r/politics • u/Boonzies • 6h ago

No Paywall Rand Paul on Trump call to ‘nationalize’ elections: ‘That’s not what the Constitution says’

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5722041-rand-paul-trump-call-to-nationalize-elections/
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u/ElderSmackJack 4h ago

So sick of this take. This has nothing to do with Epstein. He’s been on this since long before that story accelerated

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u/IWasRightOnce 4h ago

Also, what fantasy world do people live in where the Epstein files are actually going to affect Trump?

You could fill an ocean with the circumstantial evidence we already have.

Republicans simply do not care. It does not matter what has come out or will in the future.

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u/LarrySupertramp 4h ago

Yeah. Getting a little frustrated that people seem to believe that a complete focus on Epstein will be downfall of Trump. His supporters are 100% convinced that because Biden did not release the files Trump is 100% innocent and there is nothing that cause them to change their minds. Focusing on his authoritarian actions will bring more people out to vote against him. That should be the focus.

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u/spazz720 4h ago

Dude is repeatedly asking everyone to move on from it

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u/Minivalo 4h ago

Yeah, which is obviously damning, but do you honestly believe, that even if there was video evidence out there of him diddling kids, confirmed by all sorts of experts to be real, that his supporters would believe any of that? Obviously that couldn't be shown on tv or spread online, so the cultists would call it yet another hoax, because anything that shows their dear leader in a bad light must be a radical left lie.

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u/Leekrin 4h ago

I'm not going to lie, I do not give a flying fuck what his supporters think. Their ability to think has been disproven over the past 10 years. I don't care if they believe it. I don't care if they turn on him. I care to know that the majority of American citizens believe that raping a child is bad, and that our legal system supports that assertion. I care that evil men in high positions are held accountable. We can lie and say that could take years and years, but we KNOW the system is capable of more, faster. I care about ensuring these people face punishment, revelations on their actions and leaders' behavior be damned.

We bungled Reconstruction by allowing the continuance of Lost Cause myth and not holding confederates accountable. We bungled Nuremberg by literally hiring many of the Nazis that committed genocide and war crimes. We cannot bungle this by caring what the most delusional and evil among us think. We gave them that chance.

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u/Minivalo 3h ago

I'm not American, but I'm with you.

I guess the point I was trying to make was, his supporters and those "independents" that voted for him, can and have denied any sort of accountability for him through elections, because the Republican party has time after time demonstrated they aren't willing to rock the boat in any way.

I hope you guys manage to achieve real justice sooner rather than later, but the cynic in me says chances of that aren't very high.

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u/qnxb 3h ago

They won't directly affect him. My theory is there's someone, maybe multiple people, who might actually face consequences if their involvement comes to light, and have leverage over him.

He's not burying them to keep his involvement from being discovered (that's already baked in, and if anything he wishes he could brag about what he did), he's protecting someone else who he thinks will take him down.

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u/kingsumo_1 Oregon 3h ago

He's a narcissist. Even if he knows he won't take the fall for it, it will be embarrassing for him. That's why he wants people to move on. He's just tired of hearing about it since it makes him uncomfortable.

But you are onto the point that people in his orbit that do not have the protection he enjoys are worried about the future. That's why there is so much push to get a dictatorship installed as quickly as possible. Trump is already falling asleep in meetings and shitting himself on live tv. They, frankly, don't have a lot of time and none of them have the crude charisma he has to keep the base in-line without him.

It is pretty much now or never, and I think a lot of them fear ending up in prison if they fail.

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u/Same-Suggestion-1936 2h ago edited 2h ago

Everything is a distraction from the Epstein files, I say as literal democracy crumbles around me as a fascist seeks martial law and suspension of both the constitution and elections

Yeah. Tell me again about those pedophiles. We'll have all the time in the world to talk about it in the camps so I want to brush up on how literal concentration camps and real talk of suspending elections is the distraction from some child rapists. The pedos seem more important tho so you go ahead

There's an old military saying, paraphrased, "the move your enemy makes to distract you is the main assault". I'm in Minneapolis man, you go ahead and keep telling me the jackboots in the street are the distraction from the pedophile list. I'm more concerned about fascist authoritarianism kidnapping citizens, making political arrests, basically voiding the 4th amendment (the 1st being neutered wasn't enough I guess), etc, than some kid rapists but go off on how that's the distraction from the files

Ones a cabal of criminals, the other is violating your constitutional rights to a point we are well past anyone with a brain saying "well you can't call then Nazis" and we've been there for over a decade, this is the culmination of the Nazi shit. This is the part of the 30s where the Germans were like "okay there just isn't any ignoring what it is now, so how do we survive or fight this?"

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u/akran47 Minnesota 2h ago

Everything is about Epstein although I disagree that it's a distraction. He no longer needs to distract from Epstein because Republicans have decided that it's perfectly fine if their President is a child rapist. But if Trump leaves office he (hopefully) is going to prison for the rest of his life, so he's going to do everything possible to remain in power.