Fogbow

pipistrelle wrote: ↑Mon Sep 18, 2023 7:51 pm

RVInit wrote: ↑Mon Sep 18, 2023 7:21 pm If he gets elected he has one big reason to pardon them. They will become the basis of his MAGA Brown Shirt brigade. And they will have a great time cracking heads of RINOs. LGBTQ+, Democrats, Never Trumpers, and anyone else whose head the Orange Pus Bag thinks need cracking.

Exactly.

pipistrelle wrote: ↑Sat Sep 16, 2023 11:20 pm Weasel words. He could pardon them.

RVInit wrote: ↑Mon Sep 18, 2023 7:21 pm If he gets elected he has one big reason to pardon them. They will become the basis of his MAGA Brown Shirt brigade. And they will have a great time cracking heads of RINOs. LGBTQ+, Democrats, Never Trumpers, and anyone else whose head the Orange Pus Bag thinks need cracking.

bob wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2023 4:51 am

raison de arizona wrote: ↑Sat Sep 16, 2023 10:51 pm

Slim Cognito wrote: ↑Sat Sep 16, 2023 9:55 pm Uhhhh, he won't be president the "moment he's elected." That takes a few weeks.

Does he need to be president to name a special task force to review convictions? Doesn’t seem like it would necessarily require any special powers.

"Appoint a special task force" is politician-speak for accomplish-nothing gestures intended only to appease constituents.

WATCH: Trump Vows To Pardon All Pro-Life Advocates And Political Prisoners On Day One In Office

On Friday, leading 2024 presidential candidate and 45th President Donald Trump vowed to pardon or commute the sentences of pro-life advocates and all political prisoners who have been unfairly targeted by President Joe Biden’s administration on the first day of his second term.

“Under [President Joe] Biden, others are being sentenced to 10, 15, and even 20 years in prison for retribution for their political beliefs, while Antifa and other groups burn-down cities like Portland, like Minneapolis. … They kill people, they loot, they plunder, and they go free,” Trump said to the 2023 Pray Vote Stand Summit.

“To reverse these cruel travesties of justice, tonight I’m announcing that the moment I win the election, I will appoint a special task force to rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner who’s been unjustly persecuted by the Biden administration … so that I can study the situation very quickly and sign their pardons or commutations on Day One,” Trump added.

“Never again will the federal government be used to target religious believers,” Trump continued.

Kendra wrote: ↑Tue Sep 19, 2023 2:43 pm Wouldn't it be nice if hardly any of the workers showed up?

Gregg wrote: ↑Tue Sep 19, 2023 8:59 pm

Detroit can be a rough place.

Gregg wrote: ↑Tue Sep 19, 2023 8:59 pm No venue announced yet and count on this, there aren't many places outside of The District of Columbia where Trump is as unpopular as Detroit.

He's who he is more or less out in Novi or Livonia (the statistically whitest city in the USA) but if he showed up downtown on Hart Plaza he might be in physical danger.

Detroit can be a rough place.

Off Topic

My employer has been making some noise about transferring a few of us Silicon Valley folk to Novi. I've been less than enthusiastic about the idea

raison de arizona wrote: ↑Tue Sep 19, 2023 1:09 pm

“Never again will the federal government be used to target religious believers,” Trump continued.

https://dcenquirer.com/trump-vows-to-pa ... in-office/

Flatpoint High wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2023 6:11 pm

raison de arizona wrote: ↑Tue Sep 19, 2023 1:09 pm

“Never again will the federal government be used to target religious believers,” Trump continued.

https://dcenquirer.com/trump-vows-to-pa ... in-office/

Unless of course, they are Jewish

Former President Donald Trump has made a number of statements in recent months that might have driven a wedge between his campaign and religious voters. In April, Trump stated that he believed abortion should be regulated at the state level, with little interference from the federal government. At a town hall in June, Trump spoke of abortion in crass, deal-making terms: “What I’ll do is negotiate so people are happy.”

These statements have been met with strong backlash from Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, the anti-abortion group that described Trump’s comments on a federal ban as a “morally indefensible position for a self-proclaimed pro-life presidential candidate.” The dustups suggest Trump’s strong support among white evangelicals might be at risk.

But it may not matter. He can afford some erosion of his support from evangelicals. That’s because Trump’s real base of support in the 2016 primary contest came from a rising group in the GOP whose impact has been largely unnoticed: Republicans who hardly ever darken the door of a church, synagogue or mosque.

I am a quantitative scholar of American religion and politics and have been making thousands of graphs about both subjects over the last several years. The data show that the former president’s support among this low-attender group is growing, which means that in the short term, even if Trump does alienate some religiously devout members of the religious right, he remains well positioned to secure the nomination.

The bottom line is that Trump is less dependent on the evangelical vote than is commonly assumed. And the consequences might be greater than that in the long run. The rising number of Republicans who rarely attend religious service will have long-term effects on the GOP that extend beyond the abortion debate, affecting everything from the types of candidates who run to the rhetoric they use to the kinds of issues they focus on.

Back in 2016, Trump ran away with the Republican nomination despite a crowded field of candidates, many of whom had real religious bona fides. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a member of a Southern Baptist Church in Houston, often quoted scripture during his stump speech. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) tweeted a Bible verse a day. Yet, despite lack of any religious credibility, Trump won half of the votes of Republicans who attended religious services weekly in 2016, while Cruz only got only 30 percent of their votes and Rubio earned 11 percent.

Trump’s sizable margin of victory among these low attenders yielded a tremendous number of voters. In 2016, 39 percent of all Republican voters attended church less than once a year. In comparison, just 36 percent said that they attended religious services at least once a week.

Low attending Republicans remain a crucial voting bloc for any candidate who wants to be viable during the 2024 primary process and beyond. And their numbers are growing: 44% percent of Republicans attended less than once a year in late 2022, an increase of five points since Trump’s first bid for the White House in 2016.

Over the same period, the percentage of frequent churchgoers has been in decline. In 2008, 44 percent of Republicans reported that they were in church at least once per week. By 2022, that number had slipped to just 35 percent. In comparison, the share of Democrats who attended weekly only declined five percentage points (23 percent to 18 percent) during the same time period.

In other words, the grip that the religious right has on the modern Republican Party is weakening with every election cycle. To survive, the modern Republican Party will have to come to grips with the fact that while many of their voters are people of faith, a growing share (especially among younger Republicans) do not have such deep ties to a religious tradition. Trump’s position on abortion, whether he knows it or not, may actually be the most politically viable one as the composition of the GOP continues to shift toward non-religious Republicans. This was echoed in the sentiments of one voter in Iowa who recently stated, “Personally, if I could snap my fingers, it would not be allowed at all. But I have to be realistic.”

Another area where Trump could moderate and pick up votes is the issue of federal marijuana legalization. In 2020, his administration reiterated their position that it should remain illegal at the federal level. However, polling data says that only half of evangelicals and forty percent of Catholics think that marijuana should remain illegal. His gains among low attending and non-religious Republicans, who largely support legalization, would easily make up for these small losses among religious conservatives.

The grip that the religious right has on the modern Republican Party is weakening with every election cycle. | Jim West/Alamy

Changing demographics and rising secularization also mean the GOP as a whole will need to find ways to extend their influence to non-Christians, non-believers and never-attenders. Despite his otherwise polarizing effect, Trump has managed to find some success in making the Republican coalition bigger and more religiously diverse.

Compare his performance to John McCain’s 12 years earlier. When McCain ran against former President Barack Obama in 2008, only 10 percent of his voters said that they never attended religious services. When Trump ran for reelection in 2020, 18 percent of his supporters were never attenders. Another 22 percent described their religious attendance as “seldom.”

Someone like Trump, who has a reasonable level of support among conservative Christians but who also can appeal to those Republican voters who have a limited attachment to religion, is in some ways an ideal primary candidate for the changing composition of the GOP.

Trump can stand to lose the support of some white evangelicals and even traditional Catholics. That’s because he can make up the difference among the swelling ranks of non-religious Republicans.

pipistrelle wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2023 6:23 pm

Flatpoint High wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2023 6:11 pm

raison de arizona wrote: ↑Tue Sep 19, 2023 1:09 pm

“Never again will the federal government be used to target religious believers,” Trump continued.

https://dcenquirer.com/trump-vows-to-pa ... in-office/

Unless of course, they are Jewish

Muslim, et al. Non-white Christians, such as African American, Middle Eastern, Asian, and Native Christians, also.

Flatpoint High wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2023 6:34 pm he's been specifically targeting us Jews. consider his "Happy New Year, Watch yer Jew Step."
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