The argument that Trump will do whatever he wants and no one can stop him is really fucking boring

The BBQ Pit
1

Wasn’t sure about whether to put this in ATMB or the Pit but since I feel like swearing the pit it is.

How can Trump get around the 14th Amendment?
He doesn’t need to he has absolute power and can do whatever he wants.

How will Trump get his more controversial nominees through the Senate?
He doesn’t need senate approval he has absolute power and can do whatever he wants.

How will the Trump respond to rising inflation cause by his tariffs?
He doesn’t need to because he has absolute power and can do whatever he wants.

How should Democrats retool for the next election?
They can’t. There won’t be any more elections because Trump has absolute power and can do whatever he wants.

Which team do you think will win the Superbowl this year?
Whichever team Trump chooses because he has absolute power and can do whatever he wants.

This is a dead end argument. Which always evolves into

“No he isn’t”
“Yes he is”,
“The supreme court ruled against him before”,
“well that was then and now thing are different”,
“You’re being alarmist”
“You’re being naive”

Yawn…

Its like asking a doomsday cultist what his summer plans are.

Can we just stipulate in the political threads that this is under the assumption the world isn’t going to end in 2 months so we can have an actually interesting discussion about political topics?

2

Part of it comes from people claiming that SCOTUS decision was that Trump (& any President) can do whatever they want. That’s is simply not true. He has absolute criminal immunity on all official acts. That’s it. That does not make everything he does a fait accompli but try to convince a political flat earther that.

3

I agree that those arguments are boring, so I don’t engage with them. For one thing, no-one knows what will or can happen. We are in uncharted territory*. For another thing, some people seem to need to doomcast, maybe as a sort of charm against the worst actually happening. Then there are those determined to downplay the dangers, whistling past the graveyard, as it were.

I prefer to wait and see what happens, and watch for opportunities to make things better.

*The last president I can think of who had this level of support in the other branches of government and among the population was FDR, which I think happened as a reaction to the cack-handed Republican handing of the previous decade, including the start of the Great Depression. We are still living with the results of that administration today.

4

Thank you. I was starting to feel like I was the only one getting sick of this. I’ve started calling it “doomwanking” in my head, because it seems like some people around here really want Trump to become an all-powerful dictator so they can feel like vindicated Cassandras.

Can we throw in a moratorium on “But Project 2025!” as a rebuttal?

5

I think “but 2025” as a rebuttal is OK if you actually go into how they are going to follow that outline to achieve whatever goal is being discussed at the time. Then there is a least some point of discussion. 2025 doesn’t say that the constitution becomes irrelevant, the rule of law is abrogated and Trump rules by fiat alone. In fact the whole point of Project 2025 is how to use the current system of laws under the constitution to force a radical transformation of our country into a right wing dystopia.

But yeah just invoking 2025 and leaving it at that is pointless.

6

Remember how people said “God couldn’t sink the Titanic” so God sunk it just to prove them wrong? I think there is an element of that to the idea that Trump is invincible. By all rights, he should be in jail. He was headed to jail before he won an election that he should not have been eligible to participate in on account of crimes he committed on national television. But because he has an unparalleled ability to fail upward only, Donald Trump is immune to accountability.

Not even Death has dominion over him. Donald Trump will never die. He is the perpetual President of the United States. Bullets happily go around him.
He certainly will never suffer from bad physical or mental health issues. He does not have dementia, he just talks like that because he knows his audience will put up with it.
He will never go broke no matter how bad he is with money because he has an infinite supply of suckers who willingly pay his bills for him.
God Almighty cannot defeat Trump. Trump is God now.

I will start believing in Trump is subject to accountability when he actually faces some. The gauntlets have been thrown. It’s your turn, accountability. Get on it.

7

In a sane world I would agree with you. Unfortunately I have zero faith in the Supreme Court at the moment. When push comes to shove, I think they’re willing to go to bat for Trump. I’m aware they haven’t always ruled in his favor, but I think when brass tacks are down, so long as it’s ideologically convenient for them and they can find a fig leaf to justify it, they will rule in favor of Trump.

Now onto the OP. Trump’s victory was a blow to many of us and it’s taking a while for some to get over it. I don’t think Trump has unfettered power. Despite having three branches of government, I think the Republicans will continue to fight amongst themselves and will have difficulty pushing through their own agendas. I expect our nation to be weakened both domestically and abroad as the Trump administration does a great deal of harm, but I don’t believe he has free reign to do as he will.

8

So Trump declares Guam a state without Congressional or Guanamian approval. Someone wit h standing sues. Are you saying that the courts would ultimately rule that although it was illegal, they will still let it stand because Trump did it?

9

“Trump isn’t being held accountable” isn’t the same thing as “Trump has the power to rule by fiat”. Every single US president (INCLUDING Trump) has had a court rule against them and enjoin the government from doing something they wanted done, and it has never involved throwing the president in jail.

10

I’m saying I don’t trust the court like I did 10 years ago. My faith in many other institutions have similarly wavered since 2016. Your scenario seems so ridiculous I can’t take it seriously. Do I think Trump can effectively end birthright citizenship? I wouldn’t put it past the current Supreme Court to say “fuck precedence” like they did for Roe v. Wade and give Trump what he wants.

11

Who could ever have foretold that this would become yet another thread about what Trump will or will not do??

Huh.

The Streisand Effect … redux?

:wink:

12

Again…there’s a meteor headed towards my planet. If my thoughts are preoccupied by what kind of damage I might expect, you have my apologies.

13

If we can keep it confined to this thread perhaps it will have served its purpose.

But yes, whether or not Trump will or will not be a all powerful is irrelevant to the point of this thread. The problem is that Trump is almighty can be used as an answer to every thread in a way that makes any real discussion of the specific topic of that thread irrelevant. It’s basically thread shitting at this point.

14

As long as it is acknowledged that “Trump will accomplish little to nothing because…law” is also thread-shitting, I’ve got no problem.

15

The law is the sole source of Trump’s ability to do anything. If law means nothing then Trump has no power.

16

So we’re back to the “all or nothing” defense again? Laws can be reinterpreted, ignored or just plain broken, and at absolutely no time in history has a law enforced itself.

17

Hah! Not William Henry Harrison!

18

Ok, you got me.

19

Laws mean less to those in power than to those not in power. It is a sliding scale.

20

Speaking of laws, what are you doing to actively fight against the Supreme Court’s rulings?