Nah, hiring private hoodlums isn’t an official act of the Presidency, but running the FBI is.
Finally had the energy to open this thread and came to post this. I’m shook.
I wasn’t surprised in the least when they overturned Roe. The conservative justices have been transparent about acting on social issues.
But them being all in on authoritarianism surprises me and is pretty fucking grim. The core idea of checks and balances between branches is now almost completely shattered.
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We deserve the Big Mac attack
History and tradition of private mercs tho
Unless of course the President pardons them, which I would assume is a core function of the Presidency and therefore immune from any kind of scrutiny.
People other than the POTUS will still be following the law even when the POTUS doesn’t.
What will stop Trump from firing those who follow the law until he finds someone who will do what he wants? If you look at how his cabinet appointments evolved over the course of his first term he was learning to value loyalty over competence and accomplishments in his picks. He’s basically said that he’s going on a political revenge tour, and if he can successfully ruin those who were involved in the impeachment or campaigned against him it will have a chilling effect on those who would stand in the way of further crimes.
Democracy, such as it is, is not going to end in the USA. People aren’t going to be put in camps because they voted for Biden. Trump is not going to have a third term. But there are still plenty of reasons to panic.
22nd amendment is a massive hurdle but we really don’t know, I feel like he would have 3 or 4 votes on the Supreme Court today to overrule it. At a minimum if Republicans get a trifecta the rules will be further slanted in dozens of ways that make today’s gerrymandering and electoral college a small speedbump by comparison. It may not be a third term with Trump’s age, and instead Tulsi or another Putin agent in a Medvedev like follow up, but I think permanent minority rule is likely and Project 2025 is going to be a real thing.
I wouldn’t sweat it. The job of President of the United States is a somber one, and our democratic system ensures that only those deeply serious statesmen could ever attain such a venerable position. These selfless public servants would never behave unethically or in a self-serving fashion, so the fact that they are no longer constrained by law to any degree is not something to be concerned with.
If, in the extremely unlikely chance that a President behaves poorly, our sacred institutions will be there to prevent any sort of crisis, constitutional or otherwise. The bedrock of American democracy is strong.
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lol
This, and also no one cares if Trump’s replaceable toadies somehow get prosecuted. Steve Bannon is off to jail, we had months of J6 dipshits getting put away, it’s not slowing down the fascism train at all.
I guess a lot of 4+ year timescale bets aren’t going to work, but sounds like you are all VERY sure there can’t be a Democrat as president after a 2028 election and I’m sure you’re willing to give out very good odds on that. If Trump wins this election, come back to me and maybe we can work something out. Seems like you’d be happy to offer something like 10 to 1.
2028 will be Don Jr. (R) vs. Ivanka (D)
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You can give me 10 to 1 and have Republicans + Trump children.
By 28 there are going to be an awful lot of Trump Youth imo
Zero protest. Zero backlash. One day of news stories.
SCOTUS ends American democracy and gives itself god like powers in one of the worst terms in US history and the people do not give even the tiniest fuck.
When the people don’t care you can only conclude they are getting what they want.
Lots of people do care from my anecdotal experience but we all feel the same way which is that there is nothing to be done at the national level so might as well sit back and enjoy the show. The Dems have successfully blocked off the path for any real progress left in the US and so taking any of the normal steps feels pointless (and probably is).
Yeah I assumed at the end of the day most of them (maybe Alito and Thomas aside) wanted a stable system with stable elite power. Looking at an ex-President who basically tried to do a coup and being like “look if you try to do a military coup, we just want you to know there will guaranteed be no personal consequences if it fails” is like… I don’t know what’s more alarming, that they haven’t really thought through the consequences of this or that they have. But it seems pretty clear they have, because they obviously didn’t have to do this.
It seems like they just want to live in a world where they can have a conservative monarch. The mind rebels at this conclusion, because you would think educated people would understand the dangers of this. It’s just really hard to draw any other conclusion from this decision, though.
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Dems suck but Republicans suck a lot worse. The only reasons Dems can block challenges from the left are
- Many voters are looking for any excuse to vote Republican.
- Stupid artifacts of our history like electoral college and disproportional representation giving outsized political influence to rural areas
- Stupid aspects of our culture like fanatical evangelist Christians and gun nuts
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Reading that Howard Zinn American history book. Here’s what happens over and over
Band shit happens
Some heroes speak out / act out against it early
Those people get murdered
10 years later the ideas they get murdered for come to fruition
We are at the step two time frame
I’m not dying for this shit hole country.
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This is the part that chills me the most. There has been a lot of talk about the president using the justice system to go after his enemies, they would eventually need to found guilty by a jury so there is some eventual justice there hopefully.
But having the ability to ensure your minions that they will not face consequences for there actions is by far the scariest part of the SC ruling and is almost guaranteed to lead to a wave of violence. And while the president can’t protect his thugs from state level crimes he might not need to in friendly red states.
We really are in the midst of a slow moving coup led by 6 conservatives sitting on the highest court in the land and they all know exactly what they are doing. Whoever the eventual nominee is, Biden or what have you, this point needs to be made above all others. And you go right after the justices. If they voted out of fear or favor, what ever there reason, they should be held accountable. Whoever has the megaphone needs to hammer it home over and over again. This supreme Court is trying to rip your democracy away from you. You don’t even need to make it about Trump, let everyone know that this absolutely corrupted supreme Court, and there God damn orginalism, is ripping up the constitution and throwing in the trash in favor of absolute power of the guy of there choice. If there is only one original idea left olin the constitution even a third grader could tell you that we don’t have fucking kings in America. Bunch of absolute clowns. They deserve no deference, no respect, and no such civility. Go after them, go after them hard, make public life embarrassing. LET THEM FEEL THE FEAR OF VIOLENCE IN PUBLIC!!!
As bad as Trump is, I am more terrified of what a more competent idealoug will do this power. Good luck to us all.
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The SC gave Biden the authority to have the IRS audit Thomas. That’s one less extremist judge and he can replace him if he gets re-elected. But of course, he won’t