Reason Rs are so slavishly devoted to Trump is not fear of retribution it's that he is a vessel through which they've achieved almost all they want - stacking SCOTUS, deregulation, tax cuts for the rich, cutting the social safety net + trying to shutter DOE, neutering EPA, etc. History lesson, kids: One reason Clinton bounced back from the awful '94 midterms to win in '96 was his defense of "ME2" - Medicare, Medicaid, Education, Environment - all of which the Gingrich Congress wanted to gut. 30 years later, Trump delivered what Gingrich could not.

Amusing to see people treating this like a normal election and "hey, there's a midterm in two years, we'll get it back." Nah, you fucked it. You're ensuring an at minimum 5-4 SCOTUS majority until 2050 w/a layer of even more right wing judges underneath them Trump will pull us out of NATO. He will make common cause with dictators like Xi and Putin. Our allies, the ones we fought w/against the Nazis, will be sidelines unless they suck up to Dear Leader.

I'm not doing blame game b/c it doesn't matter. The electorate, knowing full well who Trump was and what he stood for was like "yes, four more years of this." I have to accept it. I don't like it, it goes against everything I believe in - morally, philosophically, and politically The country those of us over the age of 40 grew up in, knew, and understood ... is gone. Four years from now, the country is going to look radically different and I don't think people fully grasp that.

The one through line of U.S. politics since 1980? Every Democrat who took office as President inherited a situation worse than the one before while leaving the office better than they found it (a brief thread) In 1992, Bill Clinton came into office after 12 years of Reagan/Bush w/the country coming off a mild recession & a $200B plus deficit. He left office with a $236B surplus, the nation at peace, and the U.S. the unquestioned sole global super power.

Law twitter said showing Trump's criminal intent would be hard. Judge Carter showed that it's really not that hard. When your senior aides tell you there's no voter fraud & 60 courts do the same yet you still claim there was, it's ok to reason that you're trying to break the law. Another important point: in order for Trump to be found guilty of obstructing an act of Congress (which 11 courts agree includes counting electoral votes) corrupt intent is less than consciousness of guilt, it can include, say, asking for someone to "find" 11,000 votes.

p.36: "Disagreeing with the law entitled President Trump to seek a remedy in court [he] knew how to pursue
election claims in court—after filing and losing more than sixty suits, this plan was a last-ditch attempt to secure the Presidency by any means." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… Judge Carter's opinion is worth reading in full, the first 10 or so pages basically lays out a conspiracy and his analysis finding it "more likely than not" Trump violated two separate federal laws should MAYBE rouse AG Garland out of his stupor.