The political bomb has exploded with the former president asking military tribunals to be instituted against none other than his predecessor in the White House, Barack Obama. This odd development set social media on fire with sheer support and incredulousness.
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If any first contemporary American precedent has been applied, it is having one ex-president in a military court. What exact charges Trump believes Obama should answer to has never been stated by him, but the mere suggestion sparks heated debate concerning presidential accountability and political animosity.
The replies just got toxic real fast. Onex SP waded in, “No one is above the law and that includes former presidents,” and many others shared the same sentiment. HoneyBadgerDontCare went, “Good! This mess was started by him,” opinion with no explanation of what mess was being talked about. Pure vagueness!
Then, there is shibking with a very magnificent “About damn time no one is above the law,” just to make sure he referenced that hurt feeling that graces the political elites all over different online communities. But then VJT brought in some semblance of normal-varied voice: “Our justice system must follow the law and evidence. Everyone deserves due process, no exceptions,” which would probably be the most legally tenable statement in the whole thread.
PaintedLady responded with, “He should be investigated for taking over the Presidency of Joe Biden!!” which is an absurd response that somehow managed to drag some present-day affairs in there. This…what? That conspiracy went on a hard-left nobody saw coming. Very simply, Spock The Ripper said, “I am good with it,” representing that some folks don’t need a paragraph elaborating their opinion.
The legal scholar set ought to be having heart attacks by now because military tribunals are held for enemies in war and for war crimes-not for presidents. The Uniform Code of Military Justice lays out clear provisions as to who may be tried by this court. They do not include former president, unless he commits a crime in active military service. Consider that he is not just a civilian president of Obama, and therein lies a legal morass.
The storyline should be complicated since, post-2009, praise for Obama’s works may shine through but these could never reach laurels that he has received for allegations of birther shenanigans. We all remember Trump’s nonstop drumming for Barack Obama’s real birth certificate, right? This feels like that kind of energy times ten. The timing is interesting: The few times Trump has mentioned Obama have lately been rather unsupportive until this wrathful explosion.
(The big question is how that lands with multiple different factions of the American public. Some see it as finally holding powerful people accountable, and others would view it as dangerously politicized use of the military justice system. There really isn’t a middle ground here-you either think this is completely justified or completely insane.)
The White House hasn’t issued anything yet, but I can bet the press secretaries are scrambling to come up with something to say. Meanwhile, at the Pentagon, the generals are probably typing “Can we say no to a former president?” into Google because this presents a dilemma never before faced by military leadership, thrown between legal arguments and political pressure.
One thing is sure: Everybody wants this off the record. Reverse is unclear as of now, but this is indeed a hot-bed in political discourse, shedding some light on the divergent paths of American politics. The responses alone have legitimized the fact that the people hold wildly different views concerning justice, accountability, and how far these political conflicts can actually go.
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Late afternoon should see even more heat from legal perspectives, as wild as any conspiracy theories could come. This is one that is really going to take on legs and bounce off into directions nobody can predict. We are stuck at this point again-was this merely an isolated instance of Trump stirring the pot, or is there a lick of something more concrete coming down the pipeline? The good part: American politics just got a little more interesting-a whole lot more interesting.
