# Wouldn't the government itself rebel against a second Trump presidency? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [April 6, 2024, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-the-government-itself-rebel-against-a-second-trump-presidency/999947 "2024-04-06T17:59:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-the-government-itself-rebel-against-a-second-trump-presidency/999947/122 "2024-04-08T01:53:57Z")
My apologies, I did not understand the intent of the mod note, which said discussion of the Russian invasion of Donbas, which I made a point to not raise, even indirectly. I did not interpret that to mean the Maidan Revolution, which is directly mentioned in the OP. Mea Culpa. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-the-government-itself-rebel-against-a-second-trump-presidency/999947/123 "2024-04-08T02:05:47Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Mea Culpa. No, it is confusing due to the spongy nature of the OP. It seems to me the OP is raising two distinct issues: 1) How will members of the existing government respond if Trump attempts to set up a fascist autocracy; and 2) Attempts to co-opt those responding into accepting their assertion that the Maidan Revolution was peaceful and nonviolent. Discussing the second issue clouds discussion of the first and threatened to become a hijack to what I believe the original question contemplated. I’m asking posters to focus on the first assertion and take discussion of whether the Maidan Revolution was peaceful or not to a different thread. @Aeschines, you’re stepping all over your own thread with trying to discuss these two matters simultaneously. If you wish to discuss the Maidan Revolution as a separate issue, please start a separate thread for that discussion and I will move the posts pertaining to it from this thread. @Dissonance, I apologize to you for the misunderstanding. It was my fault for not making my original mod note more clear. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-the-government-itself-rebel-against-a-second-trump-presidency/999947/124 "2024-04-08T02:05:54Z")
More like _deliberately_ off schedule, etc… Believe me (I work for a city government), things could be slowed down even more than they normally are, if we wanted to make it that way. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-the-government-itself-rebel-against-a-second-trump-presidency/999947/125 "2024-04-08T02:32:15Z")
Remember that to the Fascists, they _want_ the entire Federal government to grind to a halt. Except for the various police agencies that will be repurposed to vigorously persecute anyone stepping out of line or born the wrong color, sex, or orientation. Foot dragging in the e.g. Department of Commerce won’t be a winning tactic for the good guys. They also intend to lobby, bribe, and coerce all like-minded state Governors to follow suit. Who in turn will pressure county and municipal authorities. This is well-trodden ground. No innovation is needed, just trot out the playbook that’s worked so well for millenia. Most employees and especially police / military will follow orders because the alternative is prompt unemployment then persecution. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-the-government-itself-rebel-against-a-second-trump-presidency/999947/126 "2024-04-08T03:09:25Z")
> [@Bear\_Nenno](#): > > **Even the ones who absolutely despise Trump** would rather see him back in office than another 4 years of Biden. I don’t mean for this to be a hijack, but why do you think that is? Is it related to the withdrawal from Afghanistan, or something else? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-the-government-itself-rebel-against-a-second-trump-presidency/999947/127 "2024-04-08T03:25:11Z")
IME w my AFRES / ANG coworkers, it’s an acceptance of the BS storyline fed by RW propaganda. Anything, even a Chinese takeover, would be preferable to more of the Biden crime family’s rape of America. Besides, D. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-the-government-itself-rebel-against-a-second-trump-presidency/999947/128 "2024-04-08T11:18:25Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > Second, there is no agreement as to whether the president can pardon himself. That would end up going to the Supreme Court. H Have you seen the Supreme Court lately? I assure you they’ll rule that Trump can pardon himself. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-the-government-itself-rebel-against-a-second-trump-presidency/999947/129 "2024-04-08T12:14:18Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > You may be right, but BLM got pretty big. …BLM got _smashed_. The cops, nationwide, went _wild_. And the end results were increased funding of the police, more police killings last year than any other year, and BLM effectively ended as an effective movement. The police _won_. And all of this talk about the army ignores the fact that the police, effectively unaccountable to civilian authorities in much of the United States _right now,_ would be the footsoldiers at the front line of any “fascist autocracy.” They are already armed to the teeth. Many have APC’s and arsenals fit for a small country. Drones. The NYPD even have their own intelligence agency, with intelligence officers stationed in 16 different countries across the globe. It’s already very bad now. The Supreme Court is gone for a generation. Protests nationwide are being suppressed. It’s the boiling frog. A Trump presidency just pushes everything just a bit further, much more quickly. ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-the-government-itself-rebel-against-a-second-trump-presidency/999947/130 "2024-04-08T13:10:14Z")
The best way to stop this from happening is to ensure that Trump isn’t elected. As a reliable voting Democrat I’m surprised nobody has contacted me and asked me who I plan to vote for in November. If enough Democrats abandon Biden, for whatever reason, and stay home, we all lose. While I have some concerns about Biden’s age, I would never consider voting for Trump, or not voting at all. I’m 69 years old, and lived through Watergate. I know how a mentally-disturbed president can go off the rails, even with relatively sane people around him. I don’t think a majority of the country wants a second Trump presidency. Unfortunately, our outdated Electoral College System allows someone to become president even when they lose the general election by millions of votes, which makes no sense, and deeply worries me. If the MAGAs really want to destroy the government, they will continue to try, whoever is elected president, but if Trump loses, I expect another very large “Stop the Steal” rally somewhere in Washington DC, only this time better armed and organized. Assuming the police and military are prepared for it, that could put a nice dent in MAGAs’ numbers, and forestall Civil War II, at least for a while. However, if Trump is elected, I would anticipate a government purge, and the eventual destruction of democracy in the US, at least to some extent. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-the-government-itself-rebel-against-a-second-trump-presidency/999947/131 "2024-04-08T13:30:43Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#): > > The best way to stop this from happening is to ensure that Trump isn’t elected. …it delays a _rapid descent_. But people need to stop underestimating how bad things have gotten now. It’s got nothing to do with Biden’s age and everything to do the Democrat’s general approach. But this isn’t really on topic. ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-the-government-itself-rebel-against-a-second-trump-presidency/999947/132 "2024-04-08T13:37:08Z")
Fair point. I guess to answer the OP I think there wouldn’t be a great rebellion against a Trump presidency by "the government’ since most people want to keep their jobs, no matter who is president. If a government employee is asked to do something illegal, they will avoid doing it short of quitting. If the courts are packed with Trump loyalists, then anyone not following orders will likely be fired or arrested, and it rapidly goes downhill from there. ---
**Author:** ![velomont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/8491ac/32.png) [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-the-government-itself-rebel-against-a-second-trump-presidency/999947/133 "2024-04-08T13:43:17Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > I am talking about rebellion by those who oppose him. The problem IMHO is that not enough oppose him. Thanks to social media allowing the low-lives of the world to connect with each other and to coordinate shit, there’s enough of a critical mass that they can and probably will do really serious damage. And to relate to what HMS\_Irruncible mentions above, all of the mitigations that were supposed to happen in a “polite society” or modern western civilization or whatever, did not happen/we just squeaked through. We are not out of the woods and may never be in our lifetimes. ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-the-government-itself-rebel-against-a-second-trump-presidency/999947/134 "2024-04-08T15:31:05Z")
> [@velomont](#): > > We are not out of the woods and may never be in our lifetimes I don’t disagree with this. I was just hoping that the MAGAs would split the Republican party, but there aren’t enough anti-MAGA republicans left to make that happen. There have always been some right-wing Republicans, guys like Barry Goldwater, but I don’t think he ever intended to take down democracy. He just wanted to impose his far-right political views on everyone else. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-the-government-itself-rebel-against-a-second-trump-presidency/999947/135 "2024-04-08T15:49:39Z")
Check out [these quotes from Goldwater](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Barry_Goldwater), who’d be a RINO in the eyes of today’s right wing. There aren’t enough conservatives in his mold any more to stem the rising tide of christofascists who’ll take over if Trump wins; and the rot has spread so deep, so far, that “the government” (federal, I assume) won’t do a damned thing other than, as noted above, [work to rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule), which might delay but won’t stop the evisceration of the system. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-the-government-itself-rebel-against-a-second-trump-presidency/999947/136 "2024-04-08T15:57:43Z")
Interesting, thanks for sharing. Yeah, he’d be run out of a MAGA rally on a rail. And his animus to the religious right was not tepid. “All good Christians should kick Jerry Falwell in the nuts.” Nice! ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-the-government-itself-rebel-against-a-second-trump-presidency/999947/137 "2024-04-08T16:05:12Z")
Re: Trump sending the military into urban areas. Technically it’s within his power to invoke the Sedition Act to do just that, and the language of said act is vague enough to allow leeway. Additionally, Trump has actually said that he will send troops into blue cities to quell any demonstrations. There is a bipartisan group of former government officials who are proposing major changes to the Sedition Act to limit the President’s authority to send U.S. military against the citizenry. Whether it gains any traction is anybody’s guess. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-the-government-itself-rebel-against-a-second-trump-presidency/999947/138 "2024-04-08T16:14:59Z")
I think these are the types of orders where it will get interesting. 4-star generals who have spent their lives serving and protecting Americans being ordered, for example, to open fire on protesters if need be. Do they just do it? I don’t think so. I think it will range from outright refusals to malicious compliance. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-the-government-itself-rebel-against-a-second-trump-presidency/999947/139 "2024-04-08T16:34:48Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Have you seen the Supreme Court lately? I assure you they’ll rule that Trump can pardon himself. Why the persistent, repeated assertions from multiple posters that the conservative justices on the Court must be Trumpians, who will violate all reason and law to _ad hoc_ uphold whatever Trump wants? I’m not seeing it. Conservative textualist/originalist does not equal Trumpian. > [@dolphinboy](#): > > Unfortunately, our outdated Electoral College System allows someone to become president even when they lose the general election by millions of votes, which makes no sense, and deeply worries me. Hillary Clinton received 2.9 million more votes than Donald Trump, out of ~128 million votes cast. That doesn’t strike me as enormously lopsided. And in 2020 Biden won both the popular and electoral majorities. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-the-government-itself-rebel-against-a-second-trump-presidency/999947/140 "2024-04-08T16:47:45Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > I think these are the types of orders where it will get interesting. 4-star generals who have spent their lives serving and protecting Americans being ordered, for example, to open fire on protesters if need be. Do they just do it? I don’t think so. I think it will range from outright refusals to malicious compliance. There is only one four star general in charge of operations within the U.S. That’s the commander of USNORTHCOM. So when it comes to combatant commanders he only needs one who is loyal. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-the-government-itself-rebel-against-a-second-trump-presidency/999947/141 "2024-04-08T16:55:55Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#): > > if Trump loses, I expect another very large “Stop the Steal” rally somewhere in Washington DC, only this time better armed and organized. Actually, armed rallies are tactically a _terrible_ idea. If you’re going to protest within the system, protest; and if you’re going to engage in armed rebellion, deploy like soldiers. But protesters bunched up in a mass surrounded on all sides by armed adversaries is a horrible position for trying to use armed force. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-the-government-itself-rebel-against-a-second-trump-presidency/999947.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-the-government-itself-rebel-against-a-second-trump-presidency/999947.md?page=8)