# What will be the "last straw" in the administration's assault on our country / democracy? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [August 4, 2025, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-be-the-last-straw-in-the-administrations-assault-on-our-country-democracy/1021676 "2025-08-04T03:23:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-be-the-last-straw-in-the-administrations-assault-on-our-country-democracy/1021676/101 "2025-08-04T17:47:01Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > This is almost certainly true. This is something I heard of some time back, which I have been turning over in my mind. (I won’t pretend this is a fully thought out representation.) The proposition was that previously laws were expected to be more along the lines of general guidelines, outlining behavior within which most people agreed to act and within which reasonable compliance could be adjudged. Presently, there is more of an expectation of precise specificity in our laws. If something specific is not expressly prohibited, then it is accepted as permitted. However, the pace of increased complexity is ever speeding up, such that laws are obsolete as soon as written. Moreover, every fine detail can be litigated very expensively - with major coroprations having staff and expertise which exceed the government’s. This demand for specificity is further complicated if groups propose that the bureaucracy cannot provide the specificity, but it need be done by Congress. Now I realize litigiousness has always been an issue - just read Dickens. And I’m not imagining some idyllic past. But ISTM that there has been a basic change in persons’ understanding of their relationship with the law. There seems to be a shift from “just act reasonably within society” towards “get away with whatever you can.” ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Krupe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ebca7d/32.png) [@Leo\_Krupe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Krupe)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-be-the-last-straw-in-the-administrations-assault-on-our-country-democracy/1021676/102 "2025-08-04T17:52:42Z")
The last straw, as someone said, was when the idiot in the Oval Office was elected. But never mind that now, we’re way past that. I predict one of two things will happen: 1. The idiot in the Oval Office will die in office. This will start a power struggle within the right, and they will collapse, because no one has the personality to hold things together (not that he does that good of a job). 2. He goes full-bore psychopath and orders the military to bomb a US city (maybe even with nukes). Double points if the military goes along with it and actually nukes NYC or another (almost definitely) blue city. There are no good solutions. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-be-the-last-straw-in-the-administrations-assault-on-our-country-democracy/1021676/103 "2025-08-04T17:59:37Z")
> [@Leo\_Krupe](#): > > The idiot in the Oval Office will die in office. This will start a power struggle within the right, and they will collapse, because no one has the personality to hold things together (not that he does that good of a job). We didn’t think _he_ had the personality to pull it off, so I would not put down any amount of money on this one. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-be-the-last-straw-in-the-administrations-assault-on-our-country-democracy/1021676/104 "2025-08-04T18:00:24Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > This demand for specificity is further complicated if groups propose that the bureaucracy cannot provide the specificity, but it need be done by Congress. > > Now I realize litigiousness has always been an issue - just read Dickens. And I’m not imagining some idyllic past. But ISTM that there has been a basic change in persons’ understanding of their relationship with the law. There seems to be a shift from “just act reasonably within society” towards “get away with whatever you can.” A couple of years ago, I read the book “The Good War” by Studs Turkel. This was an oral history of WWII, with interviews of people from all over the place, about what they did in the years before, during and just after the war. One fellow was a US government employee, who was in charge of coordinating a lot of the US industrial response in the war years. He recalled one meeting he had with the CEOs of a bunch of companies, late in the war, where they were berating him for the ever-increasing number of regulations they were required to follow. He clapped back at them, saying it was their own fault. They’d tried a less-regulated system early in the war, on the assumption that everyone would put in their best efforts to win the war. But instead, the companies immediately started trying to game the system, cutting corners, adding costs, everything they could do to wring out an extra buck. So the government had to start making more and more things explicit about what they could do, what they must do, and what they must not do. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-be-the-last-straw-in-the-administrations-assault-on-our-country-democracy/1021676/105 "2025-08-04T18:20:12Z")
> [@LouMa](#): > > It looks very much as if Trump will remain in office until the end of his term, unless health problems intervene. Personally, I don’t think so. I feel the real enemy here is the Republicans not Trump. The Republicans have a long term plan and Trump and the magas are short term tools they are using. The Republicans (the ones who are running the organization) are telling Trump what he wants to hear. They’re telling him that he’s their leader and they’re loyally working on plans to make him dictator. Trump believes this because all of his life has been based on other people doing the work for him and him collecting the rewards. I predict that at some point the Republicans will tell Trump _“Now is the moment. Seize control and declare yourself President-for-Life just like we’ve been planning.”_ And Trump will go on TV and do it. And then Trump will be surprised when the Republicans stab him in the back. Vance or some other Republican will go on TV and say _“We are absolutely shocked at what Trump said. Who would have seen this coming? Obviously we believe in the Constitution and we fully oppose Trump in his attempt to destroy America. We ask everyone to join us as we work to bring this evil man down.”_ So Trump and the magas will confusedly try to take over (like they’ve done before). And Acting President Vance and the Republican majority in Congress and the Republican judges and Republican-appointed leaders in the military and law enforcement will declare they are fighting Trump and the magas. What are the rest of us going to do? Fight on Trump’s side? No, most people will say they’re relieved that the Republicans have finally woken up and seen that Trump is a crook. They’ll praise the Republicans just like they’ve praised the handful of other Republicans who have tepidly criticized Trump. The anti-Trump forces (led by the Republicans) will say that they need special temporary powers do deal with this crisis. They need to remove Trump and the magas from power. They’ll purge the Trump loyalists (and anybody else who opposes the Republican coalition) out of the government. When the dust settles, Trump and the magas will be locked up or dead. The people who questioned the Republicans will also be locked up or dead (because if they weren’t supporting the Republicans who were fighting Trump then they must have been secret Trump agents). The Republicans will hold all the power. And the public will be saying how wonderful it is that democracy was saved. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-be-the-last-straw-in-the-administrations-assault-on-our-country-democracy/1021676/106 "2025-08-04T18:30:03Z")
I’ve seen a couple of posts calling for a general strike. I think it’s way too early for that. I think we need to wait another 6-12 months. When far more of the MAGAts are feeling the pain they voted for. There are plenty of videos of YouTube of this MAGAt realizing that voting for Assole 1 means their kid is getting removed from their state’s Medicaid program, or his workers aren’t showing up to work because of ICE raids, or whatever. Give it a few more months. When more (significantly more) of them realize they FAFO’d, and they’ll come to our side, then it will be time for a general strike. I don’t believe there’s going to be ONE last straw. I think the revolution will build up organically, in fits and starts, kind of like the series of events that led up to 1776. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Krupe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ebca7d/32.png) [@Leo\_Krupe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Krupe)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-be-the-last-straw-in-the-administrations-assault-on-our-country-democracy/1021676/107 "2025-08-04T19:35:42Z")
I hear you, and can’t disagree. Then I read **Little Nemo** ’s post and that gave me pause. S/he may be right – I’d been thinking that the whole maga deal wouldn’t hold, and it may not, but that doesn’t really matter because s/he’s right – the republicans have a long term plan that goes back _at least_ to Reagan, and they won’t stop until every last breath is wrung from this country. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The Republicans will hold all the power. We’re well on our way to one-party rule. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-be-the-last-straw-in-the-administrations-assault-on-our-country-democracy/1021676/108 "2025-08-04T19:40:34Z")
So, a Night of the Long Knives? ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-be-the-last-straw-in-the-administrations-assault-on-our-country-democracy/1021676/109 "2025-08-04T21:28:24Z")
And short mushrooms. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-be-the-last-straw-in-the-administrations-assault-on-our-country-democracy/1021676/110 "2025-08-04T22:04:04Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I doubt it; most of the country would rather die than resist. It’s _impolite_ to resist, you know. MAGA will kill half the country with barely a voice raised to them in defiance, much less actual resistance. I don’t mean to turn this into a personal Pitting, but……what are you doing, yourself, to resist? What are you suggesting? I’m not encouraging law-breaking, but it seems to me like you’re just typing behind a keyboard like all the rest of us, too. You say “Those folks think it’s impolite to resist,” but are you doing the impolite patriotic thing? I’m not sure what you are advocating. Bear in mind, aside from voting against Trump, I too haven’t done anything except sit behind a keyboard, so I’m a total hypocrite too and I freely own up to my hypocrisy. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-be-the-last-straw-in-the-administrations-assault-on-our-country-democracy/1021676/111 "2025-08-04T22:15:27Z")
> [@OldOlds](#): > > Of course, a bunch of workers would be killed and maybe a lake drained, but shit got done. Or, “shit got done, admittedly to the much lower standards of the day, but at a huge environmental cost and the needless death of many.” ---
**Author:** ![Mundane\_Super\_Hero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mundane_super_hero/32/6304_2.png) [@Mundane\_Super\_Hero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mundane_Super_Hero)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-be-the-last-straw-in-the-administrations-assault-on-our-country-democracy/1021676/112 "2025-08-04T22:33:00Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > So, a Night of the Long Knives? “Sir. If Captain Sobel is found dead amongst his cutlery, is that a matter of local justice or a matter of military justice.? Sir…!” ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-be-the-last-straw-in-the-administrations-assault-on-our-country-democracy/1021676/113 "2025-08-04T22:46:00Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I don’t mean to turn this into a personal Pitting, but……what are you doing, yourself, to resist? Nothing, because _I_ can’t. One person with no power can do nothing meaningful, and those _with_ the power to do anything refuse. My “exit strategy” at this point would be a bullet to the head, since the whole world is going to hell and there’s no place to run and no hope for a better future. Death is the _best_ future anyone who isn’t a monster can look forward to. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-be-the-last-straw-in-the-administrations-assault-on-our-country-democracy/1021676/114 "2025-08-04T22:50:15Z")
Whose head? ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-be-the-last-straw-in-the-administrations-assault-on-our-country-democracy/1021676/115 "2025-08-04T22:52:20Z")
Well, the Democratic Party in Texas is doing something, at least. They’ve left the state. Of course Ken Paxton wants them found and arrested and some other stuff. It feels like the noise on the left is getting louder this week. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-be-the-last-straw-in-the-administrations-assault-on-our-country-democracy/1021676/116 "2025-08-04T22:55:52Z")
Well said. A couple months into this disaster I was thinking of how we prepare for civil war. But of course, lots of countries are ruled by right wing tyrants without facing an armed resistance. Those who can flee, flee. The rest just tolerate it. I’m not special enough to flee, nor am I willing to die in vain. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-be-the-last-straw-in-the-administrations-assault-on-our-country-democracy/1021676/117 "2025-08-04T23:20:08Z")
Poul makes a good point. It might be added that “we” didn’t build super countries and empires. Sociopaths and psychopaths built them for their own ends and forced everyone else to go along it or die, and for that matter go along AND die, while promising wealth and glory. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2025, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-be-the-last-straw-in-the-administrations-assault-on-our-country-democracy/1021676/118 "2025-08-04T23:26:09Z")
Since we’re quoting science fiction authors in this thread, here is Ursula Le Guin: “We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings.” Resistance isn’t futile, it’s inevitable, and it ranges from individual refusal and support of others to more active work. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2025, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-be-the-last-straw-in-the-administrations-assault-on-our-country-democracy/1021676/119 "2025-08-05T00:05:30Z")
I’m fond of what Roger Casement [said to the court just before sentence was passed,](https://speakola.com/political/roger-casement-speech-from-dock-2011)logically stating that when conquest is imposed upon the body, by its nature it can’t be upon the mind. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2025, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-be-the-last-straw-in-the-administrations-assault-on-our-country-democracy/1021676/120 "2025-08-05T00:06:16Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Death is the _best_ future anyone who isn’t a monster can look forward to. Yikes! 1. You can do more than nothing. It requires the power of an ocean to change, and you’re not an ocean, but you’re a drop in it, and you can join other drops. EVERYONE is either doing something overall negative, overall neutral, or overall positive. As long as you’re in the positive column, you’re moving the needle infinitessimally in the right direction. It may not be ENOUGH, but it’s still worth doing. 2. There is still joy, and thus a future worth having, in the simple pleasures and in helping others. Death will come soon enough: I see a pretty bleak future, but it’s too early to give up. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-be-the-last-straw-in-the-administrations-assault-on-our-country-democracy/1021676.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-be-the-last-straw-in-the-administrations-assault-on-our-country-democracy/1021676.md?page=7)