The long-awaited indictment of Donald Trump seems imminent
It gives new meaning to the phrase “trumped-up charges.”
Democrats, the left, NeverTrumpers on the right, and the MSM have had this as their goal for a long, long time. And they were going to get there if they had to turn the legal system into a pretzel and the US into a high-tech banana republic. Well, congratulations; mission nearly accomplished:
There have been reports swirling the last couple of days that Donald Trump will be charged and arrested next week by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office on charges relating to payments to Stormy Daniels. The exact nature of the charges and the basis is not known yet, but based on prior leaks to the media, it appears that Bragg has come up with a novel theory that an otherwise lawful payment become criminal if it is accounted for incorrectly, a so-called falsifying business records offense. Even the NY Times noted this is highly unusual:
“In New York, falsifying business records can amount to a crime, albeit a misdemeanor. To elevate the crime to a felony charge, Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors must show that Mr. Trump’s “intent to defraud” included an intent to commit or conceal a second crime.”
Combining the criminal charge with a violation of state election law would be a novel legal theory for any criminal case, let alone one against the former president, raising the possibility that a judge or appellate court could throw it out or reduce the felony charge to a misdemeanor.
For those familiar with the charges against Netanyahu, the parallels are clear. Netanyahu’s enemies came up with a very novel theory involving supposed bribes. Caroline Glick describes it:
To achieve their political goal, the police descended on Netanyahu’s advisers one by one, and gave them the treatment generally reserved for terrorists and violent criminals. They were dragged from their beds at dawn, in front of their families, and carted off to investigation rooms and flea-ridden jail cells. They were denied food. They were subjected to public humiliation in the media. Their electronic communications were illegally tapped. Their families were threatened. Their livelihoods were destroyed…
And the police didn’t let them go until they gave them something—anything—to incriminate the prime minister of Israel.
Since Netanyahu had committed no crime, then-Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit and State Attorney Shai Nitzan reinvented the bribery statute to claim that lawful actions Netanyahu did undertake were criminal.
Like every politician on the face of the planet, Netanyahu sought positive coverage from news organizations. The prosecution decided that this effort amounted to a solicitation of a bribe. Netanyahu signed regulatory decisions that affected a telecommunications firm owned by his friend. The prosecution decided this was a favor—a payment for positive coverage from his friend’s news website. Unfortunately for the prosecution, Netanyahu received terrible coverage from the website. But no matter, the prosecutors simply updated the definition of bribery. They said Netanyahu received “undo responsiveness” from the website’s management to his requests for better coverage, and that was now the definition of a bribe.
…They invented laws just for him. They defined politics and journalism as criminal enterprises to criminalize Netanyahu’s non-criminal actions—which, it turns out, he didn’t even take. They trampled the very notion of the rule of law in their “ends justify the mean” campaign to force Netanyahu from power.
Netanyahu may get the last laugh; he’s now in charge again. I don’t know what will happen to Trump. The Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, is a Soros-funded extremist who will stop at nothing, and this is a state charge in New York, which is a blue state. The charges are obviously preposterous, but that doesn’t matter, because there are plenty of people who believe that getting Donald Trump is worth perverting the justice system even further than it’s already been twisted.
Trump has called for protests, but of course the Democrats are probably salivating at the idea of something they can turn into another January 6th “insurrection,” which will give them an opportunity for more kangaroo courts and political prosecutions, as well as a platform for sanctimonious and deeply hypocritical defense of the sacred rule of law.
The charges, if not more substantial than described so far, are a fraudulent abuse of power aimed at manipulating the political process as we enter a presidential election cycle. Make no mistake, this has happened before and cost Republicans politically, including the fraudulent prosecution of then Senator Ted Stevens, which was overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct but not before Stevens resigned setting in motion events that gave Democrats the votes they needed to pass Obamacare.
The abuse of prosecutorial power by Democrats will, to paraphrase Chuck Schumer’s attack on the Supreme Court, unleash the whirlwind. We just don’t know in which direction it will hit.
I sometimes think that about half the population is numb at this point, and/or lacks understanding of what’s happening and what it means. And a great many people think that Trump is evil personified, and legal proceedings would just be a formality rubber-stamping what we already know a million times over, which is that he belongs in prison with the key thrown away. It doesn’t matter what he’s done or not done; he needs to be handcuffed both actually and metaphorically, according to them.
Once a large portion of the populace – and, more importantly, of those in charge – accept and believe that, a country is in enormous trouble.
We are in enormous trouble, and have been for quite some time.
[NOTE: This action has another goal, one we’ve mentioned before: a chilling effect on any politician or aide on the right who might dare to challenge the left and the Deep State.]
It’s sad that the United States is just a banana republic now and it seems as if very few people actually care.
I have no great love for Trump. I think he was a surprisingly effective president… probably the best in my lifetime. But I believe he also made a lot of very stupid mistakes, and what’s far worse is that it doesn’t appear that he has learned from them.
I’m also convinced that Trump would never be able to win the general election if he were to be the Republican nominee no matter who the Democrats put up against him (yes, I think even Kamala could probably beat him). But in total fairness I’m deeply uncertain if any Republican could ever win the presidency again such is the wretched state of our country. General voter apathy, a propagandastic mainstream media, and an election system that may be compromised in key swing districts seem to make any reasonable Republican challange a long shot at best.
All that said, this entire indictment affair is obviously a deep miscarriagement of justice and indicative of the absolute insanity that we’ve descendent to in this country. The whole thing is absolutely appalling and sad. My only hope is that enough people see it for what it is and realize that even if they themselves may hate Trump, that it’s ridiculous to do this.
I mean, how insane must things get before a majority of people agree it’s enough?
There’s the ‘chilling effect’, and at some point an inner reckoning. Has being a normal American human become illegal? The thinking – sometimes the appearance – of many on the left makes them present as demonic mutants. They are certainly not American in the traditional sense, which they confirm by demonizing the Founders.
The chilling effect is a character test. Submit and become as odiously repugnant as they? RINOs are already there, thinking no doubt that it’s “not so bad”.
Nonapod, I fear that things will have to be a lot more insane to even move the needle a point or two.
I agree with Nonapod and SHIREHOME. With 50+% of the country under the leftist spell, the country is almost, if not totally lost. I agree with Neo that Trump calling for protests is an own goal. It plays right into the left’s hand.
This is the same persecutor who failed to charge andrew cuomo for the murder of 30,000
In other news, Ipsos came put with a poll showing 25% of Republicans support a ‘National Divorce’ as recently popularized by MTG. I am one of those 25%. I hope the other 75% will carefully reflect on what is happening to Trump.
If they can do it to him, they can do it to anyone. In a blue state in particular, no one who openly espouses rightist views is ever truly safe. However, few of us have even 1/100th of the resources Trump had to fight back.
Who here remembers the John Doe investigation in Wisconsin which attempted to destroy Scott Walker and several of his supporter? I do!
It was finally squelched by a conservative state Supreme Court.
Who here remembers the relentless prosecution of the McCloskeys in Saint Louis? I do!
It was finally squelched by a conservative attorney general and governor.
Progressive prosecutors are already running amok trying to destroy their political enemies. Trump will be the highest profile figure by far, but it’s been happening for some time.
With each passing day we seem more and more like Brazil
With each passing day we seem more and more like Brazil
==
Brazil has cleaner elections than we do.
I agree with Nonapod and SHIREHOME. With 50+% of the country under the leftist spell, the country is almost, if not totally lost. I agree with Neo that Trump calling for protests is an own goal. It plays right into the left’s hand.
==
With that attitude, you’re not of much use to yourself or anyone else.
…said the scorpion to the frog….
“Biden to McCarthy: We can ‘change this direction, the extremes in both our parties’ “—
https://justthenews.com/government/congress/mccarthy-tells-biden-he-strives-relationship-reagan-had-oneill
History sure rhymes:
We had here in the USA our very own Reichstag fire on January 6, 2021. You know, the armed insurrection in which only the police had arms and tear gas.
And apparently Stalinist Russia did not fall apart; it just moved to the USA from the former USSR.
“Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.”
Lavrentiy Beria
What’s next?
Let’s see, gulags and concentration camps sound about right. Of course, they will be called “re-education camps,” and any deaths in them will be accidental.
Careful John Tyler, Art Deco will call you useless.
I used to think – maybe until a few years ago – that having our collective face shoved in the dung pile would wake us up to our country’s deterioration, but I have my doubts now. It wouldn’t surprise me to see blood being shed in our future. 1/6 wasn’t a real insurrection – where were the guns? – but the next one will be.
A majority of the country still espouses traditional American values. They can see the stupidity of DEI, ESG, etc.. But the motivated vocal minority are screaming the loudest, having control of the megaphones. And, crucially, I think there are still, still many folks out there who absolutely cannot think of voting Republican, even pre-Trump – a holdover from Nixon and Reagan – and so continue to vote in those who either favor or go along with the woke agenda. In their minds Trump and the Republicans are the greater evil. And like Neo’s main theme here – a mind is a difficult thing to change.
Exceedingly odd, but upon having our collective face shoved in the dung pile, some found it tasty. The MSM’s appetite for it is voracious.
What are the physics of the daily, inevitable, unstoppable impact of the atmosphere on the firmament?
M Williams @ 3:09:
You say,
“A majority of the country still espouses traditional American values. They can see the stupidity of DEI, ESG, etc..”
True, very true.
But these same people when voting, vote into office those individuals that support the stupid (and dangerous) policies you cite.
The bottom line is that voters are choosing – often enough – their representatives that believe and/or support and/or tolerate the woke, pro-transexual, pro-pedophile, Marxist agenda.
As I have menstioned numerous times before, the greatest threat to our constitutional republic is the voters voting for a national suicide (see Venezuela and perhaps present day Germany).
I can’t understand why Bragg is going first. They’re going to perp-walk a former president over Stormy Daniels? After John Edwards? After Bill Clinton’s perjury? (I thought prosecuting someone for lying about sex was a no no?)
This is transparently abusive.
Speaking only about the politics, I think they would have had a shot at getting politically disengaged Americans to accept a Trump prosecution had they led with something related to January 6th or the election aftermath. Maybe the document thing if not for Biden’s issues.
But Stormy Daniels? Really? This telegraphs a lack of seriousness. I don’t get it. Either Bragg didn’t get the memo, the whole operation is incompetent, or there’s something more going on here. It doesn’t make sense to me.
Just when I think my temper will cool down a bit and I can enjoy parts of life again, these goons do things like this. And my rage returns. I briefly considered this might be Trump drumming up attention to get himself back into the news, but then I took stock of the last several years and said “Since when do the corrupt scumbags in the Swamp deserve THAT kind of benefit of the doubt?!?”
I will confess that Trump writing off the Stormy Daniels hush money as a campaign contribution was less than on the up and up and possibly unethical… But So What? As our Progressive Leftist “Friends” have kept reminding us, that which is unethical is not always illegal (Looking at you, Arizona, Bidens, Clintons). And paying hush money in response to blackmail is not a crime and never should be one.
Frankly, comparing this to a Banana Republic is a grievous insult to Banana Republics. Their justice systems were often at least as broken and abusive as ours is and sometimes even worse, but they at least could be counted on to know economic essentials and to run them efficiently. Nicaragua and Guatemala and so on may have been dysfunctional messes (though usually less dysfunctional than the socialist dictatorships have been) but they understood their economy and managed it well. Often exploitatively and without what we’d regard as the bare minimum of safety or worker accountability, but that’s still a better track record than we are getting in the Wonderful World of Anarcho-Tyranny in the US.
@JohnTyler
This is worse than the Reichstag Fire. The Reichstag Fire was an actual arson by a particularly insane Dutch Communist (Even by the standards of his comrades apparently) that was ruthlessly exploited by the NSDAP but not actually spurred by it. Moreover, actually study the Reichstag Fire Trials and you’ll see the German judiciary actually took its job responsibly (so responsibly Hitler flew into a private rage about it and worked to thoroughly gut it afterwards), which is why only van der Lubbe the actual perpetrator was found guilty. Compared to the atrocities perpetuated against the Jan 6th Prisoners the result is shocking, and we SHOULD NEVER whitewash it by comparing this to the Reichstag Fire.
So yeah. Really charming
Jan 6th was worse than the Reichstag Fire and apparently masterminded by the Left. And the US at present is more dysfunctional than Brazil (where at least the electorate is willing to stand up to usurpation by scum like Lula) and Banana Republics.
I also think this should underline our debts to Donald Trump. Like, Dislike, Whatever. But he was the Orange Canary in the Coal Mine of the Creeping Revolution, and he gave up so much more than just his luxury car. He lives and breathes New York City, but had to abandon it because of this kind of deranged Kafka-worthy insanity. Cut off contact with so many former colleagues and so forth because he became The Devil. And while I have had issues with how he has approached DeSantis and so on, he has not turned on or abandoned us as Dubya did. And for that we can be grateful.
Our legitimate President, and a man who gave us a stay of execution for about 4 years. That isn’t something to sniffle at.
They have been after us for so long. He has been in the way. And now they are trying to get him out of the way once and for all. And I ask: how many fools or knaves will applaud this without realizing what it means for them when the beast comes to pick its teeth with their bones?
The Jan 6th footage being released and investigations into Hunter could not come soon enough.
Bauxite, it’s meat for the base. They don’t even have to get a conviction. The courts can toss the charges, and the left still will think it is a win. Remember, they impeached and tried Trump twice with no hope of conviction.
Bragg is a Soros prosecutor. It has been pointed out that there is a female prosecutor who is considered Soros’ proxy behind this; Bragg isn’t smart enough. Soros is about as evil as it comes. Minnesota’s new Hennepin county prosecutor just dropped adult murder charges against two 17-year olds on the basis that their brains weren’t mature yet. Instead of facing decades, they will serve two years in juvenile detention and emerge with no adult record.
I hope Trump is not the nominee in 2024. I think DeSantis is the better choice. But I do admire Trump’s courage and determination. Very few men could have stood up to the level of shit he’s had tossed at him.
Elon Musk’s opinion, offered today, is that a Dem. DA swat in NYC at Trump will mean a massive GOP landslide at next election. Musk is a most able and bright man, but I fear he is too optimistic. We are sharing this country with a majority who are ignorant, misguided by the Dem. MSM, and the Dem. leadership is corrupt and evil. This is the result of almost a century of propaganda and action from the Democrats, and weak, insufficient Republican responses. Turns out Goldwater was correct, way back in 1964.
Welcome to the United Socialist States of America, the USSA. Our re-education camps will be constructed soon.
If Bragg does not indict on the Stormy Daniels brouhaha, that’s not the point. The point is that “the process is the punishment.” The point – or, to be precise, the method – is the endless treadmill of attacks on President Trump boosted by Enemedia-Pravda’s endless use of those attacks to keep shoving “Orange Man Bad” in our faces. The point is to keep the HATE TRUMP smears coming, never to let up on the hate for Trump just as the Party kept up its 1984 “two minutes hate” sessions against Emmanuel Goldstein. It was one of Hitler’s henchmen who observed that repetition is the foremost tool of the propagandist.
That’s what goes on while the Regime and Enemedia-Pravda not only fail to prosecute Leftists/radicals or $wamp corruption, but never mention Leftists/radicals’ crimes or $wamp corruption – it’s not just about what Enemedia-Pravda “report,” it’s also about what they refuse to report.
these are corrupt evil people, if you’re an actual criminal, it’s almost impossible to be charged in gotham (the batman analogy is intended) it’s the way things happen in ukraine, in malaysia, (although malathir, has taken that back) we can go back to the Roman practice of proscription, we can move a little ahead to the kangaroo tribunal that hastings was victim of, at the hands of edmund burke,
‘a republic if you can keep it’ well Franklin’s aphorism is to be tested now, our bill of rights is only as valid as the willingness to enforce it,
turtler – One quibble – correct me if I’m wrong – I believe the issue is that Trump did not report the Stormy payoff as a campaign expense. I don’t believe he paid it out of campaign funds. The theory that the payoff was a campaign finance violation was that it should have been reported as a campaign expense and/or that it was an unreported contribution from Trump’s corporation.
I don’t disagree with your sentiment, though. Having an affair with a porn star while your wife is recovering from childbirth is repulsive.
I might add that John Edwards actually used funds from a campaign contributer to pay-off his mistress – it was much closer to an actual campaign finance violation than what Trump did.
Americans who do not follow political news and question the propaganda fed by the MSM will not awaken till it is too late. Those of us who do and are aware still have too much to lose.
People have to be starving and have nothing left to lose to take action. It’s usually futile by then.
there’s no actual proof of the affair, now at some point, they might have noted that david vitter, was actually in a madam’s book, any such evidence here, no as much as that magpie daniels squawked, there was none,
we look at this scabrous figure head they have foisted on us, as we hurtle toward a world war and probably a depression, as cities are plundered in ways that would embarass the vandals, but this is a big squirrel,
I think Trump relishes the possibility of being perp-walked with the cameras rolling.
Whatever one thinks of Trump’s personal life, paying blackmail to prevent a public scandal is not illegal. The blackmailer was the one committing the crime. This expected criminal charge is nonsense. Trump should be able to beat it in court, but it will take time, and that’s probably the reason they’re doing it to him, besides the insane Trump hatred we’ve seen for years.
I don’t disagree with your sentiment, though. Having an affair with a porn star while your wife is recovering from childbirth is repulsive.
==
He’s not accused of having an affair, but of having a tryst.
Art Deco – Are you really suggesting that a tryst is somehow more defensible than an affair?
Bauxite:
That’s Pope Deco to you.
Really, such impertinence. 🙂
I dunno.
Back when I was a leftist-environmentalist-hippie-poet, I would often sit with my leftist or environmentalist or hippie or poet or all of the above, friends and discuss how entirely, indisputably, unstoppably eff’ed the world was becoming.
It sometimes seemed we were competing to see who could be the most cynical.
I now see this on the right. I’m not surprised. I changed teams but Humans is Humans. My bottom line:
__________________________
Be fearless and undaunted, for go where you may, Yahweh your God is with you.
–Joshua, 1:9
__________________________
A couple decades ago I saw this quote on a man’s t-shirt while he was standing in a cafe line. It has remained with me since. I can’t say I’m exactly a Christian these days, but I never lost my faith.
The t-shirt man didn’t even know what his t-shirt said.
Huxley,
As you know, the next book after Joshua is Judges. A book which describes a period when ” every man did what was right in his own eyes. ” A book that records cycles of the people falling into massive sin, God sends punishment in the form of a political oppressor, the people cry out to God, God sends a deliverer , aka a ” Judge”, ( who is sometimes a bit of a flawed hero , I remember at least two like that, himself a product of his time, Note that…) who defeats the enemy in battle and leads the people politically and spiritually until he dies,then the cycle starts over.
By the end of the book, there is a civil war in Israel. Guess what starts it? Militant homosexuals demanding that a male guest be sent out of a house so they can rape him. The straight men, who are products of their degraded society, sacrifice the women to the homosexuals. DOES ANY OF THIS SOUND FAMILIAR?
Near the end of the book, one of the Jewish tribes has been reduced to few hundred men by civil war!
I think that in the distant future, people will think that the term “trumped up” was coined to describe what has happened to Trump.
Jon baker:
Always a pleasure to hear from you! I’m a dilettante when it comes to the Bible. But I knows what I likes…
It’s not a terrible approach. There are any number of lines in the Bible which can lead you to Change Your Life and … in a Good Way.
No, I didn’t know that about Judges. I’ll have to check into it.
My main point — I understand things look, no foolin’, dire, but geez, or Jesus!, Americans aren’t the first people to look Dire in the eye.
But things looked Dire around 1941 and Americans spat into that eye. I want to hear more about that.
Sure, I’m all for accurate assessments and such, but assessments can be so easily driven by emotion.
In any event we still have a Job to do.
” And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died….and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel.” Judges 2: 8a and 10b.
As a kid or a teenager , it made no sense to me how a generation could come up in ancient Israel and not know God.
Fast forward to the early 21 st century, and we have multiple examples of school teachers grooming children towards sex changes and we have men claiming to be women and getting into women’s locker rooms and a significant percent of the country is ok with that, then it starts to make sense how a generation could arise that is so much different than the ones before them . In America’s case, there has been at least a three generation slide towards the current state of affairs. The language in Judges , I am not sure if it was one or more .
This doesn’t surprise me. The charge is frivolous, but the MSM will make it sound like rapaciousness or worse. They will continue to smear him in every way they can. They will draw this out as long as possible.
When the prosecution fails, and I’m pretty sure it will, the DOJ will indict him for mishandling the classified papers. That will also be a phony indictment, but it will harm his campaign because it will allow the MSM to continue to throw mud at him.
Unfortunately, the low information voters will swallow the spin doctor’s stories, which will also smear the Republicans who support him.
These charges aren’t brought with the idea that Trump is a crook. He’s been investigated more than most Americans, and little to nothing has been found. They reflect the criminalization of political views and how they can be used as a weapon when the MSM is doing your bidding. LAWFARE! It makes a joke of our legal system and the Constitution.
For that reason, I don’t expect Trump to get the nomination. That said, if he does, I will support him and vote for him.
Is there a way to combat this? We need more middle of the road or conservative news outlets. Having Twitter in Musk’s hands is a help, but we need more New York Post and Fox News type media outlets to get more traction. Or a miracle. Prayer can’t hurt.
Art Deco – Are you really suggesting that a tryst is somehow more defensible than an affair?
==
Is that really a mystery to you?
Just a comment. It’s my understanding.
Donald Trump went to see Stormy Daniels to hire her to be on his hit TV show “The Apprentice”. He did not go to have a tryst. I know of no man in my experience who would have sex with a porn star who might at any time be carrying a STD, etc. Trump, a billionaire, could have relations with a beautiful healthy woman at any time.
Moreover, Trump has always been a germaphobe. Before he was President he wouldn’t even shake hands with people. When he became President, he thought it was right to start shaking hands out of the politeness of the office.
Daniels did not say that he had sex with her until she had interviews later on. There was nothing Trump could do then but deny it.
A healthy billionaire does not risk his health having sex with a woman who stars in pornographic films and has had sex with countless men. Period.
Add that he’s a known germaphobe and the odds go even below zero.
Whatever you think about Trump, this is just rotten that he has to face this after he did her the compliment of seeking her out as an interesting character for his hit TV show.
The woman has already proved she’s a liar by being paid to keep silent and then breaking her word about the silence.
@ Minta – I agree with your analysis in re Trump’s germophobia & better opportunities for illicit sex, but the question of whether or not he had an affair (an on-going relationship), a tryst (one-night stand), or ogled her from a distance is immaterial.
She was paid money by Michael Cohen to keep quiet about anything that might or might not have happened, and the charge is that Candidate Trump benefitted from her silence — or at least thought he would, since she didn’t stay silent.
Doesn’t matter if what she was supposed to be quiet about did, or did not, happen.
A wrinkle in the case, though, which might be enough to convince even a NY judge or jury (hah):
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/03/anybody_else_repelled_by_the_legal_juggernaut_against_trump_just_as_revelations_roll_out_about_the_bidens.html
It’s been too long ago – is this correct about a lack of evidence of Trump knowing what Cohen was doing?
But then there is this other wrinkle:
https://nypost.com/2023/03/18/donald-trump-says-he-will-be-arrested-tuesday/
Now, to a layman, Cohen couldn’t be guilty unless Trump was too.
However, the law works strangely in many ways that look odd to non-lawyers.
Probably on purpose.
On the other hand, taking a plea for a charge doesn’t mean you are actually guilty of that particular crime — as the J6 political prisoners can attest, along with many others. It does mean that you are afraid of being tried on a greater charge and probably losing.
What did Cohen plead down from?
IIRC he was only hauled in for the purpose of turning on Trump and producing something that could be used against the Donald, and this was the best that he could come up with.
As Turley pointed out, however, no other prosecutor chose to indict, which is why the NY AG came up with such a novel argument.
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3906498-get-ready-for-manhattan-das-made-for-tv-trump-prosecution-high-on-ratings-but-short-on-the-law/
JJ is right about this: “These charges aren’t brought with the idea that Trump is a crook. He’s been investigated more than most Americans, and little to nothing has been found.”
But, Gordon is right about this: “The courts can toss the charges, and the left still will think it is a win.”
M Williams is right about this: “I think Trump relishes the possibility of being perp-walked with the cameras rolling.”
And J is probably right about this: “I think that in the distant future, people will think that the term “trumped up” was coined to describe what has happened to Trump.”
Everyone else who is right, you know who you are.
😉
Aaron Kliegman wrote a good post that answered some of my questions.
H/t Barry Meislin from yesterday on the Hunter Biden thread.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-stormy-daniels-settlement-heart-of-potential-ny-da-indictment-didnt-violate-campaign-law-fec-expert
Trump-Stormy Daniels settlement at heart of potential NY DA indictment didn’t violate campaign law: FEC expert
“This is worse than the Reichstag Fire. The Reichstag Fire was an actual arson by a particularly insane Dutch Communist (Even by the standards of his comrades apparently) that was ruthlessly exploited by the NSDAP but not actually spurred by it. Moreover, actually study the Reichstag Fire Trials and you’ll see the German judiciary actually took its job responsibly (so responsibly Hitler flew into a private rage about it and worked to thoroughly gut it afterwards), which is why only van der Lubbe the actual perpetrator was found guilty. Compared to the atrocities perpetuated against the Jan 6th Prisoners the result is shocking, and we SHOULD NEVER whitewash it by comparing this to the Reichstag Fire.”
yes and no. There is strong indication that the Reichstagsfeuer was actually a false flag operation.
vd Lubbe was indeed a rather insane rabid leftist, but remember that the NSDAP were also insane rabid leftists, and it isn’t hard for one such leftist to deceive another as there is very little ideological difference between them. Change your armband from black to red and you’re suddenly a communist rather than a national socialist if you’re a bit careful about which slogans you use in public.
To most Germans at the time there was very little difference between the communist and national socialist parties, except the communists were promoting immediate merging of Germany with the USSR where the national socialists were promoting restoring German greatness before creating a world spanning socialist community under German leadership/guidance. Which do you think would sound more appealing to a population kept under the French and British imperial yokes since the end of WW1?
Heck, the German army of 1939 was largely trained in and by the Soviet Union, and relied heavily on the USSR for supplies, particularly cold weather gear and I believe horses (the German army in WW2 was very much still old school, using a very large number of horses for transportation of almost anything, far more so than most people know and definitely far more so than the western allies).
@JTW
Not from what I’ve understood. The definitive work on the arson and the aftermath is – from what I understand – still Tobias’s The Reichstag Fire: Legend and Truth, and it pretty solidly demolishes the idea that van der Lubbe would have worked with the National Socialists, that the fire had to have involved more than one moderately gifted arsonist, and that the Nazis knew the fire was coming. Which dovetails well with the other sources of evidence, including Hitler’s personal writings (where he still believed the KPD leadership was responsible but that he had no evidence, indicating that on the off chance the Nazis were involved it was by lower ranks that kept him in the dark), van der Lubbe’s conduct at trial, and the impressions of non-Nazi witnesses like Shirer.
More debatable than one would think; the National Socialists were Socialists, like other Fascists, but they preferred avoiding concrete references to “Right” or “Left” (hence the seminal work on French Fascism, “Neither Right nor Left”, which touches on similar trends).
But even granting that, van der Lubbe and the Nazis were different brands of deranged totalitarian socialist, and they were at ends. Especially since van der Lubbe was a low-level but dedicated radical, meaning he was rather well informed about things on the street and was also exempt from most of the prior cases of Nazi-Stalinist cooperation like the “Prussian Coup” to take down the Social Democrats in Prussia.
The problem is that van der Lubbe would have been rather hard to fool on that front for a few reasons. Starting with the fact that he was a lifelong communist party militant who was too low level and unreliable to be trusted with hush hush wetwork by party leadership but also too immersed in the communist mainstream to actually not understand at least some of the differences and the basic tribalism between National Socialists and Stalinists.
He was also DUTCH rather than German, so he was even less susceptible to such an approach.
Finally, from what we can gather he actually approached some other Communists about trying to spark a revolution against the incoming NSDAP by arsons and they all were aghast and turned him down (if only due to matters of practicality). So if he did have any contacts with Nazi infiltrators or the like it doesn’t seem like they were prodding him either.
Again, van der Lubbe was DUTCH, not German. And while there were strands of Germanophilia in the Netherlands (including among some of its Communists), A: I haven’t seen any indication this extended to van der Lubbe, and B: t was rarely enough to push people to this.
Van der Lubbe was also a lifelong communist militant and so not “the average” anything, let alone “the average German.” So while he was by all accounts a failure in virtually everything short of setting fires and getting a criminal rap sheet his ideological literacy was much greater than the average man on the street and because he was – again – Dutch, he was less influenced by things like Communist-to-Nazi defections or the appeals of revenge for German greatness in WWI.
As for “kept under the French and British imperial yokes”, suffice it to say that was not true, but that’s a subject for another time.
In any case, it’s worth remembering that van der Lubbe actually came to Germany because he was fleeing the law in his native Netherlands. It’s even more worth remembering that his first choice would have been going to Uncle Joe’s Soviet Union but that he was broke and so he couldn’t, because it’s a lot easier to skirt over the border than it is to book a continent crossing train/plane/ship/blimp to the USSR. So he’d almost certainly have viewed merging Germany and other countries into the Soviet Union positively, not negatively.
This is absolutely true, and I can write for ages about Nazi-Communist cooperation and the baleful impact the Soviets had in helping to spark another world war and then fuel it to such a monstrous dimension.
But that doesn’t address van der Lubbe and the Reichstag fire, and for the reasons I mentioned above as well as the evidence that makes it very unlikely he was used by the German communists as some kind of triggerman or fall guy for the arson (since he apparently couldn’t get much support for the plan among his comrades) or that he was suborned (let alone actively convinced) by the Nazis, whom he hated much more than the average German socialist did because he was more ideologically “pure” as a Communist, was so unstable and low-ranking he wouldn’t have been party leadership’s choice for such an op even if they had planned it, and also because he wasn’t influenced by things like national grievance or hunger for grandeur.
All of things put together I think pretty handily underline that van der Lubbe was the author of the arson, that he acted alone or close to alone, and the Nazis were legitimately baffled and alarmed by what happened.
Art Deco – Ask your wife, but don’t say that I told you to.
As to the truth of the Daniels assertion – boy I don’t know. There’s certainly a lot of smoke – remember Karen McDougal and the payment from the Inquirer is also out there. Could Trump have been interviewing porn stars for potential appearances on The Apprentice? Sure. I guess so. (Wouldn’t it have been a lot simpler to just say that if it was the truth? Leftists wouldn’t believe it, but that would have saved a lot of awkwardness for many of Trump’s supporters.)
Reichstag fire is shorthand we can use the malaysian grapevine scandal against ibrahim varela against martinelli santos against arias you get the gist
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This indictment is obviously a last-ditch effort to distract from compelling evidence of treason by Joe Biden, and as such it is being selectively enabled by the media in hopes of creating another January 6.
New York City is eager to join the District of Columbia in the list of ignominious cities eager to destroy American justice.
Related:
DA Bragg plays the victim… (Surprise!)
https://nypost.com/2023/03/19/da-bragg-tells-office-they-will-not-be-intimidated-after-trump-calls-for-protests/
Meanwhile:
More surprise! Turmoil in Bragg’s domain…
https://twitter.com/johncardillo/status/1637108009057894403
…and—even more suprise!!—hanky panky in the Capitol Police Department…
https://twitter.com/shipwreckedcrew/status/1637295811598901249?cxt=HHwWgoCzqbX367gtAAAA
@Minta Marie Morze – good point. The porn industry is full of std’s.
The porn industry in the us is also full of drug users, and people with issues. And results of the standard plastic surgery/ enhancements, as Stormy Daniel’s got, are garish. Seems either you have the super young or the step mom milf archetype, and nothing in between. And the typical career of a female porn star is not that long. The porn tube model of advertising has destroyed the incomes of porn stars, and ability to profitability make higher quality porn. And every thing is going more extreme, and pushing trans stuff for some reason. The porn industry has been ahead of the curve on internet marketing / business models.
And somehow they make porn stars look better on screen than in real life:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3394114/Colander-wearing-former-Utah-porn-star-Pastafarian-sentenced-house-arrest-DUI-daughter-s-school.html
And look what happened to Ron Jeremy. Strange.
Netflix had a movie after porn a while ago.
Unz has had some articles on the porn industry.
Stormy Daniel’s thought she could get rich off blackmailing Trump, and her now in jail lawyer Michael Avenatti thought she was a great meal ticket. I’m also guessing he got Democratic supporter money to go after Trump. It’s amazing how much publicity he received.
To all saying “they won’t convict”
It is NYC, they will convict.
The evidence, or lack thereof, will not matter one bit.
All that matters is he is Trump and they are Democrats.
He’ll get as fair a trial as the J6 defendants.
Also, there is no conservative appeals court in NY state to save him. I doubt the SCOTUS would either. The 3 establishment Justices would be just as happy to ignore his plight.
or ergonokon two electric boogaloo (when they went after gulen’s supporters,) after the latter enabled erdogan to take over the country, there are 50 ways of oppression, to paraphrase paul simons,
gotham is a city when the criminals run free, and the law abiding are indoors, the Capitol, is much the same way, (hunger games analogy intended) of course in the otherwise terrible Amerika series, where they gave sam neil the best lines and made kristofferson the pitiful foil, he was supposed to be the last president before the Soviet takeover,
who will bell that cat, i wonder, rhetorical, if you murder maim mutilate, well you get a prize, in retrospect susan rosenberg should have gotten a firing squad, doesn’t matter her contribution wasn’t a big one,
but we ship sharbi and quahtani, back to the kingdom, so they can topple prince salman, so we can be back to business,
Another deliberate provocation.
Just to add to the dismay…
“Legal expert torches Manhattan DA’s potential Trump arrest: ‘Banana Republic sort of stuff’ “–
https://www.foxnews.com/media/legal-expert-torches-manhattan-da-potential-trump-arrest-banana-republic-sort-of-stuff
Key sentence:
‘…Former federal prosecutor Francey Hakes accused Bragg of weaponizing the law politically, and acting like a “king,” in order to indict the former president….’
File under: “So the king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Susa was bewildered.” (Esther 3:15)
https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Esther%203%3A15
The loyal Democrat base takes the field for another Charley Brown moment. Or, is it that of Sisyphus?
Re: the upcoming indictment of Trump
Who thinks Trump would be charged / indicted if he was a member in good standing of the demonkrat party??
That’s all you need to know.
I understand that the judge on the case will be Roland Freisler.
I can hear him now saying to Trump;
“If you have nothing to say for yourself then kindly keep your mouth shut! ”
Of course Herr Freisler will determine what constitutes acceptable
remarks and / or statements during the kangaroo court proceedings.
the law doesn’t matter otherwise there would be hundreds of convictions for whole sale destruction, the biden brood would have been in jail long ago, etc etc, but the apparat want’s a certain result, they want the cities plundered as if by marauding bands, they want us competing for morsels of food, and gobbets of fuel, they don’t want confident hardworking men and women, who believe in this country, they want a rabble, that grovels before the State,
Interesting times.
“Biden” ‘s got “his” EOs.
Macron says, “Hmm, I want some a’ that stuff, too!”
Now it seems to be Switzerland’s witching hour…
“UBS To Buy CS For $2 Billion; SNB Offers $100 Billion Liquidity, Authorities Force Bypass Shareholder Vote”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/ubs-offers-buy-credit-suisse-1bn-025-share-takeunder-cs-balks-offer
Opening grafs:
“The Financial Times reports that UBS has agreed to buy Credit Suisse after increasing its offer to more than $2bn, with Swiss authorities poised to change the country’s laws to bypass a shareholder vote on the transaction as they rush to finalize a deal before Monday.
“The purchase price is a fraction of the $8 billion market cap the company was valued at on Friday’s close; it means that UBS will now pay slightly more than CHF0.50 a share in its own stock, up from a bid of SFr0.25 earlier today, but far below Credit Suisse’s closing price of CHF1.86 on Friday….”
[All emphasis mine; Barry M.]
“Too big to fail” gets a bit of a makeover…(or should that be “a bit of a reprieve”…?)
File under: Beggars, choosers, you know the drill… Guess we’ll just have to wait ‘n see what Monday (bloody Monday?) will bring…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h81Ojd3d2rY
Art Deco – Ask your wife, but don’t say that I told you to.
==
Why would I mention you at all?
==
Women are disgusted by certain things, but as a rule bothered much more by claims on their husband’s time, attention, and affection than they are by sexual transgression per se. Either one might generate a domestic explosion, but an actual affair will do so with more reliability than a visit to a hooker.
==
Stormy wasn’t competition for Melania, just a distasteful episode that one might wager she did not know about at the time. Lisa Jo Druck (aka Alison Poole, aka Rielle Hunter) actually was competition for Elizabeth Anania (Elizabeth Edwards when convenient). John Edwards’ had repeated episodes with her (enough to get her pregnant at a time in her life when most women cannot conceive), was willing to do this even though his wife had gone through the cancer treatment mangle (that I just do not get), and was apparently seeking the company of others in part because his wife was an unpleasant human being in domestic circumstances, which had to sting as much as did the insults she lobbed at his parents. This is not that difficult.
==
While we’re at it, what determines the severity of a transgression is not a function of the emotional reactions of women.
And from the “I Want a Second Opinion” File (cross-indexed with “You Can’t Make This Up”): …
“My husband had an affair — it was the best thing that ever happened to us”—
https://nypost.com/2023/03/19/my-husbands-affair-was-the-best-thing-that-happened-to-us/
Yes, a classic line; but just WOW! Truly, these folks should go into marriage counseling…
And in fact…
‘One wife is calling the affair her husband had “the best thing that ever happened” to her marriage and is now seeking to help others.’
I guess the trick to all of this is making sure you have that affair with the right person…understanding, gentle, mature, accepting, confident enough to take being rejected not as rejection but as “growth”—perhaps even self-actualization. Joyous!
No doubt there are those who would find it…spiritual!
Maybe a new year’s resolution’s in there somewhere…
Well, if “love, honor, and cherish” were part of the marriage vows, and if the husband meant those things, then the extent of emotional damage caused to his wife by his misbehavior is certainly part of determining the severity of his transgression. (Let us exclude extremely volatile and hysterical wives from the discussion, as those could be set off the deep end by almost anything.)
I think at least some lefties have decided that Bragg may have gotten too far over his skis on this one. On Sunday Today this morning, “political analyst” Chuck Todd was asked about the possible charges, with an emphasis on how weak he legal case is. He pivoted the analysis to say that Bragg was not planning to indict next week, and that Trump did this to put the focus on the weak case. As a way of diverting attention from the more serious cases of the call to the Georgia Secretary of State and the Mar a Lago classified documents. Unbelievable gaslighting!
Theres not enough electroshock for those two
Now there’s a report from “a source,” take that for what it’s worth, saying that there will be a last “surprise” witness at the NY grand jury on Monday, and indictment on Tuesday is not likely.
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-indictment-on-hold-new-york-hush-money-case-2023-3
https://twitter.com/KurtSchlichter/status/1637499750407880704?cxt=HHwWgIDS7ZvWyLktAAAA
Gothamite and Kate – I wouldn’t be surprised if Bragg backs down, or is persuaded to do so. It doesn’t make any sense at all for him to go first, or to go at all frankly. He discredits the other prosecutions.
Also, I’m very skeptical of the story that Trump made up the request in order to put the emphasis on Bragg’s weak case. There were reports that NYC was preparing security for the protests. Wouldn’t the NYPD check with Bragg before doing that?
In addition to all the other obvious problems with this projected prosecution, Jonathan Turley has pointed out that possibly too much time has expired since the alleged offense for it to be prosecuted under New York law.
According to the article linked to below, the Chief Judge who will now be overseeing grand jury proceedings dealing with Trump is apparently Obama appointee Judge James Boasberg, one of the judges who was involved in the FISA warrant mess.*
See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/03/new-chief-judge-to-oversee-trump-grand-jury-investigations-is-another-obama-appointee/
According to the article linked to below, the Chief Judge who will now be overseeing grand jury proceedings dealing with Trump is apparently Obama appointee Judge James Boasberg, one of the judges who was involved in the FISA warrant mess.*
==
Alvin Bragg’s office brings cases under New York State law. There are no ‘obama appointees’ on the state bench.
Legal Insurrection shadow bans comments. Never link to Legal Insurrection.
Jahaziel Maqqebet::
You have posted that thought before, and I have already responded. Here is my previous response. Please read it this time.
Alvin Bragg is pursuing a seriously flawed prosecution: John Yoo
But with a seriously flawed jury pool, Bragg’s case might be good to go.
@ Turtler > “the Nazis were legitimately baffled and alarmed by what happened.”
But they didn’t let the crisis go to waste.
Boasberg is also the guy who reduced Clinesmith’s already petty sentence.
(You know the drill: Clinesmith’s really a great guy. Fantastic lawyer. Hard worker. Didn’t mean to lie. Totally unintentional. Got a bit confused. Could happen to anyone. Great family man. Loves animals….)
Yep, Boasberg is very bad news.
@AesopFan
Of course not. That is one thing I think Hitler gets too little credit for. He was generally astute and good at taking advantage of opportunities, at least for the first two thirds of his life. Unfortunate for the world.
Well, if “love, honor, and cherish” were part of the marriage vows, and if the husband meant those things, then the extent of emotional damage caused to his wife by his misbehavior is certainly part of determining the severity of his transgression.
==
No, the severity is what it is. It is a function of what you do, not of the reaction to what you do, which can be quite arbitrary.
==
Lots of married people in middle age aren’t honored or cherished.
Of course not. That is one thing I think Hitler gets too little credit for. He was generally astute and good at taking advantage of opportunities, at least for the first two thirds of his life. Unfortunate for the world.
==
I’m not following you. He never married, had no children, and had no employment history between 1903 and 1933 apart from his military service and dipping into the Nazi Party treasury. He had a crazy period of accomplishment between 1930 and 1940. The last five years were a catastrophe and the first 40-odd an embarrassment. (He was also a madcap hypochondriac and physically repulsive).
Jonathan Turley has pointed out that possibly too much time has expired since the alleged offense for it to be prosecuted under New York law.
==
One of Lawrence Walsh’s escapades was securing an indictment of Casper Weinberger which he Walsh new perfectly well was time-barred. (And was rubbish substantively as well). He did this on the eve of the 1992 presidential election. I don’t think there’s a shortage of unethical men among prosecutors.
@Art Deco
All true, but he was legitimately distinguished as a soldier (no Audie Murphy but quite skilled and brave and apparently good at calculating odds), and was a skilled politician and street tactician. He formed one of the largest mass movements in history after staging a bloodless bureaucratic coup of the German Workers’ Party( and did so in the face of opposition from almost all the established powers in Germany except maybe the military.
More like to 1941. And while his plans for Barbarossa were stupidly optimistic they were shared by most of his staff and he was not responsible for its single greatest failure (well, within the framework of racist overconfidence), since he advocated striking South to secure the Farmlands and Oil sources that the Reich needed to sustain its efforts, while Halder (one of the supposedly more skilled military professionals and a guy we trusted to write the US Army history of the Eastern Front) committed one of the largest acts of insubordination in history to Yolo after Moscow, getting Army Group Center stuck outside the Soviet Capital on a rocky countryside that couldn’t feed occupied Europe even if they took it. His greatest flaw and crime (though it is a huge one of both) was insisting that the war in the East be conducted as an utterly cruel war of annihilation, thus driving the Soviet peoples into Stalin’s camp and depriving him of one of Ludendorff’s most potent tactics.
And I could go on.
I’d argue the first 25 years were an embarrassment, Bu5 the 27 years after that were a nightmare before going into the catastrophe. He was an evil, evil man and NOWHERE near as competent as he thought he was, but he often gets less credit than he deserves.
He was really only physically repulsive for the last two or three years of his life and was noted to be quite handsome and dashing before then.
He formed one of the largest mass movements in history after staging a bloodless bureaucratic coup of the German Workers’ Party( and did so in the face of opposition from almost all the established powers in Germany except maybe the military.
==
Disagree. The Nazi Party was inconsequential prior to 1930. Their visibility was a function of an association with Gen. Ludendorff which proved transient and the curios generated by the use of national-list PR as an electoral system. You had a succession of own goals by the German establishment during the period running from 1918 to 1933 which included the impetuous disestablishment of the monarchy, defects incorporated into the constitution, the absurd monetary policy followed during 1922 and 1923, Hindenburg’s presidential candidacy in 1925 and 1932, the takeover of the National People’s Party by volkisch elements, and the destructive monetary policy followed by the Bruening ministry during 1930-32. Removing just this last one might have sufficed to prevent the Nazi Party from gaining much of a following. (As late as 1928, the Nazi Party scored all of 2.6% of the vote in a German federal election).
Art Deco:
I don’t think Turtler meant that the opposition to Hitler didn’t make a lot of errors. I think the point is that Hitler took full advantage of those errors. In addition, of course, he maneuvered his way into being Chancellor without ever up to that point won more than a bit more than a third of the German vote. He did it very cleverly, by taking advantage of the weaknesses of those opposed to him and playing them against each other, as well as making false promises. Then he cemented absolute power by doing the same, plus the threat of violence (as well as the reality of violence) against those who would oppose him, and the exploitation of loopholes in the German constitution.
I have zero use for Donald Trump (and his fat mouth) but this whole thing has a Stalin era feel to it.
a combination of factors, the downturn that was turned into a depression by the capital cutoff due to smoot hawley, the collapse of the creditanstalt in ’31, the campaign against the social democrats by stalin, of course bruening as the hunger chancellor so called, this was the lead up to the 32 elections,
I think the point is that Hitler took full advantage of those errors.
==
There’s where I think you’re wrong. The failure of the German establishment discredited the parties who’d made up the various ministries since 1918. The parties not implicated were the Communists, the Nazis, and the National People’s Party. The National People’s Party under Hugenberg abandoned much of is distinctiveness in favor of imitation.
==
As for what happened after 30 January 1933, see the case study by Wm. Sheridan Allen and the account by William L. Shirer of what was up in Berlin. The opposition parties suffered a collapse of morale and put up no resistance.
Anyone care to stack up Biden’s human rights record vs. Putin’s?
@Art Deco
Maybe if we are just looking in the Reichstag, but it was certainly not inconsequential, on the streets, and particularly not in places like Bavaria and Saxony. This is what a lot of people do not realize, and that indeed many of the “respectable” politicians failed to realize this. The work they did forming their paramilitary, political, and financial machinery and organization is what helped give them the seemingly seismic shift in 1930.
And they began consolidating very effectively, such as imposing purges on Jews in civil government throughout Saxony in 1930, in a very real sense bringing the Third Reich or at least a Lite, Localized version of it into being two/three years before Hitler seized power on a national scale. Which helped lead them to further gains in 1932 and then retaining most of them later in that crucial year, at a time when the SA was far larger than the military or its unofficial paramilitaries or that of most other paramilitaries.
So clearly it wasn’t simply that the other sides were doing wrong things (which they WERE). He was clearly doing some things right. Very, Very Right.
Doesn’t work.
Hitler and Ludendorff broke as a result of the failed Munich Putsch and the shockwaves from it, and in any case Ludendorff as a whole was marginalized due to the conflict he had with Hindenburg starting in 1926-7.
In other words, Ludendorff both became more hostile to the Nazis and Hitler AND less powerful around the exact time that the NSDAP’s grass roots saw seismic growth, first breaking into the Reichstag and then seizing control of regional political machines like in Saxony and Bavaria.
Which doesn’t explain their remarkable resilience, their ability to fundraise on an unprecedented level in terms of grassroots, or their endurance.
Eh, broadly agreed.
Not so sure I’d go that far. The monarchy had thoroughly tainted itself by its conduct in the war and connivance with military leadership, and had the Imperials not fled for the border at least Wilhelm would probably have faced a trial.
It’s also worth noting that Ebert – a monarchist at heart, even if a Social Democrat – felt pushed to declare a Republic because he feared more radical republicans would beat him to the punch.
Agreed, though many of those predated it.
Agreed, though I’d go to from 1914 to 1933.
Agreed.
Those had always been rather powerful and represented in the party, and had other mediums.
Agreed with caveats; Bruning’s policy was right in theory but it was hard.
Disagree. Brunning’s fiscal handling was bad but his cooperation with the Cabinet of Barons and Hindenburg was worse, and to be fair all of the above were dealing with the aftershocks of the Great Depression, which was largely US caused.
This is true, but it was no mean feat on a national stage. Most political parties never got that far. And for a party that had JUST been re-legalized after being banned for an attempted coup?
That I think shows how the NSDAP triumph goes far beyond the sum of their opponents’ failures, and in particular ignores how successful Hitler etc. al. were at capitalizing on their successes during the late 1920s and early 1930s, so that once they took ground they would not be expelled from it.
This I think seriously sidesteps the core issue.
A: Why were these parties not implicated? Generally because they had been political outsiders.
B: Frankly I think you are overestimating the degree to which these failures had discredited the parties involved, especially in comparison to others. The Cabinet of Barons under Papen in particular had basically ended the Republic and helped trigger some surges back to the republican parties, but too late.
I have, but I find their studies to be rather out of date and in many details inaccurate. In particular they do not understand the strong political machinery the Nazis had in place, the weakening of their morale in the face of the invisible dictatorship under Papen and the Barons’ Cabinet trying to bring back an Empire (which was already rather unpopular to anybody but the monarchist right, who by this point were a distinct minority), and in particular the NSDAP’s powerful independent financing and paramilitary arms that allowed it to operate “in the wilderness” without sizable establishment backers and to pose a threat much like the communists but with greater appeal to non-Nazis if they were denied a say in power.
I’d highly suggest Noakes’s The Nazi Party in Lower Saxony 1921-1933 for a regional level of how the Nazis first took power and then locked it down, Henry Ashby Turner’s “German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler” for Nazi financing during this early period (and how LITTLE it had to do with German Big Business), and Rainer Zitelmann’s “Hitler’s National Socialism” for a more general overview of the entire regime and movement and how it actually won loyalty.
Suffice it to say, I find Shirer and Allen to have been operating with both limited sources and in some cases (especially in the case of Shirer) ideological blinders that prevented them from assessing the nature and strategies of the NSDAP.
Finally: A collapse of morale among the establishment parties never meant that the NSDAP would be the ones to take advantage of it. It could at least theoretically have led to a restored Imperial Dictatorship (which was what Papen and Hindenburg had been planning), a Communist coup (the KPD’s plan), or some kind of Faux-Parliamentary dictatorship like what we saw in Austria under the “Christian Social/ist Party” and Metaxes in Greece. And even if the Nazis had taken power there was no guarantee Hitler could have kept control of it from both entryism from the right and the more leftist and “revolutionary” elements around the Strassers.
Not all of what led to his victory was his result (in particular the KPD engaging in futile and bloody uprisings that drained its strength and tainted its reputation), but many others did. He skillfully led his movement and manipulated other political and military actors – sometimes even abroad – to achieve absolute power. For that he deserves at least some credit, even if we disagree on the exact amount.
It is not enough to explain why the Republican parties and the invisible dictatorship of Papen and Hindenburg that followed them failed. We must explain why the Nazis succeeded, and particularly did so at the expense of both the establishment and the other alternatives.
@Cappy
Biden’s godawful and his puppeteers may well exceed Putin, but Putin has the clear lead. Jan 6th is bad but it isn’t serial executions and “accidents.”
And if you think the Squad is bad and that Omar’s dominance in the Twin Cities is awful, and it is, take a look at Kadyrov. A man who has been steadily turning Chechnya into a Narco-Islamist gangster state run on torture, murder, and smuggling with Putin’s at least passive acceptance.
I would like to imagine that dudayev would not have been terrible but weve seen the history of republics in central asia specially with histories like chechnya
Whch branch of oceania do you prefer airship one uk canada or australia