The military won’t do a coup in this generation. A greater risk is that the President would order the military to fire on American citizens, an order which might be refused(and rightfully so).
Not on the cusp, it’s been this way since 2010.
Exec orders, go to court, most get upheld.
Red state legislatures pass end-arounds, go to court, most get thrown out.
Regardless of who gets elected President this year, my money would be heavily on all of this shit coming to a climax and resolution, rather than a gradual simmering down.
There is a lot of money and localized power to be gained by fanning the flames rather than containing them.
We’re not yet on the verge of a coup, and there wouldn’t necessarily have to be a coup at all. Simply an alignment of the military and the civilian government. Whereas until fairly recently I thought this scenario was the product of popular literature or Hollywood culture, I can see now how such an alignment occurs. Suppose Trump (or a future president) puts pressure on the current military chain of command to do things that it has been trained are unethical, unconstitutional, and illegal – what happens then? Maybe we have a civilian military crisis in which we have a massive walk out in protest. Or maybe they get fired and replaced by loyalists who then prosecute them under military law – whether they get convicted or now is beside the point. The chilling effect would be enormous.
The point here is, we have probably taken for granted the strength of our Constitution, our rule of law, and our legal and political institutions. We in the United States have patted ourselves on the back in believing that our Constitution is somehow stronger and superior to others. It is not. A Constitution and law are just nothing more than text. Constitutions ultimately rely on the strengths of those who actively live by its framework. In fact this Constitution has failed miserably in the past, bailed out only by our fear of European colonial predators and collective determination to make this experiment succeed in the early 19th Century, and bailed out again by the collective will and power of the Union army to crush an insurrection of an immoral culture a few decades later.
Going forward, The United States of America is going to be forced to face up to its fundamental flaws as a nation. And that flaw is that it is a society that was founded on religious fundamentalism and inequality. On one hand, we have one part of our society that wants to cling to the America of religious fanaticism and economic Darwinism, an America that is exclusive and homogenized. On the other, we have the other that wants an America that is a freer and fairer society, an America that is more inclusive and diverse. History suggests this conflict is not going to be resolved easily, and that’s probably putting it softly.
No coup.
President at most would authorize, not order.
In the current environment, right wing actors are wayyyyyy more likely to provoke that being necessary than lefties.
all that is needed to destroy the Constitution is to have enough people simply ignore it
You have already seen the seeds of this with Mr. Obama and his ‘pen and phone’.
You see it in the form of sanctuary cites and you see it with states, cities and communities thumbing their noses at federal drug laws.
Speaking of which can you pass me some of that good stuff?
Call me an optimist, but I think that if Clinton wins, we’ll see a lot more cooperation with her than we did with Obama. and if Trump wins, it’ll be less awful than imagined, simply because it can hardly be worse than what we imagine.
And I still say Congress should be quick to impeach him if he gets out of control.
Why do you think they’d cooperate with Clinton more? The GOP has already planned to oppose her, at least with Obama they waited until he was sworn in to refuse to do their jobs.
A more urgent problem is that voters simply don’t understand Constitutional law and believe that it’s being violated when in fact it is not. Indeed, the emergence of a right wing infosphere has created a parallel view of what American Constitutional republicanism is, regardless of the more educated and nuanced conclusions of those who have actually gone to law school, studied the Constitution, studied the laws pursuant to it, and applied the law in courts. Sure, you might be able to point to someone like Ted Cruz, who is obviously a skilled and qualified lawyer, but he’s an example of someone who obeys a higher authority than the law itself and who has seemingly expressed a desire to make the Constitution fit his paradigm rather than just interpreting the Constitution and court doctrine.
Obama has attempted to assert presidential powers in absence of legislative action, and in doing so has sought to establish where his legal and Constitutional authorities exist. He has yet to defy rulings of the Supreme Court. He has yet to fundamentally ignore or override the laws of the country. Obama is not a threat to the Constitution or to our republican form of government. If anything he has restored credibility to the Executive Branch and faithfully executed his duties to nominate members of the judiciary – unlike the Senate for example.
As for “sanctuary cities” I find it ironic that conservatives who double down on states rights reverse themselves and claim that local law enforcement are obligated to make enforcing federal immigration laws a priority, which is really what motivates most of these communities to adopt these policies in the first place.
I see one of two outcomes, one of which gives me some mixed pessimism and optimism. One possibility is that Hillary Clinton’s presidency is doomed from the start and the public sides with her conservative critics. In that scenario, anything from an impeachment to landslide losses in 2018 and 2020 are possible. In another scenario, the public grows weary of the partisanship and Clinton and the Democrats appeal to those in the political center who want more political cooperation. Perhaps in that case, the Republicans overplay their hand and Clinton is seen as the firewall against right wing fascism and violence. In that case, she goes from goat to pleasant surprise and restores some balance.
I agree, It wouldn’t be as bad as the chicken littles are imagining.
The media hates him, so that means they will actually do their job.
Unlike the present situation where they are willing partners with the administration.
Plus Congress might provide actual oversight, since the Republicans don’t have much of a stake in covering for him.
Where’s all this right wing violence?
How many people were murdered in Chicago last weekend?
Lol, in anti-government violence? Zero.
Now substitute guns for immigration and you’ll understand why gun owners are so worried.
Nobody has discussed banning guns or even severely restricting them – that is nothing more than the outrageous fear peddling of the NRA and other gun lobby groups. Moreover, the president isn’t the final word on the matter, and democrats, unlike republicans, aren’t behaving in ways that are undemocratic.
No the voters cannot easily fix that problem. The Democrats got more total votes for congress in 2014 (and probably earlier elections) than the Republicans. In my birth state of PA, there were more total votes for Dem candidates than Reps, but the latter won 13 seats out of 18. There are a couple of reasons for this. Yes, gerrymandering, but even more that so many Dem votes are concentrated in Phila and Pitts. There are no easy cures for this. Then there are the voter suppression laws that are obviously–even addmittedly–designed to prevent the “wrong people” (that is Democrats) from voting. The south has never given up on that and now the supreme court has authorized it. But even northern states are adopting such laws.
What makes you automatically assume that the violence in Chicago is form an organized “left wing”?
So it just means Democrats need to win 55% of the vote instead of 51%. Or broaden their appeal.
One other point mentioned in the article discusses the economic agenda of the republican party, particularly how the republicans are aiming to get anywhere from $3 to 6 trillion in tax cuts, 99 percent of which will go to the richest Americans. It’s an extension of what we’ve been seeing the last 40 years: fiscal irresponsibility placed on the backs of working class Americans. The logical conclusion is a society that resembles nothing like the America of the 1950s - 1970s but instead operates like a democracy on its deathbed, with a small middle class sitting between two disparate elements of society operating with perpetual distrust and loathing of each other.