Members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol have warned America for three years to take former President Donald Trump at his word.
Now, as Trump is poised to win the Republican presidential nomination, his criminal trials face delays that could stall them past Election Day, and his rhetoric grows increasingly authoritarian, some of those lawmakers find themselves following their own advice.
In mid-March, Trump said on social media that the committee members should be jailed. In December he vowed to be a dictator on “day one.” In August, he said he would “have no choice” but to lock up his political opponents.
“If he intends to eliminate our constitutional system and start arresting his political enemies, I guess I would be on that list,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose). “One thing I did learn on the committee is to pay attention and listen to what Trump says, because he means it.”
Lofgren added that she doesn’t yet have a plan in place to thwart potential retribution by Trump. But Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), who has long been a burr in Trump’s side, said he’s having “real-time conversations” with his staff about how to make sure he stays safe if Trump follows through on his threats.
“We’re taking this seriously, because we have to,” Schiff said. “We’ve seen this movie before … and how perilous it is to ignore what someone is saying when they say they want to be a dictator.”
See, you're illustrating my point for me here. I'm not resorting to insulting you as a deflection to avoid addressing your point. I'm directly addressing your claims while commenting on the fact that you're struggling to understand what's being said to you. Hope that helps.
I see the problem here: you think you're the smartest person around. If you think you're being incredibly clever then there's no way anyone could see what you're doing.
You're not. You're predictable as fuck, to the point that if you keep talking long enough you will always contradict yourself. This is because you don't have a coherent or consistent argument, you just have being contrarian and the unearned belief that You Are Very Smart.
Literally described yourself there claiming that Trump has committed crimes then admitting that he hasn't been convicted of anything. It's always projection with you trolls.
As I said, predictably contradicting yourself.
So Trump hasn't been convicted yet (currently on trial)= he didn't do crimes.
All of the other politicians haven't even been charged = they just haven't been found out yet.
Yup. Totally consistent.
I love how you keep thinking there's some gotcha in me saying that there are things other politicians can be investigated for the same way Trump is being investigated. The fact that you think this is a contradiction illustrates that your brain is as smooth as a bowling ball.
Once again, I addressed your point and I stated my opinion of your intellect. I'm not using any personal attacks to deflect from what you said. And since you're still having trouble with what's being explained to you in a myriad different ways, I'll try again.
Either Trump is an aberration, and he's being investigated because he's uniquely guilty, or he's representative of the US politicians in general and the investigation spotlight happened to fall on him in particular because of political reasons. If Trump gets in power he will simply direct the legal system to investigate other people the same way he's being investigated. Evidently this concept is so hard for you to grasp the you spent three days struggling with it.
The fact that you think your previous post has any value speaks volumes of the low quality of the rest of your posts.
And we're making progress! We've acknowledged at least the possibility that Trump is more guilty than everyone else! Nothing in your post dismisses this possibility but you seem to forget it exists in the very next sentence.
So let's not get distracted here, try to focus just a little bit longer: if Trump is a "uniquely guilty aberration" that would mean....
a) the investigation into him was completely valid.
b) his investigation into other people would be invalid and just done for revenge. Or
c) all of the above?
I love how you keep doubling down on your straw man. My point is that it's completely irrelevant how valid investigation into Trump is or whether he's guilty or not. What I'm trying to explain to you, and you're aggressively failing to understand, is that you can have a similar type of valid investigation into any US politician because there's nothing special about Trump specifically.
The legal spotlight has been put onto Trump and he's being investigated, but once Trump is in power he'll move that spotlight to other people and they will be investigated. If you still can't understand that the only thing that matters here is whom the legal system starts looking into, then there's no helping you.
The legal spotlight wasn't put on Trump because people don't like him. There was evidence of a crime so the spotlight was put on the potential crime, and Trump was there standing in the spotlight.
That's the difference. Trump wants to put the spotlight on people because he doesn't like them, and hopes to find a crime (or make one up) by doing so.
Trump wants to investigate people until he finds crimes.
Trump's charges came from people investigating crimes until they found the person responsible.
If you can't tell the difference there's no helping you.
And once again, if the justice system starts looking into other politicians, they will also find sufficient evidence for potential crime because Trump is not an outlier.
Believing this requires thinking that Trump is somehow uniquely criminal.
That is literally what the democrats are doing right now. If you think that investigations into Trump were started for anything other than political reasons then you're an incredibly naive individual.
And once again we come to the topic of evidence. There is evidence of Trump committing crimes, hence the trials. There is not evidence for other politicians other than "because you say so" which is an even weaker fallacy than an Appeal to Popularity. I will not entertain your vague claims with nothing to back to them up.
The entire criminal system is based on the idea that people can be "uniquely criminal". Otherwise everyone would be in jail or there wouldn't be crimes.
The investigations into Trump stated with "we are investigating this specific crime" and the charges that came from it were related to the specific crime being investigated. They didn't start investigating Trump in general to see what crimes fell out.
Does Trump have specific crimes he wants to investigate people for?
If you don't look there's no evidence is a really hard concept for you to grasp isn't it.
Reading comprehension isn't your strong suit is it?
You don't investigate people you don't like hoping crimes will fall out. You investigate crimes and see what people it leads to.
"They're totally criminals, trust me bro." Is not legally actionable or Trump would already be in prison.
Nah, my reading comprehension is just fine. I'm just pointing out that you don't seem to understand how Trump became investigated in the first place. They don't just spin a big wheel to decide whom to look into. Somebody decides to look into a particular person, and then they find things that are actionable and investigate them. This is precisely how Trump will investigate his political opponents as well. It's so adorable that you don't even understand how Trump came under investigation in the first place.
If you think there's nothing legally actionable on any US politician, then send me a DM cause I have a nice bridge to sell you.
So close: somebody decides there is evidence of a crime, investigates the crime, and follows the evidence until it leads to a person.
Again, you saying "trust me bro, it's totally there" is not legally actionable evidence. If you think it is I have a Unicorn to sell you, it's invisible and can be there tomorrow.
Yeah, you are indeed so close, you just have to figure out why somebody decides to look for a crime to investigate and you'll get it. Once you figure out why all of a sudden old supposed crimes of the cheeto suddenly became relevant in 2023, you'll figure the rest out.
That's not what I'm saying at all, maybe work on that reading comprehension instead of straw manning.
Fallacy fallacy dude. "Strawman" is not some magic word that makes criticisms of your argument disappear. The point of recognizing fallacies is that it makes them easy to rebut, not that if you say the right magic phrase your critics disappear.
In the case of a supposed Strawman fallacy it's not enough to say "Strawman" and plug your ears. If you believe your argument is being misrepresented you restate what your actual argument is. So far you haven't presented any argument for "all politicians have definitely done crimes" other than your assumptions that it is true. Me pointing out your Begging the Point and Appeal to Popularity is not a Strawman.
Straw man arguments are literally what you're doing. You invent an argument that has nothing to do with the point I'm making and then try to derail the discussion using it. The most hilarious part is that you just can't let this go. Since it's pretty clear this discussion has run its course, I'm going to move on and let you have the last word that you so desperately need. Enjoy feeling like you've won and online argument.
Of course, when pressed to make an actual point you're taking your ball an going home.
Right, You've been going at this just as long as I have but I have the problem.
It's always projection.