A Turning Point In America’s Cold Civil War … If We’re Lucky

[leftcoaster]

Marcy Wheeler.

The very same people saying that the 12 NYers who convicted Donald are not Real Americans are about to tune him to see him walk down the golden escalator in the lobby of what was, until 5 years ago, his primary residence.

[cub_calloway]

@davex

.Yes! While Mexico City runs out of water and India is facing dramatic heat waves we have descended into idiocies unworthy of a great nation. In my more paranoid moments I think this is somehow by design.

Human-specific Ophiocordyceps behavior is necessarily more complex because our brains work differently than those of the hive creatures.

[steviedee111]

@grack

I’m not sure I entirely trust Trump’s lawyer to explain the “guidelines and rules of the court”. Anyone else?

First time offender. Non-violent crimes. Elderly. Ex-President legally entitled to extraordinary security protections regardless his environs. Everything argues for no prison sentence. The wildcard is how much his behavior and statements during the trial, and more importantly between now and 7/11, will affect sentencing considerations. I’d look for something modeled on the Marilyn Mosby sanctions.

[pluckyinky]

@jmacaz

Obama is why we had Trump, IMO, and you will not change my mind with any arguments in Obama’s favor, and calling me racist won’t help either, I got enough of that in 2008 from many blogs I used to frequent.

The backlash against the election of the first Black president is why we got Trump. Does it occur to you that instead of backlash against the election of the first Black president, we may well have ended up with Trump because of backlash against the election of the first woman president? You don’t avoid doing things and choosing firsts because of what the other side might do.

We will someday have a woman president, maybe even in 2029, and there’s no doubt in my mind that her GOP opponent will trot out every misogynistic trope under the sun. When there’s a conflict with another country, or she shows a bit of rage, they’ll howl that she’s too emotional and probably “on the rag.” They’ll say that her presidenting while being a woman is weakening and emasculating the military, and the GOP will nominate the most hateful, sexist POS they can find. That person might even win. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t elect a woman. It means we should be prepared for the backlash when we do.

[taylor]

@discobot

The opportunity costs of the Trump era are so staggering that sometimes they almost bring me to my knees. It’s not the fight for the rule of law, or for a peaceful world order, or to protect longstanding institutions and norms that discourages me. Those are worth fighting for. It’s what we would have been fighting for instead, the battles we never got a chance to fight, the reforms that have been back-burnered for a decade, the lost ground on so many issue fronts. That’s what sobers me.

I’ve spent a lot of time in the past decade thinking about not just what might have been had we taken a different fork in the road in 2000 or 2016 — but about what it means to have the life’s work that so many of us anticipated doing taken away from us and to be thrust into fights we didn’t want and don’t savor. We don’t always get to pick our fights; they sometimes pick us.

Thank you for saying this. Putting aside the daily grind of cable news headlines, I do often wonder, What could have been? November 2016 is one of those turning points where one can imagine counterfactual histories: What if Washington had not relinquished power, when he could have gone on to rule as a monarch? What if Lincoln had not been assassinated, leaving Johnson to dismantle Reconstruction? What if Lonesome Rhodes had not been elected in 2016, and we had maybe started getting serious about climate change?

Individuals do matter in history. I just wish some of the individuals in the Democratic Party (looking at you, Dick Durbin) could show the slightest recognition of the historical moment.

[darrtown]

You may want a suspended sentence… i vote for incarceration at Florence ADX super max prison

[RedGargantua]

@southerndem

it!

2,977 people and their families and friends will disagree.

[trnc]

I wrote to Mastio and said no way should any pardon even be considered unless DT asks for it and includes a statement of remorse. That’s my general opinion for any convictions that weren’t obviously corrupt, but it’s especially ridiculous for anyone to suggest it for this particular felon.

[grack]

@steviedee111

Marilyn Mosby sanctions

I can dig it

[becca656]

Fire his lawyers???

Isn’t it a little late for that? Barn, door, horse and all of that?

[realzealman]

and, perhaps, we’ll get to see his tiny tiny fingerprints

[evave2]

I can say with Ex Cathedra authority loaned to me by the POPE HIMSELF for just this reason: DO NOT involve Mother Teresa in this situation.

That woman may have been ‘sanctified’ but I have it on SECRET authority that she was a Mean Nun. And I have met my share of Mean Nuns. (Boy, I suddenly had an image of her giving The Donald ‘what for’ and it is not very nice. Like I said MEAN NUN.)

[carpe_diem]

@eaharrison

Someone needs to remind Dersh that NOTHING will get him back into the good graces of the Martha’s Vineyard cocktail circuit crowd.

Possibly organ donation but it would have to be soon.

[ClutchCargo]

@katscherger

Perhaps his true hair style will be revealed, too.

Rather than send him to prison for a few months, I would settle for a public reveal of his true self (within limits of good taste!):

• remove the bronzer, sack suit, hair dye, combover, hair spray, dead mustelid, lifts, whatever else he uses to create his phony appearance

• some sort of I.Q. or metal acuity test

• walk up and down some ramps, climb and descend a step ladder

• remove lid from a fresh jar of pickles

• financials; enough said

It has to be carried on all the networks, live, in prime time. Most of the cult would be disillusioned.

[texastwostep]

@coimmigrant

How did that work out for Allen Weisselberg?

More great lawyering by a guy who is simply trying to get paid.

Trump had his chance to make his case. On the stand under oath.

Mobsters go to prison late in their career.

James “Whitey” Bulger was 81 when arrested.

[steviedee111]

@pluckyinky

We will someday have a woman president, maybe even in 2029, and there’s no doubt in my mind that her GOP opponent will trot out every misogynistic trope under the sun.

You seem to be assuming the 1st woman Prez will not be a Republican.

[pshah]

@eaharrison

Someone needs to remind Dersh that NOTHING will get him back into the good graces of the Martha’s Vineyard cocktail circuit crowd.

Dersh has been downgraded to the sour grapes circuit.

[musgrove]

Not knowing anything seems to be a trend for him.

“Writing for The Atlantic, Friedersdorf laid out his argument for why he refused to vote for Barack Obama in 2012 and was supporting Gary Johnson in his bid for president as the Libertarian Party candidate.”

Why anyone pays to have him write things for them is what i don’t know.

[grack]

@pluckyinky

You don’t avoid doing things and choosing firsts because of what the other side might do.

I would argue that THIS is what brought us Trump. Go all the way back to kid gloves for Reagan and his criminal administration.

[jnbenson]

@pshah

I think it’s mentally healthy to be happy and celebrate the good moments.

I celebrated, just not rejoicing. It’s more like, “Oh joy nearly 60 years of criming and he finally gets the felony conviction he so richly deserves.” Spoken with my customary delivery, but without the sarcasm and derision.

People have disagreed with me, but how many Mafia Dons have had a run like that. He may be an idiot but he knows how to work the system.