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OT: American Politics

axlsalinger said:
Here's a question for Mindz. For the most part blue states are funding red states. That's just a fact. And of course, they're blue meaning they already don't support Trump or the right. This will get more and more pronounced with millions of people having zero interest in having a President Camacho for life. There has been talk already about California seceding, which is highly unlikely.

New York + California is a massive economic engine and huge amount of people with no interest in being subjugated by this idiocy. There must be some things that can be done here.
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I mean to the extent America as we know it is 'saved' or 'salvaged' to any extent, I do think it will take a civil war...
 
One of the problems is that Americans are so myopic, and so generally clueless about the world outside of America, they don’t have any idea that Trump has destroyed the world order in 2 months.

And on the domestic stuff, it hasn’t hit home yet for enough people to matter. And when it does, Trump has history’s greatest bullshit firehose to foment hatred and blame it on somebody else.

So I don’t see much changing in terms of protests in the US.
 
G-Dub said:
No problem. I think your general point that we don't know how things will play out is fair enough. I think Democrats are almost certain to flip the House in 2026 (yes there will still be elections). Trump won't be on the ballot in 2028 no matter how much he pushes for it. He's still somewhat constrained by public opinion (immigration is his best issue and consequently where he's breaking the law the most). Things are already quite bad, but the fight is ongoing.
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whoa this is some surprising optimism - hope you are correct. I am more skeptical
 
axlsalinger said:
It's hard to predict anything because so many Republicans are incredibly craven and pathetic losers. But for my own mental health I would like to believe there are still a few with some basic human decency. I know for certain they're not all true believers.

If it becomes obvious that the American people are demanding action (let's say Trump's approval rating is below 30% and he's ordering people to be shot on the street) if you want to say it's possible the USA becomes a dictatorship you must say it's also possible that he could get impeached.

TLDR: I'm not saying it will happen, just that it is a possibility. Anything is possible because this situation is insane and unprecedented, and nobody knows what's going to happen.
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I think I get where you're coming from, but I lost my faith in the American people forever in the 2024 election. should have learned my lesson earlier I think, but like you I held out hope that they would come to their senses. I'm over that now though, just speaking for myself.
 
MindzEye said:
Here's where you and I are having our disconnect I think. You seem comfortable with the idea that the response to authoritarianism can be measured and slow in arriving. That resisting democratic backsliding can be something like two economic engines that are part of the whole can choose to do something like secede (in a nation where secession has no legal mechanism at all and the last secession crisis led to civil war that the power of the federal government won despite that version of it not being ready for war, at all).

To answer your question though, this is how that goes:

Secession:

Gavin Newsom says fuck this, we're seceding. Trump says "nuh uh that's insurrection" sends the military to Sacramento (as he would legally be able to under the Insurrection Act), has Newsom arrested, tried, and shot.

Slow rolling protests:

As soon as they get close to reaching critical mass, Trump will again use the insurrection act to deploy military and the now pliant military (because I assume we're talking about some time years from now in your scenario, the military will be fully, fully captured by then as a tool of executive power) will follow orders to shoot protesters. Shit will maybe pop off after that but this joke will become about "us" instead of "them" as it was intended:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOSqCjMRXWA

The thing about democratic backsliding is that if you don't stop it relatively early, you kind of don't stop it. That's why I seem so unhinged to you about this, because I'm too familiar with the history of successful vs unsuccessful attempts at sliding from democracy to authoritarianism and we're 8+ years into this direct attempt (with 50 years of legislative ground work laid to benefit the attempt), not 2 months as you've suggested. The US is at the tipping point right now, a year from now is just too late.
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I am not the slightest bit comfortable with anything going on down there. And I don't think you're unhinged. How many times do I have to say it, honestly?

The vast majority of Americans do not want to be subjugated. This includes many in the center and right as well. I am not saying there's an easy solution here, it may very well lead to a Civil War. I just asked you a question because there must be something these states can do, especially in a "states rights" country.

(sigh) I guess I have to say it again. You guys are deliberately lying about what I said. He has been president for 2 months in this term, not that Trumpism is 2 months old. Come on now.
 
MindzEye said:
Here's where you and I are having our disconnect I think. You seem comfortable with the idea that the response to authoritarianism can be measured and slow in arriving. That resisting democratic backsliding can be something like two economic engines that are part of the whole can choose to do something like secede (in a nation where secession has no legal mechanism at all and the last secession crisis led to civil war that the power of the federal government won despite that version of it not being ready for war, at all).

To answer your question though, this is how that goes:

Secession:

Gavin Newsom says fuck this, we're seceding. Trump says "nuh uh that's insurrection" sends the military to Sacramento (as he would legally be able to under the Insurrection Act), has Newsom arrested, tried, and shot.

Slow rolling protests:

As soon as they get close to reaching critical mass, Trump will again use the insurrection act to deploy military and the now pliant military (because I assume we're talking about some time years from now in your scenario, the military will be fully, fully captured by then as a tool of executive power) will follow orders to shoot protesters. Shit will maybe pop off after that but this joke will become about "us" instead of "them" as it was intended:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOSqCjMRXWA

The thing about democratic backsliding is that if you don't stop it relatively early, you kind of don't stop it. That's why I seem so unhinged to you about this, because I'm too familiar with the history of successful vs unsuccessful attempts at sliding from democracy to authoritarianism and we're 8+ years into this direct attempt (with 50 years of legislative ground work laid to benefit the attempt), not 2 months as you've suggested. The US is at the tipping point right now, a year from now is just too late.
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yah, the window to prevent the complete and total descent into authoritarianism is rapidly closing, IMO. hence the histrionics...
 
Truthfully, I see a civil war (one way or another) before anything gets resolved. Or I think the Republicans want the Democrats out of the US, so I think they will let the Blue States leave.

Too many guns, too many people. It will be bloody.
 
axlsalinger said:
If you guys will stop your war against math (we are literally 4.16% through his second term as President) then I withdraw the analogy because it doesn't reflect the previous years of Trumpism.
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I will happily concede that you have accurately stated how far into term two we are. and yes, it is just the beginning of what should be only a four-year term.

if anything though, this heightens my concern - the rate of change/destruction/chaos has been so rapid and in such a short period of time.

I think it took Hitler all of 53 days to effectively gut Germany's constitution/democracy? that's why so many of us are so concerned. Trumpco is destroying the federal government, administrative agencies, etc. at a crazy fast pace.

and once it's all destroyed, it's really hard to reassemble. even if the courts are onside.
 
axlsalinger said:
I am not the slightest bit comfortable with anything going on down there. And I don't think you're unhinged. How many times do I have to say it, honestly?
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I mean, you kind of do bro even if you don't get the implication of what you're saying elsewhere. But sure, we can set that aside for now.

axlsalinger said:
The vast majority of Americans do not want to be subjugated. This includes many in the center and right as well.
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They currently don't see themselves as subjugated. Neither do large populations of people in most authoritarian regimes. Putin is quite popular in Russia, it's taken the EU years of cutting funding to grind Orban down to the low 40's in popularity, etc.

I also think you're over estimating how unpopular an authoritarian has to be before their popularity matters once they have control of the power of the state. Maduro still has strong enough support in Caracas that he was just able to withstand straight out tearing up the results of an election he lost with only 30% support and just stating what he won the election and sending his goons and police into the streets to beat up and/or kill protesters. The other 70% of Venezuelans don't want to be subjugated either, but they don't get a vote, that's kind of the point of being an authoritarian.

axlsalinger said:
(sigh) I guess I have to say it again. You guys are deliberately lying about what I said. He has been president for 2 months in this term, not that Trumpism is 2 months old. Come on now.
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Nah, this ain't it.
 
Like I don’t see impeachment & removal in senate happening but if it did, I’m wondering if an administration that has declared they will ignore Congress’ power of the purse, and ignore SCOTUS… why wouldn’t they just declare that illegitimate and try to ignore it too? They have the military and federal law enforcement agencies and local police too as we saw at the Institute of Peace.
 
Wayward DP said:
whoa this is some surprising optimism - hope you are correct. I am more skeptical
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Tbh it's more of a "we're still in the fight" than outright optimism. I don't know what inning it is or what the final score will be. Just crisp, clean uncertainty outside of the specific predictions that I made.
 
hockeylover said:
Like I don’t see impeachment & removal in senate happening but if it did, I’m wondering if an administration that has declared they will ignore Congress’ power of the purse, and ignore SCOTUS… why wouldn’t they just declare that illegitimate and try to ignore it too? They have the military and federal law enforcement agencies and local police too as we saw at the Institute of Peace.
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i mean he's going to declare martial law soon enough anyways.
 
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