2y ago

Trump skips Illinois loyalty oath promising not to overthrow government

Presidential hopefuls vying for a spot on Illinois’ March 19 primary ballot had to submit their nominating petitions to the State Board of Elections on Thursday or Friday. The loyalty pledge is not required but is a long-standing tradition that candidates undertake as part of that paperwork.

Not The Onion @lemmy.world

Lauchs @lemmy.world

2y ago

wapo.st /41RffQA

37 comments

perfect, so can this be pointed to as yet another tacit admission of being ~~a human piece of shit~~ an insurrectionist?
- That will not really hurt him in any way.
  
  His base is likely in favor of ending democracy to have a dictatorship of billionaires, but a chunk of people who haven't been paying attention much may care
Probably because he IS planning to (try and) overthrow the government again if he looses in November.
- Or if he doesn't.
  
  Yeah his plan probably boils down to:
  A) Lose and overthrow
  Or
  B) Win and destroy our democracy
  
  He's been pretty vocal about his plans if he wins.
- Yeah, I think he is being backed into a corner where he is all in on either "winning" the election or using his cult (this includes members of congress/military/etc.) to try and take the government so he doesn't have to answer for his crimes. He basically has nothing left to lose, which is why it's scary that states are putting him on the primary ballot to begin with. Letting him win the nomination and then should the Supreme Court decide that he (or any/every) president have absolute immunity to commit crimes and that the 14th amendment applies to him, things are going to get a lot more ugly. If he makes it all the way till November I think we are going to see violence from the right that makes Jan. 6 seem like a warm-up run.
  
  If the supreme Court decides president have absolute immunity I hope Joe Biden straight up shoots him in the face.
- It's also a signal to the "troops".
- He doesn't need to lie. One of the only things he's been right about is that he could shoot someone in the street and no one would do anything about it.
- sticking it to the very concept of liberty in its loosest definition 🤌
He’s never won the popular vote and he never will
Because he sucks Putin and shits himself
- In this country you don’t need the popular vote, you just need land’s vote and electors on your side.
They'll sacrifice their lives for a person who is demonstrably the actual biggest loser in history, and he just gets more loser-y, folks, okay... If any of you are starting to have your memories fade, here's a quick refresher to read this morning and then copy and send to your aunt karen in Missouri.
0 re-elections won
1 term president
2 times impeached
3 marriages
4 inch lifts in his shoes
5 kids, from 3 different mothers
6 bankruptcies
7 US Capitol police suing him for Jan 6 terrorist insurrection and murder of police
8 trillion + dollars added to the US debt in a single term
9 trump lawyers sanctioned by federal judge for lying in frivolous election fraud lawsuits and ordered to pay defendant's legal fees
10 years that trump paid $0 in income taxes between 2000 and 2015. ($0 to cops, teachers, roads, prisons, disaster relief, etc)
11 trump associates charged with serious crimes over the past 5 years
12 million votes (the big lie) - trump claims he won the 2020 election by 12 million votes when in reality, he lost by about 7 million votes.
13 of August, 2021 - one of multiple days that trump was supposed to magically become president again according to Qanon and a crack addicted pillow salesman (the two most respected information sources in the gop)
14 year old girl in a youth choir that trump approached in 1992 to say, "Wow! Just think - in a couple years I'll be dating you."
15 originally confirmed cases of COVID in the US trump said would soon be, “down to close to zero.” followed by, “like a miracle, it will disappear.” - over 1,000,000 Americans have since died of COVID and it continues to kill 4 years later.
16 years old - age of daughter ivanka when she hosted "miss teen" pageant and, according to long time trump associate Noel Casler, "trump called her over in the middle of a rehearsal and had her give him a lap dance while he leered at the crew."
17 known trump and russia investigations from local, state and federal prosecutors
18 gop senators that ignored trump threats / warnings and supported Biden admin's infrastructure bill.
19 as in COVID19 - trump was verified as the single largest source of disinformation on the virus, with a Cornell study claiming that 38% of the "misinformation conversation" originated with trump
20 the day in January, 2021, when Biden was sworn in despite trump inciting a violent insurrection to stop election verification at the US Capitol.
21 gun salute that trump ordered for himself when he left office after a humiliating defeat, even though he never served in the military, famously called military members "losers" and "suckers" and actively avoided the draft with a cowardly "bone spurs" excuse.
22 date in August, 2021, when Alabama hate rally crowd booed trump for finally saying people should get vaccinated, only after 700,000 Americans have died due mostly to his failure as president
23 as in wrestlemania 23 in 2007 where trump, a cartoon level failure with no other prospects, participated in a fake bet that a proxy wrestler would win a fake fight on his behalf or he would shave his wig and hair plugs off.
24 day in August, 2021, when trump actually filed a lawsuit in Florida court against YouTube, a private company, demanding that they reinstate his YouTube channel like a desperate, irrelevant embarrassment with no platforms left to abuse.
25 plus credible sexual assault allegations against trump, spanning decades and with accusers starting as young as 13 years old at time of assault.
The problem with trump’s next attempt at an armed rebellion is that he left the J6 traitors rotting in jail even when he was still president. He could have pardoned them all, but didn’t.
Are people really going to risk death or years in the federal pen a second time?
- He seems to keep on getting people to sacrifice themselves for him. It's kind of a lifelong habit
  
  He seems to keep on getting people to sacrifice themselves for him.
  For nothing, too. It's absolutely bizarre. He has an expansive history of just dumping people the moment they become less than useful, and people still go out of their way to lay under the next bus.
- Probably yes. These people aren't the cream of the crop.
- Its like how you deal with killbots. You send wave after wave of troop at them until they hit the limit of their kill count and deactivate.
- I think with all the chaos at the end of his term that he was talked out of pardoning them all (he wanted to originally). He has made it a promise to pardon most/all on day one when he is "being dictator for a day" as a campaign promise. And the fun of the cult is he 110% doesn't have to follow through on any of what he says/promises because he despises his followers and they love him for it.
- He wven said publicly he was going to pardon them, but not many have spoken up about it.
long standing tradition
We’ve been holding our government together with the duct tape of “tradition” for too goddamn long and now it’s starting to peel off.
I’d imagine hearing about this has made his traitorous loyalists are even more worshippy then they ever have been.
There are so many Republicans that say they don't trust the election anymore (thanks, Trump!). But how many are going to say they don't trust the election if Trump wins? None. None of them are going to say it was rigged if he wins.
- He was saying 2016 was rigged after he won. They'll say anything in the moment and it won't matter as soon as it leaves their mouths, it's wild.
I have to say this pledge seems pretty stupid on the face of it. It's origins come from a very anti democratic place and the logic of it makes no sense since if you were planning to forcibly overthrow the government through a secret plan that involved running in the primaries you'd hardly let the cat out of the bag by skipping it, you'd just make the pledge and then do it.
This guy skipping it is for sure an ominous sign but he already wanted everyone to know this and the ootional and pointless pledge is providing a convenient means for a political stunt which is ironic since a stupid political stunt is what it sounds like it always was to begin with when people were forced to start making it for similar theatre.
Not saying it's not a concern though, it's a worrying marker of the changes of the political landscape where deliberately signalling a desire for insurrection is a smart and shrewd political move that's actually beneficial to a canditate when people point it out is a very dangerous place to be in.
He has no plans to be loyal to anything but himself, so why waste energy on some random loyality pledge he does not intend to keep anyway?
Did he do it last time or skip it? Not that it matters to his base either way.
Edit: he signed it in 2016
Also: "The oath remains enshrined in Illinois law but has been struck down as unconstitutional on free speech grounds in federal courts."

37 comments