What does the future hold for Donald Trump? - threadbans in OP

I'm not dismissing anything. You made a statement about the congressional panel. I asked for reasons why you held that position. You have provided nothing. Simply an opinion.

Posters have pointed out that an opinion doesn't mean anything unless it is backed up. Not because it is your opinion, although your track record on simply making up stuff based on no actual evidence does mean that the burden of proof weighs heavily on you, but that is the normal course of debate.

Otherwise anyone could simply say anything and others must treat it as a fact. As you continually do on this thread, everyone could simply post whatever rubbish they like and expect everyone else to respect it.

So I ask again, what tactics in particular do you have an issue with? Are they acting illegally or outside of their powers?

Suddenly proof is needed

she is not accused of a crime YET. at least wait until the investigation is complete. what is your source for the actions of the committee being illegal?

Yeah, because we all know the US military would never do anything like accept bungs!!

There are countless examples of draft dodgers, both those than simply refused to go and those that found a way out of it. You can't possibly claim that you cannot forsee any possible issue? We know that Trump is a liar, that he has no regard for the military, he doesn't even attend military services if its raining and holds those captured in the lowest level.

He might well have had bone spurs, it never caused an issue before or since that he has talked about. So when faced with a millionaire with no respect for the military, faced with having to actually put themselves on the front line, he wouldn't be the first, or the last, to come up with a way out of it.

But I have no care about his military service, and if he opted out then thats fine with me.

What is your take on the news breaking today about the 36 slide power point presentation which urged the declaration of a “national security emergency” as a pretext for throwing out election results in several US states?

Surely this is enough to show you that Trump was very much determined to find a way to overturn the election and that is exactly what the insurrectionists were planning on the day of the 6th?

Surely you can't simply wave all the evidence away at this stage?

We've reached peak @notobtuse level of debate

And you can keep your hands to yourself in future, that's all gone now.

careful you are trying to silence them🤣

And not one GOP that knew of this informed the FBI.

A clear and present threat to the democracy of their country and they sat on their hands.

American democracy was essentially saved by Mike Pence. He was the only person standing in the way of the coup.

That is how close it came to a hostile takeover.

Trump was willing to sell out democracy itself to keep himself in power.

And Bill Barr

And all this, with ZERO proof that any widespread election fraud actually took place. If Trump runs and gets back in in 2024, that's the end of the US. He'll then appoint his successor, and you'll see the large Democratic states like California look to leave the Union at that stage. It's all quite possible within the next few years, and it's very sad to see it happening.

Hmm. Seems like being overzealous isn't sitting well with judges handing out sentences:

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-12-11/capitol-rioters-social-media-posts-influencing-sentencings

I suppose for the same reason that invasions of countries are often phrased as being "an operation to ensure the security of our people who live in that territory as a persecuted minority", or that the invaded country was harbouring fictitious weapons of mass destruction. Just any old pretext that sounds halfway reasonable. Get called up on it later and you can wriggle out of it on technicalities or that you carried out your nefarious deeds based on good faith and bad intel. Sorted.

Mark Meadows apparently sent an email on 5th January saying that the National Guard would be out to protect pro-Trump people on 6th. Why was he going on about the National Guard at this stage? Maybe he knew that there'd be a violent attack in advance?

These people should all be in prison.

I agree with what he's basically saying, but there has to be a little bit more to it than just that. If you want to feel a sense of purpose and specialness, being privy to some sort of secret knowledge, there are plenty of cults around that will happily provide this. Heaven's Gate purported that there was a spaceship trailing behind a comet that you could go and meet up with after you'd committed suicide. Is it any more or less batsh*t than QAnon, who believe that Donald Trump (of all people!) was sent by God to battle a Satanic cabal of child killing reptilians? Point being that these crazy fringe beliefs have been around for quite a while. They're out there all the time, but it's only recently where a gigantic proportion of people have been sucked into one. So, what's changed that this has happened?

Social media is obviously a factor for spreading misinformation, but again, that's something available to every fringe theory. My suspicion is that it's a culmination of things - the right in America being told for decades that they were stupid and uninformed, the latent bigotry, the entitlement and the austerity which has really hurt some communities in a way that was ignored by top level politics. Talk radio moved in to sow the division and make a lot of money while doing so, as did certain conspiracy theorists, and over time conspiracy theories became normalised, as did a mistrust of 'mainstream media', and that a random Facebook page was giving you the real scoop that the people in power wanted supressed. The desperation and anger some people were feeling has given rise to an extreme gullibility where they'll listen to anything that makes some sense out of what they're feeling and, boom, they'll even swallow QAnon.

Liz Cheney read out the text messages that were sent to Mark Meadows. I'm sure @notobtuse will still insist that this wasn't an attempt to overthrow democracy.

They don’t care, they want their party in power and don’t give a toss how it comes about. The result is all they care about, there’s no point it asking do they have no shame because they don’t. It’s just about power absolutely nothing else.