Don't blame me, I voted for the other guy. (Politics General)

Oh, update on that Kash Patel fellow. In addition to being unquestionably loyal to Trump, he has a history of promoting QAnon conspiracies and is focused on getting Donald’s revenge. If the incoming GOP majority on the Senate confirms him, they’ll not only be abdicating any claim to belief in the rule of law, but will be taking it from the rest of the country too.

Well, seeing as how they’ve made it clear for years now that they’re only in it for themselves and generally only care about the “rule of law” when they can use it against Democrats, I have no doubt they’ll confirm him without the slightest hint of hesitation.

@Background Pony #3E47
“Rule of law” just means the people rule who are ‘supposed’ to rule. It’s part of the narrative that they are the ‘true’ Americans and democrats are some foreign entity.
They are against the rule of law. “Rule of law” comes from the enlightenment as a contrast to a rule of man which meant kings and nobles. In a country ruled by law everyone is supposedly under the law and no one is above it. If anything republicans want to end the rule of law and make sure oligarchs like Musk and elite political figures like Trump are above the law and can dictate irrespective of it.

The biggest test of the rule of law was Covid where the rule of law not only applied to the average person but to the elite as well. The republicans made it very clear they prioritized the convenience and profits of the elite over the rule of law.
I think their attitude towards the covid restrictions, mask mandates and vaccine requirements showed that they do not care about the rule of law. It’s easy to say you support the rule of law if it’s applied to people you consider beneath you on the social hierarchy. It’s not so easy if it’s applied to you and those you consider your peers.
It’s a feature you see commonly with fascists though as they care about social hierarchy above all. The “law” is not a principle to govern by but is a tool to enforce social hierarchy. Fascist rule is a rule by law rather than a rule of law. In the mind of a fascist the superior ‘in’ group ought to be above the law because that’s how it’s supposed to be, they are the winners. It’s part of why they have no qualms about Trump being a criminal, the law isn’t supposed to apply to him in their eyes. In their eyes the law is something that applies only to those below them, it’s something for them to use and so they consider it unfair and like an attack if it’s used against them.

Rule of law though has shown to be the best way to govern. To have laws that are effective apply to everyone. Rather than having a handful of elite who can do what they want regardless of the consequences for everyone else. The weakness of rule of law has always been oligarchy though and if oligarchy becomes powerful enough they will try to overrule it. Pretty much as soon as laws have existed there have been elites who consider themselves above such things.

@Dustcan
@AlanMeneses
👍

Would it have been better if Trump had won in 2020? Think about it. Trump would be termed out, and with inflation, his tariffs causing a recession, and his terrible response to COVID, a Democrat would have won the 2024 election in a landslide.

As any football coach will tell you, sometimes you need to tank the season so you can clean up at the draft.

It’s probably a good thing that I’m not a political campaign manager OR a football coach.

@Background Pony #8C5F
I think it would have crushed his political chances forever. His tariffs and money printing caused inflation but when it was about to kick in Covid hit and it had a strong deflationary effect cause of the lockdowns. Which delayed the inflation till after he was out of office. This then combined with the supply issues and price gauging (helped by Trump’s deregulation) to push prices up massively within the first year of Biden taking over letting people associate the inflation with him.

Most people judge a president by the first year even though that’s actually the least informative one. In a country as large as the US decisions take time to be felt so the first 2 years of a president’s term really is the aftermath of their predecessor. It’s also why Trump could be believed to have a strong economy since he could take credit for Obama’s strong economic growth. I’m also pretty sure he will for the first 2 years of this term take credit for all the big projects that Biden has started. Taking credit for the work of others is something Trump has always done.

You shouldn’t judge a president by their first year but rather by comparing the first year to the last year. If you compare 2016 to 2020 it’s clear Trump left the US economy in a much worse state than he inherited it. But propaganda made people remember only the first part of Trump’s term where he had the economy inherited from Obama. Obama’s economy was flawed especially with how high the wealth disparity was but Trump did nothing to fix it and only made it worse. Which was a mess he passed on to Biden.The US economy in 2024 is a lot better than in 2020 but people are comparing 2017 to 2021 instead. First impression matters and the economic mess Biden inherited pretty much doomed him from the start.

Let’s not forget that Donny-boy’s COVID response was a fiasco to the tune of tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths. If he’d been allowed to continue that, what would the death toll have been? And continue to be, given COVID ain’t exactly going away?

@Kazapsky
But people tend to go by first impression. So most of Trump’s disasters were blamed on Biden who had to then fix them. People like to compare 2021 to 2017 as the first year of the president but that’s actually the least useful one considering very few things have been done yet and it’s more so the aftermath of the previous administration.

Tens of thousands is underselling it. By my last check some 1.2 million died from COVID and two separate studies attributed Trump’s impossibly terrible response for around half.

So yeah, Trump straight up took the entire population of a large city (Or the entire state of Wyoming) to 5th Avenue and he really didn’t lose a single voter.

But don’t call it a cult.

@Background Pony #8C5F
🤷

@BlitztheDragon
inb4 Trump turns the FBI into the SS.

@Background Pony #6471
He can’t, the Secret Service is already camping that name :p

@The Smiling Pony
👍👍
Plus there’s the mid-terms.
And Trump doesn’t always fulfill promises

Yeah. He’s already walking back some of his tariff promises and making all kinds of excuses for the others.

Likely because someone told him that slapping tariffs on “all BRICS countries” would include Russia. Nuh uh, his Vladdy Daddy would not like that one bit.

I mean, at this point it’s a good thing that Trump is already backtracking on his promise to cause an Instant Recession^TM, but yeah it’s pretty distressing that they best case scenario is relying on the incoming president making a 180 on their campaign issues. Previously that’s why a president inevitably sucks.

A first-of-its-kind medical study has been published to empirically compare the physical fitness of trans people compared to their cisgender counterparts.

They found that trans women overall performed worse than cisgender women, so that pretty much discredits the idea that trans women in women’s sports is “unfair.” Then again, it was never about “fairness in sports;” that was a wedge issue to get normies on board with imposing restrictions on trans people.

@Dustcan
No matter what you do as President you will be judged.

@BlitztheDragon
A thought recently occurred to me: what’s the overlap of small-/limited/anti-gov’t people who are trans-hostile? Because isn’t it supporting the state to deadname someone with their government name?

Huh. You mean trans people aren’t genetic super soldier ubermensches?

Huh. The reich-wing lied to me. They’ve never done that before.

@igotnopicks
Maybe, but comparing Lincoln and Nixon shows that not all judgement is equal.

@BlitztheDragon
If anything, it’s unfair to the trans women.

@Dustcan
Let’s hope he backtracks on his promise to do a Kristallnacht on the immigrants.

@Dustcan
Are you serious? This is going to upset his base a lot lol.

@Dustcan
@Background Pony #6471
Kinda doubt it, but who knows? 🤷