I don’t have anything original to say, but it seems important enough to discuss. I’m going to pre-emptively rule out Trumpism and bothsidesism: you can take that to X or tell it to Ernst Thaelmann.
by John Q on August 2, 2023
I don’t have anything original to say, but it seems important enough to discuss. I’m going to pre-emptively rule out Trumpism and bothsidesism: you can take that to X or tell it to Ernst Thaelmann.
{ 33 comments }
bad Jim 08.02.23 at 6:15 am
For some time I’ve sported white vinyl lettering on my black bumper: LOCK HIM UP! I’ve gotten compliments, but it turns out that the message is ambiguous. It’s not as obvious as I’d expected that it refers to The Former Guy.
Looking at the remnant letters, I think I can manage a prefix of 3 INDICTMENTS, the size or color of the numeral perhaps suggesting a variable.
MisterMr 08.02.23 at 11:21 am
Good to see.
politicalfootball 08.02.23 at 1:41 pm
Trump’s most coherent defense — that he believed the bizarre falsehoods that he propogated — strikes me as having a lot in common with the insanity defense.
nastywoman 08.02.23 at 3:57 pm
and sorry that I HAVE to ‘intercept’ a last time as Trump blamed the Nazis for his indictment – and as I was considered to be a (Green) Nazi so many times on the Internet in the last years I REALLY have to intercept – as if it really would have been ‘the Nazis’ who would have finally gotten FF von Clownstick –
HE ALREADY WOUL BE DEAD
(as real Nazisa always shot ”traitors’ right away!)
Capisce?°
Ray Vinmad 08.02.23 at 8:22 pm
I cannot believe, after all that we know, that it was treated as an impossibility for any legal consequence to arise.
We almost need a new category of cognitive effects for what has happened here. Or maybe various categories.
E.g., there’s the effect caused by how many times Trump has crimed and gotten away with it. A lot of us stopped believing he would not get away with it. I could not make sense of the seeming apathy on the part of the DoJ. We went to crazytown and this simply added to the effect.
Is this ‘learned helplessness’? I think Trump depended on learned helplessness. It’s a tactic of abusers.
Bracing myself for hand-wringing articles in the various papers of record on whether there should even be any investigation or attention paid. Predicting I will scream into a pillow.
Anywhere, there are a lot of psychological effects of this era. I’ve always found the expressive theory of punishment to be one of the better theories to justify punishment. It definitely works well, here. We need to express, as a society, that such things as attempting to overthrow the government when one loses an are not acceptable. In fact, everyone DOES agree with this. They simply want Trump to be a special case. That’s our problem, in a nutshell, as our famous crooked timber commenter famously taught us.
hix 08.02.23 at 10:48 pm
“strikes me as having a lot in common with the insanity defense.”
How was the reasoning of one prominent psychiatrist again: Trump does not fulfill the criteria for a narcissistic personality disorder, because he does not suffer. Let us stick to that exclusion criteria for the trial please.
craig fritch 08.03.23 at 3:29 am
Too much repetition in the medis; lets get this OVER.
KT2 08.03.23 at 3:36 am
Trump! And Tony Abbott! Diminishing marginal utility.
Henry Prunckun:
“Yet, some political leaders, across the political spectrum, still issue warnings that are out of step with those that acknowledge that there is no existential threat; that for instance the 2015 decree by the then-Australian Prime Minister: “Prime Minister Tony Abbott says the Islamic State group is ‘coming after us’. . .” (APP, 2015). At the time of writing, US presidential candidate for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump, told a public gathering that, “torture works.” He stated, “We should go much stronger than water boarding … They’re chopping off heads. Believe me, we should go much stronger because our country’s in trouble, we’re in danger” (The Atlantic, 2015).”
Intelligent policing won out over Trump & Abbott shouting “Terrorism!”, with a Utilty Factor of 2.1.
Via Henry Prunckun:
“Using Utility Factor was used to decide “the options being counterterrorism to serious crime, and the value of intelligence in policing regarding these offences. …, the results of a decision-tree analysis showed that intelligence-led policing could provide approximately 2.1 times the utility over the current approach.” Link below.
JQ has been at this for a while;
“The only plausible basis for postulating this kind of convexity of preferences is the principle of diminishing marginal utility.” (fn_1.-John Q 2002. ).
How do I express a negative utility for Trump or Abbott in this ìnstance?
“THE PARADOX OF FICTION AND TERRORISM’S OVERSHADOWING OF ORGANISED CRIME AS A LAW ENFORCEMENT CONCERN
Henry Prunckun
…
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
“… they are compelling indicators, suggesting that if an intelligence-led policy were adopted, it is likely to have approximately 2.1 times the utility than the current policy. This implies that if society is to be successful in its efforts to address the most pressing forms of crime, then law enforcement commanders need to intervene by adopting an intelligence-led approach to all serious crimes.””
…
https://salusjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Prunckun_Salus_Journal_Volume_4_Number_2_2016_pp_62-81.pdf
Fortunately for Australia, even the Liberals in Oz couldn’t stand Abbott. Abbott is currently being used by the Tories conservative underbelly in the UK, to subvert humanity to his and his masters’ liking. Hence I asked above about negative utility.
JQ”… includes a factcheck I’ve done, on a claim by Tony Abbott … This is wrong on about as many levels as it can possibly be, the most important being Tony Abbott, fact-checked and FOI’d”
https://johnquiggin.com/2013/07/08/tony-abbott-fact-checked-and-foid/
fn^1.
“The only plausible basis for postulating this kind of convexity of preferences is the principle of diminishing marginal utility.
Moreover, as is discussed , cardinal utility was no sooner driven out the front door of economic theory than it re-entered through the back gate of game theory and expected utility theory.”
Bibliography
Robbins, L. (1938), ‘Interpersonal comparisons of utility: a comment’, Economic Journal 48(4), 635–41.
Samuelson, P. (1947), Foundations of Economic Analysis, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.”
https://johnquiggin.com/2002/12/26/utility/
As a political resource focus tool, this study issseems suitable as a policy alternative choice method imo. Especially with such polarizing power players. The result gives weight to override the Trump & Abbott factors. How does above use of Utils compare to using game theory or cost benefit analysis?
Alan White 08.03.23 at 5:38 am
Trump’s speech on January 6 really ought to be enough to convict him IF the evidence comes forward, as I think it will, that he really knew he had lost the election. Then intent to defraud and obstruct Constitutional procedures would be clear. Just as with the documents case where it seems pretty clear now that he ordered wiping the servers, once again showing intent to obstruct justice. “You’re too honest” he quipped to Pence. And yet millions see him as Rambo Jesus. What a 1984 world.
Ken_L 08.03.23 at 5:38 am
It’s unfortunate this indictment came after the New York hush money charges and the documents indictments. They are sideshows compared to the attempt to overturn the election, but they’ve allowed Republicans to portray Trump as the victim of a series of politically-motivated prosecutions. I imagine many people who only read the headlines will be quite confused about it all.
The political ramifications are hard to assess. It’s unlikely any of the federal cases will come to trial before the election; even if they do, and Trump is convicted, the appeals process will certainly not have run its course. Will the election turn into an opinion poll on whether Trump is guilty? Strange and scary days in America.
KT2 08.03.23 at 8:01 am
“but it seems important enough to discuss”.
I may not agree with Robert Bellah on the need for religion, yet this seems on point by Matthew Rose re America re Bellah, especially if Mr T is reelected;
“their culture had also impaired their ability to understand or control it.”. ymmv.
“Americans would realize the values that had created their culture had also impaired their ability to understand or control it. Bellah’s writings over seven decades offer a unique interpretation of this paradox.”
From “The Civil Theology of Robert Bellah”
“A socialist who insisted that democracy needs religion”
By Matthew Rose
July 29, 2023
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/civil-theology-robert-bellah
“Robert Bellah Has Died”
by KIERAN HEALY
JULY 31, 2013
https://crookedtimber.org/2013/07/31/robert-bellah-has-died/
engels 08.03.23 at 12:55 pm
I still don’t quite understand how a couple of hundred nutters armed with bear spray and fire extinguishers were going to assume control of the most powerful and violent state in human history but I’m glad he’s being brought to justice. Again.
Dragon-King Wangchuck 08.03.23 at 1:40 pm
It was Bill Barr on Kaitlan Collins’ show that pointed this out for me. Whatever defenses Trump is going to rely on have to contend with the fact that Trump is not taking the stand. Trump facing cross-examination is going to damage his defense more than not having any defense at all. Stuff like “Trump honestly believed the election was stolen” is going to have to be raised without Trump actually saying so – just on the evidence of what he was being told by Cabinet officials and his own legal and campaign teams. And that’s setting aside the fact that it doesn’t matter if Trump believed his own lies – conspiring to overturn an election is illegal – even if you refuse to believe that you lost that election.
IMO, the real question comes down to what the judge does with it. Trump’s defense team is going to turn this into an airing of grievances about Sekrit Ballot Box dumps and Hacked Voter Masheens or whatever nonsense. I mean obviously Trump is going to use (at least some of his many) days in court to re-litigate the 2020 election, but that’s litigation that his record is something like 0-63. Given that Trump can be found guilty either way – how much of this circus will the judge allow? Also considering that Trump himself won’t take the stand and claim this defense for himself – well I suspect that it’s not going to be very much of it.
steven t johnson 08.03.23 at 2:48 pm
engels@12 After the failure to certify the election of Biden due to civil disorder, the military (which allowed the disorder in the first place—DC is not under local police control) would restore order. Trump would have been the sitting president in the crisis, commander-in-chief.
No parties are willing to admit the collusion of military officers in January 6, much less address the problem. I may misremember but everyone who cared to know at the time knew this, and those who didn’t, downplayed events. The pretend objection that the “nutters” were a joke is close kin to the objection they were FBI agents in a false flag operation.
BBA 08.03.23 at 3:19 pm
I just don’t see this as changing anything. There’s no way this can go to trial before the election, and until then all it’ll do is fire up the rally crowds.
If Trump doesn’t win the election and pardon himself, and if he is convicted at trial, then this will be significant. Right now it’s just more noise.
superdestroyer 08.03.23 at 3:38 pm
Is the U.S. going to be better off with the 2024 presidential election about claims about indictments, corruptions, and lawsuits. Politics has been reduce to ignoring policy or governance issues until at least Jan 2025. And if Trump wins, policy issues will be ignored until 2028.
nastywoman 08.03.23 at 4:01 pm
about: ‘I still don’t quite understand how a couple of hundred nutters armed with bear spray and fire extinguishers were going to assume control of the most powerful and violent state in human history’
by also electing a nutter armed with ‘Mein Kampf’ – ‘the Art of the Deal’ and thousands and thousands of Lies as the President of the the most powerful and violent state in human history’ –
and about
‘the most violent state in human history’ –
that STILL is Nazi Germany and let’s agree that even if Trump gets reelected –
he NEVER will be able to make America
”FIRST”!
– about that one!
(and that really needed to be on the record of CT too)
kent 08.03.23 at 4:58 pm
To state the obvious, Trump is obviously guilty. I’m thrilled to see the ongoing movement of the legal system. I’m delighted, in retrospect, at the work that the congressional commissions did. So many people have worked so hard to bring us to this point. It’s a wonderful thing that didn’t have to happen and we should take a minute to give thanks for it.
I truly believe that things are going to continue to get better from here. This is going to be the first real “trial of the century” of the new century. It’s been almost 30 years since OJ! As with OJ, the whole country is going to know everything there is to know about Trump’s crimes. The Trumpy-dead-ender position (that it’s all a big nothingburger and that the real story is an out-of-control judicial system/deep state) is going to collapse, and hard. Everyone from Hannity on down is going to look very, very stupid — not only to liberals and moderates, but to their (current) supporters.
I wish there were a way to get every Republican in the country to take a few minutes and write down what they currently believe about Trump. What do you believe about his guilt or innocence? What is your theory as to why he is being prosecuted? What evidence do you have to support your theories? What sources have you trusted, that led you to believe these things? What sources have you systematically refused to trust? And then, a year or so from now, when it has all come tumbling down and Trump is in jail, maybe they could look back on what they wrote and learn a little something.
A pipe dream, I know! Feels good though.
Lee A. Arnold 08.03.23 at 5:29 pm
Even if Trump could convince a jury that he truly believed the election was stolen, it wouldn’t absolve him of the conspiracy to defraud. That is still illegal, and there is a ton of evidence:
https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/trump-usual-defenses-wont-work-new-indictment
anon/portly 08.03.23 at 7:43 pm
5 I could not make sense of the seeming apathy on the part of the DoJ.
10 It’s unfortunate this indictment came after the New York hush money charges and the documents indictments. They are sideshows compared to the attempt to overturn the election, but they’ve allowed Republicans to portray Trump as the victim of a series of politically-motivated prosecutions.
5 how many times Trump has crimed and gotten away with it
The DOJ has handled things superbly, if you ask me, both in terms of “abstract justice” and (perhaps incidentally) “what rabid anti-Trump partisans should want.” Obviously, it’s somewhat uncomfortable for a D administration to be prosecuting the presumptive 2024 R nominee, the “Trump as a victim” defense MAGA world is going with in the court of public opinion.
MAGA world is going with that defense because it’s all they have, and that defense has been greatly weakened by the DOJ playing things down the middle.
And the documents case is no sideshow, it’s an actual crime (or series of crimes), not a “how many times has Trump crimed” thing but a crime that Trump is unlikely to get away with. The conspiracy/fraud case is going to be tougher to prove, and perhaps also an easier one for MAGA world to dupe low-information people about.
Kinnikinick 08.03.23 at 8:45 pm
A few times now I have come across the take that the unknowability of Trump’s delusions is a crucial factor in the latest conspiracy indictments. If he was the center of a conspiracy to do unlawful things, how do his “reasons” matter? Do prosecutions of Islamic terrorists hinge on whether they were sincerely trying to rebuild the Caliphate or only maneuvering for power?
Assembling a slate of counterfeit electors is clearly illegal even if the lizard people actually ARE helping the pedophiles rig the election. Even solid, verifiable knowledge that the election was rigged leads to “we don’t know who really won”, not to “I really won, so now there are no rules!”
M 08.03.23 at 9:36 pm
engles@12:
I think he idea was not that the couple hundred nutters were going to assume control of the legislature per se. I think the idea was to ramp up the general chaos of the situation (including threats of violence) to pressure either the VP or individual senators to do something — anything — other than ratify the vote, e.g.: have Pence simply declare Trump the winner, have the senate decide to send the electoral slates back to the state legislatures, etc… Heck, even having the proceedings merely postponed to the following day would have been a benefit since it would allow the Trump team more time to get the conservative media outlets to coalesce on a favorable narrative.
Seekonk 08.03.23 at 10:50 pm
As I understand it, the Trumpists failed in their coup because of the surprising refusal of VP Mike Pence, previously and subsequently a Trump doormat, to cooperate on January 6.
My takeaway is not that the Trumpists are clownishly inept, but that the electoral foundation of the US government is extremely fragile.
KT2 08.04.23 at 2:51 am
Please stick to shorter comments, and one per day _JQ
TM 08.04.23 at 8:17 am
superdestroyer 16: “And if Trump wins, policy issues will be ignored until 2028.”
What a weird take on fascism.
engels 08.04.23 at 1:00 pm
I don’t think it was a joke—I think it was a serious security breach, a worrying sign of weakening procedural legitimacy for which Trump bears much responsibility, and evidently a traumatic experience for those who regard the hallowed halls of America’s shining city as a sacred space—but the US hasn’t had a real coup since 2000. This was great btw.
engels 08.04.23 at 4:16 pm
Another point is that this is really going to raise the stakes for the Very Stable Genius in the 2024 election in a way that is sure to make for some Great TV.
Omega Centauri 08.04.23 at 8:20 pm
Our former corporate lawyer, now ex-pat, say’s it will be impossible to convict him by jury. With nearly half the country in the MAGA camp, it will be almost impossible to exclude all of them via the jury selection process. All it takes is a single diehard to derail a case.
Stephen C 08.05.23 at 6:45 pm
Trump told AAG Donoghue:
“Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican Congressmen.”
Numerous Republican colleagues will attest to Trump knowing full well the ‘earth isn’t flat.’
The corrupt intent is frosting.
gar Lipow 08.06.23 at 3:23 am
PoliticalFootball One great thing about the “deprivation of the right to vote” charage is that his belief or not that he won the election is irrelvevent. Trying to send false electors, asking somone to “find” votes would violate that law even if he was trying to right a real wrong (not that he was.) So nobody has to prove he was lying. That said, I don’t think it is learned helplessness to hold the view that I will believe it when he actually is in a cell with the door locked behind it and not before. His attempts at intimidation already violated his terms of release. There is no reason under the law for him not to spend at least a few days in cell right now – maybe longer. An attempt at intimidation makes a strong case for holding him without bail until trial. But a least a few days is the very minimum. The fact that even that has not happened with a judge know for being tough on Jan 5ers makes me doubt he will spend any time in jail. Elites don’t like holding other elites accountable for stuff even when as repugnant as Trump. I will be happy to be proved wrong; and if he is not to be seen as completely immune from consequences I WILL be proven wrong within a week or less by his spending at least that minimal couple of days in a cell for contempt of court and maybe a few other charges.
afeman 08.06.23 at 1:00 pm
kent @18:
OJ, as you will recall, was acquitted.
I haven’t seen much analysis of the exchange, but I understand at Trump’s arraignment he was warned against threatening witnesses. He promptly posted “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” Being called to explain this, it was claimed the message was directed at “RINOs”. He then came back with a post goading Mike Pence, who presumably would be a witness. I imagine he will keep pushing the limits here.
The case against him may have done well with the judge and prosecutor – particularly the latter’s anticipating the “free speech” spin – but I think a lot about Masha Gessen’s “institutions will not save you”.
J-D 08.07.23 at 12:00 am
If he’s tried in a DC court, the relevant jury pool is the DC jury pool: far fewer MAGA diehards there.
Sev 08.07.23 at 2:41 am
#22M, #23Seekonk. Also, part of the plan was to have Pence take a ride and let Grassley fill in to do the dirty work.
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