Comment by roenxi | Hacker News Reader

Comment by roenxi | Hacker News Reader

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Well, as mentioned, G. W. Bush was cheerleading an unwarranted invasion in Iraq and Obama oversaw a sweeping an likely unconstitutional omnisurveillence system. Both of those things are worse than asking people to do things that the Biden DoJ doesn't like. If someone could trade a 2nd Trump term for not sending the troops to Iraq that'd be a great deal for America. And depending on your authoritarian-libertarian leanings it'd be a good trade to get rid of the surveillance state too.

At this point the Democratic establishment has a history of frivolous use of law to attack Trump. That indictment basically admits in point 3 that it is on shaky ground. The Democrats had their chance to hit Trump with the Russiagate investigation and came up with nothing. Then they started impeaching him to try and stop Biden's Ukraine dealings from coming to light. In light of that it seems unlikely that these lawsuits will prove serious allegations, even if they manage to get a lucky judge/jury combo and score a conviction.

It is naked politics.

While GWB overthrowing an authoritarian government in Iraq on a lie is really bad, it does not rise to the level of overthrowing a liberal democracy in America on a lie. Yes, both were lies, but Bush barely had to lie at all to get the Congress to go along with it and one could make the case that he believed the lie himself. Not so with Trump, as the indictment makes clear.

If you read the Mueller Report it's also clear the the "Russiagate" wasn't a hoax and this argument that the "Democrats had their chance to hit Trump" as if the fact that the impeachments clearly failed on a partisan basis and Barr misrepresented the findings in the Mueller Report, which were damning and would have been worth an indictment if not for the fact of Trump being the sitting President at the time.

If you hate the American system and think the current liberal democracy deserves to be destroyed (for whatever reason) then you can just say so without pretending that Trump isn't a uniquely malignant liar beyond precedent.

> it does not rise to the level of overthrowing a liberal democracy in America on a lie.

In America or not in America, governments are either resistant enough to military or political coups or not, when they occur. There's nothing special about the paper in the US Constitution that changes human behavior.

I happen to think the lives wasted in Iraq FAR outweigh the reminder that Trump provided, reinforcing the waning belief that the US Government structures are still worth supporting.

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