Hopefully that guy will also be in prison in three years.

Why would that happen if it didn’t happen when they had 4 years to do it the first time? Seems unlikely.

[delayed]

he was not particularly popular at the end of his first term. mainstream right was not pleased with the bad optics of january 6, young right was not pleased that MAGA became MIGA and "build the wall!" became "build what wall?". the early days of COVID fascism happened under him as well. it's fairly obscure lore now, but he'd lost all that deplorable alt right support that supposedly got him nominated and elected in the first place. for example: https://www.newsweek.com/richard-spencer-joe-biden-trump-mag...

he would've never got reelected if the democrats of 2021-2024 resembled democrats of 2008. his reelection was a violently retarded response to the clown world antics of that era.

> Why would that happen if it didn’t happen when they had 4 years to do it the first time?

Not saying it will certainly happen, but there will be different people at helm this time, and his more crimes are out now.

I don't think it will happen for ideological reasons. Despite his lack of respect for the decorum of US democracy, most others have too much respect for it to start putting former leaders in prison.

So the "decorum of US democracy" means that a president can murder, rape, pillage and raid, yet should not be put into prison?

What a country.

The US political apparatus has a lot of unwritten standards that are followed out of tradition. While people might vehemently disapprove of how Trump has pushed or blown past those limits, doing the same thing to achieve accountability might set a new lower bar for those traditions, rather than restoring them.

A lot of pretty words to give a dressed up version of "yes". That's what you're saying: Yes, it's a good thing if a US president can murder, rape and pillage without going to prison. Where do you sraw the line? Raping 10 children? 100? You're making it sound as if there isn't one.

> I don't think we want to end up with 57 supreme court justices at the end of this, and a Korean-style tradition of the presidency-to-prison pipeline.

Those presidents going to prison did a coup to stay in power or had their personal shaman run the country behind the scenes. Of course you want a "to prison" pipeline for such cases if you're looking to stay a stable, welfaring country.

> I think it is probably better to have a system that can restore/maintain a socio-political focus on professionalism.

Correct, which is why the law needs to be applied equally. That's the fundamental basis of the rule of law. Otherwise it's worth nothing.

Yeah, in some hypothetical situation where a leader is directly involved in a violent crime, yeah, I don't think there would be any issue drawing a line there.

But that isn't what we're talking about here -- we're talking about actions taken related to his official duties. That is an inherently politicized situation where even the textual rule of law does provide for special allowances precisely for this reason.

> Of course you want a "to prison" pipeline for such cases if you're looking to stay a stable, welfaring country.

I think the evidence around the world shows that precisely the opposite is true.

It's much better than the South American alternative of throwing the former president in prison every single time the party switches.

Leaders do a lot of things and laws are complicated, lawfare is stupidly easy.

I strongly doubt any American top leader will ever go to prison. That's something that gets decided by American top leaders, who are very aware of what happens when you open that Pandora's box: look at countries like Taiwan or South Korea, where it seems like basically any government position ends in a prison cell.

The guy who now has complete and total immunity thanks to the Supreme Court?

It's not complete and total immunity. It's presumptive immunity for official presidential acts.

Prosecutors "just" have to establish that the criminal behavior is not an official act, of which there are plenty such examples.

He blanket pardons Vance and everyone around him. He resigns in the last month and Vance blanket pardons him.

This is fixed by enforcing the law. Defeatist logic like this serves no purpose. Said country delivered a large electoral defeat to that person a week ago.

The fact that this scandal was leaked is a sign that the rule of law is returning.

„this scandal was leaked“ is for sure not a sign of „the rule of law is returning“.

It sure is.

They were bypassing natsec based export controls by making donations to the executive branch, and used the influence to bury a commerce investigation into the matter, from the available information.

He can sleep with who or whatever he wants. The Metaspeed story and how investigations into it were mothballed have every appearance of being a big deal even beyond Nvidia.

Go on.

Just putting it out there, but he might not be the best role model to try and emulate even for a ruthless company. Especially now that the laws might at last be enforced against him.

Justice delayed is justice denied.

- William Penn & MLK Jr

I'm sure the fact that Trump owns tons of NVDA was of _absolutely_ no consequence when the Department of Commerce granted them the ability to sell their GPUs to certain Chinese companies.

Yeah fair. But not everyone is POTUS. And maybe we can hold CEOs to a higher standard, idk.

Unfortunate but true. The current admin is lawless which makes everything think that they are stupid if they follow the law.

Not to mention another friend of the admin whose crimes in DOGE might need investigation.