The former president made multiple chilling warnings during an interview with Time magazine.

The former president made multiple chilling warnings during an interview with Time magazine.

Donald Trump hasn’t quite let go of the possibility of utilizing mob violence if he loses the next election.

In a sprawling interview for Time magazine, Trump hinted that leveraging political violence to achieve his end goals was still on the table.

“If we don’t win, you know, it depends,” he told Time. “It always depends on the fairness of the election.”

And from Trump’s perspective, that’s winning rhetoric. According to him, his incendiary comments supporting a mob mentality, his early warnings of forthcoming abuses of power, and his threats to be a dictator on “day one” are only inching him closer to the White House. “I think a lot of people like it,” Trump told Time.

    • Monument@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      361·
      8 months ago

      They have teeth. But half of the people who decide whether or not they pursue charges against someone are republican appointees.

      So, you know… teeth, but corrupted leadership.

        • MediumGray@lemmy.ca
          141·
          8 months ago

          Yes and no. I can’t speak to the particulars of this situation but differences in means matter even if they currently produce the same outcome. A toothless dog and a dog in a muzzle are different in important ways.

        • Monument@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
          7·
          8 months ago

          I don’t really disagree in present circumstances.
          But I feel it’s necessary to characterize it correctly. Characterizing the FEC as a whole to be deficient when it’s a few bad actors temporarily at the head of the FEC could be used as justification by other bad actors or well-intentioned but misled people to undermine the FEC - which would make it deficient should the leadership issues be corrected.

          Sort of the game that conservatives play with government services. Cut the funding until the service is flagging, then use that as justification to either further cut the budget or reduce the scope of the service until the service is no longer a real government service.
          Can’t let ourselves buy into that.

  • foggy@lemmy.world
    151·
    8 months ago

    January 6th was a failed coup attempt.

    How is saying you’ll retry your failed coup attempt if you don’t get your way something were allowing a presidential candidate to do?

    • MrVilliam@lemmy.worldEnglish
      53·
      8 months ago

      Because he “tells it like it is” or something. Idk. The kind of people still falling for his grift are too shameless to ever admit that they ever fell for his grift, so they’re doubling down, succumbing to the sunk cost fallacy. They just stay in their echo chambers and saturate their awareness with weird culture war shit and then never hear about what’s actually happening. Half of them probably don’t even know that their guy is a defendant in criminal court this week. Willfully ignorant.

      • foggy@lemmy.world
        46·
        8 months ago

        No I’m fine with uneducated masses eating it up.

        I’m not okay with judges pulling out their dentures to slobber on trumps balls over matters that threaten the whole country instead of figuratively castrating him the moment he says shit like this.

        • MrVilliam@lemmy.worldEnglish
          24·
          8 months ago

          Agreed. But conservatives have learned over the past 10-20 years that they can more or less just do whatever they want without consequence because 1/3 of the people will fight to the death for whatever they do or say, 1/3 is completely unaware and uninterested in politics and current events, and the final 1/3 is people like us who want consequences but we’re too busy to do anything ourselves because survival is hard enough these days. There are a hundred things worthy of outrage and organized demonstration too, so which cause do we dedicate our summer to trying to fix? The right has an easier time because they just say “things used to be better” and then have one event where people complain about change. Pretty much everybody can identify with being pissed off that something used to be better until they changed it, and for some reason that’s strong enough to get some pretty average people to sit at the table with Nazis. There’s much more nuance and thoughtfulness on the left, so it’s much harder to get unity.

          Because conservatives can grow and maintain a reliable base to keep them in power, they feel no need to even pretend to be decent most of the time. They can just fervently choose their own selfish goals over what the Constitution or other rules and laws demand. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that we’re rapidly approaching the era of post-democracy America. Some would say we’ve been there for decades already, but I think we’re in for some dictatorial, executions-in-the-streets type of shit if Biden loses. So conservatives in power who like trump or even suspect that he may win or get into power otherwise have to weigh doing the right thing which could hurt their party and draw targets on their backs vs low/no consequence siding with trump.

          "If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.”—David Frum

    • Billiam@lemmy.world
      15·
      8 months ago

      Because “not trying to overthrow the government due to losing an election” isn’t listed in the Constitution as a requirement to be elected. One would think that’s a pretty major oversight.

      • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
        61·
        8 months ago

        Except it literally is explicitly written into the constitution. 14th Amendment, Section 3.

        No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

        The major oversight is our massively and blatantly corrupt Supreme Court.

  • MNByChoice@midwest.social
    893·
    8 months ago

    I have strong doubts. The people most likely to “Jan 6” did. A number of them, particularly the mid-level leaders, that actually organized things, are in prison. They have not turned out in numbers since they started getting arrested.

    • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      693·
      8 months ago

      They got light sentences. And let’s face it, the people that are going to organize yet another insurrection are going to be duped by the same logic that Trump will pardon them or that their acts are justified.

      Trump is threatening our democracy. Again.

      He’s saying that if he doesn’t win, there’s going to be another insurrection.

      The sad reality is that over the last four years, fascist states have put laws into place that make it legal to overturn elections for little to no reason. No oversight.

      He won’t need an insurrection because he has willing accomplices.

      • Jaysyn@kbin.social
        731·
        8 months ago

        They got light sentences.

        False. Some of the ones that took a plea deal got light sentences. They also can no longer vote.

        The ones that didn’t take plea deals got sentences completely in line with the Federal Sentencing guidelines, because that is how our modern Federal courts work.

          • stringere@leminal.space
            3·
            8 months ago

            Yeah but for the majority of federal crimes you’re probably comparing these sentences to drug offender sentences which are much harsher because of the seriousness of the offense.

            /s before crucifixion; drug sentences are ridiculous and these traitors getting anything less than a felony disqualifying them from participating in the system they tried to break is madness.

            Believing someone when they say the money in the cash register is rightly yours and should be taken by force does not mean you get a pass when you rob a gas station.

        • WraithGear@lemmy.worldEnglish
          13·
          8 months ago

          I don’t think voting was a concern when they committed to the coop. Hopefully they are not merely on house arrest after the next election

    • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      231·
      8 months ago

      Remember, the Beer Hall Putch failed. So we have nothing to worry about?

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
        161·
        8 months ago

        Per the new rules in my state, all my history books have had the pages from 1924 to 1957 torn out. So I’m assuming this part of history was just woke and soy and therefore unimportant.

        • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
          41·
          8 months ago

          Oh man, you didn’t get to read about how our good Christian American soldiers kicked the ass of the Godless Communist Germany in WW2?

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
            41·
            8 months ago

            No. But I was told by a private student group funded through the anonymous donation of particularly religious billionaires that I needed to “do my own research” on who the real bad guys were.

    • Traegert@lemm.ee
      81·
      8 months ago

      All it takes is just one person with a gun and a grudge to kill dozens.

      • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
        17·
        8 months ago

        But that won’t take them any closer to toppling the government. Jan. 6 could only happen because Trump actively prevented the police from doing their jobs. That won’t happen under Biden.

  • yuri@sh.itjust.works
    543·
    8 months ago

    Fucken Bolsonaro did the same shit and it’s looking like he’s actually gonna get prosecuted. Real shame the US government isn’t up to the high standards set by Brazil, but maybe we’ll get there someday!

  • Passerby6497@lemmy.worldEnglish
    42·
    8 months ago

    How many more Babbits will trump create when he can’t tell the capital police to stand down? Or even, how many of his idiot followers are even going to show up when they got fucked and abandoned last time?

    You’re a pathetic weakling Donnie, go sit the fuck down and pout to a judge.

      • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
        18·
        8 months ago

        The only story there is they got so far in before any of them were shot. She was crawling through the final barrier between the mob of insurrectionists and members of Congress and still given plenty of opportunity to cut that out.

        Insurrectionists were basically allowed to run free smearing feces on the walls until there was no other option to prevent them from murdering representatives. If all cops would show that much restraint that would be rad as fuck. I guess not every protest has their off-duty buddies in the crowd, though.

        • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
          2·
          8 months ago

          The idiots weren’t even smart about it. They had access to congress offices, at the very least they should have been grabbing every scrap of intel they could lay hands on and posting it online so we could see what our representatives are really up to. If you’re going to commit treason at least make it valuable.

          • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
            2·
            8 months ago

            Yeah! Too bad there is a huge difference between people who want truth and the government to be accountable (you) and people who want the government to be unaccountable but targeting groups they hate (them).

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
      41·
      8 months ago

      How many more Babbits will trump create when he can’t tell the capital police to stand down?

      Enough Ashley Babbits and its less of a problem for conservatives than for the police.

  • NounsAndWords@lemmy.world
    41·
    8 months ago

    Oh, fuck off, the only reason it got that far on Jan 6 is that he was already in charge and refused to call in troops to immediately shut it down. I doubt Biden sits on his hands for several hours while rioters attack the Capitol.

  • nycki@lemmy.world
    37·
    8 months ago

    I know what the headline actually means but i’m choosing to believe that donny just found out about calendars.

  • Stern@lemmy.world
    31·
    8 months ago

    The only reason it happened the first time is because he was able to allow it to happen… but he ain’t the one in the oval office now.

    • Furbag@lemmy.world
      13·
      8 months ago

      Right. Biden would have immediately deployed the national guard in response to a march on the Capitol. Trump intentionally did not, he encouraged the mob and then watched the whole thing unfold on television and didn’t lift a finger.

      The next group of MAGA idiots who show up to pull a Jan 6 2.0 will get turned away by authorities actually equipped to handle them.

        • Furbag@lemmy.world
          1·
          8 months ago

          Ultimately I don’t think that will matter much. Acts of domestic terrorism or sabotage won’t affect the outcome of the executive maintaining power and are unlikely to garner much sympathy. Trump wanted to make sure he won by attacking the weakest points of the electoral system - slates of false electors to sow doubt and discord, and when that failed, inciting a mob to interrupt the certification. I think both of those points are still vulnerable to attack, but there are a lot more eyes on it now after 2020. Trump is already on trial for trying to overturn the election, and Biden has no reason to allow an armed mob of crazies storm the Capitol, win or lose.

        • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
          1·
          8 months ago

          If they get smarter they’ll see that everyone in 1.0 got thrown under the bus and they won’t show up for 2.0

  • Jaysyn@kbin.social
    29·
    8 months ago

    Oh? I thought Jan 6th was AntiFA?

    By all means fuck around & find out. The Capitol police will have their submachine guns this time.

    Not to mention the fact your supporters won’t even show up to your trials after you abandoned them & stabbed them in the back last time, you wretched piece of shit.