• RangerJosie@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    He should have resigned in the last year of his presidency. Had Pence pardon him. Then attended functions for the rest of his life as a “dignified former president”

    But nah. He bought his own hype. Now he has to win or he dies in prison. And it’s every bit his own damn fault. Fully self inflicted.

    • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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      3 months ago

      The problem is he didn’t trust pence to follow through. And self pardons were a very big legal grey area. And it didn’t help that people were realizing Biden could kick his ass which brought back trump’s PTSD over Obama’s… existence?

      But also? He will never see a day of prison (might get some jail stays though). Democrats care too much about “decorum” to throw the book at him and his handlers have enough money that he will appeal everything until the day he dies… which might be accelerated depending upon how much he pisses off those handlers.

    • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      This fucker is driven by nothing but his psychotic narcissism. The very idea of no longer being center of attention is probably his biggest nightmare.

      • JigglySackles@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        It’s kind of like Vizzini in that regard. He uses it, but it doesn’t mean what he thinks it means.

        • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
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          3 months ago

          I don’t know why I didn’t draw the Vizzini parallel myself before now; it’s not perfect, but does fit a surprisingly large portion of not just who Trump is, but also how he sees himself.

          But he really wants to be seen as Prince Humperdink AND the six fingered man. And Vance is his Igor.

          • JigglySackles@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Lol agreed, I was worried someone would take it too literal and want a perfect parallel, so I’m glad you saw through that.

      • Zeppo@sh.itjust.works
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        3 months ago

        This is in a hypothetical situation where he didn’t run in 2020, so he wouldn’t have done the election manipulation in Georgia.

    • Zeppo@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      Plenty of suggestions as long as we’re second-guessing his actions. Many of his crimes were related to the 2020 election, and if he hadn’t ran, he wouldn’t have issues in Georgia. We could also just say he could have not taken a bunch of classified documents, but it’s pretty easy to say “just don’t commit crimes”. The main one that he couldn’t avoid at that point was the Stormy Daniels hush money case.

      • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        The main one that he couldn’t avoid at that point was the Stormy Daniels hush money case.

        If Trump had exited without a fight, my guess is that most of the momentum for that would have died out. Yes it was a crime, but I think most would have just wanted to put Trump in the rear view mirror and forget about him and focus on the future for better or worse.

        • Zeppo@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          Possibly. That would be basically agreeing with his claim that it was politically motivated prosecution, though. Seems to me like he really pissed off some people in New York and they may have done it anyway.

          • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Possibly. That would be basically agreeing with his claim that it was politically motivated prosecution, though.

            I disagree with your conclusion.

            As an example, Nixon committed worse crimes than Trump’s New York state crimes, and Nixon was not prosecuted for his crimes. Had authorities pursued conviction of Nixon that would not have been politically motivated.

            • Zeppo@sh.itjust.works
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              3 months ago

              I’m not saying I agree with Trump saying that in the first place. But to say he’s prosecuted because he’s running and wouldn’t be if he wasn’t seems like the definition of politically motivated. In any event, he’s being prosecuted because he’s guilty.

              • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                When someone in good faith says “This prosecution against me is politically motivated.” They are communicating the idea that the charges were manufactured without any underlying crime or possibly the underlying crime is minuscule, but the charges are overblown. Neither of those is the case with Trump.

                If you’re just using the dictionary definitions of the words, “politically”, “motivated”, and “prosecuted” then yes it meets that, but then so does a whole bunch of other absurd stuff you don’t mean when using the same logic. By that logic a home burglar is the victim of “politically motivate prosecution” because our legal policy is that burglary is a crime and that the burglar is being prosecuted because of it.

                • dnick@sh.itjust.works
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                  3 months ago

                  That’s not a good parallel, it’s the politically ‘motivated’ part he’s referring to. If someone is being prosecuted because they’re running for office, and you have a legitimate argument that if they had chosen not to run for office the charges would have been dropped, it’s legitimate to say it’s politically motivated.

                  On the other hand, if your crime was literally campaign finance crimes and voter manipulation, there’s a reasonable argument that ‘politically motivated’ isn’t necessarily a bad thing here. If you did a political crime, and seem likely to continue to be politically motivated to commit more crimes, it kind of makes sense that prosecuting you with a tiny bit of political intent isn’t totally unreasonable.

      • RangerJosie@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Isn’t “just don’t commit crimes” a common justification for police murder and deflection when prison reform is brought up?

        • Zeppo@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          I guess. Not stealing a bunch of classified documents and refusing to give them back is a great way to not be prosecuted for stealing classified documents though.

          Anyway what I meant by “pretty easy to say” is that it’s not really a satisfying or useful suggestion.

      • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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        3 months ago

        hadn’t ran

        It’s “hadn’t run” in English.

        Sorry about your highway shooting, glad if no one’s been killed.