He does appear to want to be king.
Those alternative definitions of the phrase are not commonly adopted, and when you use them you’re making a false accusation, even when you don’t mean to.
Anyway, I was only participating here to push back against the idea that nobody is making this argument. I agree with you that it’s not very many people who are making the argument. Whether or not the gadfly is worthy of its own thread is just a matter of opinion that we disagree about, and I respect that.
So you find the complete black/white argument that Trump will have absolute power and there is no point in discussing any possibility of him being constrained, to be a poor one and a rhetorical dead end?
If so, congratulations you support my OP.
I find it unknowable, since it hasn’t yet occurred or failed to occur.
Which means we should be given the grace to have substantive discussions about the subject without being hectored mercilessly by one Doper.
Okay, that’s wrong. He is constrained on a regular basis.
If you’re arguing that there may be some future date where he seizes ultimate power and becomes a dictator, and you can’t argue it won’t happen because you can’t prove a negative, that’s fair. It could happen, just as I could somehow find out I’m the heir to some vast fortune I’ve never heard of and then retire on my own private island. (Which probably won’t happen, but technically it could.)
But that’s not the argument; it’s that Trump isn’t being constrained now. That people can’t tell him “no”. They can. They do. They are. It’s happening regularly. He certainly gets away with a lot he shouldn’t, but there’s a lot he doesn’t get away with. His strategy this time around seems to be to file countless executive orders, and celebrate the few that aren’t blocked.
I’m sure that when Buck says:
That’s talking about the present tense, not some undefined point in the future, though Buck can clarify. (But if that is the argument, that’s diverging from the OP significantly.)
The story is ongoing, not over.
That’s a really important point.
Fine, I’ll answer it for you.
The answer is FALSE. Trump CANNOT do whatever he wants and people CAN stop him. We know this because he HAS been stopped, multiple times - by courts blocking his actions, by Congress not acquiescing to his demands, and by public backlash to his decisions.
If you want to be able to resist Trump, it is ESSENTIAL to acknowledge this. Arguing that he can’t be stopped is an argument against TRYING to stop him. Saying that court victories don’t matter because he’ll just ignore them is (besides not being true) an argument against taking him to court. It’s an argument against protesting him if you declare that no amount of protests will change his mind. It’s an argument against speaking out if public opinion doesn’t matter. If you argue that he cannot be stopped then you are surrendering.
So if you want to resist him, then stop trying to convince people it won’t do any good.
The story is ongoing, not over.
That’s a really important point.
That doesn’t change the fact that you can’t meaningfully resist an enemy that you’ve already decided is unbeatable.
It constantly sounds like you who has decided that.
Me? Here’s what I think:
The story is ongoing, not over.
That’s a really important point.
What I think is that you’re a coward who’s unwilling to take a stand and would rather sit on the sidelines and let someone else stick their neck out for democracy, and you’re trying to come up with reasons to tell yourself you shouldn’t feel guilty for not doing anything.
Give me a hug, Big Man!!
MWAH!
ETA:
Time for another sabbatical from you. See you round.
I said I was a actively fighting the Supreme Court?
When and where did this happen?
Hell if I know. I’ve been trying to get you to answer that question since November. You asked me and I answered, after all.
So, it never happened at all?
Glad we got that cleared up!
Yes, it establishes that you’re a hypocrite for insisting that I should be doing more to fight the admin than you’re willing to do.
Thanks for the admission.
My guess is Garcia’s not the only one who’s been deported illegally and has been or will be “disappeared” in El Salvador.
Fighting the admin is the same thing as actively fighting The Supreme Court???
I was assured that the Supreme Court is completely in the bag for Trump and will do whatever he commands and that I was a naive fool for thinking otherwise, hypocrite.
I would indeed be a hypocrite if I said something like that, wouldn’t I?