> The type of person that stormed the capitol will perceive this as an escalation. I’m sure that’s not what we need, but I’m also sure that there is no good way out of this mess.
I actually think that the reason we are in this mess is because there have been zero consequences for terrible behavior, so far.
Of all the terrible things Trump has done, it has taken inciting a riot, an attempted overthrow of our democratically elected government, for him to loose his megaphone. Why was incarcerating children at the border not enough? Or encouraging those "fine people" in Charlottesville who murdered a woman? Or one of the many other instances of him spewing hate?
We need more accountability. Actions have consequences, and it is long overdue that those people who take irresponsible, harmful actions, either out of desire for personal gain or sheer idiocy, start feeling the consequences.
The right is supposedly the side to which "law and order" appeals. Trump and his people are exactly the kind of people who need to know that they will get punished to the full extent of the law when they misbehave. That's the only thing that will keep them in line.
Because it's not like they have a moral compass to fall back on.
You've posted nothing but political and ideological battle comments to HN for a year. We ban accounts that do that, because (a) it's not what HN is for, and (b) it destroys what HN is for.
See https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... for more explanation about how and why we ban this sort of account.
Obviously plenty of other people are currently posting abusively in these huge political flamewar threads—but most of them are not using HN primarily for that purpose. We ban the ones that are.
I've banned this account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
However, there's no evidence that the election was crooked - the courts think so too. In addition, the President's moral compass seems to be pointing towards strong arming election officials to provide him the exact number of votes (11,780) that he needs to overturn Georgia, pardoning his former friends and allies and convicted war criminals. And this is just within the last couple of weeks.
> no evidence that the election was crooked - the courts think so too
Haven't all of the cases been thrown out for lack of standing thus far? Doesn't that mean the evidence hasn't even been heard? How can the "courts think so too" if they haven't heard evidence?
Also, it's offensive when people say the election wasn't crooked to people that witnessed its crookedness firsthand. I am one of the many people whose ballot went uncounted.
> Also, it's offensive when people say the election wasn't crooked to people that witnessed its crookedness firsthand. I am one of the many people whose ballot went uncounted.
The problem is there's evidence should you choose to see it, constitutional unlawfulness & just cause on an unprecedented scale to at least demand a thorough discovery stage in the courts, which never happened.
The way to kill the fraud narrative is by debating those raising the charge, actually hearing the cases in court instead of tossing them on procedural grounds and allowing full audits, signature matches in Fulton for example.
If you listen to the full phone call from which the carefully picked snippet you refer to was lifted Trumps moral compass seems far better than the shifty and obstructionist Georgia Secretary of State to me - Raffensberger has no explanation for simple charges and whimpers when reminded of the requests he has been actively ignoring [1].
It does not exactly scream "innocent" to anyone with half a conscience. Nor did the threatening and doxxing of children that occured during the certification of the Michigan electors.
"The problem is there's evidence should you choose to see it, constitutional unlawfulness & just cause on an unprecedented scale"
Maybe you would want to provide examples of these then?
"The way to kill the fraud narrative is by debating those raising the charge"
I am actually not quite sure that debating the issue will kill the narrative but that's just my opinion.
"actually hearing the cases in court instead of tossing them on procedural grounds"
Frankly I have no comments here. What real evidence of fraud is there?
"Trumps moral compass seems far better than the shifty and obstructionist Georgia Secretary of State"
I never commented on the Georgia Secretary of State's conduct and frankly, that's not under review. If the President had just asked for the review of votes, that would be fine. Instead, we received the exact number of votes that he needed, statements to the tunes of: 'Fellas, what are we gonna do here? I only need 11,000 votes' and to do 'the review with people who want to find solutions but not with those who do not want solutions' or something to that effect. Claiming that someone stuffed ballot boxes does not constitute evidence.
Furthermore, this does not change my comments about the pardons either but that's not really the point under discussion.
Would you care to be more specific about what you think is factually incorrect about that comment, or are you just glibly trying to borrow a phrase that is more commonly (and more accurately) used these days against Trump and his supporters?
It certainly seems to me that Trump and many of his most high-profile supporters have been remarkably free from serious consequences despite behavior that has been scandalous to an unprecedented degree. Going by the political and societal norms of just a few decades ago, Trump's political career should have been dead and buried dozens of times over.
The "kids in cages" and "very fine people" nonsense continues to get peddled despite not being rooted in reality. And lets not forget, Trump told everyone to drink bleach to treat COVID-19!
You seem to be complaining about some stuff that's not actually mentioned in the comment at issue. That's not a great way to back up that "divorced from reality" assertion. And for the stuff that does appear to be at least somewhat relevant to the comment at issue, you haven't clarified anything about what you believe to be divorced from reality, merely asserted that it is all "nonsense".
The comment at issue did not use the phrase "kids in cages". That's you adding your personal color to a subject that you seem to object to being brought up in any manner at all. It looks like you're trying to build a straw-man or three, rather than justify the accusation that the comment in question is "entirely divorced from reality".
More specifically, it gets the order of events wrong. Trump's comments about "very fine people" came after the deadly white supremacist rally, so it's misleading to imply that those comments were in encouragement of the killing.
However, it's perfectly valid to construe Trump's comments as praise after the fact for the white supremacist rally, even though he specifically condemned the killing that resulted. Because Trump's assertions that there were "very fine people" on both sides and that there were many people on the alt-right side of that event who were not neo-Nazis or white nationalists are simply not credible claims. Trump was praising somebody. Even praising or encouraging the kind of white supremacists who don't get violent is abhorrent conduct on the part of the president, but the comment upthread exaggerated beyond this.
Right. Trump said that, but that doesn't actually change the fact that that there was no reason for anybody to be showing up to support the alt-right side of that event unless they were in fact a neo-Nazi or white nationalist. Pretending that there was a significant faction of those torch wielders who somehow weren't white supremacists is just silly. But Trump definitely didn't intend to praise the empty set with his "very fine people" comment.
I actually think that the reason we are in this mess is because there have been zero consequences for terrible behavior, so far.
Of all the terrible things Trump has done, it has taken inciting a riot, an attempted overthrow of our democratically elected government, for him to loose his megaphone. Why was incarcerating children at the border not enough? Or encouraging those "fine people" in Charlottesville who murdered a woman? Or one of the many other instances of him spewing hate?
We need more accountability. Actions have consequences, and it is long overdue that those people who take irresponsible, harmful actions, either out of desire for personal gain or sheer idiocy, start feeling the consequences.
The right is supposedly the side to which "law and order" appeals. Trump and his people are exactly the kind of people who need to know that they will get punished to the full extent of the law when they misbehave. That's the only thing that will keep them in line.
Because it's not like they have a moral compass to fall back on.