All Things Trump: Is it over yet?

[Seabass]

Can Biden undo any pardons?

Nope.

[Seabass]

Even Germans can get Trump Derangement Syndrome.

1918 Germany Has a Warning for America

Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” campaign recalls one of the most disastrous political lies of the 20th century.



HAMBURG, Germany — It may well be that Germans have a special inclination to panic at specters from the past, and I admit that this alarmism annoys me at times. Yet watching President Trump’s “Stop the Steal” campaign since Election Day, I can’t help but see a parallel to one of the most dreadful episodes from Germany’s history.

One hundred years ago, amid the implosions of Imperial Germany, powerful conservatives who led the country into war refused to accept that they had lost. Their denial gave birth to arguably the most potent and disastrous political lie of the 20th century — the Dolchstosslegende, or stab-in-the-back myth.

Its core claim was that Imperial Germany never lost World War I. Defeat, its proponents said, was declared but not warranted. It was a conspiracy, a con, a capitulation — a grave betrayal that forever stained the nation. That the claim was palpably false didn’t matter. Among a sizable number of Germans, it stirred resentment, humiliation and anger. And the one figure who knew best how to exploit their frustration was Adolf Hitler.

Don’t get me wrong: This is not about comparing Mr. Trump to Hitler, which would be absurd. But the Dolchstosslegende provides a warning. It’s tempting to dismiss Mr. Trump’s irrational claim that the election was “rigged” as a laughable last convulsion of his reign or a cynical bid to heighten the market value for the TV personality he might once again intend to become, especially as he appears to be giving up on his effort to overturn the election result.

But that would be a grave error. Instead, the campaign should be seen as what it is: an attempt to elevate “They stole it” to the level of legend, perhaps seeding for the future social polarization and division on a scale America has never seen.

In 1918, Germany was staring at defeat. The entry of the United States into the war the year before, and a sequence of successful counterattacks by British and French forces, left German forces demoralized. Navy sailors went on strike. They had no appetite to be butchered in the hopeless yet supposedly holy mission of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the loyal aristocrats who made up the Supreme Army Command.

A starving population joined the strikes and demands for a republic grew. On Nov. 9, 1918, Wilhelm abdicated, and two days later the army leaders signed the armistice. It was too much to bear for many: Military officers, monarchists and right-wingers spread the myth that if it had not been for political sabotage by Social Democrats and Jews back home, the army would never have had to give in.

The deceit found willing supporters. “Im Felde unbesiegt” — “undefeated on the battlefield” — was the slogan with which returning soldiers were greeted. Newspapers and postcards depicted German soldiers being stabbed in the back by either evil figures carrying the red flag of socialism or grossly caricatured Jews.

By the time of the Treaty of Versailles the following year, the myth was already well established. The harsh conditions imposed by the Allies, including painful reparation payments, burnished the sense of betrayal. It was especially incomprehensible that Germany, in just a couple of years, had gone from one of the world’s most respected nations to its biggest loser.

The startling aspect about the Dolchstosslegende is this: It did not grow weaker after 1918 but stronger. In the face of humiliation and unable or unwilling to cope with the truth, many Germans embarked on a disastrous self-delusion: The nation had been betrayed, but its honor and greatness could never be lost. And those without a sense of national duty and righteousness — the left and even the elected government of the new republic — could never be legitimate custodians of the country.

In this way, the myth was not just the sharp wedge that drove the Weimar Republic apart. It was also at the heart of Nazi propaganda, and instrumental in justifying violence against opponents. The key to Hitler’s success was that, by 1933, a considerable part of the German electorate had put the ideas embodied in the myth — honor, greatness, national pride — above democracy.

The Germans were so worn down by the lost war, unemployment and international humiliation that they fell prey to the promises of a “Führer” who cracked down hard on anyone perceived as “traitors,” leftists and Jews above all. The stab-in-the-back myth was central to it all. When Hitler became chancellor on Jan. 30, 1933, the Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter wrote that “irrepressible pride goes through the millions” who fought so long to “undo the shame of 9 November 1918.”

Germany’s first democracy fell. Without a basic consensus built on a shared reality, society split into groups of ardent, uncompromising partisans. And in an atmosphere of mistrust and paranoia, the notion that dissenters were threats to the nation steadily took hold.

Alarmingly, that seems to be exactly what is happening in the United States today. According to the Pew Research Center, 89 percent of Trump supporters believe that a Joe Biden presidency would do “lasting harm to the U.S.,” while 90 percent of Biden supporters think the reverse. And while the question of which news media to trust has long split America, now even the largely unmoderated Twitter is regarded as partisan. Since the election, millions of Trump supporters have installed the alternative social media app Parler. Filter bubbles are turning into filter networks.

In such a landscape of social fragmentation, Mr. Trump’s baseless accusations about electoral fraud could do serious harm. A staggering 88 percent of Trump voters believe that the election result is illegitimate, according to a YouGov poll. A myth of betrayal and injustice is well underway.

It took another war and decades of reappraisal for the Dolchstosslegende to be exposed as a disastrous, fatal fallacy. If it has any worth today, it is in the lessons it can teach other nations. First among them: Beware the beginnings.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/30/opin ... -1918.html

All these fascism comparisons are ridiculous!

[Hermit]

Innocent people always ask for pardons, right?

Rudy Giuliani reportedly seeks pardon from Donald Trump

Rudy Giuliani, former New York City mayor and the man leading Donald Trump's legal challenge to the 2020 election, is reported to have had discussions with the president about obtaining a pardon.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that Mr Giuliani is allegedly seeking a pre-emptive pardon from Mr Trump. The newspaper cites two unnamed people with knowledge of the discussion.

The anonymous sources said it was no clear who broached the topic first, and it was not immediately clear if Mr Trump would follow through on the request.

There were no immediate details regarding the crimes Mr Giuliani allegedly wants pardoned. Federal prosecutors were investigating him last summer for his involvement in Ukraine business dealings that eventually led to Mr Trump's impeachment.

Mr Giuliani's lawyer told the paper in a statement that he's "not concerned about this investigation, because he didn't do anything wrong and that's been our position from Day 1."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 64579.html

Is there such a thing as a pre-emptive pardon? I thought only people who were charged and were found guilty can be pardoned. The idea of pardoning someone who has not been charged with having done anything illegal, let alone been convicted of it, seems absurd.

[Seabass]

Is there such a thing as a pre-emptive pardon?

Yes.

The idea of pardoning someone who has not been charged with having done anything illegal, let alone been convicted of it, seems absurd.

Yes.

[Hermit]

Even Germans can get Trump Derangement Syndrome.

1918 Germany Has a Warning for America

Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” campaign recalls one of the most disastrous political lies of the 20th century.



HAMBURG, Germany — It may well be that Germans have a special inclination to panic at specters from the past, and I admit that this alarmism annoys me at times. Yet watching President Trump’s “Stop the Steal” campaign since Election Day, I can’t help but see a parallel to one of the most dreadful episodes from Germany’s history.

One hundred years ago, amid the implosions of Imperial Germany, powerful conservatives who led the country into war refused to accept that they had lost. Their denial gave birth to arguably the most potent and disastrous political lie of the 20th century — the Dolchstosslegende, or stab-in-the-back myth.

Its core claim was that Imperial Germany never lost World War I. Defeat, its proponents said, was declared but not warranted. It was a conspiracy, a con, a capitulation — a grave betrayal that forever stained the nation. That the claim was palpably false didn’t matter. Among a sizable number of Germans, it stirred resentment, humiliation and anger. And the one figure who knew best how to exploit their frustration was Adolf Hitler.

Don’t get me wrong: This is not about comparing Mr. Trump to Hitler, which would be absurd. But the Dolchstosslegende provides a warning. It’s tempting to dismiss Mr. Trump’s irrational claim that the election was “rigged” as a laughable last convulsion of his reign or a cynical bid to heighten the market value for the TV personality he might once again intend to become, especially as he appears to be giving up on his effort to overturn the election result.

But that would be a grave error. Instead, the campaign should be seen as what it is: an attempt to elevate “They stole it” to the level of legend, perhaps seeding for the future social polarization and division on a scale America has never seen.

In 1918, Germany was staring at defeat. The entry of the United States into the war the year before, and a sequence of successful counterattacks by British and French forces, left German forces demoralized. Navy sailors went on strike. They had no appetite to be butchered in the hopeless yet supposedly holy mission of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the loyal aristocrats who made up the Supreme Army Command.

A starving population joined the strikes and demands for a republic grew. On Nov. 9, 1918, Wilhelm abdicated, and two days later the army leaders signed the armistice. It was too much to bear for many: Military officers, monarchists and right-wingers spread the myth that if it had not been for political sabotage by Social Democrats and Jews back home, the army would never have had to give in.

The deceit found willing supporters. “Im Felde unbesiegt” — “undefeated on the battlefield” — was the slogan with which returning soldiers were greeted. Newspapers and postcards depicted German soldiers being stabbed in the back by either evil figures carrying the red flag of socialism or grossly caricatured Jews.

By the time of the Treaty of Versailles the following year, the myth was already well established. The harsh conditions imposed by the Allies, including painful reparation payments, burnished the sense of betrayal. It was especially incomprehensible that Germany, in just a couple of years, had gone from one of the world’s most respected nations to its biggest loser.

The startling aspect about the Dolchstosslegende is this: It did not grow weaker after 1918 but stronger. In the face of humiliation and unable or unwilling to cope with the truth, many Germans embarked on a disastrous self-delusion: The nation had been betrayed, but its honor and greatness could never be lost. And those without a sense of national duty and righteousness — the left and even the elected government of the new republic — could never be legitimate custodians of the country.

In this way, the myth was not just the sharp wedge that drove the Weimar Republic apart. It was also at the heart of Nazi propaganda, and instrumental in justifying violence against opponents. The key to Hitler’s success was that, by 1933, a considerable part of the German electorate had put the ideas embodied in the myth — honor, greatness, national pride — above democracy.

The Germans were so worn down by the lost war, unemployment and international humiliation that they fell prey to the promises of a “Führer” who cracked down hard on anyone perceived as “traitors,” leftists and Jews above all. The stab-in-the-back myth was central to it all. When Hitler became chancellor on Jan. 30, 1933, the Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter wrote that “irrepressible pride goes through the millions” who fought so long to “undo the shame of 9 November 1918.”

Germany’s first democracy fell. Without a basic consensus built on a shared reality, society split into groups of ardent, uncompromising partisans. And in an atmosphere of mistrust and paranoia, the notion that dissenters were threats to the nation steadily took hold.

Alarmingly, that seems to be exactly what is happening in the United States today. According to the Pew Research Center, 89 percent of Trump supporters believe that a Joe Biden presidency would do “lasting harm to the U.S.,” while 90 percent of Biden supporters think the reverse. And while the question of which news media to trust has long split America, now even the largely unmoderated Twitter is regarded as partisan. Since the election, millions of Trump supporters have installed the alternative social media app Parler. Filter bubbles are turning into filter networks.

In such a landscape of social fragmentation, Mr. Trump’s baseless accusations about electoral fraud could do serious harm. A staggering 88 percent of Trump voters believe that the election result is illegitimate, according to a YouGov poll. A myth of betrayal and injustice is well underway.

It took another war and decades of reappraisal for the Dolchstosslegende to be exposed as a disastrous, fatal fallacy. If it has any worth today, it is in the lessons it can teach other nations. First among them: Beware the beginnings.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/30/opin ... -1918.html

All these fascism comparisons are ridiculous!

[Brian Peacock]

Is there such a thing as a pre-emptive pardon? I thought only people who were charged and were found guilty can be pardoned. The idea of pardoning someone who has not been charged with having done anything illegal, let alone been convicted of it, seems absurd.

I think the legal argument goes something like this:

"You know me. I'm a pretty decent kind of guy. Everyone says so. I wouldn't break the law on purpose would I? And if I did it would probably be by accident, like on a technicality or something. It's not like I'm a violent criminal is it? I mean, if I had broken a law, like I said on a technicality or something, I wouldn't have hurt anyone. That's just not who I am. I'm just not that kind of guy. So if it turns out that a court says I broke a law - not saying I did break a law of course, but if it turns out that a court says I did - can I have a pre-signed pardon please?"

[rainbow]

Is there such a thing as a pre-emptive pardon? I thought only people who were charged and were found guilty can be pardoned. The idea of pardoning someone who has not been charged with having done anything illegal, let alone been convicted of it, seems absurd.

I think the legal argument goes something like this:

"You know me. I'm a pretty decent kind of guy. Everyone says so. I wouldn't break the law on purpose would I? And if I did it would probably be by accident, like on a technicality or something. It's not like I'm a violent criminal is it? I mean, if I had broken a law, like I said on a technicality or something, I wouldn't have hurt anyone. That's just not who I am. I'm just not that kind of guy. So if it turns out that a court says I broke a law - not saying I did break a law of course, but if it turns out that a court says I did - can I have a pre-signed pardon please?"

There could be the small matter of a water-damaged laptop that Julie-Annie claimed to have found, and which is now part of an FBI investigation. Could he claim that he didn't know it was a Russian set-up, and so not really a crime to try to change the course of an election by leading false evidence?

...just a thought.

[Brian Peacock]

The classic "I believed my lies were true at the time" defense?

[Tero]

I am pretty sure the pre-emptive pardon is still crimes that were committed before Trump left. If you commit a crime in 2021 it won't be covered.

[Tero]

white house staff, other than press secretary, is going full speed at shredding now

[Sean Hayden]

I guess what I'm questioning more and more is our leader's tendency to make clear distinctions between themselves and us, questioning the nature of the feedback between politicians and the populous and asking if "We, The People" elect them to work for-and-in our interests why are a lot of important things seemingly getting worse for us rather than better. If the answer to that is that we've just got what we voted for then I'd ask who voted more inequality, falling wages against prices, increasing levels of individual and household debt, failing public services, greater job insecurity and poorer workplace protections, higher levels of evictions and repossessions, not to mention environmental degradation, global heating and planetary death?

Indeed. But millions don't see it that way. People will defend their right to lower pay, less vacation, higher risk of cancer, and more. A person will vote to limit welfare, and then complain when they can't find a way to cheat Uncle Sam on taxes. Tell them everyone needs help sometimes and they'll agree, but swear others are taking advantage.

If true, then my question is who's telling us these are the kind of things that are good for us? If these things are value-based where are we getting our values from? But if these things are features of the systems we've created then what's stopping us from creating new, different, better systems?

Again, I can only encourage us to acknowledge the people problem. I don't think there's a neat relationship between our systems and our values, much less our personalities. Some of what goes into our systems is intended to account for this and to allow us to function despite our differences. But your questions here are close to straying into thinking about how to design the system so as to eliminate at least some our differences i.e. how can we design a system that instills the right values? I think this sets an unrealistic expectation.

That's my biggest issue with the video you posted. I think he encourages people to have unrealistic expectations. People are enormously problematic. Deliberations don't typically settle matters to a majorities satisfaction. Telling people that more democracy will lead to better outcomes, and using a fantasy depiction of deliberation looks like some kind of motivational populism to me.

Do you think we might have reached peak progress, at least in the social-economic sense?

I feel like a bit of an arrogant twat even entertaining the question. But, because it's fun, I'd say we have a lot of room for growth. I believe a lack of universal healthcare and welfare are the most significant hindrances to a more civilized US.

I'll happily acknowledge the people problem. Like you said, people will effectively vote for lower wages and fewer holidays, worse schools and poorer health outcomes, rollbacks in environmental laws that will increase their cancer risk or state-backed usury, etc etc. People will vote for warmongers who say they're walking the path of peace, corporate shills who say they're on the side of the little guys against the elites, serial philanderers and perverts who extol the virtues of traditional family values, sworn law-and-order types who break the law for profit and lolz and then functionally excuse themselves from the consequences, committed democratic constitutionalists who sidestep democratic processes and undermine the conventions of government, avowed free-trade advocates who institutionalise monopoly control and hand out contracts to their friends, allies, and even themselves... The list goes on - and on.

The 'people problem' problem is that collectively we keep falling for the expensively advertised self-promoting narratives of chancers, charlatans, bare-faced liars and (judging by where we are now) sociopathic narcissists whose personalities and actions border on psychopathy - and the systems of checks and balances we've developed to protect us from malign ne'er-do-wells don't appear to be checking or balancing those who aspire to, acquire, or utilise the power of the state in their own interests and against our own.

We vote for these peace-loving-anti-elitist-family-values-law-and-order-freedom-and-liberty-fair-trade-democrats for good reasons: we actually think all those things are good things to vote for. Those peace-loving-anti-elitist-family-values-law-and-order-freedom-and-liberty-fair-trade-democratic narratives tell us about who we'd like to be and what we'd like to stand for as a society or a nation; they tell us what it means to be a citizen, what it means to be a proper patriot, what our values are. Surely these are good values, the right values, values we can all get behind regardless or in spite of our differences on this-or-that particular issue, eh(?) When chancers, charlatans, and liars tell us stories which reinforce these values in order to persuade us to vote for them can't we call that an exercise in 'motivated popularism' too? We sure like to believe them don't we?

I'm also more than willing to acknowledge that there's no "neat relationship between our systems and our values", but that's not to say there's no relationship - there clearly is: it's just, well, complicated.

Take that magnificent document 'The Constitution of the United States' for example - a document which literally defines a nation into existence. It starts with a declaration of values: things we can all get behind -- justice, social peace and order, collective protection, the securing of the kind of liberty that comes with a freedom from tyranny, the advancement and enhancement of individual and collective prosperity and well-being, etc -- and the justifying, legitimising force of that declaration is backed by the idea that everyone in this newly constituted society will essentially and fundamentally be considered equal, and therefore guaranteed equal rights, protections and privileges in accordance with and pursuance of those values. In the context of its times that was a pretty big deal! After setting the secene the document then goes on to outline the systems that are to be put into place in order to achieve these, the nation's, goals; systems which at their root express certain held common values and attempt to put them into practice under the auspices of a freshly minted state.

Of course there's a lot to talk about regarding to what degree that project has been successful, or not - where and how it has (or does) work and where and how it hasn't (or doesn't) - but my point here is that there's a clear and direct relationship between broadly agreed social values and the operation of the democratic state - in this example, and I believe in many others. (And when I say 'broadly agreed social values' there I mean human social values that appear to be in the same ballpark across all societies even while there's variation within that wider, but not boundless, set).

Oooff! That took me a bit by surprise!

So the point I wanted to address was the idea that advocating for a system change in the administration of state power towards towards something like direct or deliberative democracy (not the same thing, but similar-ish) is just a kind of exercise in political nest-feathering, just something to achieve particular political ends which favour particular political ideals - an exercise in 'motivated popularism' as you so concisely put it. Well, perhaps it is, perhaps, but if so does that necessarily make it dubious, and in practice would it look substantially different to the non-direct/deliberative systems we have at the moment, which simply is to ask: aren't the systems we've inherited and devised of late not also exercises in nest-feathering to achieve particular political ends which favour particular political ideals? Here I think the question unavoidably turns to what political ideals and ends we're actually talking about in relation to these systems - what popular ideals direct/deliberative democracy are trying to express, what they might be motivating us towards, and what ends those kind of systems might achieve.

We can look at the recent example of deliberative democracy in relation to the change in Ireland's constitutional laws which criminalised abortion. Participants to the citizen's assemblies were invited by lot and asked to consider abortion in broad terms, and at the conclusion of the process to make recommendations for the government and parliament to consider. Those who accepted the invitation were given a dispassionate explanation of the current laws, their history, and implementation, examples of different systems from around the world; they took verbal and written submissions from medical experts, religious representatives, political parties, stakeholders and vested interests; they could request more information as they saw fit and call witnesses; and they were made fully aware that they were deliberating on behalf of all citizens and that their conclusions would only form recommendations to parliament and wouldn't automatically result in either a change in the law or in things remaining the same. As far as possible an open conclusion was built in to a process that was overseen by an independent body with no vested interest in the outcome.

The Irish parliament and government adopted this course of action for good reason. Abortion was highly politicised and the country had a 100-year long history of political and religious alignment making it almost impossible to discuss the issue, let alone reach a political consensus on a constitutional amendment - and yet the broad view among the population and the even the political classes was that anti-abortion laws just weren't working for the benefit of women or society at large. Something had to be done and yet political processes were unable to achieve the kind of consensus needed to do anything about it.

In the end the assemblies recommended that abortion should be decriminalised and abortion services should regularised with other nations, the parliament broadly accepted the recommendations and held a referendum on the constitutional matter, and Ireland voted. Although campaigns both for and against the constitutional question were often highly political and politicised the deliberative process was a concerted attempt to de-politicise an issue that had a broad impact on society and on women in particular. Now I'm sure a good proportion of the population weren't happy with the result, and no doubt the votaries of Catholicism were particularly aggrieved, but as a society a broad consensus was arrived at and expressed, and even those who weren't happy with the outcome could at least see the that the democratic utilitarian argument had been articulated and widely endorsed. At least nobody but the usual blowhards are calling it an undemocratic disaster.

This is not to say that there's a strong argument for all of government to work this way, for citizens to have direct input into economic or foreign policy, public spending, civil order or national defence, but in a situation where political consensus on an important issue cannot be arrived out -- either for party political, historical, or systematic reasons -- and where a good argument can be made that the current systems or laws are working against the interests of citizens -- say in terms of healthcare or social welfare or housing or food poverty etc(?) -- why might we be inclined to think that direct/deliberative democracy is somehow an inferior, dubious exercise in 'motivate popularism'? Isn't that, you know, poisoning the well a bit?

Aren't all political arguments moral arguments -- arguments over values and how they're expressed and put into practice in society -- and in that sense isn't all of politics an exercise in motivated popularism -- in motivating the populous based on the articulation of values -- and couldn't things like deliberative democracy represent systems which motivate people to engage and interface with political and democratic processes more directly -- processes which are supposed to express our broad values and underpin our societies in fundamental and important ways anyway -- as well as a de-politicised means of exploring where the consensus actually lies?

Asking for a friend.

The people problem is not only that we are mislead, it is also that we have different values, personalities, and abilities. Arguing otherwise is too convenient, and again, unrealistic in a “motivational populism” sort of way.

You’ve correctly identified what are usually considered our shared values. But I think you’ve neglected our different outlooks on how best to realize them. Yes, we all want justice. However, you and I may disagree on the merits of capital punishment in a just society, or the causes of recidivism, or whether a just society tolerates drug use, or prostitution, or what conditions prisoners are kept in etc. These differences can be so great that we may question the sense of calling justice, beyond some innate concept of fairness, a shared value at all.

Given that context, how realistic is an expectation that more democracy will lead to better outcomes?

When you have the majority and the wind is at your back, it must seem very likely. Ireland’s abortion law was an outlier. The pressure they have felt for many years now to conform to their “more civilized” neighbors must have been immense. It may be the case that rather than a success for deliberative democracy, you’ve described the usual movement of opinion from peer pressure. Being surrounded by better peers lead to a better outcome.

The US Constitution makes the same case really. It took a better American to realize any part of its views on equality.

[Tero]

Trump cites fake news site of scanners messed up etc. The witness does not understand how the machine works.
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy ... ssion=true

[Tero]

[Tero]

It won't copy and paste

[Scot Dutchy]

They should open a funny farm for these people.