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On Real America's Voice this morning, Steve Bannon said, "this is just not rhetoric," that a 2025 Trump administration will have serious prosecutions and accountability that eliminate the deep state.

BANNON: "We're absolutely dead serious. We're not - you cannot have a constitutional republic and allow what these deep staters have done to the country. The deep state, the administrative state, the fourth branch of government never mentioned in the Constitution, is going to be taken apart, brick by brick and the people that did these evil deeds will be held accountable and prosecuted, criminal prosecutions."

Umm, criminally prosecuted for what, exactly? He doesn't say but looks to Kash Patel for an answer.

Bannon says that Kash Patel will become Trump's CIA Director in 2025 and asks Patel if he will deliver prosecutions. Patel says, you bet, he will correct these justices and lawyers who have been prosecuting these cases based on politics and actually issuing them as lawfare.

So I guess all those people who plea bargained, or pled guilty, or were found guilty in a court of law were being prosecuted outside the legal system?

PATEL: "We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media. Yes, we're going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.

We're going to come after you, whether it's criminal or civilly, we'll figure that out. But yeah, we're putting you all on notice and Steve, this is why they hate us. This is why we're tyrannical."

Jeebus, these guys are a couple bricks shy of a full load.

Bannon says that Kash Patel will become Trump's CIA Director in 2025 and asks Patel if he will deliver prosecutions. Patel says, you bet, he will correct these justices and lawyers who have been prosecuting these cases based on politics and actually issuing them as lawfare.

How does the CIA deliver internal prosecutions? I would think you'd corrupt the DOJ and the FBI to get internal prosecutions.

Jeebus, these guys are a couple bricks shy of a full load.

Is it theater for the MAGA know-nothings? Or do they think they will really be in a position to create a fascist state?

It's neither fascism or tyranny, but just delusion. Bannon has no idea what Trump will or will not do, and (as pointed out above) doesn't really understand that Kash Patel's fantasies about being CIA director don't correspond with bringing domestic prosecutions.

I have to say, though, that I think all of this continued discussion of how Trump is going to be an effective fascist tyrant upon election is probably a really dumb move on the part of Democrats. Part of Trump's political appeal is the projection of strength. That he's a strongman, that he can take charge, that if he's elected that he will have the power to "turn a battleship on a dime," that he will have the ability to deliver to Republicans results, rather than stalemates. IOW, that he actually has the skills and power and allies to turn the national government from an unwieldy amalgam of Democratic and Republican priorities into a purely Republican one.

That's almost certainly false. Trump probably learned some things from his first term in office, and he's more likely to staff power positions with loyalists than back then. But still - stacking his appointments with idiotic syncophants with little real ability to manage sprawling bureaucracies isn't going to suddenly make Trump super-effective in working his will. Trump might fancy himself a dictator, and he might even want to become a dictator, but being a dictator requires a strength and skill-set and willingness to take risks that Trump utterly lacks. He was ineffective at implementing his priorities as President not merely because he had some cabinet officials that weren't necessarily loyalist - he was ineffective at implementing his priorities as President because he is lazy, uncurious about how power actually works in Washington, and constantly trying to get other people to do risky things so that he wouldn't have to.

Democrats are doing a fantastic job at marketing Trump to Republican voters the way he wants to be perceived.

Democrats are doing a fantastic job at marketing Trump to Republican voters the way he wants to be perceived.

But they (Republicans, or most of them) are already sold. Makes no difference with Reps. I would argue that what they're doing is scaring the bajeezus out of the moderates and independents, as well as the Dems. Which should result in a lot more of them showing up at the polls to defeat Trump (just like last time).

I would argue that what they're doing is scaring the bajeezus out of the moderates and independents, as well as the Dems. Which should result in a lot more of them showing up at the polls to defeat Trump (just like last time).

Maybe - but I suspect it might be backfiring.

Trump's appeal to moderates and independents (the ones who elected him the time before last time) is based on claims of strength and competence. He was the businessman who could cut through it all. Few voters really like the idea that the federal government is like a battleship that can't be turned on a dime....that if they elect a guy (Republican or Democrat), he can't get his policies enacted because staff is recalcitrant or it takes 400 days to get through review and comment or through the simple fact that an organization as large as the federal government just can't be tamed by a single leader. Most normies don't think that's a plus.

So when Democrats go out there and portray Trump as hypercompetent, it plays to the image he's campaigning on. Unlike any prior President, he's going to be able to bend the federal government to his wishes. He's going to be able to get every level of every agency to do exactly what he wants. He's going to be able to give a thousand executive orders and have them carried out. He's going to be able to set policy without some career lawyer or bureaucrat telling him that it can't be done, or violates the statute, or is inconsistent with agency practice. He'll be the first President in history who the Colossus will bow to.

Even though there's nothing about Trump that suggests this is likely to be the case. He was really bad at the nuts and bolts of Presidenting, uninterested in how power actually works in the federal government. He was self-defeating and impatient, unwilling to listen to people trying to teach him what steps were required for actions to hold up in court, unwilling to work with appointees who knew how things worked. He is unwilling to put effort into things he's disinterested in, and is terrible at negotiating with people whose help he needs but don't have to say yes. And he's timid and risk-averse when anything important of his own is on the line.

He's not skilled at governing, and he's not going to hire anyone skilled at governing. He's going to get bogged down in the courts, because he's not going to listen to any of the people who could keep him from getting bogged down in the courts. And he's going to get stonewalled by Congress, because he's incapable of working with people that don't have to do what he says.

"He's going to ignore informal norms and guiderails in order to successfully achieve Republican objectives" is not a negative to a lot of moderates and independents.

I don't think they're portraying him as "hypercompetent". But, if they are, I agree they should stop. Portray him as a wannabe dictator whose companies have failed (multiple times), couldn't get anything through a friendly congress, couldn't guide an insurrection (fortunately), wanted to inject bleach to deal with COVID, etc. An easy portrayal, since it's all true.

I don't think they're portraying him as "hypercompetent".

--------------

Correct. Competency is associated with getting complex, difficult, VALUABLE things accomplished amid dozens of constraints, not the least of which are legality and morality.

No one would ever equate competency with any act performed by Trump.

Trump is effective at making events happen, but that is only because

a) he is incapable of considering negative consequences for anyone on the planet except himself

b) his warped childhood and corrupted adulthood have convinced him he can escape legal consequences for his actions

c) via his warped childhood, he has been instinctually trained to exploit those with a combination of ignorance, jealousy and fear into doing his bidding (***) and keeping him away from "the wet work"

d) we have educated at least two generations of citizens who are completely ignorant of the concept of the separation of powers between the branches of government and the checks and balances between those branches defined in our Constitution

Let's look at what Trump was "effective" at in Term #1:

* building a wall - yea, but only about 10 miles of it and in a way that was easily scaled or toppled
* illegally separating undocumented children from parents to "send a message" to potential migrants
* extorting an ally by witholding military aid approved by Congress in an attempt to get dirt on Biden
* telegraphing to Putin that US support for Ukraine might be iffy
* by getting impeached a second time, convincing Putin he could swallow up Ukraine while the US was distracted with a second impeachment trial
* he seeded enough cash to pharma firms to convice them to ramp up production of COVID vaccines -- admittedly, a great outcome but how was that threading a poliical or economic needle? It was the smartest approach for accelerating delivery and wasn't controversial in ANY quarter... Until Trump subsequently fed fears of vaccine objectors.

As has been discussed in prior threads, item (d) above is perhaps THE force that makes a danger like Trump real. When people don't understand the balance of powers built into the Constitution and do not understand how those levers interact over time, voters ignorant of those balancing forces who give up on the process in frustration because the system is not presenting them a direct choice for GreatThingX that is PRECISELY what they want or it's presented but loses are surrendering their future to those willing to deceive in the short term and play a long-term game over multiple election cycles -- even decades.


WTH


*** Way back in the 1960s, there was a famous book in the realm of pop psychology called Games People Play that catalogued a huge variety of psychological games people play on others and themselves. One of the chapters in the book was called "Let's You and Him Fight" that originally described a romantic triangle where (stereotypically) a woman tricks two men into fighting each other with her as the prize while in fact she's already wanting to move on to someone else.
More generally, it seems to describe a dynamic psychopaths use to distract others from what the psychopath is doing while at the same time, by being around actual physical violence, appearing to be the tough guy when they do no fighting at all.
In many cases, even the morons goaded into doing the fighting fail to realize they've been manipulated.

wanted to inject bleach to deal with COVID = 1pg

-------------------

C'mon 1pg, you are generally a pretty level-headed guy but sometimes a little sano slips out...

C'mon 1pg, you are generally a pretty level-headed guy but sometimes a little sano slips out...

Respectfully, blow it out yer derriere, sir.

In January, February and March 2020 bleach poisonings were up 7%, 1% and 59% respectively over each of the same months last year. In April they leapt 77%.

OK...he said "disinfectant". My bad. Though bleach was used in the test he was thinking of.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52407177

And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?

I don't think they're portraying him as "hypercompetent".

Oh, they are. That's not their rhetoric, and it's not their intent. But by constantly claiming that a Trump dictatorship is a real thing that people should be concerned about, they're painting him as the sort of person who could actually make that happen.

Which is absurd. It takes enormous skills to convert a country into a dictatorship in general - and the U.S. would be an especially challenging place to do that. We have divided government, sovereign states (so that the federal government does not have monopoly control over courts or the men with guns), a prosperous economy that is mostly privatized, and a generally accessible democracy. We're not a country where ambitious men's only path to power or wealth lies with overthrowing the established system.

It would take even more skill for someone in Trump's position to do that. He has no background in either the military or internal security - and no real allies there - and having control of the men with guns is a necessary condition to establishing a dictatorship. His main source of power is his popularity with the masses - which works well in a democracy, but less so in a dictatorship where controlling possible rivals in the government is more important than winning an election. And most importantly - he's too freaking old to serve as a rallying point for establishing a dictatorship. You have to be able to convince powerful people to gamble treason for a chance to put you in charge for life - and that usually requires more "life" on your side of the equation to make it worthwhile.

And finally, he just doesn't have it in him. He's a bully, but a cowardly bully. He likes to gamble with house money, but doesn't stick out his own neck. You can't delegate a revolution; you can't just tell people that it would be nice if someone would make you the dictator. You need to be willing to walk into that beer hall with men with guns, and know that you will either come out with power or a bullet in your own head. And that's not Trump. If Trump were willing and able to be that guy, then his play wouldn't have been to publicly whine at Brad Raffensperger to pretty please find him some votes; Raffensperger would have been woken up in his bedroom at 3:00 a.m. by men holding a bag of money and a silenced pistol and told to make a choice which way he wanted to go. He's a Berlusconi who dreams of being Mussolini, but lacks the Duces to do it.

You make good points about Trump, albaby. But it’s not just Trump, it’s the corrupt administration that he will install. Trump may be an incompetent fool but that doesn’t mean he and his sycophants can’t do irreparable harm.

I think the alarm needs to be rung loud and long.

If Trump wins I don’t think it will be because Dems made him look strong.

"And most importantly - he's too freaking old to serve as a rallying point for establishing a dictatorship. You have to be able to convince powerful people to gamble treason for a chance to put you in charge for life - and that usually requires more "life" on your side of the equation to make it worthwhile."

Perhaps I've just read more social media comments than you, but it's clear that many MAGAts see Uday Trump and Qusay Trump as heirs to the throne when the Orange Rapist is laid to rest in a 24K gold sarcophagus, permanently enshrined on a pedestal in the center of the Capitol rotunda, like Napoleon in the chapel of Les Invalides.

They exhibit a similar affinity for self-aggrandizement and shameless disregard for truth as their Orange Rapist of a father. It's very much a family affair.

As media phenoms like Schwarzenegger and Trump prove, you can fool enough of the people enough of the time to make the unimaginable happen.

But it’s not just Trump, it’s the corrupt administration that he will install. Trump may be an incompetent fool but that doesn’t mean he and his sycophants can’t do irreparable harm.

Sycophants are usually not the most talented people for a given job, though. Someone like Kash Patel (to take an example) isn't the least bit qualified to run the CIA. While he might try to run the CIA the way Trump wants the CIA run, he lacks the basic skills necessary to actually do it. To be a dictator, you need to attract serious and capable people - not just loyal people.

Now - Trump might very well get some serious people to take jobs in his administration. The VP and Sec of State slots are going to be very tempting. But those people won't be taking those spots because they want to help Trump become a dictator for life - they'll be taking them because they want to be the person after Trump. Which isn't the path to a dictatorship.

Perhaps I've just read more social media comments than you, but it's clear that many MAGAts see Uday Trump and Qusay Trump as heirs to the throne when the Orange Rapist is laid to rest in a 24K gold sarcophagus, permanently enshrined on a pedestal in the center of the Capitol rotunda, like Napoleon in the chapel of Les Invalides.

Yeah, and those MAGA supporters are as delusional as Steve Bannon. Trump's children lack the skill set to take and hold power even more than Trump does. They're popular among a wide swath of the GOP base...but again, that's sufficient for running for elected office, and not nearly enough to wield power in a non-democratic government. If Trump tried to establish a dictatorship, those two would be the first against the wall in the inevitable military coup that would immediately follow....because again, Trump has no power base among military leadership, which is the sine qua non of a dictatorship.

We're in a strange place. Nothing penetrates the MAGA wall, so our choice is to get the vote out to win. But warning cries that Trump talks and plots a dictatorship serve to strengthen Trump. Well, damn the torpedoes, bull speed ahead.

I'm finding this thread somewhat ironic, considering the current President

*Labels parents concerned with kids are taught in schools terrorists
*Makes speeches denouncing his political enemies with Marines around him in blood red lighting
*Seems to delight in prosecuting his political enemies
*Has continued the tradition of using administrative rule making to push policy instead of via legislation

...and many more.

Here's why Trump isn't a dictator.

Because he had the job already...and wasn't one.

"Here's why Trump isn't a dictator.
Because he had the job already...and wasn't one."

Just simple
democrat scare and fear tactics attempting to influence votes with the low information Dem voters. MAGA MAGA MAGA, DICTATOR D{CTATOR DICTATOR. Nothing new here

Just simple
democrat scare and fear tactics attempting to influence votes with the low information Dem voters. MAGA MAGA MAGA, DICTATOR D{CTATOR DICTATOR. Nothing new here

Don't forget RUSSIARUSSIARUSSIA again. I see one of the NPC's got that firmware update today.

OK. So he aspires to dictatorship. Even if he can't achieve it, he will do enormous damage to our institutions in the process. Maybe irreparable damage. Not to mention what he has said he will do to the justice department to exact revenge on his "enemies".

I would argue that what they're doing is scaring the bajeezus out of the moderates and independents, as well as the Dems. Which should result in a lot more of them showing up at the polls to defeat Trump (just like last time).

Maybe - but I suspect it might be backfiring.

Good point. I think some people are genuinely concerned that Trump will try to become a Dictator (with 4 years to plan it and plenty of motivation from the criminal indictments). I doubt the current discussion will affect the voter turnout in 11 months, but it could affect the primaries that start in 7 weeks. Trump is far ahead, but Haley might be the tougher opponent for Biden.

In the first 2 primary states (NH and SC), Haley is leading among the non-Trumpers, and Trump has about 50%. Haley could possibly beat Trump if more candidates drop out.

The HarrisX poll (Nov 27)
Haley 55% Biden 45%
Trump 53% Biden 47%
DeSantis 51% Biden 49%
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/preside...

Joe: If politics is about contrast, Haley offers a contrast to every major politician, Dec 7, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuZxaJFbzsA

Republican presidential primary election
Jan 23 New Hampshire
Feb 24 South Carolina
Mar 5 Super Tuesday

New Hampshire: Trump 45%, Haley 19%
South Carolina: Trump 50%, Haley 21%
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/preside...

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