You did not cite a mechanism that could be used to suspend national elections in entire states.
Right, but you understand that an emergency does not give you the power to cancel elections, right?
You understand that we held elections during the Civil War, right?
You think that Trump is already doing everything he would want to do if he had supreme power? Really?
I didn’t say Trump had supreme power. Getting there is a lengthy process. But ruling by executive order and illegally usurping the authority of Congress is part of it. Massive interference in the upcoming midterms is another part, lest he have to face a hostile Congress. As long as Congress is docile and dysfunctional and the Supreme Court reasonably compliant, he can get away with really egregious abuses..
That’s not even the full set! God help us if he gets his hands on the Sword of Eisenhower, the Big Stick of Teddy Roosevelt, the Cowboy Boots of Dubya, and Warren G. Harding’s hat.
(I’m told it was a nice hat.)
Yes, I honestly believed he’d have dropped dead by now. Fuck me for being an optimist, I guess.
I’ll still be surprised if he lives to see the end of his term.
Some of the things they’ve done can’t easily be undone.
The East Wing of the Whitehouse for one.
The relationship of the US with Canada for another. That is basically fucked for at least a generation, if not more. I have discussed this a fair amount with a number of 20-somethings, and they are PISSED. They are forming their understanding of the United States in their formative years, and let me tell you, they’re going to keep their negative attitudes for a very, very long time.
They now consider the US to be a dangerous, unpredictable entity, to be avoided whenever and however possible.
This is not going to be fixed in a couple of years with some placating words.
When you have an electorate, and elected, that actually believes that vaccines contain mind controlling nano tech, COVID was a “plandemic”, viruses are not real, Jewish space lasers cause directed wild fires, government controls weather through “chemtrails”, that the Rapture is happening in two weeks, that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old, etc., etc., etc., then abolishing democracy isn’t necessary, it’s inevitable.
Man, that was tough. It is well made, but… shit. Hard to watch.
That’s why I said “very little”, not “nothing”. It’s obviously going to take a long time for the world to trust America again, but if Germany could win back the world’s trust after what happened 80 years ago, then surely it’s not impossible for us to do so.
You haven’t cited a mechanism other than “Trump decrees it and then it happens because Trump”.
Let’s break this down. It’s 4:05 AM on some idle Tuesday morning and Trump tweets “Due to reasons of National Security, I have decided that our Country can no longer hold Elections. Effective immediately, ll pending Elections are hear by TERMINATED. I and many other Republicans (but not Democrats!) will remain in office indefinitely until we Make America Great Again. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
THEN what happens? Who does what to make this tweet a reality?
Watching Threads made me hope that if a nuclear war breaks out, I’ll die before I know about it.
Susan Collins bites her thumbnail.
(But seriously: This has been an instructional and crucial thread - thanks to all contributors. I somehow agree with both sides. Optimism and pessimism are equally warranted. None of us can predict the future.)
You responded to a post where I said that Trump isn’t just dissolving Congress and taking ultimate power because he can’t do that by saying he does not need to because he already cowed Congress.
But now you admit that there is in fact stuff he would want to do if he had taken ultimate power which he currently cannot do. But he is gradually proceeding towards doing it.
That doesn’t make any sense to me. Does Trump strike you as the patient type? I wouldn’t say so. If he could get what he wants without needing to go through a “lengthy process”, he absolutely would.
Weird that you see that, because it’s been repeatedly pointed out to you that the reason Trump has been so successful in carrying out unlawful acts isn’t because he’s all-powerful but because all the people and institutions designed to hold him accountable have been captured or otherwise neutered.
But have fun playing with your strawman.
It’s also the opposite of what we’re saying.
And there go those goalposts, off into the distance.
Oh he is. You should go back and read all his posts.
Did I “admit” that? I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.
No, Trump is not the “patient type”. He’s a toddler with the attention span of a gnat. The point is, he came roaring into office heedless of established norms and even legalities, and just did what he wanted through executive orders, and Congress meekly let him do it.
Dismantling democracy does take time when you have a massive civil service and judicial system that you need to infest with your own toadies, and an electoral system that isn’t yet totally corrupted. But Trump isn’t approaching this in any kind of systematic way. He’s just going around like a giant wrecking ball doing whatever the hell he wants, and destroying the institutions of democracy one by one as a side effect.
It’s from 1984 and from a country where very few households have guns too… which helps me to factor out all the “John Woo” shit. People, you aren’t Chow Yun-Fat with Mira Sorvino by your side. You aren’t going to shoot your way through 10 Texas Bubbas in ICE vests and automatic weapons. The good news is, neither are your neighbors.
And these are your neighbors. And those holes are going to be in your house. If/when Trump shuffles off to the Big Mac in the sky, America’s challenges internationally and domestically will be to try find someway back to a place near “Obama Normal”. That’s going to be a lot harder if you shoot Mrs. Simpson and Little Timmy down the street, even if you don’t go to jail for it.
Life is going to be hard enough so I’d urge anyone who hasn’t made up their mind yet to not live your life as if god was playing Nicholas Cage in a video game.
I’ll put away the soap box now.
Everyone in authority simply submits, with no effort on his part. Just as usual.
Which is why he was declared the winner of the 2020 election and Joe Biden was never president and he’s currently serving his third term, right?
That was 2020.
And? Are you insinuating that he had not by then become the infallible God-King whose every word all Republicans must mindlessly obey without question, regardless of any personal risk or ambition?
If so, could you please pinpoint the month and year between then and now in which he achieved CHIM?
He’s never been an infallible god king, or even especially formidable. Everyone just lays down and submits to him Republican or Democrat, he just does whatever he pleases and all of society works to shield and enable him.
I suspect that back in 2020 he didn’t realzie just how incredibly submissive the Democrats are, and actually expected them to stop him if he just refused to leave. He knows better by now. He could probably just walk into Congress and start shooting Democrats and nobody would try to stop him.
Right. So when he doesn’t leave office in January 2029, I’ll owe you a Coke.
I clicked to this thread assuming you’d be discussing Trump administration halting $10 billion in social service funding to 5 Democratic states. This is so horrid and despicable that, just one year ago, it would be a candidate for Most Despicable Act by any US President Ever but instead it seems to go unnoticed among the plethora of other crimes! The home pages of several major news aggregators (including CBS which hosts the linked article) don’t mention it. Is it some sort of “fake news”?
If I were a Governor of one of the five states, I’d be exploring anti-Washington sanctions. e.g. ordering paycheck deductions to go to state accounts rather than to the criminal USG.
The problem with that is, the IRS goes after workers for unpaid taxes. They go no credit for that payroll withholding, so they’re on the hook for it at tax time. This is probably not going to happen.