Are lawsuits being filed?
Do we know what the end product will be?
I think that is the disconnect for many in this discussion
Trump saying he will do X does not mean X is a fait accompli
Also give the guardrails time to get things back on track. People are already saying how SCOTUS will decide without these cases being heard.
I don’t. Some guardrails have already fallen. But here’s why I think elections will still mostly be free and fair in 2026 and 2028: International precedents.
Look how long it took Putin until Russian elections were symbolic.
There still is a chance for elections to change the regime in Turkey and Hungary. Low chance? Yes, mostly because the strongmen completely control the media. But it took more than eight discontinuous years in power to achieve that. And it’s probably harder in the U.S. because media is somewhat less centralized.
Also look at the Italy precedent. Neither Berlusconi nor Meloni have been able to consolidate power.
Trump learned lessons from his first term failure to consolidate power and is conceivably now a more skilled dictator than those others. I hope not.
What I wonder is that with all the things he is attempting to do, will we be so overwhelmed that some of it will get through? If we just look at the things he succeeds at the U.S. will panic, but we are being misdirected by all the other crap we actually stop.
By accident or by plan? If the first, maybe. If the second, they ain’t that smart.
Apparently, they don’t have to be.
As you imply, the answer is yes.
John Roberts probably hopes to find a lot of Trump’s actions that he can uphold, thus retaining public support while he and Barrett stop a bit of the worst of it. If that’s the dynamic, the higher the percentage of Trump’s actions which are illegal, the more illegal actions will be allowed.
Even the three Democrats on the Supreme Court will be tempted to avoid crossing Trump on every issue in order to retain some small influence over the others.
The whole point of Project 2025 is to spend the four years of Trump’s term building up a network of Republican loyalists throughout the federal and state governments, court systems, police departments, and armed forces. The goal is to have a system in place (unlike 2020) so that when the leaders of the Republican party give orders, there will be people in place who will follow the orders.
Trump naturally thinks this is all being done on his behalf. So he talks about how he’ll get a third term.
But the people actually running things may have different plans. In 2028, they may decide Trump is no longer needed and his liabilities now outweigh whatever questionable assets he provides. So Trump will get kicked to the curb and the Republicans will put a new face in to replace him. They might even decide to allow the pretense of holding an election.
It wouldn’t be the first time The Powers That Be thought he could be used then controlled or tossed to the side.
If there’s one thing that WON’T happen, it’s “Trump gets kicked to the curb.” I see no possibility of that while he’s alive. The people that are behind Project 2025, and the rest of MAGA, are completely invested in Trump. This is why the idea of him running in 2028 for a 3rd term is something that can be discussed amongst us without being labeled as insane.
I’m reminded of Von Schleicher, Von Papen, and Hindenburg in 1933…that didn’t turn out like they thought.
I am not disagreeing with you. I’ll just point out the reason we have Supreme Court justices for life is to avoid this.
Yes, but we’ve had a system in which elections matter. So the parties have to pay attention to what the voters are thinking.
Project 2025 is designed to eliminate that “problem”. The new system will be there will be an election, the voters will cast their votes, and then the Republicans will tell officials who to announce as the winner.
So let’s say the party leaders decide they want Mike Johnson to be President. Primary elections are held and the MAGAs all show up. Trump gets seventy percent of the votes. Then the party leaders make a phone call and tell people to announce Mike Johnson won the primary.
And then a few months later a general election is held. And another phone call is made. And it’s announced that Johnson beat whoever was the Democratic candidate.
As Stalin famously said “Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.”
Trump himself knows this. This is what he tried to do in 2020 - have the votes for Biden set aside and have a different set of votes declared the official one. But Trump hadn’t worked on this ahead of time; he hadn’t put people in place that would follow his orders.
But right now, the Republicans are putting those people into place and getting ready for the next time.
So he’s setting up an idiocracy? These people couldn’t hit their butt with both hand if given an instruction manual and three chances. That is why I give so much pushback againt what is claimed Trump will accomplish. He’s trying for another Coup of 18 Brumaire and we are going to get a Three Stooges film instead.
I wish I could share your optimism. He will try to cancel the election. I fear it will take a legal coup to get him out.
Trump isn’t setting up anything. That idiot probably can’t tie his own shoes.
But there are people who are smarter than Trump (millions and millions of them). These people are the ones running Project 2025. And they’re telling Trump it’s for him.
However, once the system is in place, Trump won’t be the one controlling it. The people running the system might decide they can still get some use out of Trump and they’ll keep him in place. Or they may decide to replace him. Either way, it won’t be Trump making the decision.
My personal speculation is they will dump Trump. If you’re secretly running things from behind the curtain, you don’t want to draw a lot of attention to what you’re doing. A nice quiet “safe” President will draw less public opposition.
It’s really bewildering when one considers what the stakes truly are, and the consequence of too much unjustifiable confidence, complacency, and insouciance.
It’s really hard not to recall the path that authoritarian regimes took to becoming authoritarian regimes.
I’m struggling to recall any such regime that had a notable failed attempt before their reign of terror really began.
But I’m sure they exist.
I’m also struggling to imagine a situation where one would confidently utter the phrase, “Don’t worry, Honey. Their first shot missed.”
Nope. Nothing coming. A textbook ‘failure of imagination’ on my part, to be sure.
Beer Hall Putsch
General Reynolds told his men at the Battle of Gettysburg that the Confederates snipers couldn’t hit an elephant.
Right. That’s where my hyperlink takes you.
John Sedgwick.
And knowing Sedgwick’s fate, are you catching my point … yet?
I choose to ignore that part of the story and substitute Chamberlain being shot in the sword instead.
I dunno. If “his job is not to wield power, but to draw attention away from it*,” he’ll be doing a bang-up job as long as he can ‘weave’ sentences together.
*HHG, of course.
Von Papen & Von Schleicher thought they could control AH back in 1933, and “run things” from behind the scenes. Didn’t turn out so well for them, and he didn’t get dumped until after a war that he started killed 50MM people.
I don’t think anyone in MAGA-world is running anything from behind the scenes unless they’re making damn sure they’re aligned with Trump and what he wants. He has an iron grip on the Republican party right now, and there’s no way they dump him. The only way he gets dumped is when the voters around the country rise up and slaughter the GOP in 2026 midterms, and when the legal system as well as the states stop him from shenanigans in 2028.