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Post-Trump: III (decline, further tantrums, legal proceedings, book deals etc)

Barr speaks! Atlantic (soft paywall) interview with professional slime ball William Barr.

Most interesting to me was his interaction with uber slime ball McConnell who apparently told Barr to dismiss ideas of election fraud because McConnell needed to go along with Trump's fantasies while trying to win the Senate seats on Georgia. Obviously it's all aged like sour milk for them both.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...trump-administration-attorney-general/619298/
 
Juicy quotes from the new book about Barr’s time as AG.

…[He and] Trump traded barbs during a tense meeting at the White House in which the former President pressed his attorney general on why he publicly rejected the election claims.
"'How the f**k could you do this to me? Why did you say it?'" Trump asked Barr, to which he replied: "'Because it's true.'"
"The president, livid, responded by referring to himself in the third person: 'You must hate Trump. You must hate Trump,'" the excerpt reads.
For his part, Barr took aim at the legal strategy Trump was efforting at the time with the help his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, telling the president that any election-related legal challenges "would have taken a crackerjack team with a really coherent and disciplined strategy."
"Instead, you have a clown show. No self-respecting lawyer is going anywhere near it. It's just a joke. That's why you are where you are," Barr said, according to the excerpt.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/27/politics/william-barr-trump-election-claims-break/
 
As highlighted in the article America has always had a fundamentalist/extremist religious base that from my outsider perspective looks very much like the Taliban, ISIS or whatever. It is highly irrational, racist, homophobic and authoritarian. I’ll never understand it. I can easily see America descending into civil war again at some point as there is obviously a huge percentage of the population who don’t want anything to do with that shit, and they do seem largely to be split by location.
 
Tony L said:
As highlighted in the article America has always had a fundamentalist/extremist religious base that from my outsider perspective looks very much like the Taliban, ISIS or whatever. It is highly irrational, racist, homophobic and authoritarian. I’ll never understand it. I can easily see America descending into civil war again at some point as there is obviously a huge percentage of the population who don’t want anything to do with that shit, and they do seem largely to be split by location.
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Trouble is, Tony, unlike the 1860s, when there was a clear geographical demarcation between the Southern Confederate states and the Northern states, it's a lot more mixed these days, If anything, it seems to be city v. rural -Texas may be Republican, but its big cities tend Democratic. It would probably amount to universal civil rest and outbreaks of local violence, especially from these militia groups who are armed to the teeth and who see themselves as the real Americans. The USA does go through these periodic bouts of lunacy (McCarthy, Vietnam), but has always recovered, even from the biggest 1861-1865 bout (well, sort of...). Hopefully it can do so again.

One of the things I find perplexing is that some of the Catholic bishops want to deny Biden Holy Communion, even though the Vatican has advised against this step. Funny, they never raised a peep when the godless adulterer was in power. It would seem that, to receive Holy Communion, you now first have to provide your voting preferences!
 
tones said:
Trouble is, Tony, unlike the 1860s, when there was a clear geographical demarcation between the Southern Confederate states and the Northern states
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It's not like it was that clear. Maryland didn't secede but the people sure weren't super supportive of the Union army when the war broke out. Virginia ended up splitting in two. The various border states, e.g. Kentucky and Missouri were on a knife's edge between falling one way or the other. The North in general was far from uniform in its opinions, with plenty of Democrats looking to end the war as quickly as possible, even if that meant allowing the South to form its own country...and a good number of them were commanders in the Army of the Potomac, all the way up to McClellan. And there were certainly union sympathizers in the South, easily found by searching.
 
gustav_errata said:
It's not like it was that clear. Maryland didn't secede but the people sure weren't super supportive of the Union army when the war broke out. Virginia ended up splitting in two. The various border states, e.g. Kentucky and Missouri were on a knife's edge between falling one way or the other. The North in general was far from uniform in its opinions, with plenty of Democrats looking to end the war as quickly as possible, even if that meant allowing the South to form its own country...and a good number of them were commanders in the Army of the Potomac, all the way up to McClellan. And there were certainly union sympathizers in the South, easily found by searching.
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But I think you have to admit a whole lot clearer than the present situation.

w4AOAnpSyqB5xNy4MMnr_pasted_image_0_12.png


The Confederate flag had thirteen stars, even though there were only 11 Confederate states. They represented Missouri and Kentucky, which the Confederacy held were kept out of the Confederacy against their will. In a modern rerun, you'd have isolated large cities in a hostile countryside. This map would consist of blue spots in territory that was often red.
 
tones said:
Comparisons with the Weimar Republic can be overdone, but it's now clear that US democracy is not as secure as everyone thought. Donald, Donald über alles?
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It has been apparent to me for over 20 years that the US is a very authoritarian society compared to the UK. I remember disagreeing with my American wife when she said that something like the Nazi party of Germany or Mussolini's fascists could never happen in the US because of the "checks and balances". The GOP fully embraced corporate fascism decades ago, and the vast majority of their base will embrace an authoritarian government, provided it keeps the brown people in their place, without regard to the fact that economically it will benefit very few in the GOP base.
 
tones said:
But I think you have to admit a whole lot clearer than the present situation.

w4AOAnpSyqB5xNy4MMnr_pasted_image_0_12.png


The Confederate flag had thirteen stars, even though there were only 11 Confederate states. They represented Missouri and Kentucky, which the Confederacy held were kept out of the Confederacy against their will. In a modern rerun, you'd have isolated large cities in a hostile countryside. This map would consist of blue spots in territory that was often red.
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The reason the map looks the way it does is because of the decisions made by state legislatures, so it is not granular enough to reflect local sentiments which were in truth quite varied.

If, despite the "blue" cities, some states decided to try to secede today, you'd see the same kind of map, just with a different distribution. Although I previously might have agreed that the only form that a new civil war might take in the US would be of local guerilla action, I now see state legislatures acting unilaterally in support of anti-democratic principles. I now would not at all be surprised if any possible civil conflict might again be at the state level.
 
Now we know why he and his goons never paid taxes for years, yet everyone else did to keep the roads in good order for their limos.
 
zarniwoop said:
Trump Organization and CFO charged with tax crimes

Prosecutors allege 15-year tax scheme, charges include 15 felony counts against Trump Org

https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-organization-charges-07-01-21/index.html

Let's hope this is the start of bringing the orange blob to account.
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I doubt very much that this specific form of tax evasion is the sole example of Trump’s criminality.

From the prosecution’s perspective, this is likely just an opening gambit (i.e., low hanging fruit). Am fully expecting additional indictments in the months ahead.
 
The wider problem is that so long as the GOP is willing to run on a Trumpian platform there are any number of mini-Trumps waiting to step into his shoes should he keel over or get banged up. The Florida governor DeSantis is lining up a 2024 run on a Trumpian platform.

It would be tremendously satisfying to see Trump jailed and or bankrupted, but I don't think that alone will save democracy in the US. The GOP must be brought back in line, but only their donors can do this, so as long as America's corporations and ultra wealthy are prepared to burn the nation to the ground to make another buck the US will be in grave danger of becoming a fascist kakistocracy.
 
Hook said:
I doubt very much that this specific form of tax evasion is the sole example of Trump’s criminality.

From the prosecution’s perspective, this is likely just an opening gambit (i.e., low hanging fruit). Am fully expecting additional indictments in the months ahead.
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Hope so... is it too early for the popcorn?
 
sean99 said:
The wider problem is that so long as the GOP is willing to run on a Trumpian platform there are any number of mini-Trumps waiting to step into his shoes should he keel over or get banged up. The Florida governor DeSantis is lining up a 2024 run on a Trumpian platform.

It would be tremendously satisfying to see Trump jailed and or bankrupted, but I don't think that alone will save democracy in the US. The GOP must be brought back in line, but only their donors can do this, so as long as America's corporations and ultra wealthy are prepared to burn the nation to the ground to make another buck the US will be in grave danger of becoming a fascist kakistocracy.
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I take the point but I do think there is something special about Trump, in the worst way, that his likely successors don’t have, meaning they won’t have his pull.

The legalised voter suppression is a problem that looks likely to outlive him though, which is a huge threat.
 
zarniwoop said:
I take the point but I do think there is something special about Trump, in the worst way, that his likely successors don’t have, meaning they won’t have his pull.
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I wish I shared your optimism, but I think the next Trump may be more intelligent, and then we'll really be in trouble.
 
Maddow clip below, but the point it makes is that what we learned yesterday exactly matches what the NYT printed about Ivanka a while back in terms of the way she was paid by the Trump Org. Which raises obvious possibilities for the former first daughter.

Smart money says she cuts a deal and gives evidence against Trump himself.

 
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