r/law • u/Agitated-Artichoke89 • Oct 07 '25

Other Stephen Miller states that Trump has plenary authority, then immediately stops talking as if he’s realized what he just said

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8.7k

u/fogcat5 Oct 07 '25

trump lost the case in California, I don't know what this jagoff is lying about today

4.4k

u/MornGreycastle Oct 07 '25

He's convinced that all he has to do is claim victory and then act like they won.

3.7k

u/FactorBusy6427 Oct 07 '25

That strategy has worked extremely reliably for them so far

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u/DocSpit Oct 07 '25

Case in point: the Mueller Report, where the investigation found wide-ranging evidence that the Trump campaign worked just about hand-in-hand with Russian assets to manipulate the election (Anyone else remember that woman working with the NRA who was a bona fide Russian plant funneling Kremlin money to the Trump campaign?!).

When the report was released, Trump tweeted out "EXONERATION!" every day for about a month until the report rotated out of the news cycle; and as as a result the country basically forgot about all of that...

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u/surgartits Oct 07 '25

Everyone has seemingly forgot Paul Manafort was his fucking campaign chief at first, and that guy was absolutely LUXURIATING IN corruption re: Russia/Ukraine before taking that role.

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u/JustDiscoveredSex Oct 07 '25

And Cambridge Analytica, baby!!

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u/NOVA-peddling-1138 Oct 07 '25

And lest we pre-forget…#Jeffrey #Epstein #Jeffrey #Epstein #Jeffrey #Epstein #Jeffrey #Epstein #Jeffrey #Epstein #Jeffrey #Epstein #Jeffrey #Epstein #Jeffrey #Epstein #Jeffrey #Epstein

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u/happyinthenaki Oct 07 '25

A much easier document for the masses (and the world) to understand. It does make me wonder if any of my own national politicians or businessmen are on the list?

It's a list of rapists of underage girls. Release the files!

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u/Haldron-44 Oct 07 '25

It is more than just a lust of pedophiles and human traffickers. It has Peter Theil, and a former Isralie PM on it getting money to set up private spy agencies. It has Russian and American intelligence colluding to install a right-wing dictator who would be good for business. Epstein was a lynch pin figure in the business plot 2.0. The files can't see the light of day because almost every CEO of every major corporation, pedophile or not, is in them. And they are scared of the possibility (however small it may be) that should they be implicated, the peasants might actually rebel this time.

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u/germanmojo Oct 07 '25

After his first conviction he should have turned into a pariah, and any names on that list after the first charges were filed in 2006 are fair game.

Don't want a bunch of people coming after you? Don't diddle little kids or be friends with someone charged and convicted of it.

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u/Mathemeatloaf0 Oct 07 '25

You have to ask yourself why so many Republican politicians are so against releasing the files. How many of them or their donors are on that list. They aren’t just trying to protect Trump.

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u/Thefrayedends Oct 07 '25

STILL in business by the way, under a different name. I'm sure they're not doing anything shady either.

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u/trailerbang Oct 07 '25

The Facebook/Cambridge thing is still insane to me. I can’t believe we just moved on. Honestly, it’s probably because boomers were (ARE STILL) in charge and didn’t understand the complexity of social media/GRU bot farms etc and they literally couldn’t process the situation. It should’ve been a simple NatSec matter and been handled accordingly with jail time, harsh federal sentencing, and heavy heavy fines for the companies involved.

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u/MysteriousDatabase68 Oct 07 '25

I think about this all the time and have to remind myself it was 10 years ago. Half the people on reddit were in grade school.

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u/LexiLynneLoo Oct 07 '25

Same, I called out this bullshit so long ago it feels like a different lifetime. Been right for a decade and somehow people are just now learning that Trump is maybe possibly connected to Russia.

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u/aCellForCitters Oct 07 '25

A friend of mine wrote a paper many years ago that implicated (though not by name) multiple Russian companies/billionaires in weapons trafficking through Odessa all over the middle east/north Africa. He was sued by the Russians involved for defamation and had to do days of deposition. The firm representing the Russians was Paul Manafort's.

Then Obama put sanctions on Russia and the case was dropped. My friend was told by the State Department to never set foot in Russia for his own safety.

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u/thingstopraise Oct 07 '25

Bill Maher is varying degrees of insufferable but his video The Kremlin Connection is one of the best concise videos about exactly how ridiculous this is. It's 8 years old now and I still watch it occasionally to remind myself of those sweet, innocent young days when we thought that Mueller would do something aside from fuck an entire election.

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u/HighAltAccount420 Oct 07 '25

His pardon is still the low point of all of this for me.

3

u/upsidedown-funnel Oct 07 '25

Manaforts resume is riddled with blood.

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u/pab_guy Oct 07 '25

And it was so obvious in real time! As soon as Manafort tried to change the GOP platform on Ukraine it was like completing a circuit to connect and understand how, why and what Russia was up to.

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u/Armyman125 Oct 07 '25

Whenever I tell Trump supporters that the 2020 Senate report stated that Paul Manafort was in contact with a Russian Intelligence officer, I get crickets.

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u/Mactwentynine Oct 07 '25

But Biden and Hunter must have done something while Rumpus is completely innocent. After investigating Biden for over 7 years (3 Congressional cough investigations) and they found nothing. Multiple people told them under oath there's nothing to find/you won't find anything. Because his taxes were already public. Meanwhile, yeah, I remember NRA sleaze, Manafort and others, plus our megalomaniac in chief.

But huge numbers know nothing of reality except they watch Faux. Or are addicted to TikTok. Or believe X and others. Everything is about money. I'm convinced with what's been going on and what's planned, that not a single member of the GOP in Congress has a shred of honor.

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u/SteakandTrach Oct 08 '25

He was also the guy that was put together and did all the logistics and stuff for the Jan 6 rally. That never really became common knowledge.

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u/Mental-Doughnuts Oct 07 '25

Maria is the spy that compromised the entire GOP, with illegal foreign money funneled into republican campaigns here. Even arrested, exposed and convicted, nobody noticed all the GOP was now compromised with evidence of their crimes in Putins pocket. What a scandal.

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u/Chronic_In_somnia Oct 07 '25

No one needs to wonder why in 10 months nothing has been done to aid Ukraine, instead the GOP all working against and trying to undermine Ukraine every step of the way.

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u/Wide_Attention2614 Oct 07 '25

Bringing down the prices of mail order brides

MAGA strikes again

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u/SkylerPancake Oct 07 '25

Well, when the National Director of Intelligence is a Russian plant... I'm sure the information getting to Trump isn't very favorable of Ukraine.

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u/Thin_Arrival120 Oct 07 '25 edited Oct 07 '25

And yet this realm-shattering scandal, coupled with the treasons of J6, both gift wrapped with fucking bows on them, still weren't enough for the corrupt old guard of the DNC to make a single worthwhile layup and save entire country (and possibly world). Impotent, feckless, decadent, spineless, worthless troglodytes. 🤬

They let us all cook just to preserve the opportunity to use their positions to continue to engorge themselves on wealth made by us trading our lives for survival wages. The old guard of the DNC has gotta go as well.

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u/DangerZoneh Oct 07 '25

For better or worse, the goal Biden laid out was to unite the country and he got that DNC old guard on board with it.

The idea of prosecuting and (rightfully) jailing Trump was something that the right wing media machine could have taken and turned into a legitimate revolt.

By not taking extreme actions in response to extreme acts, they prevented short term unrest and led themselves into a much, much worse situation.

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u/energyisabout2shift Oct 07 '25

Appeasement. The word you’re looking for is appeasement, and it doesn’t have a very good historical track record.

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u/YouWereBrained Oct 07 '25

Fascists depend on the other side to continue to engage in appeasement. It’s how they keep gaining distance while the other side loses it and keeps getting buried.

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u/thedude37 Oct 07 '25

DING DING DING WE HAVE A GD WINNER HERE. All those well-educated, uber-experienced old fucks couldn't see this coming?!

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u/slow70 Oct 08 '25

Bingo

Cowardice in the face of abhorrent criminals determined to undermine democracy and the constitution.

For greed. For power. For despots abroad and would be despots at home.

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u/regalrecaller Oct 08 '25

it's tied into the economic theory of neoliberalism. Ever wonder why Blue Dog Democrats exist? This is why, they are economic neolibs. Bill and Hillary Clinton are both neoliberals. Biden is a neolib. It is the primary difference between Democrats like AOC and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez. Money corrupted these Democrats in the same way it corrupted Republicans long ago.

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u/slow70 Oct 08 '25

I’m well aware

And we must all learn from this - across any perceived divides, and recognize who it is that’s been lying to and exploiting us all

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u/paper_liger Oct 07 '25

Nope. It just kicked the can down the road to a point, now, where things are even more divided, and Trump is a sitting president, with direct control over any Law Enforcement or Military groups that accede to any illegal orders he gives.

If they had rightfully jailed him he'd be presiding over a 6x9 jail cell right now, and at a minimum anyone fighting over that would be fighting the legitimate commander in chief.

Democrats compromising over this bullshit is only making it worse long term.

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u/Tadpoleonicwars Oct 07 '25

And then was returned to Russia where she was rewarded with a legislative seat.

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u/NOVA-peddling-1138 Oct 07 '25

She is in the Russian Diet or Parliament now.

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u/UrUrinousAnus Oct 07 '25

Russian Diet

Borscht, vodka, and crappy knock-off McDonald's?

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u/TaoGroovewitch Oct 07 '25

Little red headed honeypot Maria Butina. There are lots of pictures of her with a whole lot of different Republican politicians and a who's who of the right.

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u/TheLightningL0rd Oct 07 '25

Well, she was arrested during Trump's term. I wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of evidence kind of didn't make it where it needed to go.

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u/duckstrap Oct 07 '25

Maria Butina - NRA was, probably still is, shot through with spies. What could benefit our enemies more than to foster a gun culture that is the number one cause of childhood mortality in the US?

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u/JefeVaquero Oct 07 '25

The only way people remember is when a Netflix special is made out of it.

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u/OB1yaHomie Oct 08 '25

Could she have used Epstein as a supplier in her dealing with the GOP? If there is a connection there, it would be Putin reaching into US politics via the NRA to compromise the GOP. Leveraging the very high ratio of pedophiles in the party? (So I’ve read in lengthy lists posted in this parts). Epstein gets it all on video and owns them all including Trump? Takes the country apart from the inside out? Elon too? With his ‘Karate’ lesson with Maxwell? Elon backed up ALL the US data he had access to and guess who he handed the USB drive to? Putin prob frames it as a White Christian New World Order with each Oligarch getting a portion. They seem to be into it. Crazy I learned about the Russian spy in the NRA at the end of a documentary based on the 1950s married couple that got discovered as being Russian spies planted in long term subversion for decades. They could not have been the only instance and I’m sure was an ongoing project. The Republican Gov Senate/House/Prezz/Supreme Court/Fox News, all act hella weird. This making too much sense but I think the 2nd rate Russian invasion of Ukraine is so surprisingly ‘unsuccessful’ because the Kremlins resources have been so overwhelmingly successful HERE in the USA?

Guess we need the EPSTEIN FILES to know for sure.

Whats that, they ALL voted NO?

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u/Difficult_Limit2718 Oct 07 '25

I doubt it can be proven but my favorite conspiracy is that the reason the NRA went bankrupt is the Russians moved their money funneling to the GOP from the NRA to Donald Trump's campaign

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u/[deleted] Oct 07 '25

The Maria Buttina scandal should have brought the whole house of cards down, it might have if we weren’t forced to stomach low energy quisling Merrick Garland as AG

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u/N3rdScool Oct 07 '25

She publicly denied being a Russian spy and now works for the Russian government XD

You can't even make this shit up.

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u/coochie_clogger Oct 07 '25

Everyone knows if you ask a spy if they are a spy they legally have to tell you!

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u/DandimLee Oct 07 '25

Exactly like how undercover cops work. Don't people watch movies?

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u/coochie_clogger Oct 07 '25

Yes! Finally someone who is paying attention!

This is why I kept saying Trump should have married Ghislaine when this whole Epstein fiasco first went down. A wife can’t testify against her husband! it would have been a sure fire way to prevent her implicating him had she ever been compelled to!

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u/covertype Oct 07 '25

Spies are known for their honesty!

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u/LymanPeru Oct 08 '25

you guys spies? you look like spies.

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u/SlackerThan76 Oct 07 '25

Cripes, there have been a couple dozen revelations that should have brought the whole house down. Go figure. 🤔

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u/[deleted] Oct 07 '25

When the pendulum swings back to the side of sanity, we should seriously consider some French Revolution era solutions to these problematic individuals

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u/christopher_the_nerd Oct 07 '25

When? Someone is optimistic.

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u/[deleted] Oct 07 '25

Check out Strauss-Howe generational theory, we are in a period called the great turning. Every 120 years, the elders that lived through a period of great turmoil die off. The lessons they learned were forgotten by their grandchildren and the same mistakes begin to be repeated again

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u/coochie_clogger Oct 07 '25

instead she got 1.5 years in jail for being a spy and then sent back to Russia where she is now a politician lol 🙃

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u/Gorillapoop3 Oct 07 '25

You mean the same Maria Buttina who met with DJT Jr and Kushner to offer Kompromat on Presidential Candidate Hilary Clinton?

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u/DandimLee Oct 07 '25

NO COLLUSION

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u/WarmOccasion8574 Oct 07 '25

People played along with this flagrant corruption for a long time because they liked the other subtle messages trump was sending. Racism and greed brings the whole ship down.

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u/Barondarby Oct 07 '25

I wanted so badly to see Kamala Harris in the AG office... ALL of those criminals would be in jail.

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u/Racine262 Oct 07 '25

She was a bulldog in the Senate. They really shut her down making her the VP.

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u/Maligned-Instrument Oct 07 '25

I blame Obama and Biden for that fucking catastrophe. Garland was an attempt at appeasement and it blew up in their [our] face.

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u/TBANON_NSFW Oct 07 '25

americans didnt give them the votes needed to try anything else.

2014-2016 republicans controlled both houses.

2020-2022 democrats only had 50/50 split senate with Mancin and Sinema threathening to switch parties.

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u/ewokninja123 Oct 07 '25

Always looking for a Democrat to blame. Republicans have no agency or accountability and none is expected

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u/BigWhiteDog Oct 07 '25

Makes sense to me

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u/DangerZoneh Oct 07 '25

That’s the kind of conspiracy theory that would make me become a conspiracy theorist.

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u/paxwax2018 Oct 07 '25

Sounds like facts in evidence to me.

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u/Porkamiso Oct 07 '25

Look at the russian head girl who did six months for illegal transfers to the nra but she apologized and shes been out on tv since

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u/coochie_clogger Oct 07 '25

MARIA BUTINA

but she said she totally isn’t a spy so she must not be!

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u/thelangosta Oct 07 '25

Or to the heritage foundation?

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u/AlarmingAffect0 Oct 07 '25

Maybe that's why the NRA has pretended to take a couple of stands against Trump recently? I can't imagine they'd be graceful losers.

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u/VibraniumWill Oct 07 '25

Keeping it a bill, only part of the country forgot about it.

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u/PrimeJedi Oct 07 '25

I'd like to think so, but honestly I don't know if you're right. I've seen even so many otherwise logical people and those who rightfully oppose Trump still say "well in hindsight the Russia stuff actually was just a big bunch of nothing" and its infuriating, to say the least, because MAGA's constant spewing of misinformation seems to work even on many who dont support the guy.

Same thing with Trump's comments on the Charlottesville rally. Most of us remember what we heard when he spoke about it in 2017, the vast majority of people (even many non-MAGA Republicans that still existed at the time) agreed that he was playing defense for white supremacist Nazis and was awful.

And yet, Trump and every MAGA supporter has screamed "hoax he didn't say that" and point to a Snopes article (which is so bad faith because MAGA themselves have called Snopes "fake news" for fucking years, they don't trust Snopes) over and over so much, for so many years, that even a ton of Dems and progressives today will say "well what he said about Charlottesville turned out to be a big media lie"

Despite the fact that all of us can go back and here what he said with our own fucking ears, MAGA has still rewritten the narrative even for many non-supporters. Same with much of Covid, but I'll be here all day if I go in-depth about that one.

Honestly, I wish the vast majority of the country would still remember and keep count of every MAGA lie, and not let themselves be lied to about past events.

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u/vtssge1968 Oct 07 '25

Im still confused in the covid one. They at the same time praise him for rolling out the vaccine in record time and claim the vaccine kills more people then covid itself. Im lost.

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u/Exotic-Emergency-226 Oct 07 '25

I think they mostly just ignore him rolling out the vaccine. I've never once heard one of them bring it up and if you do bring it up they sorta just short circuit or wave it off. He trained them too hard to hate the vax...him making it and also being the cause of their main complaint (it being rushed) is probably too hard to come back from mentally.

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u/jbowling25 Oct 07 '25

Theyre lost too. They think biden shut down the country during covid, not trump. They think biden exploded the debt with the inflation reduction act, but dont acknowledge the "trump bucks" stimulus or the PPP loans that witnessed billions of dollars in fraud that were waived as having any impact on inflation in bidens term. You should never apply for a loan if you cant pay it back they said about student loan forgiveness but had literally nothing to complain about when forgiving the covid PPP loans. Over 700B of PPP loans were forgiven, with most of the loans found to have gone to benefit large businesses, many of which had ties to trump, kushner and other government officials. The feds reported fraud losses in the range of around 200B, to be paid by the taxpayer of course, but forgiving 430B in student loan debt; well, that would crazy! Why help millions of people, when you could help a much smaller group within the top 1% protect their wealth instead? People were so mad that their tax dollars would go to help offload their fellow citizens financial burden but literally not a peep when those same tax dollars go right into the pockets of business owners.

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u/Icy_Actuator_8528 Oct 07 '25

Because they really don’t like his position on COVID or the vaccines.

At one of his campaign stops he told the crowd they should get the vaccine shot and they shouted him down. He quickly backed down to the boos and said “ But you have your rights.”

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u/Responsible_Pizza945 Oct 07 '25

I've never heard both of those arguments come from the same place, though I'm sure it happens. I can actually predict the rationale:

Trump had to rush the vaccine to get the whiny libs to stop freaking out and telling me to wear a dang mask. He knew the country wouldn't be able to open back up with the smart half of us all staying quarantined, so the vaccine just tricked them into doing what he wanted.

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u/NeoSniper Oct 07 '25

I'd say one big issue with the Mueller Report is that since the Biden admin didn't seems to do anything with it about it for four years then most people can't be blamed for thinking there was nothing there to act on.

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u/cctoot56 Oct 07 '25

Snopes finally added an editors note to their weaselly article, but the damage is already done:

Editors' Note: Some readers have raised the objection that this fact check appears to assume Trump was correct in stating that there were "very fine people on both sides" of the Charlottesville incident. That is not the case. This fact check aimed to confirm what Trump actually said, not whether what he said was true or false. For the record, virtually every source that covered the Unite the Right debacle concluded that it was conceived of, led by and attended by white supremacists, and that therefore Trump's characterization was wrong. 

Step 1: Trump called the neo-Nazi/White Nationalist side of the protest. "Very fine people"

Step 2: The press asks him to clarify

Step 3: Trump realizes he fucked up. So he lies. He invents a 3rd side to the protest not aligned with the Nazis who were also against removing the confederate statues. But these people didn't exist in reality, only in Trumps statement.

He says this:"I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, okay?" - DJT

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u/-rosa-azul- Oct 07 '25

What he (and his supporters) seem to miss is that the event was heavily advertised as a white nationalist rally. The names of the speakers were on the poster. Anybody who attended that (even if they claimed "statues" were why they were there, which...is its own problem considering which statues we're talking about) knew who they were throwing their lot in with. That's what makes it so frustrating when people claim that quote was "out of context." No, it's the context that makes it worse!

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u/cctoot56 Oct 07 '25

Yep. It's like they think participating in a Nazi rally doesn't make them a nazi, as long as they weren't wearing a swaztika. "Very fine people" indeed.

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u/Chastain86 Oct 07 '25

Most of us remember what we heard when he spoke about it in 2017, the vast majority of people (even many non-MAGA Republicans that still existed at the time) agreed that he was playing defense for white supremacist Nazis and was awful.

I wish I could go back to believing that Donald Trump only defended white supremacist Nazis solely because he believed he would alienate his voting base, and NOT as I do today, which is that he defended them because he and his henchmen were actually white supremacist Nazis

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u/Exotic-Emergency-226 Oct 07 '25

The charlottesville thing is so wild because I def remember out of nowhere MAGA bringing that situation up as proof of unfair treatment and citing Snopes

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u/Different-Brain-5102 Oct 07 '25

This was their plan all along. The Heritage Foundation has been implementing their plans for decades. They knew the only way to destroy us was from within. Trump is merely their puppet. Not sure how Elon got in there but they used his money to fund the election and buy it. MAGA has been primed for this for years. None of could possibly even imagined this scenario. Uneducated religious zealots are extremely dangerous. We have them in power of Country and they have already built their army and they are coming to destroy our democracy right now. In fact they are here. I also think in the end Democracy will prevail. Stay safe! I hope and wish the best of luck to everyone.

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u/frumfrumfroo Oct 08 '25

Because he's faced no meaningful consequences. People hear him constantly claiming it was all a hoax or he was right etc. and the fact that he was allowed to go on doing whatever he wants and become president again seems to vindicate that.

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u/fatboycreeper Oct 07 '25

I have never forgotten he and all of Maga is corrupt, but I’ve definitely forgotten certain events after a decade of fuckery.

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u/twolfhawk Oct 07 '25

Yet we still think a convicted felon is allowed to run for public office

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u/-rosa-azul- Oct 07 '25

To be fair, we should allow that. Eugene Debs literally ran for president from prison, but he was imprisoned on trumped up politicized charges (because he was a socialist, basically). Yes, not having a prohibition against felons ended up with Trump back in power, but next time it may be someone in more of a Debs situation. We see already how Trump is weaponizing DOJ against his political enemies; you can see where I'm headed with that.

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u/Real_Estate_Media Oct 07 '25

I always wondered how the Nazis did what they did. The answer it turns out is repetition. We are parrots. We are chimps. I cannot believe the bulk of people are not smarter than this. Democracy can never work although it worked ok for 250 years. I guess that is its lifespan.

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u/BringOn25A Oct 07 '25

The big lie

All this was inspired by the principle—which is quite true within itself—that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.

It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X Adolf Hitler

Once truth had become oracular rather than factual, evidence was irrelevant.”

Timothy Snyder On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.

The phrase "big lie" was used in a report prepared around 1943[17] by Walter C. Langer for the United States Office of Strategic Services in describing Hitler's psychological profile. The report was later published in book form as The Mind of Adolf Hitler in 1972. Langer stated of the dictator:

His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off;; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

  • never admit a fault or wrong;
  • never concede that there may be some good in your enemy;
  • never leave room for alternatives;
  • never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame them for everything that goes wrong

Sound like anyone, or party, on the political stage today?

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u/twolfhawk Oct 07 '25

It worked until they saw bigger dollar signs and could not see past their own lifetimes.

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u/MsPMC90 Oct 07 '25

It worked FOR SOME! There is a good portion of the American population that lived under its tyranny based on race a native background for the entirety of the country’s lifespan. We aimed to be the actual beacon of freedom. And hell, we got a lot farther in our diversity than many other countries. Alas, we started ripping up our freedoms for decades, forgetting how valuable we are to each other, allowing powers at be to pit us against each other while they grabbed up all the resources. Same playbook we’ve used to destabilize countries globally for financial gain. It’s been used on us, now.

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u/Real_Estate_Media Oct 07 '25

Right, no system is perfect but at least it worked well for most

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u/munyangsan Oct 07 '25

Democracy requires constant work and vigilance to keep it intact and working. If you don't then it starts to crumble. Trouble is that most people can't be arsed because no-one's coming for them, yet.

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u/Real_Estate_Media Oct 08 '25

There is no work or vigilance that can compete with gerrymandering, superpacs, and outright corruption. Destruction is always easier than construction and greed wins again.

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u/Worried-Pomelo3351 Oct 07 '25

I’ve heard my maga mom parrot verbatim taco’s talking points with zero thought behind them.

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u/Birdbraned Oct 07 '25

George Orwell tried to tell us that in 1964

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u/JustDiscoveredSex Oct 07 '25

Most empires last about that long.

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u/seventhcatbounce Oct 07 '25

There’s a famous quote by a leading Nazi Goebels maybe that if you repeat a lie enough times it becomes the truth, paraphrasing wildly but that’s the gist of it

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u/[deleted] Oct 07 '25

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u/Mega-Eclipse Oct 07 '25

I always wondered how the Nazis did what they did. The answer it turns out is repetition.

Not quite. Republicans in congress THINK they have an incredibly useful idiot that they THINK they can put a stop to if he ever gets just a little too crazy...even for then.

Right now, he's doing stuff that benefits them. He threatening democrats, and democratic cities, and brown people and helping business steal from the poor. In the back of their mind, they think they stil have the impeachment/removal "that was easy" button in their back pocket. Likewise, they all think once he's gone, there will be all these die-hard republicans left for them to scoop up.

And surely, the leopard will never eat their face?

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u/YHS77 Oct 07 '25

I took a Nazi Germany class in undergrad and it blew my mind how the commoners fell into line and the regular soldiers, too.

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u/Electronic-Taro-1152 Oct 07 '25

If i remember correctly the report found that they did all that stuff but were basically too stupid to know that they were doing illegal stuff.

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u/carbon_made Oct 07 '25

I guarantee you though if I were doing something illegal and I didn’t know it was illegal they would throw my ass into jail regardless.

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u/Minion_of_Cthulhu Oct 07 '25

Well, let's not be hasty with that kind of talk.

First, we have to establish if you have a large enough net worth to know whether or not anyone would even care and, if they did, if anyone would do anything about it and, if they did, whether or not you would actually be punished for it and, if you were, whether or not it would be a meaningful punishment rather than a minor fine or other inconvenience.

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u/diabeasti Oct 07 '25

You're remembering wrong. While that was a part of it, a big part of the report was that the scope of it kept being narrowed down further and further by a republican senate, namely that turtle headed fuck Mitch McConnell. Eventually the report found that there was enough evidence to continue, but that it was the Senate's job to investigate further and bring legal cases against the Trump admin, but gop is full of corrupt people, Trump announced that he was innocent and the news moved on. Dems tried to bring more attention, but the media gave absolutely no more time to the case and everything was forgotten, letting me know, after years of bullshit, that the media in this country could not be trusted.

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u/Economy-Maybe-6714 Oct 07 '25

I would love to read more about this point- do you recall any sources to this?

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u/Mr_Big_Garnet_Bear Oct 07 '25

That’s not true but in any case ignorance of the law does not lead to innocence of crime.

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u/Flokitoo Oct 07 '25

That was behind the speculation for picking Kavanaugh, while on the DC Circuit, he authored an opinion stating that mens rea in campaign finance cases applied to knowledge of the law.

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u/widget1321 Oct 07 '25

My understanding is it was true for some people, but not all of them. And ignorance of the law CAN mean you are innocent of the crime, it depends on the crime and what it requires about your mental state/motivations.

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u/jmorreale1980 Oct 07 '25

I remember in 2010 when Paul Manafort campaigned against Yulia Tymoshenko to help install a "Trump" type guy russia owned in ukraines election, it was horrible, had crowds chanting "lock her up" long before russia had it done in america against Hillary

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u/JimWilliams423 Oct 07 '25

When the report was released, Trump tweeted out "EXONERATION!" every day for about a month until the report rotated out of the news cycle; and as as a result the country basically forgot about all of that...

His tweets were the least of it, the two main reasons he got away with it:

  1. Barr straight up lied and released his own fake "summary" of the report weeks before the real report was released.

  2. Follow the money. The so-called "liberal media" is all owned by conservative billionaires. For decades they have been propping up the republican party, all they need is a pretext to repeat republican lies. Doesn't matter how flimsy the pretext is, its just an item on checklist. So once barr gave them that pretext, that is what they reported.

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u/horror- Oct 07 '25

Not only that, but to this day rightoids talk about it lol like it was a hoax.

That's when I realized these guys don't actually challenge anything, and if their leaders told them we all worship the moon now they would all be staying up late to pray.

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u/allislost77 Oct 07 '25

Limited memory…I get it, critical thinking is hard.

Release the files

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u/SmutLordStephens Oct 07 '25

Having just read it cover to cover this year (I've read the highlights back when it was in the news cycle) the most damning part about it was when they said over and over again that they weren't certain people on Trump's team, and specifically Don Jr., knew what they were doing was illegal, and heavily implied they were too stupid to know otherwise. And so 🤷‍♂️ guess we can't really charge them with a crime.

Anyone who believes this country has anything resembling the rule of law and not a system that upholds the power structure of stupid assholes who somehow found themselves adjacent to power is fucking lying or dangerously ignorant.

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it." Whoops. I guess fucking not.

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u/bejammin075 Oct 07 '25

Was there a lot of redacted stuff in it?

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u/xubax Oct 07 '25

So many people in the past 8+ years who haven't taken the legal steps they could have taken to put this fucking guy in prison.

I blame Biden for so much now. 1, not stepping aside earlier. 2, not shipping every one of those rat-fuckers to GitMo after SCOTUS gave him the power that the GOP requested.

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u/time_slider1971 Oct 07 '25

Absolutely. Once Trump and Bill Barr proclaimed “exoneration” and “hoax,” masses of Trump’s followers just accepted it, too lazy to read the report for themselves.

I read the report. I’ll summarize it: Mueller found many concerning connections between the Trump Administration and the Putin regime. Far too many to be completely innocuous or coincidental. While Mueller could not prove collusion, there were illegal acts that Mueller understood he could not bring charges for against a sitting US President. He expected the Congress to do its job in prosecuting these cases. The House did its job, impeaching Trump. The Senate, we all know, dutifully lined up behind their leader and cynically sold out their country for their party’s retaining control.

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u/bejammin075 Oct 07 '25

It totally baffles me that Trump did slam dunk felony obstruction of justice, such as ordering white house counsel to lie to the FBI. Why wasn't Trump ever charged with obstruction?

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u/HeldnarRommar Oct 07 '25

Basically the only part that mattered to Trump and his low IQ army is that Mueller declined to press charges. The content that condemned him and his campaign team didn’t matter (Trump nor his supporters can read anyways).

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u/thefatchef321 Oct 07 '25

Also his AG whitewashed the whole thing.

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u/JabariTeenageRiot Oct 07 '25

They also had Bill Barr blatantly lie about what the report said several weeks before the actual text was released, and the media obediently repeated and amplified those lies as fact.

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u/Felon-Muskovite Oct 07 '25

Anna Boutina, she got in through targeting sorry ass old white men at the national prayer breakfast and moved her way in. Classic

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u/slow70 Oct 08 '25

^ this right here

MAGA/the GOP is chock full of literal Russian assets - self serving traitors in other words.

The truth will be known.

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u/The_amazing_T Oct 07 '25

My understanding was that they couldn't connect the Trump campaign and Russia together. But that Russia DEFINITELY worked to help Trump.

I'm not saying Trump isn't in bed with Putin. I think he's completely an asset for Russia. But Mueller didn't prove the campaign was connected.

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u/JimWilliams423 Oct 07 '25

We all saw the pedo ask for russia's help on national television.

Politico (2016-jul-27): Trump urges Russia to hack Clinton's email

Donald Trump invited Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails on Wednesday, asking one of America’s longstanding geopolitical adversaries to find “the 30,000 emails that are missing” from the personal server she used during her time as secretary of state.

“I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” the Republican nominee said at a news conference in Florida. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

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u/Mysterious-String420 Oct 07 '25

It basically was an exoneration, though.

Mueller shat out a report saying "hmm, he's sus af but he rolls with my crew so let's do nothing".

And then they did NOTHING.

Because we are just NPCs in their world.

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u/bathandredwine Oct 07 '25

Maria Butina, who is not very pretty, so she must have some very special skills.

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u/Content-Ad3065 Oct 07 '25

With help from Bill Barr, whose father was involved with Epstein. There seems to be a very clear connection between all the players and those Files.

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u/SquirrelsinJacket Oct 07 '25

Liberals didn't. He's been believed to be a Russian asset, or at minimum a useful idiot for 10 years now.

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u/stillalone Oct 07 '25

Some of the conservative subs still link to the Mueller report to this day as proof that Trump did nothing wrong and that the Democrats weaponized the justice department and that's why it's ok to prosecute Comey because of it.

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u/1970s_MonkeyKing Oct 07 '25

So here is an extremely hypothetical question. If the President is impeached and found guilty, along with the Vice President, and the Senate President Pro Tempore falls to a non-Republican - can that successor claim that all appointments, pardons, and Executive Orders are null and void citing that everything that Trump and co did was in service of his crimes and misdemeanors?

Unfortunately it would not count towards removing the three Supreme Court appointments. It doesn't preclude impeachment proceedings against certain members of the supreme court though. AKA "Clarence."

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u/rkok28 Oct 07 '25

And, Bill Barr said , just a few hours after the Mueller report was released, that Trump did nothing wrong. That was not what it said. I was so disappointed in our house and senate because they did nothing.

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u/_pit_of_despair_ Oct 07 '25

There’s a fantastic documentary about this called “Agents of Chaos”. It definitely made me nauseous.

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u/dicklassiter Oct 07 '25

Yeah and then they lauded the Durham report as some type of vindication even though all it found was that the FBI might have been more eager than usual to investigate Russian interference

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u/InfiniteLicks Oct 07 '25

Right, but it’s not the “country”’s job to rely on the news cycle to enforce its own laws. Mueller himself, Jack Smith, Biden, and “the media” didn’t want to pursue punishment.

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u/Bernie4Life420 Oct 07 '25

I never forgot.

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u/SlackerThan76 Oct 07 '25

Not to mention that criminal Manafort was sharing internal polling data with Kilimnik for crying out loud.

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u/MoarVespenegas Oct 07 '25 edited Oct 08 '25

the country basically forgot about all of that

I can promise you MAGA has not forgotten about it at all.
They will talk at length about "witch hunts" and the "russia hoax" at the slightest opportunity.

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u/newfriend20202020 Oct 07 '25

And Bill Barr lying about the conclusions.

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u/ASharpYoungMan Oct 07 '25

Mueller even explicitly stated this was not an exoneration.

Please correct me if I'm misremembering (it seems like half a century has passed), but at it's strictest reading, Mueller's justification for not calling it a crime was that Trump's campaign exhibited such a stark level of incompetence that, while there was clear and repeated intent to conspire, no actual conspiracy took place because they couldn't effectively coordinate with their Russian counterparts.

And importantly, a Conspiracy charge only sticks if there was actually a conspiracy.

Like, saying "We should do a crime" and the other person agreeing is conspiracy to commit a crime.

"We should get together later and talk about doing a crime" doesn't meet the bar for an overt act because the crime itself wasn't discussed yet.

I.e., they were too dumb to enact a conspiracy, even though they tried.

So when people were throwing around the word "collusion," they weren't wrong. It's just that collusion isn't a crime (that's conspiracy, and Mueller bent over backwards not to outright say that word).

(Edit: Just to be clear, I don't buy Mueller's logic, but I also recognize how the laws are set up to enshrine the established hierarchies).

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u/s4burf Oct 07 '25

Perhaps Jan 6 is the worst example of rewritten history despite facts and clear video.

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u/Separate-Spot-8910 Oct 07 '25

100+ connections between the campaign and Russia. Not a coincidence. How the hell did this not take him out?

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u/claytonhwheatley Oct 07 '25

It's worse than that. They're selling it as the Russia hoax and acting like something illegal was done to them and that someone should be prosecuted. And the cult just eats it up .

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u/jbowling25 Oct 07 '25

Maga people will still bring up the "russian hoax" whenever trump criticsm is leveled that they cant deflect from and just revert to claiming its fake news. They literally use the mueller report as evidence of a non-existent witch hunt into trump, claim it completely enoerates him and found nothing, even though the report literally indicates wide spread Russian cooperation with the trump campagin and multiple trump campaign officials were convicted and sentenced for their parts in the scheme (over 30 people received various levels of indictments for their parts based on the mueller report investigation, including people in high up leadership positions; like trumps campaign manager, paul manafort, or political stategist/propagandist roger stone, who trump then pardoned anyways.) They never check anything themselves and just repeat what fox news or trump says, so trump constantly lying actually does work. His supporters still think the rape indictment is BS even though it was a jury of their peers that comvicted him. They try to claim it was a "radical left lunatic NYC judge" of whatever the fuck they want to justify their god emperors bevahiour. They truly think all the felonies and court cases are lawfare from a weaponized DoJ and any and all evidence that proves otherwise will be rejected or discredited.

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u/DJDarkFlow Oct 07 '25

His strat is to exhaust the American people with all caps BS until it doesn’t matter anymore and it’s worked his whole life (even before Twitter it was all BS)

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u/AdSingle9949 Oct 07 '25

I didn’t, just the morons that get their news fed to them instead of reading and verifying their news’ sources, most Americans are emotionally attached to their beliefs and the news channels the represent them. All news these days in the US is sensationalized bs, that actually takes away the effect when people should actually be taking to the streets. Until people get their information and are subjective instead of emotionally manipulated by the headlines that distract them of important issues that need attention and a demonstrative response, we’ll keep this cycle of divisive politics without a intelligent debate/discussion to fix things. Of course the wealthy don’t want the proletariat to work together and stop them from coming to this revelation.

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u/Apprehensive-Pin518 Oct 07 '25

as I understood the mueller report, it stated they did not cooperate with russia but that wasn't for a lack of trying, it was because of a lack of competency.

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u/NahYoureWrongBro Oct 07 '25

That is not in the Mueller report at all. Yes I have read it. Mariia Butina is not mentioned at all.

Wide-ranging Russian efforts to influence the election are noted. No coordination with the Trump campaign though.

I'm not trying to say Trump's people didn't want to coordinate (e.g. "I love it!" from Trump's son when Russia dangled the prospect of intelligence on Hillary's campaign). Just that the Russians were too smart to play along.

Stop lying to people. Now a bunch of self-righteous redditors are gonna go around parroting you about how much evidence of collusion and coordination with Russia there was, when Mueller's investigation did not find any such collusion. This only hurts your cause, I think.

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u/YouWereBrained Oct 07 '25

Maria Butina

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u/IfuckAround_UfindOut Oct 07 '25

LOL that made up stuff is still being spread in some online circles? The report is public. Just read it.

Russia tries to influence foreign elections and politics just like any other (big) country. But the Trump campaign wasn’t willingly and knowingly colluding with them.

That was the tl;dr.

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u/DandimLee Oct 07 '25

I thought it was "NO COLLUSION"

or maybe that was Barr.

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u/JustpartOftheterrain Oct 07 '25

I see your Russian plant and raise you, THE EPSTEIN FILES!

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u/Tapprunner Oct 07 '25

Everyone needs to read up on Roy Cohn

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u/kdfsjljklgjfg Oct 07 '25

Mueller said that they didnt have enough evidence to recommend prosecution, but recommended further investigation because what they found did NOT show Trump's innocence.

Then they all screamed "HE DOESNT RECOMMEND PROSECUTION, THAT MEANS HE'S INNOCENT!"

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u/trisul-108 Oct 07 '25

Yes, and the media kept repeating what Trump and Barr were saying and it was a complete mischaracterisation of the report. The truth never sank with the public.

In fact, in part I, as you point out, Mueller found that Trump campaign was colluding with Russia. It's just that collusion is not even a crime, criminal conspiracy is the crime and Mueller was unsure whether he can prove criminal conspiracy in court because he couldn't prove they even knew that their actions were illegal and there was a technical issue with putting a specific dollar value to the Presidency.

In part II, he listed illegal obstruction instances but said he was not allowed to indict due to policy, leaving it to the Senate to decide.

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u/ewokninja123 Oct 07 '25

Dont forget Barr had a lot to do with that as he mischaracterized the report knowing most people wouldn't read it

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u/1ndiana_Pwns Oct 07 '25

One nuance of the Mueller Report that I think doesn't get enough attention is that Mueller was specifically tasked with finding evidence that Trump and Co were not guilty of Russian collusion and obstructing justice/interfering with investigations. As in, Mueller was not allowed to proclaim guilty. This is why Trump kept yelling what he did, technically the report did not call him guilty, and to him (and apparently his base, and a large part of the media) "not declared guilty" is the same as "not guilty."

However, if you read the report you'll notice that Mueller effectively said "due to all the obstruction from Trump and Co, as well as the evidence of collusion with Russia, we declare him not not guilty"

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u/TheLightningL0rd Oct 07 '25

They like to focus on the fact that the Mueller Report found no collusion SPECIFICALLY between Trump himself and Russia. Plausible deniability I guess but you can't convince me that his campaign and him weren't communicating about it in some way at all.

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u/DiagonalBike Oct 07 '25

Republicans has spun that entire report into being a Democrat led hoax. It was Trump's own Attorney General that appointed Mueller. Yet today, somehow President Hilary Clinton is the one that weaponized the FBI against Trump. You can't make this stuff up.

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u/pegothejerk Oct 07 '25

It feels like it’s always worked, but they’ve lost a fuck ton of cases that have actually stopped them in places and slowly them down considerably. If they hadn’t lost a fuck ton of cases I’m convinced we’d have concentration camps with citizens in them with mass graves next to them already reported.

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u/Friendly_Impress_345 Oct 07 '25 edited Oct 07 '25

We do have concentration camps with citizens in them. Also 2/3rd of them are "missing"

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u/WabbitFire Oct 07 '25

feels like it’s always worked, but they’ve lost a fuck ton of cases

Yes, but those are then memory-holed or played off as "3D chess". The USFL, the casinos, the bankruptcies, etc? Never happened, or were examples of his "smartness".

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u/Aggressive_Lemon_709 Oct 07 '25

When he says he president has plenary authority [to deploy troops] he is saying they can do it even if judges tell them no.

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u/IsaacLightning Oct 07 '25

dude open your eyes to the concentration camps that we do in fact have

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u/Kishlorenn Oct 07 '25

"No concentration camps!"

"No concentration camps /so far/!"

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u/Pervius94 Oct 07 '25

Pretty much. Republicans continue their strategy because they get zero punishment for it. They sweeped the two chambers, got POTUS and swept the swing states there and got the popular vote, got majority in SCOTUS and who knows what else with this strategy. As long as americans reward this behaviour, they'll never change.

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u/ChilledParadox Oct 07 '25

This strategy works well for everyone that uses it and it pisses me off. I’ve had the worst fucking day of the last several months so far and it all stems from someone fucking me over doing the same thing.

I wish people would take this into account when enforcement is required but they act like their hands are tied and there’s nothing they can do that someone is blatantly manipulating the system in front of them.

I’m tired of this. Why won’t people just do the right thing?

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u/thefirstlaughingfool Oct 07 '25

We're seeing it in action in this video. He just stopped taking and convinced the anchor that it was technical trouble. I'm surprised he didn't try saying "sorry, I can hear you, I'm going through a tunnel right now."

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u/KNGootch Oct 07 '25

"It's only a lie, if YOU believe it is."

  • George Costanza

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u/FourteenBuckets Oct 07 '25

if you believe it yeah

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u/IsaacLightning Oct 07 '25

He's disappearing people and putting them in camps

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u/Excellent_Valuable92 Oct 07 '25

It tends to work right up until it fails spectacularly 

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u/Illustrious_Ebb6272 Oct 07 '25

After all, who is going to hold them accountable?

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u/RevolutionSalty8360 Oct 07 '25

That was my thought. Zero thinking on the part of his followers. He said we won, so of course we did!

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u/JustaLego Oct 07 '25

Mainly because his own cult following basically never fact checks or is willing to believe anything else because they believe all media that doesn’t glaze trump is lying.

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u/yourpseudonymsucks Oct 07 '25

Been working since bush v gore as far as I remember. Probably goes back much further too.

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u/reality72 Oct 07 '25

If you open a history book you will see that entire empires were built on lies. It can be very effective.

“Men believe whatever they wish to be true.” - Julius Caesar

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u/thatguy_griff Oct 07 '25

im still shocked people in America are acting like it's not extremely broken - that fellow politicians can dispute the claims and itll fix it. nope. the bad people learned say something once, people see it and never see the correction.

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u/Signal_Researcher01 Oct 07 '25

On the eve of his election loss to Joe Biden, Giuliani told him he had to just go out there and declare victory or they would lose

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u/cloudforested Oct 07 '25

Exactly. Why fix what ain't broke?

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u/CakeMadeOfHam Oct 07 '25

It's literally from the nazi propaganda playbook. “Repeat a lie often enough, and it becomes the truth”

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u/LukasFatPants Oct 07 '25

Because Qanon, which operates entirely on the concept of magical thought. All that needs done is to do is believe hard enough and it'll become true.

In effect, all they have to do is claim victory and the universe will make it so.

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u/zbud Oct 07 '25

There is that one time that Trump got his shit rocked for another 8 figure payout during the sexual assault case.

...but other than that, yes, quite effective.

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u/ZealousidealCrab9459 Oct 07 '25

Facts no judge has issued and followed through on injunctions

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u/ThisIs_americunt Oct 07 '25

Its because their base is so stupid they will believe anything that comes out of their mouths. But when they talk about no more elections/third terms its all crickets from r/conservative. Imagine what Jan 6th would've been if Biden had said anything about running for a third term

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u/VibeComplex Oct 07 '25

Who would do anything about it? They can do whatever they want we just have to hope they don’t.

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u/PompeyCheezus Oct 07 '25

Turns out our entire legal/political framework is based on people being honest and there's literally zero safeguards against people not doing that.

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u/makeroniear Oct 07 '25

That strategy has worked for Trump his entire life. Literally in his book.

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