Like, they are not sacred. They are IMPORTANT, because of the functions they fulfill. They need to be protected better than they were (obviously) but not because they are full of magic fluid that will rush out if an invisible skin is ruptured by imprudent action.
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One of the reasons to act swiftly and forcefully in a case like this is that we are social animals and we look to our neighbors and leaders for cues as to how they are acting, in order to understand the danger or safety of the situation in which we find ourselves.
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If everybody else is behaving normally when something that seems odd occurs... it gets shaded as a normal thing. If other people are alarmed, it increases our alarm.
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It's harder to make the case that Donald Trump's power is a clear and present danger to life and liberty when we're penciling it in as a problem to solve starting next week, at all.
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The fact that we're talking about removing him at all when his term is all but over is fueling conspiracy theories that he's got some big move planned that The Deep State/The Cabal/THEY are afraid of and trying to block.
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And as I often say: you cannot deny ammo to a munition factory, because they will just make what they need as fast as they can. If we weren't talking removal, the same people would crow that this proves Trump is untouchable because of the same secret big move he has planned.
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But the best response to "What are you so afraid of him doing in a mere 12 days?" is "Look at what he did with one day." Giving him extra days to work with on the way out the door undercuts that.
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And, you know, is dangerous, because he has those days.
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I think if it were only possible to remove him on the 19th it would still be worth doing, to seal his term with the unique ignominy of having been impeached twice and the only one successfully removed from that office by impeachment.
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But if it's possible to remove him on the 19th then it's possible to remove him now, and if it's impossible to remove him then we still get impeached twice and force the Republicans trying to waive away their responsibility to go on the record again for defending and acquitting.
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And no that's not a "Ha, we got 'em now!" moment, they will absolutely wear that with a badge of pride as they continue to fundraise with Trump's base off their loyalty to him, but... again. Social animals. We look for signals.
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There are a lot of people who aren't Trump's base, who are in the mild moderate middle, who are exactly the targets susceptible to the minimizing effects of both-sidesism, who were genuinely shocked by the events of Wednesday.
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And these are the people who are hearing the media repeating false right-wing narratives about antifa infiltrators and false flags and getting a very muddled picture of what actually happened.
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And swift and forceful action by our leaders in DC to treat this with exactly the level of seriousness it demands and focus consequences in those complicit in inciting it would send a strong signal to those people about what actually happened.
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Yep. The right-wing propaganda machine knows how this works and is perfectly willing to exploit it. https://twitter.com/semirose/status/1347611910376615937 …
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And here's a thing: actively subverting the chain of command at the very highest level of the chain and the highest level of military force is more norm-shattering than removing him through either legal avenue.https://twitter.com/JonLemire/status/1347603930600103939 …
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Katherine Cross had a short thread on this yesterday, that even though preventing Trump from launching nukes in a fit of destructive pique is better than letting him, *it's still terrifying and damaging if it's necessary*.https://twitter.com/Quinnae_Moon/status/1347325963101605891 …
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In trying to manage things behind the scenes and keep everything nice and tidy, our institutionalists are allowing the institutions they seek to protect to continue stripping their own gears and overheating.
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Yeah. Back before the election when people were saying "Relax! He can't stage a coup without the military's backing and if he tries they'll sort him out." like that wouldn't *also* be the death of the republic.https://twitter.com/HonorataER/status/1347615933905440769 …
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I'm very relieved that at the moment and for the moment, it doesn't appear like he will hang out in the White House and claim to be president after January 20th because the scenario where we have Federal Gun Havers resolving that dispute is deeply bad.
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We don't want to be Rome with the Praetorian Guard picking the next emperor. Not even once. Not even if they choose correctly.
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I intuit from available data that right now Trump's closest family and most reasonable lawyers are trying to keep him bubbled in and stopping him from throwing more gas on the fire in any obvious way. I doubt they can sustain that for twelve days.
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He could make this situation so much worse in a flash with a few unguarded minutes on his phone. There are specific phrases and claims he could tweet that would be the equivalent of a nuclear launch code to the QAnons and their adjacent circles.
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He can still tweet that the storm is upon us or that he was robbed of a landslide victory even after he's out of office, mind you. A number of his faithful have already made peace with the idea that he'll "let the inauguration go through" before "springing the trap".
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But right now he's got that *and* all the official levers of power that his aides and military officials have absolutely no legal recourse for keeping away from him.
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When DC Comics did their storyline with Lex Luthor as president, Batman confronted him before he took office and confiscated his kryptonite, telling him "You don't get to have both." He knew taking down a winning president would be too far but he could take his supercrime stuff.
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The House has no power to take Trump's kryptonite ring away from him but they do have legal Constitutional power to impeach him. Like Batman in the fictional example, they should do what they can instead of playing games with mitigating harm behind the scenes.
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I mean, you want to talk about fueling conspiracy theories? Now the highest ranking Democrat currently holding office is conferring with the military brass about taking away powers that are rightly invested only in the commander in chief.
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There is no legitimate means for taking away or undercutting his nuclear launch authority. As I said upthread, if they can do it then GOOD. ABSOLUTELY GOOD. But the only *legitimate* way to do it is to take away the presidency itself.
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I am just aghast and incandescently angry that Nancy Pelosi has apparently digested the fact that Trump having unrestricted nuclear launch authority is a big problem, and her solution to that is backchannel chatter.
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