GOP candidates think a president should be above the law. Be carefuil what they wish

A bevy of most GOP candidates for their party's presidential nomination, with several exceptions, think their chief rival, Donald Trump, should be pardoned, and they pledge to do so if they get elected. Be careful what they wish. It makes for some very dangerous precedents which could come back to bite them or damage national security and democracy. They must be assuming that Trump has a good chance of being convicted of a federal crime to pardon him of a conviction. ( FYI: They would have no power to pardon a conviction by a district attorney as in Manhattan or in Georgia). At an Iowa GOP dinner, former congressman Will Hurd, a candidate for the GOP's nomination, garnered a chorus of boos when claiming the only reason Trump sought re-election was to keep himself out of jail. Yet untested is if a president can pardon himself.

While elections have consequences, so do precedents. Here is the scenario the GOP hopes will work, and if it fails, it won't be for the lack of trying to paint Joe Biden as just as dishonest and craven as Donald Trump. In politics, public perception is more important than evidence or facts.  Just raising the prospect of mishandling classified information without ever finding any missing emails scuttled Hillary Clinton's bid for president and got Trump elected.  

The shoe can always be on the other foot. Unlikely as it is, imagine if somehow the newly authorized "House impeach inquiry" into the dealings of the "Biden crime family" found some evidence or a credible witness that Biden was guilty of not reporting income from his son's business dealings.   Suppose the "evidence' led to impeachment or even an indictment. Would the GOP extend the same "courtesy" to Biden as they advocate for Trump, no jail time, a slap in the hand or acquittal.or a self-pardon,  or is this just a one-off get-out-of-jail card for Donald Trump? If it does not happen in current events, the precedence is on the books and someone else or some other political party could use this GOP template to justify similar actions just as we look to Watergate for guidance.

Be careful what you wish, GOP. Take a page from Watergate. If proven in court, Trump ordering the surveillance cameras and tapes to be removed is an echo of Rosemary Woods erasing damning tapes in the Nixon/Watergate scandal that led to Nixon's resignation. Even disclosing the evidence in the indictment of Trump ordering the disabling evidence in the Mar A Lago surveillance cameras, it could backfire on Trump as public perception would consider him guilty, anyway.   

 The messages the GOP "pardon Trump; treat him differently than anyone else; he does not have to comply with laws. or go to jail" are sending is that any future president should not worry about any unlawful actions before as a candidate, during or after a presidency. The red carpet is now laid out for any wannabe autocrat/dictator to go and do likewise.

 Aside from jail time, there are other security considerations and Secret Service problems for a president to sit in jail that are legitimate problems that the incarceration of lesser convicts would not face. Home detention or an ankle bracelet could be an alternative. He could still campaign.. A more damning deal has happened. Remember, VP Spiro Agnew, avoided jail time by pledging to resign from office as a condition of pleading guilty to a lesser crime.    That, too, could keep Trump out of an orange jumpsuit and out of the Oval Office. 

On CNN on July 30, candidate Vivek Ramaswamy tried to split legal hairs by saying no president should go to jail for a "process crime." He inferred that Trump's taking national security documents to Bedminster, or Mar a Lago, was just a technical violation that did not deserve the same jail sentence. We have heard that from other candidates. Nothing in the current law draws that distinction or gives special treatment to a president, but there is latitude in making deals in the plea process, as it did with Agnew.    Neither Pence nor Joe Biden got jailed or indicted for taking classified documents home. e.It can be argued that high officials like them already get special treatment, while there are many cases of just taking them home landed lesser employees in jail. Unlike Trump, they returned the documents when asked and were advised keeping them was a crime; while Trump allegedly lied, he produced all of them and attempted to hide them from the FBI. That is a huge difference. Wilful obstruction of justice and a coverup is a bigger deal than just taking them out of the secured facility, even if Trump thinks he could declassify them with a wink and a thought. The coverup often is the bigger deal than the underlying crime, as Nixon found out, and it cost him the presidency. 

 Be careful what you wish, GOP. Take a page from Watergate. If proven in court, Trump ordering the surveillance cameras and tapes to be removed is an echo of Rosemary Woods erasing damning tapes in the Nixon/Watergate scandal that led to Nixon's resignation. Even if the evidence of Trump ordering the disabling evidence in the Mar A Lago surveillance cameras, as alleged in the recent indictment, is not upheld in a trial, it could backfire on Trump. Perceptions work are often more important in politics than proof, as illustrated by the  GOP's successful attempt to derail Hillary Clinton's election with accusations of alleged crimes of her "missing emails." However, no proof was ever found of any missing emails.

.Where Trump departs from Biden and Pence is the willful element of obstructing justice. If true, the "boss ordered his employees to remove surveillance camera tapes and hide the bankers' boxes after being informed by the DOJ and FBI holding on to them was illegal, then that becomes a charge of  a wilful obstruction of justice that violates other statutes and subjects the guilty offender to service jail time if convicted.,  Both Vice Presidents, Pence, and Biden, immediately took steps to return the secret documents after being informed by the FBI and DOJ they could not keep them,  while  Trump is alleged to have lied and then tried to hide the evidence of his guilt. That is the difference.

That Trump waived purloined plans to invade another country before the eyes of non-authorized visitors is terrible since he could have endangered US national security secrets. Above all, it shows no sense of his caring about the national security of the US to impress or make a political point to those same visitors. His judgment cannot be trusted. That is not the first time he has done that, either. In a meeting with the Russian ambassador and foreign minister, he let slip some secret information that possibly led to the removal of US human intelligence sources. Trump revealed intelligence secrets to Russians in Oval Office: officials | Reuters      "Exclusive: US extracted top spy from inside Russia in 2017". CNN. Archived from the original on March 12, 2020. Retrieved September 11, 2019.

There is a precedent for Trump’s indictment: Spiro Agnew - The Washington Post

False equivalencies: will it work for the GOP?

 The GOP promoting false equivalencies is a political tactic that looks doomed from the outset, and as indictments and trials accumulate in the next year, trying to paint Biden as flawed as Trump will be even more of a challenge..   To deflect public interest in Trump's flood of civil court losses and criminal indictments, the GOP and allies of Trump have as their only defense so far is to show the "Biden crime family" is just as corrupt as Trump, so one cancels out the other.  That takes a leap in logic.  Bad behavior is no excuse, but whose behavior is worse is a judgment call and it should take into account facts and evidence..  So far the GOP has not convinced voters yet that the pot calling the kettle black works.  Blame the media, you say?  One reason not to blame cable news is a majority of the country does not get their news from FOX or Newsmax or from certain internet sites on the right and on the left, MSNBC.. In fact, only 15 to 20  percent of the country follows political news deeply. Opinion | Cable News Viewers Aren’t as Extreme as You Might Think - The New York Times (nytimes.com) The rest depend on sound bites, the internet and social media, their guts, personal grievance. The audience is not the cult flame throwers; they are hopeless. The audience in doing this are the other 60%.  The goal: forget the Trump cult. Consolidate and activate the other 60% and give them ammunition, focus and words. 

An update: 9/22/23    Also posted on the Muftic Forum Facebook page

The GOP has already won the race to the bottom on false equivalencies in the category of character and fitness to lead. No one party or its adherents have a monopoly on disgusting behavior, but some members of the GOP have taken that "bad" to a new level. What is astonishing is the degree to which MAGA loyalists do not seem to care. Trump's p-grabbing and porn star exploits and the jury finding his liability for a sexual assault go without saying. On Morning Joe a quip by Mehdi Hasan that 2024 is not a red or blue determination: it is "choosing between the awful people and the less awful.".( Meaning, I think, ..it is a moral, cultural, and character choice.) Hasan was inspired by the report of allegations of Guiliani's groping of Cassidy Hutchinson,: which Guiliani denies. Giuliani's groping allegations are made more believable as part of the 'sick culture' surrounding Trump: Morning Joe - Add to that, Rep. Lauren Boebert's disgusting behavior in Denver caught on tape of groping and vaping in a theater audience lately that got worldwide attention.  

rawstory.com

Giuliani groping allegations latest example of 'sick culture' surrounding Trump: Morning Joe

Rudy Giuliani allegedly groped a White House aide shortly before Donald Trump spoke on Jan. 6, and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough listed that as just the latest example of the "sick culture" the former president promotes around him.Cassidy Hutchinson, the former aide to White House chief of staff Mark Mead...

The GOP's tactic to promote false equivalences are obvious.: 

The most  obvious examples: Trump has already been indicted, lost lawsuits, and impeached; H. Clinton or Biden, not.  It is not that the GOP hasn't tried; they have not stopped trying to find something. The most current: now McCarthy agrees to open an impeachment inquiry against President Biden. So what's the probable cause? On what constitutional basis?  Just not liking a legislative agenda does not count as a basis for impeachment. 

The link between Hunter and his father has not been found, nor is there any indication that President Biden benefitted from Hunter's activities.  The laptop whistleblower, before the laptop issues were the focus, had been under investigation by the FBI for being a suspected Chinese agent and is MIA.

Most people understand Hunter was a coke addict, did use his name, and was out of control..and most families have had family members who have gone off the rails, too. That empathy is a sobering factor and parents understand the difficulty in controlling the uncontrolled. It is a human problem to which many can relate. 

Hunter did not have a position in the government, unlike Trump's kids, who could not even pass a security clearance without Dad's interference, yet Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law,  played a critical, powerful role in the administration in shaping middle eastern foreign policy and giving advice. He benefitted after exiting the government from the Saudis granting lucrative management of large  Saudi investment funds. Nice job if you can get it.  Be careful. Democrats could lift up that stone to see what crawls out.  

Joe Biden has been under the microscope of the public for the lifetime of most Americans and has a track record of scrupulous behavior, unlike Trump's lifetime of lawsuits and controversy in his business dealings and hucksterism, multi marriages, civil fraud,  cheating, and telling lies.  There have been too many who think Trump's character flaws are not important; they do not affect public policy issues that affect them.  Wrong. Character counts.   Biden's conduct of his personal life and a lifetime of politics leave a good track record and to try to paint him otherwise with false equivalencies is a tough row to hoe.

What is also becoming clearer by the moment is that the Mar A Lago doc issue has morphed into a coverup issue more serious than just taking national security-related documents home like Biden and Pence did upon leaving office. That is very unlike Joe Biden and Mike Pence, who returned the documents when asked.    That this is just a "process issue" and no one should go to jail for such a technical violation is an argument put forward by Trump apologists so therefore, pledge some GOP wannabe presidential candidates, if elected, we will pardon him. To pardon anyone of a federal crime, a president must believe Trump will be convicted. It appears that is the assumption by those who advocate a presidential pardon for a president above the law. The lesson to the Americans will be there would be no penalties with serious consequences for a future president who would endanger national security and who would obstruct laws and justice designed to protect the country from an out-of-control bad actor with evil intent.   Nixon would have continued as president with impunity, for example. Obstruction of justice is nothing but violating a process?  Interfering with the electoral count in a presidential election in order to steal an election they lost would be a "process" issue?.  Sharing national security secrets to unauthorized persons who could be spies is also a "process" issue with no serious consequences?.  Pardoning oneself for being convicted of a crime would also be a "process" question?  Let me pose this question: If somehow the "impreachment inquiry" turns up something against Joe Biden, say for example he committed the crime of not reporting income form his son's business dealings, a process issue, could he also pardon himself if elected to a second term?  Or is the privilege of ignoring rules, laws and regulations only apply to Donal Trump?

That those allegations of a coverup by Trump of a crime will eventually become instructive to the public as they become more aware of the details of the charges.  What evidence has leaked in advance of indictments amended yesterday in the superseding indictments are charges of  Trump's ordering underlings (now also charged) to play document keep away and cut off security cameras after receiving a subpoena.  The timing is important to show he knew he was guilty and then took action to hide the evidence.  The allegations show that it was he who was ordering the hiding of the evidence. 

 The importance of Trump's playing "keep-away from the  FBI and the DOJ" with the evidence that had national security importance is not that there is proof it actually hurt US security, but that it is a window into Trump's priorities. That he did not care if he endangered national security by flashing his stolen docs is an example of putting his ego-boosting over a sense of responsibility to the nation. It is a dramatic illustration of why Trump is unfit to serve a second term with such personality flaws.  He cannot be trusted to make judgment calls that put America's national security first if it interferes with his personal interest and lust for power.  It is not just a matter of violating laws or failure to dot the technical stuff or some off-the-wall interpretation of rules and regulations and laws themselves. His character flaws matter. It is a matter of trust that at minimum, he cares about the security of the United States.  Democrats can make that point, though they have not yet.. It is not just a technical violation of document laws.  It is another example of his self-serving priorities, just as he was willing to withhold anti-tank weapons from Ukraine in order to get some political dirt on Hunter Biden.

How serious are the Mar-a-Lago doc issues? More than just potentially endangering US security, it appears. Similar issues of cover-up resulted in the resignation of Nixon leaving office and they figured in the defeat of Hillary Clinton.  Trump refused to return critical ones and now makes Rosemary Wood's "accidental erasure" of damning tapes of Nixon's coverup, ultimately resulting in her boss' resigning, look way too familiar, and Hillary's missing tapes look like a non-proven, often investigated, non-equivalence.  

The dictatorship of the majority is not a democracy, nor is dictatorship of the minority

A dictatorship of the majority is not a democracy and neither is the dictatorship of the minority

(Update: September 12, 2023: Just became aware of this book that goes into depth on the tyranny of minority rule and the danger to US democracy....with suggestions what to do about it.  Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point by Steven Levitsky (Author), Daniel Ziblatt (Author) )

In Israel, Netanyahu is succeeding in establishing a dictatorship of the majority, and in the US, Donald Trump is proposing a dictatorship of the minority.  Both approaches destroy democracy as we have known it because they trample the rights of the opposition and lead to oppression and corruption, causing a government to serve and favor only the loyal to the leader and his allies. It spawns even more power over others because those seeking power and favors also have to pledge loyalty, as well. 

Watching the events in Israel, and  Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu's consolidation of power in the hands of himself and religious conservatives, is a laboratory of how democracies can become dictatorships. Criticized by many outside of Israel and nearly half of the country that by destroying any guardrails of the judiciary, Netanyahu counters he is saving democracy.  It may be that the conservative religious majority is representative of a majority, but not an overwhelming one given the size of the vocal demonstrations and strikes.   Where Netanyahoo misses the point is that the large size of the opposition should have rights, too.  To do otherwise is not democracy.  It is a dictatorship of a majority who, if power-mad, can now suppress and oppress those who are secular or liberal, giving them no chance to have the power and ability to lead their lives as they wish. This is a formula for future conflict and instability in Israel to the dismay of those who had hoped Israel would be an example of an American-style democracy. for the rest of the middle east to follow. Instead, Netanyahu and his party are trying to emulate Iran, but in a very almost evenly divided nation, with a large minority who object to being forced to live as ultra-conservatives and the unrest among the targeted remaining Palestinians, resulting in even more violence.   Netanyahu has more going for him because he is trying to establish a dictatorship of an existing majority and there is no constitution to protect the rule of law or even to determine what the law should be.  

Former President Donald Trump admires so many of the world's undemocratic dictatorial leaders. He proposes to establish the dictatorship of a minority if he ever got his hands on the executive branch of government himself. https://www.salon.com/2023/07/17/authoritarianism-will-be-on-the-ballot-experts-worried-over-alarming-2025-plot/ His MAGA followers represent somewhere around 30% of hardcore.  He promises retribution and revenge and his tools are fear and purge of the executive branch of those not loyal to him. Fear of his revenge has already cowed the members of his party and those even running against him in the current primary races for the GOP nomination.   He has made that no secret and has made it clear that is what he would do if re-elected. That, too, is not democracy. In the US, the attempt of a minority of hard-core right wing to control the majority is reflected in the MAGA movement and led by Donald Trump who is bent on upending the democracy as we know it by making it clear he will refuse to obey laws the restrict his agenda, in a second term,to purge those in the government of those not loyal to him, and use law enforcement to bee his tool of fear and retribution to keep the opposition in line.  He proposes to eliminate civil service protections that have shielded the bureaucracy from political pressure and corruption. That means that services, rules, and regulations, and administering power would be powerful tools used to favor the public, business, consumers, and those in Congress that are likewise loyal. The hammer of his abusive powers would be his promised use of the Department of Justice to carry out his political revenge and retribution against those who wronged him in the past.  That is the classic definition of fascism.  Trump Plans to Expand Presidential Power Over Agencies in 2025 - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

The least of his sins will be to

pardon himself, his Jan 6 compatriots and his co-conspirators who did not turn witness against him.

All of the executive branch will be weaponized to keep him in power and to get revenge on those who oppose him.

"I am your retribution"

He has attempted the use of military in is first term to get the active military to put down "any resurrection". Joint Chiefs chair Gen. Mark Milley stood in way after he was tricked into the Lafayette Square debacle. Trump would

also be in control of any street pushback to his plans. In fact, the Chesebro memo and his hand picked AG Clark, unindicted co-conspirators had that end result in their fake elector plans and plots. His first attempt was Lafayette Square. Remember? MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: Why General Milley is emerging as a hero who saved democracy, updated 8/9/22

One of the signature elements of an American democracy written into the Constitution was the Bill of Rights and over the years was extended to women and freed slaves.  Top of the list is voting rights, and protection of those with minority views to have access to freedoms giving them a chance someday to become a majority.  We call those civil rights; others may refer to them as human rights. The reason the Constitution came into being at all was to find a way to keep a person from becoming a tyrant or a king and it was done by splitting up government al powers into three power centers, judicial, legislative, and executive, and giving each a check on the other.  Both Trump and Netanyahu have realized that the greatest barrier to their achieving the power they seek is the judiciary branch.  It was the judiciary that stood in the way of Trump's overturning the 2020 election and it is the judiciary that Netanyahu has defanged that sparked the demonstrations and outrage. The right-wingers would like nothing more than to have all of the powers in the hands of the executive in a unitary form of government.

Per a recent poll, Trump's devoted followers are around 28 to 30 percent of Republican and leaning Republican voters. 230032-nbc-january-2023-poll-v2-129-release.pdf (documentcloud.org) 

 Today, Trump is preferred by a a little over 50  percent of GOP voters over the rest of the announced primary field,National : President: Republican primary : 2024 Polls | FiveThirtyEight  

https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2023/07/trumps-second-term-plans-to-establish.html

Did Nikki Haley just play the race card?

 Shame on her. Nikki Haley looks like she just played the racial card in an attempt to take away the women's vote for Biden and or to differentiate herself from the GOP wannabe Trump alternative pack.. Intended or not, it was a dog whistle. She is playing the age card., but it is unbecoming. Trump is only 3 years younger than Biden. It is distasteful to be on the death watch of either candidate, but all seems fair in love and political warfare.

On ageism: While Trump in exile played golf and met with his defense attorneys, vowing retribution, revenge, and purging if he got re-elected, poor old Biden kept hitting hole-in-ones. Biden, in the meantime, keeps a killer pace of flying around the world to garner support for Ukraine and enlarging NATO in the face of Russia's aggression in Ukraine. Way too old Biden even got Trump's failed agenda passed: upping American manufacturing and taking it away from China, and Trump's annual infrastructure wishes and promises were turned into reality by poor old weak Biden. Using holdovers from Trump's old FBI to prosecute Trump was not in Trump's playbook, nor were indictments against Trump based on Trump's former staff members' testimony, either. Ooops. If Trump's hopes were a show of force by militias loyal to him and those who also rioted on January 6 on his behalf, that they were under the impression they would be pardoned, more ooops., Trump's closest loyalists and political advisers got the pardons. And now he pledges 1000 arrested will get their pardons to crimes most of them already pled guilty to. It is expected he will pardon himself if convicted and he serves a second term in office. The law and order GOP and Democrats have traded places. The once security hawk pro-military GOP trashes the CIA and military preparedness and traded places with the Democrats Biden, the cold warrior. Trump's third finger has been raised at laws he refuses to obey and he is being accountable even by judges he appointed... If Trump thought he would replace the federal bench with his own, poor old Biden has gotten more non-Federalist society-approved types approved by the Senate than Trump did, keeping the balance in the judiciary lower courts. https://www.msn.com/en-us/neo Poor old Joe.

19THNEWS.ORG

Nikki Haley’s attacks on Kamala Harris keep coming

The former South Carolina governor has made the vice president a key political target — above Biden, and certainly above her contenders in the GOP primary field led by former President Donald Trump.

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What Democrats could do about the threat of a third party candidate

 Third-party candidate? Democrats have reason to be concerned, but what should be the approach? If the race boils down to a Biden-Trump replay as it appears at this moment, what might work? Acknowledge an understanding of their concerns about the environment and civil and gender rights, but a vote for the third party would backfire on them.  It would be a  vote for Trump.  Be smart.  The vote for Nader in Florida in 2000 resulted in the defeat of a pro-environment possible president.  The vote for a green party candidate in 2016 defeated Hillary Clinton in a narrow race.. Trump gave wings and encouragement to white nationalists entering the political mainstream and the eventual overturning of Roe v Wade.  

National campaigns have consequences.  It is not just a matter of the heart. It is not just ""voting my conscience". It should be a strategic decision of choosing among candidates.  The decision should be based on which one has the power to come the closest to getting the job done that comes closer to desired results.  The road to hell and backfires can be paved by good intentions.

Watch what Trump supporters are doing as an indication of what they believe to be their best strategy:  Some recent examples.  The most cynical one was GOP congressional leadership bringing in RFK Jr to testify and give him national exposure his to his wacky ideas of science and of conspiracy theories.  Jill Stein, Green Party, may be full of good intentions, but she was given support and sat near Putin at a dinner in 2016.  She became a Putin tool as part of the Russian interference in the 2016 election. 

Elections also have international consequences and it can be argued that the election of Trump led directly to a renewal of Russian expansionism and war, not to peace.  Putin dangled Trump Towers Moscow construction permits early in Trump's campaign for the nomination and Trump tried to damage NATO and questioned whether the Baltics and Poland were worth defending. Trump tried to use Zelensky as a political tool, denying anti-tank weapons in an attempt to force him to dig up or manufacture dirt on "the Biden crime family" and a personally flawed addicted human being of Hunter.  No wonder Putin thought that early in the Biden administration, the coast was still clear with a weakened NATO and a feeble old president to invade Ukraine and do it in three days.  It was a historical epic miscalculation, but it was the direct result of Trump's bootlicking foreign policy strategy he used in dealing with power-hungry foreign dictators and the painting of Biden as over the hill. Flattery not only got Trump nowhere, it caused Putin's miscalculation and almost gave hope that China could do it to Taiwan, too.  Trump's isolationism left a power vacuum our adversaries saw as an opportunity to fill.  It happened before, just as Hitler made the same miscalculation that the US would not get involved in his invasions of Europe and Russia,  and the Japanese saw the same military opportunity on the Pacific side.   

Outrage at Florida's attempt to whitewash slavery

Florida's whitewash of slavery

So they ban CRT, the consideration of the travesties of US history of slavery, and instead, substitute a whitewash, painting the upsides of slavery. Upsides of slavery? I , a white girl, grew up in Jim Crow Oklahoma, where Gone with the Wind of Scarlet's maid, Disney's Zippidoodah Song of the South, slaves singing great spirituals (we had no idea of the hidden messages in them)....painted an idealized version of life as a slave. It was a shock when visiting Mt. Vernon and I got a taste of the living conditions that slaves faced and my perception abruptly changed of the horrors faced by slaves I gleaned from sources. So they got taught skills which they could use to earn money....but they got to use them without pay as a slave. It would not pass human and child labor laws we have today or work without pay labor department rules, either, but part of Florida's instruction of their touting their objective, both sides approach should be to require students to work a couple of days picking cotton or doing the missus' laundry or working a forge/mechanic repairs without pay and get a whiff of reality. If they refused, they could be whipped. Those slaves were forbidden to marry, the children they bore, whether fathered by the master or the ones they loved, became slaves, and they could be separated if sold is something teenagers would have a hard time comprehending. Frankly, I am outraged. This is another example of the GOP's desire to return our country to the 1950s.

I have been asked by those who read this above..so what are you going to do about it? I good question. Here was my reply:

I wish I knew. Personally, speaking out and writing. When it comes to racism, there is not much you can do to change minds because it is not a matter of minds. It is a matter of hearts. One possibility is to aim at reminding evangelicals that racism runs counter to Jesus's teachings. Hate and racism are not Christian values. For those who are not practicing Christians, racism is deeply ingrained in culture and all we can do is rally the rest of the population, appeal to empathy (walk in others' shoes), fairness, and a sense of fair play as in sports, and civil peace. I firmly believe what is going on is fear by whites of becoming a minority and losing power, especially white males who feel emasculated by the women's power movement. They have chosen the course of hateful resistance instead of trying to figure out how to get along in the future. I do not see an easy outcome and I am pinning my hopes on the generation just coming of age, the majority of whom have values similar to mine. I, fortunately, am close to under thirty-year-old grandchildren and try to see the world through their eyes. I like what I see.

K12DIVE.COM

Florida approves controversial African American history standards

The new

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/08/12/deep-divisions-in-americans-views-of-nations-racial-history-and-how-to-address-it/ 

K12DIVE.COM

Florida approves controversial African American history standards

The new

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/08/12/deep-divisions-in-americans-views-of-nations-racial-history-and-how-to-address-it/ 

The delusional followers of Donald Trump

It means eventually, facts and evidence count. It has become a cliche for critics of Trump to charge his actions and thoughts with "being above the law". He is not, so he must "be held accountable". His devoted followers appear to think as president past and present he does not have to obey any laws and he should not be held accountable for breaking them.. Facts and testimony are all politically motivated, so just ignore them, they believe. These devoted followers of Trump are delusional for now because once indictments and suits reach a jury of peers who listen to both sides of the issue, facts and evidence do count. The chickens ultimately come home to roost.

Per a recent poll, Trump's devoted followers are around 28 to 30 percent of Republican and leaning Republican voters. 230032-nbc-january-2023-poll-v2-129-release.pdf (documentcloud.org) 

 Today, Trump is preferred by a a little over 50  percent of GOP voters over the rest of the announced primary field,National : President: Republican primary : 2024 Polls | FiveThirtyEight  

 About 49 % of all voters and  25%    of Republicans think he is guilty in indictments to date.A New Poll on the Trump Indictments Has a Surprising Result - POLITICO

Did you notice that every time there is an announcement of an indictment or a civil suit involving Trump, his supporters claim it is a witch hunt or due to the weaponization of (Biden, DOJ, etc) a) even before the text of the indictment or pleading is made public or b) after it is made public they said they did not read it because it was political so the evidence in it totally ignored? The implication of this pattern of behavior is the content or evidence in the charges is not the issue or is to be discussed and challenged. Their goal is to keep Trump safe from the legal process, facts and evidence notwithstanding, because his followers just do not care about evidence and facts/ or even respect a judicial system of a trial by a jury of peers that makes their decisions based on facts and evidence. The idiocy of this is when or if he is found guilty or liable, his devotees claim it was just politics and with Trump in control of the justice system, he can get retribution and revenge.

This is not a charming habit, but a dangerous one to a democracy that is built upon all participants in this following rules (we call laws) by all who are rational human beings. Studiously ignoring evidence and facts is not a rational approach.; It is a dangerous worship of a wannabe leader who believes he is the law and he will choose which law to follow that will get or keep himself in power.

Holding a person accountable should not mean the defendant is automatically presumed guilty, either. It means giving him a chance to refute the evidence and facts before whoever is making the judgment, whether a jury or a judge. Voters need that resolution before the 2024 election to make a rational decision as well.

Trump wants the trial delayed until after the 2024 election day. It is a strategy and a self-serving ploy that deprives voters of the critical information they need to cast a rational vote.. It also is an obvious ploy, gambling on his reelection, so once in office again, he can pardon himself if he is found guilty by a jury. It is hard to imagine a convicted criminal could remain in office or have any credibility to be respected by our allies. He then is indeed "above the law" and does not need to obey any law that would get in his way of restricting his control. There are no consequences for his actions. It becomes a government by and for Trump's loyalists but not for the rest of us. That is what is at stake in Novembe 2024.