US Politics 2

Hope you enjoyed your time in the death cult, Herman. We particularly liked your Pokémon movie quotes and your tax plans inspired by SimCity. You will be remembered fondly as a dumb grifting chud. RIP.

Everyone knows the best way to run a city is to have 0% tax and let everyone in and then a few years later raise it to 100% tax and bulldoze all the exits so they can't escape.
Best mayor ever!

Memento Mori wrote:

twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1288843391065882629

Here's another violation of the Hatch Act.

Yeah but their Goya Bean pizza is the gooseberry fool

If Trump succeeds in delaying the election and deploys his Border Patrol SS goons to prevent Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi assuming power on January 20th, as per the constitution, that should be grounds for the people rising up in open insurrection.

Alvin Flummux wrote:If Trump succeeds in delaying the election and deploys his Border Patrol SS goons to prevent Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi assuming power on January 20th, as per the constitution, that should be grounds for the people rising up in open insurrection.

Surely we're not far off finding out it's really Palpatine.

Victor Mildew wrote:

Alvin Flummux wrote:If Trump succeeds in delaying the election and deploys his Border Patrol SS goons to prevent Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi assuming power on January 20th, as per the constitution, that should be grounds for the people rising up in open insurrection.

Surely we're not far off finding out it's really Palpatine.

I remember talking to Americans when I was in Japan. They were all sure everything would be fine because of the constitution but I pointed out it only works if the people running the government want to follow it.

Lex-Man wrote:

Victor Mildew wrote:

Alvin Flummux wrote:If Trump succeeds in delaying the election and deploys his Border Patrol SS goons to prevent Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi assuming power on January 20th, as per the constitution, that should be grounds for the people rising up in open insurrection.

Surely we're not far off finding out it's really Palpatine.

I remember talking to Americans when I was in Japan. They were all sure everything would be fine because of the constitution but I pointed out it only works if the people running the government want to follow it.

The Revolutions podcast is instructive on this point - over and over we see the many countries following the US down the path of revolution fall to corruption, civil war and dictatorships.

Constitutions are written up time and time again, but they don't stick, because the people in power don't want to be bound by them, feel ideologically alienated from them, or want to restore the old orders.

That the US has lasted this long, and still produces leaders like Obama, is remarkable. But Trump is setting a precedent, even if he is a clown who gets in his own way and will probably fail as a result - all it's going to take to bring the whole thing crashing down is an intelligent, eloquent Trumpist. Someone with the political savvy of McConnell and the oratorical ability of Obama.

That's all it would take to bring down quite a few countries though. A smart, impressive, charismatic speaker who is also a sociopath. Britain didn't even need that, we just let a buffoonish clown take over because he was a bit funny on TV once and he did the job for us.

Part of the problem is that a lot of people have already been corrupt in US office and basically been able to walk away from it. Nixon managed to get a pardon, Bush Jr did a lot to legitimise torture and walked away without so much as a slap on the wrist. If Trump actually admits defeat it'd be really bad for the US if he manages to get a deal and walk away, action needs to be taken.

Corazon de Leon wrote:That's all it would take to bring down quite a few countries though. A smart, impressive, charismatic speaker who is also a sociopath.

True enough, but never before has there seemed to be such an open, viable pathway to dictatorship in the US - despite there being many objectively awful presidents.

Always we've believed that the constitution would be defended, that the systems of checks and balances would hold strong, that no political party would back a tyrant, even from among their own ranks.

In the mid-19th century, the then-conservative Democrats made a hard right turn and followed the exact same path to tyranny that the Republicans are on now, and it destroyed them as a political force for a generation. IIRC it lead to a realignment of US politics and the formation of the Republican Party, but I may be wrong on that score.

Anyway, my point is - Trump and the Republicans are tearing up the constitution, checks and balances are being taken apart, laws we thought he couldn't break are being broken with impunity. They're pursuing power for its own sake, and none of the things we always thought would save us are working. The only saving grace of all this is Trump's own incompetence - he may be a blank slate for all the Stephen Millers and Karl Roves of the world, but he's always getting in his own way, strawberry floating things up in the process.

This links up with Lex-Man's point regarding punishments for crimes committed by high level politicians going unpunished for decades.

All future US presidents are going to be elected knowing that they can get away with far more than Trump's predecessors ever imagined, which leaves the door wide open for sociopathic populist wannabe-dictators in a way it never was before.

They may as well get rid of the Hatch Act for a start as Trump has pretty much made it pointless.

Or install literal hatches in Trump's homes while he's out golfing, so falls down one and dies.

Lex-Man wrote:Part of the problem is that a lot of people have already been corrupt in US office and basically been able to walk away from it. Nixon managed to get a pardon, Bush Jr did a lot to legitimise torture and walked away without so much as a slap on the wrist. If Trump actually admits defeat it'd be really bad for the US if he manages to get a deal and walk away, action needs to be taken.

President Logan also ordered a hit on the Russian ambassador while on US soil, and he ended up with a presidential retirement lodge to live out his days in.

twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1288907916020461569

Whatever floats your boat I guess.

Rex Kramer wrote:

twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1288907916020461569

Whatever floats your boat I guess.

The Trump supporters in the comments are all pretending Cain died of cancer.

Rex Kramer wrote:

twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1288907916020461569

Whatever floats your boat I guess.

Rex Kramer wrote:

twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1288907916020461569

Whatever floats your boat I guess.

This is probably why their Coronavirus figures are so bad. He wants loads of death so it gives him something to massage his mushroom with.

Alvin Flummux wrote:

Corazon de Leon wrote:That's all it would take to bring down quite a few countries though. A smart, impressive, charismatic speaker who is also a sociopath.

True enough, but never before has there seemed to be such an open, viable pathway to dictatorship in the US - despite there being many objectively awful presidents.

Always we've believed that the constitution would be defended, that the systems of checks and balances would hold strong, that no political party would back a tyrant, even from among their own ranks.

In the mid-19th century, the then-conservative Democrats made a hard right turn and followed the exact same path to tyranny that the Republicans are on now, and it destroyed them as a political force for a generation. IIRC it lead to a realignment of US politics and the formation of the Republican Party, but I may be wrong on that score.

Anyway, my point is - Trump and the Republicans are tearing up the constitution, checks and balances are being taken apart, laws we thought he couldn't break are being broken with impunity. They're pursuing power for its own sake, and none of the things we always thought would save us are working. The only saving grace of all this is Trump's own incompetence - he may be a blank slate for all the Stephen Millers and Karl Roves of the world, but he's always getting in his own way, strawberry floating things up in the process.

This links up with Lex-Man's point regarding punishments for crimes committed by high level politicians going unpunished for decades.

All future US presidents are going to be elected knowing that they can get away with far more than Trump's predecessors ever imagined, which leaves the door wide open for sociopathic populist wannabe-dictators in a way it never was before.

I think you’re quite prone to taking a worst-case scenario approach, which I would prefer not to do for the sake of my own sanity more than anything else!

If he’s elected in November, then perhaps I’ll agree with you. Until then, it remains to be seen whether he will have any lasting impact beyond being a joke of a President.

It’s extremely difficult to get an indictment against a sitting President - look at Watergate - and Nixon was given a presidential pardon for his crimes. The co-conspirators weren’t exactly punished to a high degree either.

We’ve already seen punishments handed out to some of the people involved in the Trump administration, and it will not surprise me if this intensifies after November, should he be outed as President.

So I don’t think that the door is wide open for any old sociopath to take a punt at the presidency. There are still more than enough checks and balances to stop that from happening, and power is still decentralised enough through the House and the Supreme Court that such a president would still have difficulty enacting some of the more...unconstitutional policies that they might wish to enact.

That’s not to say there isn’t a real danger of the country going up the spout, though. I think America is at a tipping point really. Do the right thing and get Trump out, prosecute him and his administration for any crimes that have been committed, and they can get back on track. If he’s re-elected, well they’re strawberry floated.

Corazon de Leon wrote:I think you’re quite prone to taking a worst-case scenario approach, which I would prefer not to do for the sake of my own sanity more than anything else!

If he’s elected in November, then perhaps I’ll agree with you. Until then, it remains to be seen whether he will have any lasting impact beyond being a joke of a President.

I am definitely prone to pessimism in certain aspects of my worldview, that's true. However, I would prefer not to repeat 2016's run of misplaced optimism followed by deep trenches of crippling depression. To that end, my view has certainly grown bleaker.

Corazon de Leon wrote:It’s extremely difficult to get an indictment against a sitting President - look at Watergate - and Nixon was given a presidential pardon for his crimes. The co-conspirators weren’t exactly punished to a high degree either.

They didn't need to be given slaps on the wrist, they could and should have had the book thrown at them. After they left office, this was eminently doable. That it wasn't done set a horrible example, which was taken advantage of by every subsequent president, with the exception of Carter.

Corazon de Leon wrote:So I don’t think that the door is wide open for any old sociopath to take a punt at the presidency. There are still more than enough checks and balances to stop that from happening, and power is still decentralised enough through the House and the Supreme Court that such a president would still have difficulty enacting some of the more...unconstitutional policies that they might wish to enact.

Maybe not any old sociopath, but an intelligent populist who can take full advantage of white resentment, and make full use of the powers of the branches of government they control (plus all the new illegal gooseberry fool that they now know won't get prosecuted) without constantly tripping over him or herself - that's the threat that lies after Trump.

Couple of points to make - I completely agree with you about the pardon system, no president should have the power to pardon someone outside the justice system’s remit. It’s a ridiculous power to give one man, and completely open to abuse. However, I would argue quite strongly that Ford’s pardoning of Watergate conspirators is not an exception or even something that was out of the ordinary for the time. LBJ pardoned 1,187 people, including a congressman convicted of bribery at the request of RFK(whose brother pardoned 575 people in less than three years). Jimmy Carter also doesn’t get away with it - he pardoned G Gordon Liddy, a Watergate conspirator. And, err, Jefferson Davis as well.

Also, I still disagree that the system is more exposed now as unimpeachably corrupt and to be taken advantage of. It’s always been subject to exploitation, but it’s also still incredibly difficult to actually get anything done without it being labelled as unconstitutional. So long as the US remains obsessed with the bill of rights, I don’t think it will fall to complete fascism.