• Nightwingdragon@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      To be fair, given our current political climate, this is likely going to become a non-issue in the future. We are already seeing the GOP going into revenge mode by launching sham investigations and either pressing or threatening to press criminal charges on political enemies. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see having your political opponents charged with crimes becoming the norm, making voting for someone accused of a crime also becoming the norm as well.

      Look at the GOP’s “Biden Crime Family” mantra. I wouldn’t be surprised if they attempt to press charges against Biden before the election. That way, Trump can say Biden is being charged too, and setting up a situation where voting for an indicted criminal becomes normalized, and therefore “no big deal.”

      Think of how much Trump and the GOP have normalized all sorts of shady activities in the past few years. Things that would have immediately brought down any other politician before 2015 or so are now just par for the course and don’t even make the news most of the time. This would just be another addition to that list.

    • lynny@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Not to imply Trump is at all similar, but Martin Luther King was arrested 29 times and even had the FBI tracking him.

      The idea that someone who is a convicted criminal or is being tried in a criminal case cannot participate in politics is a very dangerous precedent to set.

    • effingjoe@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      What in the world have we become?

      I in no way mean this to defend Trump, but being tried for a crime does not mean one is guilty of a crime. And at a very (very) abstract level, even being guilty of a crime does not make a person necessarily unfit for office.

      • aetrix@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I know you’re right. It just feels bad taking the high road when the accused has demonstrated he is manifestly unfit for office while also caught dead to rights under a mountain of publicly known evidence which includes his own admission of guilt.

        • effingjoe@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Yes, in this specific instance, especially with this specific crime and these specific bits of evidence, it should be a slam dunk for anyone with any sense to refuse to support Trump.

          But, that could have been said in 2016, too. Trump didn’t just show up in 2015 when he started running for President, or even when he lead that super racist “birther” movement prior to that; he’s been a terrible person his entire life, and no one gets a full pass on voting for him, no matter which time they did it, as far as I’m concerned. People that support Trump, especially in 2023, don’t give two shits about whether he’s qualified for the job. It’s a cult of personality; nothing more. I’m only half joking when I suggest that if Trump died of natural causes in a month, he’d still have a good chance of winning the GOP nomination. His supporters just don’t care about consequences or reality. Whatever triggers the lizard-part of their brain is what they do.

          Sorry for the rant. haha

        • dismalnow@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          In his case, he’s been a turd in society’s punchbowl for 50 years.

          There’s mountains of court records, poor business decisions, and proven malfeasance… and that’s not counting two impeachments.

          No accounting for taste, I suppose.