136

The latest federal case against Donald Trump is putting a spotlight on the role of false and baseless claims in his presidency. The indictment alleges that the former president and his co-conspirators used lies for the criminal purpose of overturning the 2020 election. For some scholars of history, its forensic look at how speech underpinned an alleged conspiracy to illegally retain power helps to situate Trump into larger historical patterns.

top 9 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] Candelestine@lemmy.world 40 points 1 year ago

How many of his fans know he was probably lying, and supported him anyway because they perceive that as normal, well-adapted-to-modern-life behavior? He's a symptom, not a cause.

[-] elbarto777@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

He's a puppet of foreign forces.

[-] Candelestine@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

Either way, it doesn't really matter where he came from, that's functionally irrelevant. Managing to gain popularity is the real problem, and it's representative of something worse.

You know how reality tv is total garbage, but its also still kinda popular? They keep making more because we keep watching it. Or clickbait headlines. They produce them because they work.

It doesn't matter where these things come from. What matters is how they succeed, and what we can understand about that. That way we can better combat them.

[-] elbarto777@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

You're, of course, right.

[-] MicroWave@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago

"What Trump is doing is, he's asking for personal loyalty to him to outweigh the rule of law," said Jason Stanley, professor of philosophy at Yale University and author of How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them. "We see this in any authoritarian takeover of a system. We see the authoritarian say, 'Devotion to me is more important than the rule of law.' "

[-] autotldr 10 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


The latest federal case against Donald Trump is putting a spotlight on the role of false and baseless claims in his presidency.

For some scholars of history, its forensic look at how speech underpinned an alleged conspiracy to illegally retain power helps to situate Trump into larger historical patterns.

"All authoritarian leaders have cults of personality," said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, professor of history at New York University and author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.

But Ben-Ghiat said in her studies of authoritarian leaders such as Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Silvio Berlusconi and Jair Balsonaro, there was precedent for this.

"What Trump is doing is, he's asking for personal loyalty to him to outweigh the rule of law," said Jason Stanley, professor of philosophy at Yale University and author of How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them.

The case will likely focus on statements that Trump and co-conspirators allegedly made in the weeks between the 2020 election and the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6th.


I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[-] AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

On NPR this morning, they were talking about efforts by Trump and aligned Republicans to give the president more power to direct federal agencies - that agencies in the administration should be beholden to the president himself, not the office or something broader.

They were interviewing a former Trump administration official (I forget what he was). The interviewer asked if that would mean Trump, if elected, could direct the DOJ to drop the investigation against himself. The guy said yes, he should be able to, but wouldn't do it because it wouldn't be the right thing. The interviewer said, "So you're saying that he could, but we could trust him not to." The guy say yes.

Meanwhile most of us know the main reason Trump is even running is to try and stay out of jail.

[-] reddwarf@feddit.nl 3 points 1 year ago

So the argument trump and his ilk use, that Biden is using the DOJ (hint; he isn’t) to persecute trump would be a valid action as he is the president and is allowed to, is moot? Or is only 1 specific potential president allowed to use this logic?

[-] AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah, that's a great point that I wished the interviewer had asked. Something like "If what you want was in place today, wouldn't the accusation that the DOJ is only going after Trump because Biden wants them to be considered fair or appropriate use?"

this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
136 points (99.3% liked)

politics

19103 readers
3517 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS