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this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2026
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Politics
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For Pete's sake, don't tell me I'm not a judge while you yourself are doing the same legal speculation. Pot meet kettle!
Again, every campaign promise is tied to winning a specific outcome. You can't pass anything without winning an election.
You're being a campist. You're engaging in politically motivated reasoning. It is not illegal to run for office on a campaign of handing people checks if you're elected.
Again, you're advocating for a fringe libertarian interpretation of the law. The entire welfare state would be illegal by your logic. You just want this to be illegal so bad that you're letting it cloud your judgment.
I'm citing a law. It clearly supports my point. You've done nothing but speculate.
Your entire argument is "well the stimulus check was legal" which is:
Trump's recent statement was none of the above (though would need to be passed by Congress anyway). He is not running in this election. He is not making campaign promises.
He is a third party to this election promising money in exchange for an outcome.
Please consider which camp you're in to consider this blatant fraud to be both acceptable and completely legal.
You're asking me to prove a negative. You've provided a citation to a law, but you didn't provide a citation for your interpretation of it. My point is that this law does not and could not possibly apply to prosecuting for making campaign contributions. You're asking me to prove that no one has ever been prosecuted under this law for this. But I can't, as that's proving a negative. It's your responsibility to prove that the law has been interpreted in the way you claim. My point is that is completely irrelevant to cases like this, and that these types of promises are completely legal. So of course I can't show an example. You're asking me to prove imaginary things don't exist.
Imagine if you were arguing with someone, and they cited an anti-speeding ordinance and argued that, based on their interpretation, it made pumpkin pie illegal. Then they demand, "provide a source that this law doesn't make pumpkin pie illegal. Show me a legal scholar that's written about how this law doesn't outlaw pumpkin pie!" You couldn't respond to that argument, as it is impossible to prove a negative. I can't prove something is legal. Unless it's outlawed, it's legal. You have to prove something is illegal.
You're misrepresenting my argument, straw manning it as "stimulus checks were legal."
All Trump is promising is, "if my party wins, we'll pass stimulus checks through an act of Congress or through an interpretation of existing spending allocations." That's literally all he's promising. It's no different than every presidential midterm campaign in history, except just how crass he is about it.
As far as the stuff about him not running himself, you should drop that. It's completely irrelevant here. Again, presidents always run on promising to pass things if elected. He doesn't have to run personally.
Can you provide a single example backing up your interpretation of the law? Can you provide a single example of someone being prosecuted for saying, "if my side wins, we'll pass X?" Again, I can't prove something is legal. There are not laws that list things that are legal. Laws outlaw things; they don't allow things. If you're claiming a law makes something illegal, you need to prove your interpretation of it.
And this proves you're acting like Blue MAGA. When told you're being a campist, you reply, "but my camp is better!"
No, that's now how case law works. You provide evidence that someone has been charged with this, and that the judge ruled in the defendant's favor. This is very simple.
This was your exact reasoning for why it should be legal. But sure, call it a strawman if you want.
No, that's not how presidential midterms work. Presidents don't make promises based on what happens when congresspeople win. The congresspeople make promises on what they will do when elected.
A president's job is not impacted whatsoever by the results of a midterm. If he wants stimulus checks, he can try do it with Dems in office too. He's very clearly using it as a financial incentive to influence which candidates people vote for.
Vote buying examples are a short search away. "If the Republicans win, I'll give everyone $5000" is the national scale version of it.
??? They do both.
If being opposed to blatant fraud makes you label me as a "Blue MAGA" then that's quite the point of view. I don't remember stating my political bias once, and this controversy extends across the aisle.
But sure, since you're asking, I lean left, though I'd hardly call it "blue" with where the Dems are at.