It’s also telling that people think it wasn’t 
Do you think clinton’s impeachment was just part of the game and nothing more?
I know only cursory information about this case, other than that Monica Lewinsky still be lookin pretty good.
Totally agree…but since the Democrats did, should the Republicans do the same…i think not, its not good for the country…it wasnt good when the democrats impeached trump
very interesting question
…then when democrats take over again (if they lose this Nov), they will impeach whomever the Republican president is…never ending political bullshit
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Is this bad?
I’ve seen this dissatisfaction with disunity several times here. Why would I want to live with other people imposing their will on me for things I don’t want?
Do you want that?
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Clinton should not have been impeached, it was all politics by the republicans
…and i hated Clinton
Of course. Every single member of Congress should have been asked under oath about their sexual history. Let’s see how honest any of them would have been.
Great post and I agree 100 percent that restoring faith in the institutions is far more important than any short-term political win. Let’s keep Joe Biden front-and-center until his term is up. Since 2000 every single presidential election has been declared illegitimate by the loser in some shape or form. Every. Single. One. The problem with election integrity measures is, of course, that Democrats rabidly oppose them for some strange reason. So even restoring faith in the process will involve more division.
That said, I’m not too optimistic about the short term. I think we’re going to continue to sort ourselves internally, with states like Florida and Texas leading the way on the conservative side and states like Illinois and California leading the way on implementing progressive policy priorities. That’s basically what’s been happening for quite some time anyway.
I realize this is terrible news for regular people in Illinois and California, but hopefully they can continue to find the means to vote with their feet, as regular middle-class Californians and Illini have been for years now.
This may be a grim outlook, but if in another 20 years we have parts of the country with starkly different ways of life, levels of opportunity and levels of freedom and people can finally connect the dots back to government policy, we may finally grow up as a modern society. We may finally become serious about governance, serious about policy and serious about preparing the next generation to become healthy, productive adults.
I hate to sacrifice anyone in this country on the altar of We Told You So, but the best thing possible may be for progressives to continue to implement their policy priorities at the state-level and lower. Let California continue the slow transformation into every other third world hellscape where progressive policies have been implemented faithfully. Let the progressives explain how the unempowered conservatives are somehow at fault for turning the jewel of the nation into a playground for the rich propped up by a vast lower class with no middle class to speak of.
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Only if you apply this in the absolute loosest terms to Trump’s presidency.
Hillary conceded the election within 24 hours. So if you want to say she was ‘declaring it illegitimate’ until then… I guess? There were no legal challenges brought to Trump’s victory.
If you’re talking about the popular vote issue… meh. Anytime the popular vote and electoral college vote don’t go the same way, there will be people saying the system should be changed. But I don’t think that should be considered a challenge to the legitimacy of the election itself. It’s more of ‘this is a problem we should address going forward.’ It’s not meant to say the results of the previous election should be reversed. I think there were plenty of people who were shouting ‘not my president’, but that was never meant to say ‘Trump was not duly elected’. It was an expression of ‘I fucking hate this guy’. I don’t know anyone who, at any point, didn’t think Trump legitimately won the election after the results had been in for 24 hours.
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The Russia Collusion investigation that dragged on for 3 years and was sponsored by Hillary Clinton doesn’t count?
It’s funny that was disagree on this. I actually think exactly what should have happened, happened. Clinton lied under oath. He didn’t get impeached for his infidelity, he got impeached for perjury. And I would like to see that particular standard held up going forward. I would not like to see future presidents lie under oath and get away with it. I think Clinton’s offense deserved impeachment, and not removal from office.
I would personally say no. But I can understand why you would disagree. I think that also falls into ‘problems we need to figure out for the future.’
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I’m talking about Russia Collusion Hoax that went on for years, now proven to be a complete fabrication.
I’m not. In the case of Trump, I’m talking about years of false narratives that Democrats kept front-and-center through propagandists posing as journalists.
Just so I’m clear about the “illegitimate” pattern since 2020.
2000 - “Selected, not elected” regarding the Supreme Court stopping the Florida recount.
2004 - Diebold voting irregularities in Ohio
2008 - Birther
2012 - Birther
2016 - Russia collusion
2020 - Safest, most secure election in history to elect the most popular president-elect of all time, covered by high integrity TV, print and social media conglomerates.
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Let’s not forget the (no so) low-key reduction in visibility for conservative opinions across social media platforms, but that’s one that no one wants to talk about.
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I believe there is plenty of evidence that Russia did things that were meant to fuck with/influence our election via social media. I do not believe it had anything to do with direct interactions with Trump. I think it’s more likely that Russia had an interest in creating chaos more than actually trying to influence the results.
I can concede the overall point though. Clearly, Hillary did say later that it was ‘illegitimate’. I do not agree with her, and I think it’s very unfortunate that she went that route. But you’re obviously correct that she did.
In all the previous examples, you only used the point of view of the challenging party to describe the election. Seems strange that you’d do the opposite for 2020.
Also the 2004 election was pretty well accepted by both parties. The Florida recount thing from 2000 was/is one of the craziest things in our election history. But I think at least most people ‘got it’ in 2004. Coming off 9/11, there really wasn’t any way Bush was going to lose.
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I don’t want to veer this thread too off topic with a side bar, but you put this very succinctly.
I’m pretty fascinated by folks who are in favor of the balkanization of the USA and how they reconcile the point I quoted from you. For anyone reading that does want the country to break up, this post isn’t an attack on your ideas. I find them genuinely intriguing.
For every person that wants to the country to break up, there’s probably a neighbor right next door that does not. It’s not a North vs. South thing anymore, or an East vs. West, or however else you might try to draw and quarter the nation.
That’s a discussion probably worth its own thread though, rather than clogging this one up.
That’s exactly right, although if there is Balkanization people will have figure out where they’re gonna go and what designated areas suit whom.
I’m considering starting such a thread.
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That may be the only PWI thread I’d be an active participant in, ever, haha.
Edit: I say that as I’m posting here, but clearly I’m off topic.
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Is perjury a high crime? If so, then i stand corrected
Sure, and this is the kind of stuff governments do to each other in this day and age. I highly, highly doubt Russia’s social media activity somehow fooled a significant number of people into voting Trump who would otherwise have voted for Clinton.
I feel like I should send you a cake. This is not typical behavior for Democrats/Progressives on this forum!
2020 was very different from all of those other examples. It was rigged for sure, and done so quite openly. All of the last-minute changes were made under ostensible Covid protections where we were informed that waiting in line at Wal-Mart is safe, rioting in the streets is safe, but waiting in line at the polls was mortally dangerous.
Social and legacy media giants, not in Russia but right here in the USA, worked in tandem with Democrats to brazenly censor anything potentially damaging to Biden and amplified anything that could be used against Trump. There’s ample reason to believe that the Hunter Biden laptop suppression may have swung the election. We were also told that was Russian disinformation at the time, now it is recognized as legitimate, which anyone with eyes and ears to watch the video could see when it was released. I find that a lot more concerning than some Russian trolls on facebook.
To be clear, saying it was rigged is different than saying it was fraudulent, which is a specific charge that is probably impossible to prove at this point.
Agree, it was probably the least contested. That said, if you were a well-meaning progressive at the time, as I was, it was all over our favorite places like the Huffington Post and Alternet. Of course we knew Diebold threw the election for Bush!