The conservative chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court told the new liberal majority in a scathing email that they had staged a “coup” when they voted recently to weaken her powers and hire a new director of state courts.

  • Nightwingdragon@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The whole point of things like this is to dilute the impact of the words being used. This way, when they get caught doing the exact same thing, it won’t seem “bad” in the eyes of their constituents.

    It’s one of the reasons the GOP are pushing so hard to impeach Biden. So when people say that Trump was impeached twice, the MAGA crowd can just say “Yeah, so was Biden. So was Clinton. Presidents get impeached all the time. They never get removed. It’s all for political show anyway, it’s no big deal. The next guy will probably get impeached too.”

    It’s why GOP politicians are trying to frame even minor incidents of protest as “insurrections” or “coups”. They know it sounds ridiculous. That’s the whole point. If you water down words like “insurrection”, “coup”, “sedition”, and “treason”, then the MAGA crowd can just say “January 6th wasn’t an insurrection. The country is still here. Quit calling every protest an insurrection. We’re not in the 1780s any more.”

    Same thing with the RICO charges. Why do you think Miller and MTG were tweeting “RICO?”. Charge everybody with RICO charges and Trump being charged no longer seems like a big deal.

    It’s a long term strategy. Make the idea of being charged with crimes just a normal part of the political process, and make everybody think it’s not that bad. That way, when they’re caught engaging in the corrupt acts they routinely accuse others of engaging in, it’ll be considered “normal” and “no big deal”, and make it almost impossible to remove them.

    • VentraSqwal@links.dartboard.social
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      1 year ago

      It’s a very insidious way to make the country more like Russia, where there’s so much propaganda there is no objective truth, words have no meaning, and rule of law of even more nebulous.

    • Zombiepirate@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I offer as proof of your claim how Nunes kept calling things “drug deals” during the first impeachment because there was testimony that John Bolton and his moustache said he wasn’t going to be a part of the “drug deal” being cooked up in Ukraine (referring to the scheme to blackmail Zelenskyy).

    • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Boil the frog.

      Just like we did with crony capitalist economy. It’s ok because it’s just the norm for those with capital to fuck over those without. No pitchforks required.

  • ATQ@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    TIL: The outcome of the democratic process is a “coup”. 🙄

    • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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      It seems like most conservatives in power have this cognitive dissonance where they see themselves as nobility, chosen by god to rule. So when they are voted out of office through the mere expression of democracy, they see it as some sort of peasant uprising that violates their warped understanding of what a government is supposed to be.

      We’re just slowly sliding back to feudalism.

    • vlad@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      We want people to have the freedom to choose what we believe in. Anything else is clearly a mistake.

    • DonJefe@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      That has become the Republican party line. Since Trump, they think that any democratic process outcome that is not in their favor is corrupt, and it must be undone. In short, fascism

      • don@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I maintain that the two biggest moments when conservatives shit their beds were when we left the planet for the first time and voted in a black president.

  • Conyak@lemmy.tf
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    1 year ago

    Pretty typical. If they win then it is democracy in action. If they lose it’s a coup. Republicans don’t care about democracy, they want an autocracy.

      • blanketswithsmallpox@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Graceful losses and being humble when wrong is a lost concept on them, and a lot of people besides.

        An entire party of ❄️s when called out, but all they do is weaponize the hypocrisy lol. It’s easier to just point it out quickly then move on. Just to prime any readers who might have a margin of sanity.

    • ExistentialKiwi@lemmy.world
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      I don’t think she really believes it’s an actual coup, Republicans have just been calling everything a coup since the Jan. 6th, 2021 Beer Gut Putsch, I assume to muddy the waters around that specific word and run interference for their wannabe dictator.

      • DickFiasco@lemm.ee
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        This is the first time I’ve heard “Beer Gut Putsch” and I have to say that it has absolutely made my day.

    • sndmn@lemmy.ca
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      The people the judge is speaking to don’t know what a coup means. They think it’s a place where chickens live.

  • DocMcStuffin@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The simple fact that she’s hasn’t filed a lawsuit and instead has been sending out emails leads me to believe she is full of hot air. Amongst other things she is probably full of.

    • Copernican@lemmy.world
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      Yeah. Didn’t the republicans change rules to oust the former liberal chief supreme Court justice that the rules stated would be the longest tenured or oldest member of the court? Now the liberal members take it back.

  • Fades@lemmy.world
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    It’s not a fucking coup IF IT WAS VOTED FOR BY A MAJORITY you fuckwit

  • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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    1 year ago

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accusation_in_a_mirror

    Accusation in a mirror (AiM) (also called mirror politics, mirror propaganda, mirror image propaganda, or a mirror argument) is a hate-speech incitement technique where one falsely attributes to one’s adversaries the intentions that one has for oneself and/or the actions that one is in the process of enacting.

  • ArtVandelay@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’m convinced the Republicans are trying to water down the definition of coup, so that way when they are convicted of it, as they rightly should be, it already has a much less severe definition in the common lexicon.

  • Ertebolle@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    She was elected by the conservative majority to a second two-year term as chief justice in May.

    This seems like a pretty stupid system, honestly - when the composition of the court changes there should be a new election, fixed terms for chief justices that overlap an election for another seat make no sense.

    EDIT: apparently this was a recent change, in a referendum, replacing a previous system where they conservatives were stuck with a liberal chief they didn’t like; from Wikipedia:

    After passage of a referendum on April 7, 2015, the chief justice of the court is elected for a term of 2 years by the vote of a majority of the justices then serving on the court, although the justice so elected may decline the appointment. Previous to the change, the justice with the longest continuous service on the court served as the chief justice. Opponents of the referendum called it an attempt to remove longtime Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, a member of the court’s liberal minority, while supporters called it an effort to promote democracy on the court.

    So they literally passed a referendum to fix the problem of the chief justice not matching the politics of the majority, and now they’re mad that the liberal justices are trying to fix the same problem again.

    • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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      1 year ago

      …and now they’re mad that the liberal justices are trying to fix the same problem again…

      I’m not so sure that’s accurate. In the article you’ve got someone hired by the Liberal Majority taking over the work of the Chief Justice, who did not agree to it, and then signing legal documents appointing new Judges with the Chief Justice’s name.

      Sure, fuck Republicans, but that sounds super shady to me.

      • Dkarma@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Your reading comprehension needs work:

        firing and hiring a new state court director was illegal and ordered interim state court director Audrey Skwierawski to stop signing orders without her knowledge or approval.

        The court director always signs with the chief justices name. That’s how it works.

        The liberal majority replaced the director as is within their power. Ziegler can’t stop them so she’s throwing a tantrum and saying the new director can’t use her name… Ziegler has no standing to demand this. There is nothing inappropriate here. Ziegler is just mad she can’t run the show anymore.

        She stole the chief justice position from the former chief anyway when the cons took the majority last time so if anything this is her comeuppance.

  • cultsuperstar@lemmy.mlB
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    1 year ago

    Hahaha cry me a fucking river. Tell that the North Carolina’s governor when state Republicans tried to strip away powers after he beat the Republican nominee. She can eat a dick.

    • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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      The problem is the GOP has the moral compass of a toddler.

      The suspicion that their enemies cheated is more important than the reality of their own cheating.

        • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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          Pretty much

          It is the main reason why the Obama strategy of, “When they go low we go high.” Is a complete failure, you simply cannot shame a republican into following decorum, because they, just like the American people, do not give a shit about decorum, because they’re too concerned with results.

          The Republican Strategy is actually admirable simply because they said “You go high, we’ll stay low, and our constituents will thank us for it.”

          It’s just a shame that this results driven motivation, this understanding that means are entirely irrelevant as long as you get the ends you’re after, could do much good for america. Instead it’s being used to make sure that a law that says we will stone a woman in the town square for having a miscarriage it’s simply more realistic to imagine passing in this day and age, rather than ensuring that Americans have access to housing and Medicine.

    • Adalast@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Toss on metropolitan areas in Texas that are having their entire municipal legislative power ham stringed.

    • ButtholeSpiders@startrek.website
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      That will eventually be their go to for dealing with others, making it a norm will make the public question when aren’t officials projecting?

      They want to numb the public to the point we stop paying attention, the sad thing is for a large part of the population, it works. Like parenthood, there needs to be repercussions, otherwise why not lie?

  • RegularGoose@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Wisconsin’s conservative extremists justices have taken a leading role in destroying our state’s democracy and intentionally destroying and ending people’s lives for years. This sack of shit should be overjoyed that she not only still hold her position, but also that she and her lackeys haven’t been dragged out of their homes by a mob and put down like the rabid dogs they are.

    • Roboticide@lemmy.world
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      This sack of shit should be overjoyed that she not only still hold her position, but also that she and her lackeys haven’t been dragged out of their homes by a mob and put down like the rabid dogs they are.

      I mean, not too late…

      Not advocating for anything, but seriously, if liberals were even a quarter as unhinged as conservatives seem to be, there’d be a lot more targeted attacks on fascist politicians.