Indeed. It was specifically written to be self-executing because it would have been impossible to charge, try and convict all of the tens of thousands of former Confederate officers it was meant to bar from federal office. Because it’s self-executing, a simple finding of fact is sufficient for it to apply. The question then isn’t whether it requires a conviction, but rather whether it applies to Trump.

To me it pretty obviously does apply to him, but I’m definitely biased as fuck.

The 14th is self-executing which means that you don’t have to be convicted in order to be disqualified. The reason it’s self-executing is that it was originally designed to prohibit former Confederate officers from holding federal office, and since there was no way that every one of the tens of thousands of former Confederate officers could be tried and convicted, it was written to be self-executing meaning that a simple finding of fact rather than a conviction was sufficient to bar one from running for federal office.

Now, you may not like that and if you’re a constitutional scholar you may even have some decent arguments as to why it doesn’t apply to Trump, but leaving that aside, you are absolutely full of shit when you imply that he needs to be convicted before the 14th applies. That’s why it’s a question for the SCOTUS and not random idiots like yourself.

Sorry for being a dick, I’m just tired of this stupid phony talking point.

I think this is a lot more true than many people here suspect. What we’re realistically looking at is relatively low-intensity insurrection on the level of, say, Northern Ireland during the height of The Troubles. It’s still a very bad thing, but it’s not existential and if the comparison to The Troubles is accurate, the violence will mostly target federal law enforcement and any military that’s brought to bear should Biden invoke the insurrection act.

The real existential threat is Trump actually winning another term.

There won’t be a " bloodless coup." It won’t happen because there is only one president at a time, so no matter how the election goes, Biden sits alone at the levers of ultimate power until Trump is sworn in.

The only way a “bloodless coup” could happen is with the full foreknowledge and cooperation of the US military’s senior officer corps, but that’s impossible both because it’s too difficult to coordinate, and because the senior officer corps absolutely despises Trump as a liar and a coward and for many other reasons that I’m sure will occur to you when you think back on his presidency.

He is widely seen as a gutless incompetent and deeply dishonorable idiot.

Well, it’s Lemmy, so in all honesty I’d say that there definitely are a lot of tankies here who are as delusional as the far right MAGA idiots. Blind adherence to ideology makes madmen of us all, just as does a cult of personality like Trump’s.

Sure you do.

I’m still blown away that more people haven’t figured out that the entire Epstein empire was an elaborate Israeli intelligence op. Can I prove it? No, but it’s by far the simplest explanation for the available facts.

Maxwell wasn’t some minor player in the establishment of the state of Israel; to the contrary, he played a major role and was arguably critical during the post war years.

I am not a conspiracist, but the lack of coverage does seem a little odd.

You are confused as to why people “roll their eyes” when MAGA says “drain the swamp.” They’re rolling their eyes because Trump and his party are by far the most openly corrupt and nakedly transactional politicians in US history. We’d all love to see less corruption in DC. Supporting Trump is pretty much the dictionary definition of asking for more corruption.

It’s irrelevant anyway. We know that he flew on Epstein’s plane. Why? Who knows? Maybe because he saved money that way?

Doesn’t matter because again, we know for a fact that he flew on Epstein’s plane. Full stop. End of fucking story.

Or, you know, we go back to the time when the news media had real gatekeepers and not just any random jackass could churn out some bullshit copy and broadcast it to the world, let alone have it get published by their local paper.

It’s nice that the Internet has democratized access to a national or even global audience, but let’s not pretend for a moment that it hasn’t caused a ton of problems in the process such that now many people have no idea of what to believe while others believe whatever they want.

It’s still pretty easy to tell the difference. You have to have a pretty low level of media literacy to not be able to easily spot it. Unfortunately we already know that most people don’t have a clue when it comes to mass media, and even if they did, we also know that people tend to believe whatever reinforces their priors.

It also raises the very thorny issue of who adjudicates what is and is not “memetic effluent.”

Well, TIL. For some reason, despite not really knowing anything about him, I had the impression that he’s a reasonable guy.

Again, while I don’t necessarily otherwise disagree with you, you are a little confused on whataboutism.

That’s not whataboutism. Whataboutism is changing the subject to derail the conversation. This is simply addressing a different point of view in the same discussion.

No. The best information is that they’ve been putting a ton of pressure on Netanyahu to back the fuck off, but it hasn’t done any good because he’s a legitimate asshole and always has been. (Remember, this is the same guy who deliberately embarrassed Obama by accepting a GOP invitation to address Congress without consulting the White House or making an official state visit to the president. He’s the scum of the earth and always has been. There’s zero question that he’s hoping for a Trump win.)

They don’t want to go public with demanding restraint or a cease fire because they are afraid it will widen the war by encouraging Iran and its other proxies such as the Houthis and Hezbollah which could further hinder freight traffic through the Red Sea, thus bumping global inflation back up and giving Trump a campaign gift. I think at this point it’s a lost cause and they need to cut their losses and tell Israel to knock it the fuck off, but I expect they will continue to drag their feet and work on back channels.

We also know that every time Iran has been met with real force rather than empty threats, they have backed off. Ultimately it would still be a big gamble to openly threaten them, but it’s something to think about, especially if you don’t fancy another Trump presidency/dictatorship.

Most of what we see on Lemmy is pure amateur hour speculation that has only a very tangential relationship with what’s actually happening.

The presidency was never meant to be as powerful as it has become.

Bullshit. Leaving aside any potential humanitarian concerns, this whole thing is a massive headache for the Biden Administration.

Out of curiosity, how do you think she’ll rationalize it?

Horseshit. I’ve spent literally decades reporting on land-use issues in the rural west. That, together with the reintroduction of wolves in the intermountain west, is kind of my life’s work as a journalist thus far.

I actually don’t even know where to start with how wrong you are.