(warning in advance: yeah, it's going to be one of THOSE blog posts. Just stop reading if you don't care, okay? I only care about people who care to begin with)
Well...I'm sure the blog post title has people riled up. But before you post how right or wrong I am, just hear me out, mkay? It's about the Mueller report.
If you ignore all the political bullshit that's been spun around it, the main document has some implications that are...pretty darn important.
The most important question Mueller faced right of the bat was the following: if we find criminal behavior, what will we do? Trump was (and still is) the sitting US president. While he is technically not above the law, Mueller argued that there is no court he can be properly be trialed. So to him and his team, the whole debacle shifted from "what crimes (if any) will we find?" to "how should we deal with it when we do find criminal behavior?".
The team did find criminal behavior. The obstruction of justice is, like it or not, criminal behavior. It isn't suddenly "okay" when the patterns aren't 100% the sort of "caught red handed" evidence (which, in his defense, wasn't found). So...what did they do? For those of short term memory: the team basically passed the hot apple to the senate. Freshly appointed attorney general William Barr "leaked" a very personal summary. It was far beside the point Mueller tried to make, but these times narrative is everything. Trump tweeted "exonerated" so many times that it stuck, leaving the actual senate to fight against public opinion rather than properly deal with the situation.
Well...the fact that republicans(1) hold the majority in the senate also is an important factor, of course. If the democrats had pushed for impeachment then, they'd find themselves in a minority to actually remove him from office(2). So they didn't.
...but make no mistake: Trump is in no way forgiven or pardoned in any way. It is just delayed because Mueller doesn't find it fair to prosecute Trump when there is no real court he can be judged. But the report still exists, it is out in the open, the actions were illegal at the time Trump performed them, and the crimes won't have been expired by the time Trump's no longer sitting president. So for Trump, this presidential race isn't just about prestige. He's literally running to stay out of jail.
Now...the title of this blog is misleading for two reasons. One is the "if all things are even". That's far too lenient. Trump never once managed to get a 50% aproval rate by his own population, and even conservative polls have him trailing Biden by a lot(3). But for sake of the argument, let's say he has an even 50% chance shot of winning a second term. Then there's still the more quiet race...the one for the senate.
I won't lie: I'm not too familiar with how the process of voting the senate works. I know the democrat/republican split is sort-of even, I know that party lines mean everything for both parties and I know that the voting is in 2020. Oh, and that if democrats take over 4 republican seats (or 3 and the presidency), they'll hold the majority. For convenience reasons, let's give them 50% of succeeding(4).
In this scenario, we've got four options:
1) democrats deliver the president and take senate majority
2) democrats deliver the president but remain a minority in the senate
3) Biden fails but dem's take the senate majority
4) Biden fails and republicans hold the majority in the senate
In the first two scenario's, Trump's no longer a sitting president and can be prosecuted like you and me (what? you think we can get away with these kind of crimes? LOOOOLLLL!!!). The third one would be kind of hilarious to everyone in the world but his fanbase: Trump would remain president, but with the democrats holding majority both in the house and the senate, they can just properly impeach him (again) AND remove him from office without anything the republicans can do (kind of the inverse as the current situation, really
). Sure, he'll scream about conspiracies all the way to his jail cell, but come on: we know this clown long enough to know that's going to happen no matter what. Better suck it up and be done with it, than suffer the insults four more years (and probably longer, because why stop at two terms?).
So...only if Trump manages a status quo on two fields, he'll manage to stay in office.
But Taleweaver...the Mueller report's dead and buried
I'll concede that that's a good point. As it is, nobody's talking about that report anymore. New scandals have emerged and subsided. Ukraine? Gone (republicans will tell you with a straight face that Trump was never impeached to begin with). Covid minimalisation? Mostly gone (most have accepted that the incredibly dumb action can't be rectified, so they'll pretend that it was unavoidable and therefore forgivable). The black lives matter had a strong moment there (especially with Trump heating the diversion rather than accepting everyone as potential Trump-voters), but they're now becoming second page news now that this whole "Trump thinks war criminals are losers" has become trending(5).
The thing is: none of these scandals have as thorough an analysis with so many clearcut conclusions with them. You can go out and chase people who were there when Trump said X, and get thwarted by opponents who dig up dirt on the people who claimed Trump said X (or some nihilist fucks who go all "so what if Trump said X? It doesn't make him a racist"). The Mueller rapport is head and shoulders above that. The only thing - and I'm fairly sure it is literally the only thing - that's missing is a court for this situation. And that gets resolved by removing Trump from office by A) voting him out or B) impeaching and removing him (which requires both majority in the house and the senate).
(main source for this blog post is a blog I recently came across here. It's about a gazillion times better than this shit)
(1): I sort of wonder whether or not republican politicians are just extremely pragmatic in general, or that they're just weeded out until only the most spineless Trump puppets have remained.
(2): in other words: exactly the way the later Ukraine situation turned out.
(3): unless you count the imaginary "real" polls in his head. Let's not go there...
(4): I'm inclined to think this is even less than the presidency. As much as I hate Donnie, I can (somewhat) see why people fall for his personality. On the other hand, I literally shudder to think of anyone even wanting to be remotely near Mitch McConnell.
(5): I don't get this news AT ALL. That is to say: I've already read this in 2018 when he actually SAID those words about the fallen soldiers in world war 2. And again sometime later when McCain died. This is now getting spun as if it's something new, but if you're a Trump veteran supporter, you should've already known this for years.
Well...I'm sure the blog post title has people riled up. But before you post how right or wrong I am, just hear me out, mkay? It's about the Mueller report.
If you ignore all the political bullshit that's been spun around it, the main document has some implications that are...pretty darn important.
The most important question Mueller faced right of the bat was the following: if we find criminal behavior, what will we do? Trump was (and still is) the sitting US president. While he is technically not above the law, Mueller argued that there is no court he can be properly be trialed. So to him and his team, the whole debacle shifted from "what crimes (if any) will we find?" to "how should we deal with it when we do find criminal behavior?".
The team did find criminal behavior. The obstruction of justice is, like it or not, criminal behavior. It isn't suddenly "okay" when the patterns aren't 100% the sort of "caught red handed" evidence (which, in his defense, wasn't found). So...what did they do? For those of short term memory: the team basically passed the hot apple to the senate. Freshly appointed attorney general William Barr "leaked" a very personal summary. It was far beside the point Mueller tried to make, but these times narrative is everything. Trump tweeted "exonerated" so many times that it stuck, leaving the actual senate to fight against public opinion rather than properly deal with the situation.
Well...the fact that republicans(1) hold the majority in the senate also is an important factor, of course. If the democrats had pushed for impeachment then, they'd find themselves in a minority to actually remove him from office(2). So they didn't.
...but make no mistake: Trump is in no way forgiven or pardoned in any way. It is just delayed because Mueller doesn't find it fair to prosecute Trump when there is no real court he can be judged. But the report still exists, it is out in the open, the actions were illegal at the time Trump performed them, and the crimes won't have been expired by the time Trump's no longer sitting president. So for Trump, this presidential race isn't just about prestige. He's literally running to stay out of jail.
Now...the title of this blog is misleading for two reasons. One is the "if all things are even". That's far too lenient. Trump never once managed to get a 50% aproval rate by his own population, and even conservative polls have him trailing Biden by a lot(3). But for sake of the argument, let's say he has an even 50% chance shot of winning a second term. Then there's still the more quiet race...the one for the senate.
I won't lie: I'm not too familiar with how the process of voting the senate works. I know the democrat/republican split is sort-of even, I know that party lines mean everything for both parties and I know that the voting is in 2020. Oh, and that if democrats take over 4 republican seats (or 3 and the presidency), they'll hold the majority. For convenience reasons, let's give them 50% of succeeding(4).
In this scenario, we've got four options:
1) democrats deliver the president and take senate majority
2) democrats deliver the president but remain a minority in the senate
3) Biden fails but dem's take the senate majority
4) Biden fails and republicans hold the majority in the senate
In the first two scenario's, Trump's no longer a sitting president and can be prosecuted like you and me (what? you think we can get away with these kind of crimes? LOOOOLLLL!!!). The third one would be kind of hilarious to everyone in the world but his fanbase: Trump would remain president, but with the democrats holding majority both in the house and the senate, they can just properly impeach him (again) AND remove him from office without anything the republicans can do (kind of the inverse as the current situation, really
). Sure, he'll scream about conspiracies all the way to his jail cell, but come on: we know this clown long enough to know that's going to happen no matter what. Better suck it up and be done with it, than suffer the insults four more years (and probably longer, because why stop at two terms?).So...only if Trump manages a status quo on two fields, he'll manage to stay in office.
But Taleweaver...the Mueller report's dead and buried
I'll concede that that's a good point. As it is, nobody's talking about that report anymore. New scandals have emerged and subsided. Ukraine? Gone (republicans will tell you with a straight face that Trump was never impeached to begin with). Covid minimalisation? Mostly gone (most have accepted that the incredibly dumb action can't be rectified, so they'll pretend that it was unavoidable and therefore forgivable). The black lives matter had a strong moment there (especially with Trump heating the diversion rather than accepting everyone as potential Trump-voters), but they're now becoming second page news now that this whole "Trump thinks war criminals are losers" has become trending(5).
The thing is: none of these scandals have as thorough an analysis with so many clearcut conclusions with them. You can go out and chase people who were there when Trump said X, and get thwarted by opponents who dig up dirt on the people who claimed Trump said X (or some nihilist fucks who go all "so what if Trump said X? It doesn't make him a racist"). The Mueller rapport is head and shoulders above that. The only thing - and I'm fairly sure it is literally the only thing - that's missing is a court for this situation. And that gets resolved by removing Trump from office by A) voting him out or B) impeaching and removing him (which requires both majority in the house and the senate).
(main source for this blog post is a blog I recently came across here. It's about a gazillion times better than this shit)
(1): I sort of wonder whether or not republican politicians are just extremely pragmatic in general, or that they're just weeded out until only the most spineless Trump puppets have remained.
(2): in other words: exactly the way the later Ukraine situation turned out.
(3): unless you count the imaginary "real" polls in his head. Let's not go there...
(4): I'm inclined to think this is even less than the presidency. As much as I hate Donnie, I can (somewhat) see why people fall for his personality. On the other hand, I literally shudder to think of anyone even wanting to be remotely near Mitch McConnell.
(5): I don't get this news AT ALL. That is to say: I've already read this in 2018 when he actually SAID those words about the fallen soldiers in world war 2. And again sometime later when McCain died. This is now getting spun as if it's something new, but if you're a Trump veteran supporter, you should've already known this for years.
