# Please tell me I am a fool **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 19, 2020, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999 "2020-11-19T23:31:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![velomont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/8491ac/32.png) [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/81 "2020-11-20T22:56:48Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > all countries are looking at us right now with what must be a tremendous sense of incredulity, Sadly you’re right; colleagues and friends of mine frequently talk sadly about the “shitshow” going on down south. I really hope you emerge unscathed but I personally fear the worst. ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/82 "2020-11-20T23:18:16Z")
We’ve got the biggest army. We will be “leading” on that basis for quite some time, if not respected. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/83 "2020-11-20T23:18:36Z")
We can dismiss Powell as a freak show, but take a look at the Republican Party’s official twitter feed. They’re promoting this shit like Nazi propaganda. ---
**Author:** ![Greg\_Charles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/839c29/32.png) [@Greg\_Charles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greg_Charles)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2020, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/84 "2020-11-21T01:04:31Z")
I don’t think hair dye would do that. I think as he was about to go on camera, he touched up the dye job with some mascara. Or possibly shoe polish. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2020, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/85 "2020-11-21T01:18:28Z")
> [@BlinkingDuck](#): > > I think many ‘it will be ok’ people just really do not understand what threats can do. I think these ‘it will be ok’ people are under the assumption that laws matter and institutions matter and that people will blink and think before agreeing to this. Even strong people can succumb to threats. Look, I’ve been in discussions like these in other fora. When someone says “the law doesn’t matter, Trump can get away with ANYTHING”, that person is not sufficiently informed. They do not want to become informed because they’re clinging to defensive pessimism. I can talk until I’m blue in the face about the various interlocking constraints in play, but if you’re determined to feel scared because Trump’s going to find a loophole, nobody can help you. Nobody. I’ve seen this play out. I will offer this one nugget: for Trump’s entire life, he’s used the law to delay decisions until they can no longer damage him anymore. But this situation calls for exactly the opposite. Foot-dragging and delay will hurt him, not help him. He has to do the opposite. He has to get people to _do things_. He has to threaten, pressure, and persuade _massive_ numbers of people to risk serious legal jeopardy. They cannot sit still, they must stand up and act, putting themselves in legal jeopardy for him. He also has to keep it secret, and he has to protect them from blowback. And the blowback would be coming from federal _and_ state authorities. He has no control over state authorities, he cannot protect anyone from the consequences of lawlessness on his behalf, especially knowing there’s a good chance he won’t be Prez in January. Look at Trump’s record these past couple of years. He’s really not great at getting people to stick their neck out for him. Absolutely not great at keeping it a secret. And still worse at operating in anything like a coordinated manner. These people couldn’t organize a fuck in a brothel. They’ve already lost, what, 31 of 32 court cases? All of them frivolous? And yet, this will still be insufficient for you. So yes, for now, let’s just say Trump is an unstoppable demon-master who is borderline invisible and can steal ghosts. Come back in a few months’ time and we’ll revisit where you went wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2020, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/86 "2020-11-21T02:07:46Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > He has to threaten, pressure, and persuade _massive_ numbers of people to risk serious legal jeopardy. This is certainly true. Even today Sidney Powell went off about how they would present their evidence of massive earth-shattering fraud in TWO WEEKS!!! Every state that matters will have already certified their results by then. If there is a clearer sign that Trump’s legal team has no idea what they are doing (or, perhaps, are doing something other than actually trying to change the results of the election) I’m not sure what it would be. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2020, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/87 "2020-11-21T02:34:32Z")
Most of the discussion here isn’t about Trump, it’s about the state of the nation. Trump is a symptom, not the disease. Focusing only on Trump and the events of the next few months ignores the huge challenges the nation faces. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2020, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/88 "2020-11-21T03:11:00Z")
Sure, Russia also has a big army; whether it “leads” and whether the average citizen can take pride in that “leadership” is an unsettled question. In the not too distant future, America’s army won’t mean shit except for regional police action and weapons sales. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2020, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/89 "2020-11-21T03:43:13Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#): > > We’ve got the biggest army. We will be “leading” on that basis for quite some time, if not respected. Being the biggest bully or a powerful but unpredictable and unreliable force is not the same as being a leader or being respected. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2020, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/90 "2020-11-21T03:46:48Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > because Trump’s going to find a loophole, nobody can help you. Nobody. I’ve seen this play out. He doesn’t actually need a loophole. He doesn’t need anything legal to happen. If he finds just the right person to push at the right time in the right place, he can set off a chain of dominos that will completely bypass our laws and institutions. What we have learned in the last four years is that institutions and safeguard man mean nothing if individuals choose to do the wrong thing. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2020, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/91 "2020-11-21T03:54:23Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Sure, Russia also has a big army; whether it “leads” and whether the average citizen can take pride in that “leadership” is an unsettled question. I recently taught my Political Geography students about Malinowski’s observations (as recounted in our textbook by Colin Flint) that the world power for a period of time (typically about 75 years, 100 at most) attracts the peoples of semi-peripheral states mainly via some “big idea.” Clearly our leadership role on the world stage has come to an end. Maybe in some ways it’s just as well. It must be nice to be Bolivia or Uzbekistan, unconcerned about setting an example to the world. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2020, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/92 "2020-11-21T12:27:47Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > He doesn’t actually need a loophole. He doesn’t need anything legal to happen. If he finds just the right person to push at the right time in the right place, he can set off a chain of dominos that will completely bypass our laws and institutions. Which individual person, exactly, has all the cheat codes to ruining democracy, and what is that code? I challenge you to name it, and I don’t think you can. As I said, this is the defensive pessimism at work. These threads always end with “he can do anything” and there’s no helping people like you except to watch it unfold and return to the thread in a few weeks. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2020, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/93 "2020-11-21T13:09:10Z")
I have always felt that Trumps whole secret is that he never plans long term. This is classic conman: just keep the mark on the line a little longer, littler longer, keep extracting more money, and then poof, run away when it collapses. And that’s what he’s doing now. Just never say die, keep it rolling, any port in a storm. But I take no comfort from this, because Jesus, it works. I don’t see how it works this time, but over and over and over in his life, the just total random “keep it moving, make it up as you go along, grab the next opportunity that you see”, has worked out in ways that no one expected. So damn. I won’t be easy till he’s gone. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2020, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/94 "2020-11-21T13:53:14Z")
World powers “attract” others because it’s in their economic and political interests of the allied stataes to remain on good terms with the world power, but I think Malinowski would be correct in pointing out that there are probably some ideological similarities between states that join in alliances. Those allied with the United States after WWII were attracted mainly to our trade, but quite a few of our “allies” had extreme differences in terms of political culture otherwise (Saud’s Arabia, Suharto’s Indonesia, Marcos’ Philippines, Pinochet’s Chile, and so on). Europe after WWII leaned on the US to protect a broken continent from a growing Soviet threat. My point about “leadership” is that the idea that the US can be relied upon as that stable bulwark against foreign predation is increasingly fading fast into memory. It’s also potentially - I think inevitably - inviting a series of destabilization actions from other world powers who want to influence countries to break away from our orbit, and that’s a loss for both the United States and our individual allies. The world is going to be playing by a different set of rules and there will be a new sheriff or two in town. Trump’s foreign policy, despite what his fanboys think, have almost guaranteed China will surpass the United States as the most important world power on the stage, and probably sooner than we ever could have imagined only a few years ago, ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2020, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/95 "2020-11-21T14:28:24Z")
Again, by making this about Trump, you are missing the main issue which is that all of our institutions are failing and we do not seem to have the political resiliency to respond to the challenges we face. If, in January, Trump leaves office, you get to say “see? Everything is fine,” when in fact huge problems will remain. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2020, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/96 "2020-11-21T14:42:28Z")
Yes, this ^ Hitler was convicted and spent time in confinement after his Beer Hall Putsch, but as we know, everything was hardly fine in the Weimar Republic. The polarization and economic anxieties intensified. Hitler and the Nazis simply bought time and calibrated their efforts so as to appear that they were gaining consent and legitimacy when in reality they were doing al that they could to undermine faith in democratic systems. They simply used democracy to destroy it, and that is what Republicans will continue to do. They are addicted to authoritarianism. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2020, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/97 "2020-11-21T14:49:58Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Which individual person, exactly, has all the cheat codes to ruining democracy, and what is that code? I challenge you to name it, and I don’t think you can. Every transgression that Trump has committed since 2016 has happened because invididuals made individual decisions to allow it. Trump pushed the envelope, and someone else either yielded or didn’t, based on es individual circumstances. Trump didn’t always succeed. And this time he might not succeed in overturning the election. But that won’t be because our institutions or processes were strong. It will be because individuals—like the the Georgia secretary of state, or the Michigan Republican legislative leaders—decided individually not to yield. If Trump failed, then it was because those individuals made their decisions not to go along, not because of some structural strength in our system. Indeed, our system has been exposed as being pathetically weak. Trump might fail this time. But he’s not going anywhere. He’s going to take his fascist mob and spend the next four years transgressing over and over again. And at some point, he might find the right weak point that will put him back in power. This isn’t defensive pessimissm. This is clear-eyed realization that institutional integrity is a myth. We can’t rely on the the words written on paper in the Constitution or or other beloved documents to protect us. We have to rely on the good will and good faith actions of the people who work their way into positions of power. ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2020, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/98 "2020-11-21T15:55:14Z")
I’m not a US Constitutional law scholar, but I think that any Republican state legislature that decides to ignore the popular vote and simply appoint a slate of Electors will need to take a long, hard look at Article XIV, Section 2 of the Constitution, and whether they are prepared to risk losing some or all of their House representatives: > 2: Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. **But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied** to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, **the basis of representation therein shall be reduced** in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2020, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/99 "2020-11-21T16:00:08Z")
They would argue that they are not denying the right to vote. They had a vote; they just didn’t recognize the certified result as valid and are therefore proposing their own slate of electors, which both chambers of congress can consider on its merits. That clause likely refers to a situation in which a state essentially suspends republican form of government and attempts to replace it with straight-up executive rule or rule by militia. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2020, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/100 "2020-11-21T16:00:09Z")
So you’re saying that you think it is unlikely that the same body that came up with the concepts of “ceremonial deism” and “money is speech” wouldn’t allow what Trump wants because of _words_? 🤨 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999.md?page=6)