sane people to positions that could control his unhinged appetites for power and that is the only reason he wasn't successful. But as the saying goes, a coupe attempt that goes unpunished becomes nothing more than a training exercise. This time around he won't have people like Pence, Barr, and the dozen others who resigned due to his incompetence. This time around you expect election deniers like the puppy killer, Stephen Miller the Nazi, hell he might even appoint a dozen of his online sycophants like the "my pillow" guy. He'll likely make the surgeon general some whackadoodle anti-vaxxer. His intent isn't to appoint people who know about things, his intent is to appoint people who kiss his ass and swear absolute loyalty to him above all else. If that is the type of government we have to look forward to, do you really think Trump isn't going to take advantage of unfettered power? He even has the the Supreme Court he crafted, entertaining the question as to whether a President has immunity for life from all crimes and one of his puppets on the court was just busted waving an "stolen election" flag and another has been busted for being a paid stooge of Right Wing billionaires.

Unfortunately Trump might win the election only because there are naïve people duped by the same media narratives propagated by Exiled.

"Oh stop pretending Trump is a danger to Democracy, he didn't destroy it the first time did he?"

You guys are the ones being played by slogans and fear. But whatever. Too bad the democrats can't put up a viable candidate or offer something for the people other than we're not Trump. If they did, he would be defeated and easily. But that would mean actually siding with the people. The endless wars are very unpopular. Both parties support genocide and regrettably the guy I like is also too scared to take on aipac. We are being suffocated by too many monopolies, and the "saints" in government you guys support are hopelessly compromised by the lure of post-government position within the monopolies. But, yes, look at the devil Trump and don't look at the poor performance of both the Democrats and Republican uniparty loyalists.

[Manetho]

He bitched about the election and still believes he won. That isn't a crime...

The deputy White House Counsel said there was no evidence that fraud had thrown the election to Biden, and that if Trump tried to stay in office in spite of the election results, there would be "riots in every major city in the United States." Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark replied, "that’s why there’s an Insurrection Act" — meaning he wanted to call in the military to attack American civilians.

Trump tried to fire the acting Attorney General, Jeffrey Rosen, and replace him with Clark. The rest of the Justice Department was so horrified by the prospect of Clark becoming AG that the other assistant AGs threatened to resign en masse, forcing Trump to back down.

The January 6 attack was an attempt to pressure Vice-President Pence and Congress to reject the electoral votes of key states, in the hope that, with the electoral vote count in limbo, Congress would agree to throw the election into the House of Representatives, where (per Article Two, Section Three) state delegations would vote in blocs, giving Republicans a majority even though Democrats had the majority of individual representatives.

When the crowd was gathering for Trump's speech on January 6, Trump demanded that the Secret Service remove the metal detectors that screened out people carrying weapons, saying, "They're not here to hurt me." The rally crowd became the mob that attacked the Capitol, and it included members of militias that had stockpiled weapons for the event. The Secret Service refused to obey.

After the speech, Trump tried to go with the mob to the Capitol, as he had promised to do in his speech. The Secret Service refused to let him. If the Secret Service had obeyed Trump's orders, he would have led an armed mob to the Capitol.

Trump watched the attack on TV in the White House, and further inflamed the mob by tweeting that Pence had refused to throw out the electoral votes as Trump demanded. He only called on the mob to stand down after it was clear they hadn't succeeded, and after subordinates and members of his own family begged him to.

The only reason Trump wasn't able to mount an effective attack on democracy was because he was thwarted by subordinates who refused to do his bidding, because they valued the Constitution more than they valued loyalty to him or to far-right ideology. If he takes power again, he won't make that mistake again. He'll appoint people who won't let the Constitution get in his way.

[Gunnar]

The only reason Trump wasn't able to mount an effective attack on democracy was because he was thwarted by subordinates who refused to do his bidding, because they valued the Constitution more than they valued loyalty to him or to far-right ideology. If he takes power again, he won't make that mistake again. He'll appoint people who won't let the Constitution get in his way.

That's what's so alarming. He doesn't even try to hide his intention to do exactly that! He openly boasts that that is what he intends to do!

[ajax18]

The only reason Trump wasn't able to mount an effective attack on democracy was because he was thwarted by subordinates who refused to do his bidding, because they valued the Constitution more than they valued loyalty to him or to far-right ideology. If he takes power again, he won't make that mistake again. He'll appoint people who won't let the Constitution get in his way.

That's what's so alarming. He doesn't even try to hide his intention to do exactly that! He openly boasts that that is what he intends to do!

He might even take away the mask and vax mandates or perhaps even your medicare? We're all gonna die of COVID. With no more illegal immigrants to provide us with cheap labor we might have to do our own work again? His policies could reduce inflation and set the US up to default on the debt. With no more green energy boondoggles, the planet will be uninhabitable in 20 years due to global warming. Gasoline prices could go down. Energy prices could go down. Food prices could go down. It'll destroy the planet. Sweet social security! Save us Bernie with your Bolshevik army.