What's next after Trump goes to jail?

Not bait. Sorry, I'm not a Ortez-tard. I'm a pragmatic realist slightly left of center. Call me a spineless opportunist, but almost half of the American voters are not allied to either party. They are swing voters. We are the yuge center. Last election the DNC let seniority rule and they posited a truly awful candidate with so much baggage (earned or not) that even I held my nose voting for.

People like strong candidates. People like veterans (because only they know the horrors of war, unlike bonespurs chickenhawk or dronasaurus Rex). People are sick of ID politics, and want a breather from it with unfortunately a Boring White Guy.

You need someone like Seth Moulton. Or his dad.

Put that quote in context for us, won't you?

You're worse. You're a neolib. KYS immediately.

You first, comrade. It's for the motherland.

legit gonna miss him when he's gone

the art of the b8 is in the subtlety.

Cohen implicated "individual-1" (Trump) as the unindicted co-conspirator in making hush money payments.

It's all over the news: nytimes.com/2018/08/21/nyregion/michael-cohen-plea-deal-trump.html

Trump isn't going to jail.

- If Mueller wanted to take down Trump this would be the case where he'd do it, but he'd have to get Trump removed from office first. He chose against doing this.
- If Mueller wanted to get Trump at a later date he'd need the testimony of Manafort and Cohen, both of which did not choose to make plea deals with Mueller. Both can also wait for the President to Pardon them on his last day in office.
- Even if Mueller had all of this, Congress wouldn't remove Trump from office for tax evasion since they all evade taxes too. Liberals know this and hope that an Impeachment (but not a Conviciton) would be enough to cost Trump a second term, although this is a stupid opinion and unlikely since arguing Trump's basic legitimacy lets him skirt real discussions about actual policy.
- Mueller won't ever harm Trump because they are working together, the feud between them is completely fake and a lie made up by the President to distract everyone.

pic related, never forget what the American government actually is

But hush money payments aren't illegal. What's the implicated crime here?

Campaign finance law violation I think.

If there's a group of people who want Trump dead it's the GOP establishment. Trump is changing their party so it survives, since nobody except liberals will vote for pure capitalism anymore. The GOP currently holds all three branches of the government and likely will through 2020, a Gerrymandering year in which they'll cut themselves into a near permanent position of power. Following that it'll be eight years of Pence.

This greatly upsets older Republicans who are free traders and support moderate abortion/gay/gun control. Trump is making their party into something they cannot support. The result will be a lot more political polarization; urban states (CA, IL, NY, Mass) will get much bluer while everything else goes hard red. Protectionism brings votes.

That would only be true if he used campaign finances for the payment, but I beleive even Cohen admitted he paid for it out of his own pocket and Trump reimbursed him with his personal funds.

JFC. I must be missing your point. Define liberal here so my head won't explode.

This is bad, but probably not the beginning of the end.

I'd wager the plea deal was probably specifically negotiated to come just short of igniting a national political crisis, because Cohen did not name Trump, Trump's campaign, or Daniels specifically. Cohen probably correctly assumed that while his legal career is over, there would be a pardon in his future eventually if he managed to navigate towards the least damaging course of action for the Trump presidency.
I wonder why the prosecutor was satisfied with this deal. Perhaps their office was communicating with Mueller and decided to leave the heavy lifting with the larger investigation.

neoliberal is what I meant

Because Mueller has bigger goals. All of this is just done to satisfy Congress, he himself is in a position where he can have any legislation he wants passed. Congress trusts him 100% and would unanimously vote it in while Trump would be forced to sign it. Any dissenters would be shaded as traitors or sympathizers and promptly have their professional careers ruined.

The same shit went down after 9/11, when Mueller investigated the attacks and gave Congress the white paper which led to the Patriot Act (the bill that among other things gives Trump all his immigration powers). He is ultimately a Republican and will act like one, and has no problem providing legislation for a Republican President and a Republican Congress (and a 6-3 Republican Supreme Court).

Trump "self-funded" his campaign though, wouldn't that still screw him?

That's the crime. Corporations are prohibited from coordinating expenditures with candidates, making contributions directly to candidates, and accepting direct corporate contributions. (They contribute to PACs instead.)

So Trump (the candidate) told Cohen to pay off Daniels, then invoice the Trump Organization as a legal fee. That was done to influence the election – and that's illegal.

I think…

i.e. if Trump had paid off Daniels with campaign funds, he'd have to report the payment to the FEC and it would show up in the campaign expenditures. So this rigmarole of going through the Trump Organization kept the whole thing under wraps (at least for awhile). But that violates U.S. law prohibiting expenditure coordination between a candidate and a corporation. It's a conspiracy to violate campaign finance law and all over a porn star trying to take her story to the National Enquirer lmao

Apparently MSNBC is going to be airing some leaked tapes in 5 minutes?

Fucken rofl

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link?

Yes, apparently. Unfortunately you'll have to sit through 25 minutes of Amarosa's "buy my book" attention-whoring to get there. And it will probably not be the N-tape.

It's probably going to end up being nothing, but here's a link
msnbc.com/msnbc-live

No, different accounts. This is more about the Trump Org payments to Cohen, and how they relate to corporate campaign finance laws. There are lots of desprate neolibs who are going to extremes in logical gymnastics to implicate this as a campaign crime. The real question is if this "pay off" relates to the campaign in any legal sense. For something to be "campaign related", it has to be something you would not have done otherwise, and would have not served any useful purpose, if you were not running for office. Here, Trump can argue he would have paid that hush money regardless, because it was about defending his name and company's reputation, not about his campaign. You'd have to prove Trump would not have otherwise made the pay offs, which is a high legal standard to meet tbh.

Not necessarily. There has not been a compelling legal case made that this hush money pay off constituted a campaign action versus a personal action.

to be fair this is par for the course in burger law

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Most Americans are non ideological and are open to capture by socialism because of the universal law of class struggle under capitalism

What could he have meant?

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Trump isn't going anywhere, and Republicans are going to win big in November. The conservatives in this country are galvanized every time Trump revels in corruption, because he's just like them.

The people who have the most to lose from Trump have just given up on voting and recognize that we live in a straight up dictatorship. I don't mean dictatorship in the sense that liberal democracy is inevitably a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, I mean it's a literal dictatorship no different from the USSR in its heyday. Trump is acceptable enough as a front for the regime, and the people who are really in charge know this and have been running the narrative without serious opposition.

The people around Trump will be thrown under the bus, that's just politics and settling of scores, and by doing so Trump becomes moreso the tool of the rulers (not that Trump has any real intention of opposing anything, or that Trump is even mentally capable of being opposition). The upper classes are just sniping at each other for position, and Mueller wants to get more totalitarian shit passed.

Have you been following the congressional special elections? Normally cherry red districts have been uncomfortably close races.

GoP will likely lose the house and keep the senate, and only because the senate map is particularly favorable this cycle.

Special elections are not a good indicator. The conservatives in those districts knew that the end result would be a win, so they don't come out. The only exception was Roy Moore the pedo and no one wanted to vote for that.

I expect the Repubs to actually gain seats. They're hyped and pumped, the Democrats have no energy and the shy tory effect is a thing.

Wtf I love America now

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Actually they are a fairly good indicator.

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I think the Dems will take the House this cycle and take the Senate in 2020, which will be an unfavorable map for Republicans.

The Jones campaign thought that the paedo story made Moore more likely to win because it nationalized the race and made it very partisan.

I think the Dems will do well this year. Not sure how well but I can only speak for where I live, which is a solid red part of Texas and there are neighborhood Democratic committees popping up everywhere and lots of on-the-ground activity. Publicly the GOP talks with a lot of confidence but they're sweating bullets privately.

How the fuck is the US an imperialist capitalist country similar to the socialist USSR could you explain further?

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Horrifying
Fucking kill me right now

Every piece of information in 2016 established that Trump would loose while Democrats win back the House. It didn't happen. See:

weeklystandard.com/william-kristol/what-trump-saw-and-cruz-did-not

tl;dr Trump won all the general elections because his opposition was unable to concentrate resources on a single election, whereas Trump's strategy is not election-specfic. This is more of a matter of microtargeting vs broadcast, and Trump is demonstrating that the latter works much better outside of special elections.

They'll maybe take the Senate but the House is probably safe. For Dems to take the Senate they must first ensure their existing candidates do not loose, in particular Hietkamp and Manchin are on the edge especially as the DNC makes their job much harder by focusing on gun control (which is not an issue that flies in ND or WV). Meanwhile they have to flip seats in Arizona, Texas and Florida.

All of this wouldn't be notable if it wasn't for Republicans having solid control of the midwest. Right now WI, MI, OH and PA are all expected to lean slightly Republican while MN is a tossup. This is bad news for Democrats and is why they are still in extremely hot water, a huge segment of their base has switched parties and they have no clear way of winning them back. In fact the DNC strategy here is to completely forget about these people and try and flip AZ, TX and FL through hispanic turnout. Which is why they're probably not going to get anywhere, because even if they are successful they've at best traded one group of states for another.

Which is another issue: the MSM is conveniently trying to ignore Ohio's role as a bellweather because Ohio is going hard red again due to Trump's steel tariffs. So they all focus on Florida and hope they can swing it there then move onto Texas, even though both don't have the same amount of liberals as the rust belt.

Not him but my take:

USSR = one party communist state
USA = one party Republican state

America's history from 1865-1912 (the gilded age) is significant here, as the GOP ran the US without any opposition until Democrats had embraced Labor and got northern workers voting for them, creating a coalition big enough to propel Wilson into the Presidency on an anti-war platform (which was shortly discarded after the Zimmerman Telegram, but I digress).

For Democrats, this is the foundation of their modern coalition. If they cannot win over northern workers or the South they won't be a national party.

I think you're thinking of the midterms like it's a national, general election. Dynamics are much different and the candidates that do best are the ones who most successfully localize with bread and butter issues and "who will represent you in Congress." The GOP running on immigration (a national issue) which plays well to a general election audience but not a midterm one.

Like I said I'm in Texas, and while I expect Cruz to win, Beto O'Rourke is doing the best job I've ever seen a Democrat do in a statewide race in my life. But most of that is just his own personal charisma and his emphasis on "Texas Texas Texas" all the time. Like, 'Texan patriotism' which is a hard thing to explain. He's also running a more liberal campaign than most Democrats tend to do here, which runs contrary to conventional wisdom, and plowing tremendous amounts of money into Facebook ads (his campaign is also heavily livestreamed). Feels very Obama faux-populist.

Wow, great article. We really need to have simultaneous primaries in all 50 states.

Are you implying the USSR wasn't a one party state? America has been functionally a one-party state, except that two coalitions compete over gibs while having 99% of the same ideology and goals. The election laws in America effectively amount to a de facto ban on any party that isn't sanctioned by the government. The way the DNC acted like their party was literally a branch of the government during the Russiagate thing is telling - some would say it's just Clintonian hubris, but they're actually right in that their party is an arm of the regime and not an actual political party in the sense that Labour is a political party.

In USSR the one-party state was just more explicit, and had ideological goals that informed its structure. In the US, the political structure purely exists as a vehicle for the powerful to hold a hammerlock on policy. It doesn't particularly matter at the top which party is in power, and in the current era the two parties have recognized their turf and are largely tasked with enforcing their respective regions of the country rather than really compete against each other. I suspect, until it is possible or necessary to drop the facade of democracy, the presidency will by plan rotate between the two parties every eight years, while whoever occupies the office will be given marching orders to not fuck up too much. Certainly Trump's administration has done very little except uphold Obama's policies, aside from some superficial social policies that Obama only half-enforced anyway, and Obama in turn mostly maintained the Bush Jr. machinery. The actual operators of this country don't give a fuck about those social issues or whatever asinine argument that gets put up as political discourse in this country; they know that they rule, and when they do show themselves then they don't even bother with the pretenses. Even if the political facade were the legitimate government, almost everyone in the political class is in agreement and comes from either the upper-middle professional class or the haute bourgeoisie, which will always act in their class interests and know that the pretend democracy is their surest ticket to maintaining power for the time being.

Maybe there will be another consensus in 20 years, but I honestly don't see the United States making it to 2040 in a recognizable form, and a lot of the norms of even pretending to be a democracy are falling to the wayside. There will either be a straight up suspension of the US Constitution and some Porky-dominated convention to write a new one, or the law will just become a dead letter as fascists take over everything and start exterminating lots of undesirables. I don't see any possibility of a socialist revolution in that time, not even a technocratic socialist revolution that would just thrust the proles back into subservience except turbocharged.

There are a few differences:

- primary elections are all held on different dates, giving candidates more time (but not necessarily enough) to microtarget individual communities
- an older, generally more conservative electorate in the primaries
- lower turnout in the primaries
- local districts vs statewide elections

Three of these work against Trump/the GOP, the former works for him. I expect them to win because ultimately Trump has the incumbency advantage and can demonstrate to voters why they should vote to him as he is still in office. In practice this means Tariffs for the north, deportation buses for the south.

You mention FB ads, this is significant. Establishment types have this idea that big data can save them, that it can magically bring out their voters like it did for Obama (who was the first to widely use it, and successfully so, against McCain). The heavy reliance on FB ads might help individual statehouse candidates (and really this is where Dems have to make up the most ground rolling into a census year), but their effectiveness is limited for candidates that have to run larger elections in wider areas such as Texas as a whole. This is where things will break, and it's why the GOP are unlikely to loose the Senate.

Also, the Texas patriotism is the winning formula that got Jones elected in Alabama so obviously Dems would try it again when it does work. Although here another thing is notable: originally Trump did not endorse Moore, because he thought he'd loose. He did and thus the establishment GOP quietly lost a lot of legitimacy to Trump. This is notable out in California where Trump wasn't exactly gung ho for the gubernatorial candidate there, John Cox. While CA is not a swing state, the CA GOP used to have major influence upon the national party (Nixon, Reagan), so if Trump is successful in proving them wrong the amount of dissent within the party against him will fade. And of course McCain (the most powerful nevertrumper) is probably going to retire soon.

RE Daniels, that was the accusation and actually part of the reason it blew up (we're way past the Lewinski-era where presidents were just expected to be semi-decent). Trump and his campaign have been accused of a slew of actual crimes (Trump U fraud lawsuit settled only shortly after the election, number of sexual assault allegations, misuse of funds, and then the various things relating to Russia and Ukraine like Manafort's dealings and Don Jr.'s acceptance of "opposition research" from a Russian lawyer). People here forget just how seedy this bunch actually is.

They're not even going to try to do that. Agree it's unlikely that Trump goes to jail - at least during his presidency. He could be impeached, at which point he might get some kind of really white collar prison sentence (because he was just president and he's still rich). Pence will almost certainly become president, and the remaining Trump staff will likely be shaken around - but the accusations of "meddling" and treason are not strictly about the outcome, as the alleged* crimes were committed by the campaign along the way.

Note that in every election except 1994 (which was when the big conservative backlash against liberals happened), the Republicans have gained over the results of the special elections. This is not an accident. Combine that with the contested elections being almost entirely in deep red areas at a time where Berniecrats were being heavily mobilized to vote for the few "progressives" they could (in districts where they're guaranteed to lose, basically). If Republicans held seats in that environment, how are they going to do in a midterm when more conservatives will come out to vote, when the Democrats put up nothing but token opposition candidates, and with incumbency advantages?

The Democrats are so strapped for funds and so devoid of political talent that I don't even think they could mount effective campaigns to get 50% of the house, not at this point. At most the Dems can pick up a few seats, but all of the momentum and funds are going to the Republicans. Most of the political talent is joining the Republican Party or going DINO if they absolutely need to run as a Democrat for their seat. What use would there be to running as the minority party that can't get donor bux, if you're a new pol from the bourgeoisie that wants to make some money in politics? The Dems are going to be stuck with the castoffs who couldn't make it in the Rethuglicans and the rare socdem that runs in conservative areas that is never going to win. It's a recipe for a permanent minority party, and it's not even close if you know anything about American politics.

Sorry, I'm just not seeing any factors that lead to a Democratic win. The only thing the Democrats have to bank on are telling themselves the minority party always gains seats in midterms or other such canards that have been disproven over and over again (look at the results since 1994, the ruling party gained seats about half the time and lost very little ground in the other situations, and 1994 was the culmination of a long-term backlash against the liberal order that was obvious - the only reason Bill Clinton won was because of Perot). Democrats haven't changed their message, haven't found some untapped well of political talent, and all of the reasons the Midwest and recently-Republican held areas went Republican haven't changed. Couple this with lower turnout and you have to be kidding me if you think Democrats are going to gain a single seat without losing some of their currently held territory.

can't wait

Nah Hayek, y'all my slaves, in my dungeon now.

What?

The Dems had to walk back from a fossil fuel corp. money ban because they literally didn't have the money to run even in races they could win. They waste the money of course because the Democratic Party is a moneymaking scheme for Ivy League failures, but they believe they need the money and the gap between them and the Rethugs is staggering if you see even part of the numbers that come out for fundraising totals.

washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2018/06/20/rnc-enters-summer-2018-with-double-the-amount-of-dncs-war-chest/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.625b1deea4fc

(WaPo is definitely massaging the numbers to put it nicely.)

The only time the president's party lost massive seats, there has been a good reason why. In 1994, the Rethugs went on a rampage wanting to tear down everything they could, and it was the natural outgrowth of the Reagan movement. In 2006, Bush tried to fuck with social security and turned out old people in droves to vote for anyone but Bush. In 2010, Obama fucked everyone over with Obamacare and was also trying to fuck with old people's social security, and kept the wars going which pissed off whatever support he had from conservatives or moderates who didn't want to fight a stupid war in the middle east forever. The canard that "durr the president's party always loses seats" ignores historical context and just assumes the vote is some pseudo-random number generator that can be modified with advertisements. It's the most asinine thing and yet people still believe in it.

The Rethugs have complete control of the narratives, and have been able to paint the Dems as morons who care more about tranny bathrooms than actually governing. (Of course, the Republicans pushed the whole tranny bathroom thing in the first place, but they were able to steer the narrative so it looks like Democrats are the instigators, which tells you how fucked the Democrats are. They let themselves get steamrolled over by a total idpol issue, and now they're trying desperately to do their own white identity politics thing and shit on all the blacks, further running themselves into a ditch.)

It's not the funding in the DNC and RNC that is the most important sign but the small-dollar donations going to individual candidates. Here Democrats are outraising Republicans

Ehhhhhhhh I dunno about that. The right seems to be running on immigration but that's a loser in a midterm election. Dems are focusing on healthcare and attacking the tax bill as a giveaway to the rich (which is what it is). But health care is the #1 issue.

WE HAVE AN AMERICAN POLITICS THREAD
NOBODY CARES

Ameritards talking about "change" in regards to which capitalist superparty gets more votes lmao

I really don't think it's a money issue. The Dems have a shit-ton of money, but their spending decisions are strategically very poor. When they neglect local races it's not so much because they don't have the revenue - it's because they just spent a ridiculous amount on an Ossoff or something like that, or they're too devoted to neoliberal shite to spend cash on a populist.

In 2015?
Those tranny bathroom laws are not only old news, they were GOP bills to begin with. It's tough for me to find more than 1 or 2 guys who will wholeheartedly defend the GOP - I think I run into more Trump supporters, and even his voter base seems demoralized.

Lol, wrote above before I saw this - but nah, I don't believe the GOP succeeded in spinning it that way. The GOP relies so heavily on right-wing Christian identity shit right now that they don't look good by comparison, and popular opinion still isn't with them. I think (already existing) right-wingers are the only ones who would deny that the GOP has run with a bunch of blood-and-trannies trash.

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