I have a transgender kid who is terrified of what Trump will do. I hate and despise Trump and the GOP.
But his executive order about the two sexes, while damaging, stupid, petty, mildly evil, etc., is not what I would call “major overreach” and will be instantly undone by the next Democratic president.
I think this is an excellent mental exercise, and I am afraid I am much more pessimistic than the OP.
I think the chances that Trump will try to “overreach” in much more significant ways than he did in his first term are, let’s just say, >95%.
I think the chances are about 80% that either Congress or the Courts will prevent him from doing anything seriously, blatantly unconstitutional. This figure would be much lower if the GOP had more comfortable Congressional majorities.
I think the chances are about 50% that he responds to that by trying an overtly violent seizure of power. I’ll say there’s a 50% chance that the military refuses to go along with that, a 25% chance that that they support him, and a 25% chance that some go each way. I will say that I feel much less confident about the percentages in this paragraph than I do about the above two.
So I guess I’m at approximately:
Not significantly worse than his first term: 5%
Much more blatant attempts to subvert the Constitution, which mostly fail. Trump leaves office in 2029 with democracy more or less intact: 45%
Congress passes an emergency anti-woke law that suspends the Constitution indefinitely and places all power in the hands of Trump until the wokeness crisis is over, and the courts shrug and say “sure, why not”: 10%
After the failure of the emergency anti-woke law, Trump declares martial law and orders that all Democratic leaders be locked up: 40%, subdivided into:
Trump ends up dead or in prison: 25%
Trump is declared God-Emperor of America: 10%
Trump becomes God-Emperor of parts of America, but other parts remain loyal to the Constitution: 5%
None of this accounts for the possibility that Trump might die in office, of which I agree the chance is fairly high, maybe around 20%. I won’t even attempt to speculate on what Vance might do in the Oval Office (other than fuck the couch, of course).
Thanks for the analysis!
I can’t fundamentally disagree with what you’re saying. I’ve been observing Trump the past few days, of course, and it really does seem to be a battle between illness combined with lethargy on the one hand going up against ambition and batshit crazy on the other. I’m not sure which is going to win, and I’m also not sure how much the people around Trump will be able to push back against his wildest impulses.
More and more I’m thinking we need a constitutional amendment dealing with the presidential messes that have come up in recent years (not all of which have been caused by Trump):
Anyhow:
IMO, the 1/6 pardons are already that, for example, but it’s not just the magnitude of the overreach but the nature of it. Executive orders can be extremely crazy but will probably be shot down by the courts. OTOH, actually sending troops against an ally or a Democratic governor is a physical act that will have immediate, catastrophic consequences.
I’m thinking, however, that Trump seems so ill and so nuts that he may not make it to the six month mark without keeling over or finding himself booted by the 25th amendment. It’s one thing for the GOP to support an evil man; I’m not sure they can tolerate a literally demented madman in the office.
I agree.
Yeah, demented people can get paranoid and violent. I can easily imagine such a reaction to the use of the 25th amendment.
If at any point the military gets involved, we will see blue states seceding/becoming schismatic and a new civil war beginning. Unless, of course, the military removes Trump and works towards restoring democracy (though at that point the US would probably break up anyway, since it’s an unstable union already).
That would never pass the Senate, so we would already be minus a bunch of Democrats, presumably because something really bad has already happened.
On a gut level, I am more and more feeling that Trump will be done by the end of June. Less because of big things he does but more because he’s deeply embarrassing the GOP and the country as a whole through incoherent ranting and smaller but still very crazy actions. He’s already making nucking futs, incoherent speeches on the international stage. During the campaign, his idiot sycophants and followers could dismiss this as negativity thrown at the opposition, but now that he’s actually president again, it’s going to seem different. He’s going to be fucking the country as a whole, red and blue together.
I’m also getting really bad vibes about ICE actions in blue states. This is something different from the “major overreach” issue. I can see some sort of not so extreme opposition from a blue state triggering a reaction from Trump that escalates quickly. 1789 Bastille and 1989 Berlin Wall vibes. The situation is massively unstable.
Trump is omniscient. No research or debate required, only his signature.
*Normality” (10%)
Trump views a Presidential executive order as an ukase that will be obeyed without question. So, he will actively counter disobedience.
Casually violating contracts and treaties will cause widespread chaos. Based on how this disrupts the business of corporations it may cause his downfall.
Unlikely, but OMG can you imagine a state funeral for Trump! Perhaps conversion of the Lincoln Memorial into Trumps Tomb.
Pardoning the convicted insurrectionists and sweeping away a Constitutional right is a good start.
If it moves sideways the Republicans may need an off ramp.
Either by Republicans or a mid term Dem blue wave
Vance is the dark horse. With backers in congress he could manage a take over. After all the cabinet is a den of thieves.
Military coup (10%)
Military would probably take over for a few hours, sweep away the nutcases in the line of succession, appoint Rubio president and call for immediate elections.
With a bigly big big even BIGGER statue of TRUMP! 
Yup, and he’s the snake leading the thieves.
To me, the only constitutional amendment that will fix a massive grant of power to one person is to not grant a massive amount of power to one person.
A three-person presidency with a single six-year term, elected on a two-year staggered basis. Majority (2/3) rules, except unanimity required for war/use of military force except in case of invasion or rebellion. And since we’re amending the Constitution anyway, they will each be directly elected by the combined popular votes of the 50 States, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, etc., with no U.S. territory excluded and no Electoral College.
It’s no guarantee, but it:
*avoids the idiosyncrasies, foibles, pet peeves, and betes noires of one person being enshrined in law for four years, only to have a very different set of idiosyncrasies, foibles, pet peeves, and betes noires enshrined in law four years later. Trump, I’m looking squarely at you on this one!
*gets rid of the phenomenon of “unimportant” “off-year” elections where goofballs get into Congress because fewer voters are paying attention. Every two-year election for Congress would also be a Presidential election.
*conversely makes every Presidential election not as “high stakes” as a one-man-wins-all emperor-for-four-years election.
I think it’s rather brilliant, actually. It’s a bit like Roman consuls with three persons instead of two.
You’d have a three-person pardon committee, so that would take care of that.
Potential downsides:
How would appointees would be made and the cabinet run? If you had two presidents of one party and one of the other, I could see this as a slow-moving, perhaps acrimonious process.
Also, two presidents of one party could cut the other one out. And then could the cut-out person go rogue, start visiting other countries to drum up support for their own foreign policy initiatives? It could get messy.
If each had substantial staff, that could be a pretty bloated administration.
But I think there is a lot to like.
Trump is in North Carolina bad mouthing FEMA and implying that the Corps of Engineers is going to rebuild peoples houses - huh? I hope the media follows up on it.
I saw clips from that. He’s a fucking gibbering loon at this point, and that shit don’t self-correct.
It was worse when he got to CA. He’s the greatest President ever - he said so.
So far the media hasn’t picked up on the Corps of Engineers thing.
Oh yeah if he wants to hire people who don’t know anything about their jobs, how about the guys who fly Marine 1 and Air force 1!
Maybe some of Leon’s fanboys can fly him straight to Mars?!
Do his current talks with Denmark to try to make this a reality count as “early major overreach”? I almost think so, except for the lack of an explicit threat. Still, actually being serious about obtaining Greenland along with implicit threats almost seems like overreach to me. If he increases or even keeps up the saber rattling I would say it’s overreach.
The more he dwells on this and tries to cajole Denmark on this issue, the worse the US will look on the world stage.
Yeah, the Denmark situation is close to crossing that line and causing big problems. But I’m less afraid of Trump trying to invade it or anything concrete and more afraid of him looking like (and being) a stark raving madman and having to be removed. I’m not talking about by a normal person’s standard but by the GOP’s standard. That bad.
The man is utterly insane, and I think it’s only a matter of time at this point.
President Donald Trump has been accused of raising prescription drug prices for seniors by immediately rescinding former President Joe Biden’s executive order to lower costs after beginning his second term on Monday.
Amid an avalanche of executive orders from Trump on Inauguration Day, Biden’s executive order 14087, “Lowering Prescription Drug Costs for Americans,” was among several dozen that Trump reversed in an order targeting the “recession of harmful executive orders and actions.”
Hey great- more inflation and higher prices! 
Nate Silver just dropped a Substack post in which he attempts to estimate probabilities for 113 (!) possible scenarios (these are just off the top of his head, not based on any mathematical models or anything). Here are some of his estimates for events identical or similar to those mentioned in the OP. In general, he seems less worried than most of the SDMB.
Trump completes term – 75%
Trump is removed from office via 25th Amendment – 10%
I think this is too high, given that he seems to be making a point of picking the most sycophantic bootlickers in America for his Cabinet.
There will be fair and free elections in 2028 – 90%
Your lips to God’s ears, Nate.
A military dispute over Greenland – 20% (this doesn’t necessarily mean actual warfare, but at least troops moving into a threatening position)
The US taking over all or part of Greenland – 10%
Trump invokes the Insurrection Act to declare martial law – 40%
Trump blatantly ignores a Supreme Court decision – 10% (as Nate notes, this probability would be much higher with a more liberal Court)
Trump takes some action that results in a situation which the NYT calls a “Constitutional Crisis” (in the news articles, not opinion pieces) – 45%
The Economist magazine downgrades America to 7 or less on its Democracy Index (currently 7.8; 7 would put us in a class with Hungary) – 15%
Interesting, thanks!
Doesn’t seem too far from my own percentages.
A reasonable figure. It’s a complicated thing to calculate, however. For example, if he makes it to January 1, 2028, and isn’t a stark raving mad lunatic damaging their electoral chances at that point, I think it’s likely that he and his enablers will just do the Woodrow Wilson/Joe Biden thing and keep him alive and quiet in order to help get the next guy elected. I.e., the longer he is in office, the greater the effort will be to manage him instead of removing him.
Yes, they will only do this in extreme circumstances.
Yes. There is so much (good) inertia in our system that trying to dismantle this in four years would be very difficult. So would trying to cancel elections at the last minute, etc.
This would be “major overreach” of a very drastic kind, since Trump would have to get the military involved, and it’s a big question whether the generals would go along with attacking or even concretely threatening a NATO ally. If they did, we’d be in deep shit as a country. All hell would break loose. Every Democratic politician in the country would be engaged in full-throated protest against it. This could definitely be a schism/civil war trigger.
I was afraid that something like this would happen right away. Since it hasn’t, it’s hard to imagine something happening that would “allow” Trump to do this. Maybe a George Floyd (RIP)/BLM protest level disturbance, or protests arising from another major overreach by Trump. This would definitely be a crossing of the Rubicon and lead to a schism/civil war situation, IMHO. I think the percent here might be a little bit high.
As to whether such flouting of the SC is recognized as such, I think it depends on how blatant and what it is. If it’s some obscure policy matter, then Trump’s GOP enablers would argue that he’s not really disobeying, etc. If it’s something the public really cares about, then that’s different. So I’m not sure about the percentage here. I think Trump will disobey the SC to some degree.
This is significantly higher than my “early major overreach” percentage, so I don’t know if he’s less worried than I and others here (maybe less worried than some people here!).
I don’t know enough about that to comment, but, in absolute terms, I don’t think there is any way to see our democracy as healthy when one of the two major parties is dedicated to sabotaging it.
OK, I think the first few weeks (few years?!–sure feels like it…) give us a significant clue as to what is going to happen hereafter, so I am adjusting my percentages accordingly. This is harder than I thought it would be for two sets of reasons:
Updated numbers with explanations:
Indolence (60%) -5%
He’s shown a lot of crazy energy, but he might slump into nothingness at any moment.
Trumpish “normality” (5%) -15%
I think he’s too far gone to act normally at this point.
Grinding chaos (40%) +5%
This is probably all he’s capable of if he’s capable of anything.
Early health problems and/or death (15%) +5%
He looks even worse now than he did during the election, IMHO, and that’s saying a lot. I make this percentage thus low only because, as we’ve discussed previously in this thread, T(fascist)PTB will try to Weekend at Bernie’s this guy as long as they can.
Early major overreach (35%) +5%
Trump is an impulsive child, and if he had a “big idea” at the time of inauguration, it’s most likely that he would have tried to do it already. The raiding of agencies via Elon is very bad and very big, but I don’t think it crosses the threshold. Mostly importantly, Trump put his tail between his legs and ruffed off on the biggest and most concrete thing he was about to do: the trade war with Mexico and Canada. He’s a wimp! But still absolutely crazy. So the percentage goes up.
Removal (8%) +3%
I think the chance of the 25th Amendment being used has gone up, since Trump is barely coherent at this point. Still, his flunkies will be very reluctant to use it. Impeachment goes up 1%.
Impeachment and conviction (3%) +1%
25th amendment (4%) +2%
Extraconstitutional removal (military coup, etc, 1%) No change
Extended constitutional crisis (25%) +1%
The complicated thing here is that I think we are in a constitutional crisis already, in which Trump and Leon and the GOP in general are showing a flagrant disregard for the rule of law, but I don’t think it’s one that is perceived that way yet by the general public or is about to snowball into something bigger.
End of US as we know it (breakup, etc., 2%) +1%
Successful fascist takeover (0%) No change
Domination by outside forces (war, natural disaster, etc., 5%) No change
I don’t know how well it lines up with the percentages above, but the way I am gaming things out in my head is this: I think the first 6 months of this presidency are key. If he is to overreach big, he will do so during this period. If he can’t do it by then, his health will prevent him from doing it thereafter, and then it will be a matter of how long TPTB can keep him alive and minimally functional during his term (viz the Biden presidency–sorry, but true).
Sure, he can try to delegate his fascism to dickwads like Elon, but that’s the problem: they’re dickwads who have no finesse, savoir faire, or the simple ability to look at their cards without showing them to the whole table. They’re incompetent fools.
So let’s look at the biggest overreach so far that he’s actually done and not just threatened to do: the raiding of USAID and other agencies. I would not call this major overreach of the type I originally described for the reasons below:
So it all sucks very much, but all I see at this point is pusillanimity (backing down on the trade war), self-sabotaging incompetence (USAID and other agency raids), and a walking, mumbling corpse (Trump himself). This trajectory is not sustainable for four years.
The GOP have been effective fascists in their own way nationally by playing to the morons. They have been genuinely effective in dominating local governments in their Red fascist domains. But they are on track to destroy their brand even with the morons at this point by looking so incompetent and stupid that even the morons will see it and doing things that will concretely hurt the morons.
In a previous thread, I recommended that Democrats hold to this strategy:
I think that this is going well for us. Of course, we need to work social and legacy media tirelessly to get out every negative message about the Trumpian debacle we can. Soon enough, however, I think we will be able to proceed onto the next strategy:
With “country” here being replaced by “political party,” i.e., the fascist GOP.
OK, thanks in advance for your further thoughts!
Oh, and I meant to add:
The GOP is destroying its brand permanently at this point. Had Trump lost in 2024 or if Trump were being a quieter sort of jackass right now, there would possibly have been hope for them in the future. “Oh, those Trump years, haha, I know… But we need to keep moving forward as a country, haha, and conservatism is the way, heehee!”
Nuh unh. They’ve back themselves into a corner with this wreckage. It’s either full fascist takeover or the end of the GOP. Keep in mind that the morons don’t really love Republicans, nor do they have any conception of what “conservatism” is. They love Trump, and now their idol is destroying their own moron world before their eyes.
Soon Trump will be gone in some sort of ignominious fashion, and the GOP will have nothing to offer them. Our side will: normal, decent, beige government. And if we can find ourselves a real leader, maybe something more than that.
Well, it’s traditionally “early” since it’s in the first 90 days, and we definitely have “overreach”. Right now I’d say we are in a constitutional crisis due to the repeated ignoring of court orders. I don’t quite think we are at a “fascist takeover” yet, but I wouldn’t say that they’re not trying and so far succeeding at the process.
Yes. I have to hand it to Trump: one of his instinctive skills is the ability to go right up to a certain line again and again and not cross it. E.g., during the last campaign, he said a million racist things, but he would never be caught dead saying the n-word.
I think it’s the same thing right now: a million provocations, none of them quite big enough to elicit the gasp associated with “major overreach.”
That said, I will reiterate what I said in my last post above: it’s not good or effective for Trump or the GOP. It’s insanely sloppy and vector-free. And, concretely speaking, he’s fucking with the markets which means fucking with rich people’s money, which is off-brand for the GOP and is hurting Trump quite a bit.
Further, DOGE is a bust, and Leon has become the Ultimate Pariah. The Tesla Takedown is going marvelously, which is the thin end of the wedge of our power. I think it could turn into a genuine 1789/1848/1989 style game-changer.
I would say they’re incoherently flailing in that direction with neither plan nor discipline on display. At the current rate, the only thing they’re going to succeed at is helping to destroy Tesla and tipping the US into a full revolution.