First off, I don’t think Trump is going to win; I don’t know if he’ll even make it to the convention. But I wanted to note something odd:
All of the speculation I read online, whether on sites like this or by paid writers, seems to assume that people would have to go along with a second Trump presidency, and he will therefore be able to set up a fascist autocracy tout de suite.
But why would people go along? Any of the following seems possible to me:
The House immediately impeaching him. If we have the House, this will 100% happen. And I wouldn’t completely rule out conviction in the Senate, either.
Refusal by the Senate to approve any of the criminal’s appointments. No cabinet, no judges–nothing. If we have the Senate, we can and must take this approach.
Massive strikes / resignations by government workers so as to cripple the government and make it impossible for Trump to do anything.
Which is to say, if Trump were to win, one possibility would be a peaceful, nonviolent revolution like the Maidan Revolution of Ukraine. And the goal would be not just to get Trump out but to completely reform the government and economic system from the ground up.
But even if things didn’t go that far, I just don’t see us Liberals and people of good will in general just sitting back and taking it.
How many US lawmakers and government officials were “profiles in courage” in Trump’s first term? That’s our best indicator for what to expect from them if Trump gets a second term.
I don’t see congress ever taking over the government and orchestrating the ousting of any democratically elected president. Trump would order the military to lockdown congress and imprison them. The courts would be powerless to do anything about it since the Executive Branch is the only branch that has the military mite, not to mention the nukes.
Why would the military go along with Trump in such a scenario? Trump shat all over them. The military could (and should) decline to follow illegal orders anyway.
In any case, if such a point is reached, we would have a dictatorship in place at the federal level, and there’s no chance the country would not break up at that point. I highly doubt the military is going to fire on the people in all of the seceding blue states.
In order to impeach and convict a president you have to have grounds for impeachment. Getting elected is not grounds for impeachment, no matter who it is.
One problem is that a significant number of people who support Trump want the federal government to collapse. They’ve reached a nihilistic “burn it down” attitude to a status quo that as they see it will never support or agree with their outlook so they want to kick the table over.
If he actually gets elected, then people will have to agree that he got elected, and swear him in. Anything else would be as destructive to the country as what he wants to do.
Whether he would from that position be able to set up a fascist autocracy, or any other kind of autocracy, is a separate question. One would hope that the answer to that is “hell no!” But I would have expected that the answer to ‘will the official Republican party nominate him again?’ would also have been “hell no” – or at any rate, I’d have expected that if you’d described the situation to me ten or twenty years ago that’s what I would have said, and also what I expect nearly any Republican politician would have said. So since that clearly isn’t so, who knows what would happen? Not me; but I don’t wanna find out.
And another possibility would be a full-scale civil war. Again, I don’t wanna find out.
The question is whether the military would do any such thing. It’s clearly an unlawful order (at least, it’s clear to me.) – I’m going to be repetitive here: I don’ wanna find out.
They think so, anyway.
They won’t like it at all if it does. But neither will the rest of us.
The US Military is loyal to the Commander in Chief, so why would they turn on Trump just because he got elected, regardless of what Congress did? Trump would simply replace any disloyal senior officers with his own lackeys.
No, they are- Thank God!- loyal to the constitution. As others have pointed out Trump has bad-mouthed the military too frequently to have their respect.
What you’re referring to is what the Republicans call the “Deep State”. Which gave them so many headaches last time that, since then, they’ve been making plans for getting rid of them, and where necessary, replacing them with their own toadies.
They are supposed to follow his orders, but they are also not supposed to follow illegal orders.
Because he disrespected and mocked veterans and the war dead numerous times.
Also, people in the military have brains too, and many of them no doubt hate Trump. Former general and Trump Chief of Staff John Kelly has been exceedingly harsh about Trump:
Since we have no idea what the makeup of Congress will be, it likely won’t be lopsided one way or the other, which means getting a majority to agree on something like this may not be as easy as you think. He’s been impeached twice already and still served out his term.
Yeah, I didn’t even cover the rebellion that could happen before he is sworn in. He may never get the chance.
I don’t think he would succeed. Hitler was much more prepared to take total power, and it even took him several years to get his autocracy where he wanted it.
The moment Trump tries the first thing, the entire country will come apart.
Yeah, it’s a disgrace. The Republican party no longer exists.
You really think that if he gets democratically elected the country is going to rise up and throw him out? What about all those folks who voted for him? They are going to protect him from anyone who tries to stop him from doing whatever he wants to do. Nobody is going to try and take him down until he creates a dictatorship, and by that point it will be too late to do anything about.