TMP — Mob Rules in the U.S.

Fandango

Every Monday, Paula Light, with her The Monday Peeve prompt, gives us an opportunity to vent or rant about something that pisses us off. Today’s peeve is about politics. Of course it is.

The United States Republican Senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, above, said if Trump is prosecuted for mishandling classified information “there will be riots in the streets.”

Make no mistake, Trump did, in fact, mishandle classified information. He also broke the law. In 1978, Congress passed the Presidential Records Act, which established public ownership of all presidential records and required every president, beginning with Ronald Reagan, to archive their official records with the National Archives and Records Administration. The act was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter. Trump took a boatload government property and documents home to Mar-a-Lago when he left office and has resisted returning them.

So is Senator Graham is suggesting that the government should refrain from prosecuting Trump, regardless of whether investigators conclude that the facts add up to evidence of crimes, just because his supporters will go nuts and riot? Is that the measure Graham believes prosecutors should use to determine whether or not a crime is worth pursuing? Mob rule?

Apparent Senator Graham believes so. He came right out and said, “Most Republicans including me, believe when it comes to Trump, there is no law.”

Graham’s threat is just another attack on the rule of law. It’s an effort to discredit the idea that the law can be applied to Trump at all. And as we all know, Trump is not above inciting a mob to violence when it suits his purpose. Graham is basically setting the stage — or at least providing an excuse for — another insurrection-like riot, something Trump’s rabid supporters will willingly resort to as their messiah’s legal perils continue to mount.

When did the concept that no man is above the law become obsolete in America?

52 thoughts on “TMP — Mob Rules in the U.S.”

  1. newepicauthor August 29, 2022 / 11:14 am

    Some laws do become obsolete, but that is not the case here. Senator Lindsey Graham is a kiss ass, and he will say anything to protect Trump.

    Liked by 2 people

  2. rugby843 August 29, 2022 / 11:27 am

    Rich white men have been above the law since time began

    Sent from my iPhone

    >

    Liked by 4 people

  3. Carol anne August 29, 2022 / 11:36 am

    I don’t know when it became that trump is now above the law, but god! That is well, a disgrace, that someone would threaten riots if he’s prosecuted!

    Liked by 3 people

  4. Marilyn Armstrong August 29, 2022 / 2:15 pm

    I just finished (finally, and wow what a LONG book) Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals.” By the time we got to the Civil War, it had been abandoned. That was when the Republicans were the new liberal party and the Democrats were the other ones, but it was the same scenario. Virtually identical in many ways. I’ve just done a lot of historical reading — three very long books in a row including two more by Barbara Tuchman. I’m a bit saturated, but I also have a much better understanding of what’s going on because yes, it DID happy before and we had a war and more people died in that war than in ALL THE OTHER WARS WE’VE FOUGHT SINCE THEN. All of them from WW I and II, through Afghanistan and all the middle Eastern disasters. The Civil War was a bloodbath.

    History does not merely rhyme. It really does repeat.

    Liked by 1 person

        • donmatthewspoetry August 29, 2022 / 9:30 pm

          You know I’m often flippant but there was a grain of truth in my comment this time……

          Liked by 1 person

          • Fandango August 29, 2022 / 9:52 pm

            And in my reply, as well. Maybe more than a grain. Maybe a whole bagful of grain.

            Liked by 2 people

  5. Paula Light August 29, 2022 / 3:01 pm

    His supporters are worse than he is because without their fawning and enabling, he’d be a washed up old man yelling at the sky

    Liked by 2 people

  6. Marleen August 29, 2022 / 3:44 pm

    I think we were trying to improve in the mid twentieth century (building from Lincoln and both Roosevelt presidents), and then the tide got turned back with the philosophy that basically is — although it might not have been obvious at the time and can be difficult for youngsters to see at first as adults who should know better indoctrinate — worshipping people with money then fetishizing those ostentatious about wealth (or appearance of wealth whether one is personally wealthy or not* in Trump’s case). This is the spectrum of conservative economics and neoliberalism. We can’t just get rid of the guy who likes gold toilets and brush off our hands. Introspection, good news, and change are in order. (Foreign and trade policy is tied in with all that, but I don’t want to try and word that out right now.) Seems to me like our impetus for “a more perfect Union” expired, went sour, turned on itself both domestically and tied in globally. I’d say that was before Trump as President. I think of the gross leftover characters (to say nothing of activities and purported precedents) of both the Nixon and Reagan campaigns and administrations (even if there a was a thing or two positive that got done with each president), I think of some things Bill Clinton got done that Republicans always wanted and the Republicanesque way the U.S. under Clinton advised post-Soviet Russia (“privatize”), I think of Bush the Stupid (being rewarded with a presidency for going to rehab after wasting years he could have gained the wisdom for the position).

    *Lindsey may have been bought out on a big scale (with a combo of carrots and sticks), like Trump, by Putin; as a happy/grumpy and knowing, useful idiot. He’s disgusting.

    Bonus:

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/george-bush-masterclass

    George W. Bush[‘s] … New MasterClass Course

    Give me a giant break! Is this what we have to do? Lionize a dunce (or applaud or tolerate his lionizing of his own time in office)? Beyond dunce, seriously, he’s a war criminal. (Maybe Cheney made the decisions and the money, but this guy was the one at the top.) Our problems are deeper than Trump, but we will likely never sort through them. I’m going to look up when “nonprofit ‘educational’” entities got going. That might have been a major turning point that we can’t overcome to survive. (Followed by more and more money in politics through additional means like the citizens United Decision.) This not only corrupts the politics (beyond what would already be) but draws more and more grifters in.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Marleen August 29, 2022 / 3:57 pm

      By the way, I’m looking at the news and am seeing people say more and more (as they seem to have been enjoying as a joke quite a while) that Trump doesn’t have good lawyers (which he doesn’t as far as we see). I suspect we might rventuallly see hm absolved of all misdoing because of inadequate representation. I’m pretty sure we’ve reached the sick place where the elite (by the newer gauche meaning rather than the meaning of competence) just win (or don’t lose).

      Liked by 1 person

      • Marleen August 30, 2022 / 3:05 pm

        I don’t see a date or byline for this article, but it’s not shabby (and not profound).

        https://financhill.com/blog/investing/george-w-bush-leadership-style

        Some of the achievements that stand out include:
        Increasing federal spending by about 60% while cutting taxes.
        { I was still a conservative and saw the cutting of taxes in the context as unnecessary and unwise (or stupid). }

        Responding to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
        { I had been paying attention to history and thought sending troops to Afghanistan was unwise (to stupid) even if justified (justified only as a fall guy). Iraq was a whole different kettle of fish; unjustified but playing on prejudice while simultaneously playing out some obsession from his father’s presidency. }

        Leading a war in Iraq that resulted in the execution of Saddam Hussein.

        Attempting the No Child Left Behind educational policy.

        Proclaiming that “American is addicted to oil” and encouraging technologies to find alternative fuels.

        Near the end of George W Bush’s presidency, he had to manage the Great Recession, which was largely caused by permissive lending laws {permissive toward the banks and abusive and predatory toward the public and many lendees} and may have contributed to the election of Barack Obama.

        …

        Whether George W Bush was a good leader depends on who you ask and what problem he was trying to solve.

        { I see the following summation as kinda strange. }

        Centrist Republicans typically see him as a good leader, although those on the more extreme side tend to think that he should have been more aggressive about cutting taxes and finishing the War in Iraq.

        Those on the left of American politics typically saw George W Bush as someone without the necessary skills to lead the country.

        ………………….

        Liked by 1 person

  7. XingfuMama August 29, 2022 / 4:02 pm

    Beau of the Fifth Column had an interesting take on this on his YouTube channel.

    Like

    • Fandango August 29, 2022 / 5:08 pm

      I’m pissed, I’m frustrated, I’m depressed, and I feel kind of hopeless.

      Liked by 1 person

      • donmatthewspoetry August 29, 2022 / 9:35 pm

        Come to Orstralia. (flippant) There’s no Trump here (serious). I feel for you (serious) It wasn’t like that many years ago when I was there……

        Liked by 1 person

        • Fandango August 29, 2022 / 9:55 pm

          No, it wasn’t like this before the turn of the century, but it’s been creeping in this direction since then and Trump has been fiddling in glee watching the embers he fanned turn into a wildfire.

          Like

      • donmatthewspoetry August 30, 2022 / 3:07 am

        The sad thing is we as individuals can’t do a thing. It’s the politicians which move the wheels….unless I’m missing something

        Liked by 1 person

  9. Taswegian1957 August 29, 2022 / 5:30 pm

    I was absolutely appalled that a United States Senator would say that. He sounded like he would welcome rioting on the streets when he should be telling people that violence is not an option.

    Liked by 2 people

    • Fandango August 29, 2022 / 5:43 pm

      You are so right. He’s being totally irresponsible and is providing an excuse for violence. Grrr.

      Liked by 1 person

  12. Lauren August 29, 2022 / 11:02 pm

    You might want to read David Cohen’s political comics. They are awesome.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Fandango August 30, 2022 / 7:24 am

      It seems, in order to view them, you must be on Twitter. I’m not. 🙁

      Like

  14. Julydase August 31, 2022 / 8:57 am

    Where was the uproar over Chuck Schumer saying, ‘I want to tell you Gorsuch. I want to tell you Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”? The Democrats are just as adept at stirring up a mob as are Republicans. I read somewhere, something to the effect that one only hears the news one hears, and way too many people only listen to news that supports their train of thought. People need to be more open minded, listen to both sides, and make informed decisions. Too many sheep in the world.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Fandango August 31, 2022 / 3:34 pm

      The difference in my mind is that Schumer was referring to political consequences as the price Republicans would have to pay for Gorsuch’s and Kavanaugh’s decisions on abortion, where as Graham was calling for and condoning violence in the streets and mob rule if Trump were prosecuted for crimes he committed.

      Liked by 1 person

      • Julydase August 31, 2022 / 4:51 pm

        Different people interpret remarks differently. And actions. I don’t care for Trump, but I believe there are now two sets of wrong behavior, one acceptable and/or ignored, and one not. Hillary Clinton did so much, from using her personal phone for government business to destroying her servers and pouring acid on hard drives to destroy evidence, plus her presidential campaign outright falsifying info about Trump. And Joe and Hunter Biden using their positions to cut deals in China and Ukraine to enrich themselves. And the laptop coverup right before the election. And I won’t even go into the Democrats in power not speaking out against last summer’s rioting, looting and burning. Wrong done by both parties should be vigorously reported, not shouted from the rooftops ad nausea regarding Republicans, and swept under the rug for Democrats.

        Liked by 1 person

        • Fandango August 31, 2022 / 6:33 pm

          One must also assess the severity and the implications of the actions/crimes. Hillary did wrong using her personal email account, but the investigation by the FBI found no evidence of putting secret/confidential information at risk. And if you think what Hunter Biden did was bad, look at what all three of Trump’s adult kids did to enrich themselves. Let’s get real, here. Trump’s behavior and criminal acts trump, by a wide margin, anything Hillary or Hunter Biden did. To deny that is just willful ignorance.

          Liked by 1 person

          • Julydase August 31, 2022 / 7:50 pm

            Then I suppose I must be willfully ignorant—Trump, Hillary and Bill Clinton, Joe and Hunter Biden, to me, all go into the same basket. You must honestly believe what the media tells you to believe. I choose to research and make my own decisions.

            Liked by 1 person

            • Fandango August 31, 2022 / 9:51 pm

              I do my own research and make my own decisions. My research tells me that to put Bill and Hillary Clinton and Joe and Hunter Biden in the same basket as Donald Trump is a false and forced equivalency. Neither the actions, deeds, or misdeeds of the Clintons nor those of Joe and Hunter Biden led to concerted efforts (as yet ongoing) to bring down the American democracy and an attempted insurrection in the U.S. Capitol building as have the actions, deeds, and countless misdeeds of Donald Trump. The only equivalency one might make regarding Donald Trump would be with Richard Nixon. And Trump is the worst of the two by a wide margin. But, July, you are free to believe whatever it is you wish to believe. But it sounds to me that you’re mostly parroting the nonsense that the Fox News “personalities” are spewing out and brainwashing their viewers with.

              Liked by 1 person

            • Julydase August 31, 2022 / 10:16 pm

              And it sounds to me that you’re mostly parroting the nonsense that CNN and MSNBC “personalities” are spewing out and brainwashing their viewers with.
              I watch very little of those three networks. They are just mouthpieces for the party they support.
              I think we’re going to just have to agree to disagree on this, Fandango. We share common ground on some things, but not this.

              Liked by 1 person

    • Marleen August 31, 2022 / 9:03 pm

      Where was the uproar over Chuck Schumer …

      https://www.newsweek.com/chuck-schumer-brett-kavanaugh-roe-v-wade-pay-price-comment-1713964

      Schumer had previously retracted his comments, saying from the Senate floor that he “should not have used the words [he in 2020] used” the day before.

      “They didn’t come out the way I intended to,” the senator said in 2020. “My point was that there would be political consequences—political consequences—for President Trump and Senate Republicans if the Supreme Court, with the newly confirmed justices, stripped away a woman’s right to choose.”

      Liked by 1 person

      • Marleen August 31, 2022 / 9:07 pm

        Where’s the querry concerning senators or Christine Blasey Ford?

        READ MORE
        Christine Blasey Ford Death Threats Resurface Amid Kavanaugh Protests
        Vote to Codify Roe v. Wade Could See More Senators Targeted at Home
        Fact Check: Did Trump Make SCOTUS Picks to End Roe v. Wade, as AOC Claims?

        Liked by 1 person

      • Marleen August 31, 2022 / 11:22 pm

        https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/486007-schumer-warns-kavanaugh-and-gorsuch-they-will-pay-the-price/

        “We will tell President Trump and Senate Republicans who have stacked the court with right-wing ideologies that you’re going to be gone in November, and you will never be able to do what you’re trying to do now ever, ever again,” Schumer said. “You’re gone in November.”

        The comments immediately drew criticism from GOP lawmakers, such as Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), who said Schumer was threatening the judges.

        “Did Senate Democrat leader Schumer just threaten two conservative justices? Where is the media?” ….

        ….

        March 4, 2020 Schumer spokesman Justin Goodman accused critics of deliberately misinterpreting the senator’s remarks. “Sen. Schumer’s comments were a reference to the political price Senate Republicans will pay for putting these justices on the court, and a warning that the justices will unleash a major grassroots movement on the issue of reproductive rights against the decision,” Goodman said in a statement. “For Justice Roberts to follow the right wing’s deliberate misinterpretation of what Sen. Schumer said, while remaining silent when President Trump attacked Justices [Sonia] Sotomayor and [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg last week, shows Justice Roberts does not just call balls and strikes.”

        Liked by 1 person

  15. leigha66 September 6, 2022 / 10:52 am

    I swear, all these supporters of Trump just make my skin crawl.

    Liked by 1 person

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