Trump pressured Georgia SOS to “find 11,780 votes” for him on hour-long call

[Crumpets]

If you go on conservative forum they think this is no big deal. They are already excusing it as another "Russia hoax" their term for Trump campaign's unexplainable ties to Russian figures and interference operations, Ukraine Tapes, Trump paying virtually no taxes. This pile of bad unethical and likely criminal behavior is just set aside by his base, they don't care.

 And increasingly on the conservative sites they believe Trump is about to prove his "victory" and also bring down the globalists exposing their many crimes, financial and sexual.

I'm curious if these delusions end up costing the GOP the Senate in Georgia whether McConnell might change his mind and try to crack down on the right-wing conspiracy machine. Probably wishful thinking, but I can dream.

[compucomp]

If you go on conservative forum they think this is no big deal. They are already excusing it as another "Russia hoax" their term for Trump campaign's unexplainable ties to Russian figures and interference operations, Ukraine Tapes, Trump paying virtually no taxes. This pile of bad unethical and likely criminal behavior is just set aside by his base, they don't care.

 And increasingly on the conservative sites they believe Trump is about to prove his "victory" and also bring down the globalists exposing their many crimes, financial and sexual.

Shades of the Brooks-Sumner incident, where a Southern Representative, Brooks, bludgeoned a Northern Senator (Sumner) with a cane on the Senate floor in response to an anti-slavery speech Sumner gave. The Southern response to this incident was to send Brooks hundreds of new canes and re-elect Brooks in the special election after he resigned.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_of_Charles_Sumner

[R.P. McM]

Before, I was not necessarily sure whether prosecuting Trump would be an overall good thing for the US, because of the immense division and anger on the MAGA side it would cause. Now I am convinced he has to be prosecuted for the good of the nation, to set a precedent that it is unacceptable for a president to abuse his office like this.

Nothing changed. MAGA cultists will inevitably go thermonuclear. The problem many center-leftists have is that they still believe, against all evidence, that they can harmoniously coexist with the Trumpist GOP. No, you can't. Republicans are pining for a rightwing dictator. So the more prudent course of action is negotiating for a peaceful partition.

Hell with that. There are too many good people in Trumpist areas (you know, all the ones that still voted Democratic in 2020) to abandon to neofascist damnation.

Also, these traitorous bastards should get nothing. Purge them root and branch and remove their taint from the United States.

Given that the "neofascist [...] traitorous bastards" in question constitute ~90% of the GOP and number in the tens of millions, your proposed "purge" is effectively a declaration of war. Is civil war preferable to a peaceful partition?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Is civil war preferable to a peaceful partition?

Abraham Lincoln certainly thought so.

[Crumpets]

Before, I was not necessarily sure whether prosecuting Trump would be an overall good thing for the US, because of the immense division and anger on the MAGA side it would cause. Now I am convinced he has to be prosecuted for the good of the nation, to set a precedent that it is unacceptable for a president to abuse his office like this.

Nothing changed. MAGA cultists will inevitably go thermonuclear. The problem many center-leftists have is that they still believe, against all evidence, that they can harmoniously coexist with the Trumpist GOP. No, you can't. Republicans are pining for a rightwing dictator. So the more prudent course of action is negotiating for a peaceful partition.

Hell with that. There are too many good people in Trumpist areas (you know, all the ones that still voted Democratic in 2020) to abandon to neofascist damnation.

Also, these traitorous bastards should get nothing. Purge them root and branch and remove their taint from the United States.

Given that the "neofascist [...] traitorous bastards" in question constitute ~90% of the GOP and number in the tens of millions, your proposed "purge" is effectively a declaration of war. Is civil war preferable to a peaceful partition?

There is no such thing as peaceful partition in the US. This isn't Czechslovakia with a nice line down the middle. If anything you're looking at 1947 India. Democrats will be crammed into over-populated districts scattered throughout the country with minimal access to non-imported food, and the Republicans will be stretched across a vast rural empire without access to major ports and transportation hubs. That's pretty much the least sustainable scenario imaginable and that's presupposing the borders are drawn to minimize the need for migration (as opposed to going just by state borders). Look at how difficult negotiating Brexit was and then translate that from an existing island nation with an elected government leaving a Union where secession terms are pre-stipulated to at least two, if not more new nations, some democratically chosen, some not, trying to have secession negotiations and tell me how it could possibly end peacefully or result in less violence than just trying to de-Trumpify the Republican party.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Before, I was not necessarily sure whether prosecuting Trump would be an overall good thing for the US, because of the immense division and anger on the MAGA side it would cause. Now I am convinced he has to be prosecuted for the good of the nation, to set a precedent that it is unacceptable for a president to abuse his office like this.

Nothing changed. MAGA cultists will inevitably go thermonuclear. The problem many center-leftists have is that they still believe, against all evidence, that they can harmoniously coexist with the Trumpist GOP. No, you can't. Republicans are pining for a rightwing dictator. So the more prudent course of action is negotiating for a peaceful partition.

Hell with that. There are too many good people in Trumpist areas (you know, all the ones that still voted Democratic in 2020) to abandon to neofascist damnation.

Also, these traitorous bastards should get nothing. Purge them root and branch and remove their taint from the United States.

Given that the "neofascist [...] traitorous bastards" in question constitute ~90% of the GOP and number in the tens of millions, your proposed "purge" is effectively a declaration of war. Is civil war preferable to a peaceful partition?

There is no such thing as peaceful partition in the US. This isn't Czechslovakia with a nice line down the middle. If anything you're looking at 1947 India. Democrats will be crammed into over- populated districts scattered throughout the country with minimal access to non-imported food, and the Republicans will be stretched across a vast rural empire without access to major ports and transportation hubs. That's pretty much the least sustainable scenario imaginable and that's both presupposing the borders are drawn to minimize the need for migration (as opposed to going just by state borders). Look at how difficult negotiating Breitling was and then translate that from an existing island nation with an elected government leaving a Union where secession terms are pre- stipulated to at least two, if not more new nations, some democratically chosen, some not, trying to have secession negotiations and tell me how it could possibly end peacefully or result in less violence than just trying to de-Trumpify the Republican party.

The short answer is that R.P. McM is a bigoted ghoul who, to paraphrase Orwell, doesn't love social justice or value the rights of the downtrodden, he just hates R-voting demographics.

[Rules for me, but not for thee]

It's disappointing that he's going all out with this, but he is a sociopath.  Sociopaths don't care about the rules.  Congrats on the consequences of increasingly terrible choices for the presidency.

Every government in the world right now seems to be some shade of terrible, just some are worse than others.  If anything, last year made me more progressive economically and more anarchistic in general.

[R.P. McM]

Is civil war preferable to a peaceful partition?

Abraham Lincoln certainly thought so.

And in that context, Lincoln was probably right. I'm not questioning his wisdom, just pointing out the implications of what WMS is advocating.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Before, I was not necessarily sure whether prosecuting Trump would be an overall good thing for the US, because of the immense division and anger on the MAGA side it would cause. Now I am convinced he has to be prosecuted for the good of the nation, to set a precedent that it is unacceptable for a president to abuse his office like this.

Nothing changed. MAGA cultists will inevitably go thermonuclear. The problem many center-leftists have is that they still believe, against all evidence, that they can harmoniously coexist with the Trumpist GOP. No, you can't. Republicans are pining for a rightwing dictator. So the more prudent course of action is negotiating for a peaceful partition.

Hell with that. There are too many good people in Trumpist areas (you know, all the ones that still voted Democratic in 2020) to abandon to neofascist damnation.

Also, these traitorous bastards should get nothing. Purge them root and branch and remove their taint from the United States.

Given that the "neofascist [...] traitorous bastards" in question constitute ~90% of the GOP and number in the tens of millions, your proposed "purge" is effectively a declaration of war. Is civil war preferable to a peaceful partition?

What makes you think you can get a peaceful partition? And even if we do, what makes you think it would remain peaceful?

While blue states are far from perfect, red states are net recipients of federal assistance. They're not going to have an international reserve currency. They're governed by disenfranchisement and corruption. Their ruling political party hates science and will drive away many of their most productive citizens from sheer bigotry. If you think red America has bad living standards now wait to see what it looks like after ten or twenty years of government run by Donald Trump and his enablers.

Right now one of the major grievances of right-wingnuts is that they can't tell Americans elsewhere what to do. Post-partition, the red states will blame their many failures on blue states and teach pure hate in their schools. How long before they would start a war on invented grievances and  desire to escape their own failures? WWII was preferable to letting the Nazis have their way forever. I hope America doesn't get as bad as 1930s Germany before we put a stop to our own aspiring Nazis.

[R.P. McM]

Before, I was not necessarily sure whether prosecuting Trump would be an overall good thing for the US, because of the immense division and anger on the MAGA side it would cause. Now I am convinced he has to be prosecuted for the good of the nation, to set a precedent that it is unacceptable for a president to abuse his office like this.

Nothing changed. MAGA cultists will inevitably go thermonuclear. The problem many center-leftists have is that they still believe, against all evidence, that they can harmoniously coexist with the Trumpist GOP. No, you can't. Republicans are pining for a rightwing dictator. So the more prudent course of action is negotiating for a peaceful partition.

Hell with that. There are too many good people in Trumpist areas (you know, all the ones that still voted Democratic in 2020) to abandon to neofascist damnation.

Also, these traitorous bastards should get nothing. Purge them root and branch and remove their taint from the United States.

Given that the "neofascist [...] traitorous bastards" in question constitute ~90% of the GOP and number in the tens of millions, your proposed "purge" is effectively a declaration of war. Is civil war preferable to a peaceful partition?

There is no such thing as peaceful partition in the US. This isn't Czechslovakia with a nice line down the middle. If anything you're looking at 1947 India. Democrats will be crammed into over-populated districts scattered throughout the country with minimal access to non-imported food, and the Republicans will be stretched across a vast rural empire without access to major ports and transportation hubs. That's pretty much the least sustainable scenario imaginable and that's presupposing the borders are drawn to minimize the need for migration (as opposed to going just by state borders). Look at how difficult negotiating Brexit was and then translate that from an existing island nation with an elected government leaving a Union where secession terms are pre-stipulated to at least two, if not more new nations, some democratically chosen, some not, trying to have secession negotiations and tell me how it could possibly end peacefully or result in less violence than just trying to de-Trumpify the Republican party.

Obviously, you can't carve up the country by precincts or by districts. No, it would have to be done state-by-state. In which case, center-right states would be under immense financial pressure to maintain a union with their cosmopolitan neighbors. CA, IL, and MN are among the top-5 agricultural states. What they can't generate organically can be cheaply imported.

tell me how it could possibly end peacefully or result in less violence than just trying to de-Trumpify the Republican party.

Because I've been listening to the same BS for about 20 years. So I take it as a given you're going to fail spectacularly, and drag all 330 million of us along on your quixotic effort. The endpoint of which is an authoritarian regime that has to be destroyed in a bloody conflagration. No thanks. A democratic nation of ~200 million with nuclear weapons would be far more stable and secure.

[R.P. McM]

Before, I was not necessarily sure whether prosecuting Trump would be an overall good thing for the US, because of the immense division and anger on the MAGA side it would cause. Now I am convinced he has to be prosecuted for the good of the nation, to set a precedent that it is unacceptable for a president to abuse his office like this.

Nothing changed. MAGA cultists will inevitably go thermonuclear. The problem many center-leftists have is that they still believe, against all evidence, that they can harmoniously coexist with the Trumpist GOP. No, you can't. Republicans are pining for a rightwing dictator. So the more prudent course of action is negotiating for a peaceful partition.

Hell with that. There are too many good people in Trumpist areas (you know, all the ones that still voted Democratic in 2020) to abandon to neofascist damnation.

Also, these traitorous bastards should get nothing. Purge them root and branch and remove their taint from the United States.

Given that the "neofascist [...] traitorous bastards" in question constitute ~90% of the GOP and number in the tens of millions, your proposed "purge" is effectively a declaration of war. Is civil war preferable to a peaceful partition?

What makes you think you can get a peaceful partition? And even if we do, what makes you think it would remain peaceful?

While blue states are far from perfect, red states are net recipients of federal assistance. They're not going to have an international reserve currency. They're governed by disenfranchisement and corruption. Their ruling political party hates science and will drive away many of their most productive citizens from sheer bigotry. If you think red America has bad living standards now wait to see what it looks like after ten or twenty years of government run by Donald Trump and his enablers.

Right now one of the major grievances of right-wingnuts is that they can't tell Americans elsewhere what to do. Post-partition, the red states will blame their many failures on blue states and teach pure hate in their schools. How long before they would start a war on invented grievances and  desire to escape their own failures? WWII was preferable to letting the Nazis have their way forever. I hope America doesn't get as bad as 1930s Germany before we put a stop to our own aspiring Nazis.

Would the citizens of either surviving state want to be vaporized in a nuclear holocaust? If the answer is no, there's no cause for concern. I don't think India and Pakistan or Israel and Iran are particularly fond of each other. Yet they manage to coexist, despite far more extensive cultural/religious differences.

[Inmate Trump]

Where is FuzzyBear ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

[Progressive Pessimist]

If you go on conservative forum they think this is no big deal. They are already excusing it as another "Russia hoax" their term for Trump campaign's unexplainable ties to Russian figures and interference operations, Ukraine Tapes, Trump paying virtually no taxes. This pile of bad unethical and likely criminal behavior is just set aside by his base, they don't care.

 And increasingly on the conservative sites they believe Trump is about to prove his "victory" and also bring down the globalists exposing their many crimes, financial and sexual.

I'm curious if these delusions end up costing the GOP the Senate in Georgia whether McConnell might change his mind and try to crack down on the right-wing conspiracy machine. Probably wishful thinking, but I can dream.

It won't, BUT it will be the closest thing to that we will ever get. McConnell, at least internally, will not forgive Trump if he is perceived as what cost his majority leader position for even two years.

[SteveRogers]

Where is FuzzyBear??

He won’t return until he gets fresh talking points from the Dear Leader.

[pppolitics]

wut?

https://twitter.com/BrendanKeefe/status/1346254766180069376

[pppolitics]

https://twitter.com/bluestein/status/1346073464885682177

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Is it any surprise that a guy that believes everything he hears from the latest quack on the internet and says whatever comes to his mind, would not only violate multiple laws in terms of solicitation of criminal activity or conspiring to commit criminal activity, but do so on a regular and reoccurring basis?

The truth of the matter is, that between this and Ukraine and the number of other instance this guy has bumbled his way into criminal activity, it is safe to assume that there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of such incriminating phone calls and conversations dating back years where he has done the same exact thing simply because he is too stupid to realize it is illegal, and/or thinks he can do it "because everyone else does it" and/or simply because he thinks "he is infallible".

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

Is it any surprise that a guy that believes everything he hears from the latest quack on the internet and says whatever comes to his mind, would not only violate multiple laws in terms of solicitation of criminal activity or conspiring to commit criminal activity, but do so on a regular and reoccurring basis?

The truth of the matter is, that between this and Ukraine and the number of other instance this guy has bumbled his way into criminal activity, it is safe to assume that there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of such incriminating phone calls and conversations dating back years where he has done the same exact thing simply because he is too stupid to realize it is illegal, and/or thinks he can do it "because everyone else does it" and/or simply because he thinks "he is infallible".

I think this is an underrated factor in everything we have seen these last few years. The Trumpist cult has convinced themselves that Democrats always cheat to win elections - despite a lack of any evidence of that - so they therefore think it shouldn't be a big deal when Republicans try to do it.

[Badger]

wut?

https://twitter.com/BrendanKeefe/status/1346254766180069376

What is surprising here? The Fulton County DEA is obviously a Democrat who has no love for Trump, or perhaps another way is not part of the Trump cultist mentality absorbing 80 to 90% of the Republican party rank-and-file. And raffensberger desperately wants to move past this to have any shot whatsoever of winning his primary in 2 years.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

wut?

https://twitter.com/BrendanKeefe/status/1346254766180069376

What is surprising here? The Fulton County DEA is obviously a Democrat who has no love for Trump, or perhaps another way is not part of the Trump cultist mentality absorbing 80 to 90% of the Republican party rank-and-file. And raffensberger desperately wants to move past this to have any shot whatsoever of winning his primary in 2 years.

If he thinks that will work, he is a fool. His only hope is to go nuclear.

[Badger]

wut?

https://twitter.com/BrendanKeefe/status/1346254766180069376

What is surprising here? The Fulton County DEA is obviously a Democrat who has no love for Trump, or perhaps another way is not part of the Trump cultist mentality absorbing 80 to 90% of the Republican party rank-and-file. And raffensberger desperately wants to move past this to have any shot whatsoever of winning his primary in 2 years.

If he thinks that will work, he is a fool. His only hope is to go nuclear.

Whose hope? Raffensberger? I don't understand. Are you saying he needs to basically Buck the entire Trump wing of the Georgia Republican Party?

[R.P. McM]

wut?

https://twitter.com/BrendanKeefe/status/1346254766180069376

What is surprising here? The Fulton County DEA is obviously a Democrat who has no love for Trump, or perhaps another way is not part of the Trump cultist mentality absorbing 80 to 90% of the Republican party rank-and-file. And raffensberger desperately wants to move past this to have any shot whatsoever of winning his primary in 2 years.

If he thinks that will work, he is a fool. His only hope is to go nuclear.

Whose hope? Raffensberger? I don't understand. Are you saying he needs to basically Buck the entire Trump wing of the Georgia Republican Party?

Good luck with that. Yeah, the scariest thing about the current predicament is that we can reasonably infer that many of the elected officials know better. Does anyone believe that Ben Sasse, who tries to posture as a moral exemplar, wants to be humiliated in this fashion? He voted to disallow any witnesses at the impeachment trial, and voted to acquit Trump. So his moral authority is permanently shot. Unfortunately, it's the GOP voters who demand absolute fealty to Trump.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

wut?

https://twitter.com/BrendanKeefe/status/1346254766180069376

What is surprising here? The Fulton County DEA is obviously a Democrat who has no love for Trump, or perhaps another way is not part of the Trump cultist mentality absorbing 80 to 90% of the Republican party rank-and-file. And raffensberger desperately wants to move past this to have any shot whatsoever of winning his primary in 2 years.

If he thinks that will work, he is a fool. His only hope is to go nuclear.

Whose hope? Raffensberger? I don't understand. Are you saying he needs to basically Buck the entire Trump wing of the Georgia Republican Party?

Raffensberger is dead politically no matter how you slice it. His only slim hope is to destroy Trump before 2022. Trump isn't going to forgive and forget here, he is too far down the rabbit hole of quackery, not to mention the "it was stolen card" is too valuable to give up. Therefore Raffensberger needs to be offered up as burnt sacrifice for Trump's legitimacy to be maintained, since both cannot be right and Trump cannot come out and admit to being wrong.

Raffensberger's only hope is to find a way to destroy Trump by 2022. Whether or not he actually can, is a whole different matter.

What he probably thinks he can do is run a low profile race, draw a flawed challenger and find some way to exploit those flaws. But that is not how this works now, his primary will be high profile and their is no shortage of ambitious Republicans ready to twist the knife in Raffenberger's back to ride Trump to power.

[pppolitics]

wut?

https://twitter.com/BrendanKeefe/status/1346254766180069376

What is surprising here? The Fulton County DEA is obviously a Democrat who has no love for Trump, or perhaps another way is not part of the Trump cultist mentality absorbing 80 to 90% of the Republican party rank-and-file. And raffensberger desperately wants to move past this to have any shot whatsoever of winning his primary in 2 years.

The Republican Party is now a Trump cult and you are not going to get elected unless you are a Trump booklicker.

Raffensperger has no future as a Republican anyway at this point.

He has literally nothing to lose at this point.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

wut?

https://twitter.com/BrendanKeefe/status/1346254766180069376

What is surprising here? The Fulton County DEA is obviously a Democrat who has no love for Trump, or perhaps another way is not part of the Trump cultist mentality absorbing 80 to 90% of the Republican party rank-and-file. And raffensberger desperately wants to move past this to have any shot whatsoever of winning his primary in 2 years.

The Republican Party is now a Trump cult and you are not going to get elected unless you are a Trump booklicker.

Raffensperger has no future as a Republican anyway at this point.

He has literally nothing to lose at this point.

Freedom's just another word for...

So he might as well just roll the dice, he might get lucky.