If Trump were to be actually convicted on one of these bogus charges before the election, what do you suppose the reaction would be from his hardcore supporters?
Comments (32)
sorted by:
In another era, it would mean an armed uprising. A real one.
Dunno about now, though.
Nothing is actually the correct response. Just as storming the capitol building may have been cathartic, it wasn't strategically useful, which is why the FBI did it.
He gets convicted. Cool. Anyways, they're gonna vote for him anyway. Frankly, that move would actually push more independents towards Trump, and more center-Leftists & default Leftists away from Biden. Hell, you might even get a few of the dim-bulb progressives to say, "Oh shit, wait, they can do that to us. People like Bill Maher. Okay, but maybe we can take him off the ballot anyway? Hey, guess what: people know how to write: "Trump". First time a write in candidate got 40% of the vote in some blue state he was destined to lose anyway. Let's say he's unable to campaign. He'll get his allies to campaign for him. The more they campaign for him, the more likely they will get a spot on his cabinet. Okay, but he's in prison: more of the same. Okay, but he's in solitary confinement and can no longer communicate with the outside world, or maybe even he's dead: Congratulations, Donald Trump Jr. runs on a platform of pardoning Trump.
You all act like going to prison hurts people politically. If you understood the Left, you'd recognize that it's a right of passage, and it normally makes them far more powerful. Mandela, Ghandi, King, even Bin Laden. Some of their most significant popularity boosts came from prison.
Being a reactionary doesn't win you wars, it makes you predictable. The point is not to just counter enemy action, but to recognize that sometimes the best solution is to punch straight fucking through, refusing to even acknowledge counter-attacks. Countering is useful, but it operates from an initiative deficit. It's supposed to give you an opening to seize the initiative. Frankly, Trump is teaching you all what pressing an attack looks like.
I wish I didn't agree so much with everyone saying "nothing," but that's the most likely outcome.
I'd love to say based and patriotic (preferably peaceful) uprising to overthrow the corrupt system, but that's extremely unlikely. Generally that sort of thing needs a leader, and Trump sort of was that potential leader.
I suppose if Trump actually had the balls/stupidity to pull the trigger and say "sick 'em," something other than nothing might happen, but I doubt it would accomplish much more than sheer chaos anyway, especially in the short term. Also, he lost his best chance, which was 2020. He didn't pull the trigger and cause a real insurrection then, he's not going to now.
Trump is a wrecking ball and a loose cannon. That can be good, and he's gotten this far because of it, but if you look at historical characters who effected such changes - they were extremely disciplined and methodical. Robespierre was known as the 'incorruptible'. Lenin was ruthless but at the same time forgave party leaders who crossed him and even betrayed him because he needed them.
If you study revolutions, they are often not short-term affairs. The Roman Revolution started in 133 BC and ended traditionally at 29 BC. It was the gradual erosion of the system. The roots of the fall of the ancien regime in France also went back nearly a century, in what historians have called the desacrilization of the monarchy.
Going after Trump is a giant misstep by the regime. Not because they might fail, because I think he will be convicted, probably jailed, and that this will hurt him in the general election. But because it robs them of the lig-leaf of legitimacy that they have and permanently alienates about 1/3 of the US population from the regime. And for what? Preventing Trump from once again accomplishing zilch while being president? I'd say it's to scare others from following him, but the harm inflicted on the regime is far greater than any benefit they get from it.
Assuming for a moment that he is able to do it now or at any time in the future, there is a huge difference there. At that time, they were trying to deprive him of the presidency (at least, insofar as he knew). Now they are trying to deprive him of his liberty and possibly life - because the prison sentences he might get for these bogus charges are death sentences for an old, obese man.
We also don't live in history anymore. When a world was non-globalized and life was filled with far more strife and change instead of the stagnant comfortable living we all have now. Making historical examples far less useful 1:1 comparisons than you are trying to use them.
You can't apply philosophical and thought experiments on only single factors. You need to consider all of them. Including the changes to the world itself. Saigo was able to win by having the superior training and discipline for a while, until the changed factor of guns rendered 700 years of "historical examples" invalid and his entire army was gunned down by men who just a few years prior would be nothing to them.
History has its purpose, but its also filled with more than just "this guy good because X." That's as reductive as when the MRAs said "Rome only fell because women gained power."
Not just any 1/3 of the population, the vast majority of skilled labor is in there.
That really should be how Trump starts a "war," tells his followers to stock up, and set a day to have people stop working indefinitely until demands are met.
They'll trust the plan for two more weeks.
2 weeks to flatten the swamp
So will they be indicting Trump on crimes against the Climate next?
Write him in anyway, I'll laugh if he still gets 30% of the vote even on house arrest (they can't send him to prison, no matter how idiotic the leftists are)
That'd probably scare them more as then it's publicly revealed that at least a 1/3 of the country is willing to trust 'a convicted felon' with nukes, military and diplomatic missions than ANYONE currently running or occupying the highest office. That'd be a huge emperor has no clothes moment that would accelerate bulkanization efforts and states ignoring federal to have more powers for themselves.
Never assume a leftist can't break a norm or rewrite a rule.
Same as always, nothing at all.
Which is not necessarily wrong. When fighting an opponent that is very strong, you should not fight in the arena that is its strong suit. An "armed uprising" would be summarily crushed by the most militarized state in the world with a standing army of hundreds of thousands, and would lead to even more repression. Sure, it abandoned Afghanistan, but it's not going to abandon even its European puppets, let alone the heartland where its powerbase is (i.e. the US).
The good news is that here are many ways to resist a leviathan short of something like that. Many have preceded Americans in fighting back against tyranny, and there's a lot to learn from them.
I don't necessarily disagree with you.
But name a few.
There are not necessarily very effective ways, by the very nature of fighting against a leviathan, nor do I pretend to be an expert (or even knowledgeable) on the matter. There are historians who claim, correctly I believe, that no revolution against a united ruling class has succeeded without outside military and diplomatic support since before the French Revolution.
Now, you might not want to go for a full revolution, but splitting the ruling class is always a good idea. This is a goal, hardly specific instructions, but you need to know where you are going or (as Yogi Berra said), you might never get there.
In countries like Russia, I see that when people suspect that the government engages in fraud, they use poll watchers, and sometimes try to get out the vote to vote against government-favored parties like United Russia - if not to diminish the power, in order to force the government to commit more fraud and embarrass itself. Revealing government corruption also does a lot of good.
Orwell, I believe, said that all governments rule by fraud and force. Once fraud no longer works, they are forced to rely solely on force, which simply works less well than the combination. So stripping away the fraud and denying legitimacy to the regime does a whole amount of good. I think the main problem in the US is that the majority of people regard the regime as legitimate. That is because, contrary to the claims of Trump supporters who make dubious claims about 'massive fraud'; it still has plausible deniability. Forcing them to commit massive and open fraud, if that is what they are doing, will inevitably tarnish their reputations even more. Make no mistake, even those who rationalize all shenanigans to keep Trump out would not approve of open fraud, if only because it tarnishes their self-image for lack of minimally plausible deniability.
Without regime legitimacy, soldiers shooting on demonstrators are not 'upholding constitutional order' or 'protecting democracy', they are murdering their fellow citizens who are fighting for their rights. There have been many times when soldiers simply refused, or that the regimes did not have the confidence and thus collapsed (but unfortunately, it seems that they were mostly conscript armies).
These are a whole lot of words to say, in retrospect, rather little. But maybe some pointers in directions we should be thinking about. But one thing that is very bad, is not voting or giving up, at least in the US. If someone thinks that "they will steal the election anyway, so why bother voting?", like I always say, if they think the election is worth stealing, then it's worth voting for him - aside from the other benefits of forcing the regime to commit fraud (if that is what it's doing, IMO they rigged the election legally with mail-in voting and Hunter Biden shenanigans, not by stuffing ballots).
Thank you for the humble and detailed reply.
Nothing. They will do absolutely nothing.
I've got a family member who is fairly TDS. In a conversation about the trials, and how they're using mafia racketeering laws against him, we fell into a back-and-forth of badly impersonating Trump as a stereotypical Italian mobster, and laughing at how ridiculous the whole thing is. Then the news pointed out one of the charges is relating to street gangs, and we went into a whole second impersonation set. "I belong to the streets. They're the greatest streets. Some streets are good streets but we have the best streets folks. They got my name on the building, Trump Tower my boyz call it. Gonna pass the greatest mic to my tax accountant, Lil' T."
We just bantered back and forth, and he acknowledged that the charges were utterly ridiculous, a complete joke. And this is a guy who was against the vaccines purely because Trump made them, and then 180'd the moment Biden was sworn in because they were then Biden vaccines, even that level of TDS, these charges have been getting people to notice.
Crackdown by police after “someone” (feds) shoot up a white majority school in their trump 2024 hat and shirt.
I'm not a Trump supporter, but if he was convicted but still allowed to run, I would vote for him. Just to have the first presidential self pardon.
There would be massive neocon lib suicide (one would hope).
We would have two very separate countries. A revolution wouldn't happen, but the left leaning states will disintegrate over a period of 10-30 years. By the time it's all over Trump will be long dead and the entire country will have a different name.
The British should have tried prosecuting George Washington…
I’m sure he’ll be forgotten like Ghandi or Nelson Mandela after a short prison sentence…
Yeah but you see, the Left liked those guys. That's why they were deified. Leftists don't like Trump, so he will be condemned.
That's how they believe the world works. "Reality has a liberal bias." They believe their view is the only one that will stand at the end, and all others will be crushed by the "right side of history."
Probably a lot of protests but not much else
GOP politics will then shift to revolve around getting him out.
I want to say they will protest but after Jan 6 I think they know any sort of protest will be met with extreme force. I do think a proration would just not vote
I'm a turn Fulton in the Bastille, whether he's there or not.
I don't care about Trump; I just don't want them to have a place to put me.
Last time someone showed me how to jimmy the cell doors with a torn sheet, lol. Nobody safe in there. I didn't sleep for 3 days.
He needs to get a new tattoo for each conviction.
He is in trouble for that tweet?