Donald Trump Presidency discussion Thread VIII (threadbanned users listed in OP)

I wanted to take a moment to explain what's going to happen tomorrow, January 6th, in Congress:

Since the 2016 election, Donald Trump has careened from crisis to crisis, undermining our democracy at every stage. In doing so, he’s been enabled by Republicans in Congress, and this week, we’ve truly reached a new and dangerous low. With Trump still denying the results of the election, his loyalists in Congress are now doing his bidding in a doomed attempt to ignore the people’s will and overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

They won’t succeed — we won’t let them — but you deserve to know what’s about to happen and just how dangerous this is.

For months, Trump has pushed conspiracy theories and made desperate last-minute attempts to hold onto power despite losing both the popular vote and Electoral College in November’s election by a landslide. His legal team and supporters have lost at least 60 lawsuits in the courts. His own Department of Justice found no evidence of voter fraud. But nonetheless, on Sunday, we heard graphic evidence of the president pressuring Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State to “find” him the votes he needed to overturn the results.

Tomorrow, Congress will undertake our constitutional task to certify the Electoral College results — literally counting the votes that have already been certified by 50 states. This is normally a ceremonial task, since Congress doesn’t elect the president, the voters do, but not this year.

A dozen Republican Senators — including Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley — and over one hundred Members of Congress have pledged to reject those results in a last-ditch effort to throw out Americans’ votes and steal the election for Donald Trump.

It goes against the oath they swore. It goes against the very notion of free and fair elections. It goes against our Constitution. It goes against our democracy.

All of that is abhorrent and anti-democratic. It’s also deeply hypocritical.

At this time last year, these same Republicans refused to hold Trump accountable during the impeachment for abusing his power, claiming on principle that ‘the voters should decide.’ Well, the voters decided — and Joe Biden won — but since it wasn’t in the GOP’s favor, Republicans no longer want the voters to decide either. So much for principle.

Never mind that the same election these Republicans falsely claim was rigged, was the very election in which they took office. Apparently, that part of the election was just fine.

You may find yourself asking, why? Why are they willing to risk their reputation, their duty, their country to do this?

I’ll tell you: a mixture of personal cowardice and political ambition to placate and satiate Trump’s far-right base which has been fed a steady diet of nothing but conspiracy theories.

When you excuse every illegal, unconstitutional and corrupt act by a man patently unfit for office, it leads you to the wildly anti-democratic moment we will witness on the Floor of the U.S. House of Representatives tomorrow. It takes your breath away.

I know they won’t succeed with their last authoritarian gasp tomorrow. We won’t let them. But we have to ask ourselves: what about four years from now? And after that?

This is not okay, and we cannot tolerate it.

It’s become clear that the fight to defend our democracy did not end on November 3rd. Far from it.

And we'll defend our democracy tomorrow.

— Adam

Francie Barrett wrote: »

This is a disaster for the Republicans, the Democrats now have two years free reign in the Senate. Given Republican obstructionist tactics in the past, they are going to try and stuff every piece of legislation they can through while they have a majority in the next two years. They will not want to be caught out like Obama was when he lost the Senate shortly after winning the Presidency.

There also has to be some irony that after months of claiming election fraud, maybe Trump himself was responsible for casting doubt in Republican minds over the election process. It will be interesting to see will the Republican party go in a new direction after this, or whether they will double down on Trump.

Francie Barrett wrote: »

This is a disaster for the Republicans, the Democrats now have two years free reign in the Senate. Given Republican obstructionist tactics in the past, they are going to try and stuff every piece of legislation they can through while they have a majority in the next two years. They will not want to be caught out like Obama was when he lost the Senate shortly after winning the Presidency.

There also has to be some irony that after months of claiming election fraud, maybe Trump himself was responsible for casting doubt in Republican minds over the election process. It will be interesting to see will the Republican party go in a new direction after this, or whether they will double down on Trump.

PropJoe10 wrote: »

Oh he will. I would say that if the Dems actually do take the Senate, they'll have about a zillion bills ready to go on day 1. Time to get something constructive done now. It's over to them. No excuses.

Cody montana wrote: »

Biden needs to reverse every single one of trumps bad environmental decisions on day 1.

Mitch McConnell could be demoted.
Chuck Schumer could be senate majority leader.

The meltdowns could be epic.

Quin_Dub wrote: »

Trumpism isn't a political movement , it's a cult of personality.

Personality is not a gift that was bestowed on Cruz.

There are no policies , there are no plans , there's just whatever horsesh!t springs into Trumps brain at any given moment.

Cruz, Hawley et al are attempting to win-over the Trump zealots , but they really won't be able to.