Despite Bill Barr’s repeatedly voicing concerns about Donald Trump, he has now said he will vote for him again this November

Bill Barr has claimed Donald Trump often suggested executing his political rivals during heated moments of his four-year tenure in the White House.

Former White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin told The View back in December that Mr Trump once called for a staff member to be put to death for leaking a story about the then-president going down to a bunker during Black Lives Matter protests in summer 2020.

Former Trump administration attorney general Mr Barr was asked about the claims during an interview on CNN last week.

  • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    “Trump’s as bad as people are afraid he is, but I could never compromise my values so much that I’d vote for a centre right neoliberal.”

    Anyone who feels this way is an actual nazi

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      The problem is that all the people inside the right-wing media bubble don’t know he’s as bad as people are afraid he is. Because they’re regularly lied to.

      • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
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        I feel like I’ve said this before, but maybe letting right wing billionaires own all the major media outlets was a bit of an oopsie.

        • HubertManne@kbin.social
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          6 months ago

          what I would not give to have 70’s style regulation again, of course getting rid of citizens united would be bigger but owe man I hate the direct we have taken since the 80’s

            • HubertManne@kbin.social
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              yup. it reminds me a bit of nixon. growing up I understood he was bad but boy how rabidly upset he would make folks older than I. I did not get it but then I learned more and more about his actions and understood over time. Reagan same but experienced it. One thing is you don’t even know the real bad stuff till its to late. People still don’t seem to understand iran contra or the october surprise. effed up. now we just had trump. can you imagine the stuff we don’t know yet. ugh.

            • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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              He’s also the one who set the precedent in 1986 of support in the Israel-Iran proxy conflict that we’re protesting today.

              He did that after supplying Iran with arms in the Iran-Contra scandal.

              Prior to that, he removed foreign aid from Israel, and then supplied military aid under specific agreement that they use it to invade Lebanon and attack Hezbollah.

              He put this shit pot on the stove and started stirring.

          • DrWeevilJammer@lemmy.ml
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            6 months ago

            “Fun” fact: Those two things are connected! Without the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine by Reagan’s FCC in 1987, the group called Citizens United would likely not have been able to form in 1988, as they would have been required to provide opposing viewpoints when they expressed their terrible views on national tv or radio networks.

            Additional fun fact: Rush Limbaugh’s nationally syndicated radio show (which began in 1988) also would not have been possible without the repeal of the fairness doctrine.

            • HubertManne@kbin.social
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              6 months ago

              unholy hannah. thanks. I did not know this connection. Once again finding out more about a politician make me hate them more.

            • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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              6 months ago

              And Limbaugh opened the door for Hannity, Alex Jones, and the rest of the Faux News screaming liars.

            • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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              Its almost like they were just waiting in the wings to swoop out and create these social bubbles for the sole purpose of weakening the American people.

      • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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        They’re a lost cause - but apathetic left wing voters need to hear that message.

        Our democracy may simply end if Trump is reelected.

    • Zombiepirate@lemmy.world
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      Those Germans who would do anything, be anything, join anything to stop Bolshevism had, in the end, to be Nazis. And Nazism did stop Bolshevism. How it stopped Bolshevism, with what means and what consequences, did not matter—not enough, at least, to alienate them. None of its shortcomings, mild or hideous, none of its contradictions, small or calamitous, ever swayed them. To them, then and now, Nazism kept its promise.

      -They Thought They Were Free, The Germans 1933-45

      Fascism is always a right-wing reactionary movement against leftists.

      • NABDad@lemmy.world
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        Fascism is always a right-wing reactionary movement against leftists.

        Except, in the U.S. our fascists don’t have any real Bolsheviks to stop, so they have to pretend that the center-right conservatives are actually Bolsheviks.

      • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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        We say individuals are evil, amoral, and are the cause of suffering but no mention given to the organizations which enabled the suffering. There is no social reason to abhor Bolshevism but there is a profit driven motive. Bolshevism, and Communism that it became, are scary for businesses and people who see money as the only way to live.

        Preventing businesses from having political power will see “We the People” more accurately represented.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      Whatever you do, never question what J. Edgar Hoover’s COINTELPRO division was up to during the serial murder of black civil rights leaders in the 1960s. Don’t question how similar disappearances and slayings occurred during Iraq War protests, the BLM protests, and appear to be happening again during the Palestine protests. Ignore the LA Sheriff’s Gangs that operate independently of city government and the mass privatization of police forces in Detroit, Miami, and Atlanta. Don’t google who Allen Dulles was or what he spent his career doing (and definitely don’t question where he was or what he was doing in November of 1963). Don’t ask who Bill Barr’s dad is or question why he hired a a very young, very unqualified Jeffrey Epstein to teach at one of the most elite private schools in the country.

      Don’t ask what the 1994 Crime Bill had to do with the rise in mass incarceration. Don’t ask who sponsored that bill. Don’t question who wrote large sections of the Patriot Act and lobbied for their passage even before 9/11. Don’t think about PRISM or question how the US Congress responded to its outing.

      Just fixate on the Big Cheeto who wants to be back in the White House.

      Our status as a fascist nation has nothing to do with our long history of police brutality and state surveillance. It has nothing to do with the structure of business or the anti-democratic judicial and senatorial systems that decide our laws. It certainly has nothing to do with the Military Industrial Complex and the continuous need for cheap labor at home and abroad.

      Its just this one weird guy who might return to the White House. Everything else is fine.

      • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
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        Everything that keeps happening and everything that has happened keeps making me feel satisfied with my choice to leave. I just wish it felt safe to look away.

      • Zink@programming.dev
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        You know, if Trump was an elaborate psyop to distract us from the REAL nefarious shit, it would actually help the world make more sense.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          He’s like the giant cold sore that lets us know we’ve got herpes.

          Except we keep insisting if we just put a band-aid on it, we won’t have herpes.

    • Professorozone@lemmy.world
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      Now, now don’t be hasty. Maybe he meant to say, “Trump often suggested executing rivals in heated outbursts… and I really like that in a president.” Not hypocritical at all really. Just a, you know, personal choice or something.

  • Melllvar@startrek.website
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    “He would say things similar to that on occasions to blow off steam. But I wouldn’t take them literally every time he did it,” Mr Barr said, adding: “At the end of the day, it wouldn’t be carried out and you could talk sense into him.”

    So either we’re counting on people to refuse the president’s orders, or we’re hoping the Trump is more mature than he lets on?

    How about not electing people who would even entertain such an idea in the first place?

    • NABDad@lemmy.world
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      How about not electing people who would even entertain such an idea in the first place?

      The people who vote for Trump vote for him because he would entertain such an idea &/or they are deluded enough to think they’re not on his list.

    • Jimmyeatsausage@lemmy.world
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      Thank goodness there isn’t a publicly accessible, written version of a plan to replace everyone with sycophants right here: www dot project2025 dot org

      • Natanael@slrpnk.net
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        And lawyers working for the dude telling SCOTUS that assassinating rivals should be legal for the president since it should be considered an “official act”…

    • WindyRebel@lemmy.world
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      The fact that he gets so angry that this is his go to proves he’s not mature enough, so people will need to rely on those to oppose those wishes.

        • fukurthumz420@lemmy.world
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          or you can hope it doesn’t happen until it does and then you’re standing there with your pants down. the entire future of every living thing on this planet may come down to whether we have the balls to do the right thing or not. the path to utopia may not be pretty, but when hell on earth is a possibility, you kinda don’t have a choice.

              • Dasus@lemmy.world
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                Except the end result has historically always been the same; Hate begets hate.

                “I swear, our needless violence won’t result in needless violence, this isn’t like all the others, our needless violence is special and kind!”

                What do they say about the ‘definition of insanity’ again? “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

                • fukurthumz420@lemmy.world
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                  Insanity is doing nothing while you watch sociopaths ruin the world for all living creatures for the foreseeable future.

          • AA5B@lemmy.world
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            That’s got to be a Farside comic or something: Thag standing there with his pants down while the asteroid destroys Dinotopia.

            Or Dr Strangelove or something, yeah the end of the world coming, let’s make it happen

            Doomsday cult preaching the Rapture so opening the portal to Chthulu to rain down terror and insanity

        • fukurthumz420@lemmy.world
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          man, you gotta get the idea out of your head that only evil people murder. we killed plenty of nazis and the world is better for it. pacifists never win.

          • Rusty Shackleford@programming.dev
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            I’m not a pacifist. People kill other people for a lot of reasons all the time. Some of them good. What makes you think only <insertStrongLeaderHere> can judge who deserves to be “purged” en masse?

                • fukurthumz420@lemmy.world
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                  we can do anything we set our minds to. we have the technology to allow one half of america to coordinate something that the other half has no clue about.

                  i honestly want to know how we can make it to the end of this century with half of the population perpetuating a culture of cruelty. how long will you deprive future generations of the utopia that we could be enjoying NOW if only the obstacles to that path were removed? how many innocent creatures will suffer and die before we do something?

  • DefiantBidet@lemmy.world
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    and yet when pressed, “the Biden administration’s liberal agenda” is worse than anything - ANYTHING - Trump ever did.

    fucking shill.

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      The worst part about this, besides all the other parts, is that the Biden administration is defending against this, like “Nuh-uh, We don’t even have a liberal agenda!”

      I wish Biden was the progressive that conservatives pretend he is.

    • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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      I vote for the party that wants to protect abortion rights. It would take quite a lot for me to vote for any anti-abortion Republican. I think Trump-level disrespect for democracy from the hypothetical Democrat would be enough to change my vote, but I’m not sure some people I know would vote for the Republican even then. Would expecting Republicans to vote for Biden be a double standard in this context?

      (What this doesn’t explain is why Trump was so overwhelmingly popular in the primaries.)

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        My dad used to say, and this was back in the Bush era, that the wort Democrat was better than the best Republican, and I still can’t argue with that.

        • ApostleO@startrek.website
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          the [worst] Democrat [is] better than the best Republican

          That’s generally true, but not in the hypothetical. I’d honestly vote for Mitt Romney before I’d vote for hypothetical Democrat-Ticket Trump.

        • Nougat@fedia.io
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          My dad used to say “There’s too many Mexicans coming around my shop, I have to shoo them away with a rake.” I loved him for a lot of reasons, but that was not one.

      • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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        Would expecting Republicans to vote for Biden be a double standard in this context?

        Maybe if they could articulate what it was they disliked about Biden without using some generic “open borders” nonsense.

        • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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          Well, I would have said something similar about Republicans but then the dog actually caught the car, so to speak, and they managed to get Roe v. Wade overturned despite the fact that doing that is now predictably hurting them at the polls.

        • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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          You mean that 60 days when they got healthcare reform passed?

          Abortion wasn’t their top priority at the time because there was other shit to worry about.

        • limelight79@lemm.ee
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          That law, had it been passed, would have been repealed the moment the R’s had the majority during Trump’s first two years. It would have been pointless, especially since abortion was then legal.

          As you essentially noted, it requires a constitutional amendment to make it harder to overturn, and you know plenty of states would not sign off on that.

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              There was also literally no cost to repealing it. They would have done so, right before they passed the huge tax cuts for the rich. There would have been no “try”; it would have been repealed about 2 minutes after everyone was sworn in.

              Repealing a law is as easy as passing a law.

                • limelight79@lemm.ee
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                  Okay I’ve tried to be civil, but you’re obviously not doing the same. My point, since you seem unable to grasp it, is that it even if they had it would have been repealed and nothing would be different now. Is that so difficult to understand?

                  I’m blocking you. I’m looking for real conversation, not people intentionally missing the point so they can stay angry at whatever boogeyman.

  • Chainweasel@lemmy.world
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    Then, endorsed him for president.
    Is he really dumb enough to not realize he’s going to be on the list if Trump gets re-elected?

    • Zink@programming.dev
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      1. Go on TV talking shit about the guy who wants to kill adversaries.

      2. Vote for that guy anyway

      3. Pikachu skull & crossbones

    • frezik
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      This is the guy who wanted the Imperial Presidency, where the President is practically a king. Instead of finding some kind of enlightened philosopher king, he finds Donald Trump.

      I used to not understand Barr, because he didn’t seem to be a complete idiot, but now I think he might actually be an idiot.

      • gradyp@awful.systems
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        IMHO, he’s hedging his bets. turnip isn’t exactly a barr fan so he’s calculating that he’ll stay off the list after the next election. he knows that nothing he says matters and so is laying the groundwork to keep his head.

        • frezik
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          Still an idiot. Fascists won’t accept anything other than 100% loyalty to the leader. Barr is far from the only one to fall into this trap.

  • blazera@lemmy.world
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    Hey its that guy that was found in criminal contempt of congress and is supposed to be in jail

    • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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      Well the rest of the quote was that he will always vote Trump because he doesn’t believe in regulating automobiles

      • Zink@programming.dev
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        “While the dismantling of the United States would be a shame for sure, and nobody wants it, I cannot stand for this constant slippery slope towards 4 cylinder engines and EVs”

        I can hear it in his dumb voice

  • snooggums
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    Barr doesn’t want to be the first political rival that gets executed.

    • dariusj18@lemmy.world
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      I wonder, could it be a method for him to tell right wingers how awful Trump is and not get dismissed outright. It is probably helping more people hear the truth than would have.

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        But for a group of people who always will put party ahead of nation, what will it actually do?

        Edited to add Barr’s quote:

        And in my mind, I will vote the Republican ticket. I will support the Republican ticket. I think the real danger to the country – the real danger to democracy, as I say – is the progressive agenda.

      • Eccitaze@yiffit.net
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        That goes against his long and storied history of being in the tank for the Republican party. He convinced Bush Sr to pardon the few people who were convicted in the Iran-Contra scandal to execute a cover-up, he slow-walked and misrepresented the findings of Mueller’s report on Russian interference, and he’s always ascribed to the unitary executive theory. If his history and career is any indication, I suspect he talked about it because he legitimately thinks the president should be able to execute his political rivals (as long as they have an elephant pin on their lapel, naturally).

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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        Nah, he keeps telling the media how awful Trump is because they keep paying him and he keeps saying he’ll vote for him again either in the hopes of being paid by the next administration, to keep from being executed by it or both.

  • lennybird@lemmy.world
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    Dude, fuck Bill Barr and Chris Sinunu and Mitch McConnell and all these pathetic hypocrites.

  • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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    He should have publicly called for Trump to be removed under Amendment 25 while he was still a Cabinet officer.

    • AppleTea@lemmy.zip
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      reminds me of Nixon getting blackout drunk and ordering nuclear strikes on Vietnam. Apparently the SS just ignored him whenever it happened.