Russia. What if.

[Bonefish]

What if Trump is solidly implicated in collusion with russia? What do we do then?

[Mike]

We have to rely on the House to gather evidence and hold impeachment hearings. Then, if they find there are grounds to move forward, two-thirds of the Senate has to vote to remove him from office. Then he can actually be indicted for his crimes.

Currently, the Republicans in both houses have chosen not to even investigate the matter in any serious fashion. My opinion is that this will continue to be the case as long as Trump can maintain his incredible popularity among Republican voters. Therefore, nothing will happen until the midterms. Then, if the Democrats take the House, there WILL be impeachment hearings, and they will refer it over to the Senate. And as long as his approval rating remains above 38%, nothing will happen in the Senate.

Hopefully, all of that is enough to keep him from winning reelection, but I'm not holding my breath yet.

Guiliani stated outright that this is less about facts and more about public opinion (and he's right), and that's why they are laying the groundwork of plausible justification to give politicians and supporters a rationale for continuing to support him in the face of damning evidence.

But imagine impeachment and him actually leaving office and then getting a pardon from Pence, Nixon-style. There's precedent. But you know he wouldn't go quietly into the Yorba Linda goodnight. He'd get to go right back to his fortune. Though hopefully the State of NY charges against him and his family could bring that down.

Ugh. It's ugly no matter what.

[bralbovsky]

Once he was nominated (and there's strong evidence that the collusion began during that process) we had come to a period of validation for the Bundys and nazis and other groups who believe violence or depradation toward other groups is ok.

There is a view that "Truth and Reconciliation" or other public talk about hatred is healthy. I think history consistently shows that to be false. We get to a point where racism is stigmatized, not gone, certainly, but legislated against and impolite. We should stay there. It does nobody good to allow racists to air their selfishness. It doesn't deserve that validation.

So, now that it's revalidated, we've gone two steps back. When you're carrying 300 million people (or a whole planet, as the US used to wish it did) every step is painful.

[Bonefish]

And is that the only ramifications or worries ya'll have?

[Mike]

Even if Trump leaves office tomorrow, damage is already done. Damage that will take decades to roll back. How many federal judges that have been rushed through, often even when grossly unqualified. How much has he encouraged the erosion of various institutions... the FBI, the media, our own intelligence agencies, our elections, the justice department, NATO, etc. Some of these had problems before, but he has actively worked to turn the American people against them. He has actively worked to normalize criminal behavior from politicians. Removing him from office doesn't fix any of that.

And I've said from the beginning that if its proven that he colluded with Russia-that he committed actual crimes to influence the election, then that makes his whole presidency illegitimate. In a just world, that would mean that Pence, even if he did nothing wrong, is illegitimate, because he was chosen by a corrupt process. Every judge, every justice he has nominated... illegitimate. Every executive order... null and void. In a just world, we would roll it all back. But there's no provision for that.

Even if Trump is convicted of treason and removed for election tampering, everything he's put in place will remain, and Pence will be president, and things will continue on.

I think no matter what, we come out of this with a very damaged country, and this becomes an impetus for change. I always think that if Germany can come back as a good and powerful nation after someone like Hitler, then certainly America can do at least as well after a little manhandling from a pissant like Trump.

Some around me worry about civil war. I don't see it being as simple as that.

[bralbovsky]

That's just the metaphor. You want specifics, we don't have space, books have already been written just about the misrepresentations. So...

Domestically: We've drifted rapidly toward the culture of graft that kills empires. A majority of the cabinet told direct falsehoods to congress during their hearings, and no consequences. If you were on the fence about being able to be on the take, there's your signal.
Independent judiciary, crippled.
Environmental progress, halted.
Issues of tolerance and acknowledgement that there are about 8 billion on the planet, mostly not white, cast aside.
Economic progress, getting to sustainable infrastructure or budget, shot.
Regulatory climate headed to the wild west.

If there is a smoking gun of treason, men and women of character should resign their seats and appointments in droves. They won't. They'll take the advantage and pretend the popular vote wasn't tampered with, and go their merry, destructive, narrow way to enriching themselves and making sure nobody has the time or money to do anything about it. The Russian model is our destination if there is no serious change of course. Anybody who pretends that a fake capitalist society isn't a foundation for kleptocracy isn't reading the right news.

Internationally: America is officially over.
We were in a pitched struggle with China for who was going to be the gorilla in the room. That fight is over. We've ceded solar to them, we've ceded environmental awareness to them. They figured out how to turn the internet to their purposes. Over.
Out allies have been hamstrung, backstabbed, and it's' no longer a bad idea to be a bad dictator.
When Syria thumbed its nose, we sort of bombed a city. One.
When Russia tightens gas supply, we wrung our hands and look at our huge supplies impotently.
When N Korea made nuke advances, we pretended they didn't.

Putin has not just blurred the differences between Russia and us, he's actually managed to close the distance. Not by advancing or inventing anything. He still has a country where what we would call major hospitals sterilize surgical instruments with hotplates because they can't afford the stuff they need. He's closed the distance by getting his stooge to fuck up everything.
Has it cost us fifty years? Sixty? It's hard to measure because progress isn't linear. Race was improving, but economic equality was weakening. Environmentalism was improving, but land degradation and infrastructure decay were taking their toll even faster.

Flint is still poisoning its people.
The Queen didn't want us at her grandkid's wedding.
Will the impact of this waste of protoplasm ever be redeemed? Not in my lifetime.

[FlameBlade]

[Bonefish]

Nah, I'm far more concerned of the implications of a country that has attacked countries that were closely aligned with the US and West, THREE times, who has managed to conducted successful cyber attacks against our white house, our political parties leadership, and infrastructure(ranging from power, utilities, aviation and manufacturing). A country whose state owned media have publically threatened nuclear war. A country who has the most sophisticated nuclear arsenal in the world. A country whose leadership has repeatedly made impromptu decisions to invade other counties, largely coinciding with internal dissent in those countries, largely fostered by that eponymous country.

[bralbovsky]

It would not surprise me at all if Trump has been a Russian asset for decades . Putin is the 21st century's Napoleon. Only with nukes.

[Phoebe]

The problem seems to be that the only way they rise is, like you just said above, pulling others down. Because they appear to be operating under the "capitalist pillaging" model of how to run a society, having swung that pendulum so hard the other way. The only way they advance their strategic interests is to undermine others, and they're doing a great job of it. I feel like it matters that we maintain ties with our Trumpist-crazy family members and friends, under the circumstances, if we can do so. And vice versa. We all need a way for them to get back out to relative sanity someday. I find it easier to make peace with Trump-voters who are willing to disagree with some of the worse things he has done since then; I find it very difficult to make peace with the people who worship him like a God, and alas I have many such people. Oh, these people, so many, so abundant, so much around. The good news is that people of the opposite kind are out there door-knocking and contacting voters like crazy right here in August, which is what really wins all those races across the ballot that count.

[bralbovsky]

With each new affront, I am still asking people I no longer respect..:WEll, too far this time?"
The McCain thing seems to have struck a chord. The general feeling is that those who did not serve when called have to give props to those who did. A little of the veil is torn. I'm going to keep asking, because new affronts will doubtless keep coming.

[Phoebe]

That's a good point; even people who have been unresponsive up to this point might be given pause by the lack of respect for a man that, very likely, they voted for a few years back and consider a hero.

[Mike]

He already insulted a Gold Star family. He already directly insulted John McCain's service... not just the man, but also specifically his military service (I prefer heroes who DON'T get captured).

He's proven that his respect for the military, like his respect for anything in this world, is lip service at best. His fans will get over it. After all (as one GOP rep said), the McCains were clearly asking for it by insulting the president the way they did.

[El Jefe]

That Gold Star family was not a corn-fed white boy family, so it'll (sadly) be considered okay by the supporters.

Also, McCain was a "party traitor", so it'll be fine as well (sadly).

Neither of those will impact the supporting opinions in any kind of statistically significant amount.

[Mike]

Virtually any bullshit he throws out can be justified in the same way after the fact. There's nothing magical about these examples that makes them special in that regard.

[El Jefe]

Agreed.

What? You thought I was going to argue?

[Stan]

There might be a silver lining. You remember how the tea party had a habit of winning primaries but often lost the general election? There are signs that a fair number of people are no longer identifying as republican - which helps keep Trumps ratings within the gop high, as those who left don't count in the numbers. As the gop becomes more radicalized, only Trump supporters and white nationalists will have a chance in many primaries. The further to the right they go, the less chance they have in the general election.

We'll see if this seems to be working in November.

[Mike]

That feels right, but I won't fully buy it until I see his overall approval numbers drop. Since the day he was elected, overall approval has wavered between 35 and 45%, which is a super-high floor and a super-low ceiling. Show me overall approval of 30 and I'll start to hope that people are peeling away.

[Phoebe]

If election results hacked, none of that will really matter. And we have someone actively seeking to obstruct any resistance or defense against such effort, so... my only question is whether or when we start actually executing our detainees at the border. I really don't see this as a big step given the level of dehumanization we've already achieved. People may not think I'm right about this but, this happens all the time across the globe and throughout history, and we are not some special kind of human immune from manifesting it. We are already treating people like animals, i.e. the way you would if you felt it was better to kill them than let them stay.

[Bonefish]

And yet, no one is really discussing the elephant in the room. Putin has a habit of exploiting political crises(often formented by him) to launch military operations. The idea is that he takes advantage of the discord to rapidly achieve his objectives, and then hope that indecision prevents an effective response.

Guys, there is a thread totally devoted to Trump on this forum. Could y'all maybe shift the conversations that are solely about trump, and don't really acknowledge the dangers of Russia in that thread? And maybe, I dunno, actually talk about the reality of a dreadful and terrifying war with the world's strongest nuclear power, a war that is hovering on the horizon.