Impeachment Round Two (1 Viewer)

[Yggdrasill]

I am in the camp that Trump must -not should- be impeached. If not this President, for this behavior, then what bar would have to be cleared to merit impeachment?

Impeachment not only sends a signal to the country and the world that fomenting a coup is unacceptable and will be punished, but it also removes much of the threat Trump could pose going forward as, I understand it, he would lose his pension, his access to daily security briefings, free medical care and other amenities and benefits afforded to former Presidents. If impeached, he would not meet the definition of a Former President under the Former Presidents Act. I don't think it is clear whether he would continue to receive Secret Service protection.

 

[superchuck500]

What a massive piece of shirt Lindsey Graham is.

 

[zztop]

It's always fun to look back on previous comments

 

[DaveXA]

This is one thing I thought the house managers were smart to focus on. That argument is already dead to anyone that still has an open mind. Putting the timestamped tweets next to the video from the same time was a great move.

Indeed, but I'm not the one who needs convincing. It's those Republican Senators who are on the fence that need convincing.

But really, this should be an easy vote for every Senator after seeing the evidence laid out today. I don't get it tbh.

The Republican party has to draw a line in the sand and show unequivocally that this sort of behavior is unacceptable.

 

[DaveXA]

What a massive piece of shirt Lindsey Graham is.

He's a duplicitous sack of sheet. That's as nicely as I can put it for that coward.

 

[Saint by the Bay]

What a massive piece of shirt Lindsey Graham is.

Oh for the love of....

EVERYONE knew. They were talking about it openly. We talked about it here. It wasn’t a secret.

 

[cuddlemonkey]

Indeed, but I'm not the one who needs convincing. It's those Republican Senators who are on the fence that need convincing.

But really, this should be an easy vote for every Senator after seeing the evidence laid out today. I don't get it tbh.

The Republican party has to draw a line in the sand and show unequivocally that this sort of behavior is unacceptable.

Even if it doesn't convince a single Republican senator, it's still important to get this out there for the entire country to see as well as convince the world that at least one party hasn't lost their frigging minds.

 

[SaulGoodmanEsq]

La. GOP already starting to turn on Cassidy. Firing up the censure votes! Trump's cult-like hold on the party is astounding.

 

[Roofgardener]

I'm not sure you've had a lot of push back on that assertion. It tries to have some semblance of Judicial-ness, but it's inherently a political process. However, that doesn't mean it has to be a 'partisan' process.

I dunno WArdorican. The past history of impeachments would suggest that it is an entirely partisan process ?

...Damn near every Republican senator has to know two things. First, that this trial of Donald Trump that’s starting Tuesday is constitutional. And second, that he is obviously, relentlessly, unconditionally, morally, theologically, epistemologically, psychologically, and plain old logically guilty.

Quite right Optimus Prime ! Perhaps we should omit this tedious 'trial' process and move directly to the Lynching ?

Apparently the Trump defence team intends to paint today's presentation as glorifying violence. I don't know how you can pull that off without admitting that Trump was making a call for violence.

I haven't seen any of the coverage, though I've heard news reports that - thus far - the Prosecution has made great emotional play of the scenes of violence.

But has any evidence been presented that Trump was directly responsible for the violence ?

 

[Roofgardener]

Just a quick one, in case nobody has already done this. Here is a link to the 'insurrection' speech.

Transcript of Trump's speech at rally before US Capitol riot

President Donald Trump spoke at a rally near the White House on Jan. 6 before a mob of his supporters stormed the U.S.

apnews.com

Show me the calls to violence. Show me the calls to insurrection ?

 

[RobF]

Just a quick one, in case nobody has already done this. Here is a link to the 'insurrection' speech.

Transcript of Trump's speech at rally before US Capitol riot

President Donald Trump spoke at a rally near the White House on Jan. 6 before a mob of his supporters stormed the U.S.

apnews.com

Show me the calls to violence. Show me the calls to insurrection ?

You've already been through this, starting nearly a month ago, on page 7 of this thread. @wardorican linked to the speech in reply to you:

...

Now let's get into his speech...Here is the transcript from Jan 6th. I'll highlight some parts of it.

Donald Trump Speech "Save America" Rally Transcript January 6

Donald Trump: The media will not show the magnitude of this crowd. Even I, when I turned on today, I looked, and I saw thousands of people here, but you d...

www.rev.com

His opening lines, after talking about the crowd size (and likely lying about how big)

Does he say, let's march to the Capitol and break in? No. Does he rile them up with a bunch of stuff about fraud, taking their country back, stopping the fraud, show strength, you can't let this happen, the media is lying to you and trying to control you, etc... uh, yeah.

Almost all of those claims were shut down in court.. as in they were found lacking merit or evidence. Or, in many cases, there was hard evidence to the contrary.

Then, you can add back in the fact that he basically just watched it happen. At any moment, he could have pacified the crowd.. either personally, or with force.

Many other people, including me, have also thoroughly addressed this in response to you.

There's no point in you simply repeating yourself and trying to get everyone else to waste their time by explaining it to you, again. "I don't see it so it isn't there" isn't persuasive to anyone but yourself.

 

[Roofgardener]

You've already been through this, starting nearly a month ago, on page 7 of this thread. @wardorican linked to the speech in reply to you:


Many other people, including me, have also thoroughly addressed this in response to you.

There's no point in you simply repeating yourself and trying to get everyone else to waste their time by explaining it to you, again. "I don't see it so it isn't there" isn't persuasive to anyone but yourself.

And I've found your response unconvincing, and based on a VERY biased and re-contextualized version of his actual words.

Still, we shall see what the prosecution comes up with.

 

[RobF]

And I've found your response unconvincing, and based on a VERY biased and re-contextualized version of his actual words.

Still, we shall see what the prosecution comes up with.

Amongst many others, @wardorican went into the context and the speech in detail in his response to you I quoted above. Here's the full post: https://madaboutpolitics.com/threads/impeachment-round-two.109141/post-173959

That's the actual, original, context. He took the time to lay it out in detail for you, nearly a month ago. And what did you offer in response? Nothing but empty denials and false and frequently nonsensical accusations. Recontexualisation? Get out of here. Trump's history of inciting violence isn't new. What @wardorican and everyone else has presented to you is the original, long term, well-established context. The only person ignoring the original context here is you, when you describe that speech, in that context, as "standard political bluster".

The fact that you want to deny the original context just puts your own bias on full display. Because you weren't able to take @wardorican's reply to you, go into it, and show how the highlighted parts couldn't possibly incite violence and couldn't have been expected to, were you? Naturally, because that's impossible; violence was incited, and that it was going to happen was highlighted repeatedly by many in advance. But you could have shown some good faith and tried. Or you could have shown some integrity, and acknowledged the error of your position. But you didn't. Maybe try that in future. It's harder, but if you want your opinion to mean something, you need to back it up with something other than glib denials, baseless assertions, and attacks.

 

[Roofgardener]

Amongst many others, @wardorican went into the context in detail in his response to you I quoted above. Here's the full post: https://madaboutpolitics.com/threads/impeachment-round-two.109141/post-173959

That's the actual, original, context. He took the time to lay it out in detail for you, nearly a month ago. And what did you offer in response? Nothing but empty denials and false and frequently nonsensical accusations. Recontexualisation? Get out of here. Trump's history of inciting violence isn't new. What @wardorican and everyone else has presented to you is the original, long term, well-established context. The only person ignoring the original context here is you, when you describe that speech, in that context, as "standard political bluster".

The fact that you want to deny the original context just puts your own bias on full display. Because you weren't able to take @wardorican's reply to you, go into it, and show how the highlighted parts couldn't possibly incite violence and couldn't have been expected to, were you? Naturally, because that's impossible; violence was incited, and that it was going to happen was highlighted repeatedly by many in advance. But you could have shown some good faith and tried. Or you could have shown some integrity, and acknowledged the error of your position. But you didn't. Maybe try that in future. It's harder, but if you want your opinion to mean something, you need to back it up with something other than glib denials, baseless assertions, and attacks.

Don't get your panties in a wad. I don't recall Wardican's critique of the speech, and can't find it . (can you assist there ? )

But I've read the transcript myself. Trump merely suggests that they all PEACEFULLY march down to the Capital building and register their protest OUTSIDE it.

 

[RobF]

Don't get your panties in a wad. I don't recall Wardican's critique of the speech, and can't find it . (can you assist there ? )

I literally just linked to it in the post you just quoted. It's the bit which says "Here's the full post:" And then there's a big link to the post. Kind of hard to miss it.

Also, you told @wardorican that you read it.

But I've read the transcript myself. Trump merely suggests that they all PEACEFULLY march down to the Capital building and register their protest OUTSIDE it.

So in response to having it pointed out to you that you're just repeating yourself while willfully ignoring all the previously made responses showing why your argument falls flat on its face, you're going to just... repeat yourself again? Good grief.

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

So clearly violence occurred. And a substantial number of people intended to stop the certification of Joe Biden as president. We have a violent attempt to prevent the peaceful transition of power. Whether it was well thought out or had any chance of success is not relevant. An attempt was made by people to stop the transition from Trump to Biden, and that attempt resulted in violence and death. Is that part in dispute?

If not, is it in dispute that this was not a spontaneous act with no thought ahead of time by anyone? That there was no incitement at all? I don't see how that can be disputed. They clearly thought the election was stolen, they did not do it for no reason. They had a motive to do so, that the election was stolen from them.

Does anyone dispute that they were motivated by the belief that the election was stolen?

If not, they were incited to violence by the belief that their election was fraudently stolen from them.

Where did they get this belief? Did they come up with it on their own? Or did someone they trust tell them the election was fraudently stolen from them?

I think it's abundantly clear that Trump played a significant role in giving them motivation that resulted in them acting in a violent manner.

The question is, is it reasonable to believe that Trump knew his words would lead to violence? So, we're discussing intent and responsibility, not whether or not Trump incited the crowd - I think that should be self-evident, given the fact that violence occurred and they used Trump's words about a stolen election as justification.

Now, I'm not saying just because someone used a politician's words as justification for violence means the politician is responsible. There needs to be some standard that a politician could reasonably predict that their words would lead to violence.

But that's where the debate lies - not whether or not Trump incited violence, because he clearly did. But whether or not Trump should have known whether his words would incite violence.

 

[superchuck500]

Don't get your panties in a wad. I don't recall Wardican's critique of the speech, and can't find it . (can you assist there ? )

But I've read the transcript myself. Trump merely suggests that they all PEACEFULLY march down to the Capital building and register their protest OUTSIDE it.

He said "peacefully" once. He said "fight" 20 times.

After hours of pleas from members of Congress and allies in Trump world, he made this tweet that clearly encapsulates the nature of his rhetoric and how he viewed those who (at that point) had violently breached Capitol security, killed a police officer, saw one of their own shot by police, and came within seconds of engaging key members of Congress and even the Vice President, whom they were chanting about executing. "A scared landslide election victory so ceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly and unfairly treated . . . " He had been using that kind of language for weeks.



"Foment" is the correct word and he fomented the attack on the Capitol - arguing that he didn't intend it (or at least hoped to cause them to do something) is so unpersuasive that it is disingenuous. He told them over and over that something dear was being stolen from them and they only way to stop it was to "demand" or to "fight" against it (fight against what is the basic constitutional process for transfer of power to a newly-elected president).

This is not typical political rhetoric - this is the rhetoric of a demagogue who saw this horde as a chance to either (1) intimidate enough members of Congress into supporting his effective coup or (2) exacting some kind of retribution for their refusal. You can see that in this tweet, "This is what happens" . . . "this is what you get!" Repugnant.

 

[Saint by the Bay]

Numerous people who were there said they were there doing what the President told them to. Full stop.

They didn’t just say that after they were arrested as a defense, they were saying that real time. There’s no doubt he incited it. The people doing it told us so.

 

[wardorican]

I dunno WArdorican. The past history of impeachments would suggest that it is an entirely partisan process ?


Quite right Optimus Prime ! Perhaps we should omit this tedious 'trial' process and move directly to the Lynching ?


I haven't seen any of the coverage, though I've heard news reports that - thus far - the Prosecution has made great emotional play of the scenes of violence.

But has any evidence been presented that Trump was directly responsible for the violence ?

Just because it mostly has been, doesn't mean it has to be.

Call me an idealist.