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On June 01 2024 16:13 frontgarden2222 wrote:
There's an easy argument that there was political motivation involved in charging Trump with these charges, since they typically never charge white collar crime like this due to the difficulty and cost of doing so. But are we going to argue that white collar crime is A-OK and people doing it shouldn't be charged if said person is a political actor and going after active polticians like this could be considered political interference?
Which do you think is worse, letting someone skate on a crime that by your own admission most people would skate on anyway, or having a politically motivated prosecution of the only serious opposition candidate in the run up to an election? Is that answer not obvious?
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Northern Ireland26036 Posts
On June 01 2024 17:45 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2024 16:13 frontgarden2222 wrote:
There's an easy argument that there was political motivation involved in charging Trump with these charges, since they typically never charge white collar crime like this due to the difficulty and cost of doing so. But are we going to argue that white collar crime is A-OK and people doing it shouldn't be charged if said person is a political actor and going after active polticians like this could be considered political interference?
Which do you think is worse, letting someone skate on a crime that by your own admission most people would skate on anyway, or having a politically motivated prosecution of the only serious opposition candidate in the run up to an election? Is that answer not obvious?
Is the individual in question Donald Trump?
It’s almost as if him being enabled to do whatever the fuck he wants for years has people reaching and stretching.
If he’d just fucked off into the sunset instead of running again it would have saved rather a lot of these headaches, but alas no.
There’s so much additional baggage around this area that I don’t think breaking things down into ‘which is worse?’ abstractions is all that useful an exercise. It’s less pick your poison from two, more pick one from a rather large shelf of poisons.
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On June 01 2024 17:45 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2024 16:13 frontgarden2222 wrote:
There's an easy argument that there was political motivation involved in charging Trump with these charges, since they typically never charge white collar crime like this due to the difficulty and cost of doing so. But are we going to argue that white collar crime is A-OK and people doing it shouldn't be charged if said person is a political actor and going after active polticians like this could be considered political interference?
Which do you think is worse, letting someone skate on a crime that by your own admission most people would skate on anyway, or having a politically motivated prosecution of the only serious opposition candidate in the run up to an election? Is that answer not obvious? See, the problem with this line of reasoning is that we don't want those other people to skate by either.
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On June 01 2024 17:45 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2024 16:13 frontgarden2222 wrote:
There's an easy argument that there was political motivation involved in charging Trump with these charges, since they typically never charge white collar crime like this due to the difficulty and cost of doing so. But are we going to argue that white collar crime is A-OK and people doing it shouldn't be charged if said person is a political actor and going after active polticians like this could be considered political interference?
Which do you think is worse, letting someone skate on a crime that by your own admission most people would skate on anyway, or having a politically motivated prosecution of the only serious opposition candidate in the run up to an election? Is that answer not obvious?
Which do you think is worse, letting politicians be able to campaign for office as immunity for their provable crimes, or politicians in general being held to a higher level of scrutiny than normal people? Is that answer not obvious?
There's been years of obvious evidence of all kinds of white-collar crime in politics, from insider trading to corruption and forward. I don't think you'll find anyone upset if Republicans try leverage some idea of "The unjust prosecution of Trump" to get Democrats convicted of actual crimes they actually did. Obviously, you can wonder and worry about how it impacts the future, but personally I see no issue with Trump being charged and tried for crimes he committed while in office or while campaigning to be in office.
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On June 01 2024 12:50 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2024 12:36 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Do you actually believe that Trump should be allowed to say whatever he wants? No exceptions? Saying Trump didn't doxx or threaten anyone isn't the same as saying you're okay with him doxxing or threatening someone, so please don't assert the latter but then switch to the former when I ask if you're serious. Would you be okay with him doxxing or threatening someone? No, not literally, if you want to be pedantic.
It's not pedantry; it's asking if you really mean what you wrote, or if you were exaggerating. Regardless, thank you. I am in agreement with you.
On June 01 2024 16:05 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2024 11:16 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 01 2024 10:47 Introvert wrote:On June 01 2024 08:05 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
We'll never know if Trump would have lost the 2016 election, had he played fair, this right here is how we know this is all about politics. It's also how we know that the entire prosecution was political. There is no way this payment being tagged as a campaign expense (meaning Trump could have paid for it using donor dollars, something that I'm sure would have been objected to on the other side if it had happened) would have swayed the election. The filing deadlines for the date of the payment mean that the expense would have been made public after the 2016 election. Trump committed 34 felonies (and was indicted on many, many more), but sure, holding him accountable was entirely political. Right. If someone thinks a court is a tad unscrupulous then simply reiterating the guilty findings of said court is unlikely to sway them. ... Do you have a response to any of that besides essentially scoffing at it?
I reiterated the guilty findings because asserting that a judge or prosecutor had political motivations doesn't suddenly absolve a criminal of crimes they committed. There's a difference between whether or not Trump committed crimes (which he clearly did, as evident by the witnesses and evidence and jury convictions and - as others pointed out to me - the inability for the defense to paint a convincing counternarrative) and whether or nor prosecuting Trump for those crimes had even the slightest political motivation behind them. I don't think there's any evidence that the jury's decision to convict Trump of all 34 felonies was tainted or tampered with. Heck, even the juror who got all their news from Truth Social and Twitter agreed with Trump's guilt.
And I'm in agreement with what others recently posted (Gorsameth, Fleetfeet, etc.): Holding Trump accountable for his crimes doesn't mean we want to excuse other people for the same crimes. Just because other people do it doesn't make it legal, and no one here is saying that Trump is the only person who should be prosecuted for their white-collar crimes.
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United States24740 Posts
I think it's also worth noting that a small number of the jurors got their news from hard-right news sources including Fox News and Truth Social (per jury selection questioning) and yet still agreed to convict. I do think it's very possible Trump could have gotten off on the felony-level charges if he didn't micromanage his legal defense with the absolute dumbest possible priorities, but we all know he's incapable of controlling himself.
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On June 01 2024 18:34 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2024 17:45 BlackJack wrote:On June 01 2024 16:13 frontgarden2222 wrote:
There's an easy argument that there was political motivation involved in charging Trump with these charges, since they typically never charge white collar crime like this due to the difficulty and cost of doing so. But are we going to argue that white collar crime is A-OK and people doing it shouldn't be charged if said person is a political actor and going after active polticians like this could be considered political interference?
Which do you think is worse, letting someone skate on a crime that by your own admission most people would skate on anyway, or having a politically motivated prosecution of the only serious opposition candidate in the run up to an election? Is that answer not obvious? See, the problem with this line of reasoning is that we don't want those other people to skate by either.
Our wants are kind of irrelevant here. Realistically I doubt we have endless resources to go after every white collar criminal in the same manner so that we can nail them with some community service or some other insignificant penalty. It’s kind of easy to take such a principled stance even if it’s impossible to achieve.
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On June 01 2024 18:30 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2024 17:45 BlackJack wrote:On June 01 2024 16:13 frontgarden2222 wrote:
There's an easy argument that there was political motivation involved in charging Trump with these charges, since they typically never charge white collar crime like this due to the difficulty and cost of doing so. But are we going to argue that white collar crime is A-OK and people doing it shouldn't be charged if said person is a political actor and going after active polticians like this could be considered political interference?
Which do you think is worse, letting someone skate on a crime that by your own admission most people would skate on anyway, or having a politically motivated prosecution of the only serious opposition candidate in the run up to an election? Is that answer not obvious? Is the individual in question Donald Trump? It’s almost as if him being enabled to do whatever the fuck he wants for years has people reaching and stretching. If he’d just fucked off into the sunset instead of running again it would have saved rather a lot of these headaches, but alas no. There’s so much additional baggage around this area that I don’t think breaking things down into ‘which is worse?’ abstractions is all that useful an exercise. It’s less pick your poison from two, more pick one from a rather large shelf of poisons.
Whether or not to prosecute Trump here is a pretty clear binary. I’m not sure how there are a shelf of other options here. Sure I’d rather not have Trump on the ballot here but that’s obviously not the position we are in.
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On June 01 2024 18:39 Fleetfeet wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2024 17:45 BlackJack wrote:On June 01 2024 16:13 frontgarden2222 wrote:
There's an easy argument that there was political motivation involved in charging Trump with these charges, since they typically never charge white collar crime like this due to the difficulty and cost of doing so. But are we going to argue that white collar crime is A-OK and people doing it shouldn't be charged if said person is a political actor and going after active polticians like this could be considered political interference?
Which do you think is worse, letting someone skate on a crime that by your own admission most people would skate on anyway, or having a politically motivated prosecution of the only serious opposition candidate in the run up to an election? Is that answer not obvious? Which do you think is worse, letting politicians be able to campaign for office as immunity for their provable crimes, or politicians in general being held to a higher level of scrutiny than normal people? Is that answer not obvious? There's been years of obvious evidence of all kinds of white-collar crime in politics, from insider trading to corruption and forward. I don't think you'll find anyone upset if Republicans try leverage some idea of "The unjust prosecution of Trump" to get Democrats convicted of actual crimes they actually did. Obviously, you can wonder and worry about how it impacts the future, but personally I see no issue with Trump being charged and tried for crimes he committed while in office or while campaigning to be in office.
Eh we don’t even really need to look into the future. We have past examples of the government using its weight on people we find politically unsavory, e.g communism with McCarthyism or counter culture protestors. Maybe they were just making sure everyone was on the straight and narrow. If they have nothing to hide then they needn’t worry, right?
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On June 01 2024 19:51 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2024 18:34 Gorsameth wrote:On June 01 2024 17:45 BlackJack wrote:On June 01 2024 16:13 frontgarden2222 wrote:
There's an easy argument that there was political motivation involved in charging Trump with these charges, since they typically never charge white collar crime like this due to the difficulty and cost of doing so. But are we going to argue that white collar crime is A-OK and people doing it shouldn't be charged if said person is a political actor and going after active polticians like this could be considered political interference?
Which do you think is worse, letting someone skate on a crime that by your own admission most people would skate on anyway, or having a politically motivated prosecution of the only serious opposition candidate in the run up to an election? Is that answer not obvious? See, the problem with this line of reasoning is that we don't want those other people to skate by either. Our wants are kind of irrelevant here. Realistically I doubt we have endless resources to go after every white collar criminal in the same manner so that we can nail them with some community service or some other insignificant penalty. It’s kind of easy to take such a principled stance even if it’s impossible to achieve.
Gorsameth is Dutch and in Holland there's a saying, that tall trees catch lots of wind. Another Dutch saying is that you run a risk poking your head out above the level of a mowed field. Both apply here. Trump isn't some random joe. He was the president of the country. He *should* be closer scrutinized than a random joe. And if he *didn't* want to be scrutinized he shouldn't have stuck his head up. Or, using English sayings: if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Trump stuck around in the kitchen and got burned. It isn't Bragg's fault that when he went digging, he found a felony. You seem worried that Bragg went digging in Trump's books in a way he doesn't do for Joe Shmoe. I say that comes with running for office!
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Northern Ireland26036 Posts
On June 01 2024 19:53 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2024 18:30 WombaT wrote:On June 01 2024 17:45 BlackJack wrote:On June 01 2024 16:13 frontgarden2222 wrote:
There's an easy argument that there was political motivation involved in charging Trump with these charges, since they typically never charge white collar crime like this due to the difficulty and cost of doing so. But are we going to argue that white collar crime is A-OK and people doing it shouldn't be charged if said person is a political actor and going after active polticians like this could be considered political interference?
Which do you think is worse, letting someone skate on a crime that by your own admission most people would skate on anyway, or having a politically motivated prosecution of the only serious opposition candidate in the run up to an election? Is that answer not obvious? Is the individual in question Donald Trump? It’s almost as if him being enabled to do whatever the fuck he wants for years has people reaching and stretching. If he’d just fucked off into the sunset instead of running again it would have saved rather a lot of these headaches, but alas no. There’s so much additional baggage around this area that I don’t think breaking things down into ‘which is worse?’ abstractions is all that useful an exercise. It’s less pick your poison from two, more pick one from a rather large shelf of poisons. Whether or not to prosecute Trump here is a pretty clear binary. I’m not sure how there are a shelf of other options here. Sure I’d rather not have Trump on the ballot here but that’s obviously not the position we are in.
Because I don’t think the tradeoff is solely between those two things, it’s more of an Al Capone scenario.
I don’t think anyone outside of those genuinely suffering from ‘Trump derangement syndrome’ would be particularly advocating prosecution for this if it was purely in isolation.
You’ve got a bloke with a pretty proven propensity to abuse every bit of power you give him, and tread all over boundaries that were previously maintained by adherence to convention.
If it were my country, and I imagine many others there’d be far less onus on this kind of thing as equivalent high offices provide nowhere near the insulation from prosecution than the Presidency does.
Though I’m not a particular fan of pointscoring of this kind, the most vociferous complainants about this being political persecution were frequently those screaming ‘lock her up’ the loudest, or banging on about the Holy Grail Hunter Biden’s laptop.
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United States24740 Posts
I think it's also worth noting that Trump has bragged very publicly about his ability to get away with breaking the law. When you do that, the law has a tendency to say "challenge accepted."
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On June 01 2024 20:29 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2024 19:53 BlackJack wrote:On June 01 2024 18:30 WombaT wrote:On June 01 2024 17:45 BlackJack wrote:On June 01 2024 16:13 frontgarden2222 wrote:
There's an easy argument that there was political motivation involved in charging Trump with these charges, since they typically never charge white collar crime like this due to the difficulty and cost of doing so. But are we going to argue that white collar crime is A-OK and people doing it shouldn't be charged if said person is a political actor and going after active polticians like this could be considered political interference?
Which do you think is worse, letting someone skate on a crime that by your own admission most people would skate on anyway, or having a politically motivated prosecution of the only serious opposition candidate in the run up to an election? Is that answer not obvious? Is the individual in question Donald Trump? It’s almost as if him being enabled to do whatever the fuck he wants for years has people reaching and stretching. If he’d just fucked off into the sunset instead of running again it would have saved rather a lot of these headaches, but alas no. There’s so much additional baggage around this area that I don’t think breaking things down into ‘which is worse?’ abstractions is all that useful an exercise. It’s less pick your poison from two, more pick one from a rather large shelf of poisons. Whether or not to prosecute Trump here is a pretty clear binary. I’m not sure how there are a shelf of other options here. Sure I’d rather not have Trump on the ballot here but that’s obviously not the position we are in. Because I don’t think the tradeoff is solely between those two things, it’s more of an Al Capone scenario. I don’t think anyone outside of those genuinely suffering from ‘Trump derangement syndrome’ would be particularly advocating prosecution for this if it was purely in isolation. You’ve got a bloke with a pretty proven propensity to abuse every bit of power you give him, and tread all over boundaries that were previously maintained by adherence to convention. If it were my country, and I imagine many others there’d be far less onus on this kind of thing as equivalent high offices provide nowhere near the insulation from prosecution than the Presidency does. Though I’m not a particular fan of pointscoring of this kind, the most vociferous complainants about this being political persecution were frequently those screaming ‘lock her up’ the loudest, or banging on about the Holy Grail Hunter Biden’s laptop.
I'm starting to think that this should mean the Democrats get elected.
The Republicans have been trying to do this kind of thing for years and have totally failed.
The Dems get it done.
At least they've shown the slightest bit of competence in prosecuting their political enemies.
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Not quite sure how to even spin it as the system working as intended and justice will prevail in the end.
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On June 01 2024 18:34 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2024 17:45 BlackJack wrote:On June 01 2024 16:13 frontgarden2222 wrote:
There's an easy argument that there was political motivation involved in charging Trump with these charges, since they typically never charge white collar crime like this due to the difficulty and cost of doing so. But are we going to argue that white collar crime is A-OK and people doing it shouldn't be charged if said person is a political actor and going after active polticians like this could be considered political interference?
Which do you think is worse, letting someone skate on a crime that by your own admission most people would skate on anyway, or having a politically motivated prosecution of the only serious opposition candidate in the run up to an election? Is that answer not obvious? See, the problem with this line of reasoning is that we don't want those other people to skate by either.
When they believe it is politically advantageous, many of them do. Most if not all lamented Hillary's "extreme carelessness" just being acknowledged and they plan on/are voting/advocating for someone aiding and abetting an ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign while telling the courts to go fuck themselves.
They aren't just wanting him to skate by on his crimes, they are actively/intentionally empowering him to commit more that are way worse than what Trump's convicted of.
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A poll was conducted after Trump's felony convictions, and one of the results was that 10% of Republican registered voters say they're now less likely to vote for Trump, as a result of his felony convictions. I do not think that this will translate to a significant drop in votes for Trump on Election Day, but I know that some people still find value in polls like these. The full article is below, but here are the reasons why I'm skeptical about reading too much into this poll (or polls like these):
1. "Less likely to vote for Trump" does not mean "not voting for Trump".
2. This poll was conducted immediately after the verdict, while it was fresh in the minds of everyone; the feelings surrounding the felony convictions might fade away over the next few months, as other relevant news reports (like the debates, or if Trump/Biden does anything great/terrible) take over.
3. As I've said before, I think polls conducted in the spring (and even in the summer) are too far away to confidently predict the results of November's election.
4. The article also admits that "35% said they were more likely to support Trump, who has claimed the charges against him are politically motivated and has vowed to appeal", which means, if anything, Trump might end up with a net gain of support from his party. Holding him accountable for his crimes might actually galvanize his potential voter base, especially since so many of them believe everything he says. Although, similar to point #1, "more likely to support Trump" doesn't mean they originally weren't going to vote for Trump, but now they're suddenly going to do so.
We can't really know if anything in this poll truly indicates added (or subtracted) votes to Trump's bottom line. (The article also says "Among independent registered voters, 25% said Trump's conviction made them less likely to support him in November, compared to 18% who said they were more likely". I think independent voters are more likely to ultimately change their minds than those who are firmly in the Democratic or Republican camps, but I still hesitate to draw conclusions based polls this early.)
Anyways, here's the full article:
One in 10 Republicans less likely to vote for Trump after guilty verdict, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds
WASHINGTON, May 31 (Reuters) - Ten percent of Republican registered voters say they are less likely to vote for Donald Trump following his felony conviction for falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to a porn star, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Friday.
The two-day poll, conducted in the hours after the Republican presidential candidate's conviction by a Manhattan jury on Thursday, also found that 56% of Republican registered voters said the case would have no effect on their vote and 35% said they were more likely to support Trump, who has claimed the charges against him are politically motivated and has vowed to appeal.
The potential loss of a tenth of his party's voters is more significant for Trump than the stronger backing of more than a third of Republicans, since many of the latter would be likely to vote for him regardless of the conviction.
Among independent registered voters, 25% said Trump's conviction made them less likely to support him in November, compared to 18% who said they were more likely and 56% who said the conviction would have no impact on their decision.
The verdict could shake up the race between Trump, who was U.S. president from 2017-2021, and Democratic President Joe Biden ahead of the Nov. 5 election. U.S. presidential elections are typically decided by thin margins in a handful of competitive swing states, meaning that even small numbers of voters defecting from their candidates can have a big impact.
Biden and Trump remain locked in a tight race, with 41% of voters saying they would vote for Biden if the election were held today and 39% saying they would pick Trump, according to the poll, which surveyed 2,556 U.S. adults nationwide.
Biden's marginal lead was within the online poll's roughly 2 percentage point margin of error for registered voters, in line with a Reuters/Ipsos poll from earlier in the month that showed Trump and Biden each with 40% support. In both polls, about one in five voters said they are undecided, leaning toward a third-party candidate or might not vote at all.
The election is still more than five months away, meaning much could change between now and Nov. 5, and some Republican strategists say they believe the news of Trump's conviction will have little influence on voters' thinking by then.
Trump is due to be sentenced on July 11, and the poll showed the electorate divided on whether he should go to prison for his crimes, with 53% of registered voters saying he should not be jailed over the hush money case and 46% saying he should serve time.
Incarceration would not prevent Trump from campaigning, or taking office if he were to win. His sentencing hearing will come just days before the Republican Party is due to formally nominate him as its presidential candidate at its convention in Milwaukee.
Voters are split on whether the hush money case against Trump was politically motivated, with 52% saying the prosecution was mainly about upholding the rule of law and 46% saying it was about trying to prevent Trump from returning to the White House.
Trump has been indicted in three other criminal cases but legal wrangling could keep those trials from occurring before the November election. Legal scholars consider the pending trials - which involve charges Trump engaged in electoral fraud and that he mishandled classified documents after leaving office - to be more serious than the hush money case. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him.
Some 60% of registered voters said it was important the three pending trials take place before the election, compared to 39% who said it was not important and 1% who didn't answer the question. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/one-10-republicans-less-likely-vote-trump-after-guilty-verdict-reutersipsos-poll-2024-05-31/
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On June 01 2024 17:45 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2024 16:13 frontgarden2222 wrote:
There's an easy argument that there was political motivation involved in charging Trump with these charges, since they typically never charge white collar crime like this due to the difficulty and cost of doing so. But are we going to argue that white collar crime is A-OK and people doing it shouldn't be charged if said person is a political actor and going after active polticians like this could be considered political interference?
Which do you think is worse, letting someone skate on a crime that by your own admission most people would skate on anyway, or having a politically motivated prosecution of the only serious opposition candidate in the run up to an election? Is that answer not obvious?
As a supporter of law and order, there is only one answer.
When the person doing the crime consistently brags about doing financial crimes makes him smart? If Trump didn't want to open himself up to being taken to court, he should stop doing and bragging about doing crimes. People skate because they don't brag about it and at least pretend to show some contrition when caught.
Politically motivated? Sure but the candidate opened himself up to it. That's not new, that's why you don't openly do crimes in the first place! If we were to take your position on this matter, Trump could do all the white collar crime like election interference and bribery and he should technically be free from legal consequences because he is one of two presidential candidates?
Like I said, Trump could have easily turned this around by actually putting forward a competent defense. But instead he didn't and his defense was so awful that there was literally no way you could find reasonable doubt in the case.
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United States43229 Posts
He’s been found civilly liable in a rape case and openly attempted a violent overthrow of democracy. One thing that they’re right about is that in the grand scheme of things the fraudulent bookkeeping is relatively minor. Anyone who changes their mind based on the bookkeeping has no sense of proportion.
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On June 02 2024 08:55 KwarK wrote:
He’s been found civilly liable in a rape case and openly m attempted a violent overthrow of democracy. One thing that they’re right about is that in the grand scheme of things the fraudulent bookkeeping is relatively minor. Anyone who changes their mind based on the bookkeeping has no sense of proportion.
One guy arrested during Jan 6th supported Trump because he was going to take down the rent seeking property owners in Congress. People, especially undecided voters, are not bright.
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On June 02 2024 09:05 frontgarden2222 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 02 2024 08:55 KwarK wrote:
He’s been found civilly liable in a rape case and openly m attempted a violent overthrow of democracy. One thing that they’re right about is that in the grand scheme of things the fraudulent bookkeeping is relatively minor. Anyone who changes their mind based on the bookkeeping has no sense of proportion. One guy arrested during Jan 6th supported Trump because he was going to take down the rent seeking property owners in Congress. People, especially undecided voters, are not bright.
What makes undecided voters less bright than decided ones? Especially as your example was obviously a very very decided "voter".
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EPT
