Post-Election Schizophrenia

[Chainfire]

Now that the deed is done and Trump is to be expelled from my, our, life I find myself with conflicting feelings as how I wish the nation to proceed.

After four years of being abused by hatefulness and dishonesty, I may have a form of PTSD. Part of me wants to see Donald Trump pilloried in the courts, hurt and humiliated, in real time. I would love to see him in an orange jumpsuit, abandoned by everyone to his deserved fate behind bars, sharing his remaining life with other convicted criminals, wearing the label of “loser.” The largest personal fall in the history of the nation.

I think that the wiser side of me says, “No, he is soon to be gone, get over it.” It would be a win for Trump to stay in the headline news, having his supporters rallying to his defense and remaining a national figure for an extended time. If Trump can’t be a hero, he would probably choose to be a martyr.

Wouldn’t it be best if he just vanished into the judgment of history giving the country a time to heal? It could give the Biden/Harris team a clean slate without the distraction of the Trump Trials. Trump has been a cancer on the nation, we have surgically removed the tumor, now it is time to get on with life.

[MLAA]

1. Unfortunately I don't think his cult will allow him to quietly disappear

He has 70,000,000 cult members.

I want him in prison where he deserves to be and where he won’t have access to a national megaphone.

[Chainfire]

3. But the process of getting him there will be more destructive than fruitful.

I just don't think it is worth it. Let him pardon himself, or let Pence pardon him and lets move on to healing. Trump has not escaped justice and it is better for us, for him to just be a loser, not a martyr. We don't need to feed his base.

[Mike 03]

2. Thoughtful questions.

I'd want to think it through, but my "hot take" is that I'd rather see Trump in court than on TV, and I say that because there have been so many stories that Trump is interested in either buying into OAN or starting some kind of news network.

I think he's going to be embarrassed about his various lawsuits and indictments and that instead of rushing onto TV to talk about them (and even ask for money) he'll try to keep it quiet. These lawsuits and indictments have to do with his personal finances (mostly) and there's at least one pending sexual assault case. I don't see these cases as being ones he'd want to publicize.

But it's hard to know at this point.

[Chainfire]

4. I don't think that Trump will ever be "quiet."

However, without a mission, without the power of the bully pulpit, his audience will fade. Give his followers "persecution" and they will retain a hateful national voice. Even right-wingers will get tired of the whining in time. Jailed he is a right-wing hero, his worst hell will be to be ignored and laughed at.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

5. He's not going anywhere

He knows there is a ton of money to be made in RW media, and he's looking to make a ton of money.

RE charges/trials: The NY stuff is likely the biggest threat to his freedom. I doubt Biden's DOJ will have a lot of appetite to pursue charges, and will likely offer generous plea bargains - much as Bill Clinton was offered. Cuomo may be a different topic in NY - but even then, are we looking at real prison time? I'm thinking fines & probation at worst.

[2naSalit]

6. He is guilty of unforgivable crimes against humanity and this nation...

not to mention everyone else on the planet. He goes down hard and I don't care it there's a year of trials, they will have little play time and the end result must be conviction and punishment. We have been here too many times before, let the criminals walk and this is now the end result of having done so. We can;t afford to do that again, no matter how nauseating the cleanup will be, it must be done, too many have died painful deaths because of this bastard. And too many have suffered the loss of their jobs, homes and life work to this bastard's wickedness.

He cannot be allowed to slide this time nor can those who enabled him. Unforgivable crimes against humanity on at least two major counts: children in cages and the pandemic.

[better]

7. As good as it feels to take the high road, the answer is an unequivocal NO.

Trump MUST be tried for his crimes, period, or the rule of law dies. It's that simple.

To fail to prosecute Trump for his crimes in the interest of unity is to sacrifice the rule of law in the interest of mutual toleration. We've not only been down that road before, we've been down it with three of the last four Republican presidents, and history has unwaveringly demonstrated that it is not merely futile in the short term, but harmful in the long term.

Not only has the criming by Republican administrations not ceased, it has gotten progressively more egregious.

Letting Nixon off the hook for Watergate gave way to Iran-Contra under Reagan.
And Carter was still vilified in the interim.

Letting Reagan off the hook for Iran-Contra gave way to fabricated intelligence under Bush the Lesser.
And Clinton was still vilified in the interim.

Letting Bush the Lesser off the hook for fabricated intelligence gave way to Trump and all his many crimes.
And Obama was still vilified in the interim.

The pattern here is unmistakable.

We MUST restore the rule of law if we are to have any hope, or future Republican administrations will commit even worse crimes, as hard as that is to imagine, because they'll know that our instinct to seek unity will mean that they can get away with it. It is a recipe for guaranteed disaster.

At its core, this impulse is driven by the recognition that mutual toleration is necessary to the survival of a healthy, functioning democracy, but we must recognize that Republicans have been trying to kill mutual toleration for much of our lifetimes, as evidenced by their consistent and rank hypocrisy, and we must also recognize Trump himself finally succeeded in killing mutual toleration, with his refrain of "Lock Her Up", for conduct that had already been clearly adjudicated to NOT be criminal.

The reality is that Republicans refuse to tolerate LEGAL conduct by Democrats, while tolerating ILLEGAL conduct by Republicans. This is beyond dispute at this point.

The key difference here is that we on the left want to see Trump tried, convicted, and imprisoned not because his conduct was abhorrent politically, but because his conduct was criminal, legally.

[0rganism]

8. Trump is not going to "just vanish into the judgment of history"

prosecute him properly or he'll be back at the head of a mass-media agitprop org faster than you can say "2022"

[Solly Mack]

9. Ask the parents who will never see their children again because those children were ripped from

their arms and are now lost forever.

Tell me what they have to say about Trumpochet getting a pass for stealing their children and giving them away to others or being held in private, for profit, "care" facilities.

Ask the families of those who died in detention camps at the border.

Ask the families of those held in abusive conditions at the border and in other facilities in the US.

And that's just for a start.

Because a real healing, a true and lasting healing, begins with the victims of Trump. And what was done to them. And whether or not the guilty are held accountable.

Any pain I felt under Trump is nothing compared to those who suffered such great losses.

[Caliman73]

10. One quibble and a response.

Schizophrenia is a thought disorder with relatively clear characteristics where primarily, the individual suffering "breaks" from reality. I know that the term itself means "split mind" or "two minds" which I suppose denotes the symptomatic versus asymptomatic phases. Schizophrenia typically results in very disorganized thinking often with bizarre thoughts or focused yet delusional (broken from reality) thoughts with paranoia. There are auditory, visual, olfactory, and tactile hallucinations (though the latter two are not as common). Anyway, I know that the term has been used in vernacular as it is being used. I just think that when we do not use terms as they are meant to be used, it muddies the water when it comes to describing the suffering of people with the actual disorder.

So, to your conflicting thoughts and feelings about Trump. I think that there is more complexity to the situation and I agree that there are potential problems with either course. I think that what we need to take out of the equation is our personal dislike/hatred of Trump as a person. He is vulgar and disrespectful and overall a disgusting person. We need to look at the situation from the perspective of what would it do to the country if Trump was held accountable for any crimes he may have committed, versus what would it do if the situation was allowed to pass. I agree that there will be a group (not insignificant) of people who would be outraged and who would say that Trump is just being persecuted because he is a Republican/Conservative/Whatever. It would likely be difficult for the unity of the country. On the other hand, if Trump is not held to answer for any crime that he committed in office, then what is to stop the next person, who is perhaps smarter then Trump, more eloquent, not so overtly stupid and impulsive; from coming into office and pushing to do what Trump tried to do? Here is a video that I found fairly convincing: