We've been saying this stuff since 2016, and it feels like some autotherapeutic, self-convincing gibberish that a victim chained in the basement whispers over and over. And when the rapist comes kicking in the door, they be like "but, but... this ain't right..."
We should stop hypothesizing and assume he'd do the worst, because as the (recent) history shows, he'd do much worse than anyone ever expected. Because the guy is a psychopath. He doesn't care about laws, words, or ethical norms.
Hypothesizing? He has failed to pardon people convicted in state courts already, because he doesn't have the power to do it. This isn't some untested hypothetical. He issued a pardon for Peters in Colorado and it didn't stand. Why? Because she was convicted in a state court.
dafuk you're saying? We have a nonsensical president in office and I'm pretty sure the way the midterms are seemingly going, he's not going to accept the results. You don't need to have a wild imagination, at this point it's the most sense-making assumption. We have a guy who broke the law before, breaking the law as we speak, and guaranteed to break the law again. That is not nonsense - that is at this point common sense.
What I wrote in my first comment (restated for clarity):
> Trump cannot pardon people for state crimes.
You responded suggesting that I'm just hypothesizing. Suggesting that you believe he can pardon people for state crimes.
I responded with a comment pointing out that he has tried to pardon people for state, not federal, crimes and failed. That's dafuk I'm saying. I'm not hypothesizing, he has tried to do it, and failed to do it. You're the one hypothesizing about things that are the opposite of what has happened in reality.
He does not have absolute power. Is he a terrible president? Yes. Has he committed crimes? Certainly. Is his power absolute? Again, no. You're not operating in reality if you think it is. He has been checked on numerous things during this term. Enough things? No, but he does not have absolute power. So stop acting like he does.
Checks and balances are working. He hasn't been able to achieve nearly close to everything that he would achieve if he was actually unrestrained. For example, the system didn't let him become President in 2021, since the system believed that he had not been elected. There isn't much reason to think that Trump will suddenly figure out how to get past the system.
What the fuck are you guys even talking about? Have you not following the news of the past (not even years, months and weeks)?
He's been routinely breaking the rules.
- Two impeachments landed nowhere.
- Mueller report - at least 10 episodes of obstruction of justice, DOJ gave him not even a slap on the wrist.
- Border wall national emergency declaration.
- Executive actions and shuttering agencies. USAID, the Department of Education, CFPB, USAGM/Voice of America. Several courts ruled these actions unlawful, and what? Where's USAID today?
- Challenging election results. He openly pressured Pence to reject certified electors.
- Illegally kidnapping sitting president.
- Illegal war.
- Illegal deportations.
- National Guard deployment in Los Angeles.
- cutting Harvard's funding.
- January 6 pardons and other pardons of allies.
- Firing sitting FBI director.
This isn't even a comprehensive list. Imagining just about any other president doing any of that, walking free and keeping the power seemed inconceivable before. Check and balances clearly not fucking working! Not with this motherfucker.
I don't like many of those things, but many of those things are not illegal. Many were done by previous Presidents as well (that doesn't mean they're good, but it does mean they're not without President). None of them mean that Trump has escaped checks and balances in a way that seriously endangers the system.
For example, as far as I know the war is not technically illegal. And wars of this nature have been done by many previous Presidents.
I don't know why firing the FBI director would constitute getting past the system. Trump's the head of the executive branch after all.
Executive actions have been widely used by previous Presidents. Should they be more limited? I think so, if it was up to me I'd probably reduce the power of the Presidency in general. But Trump wouldn't be able to, for example, use an executive action to allow himself to run for a third term. If he tried, people would just laugh at him.
National Guard deployment in Los Angeles is within the President's normally agreed-on authority and did not lead to any sort of danger to democracy.
Well, forced deportation of Jews into camps was "legal" too. The Enabling Act of 1933 let the executive make laws without the Reichstag. After that, legality measured nothing. So the test for checks and balances is not "was it legal?" The test is "can courts, Congress, and watchdogs still stop the executive?"
If you're not seeing "any sort of danger to democracy", you're either deliberately blind to what's going on, or you're simply supporting the regime, in which case I see no difference.
>Well, forced deportation of Jews into camps was "legal" too.
Yes, but Nazi atrocities would not be legal in our system. And Trump does not have enough hard-core supporters to make it legal to send his political opponents to concentration camps.
>If you're not seeing "any sort of danger to democracy", you're either deliberately blind to what's going on, or you're simply supporting the regime, in which case I see no difference.
I see potential dangers to democracy coming from the Trump administration, but no serious ones. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to fight against the potential dangers, it just means that the chance that Trump will actually end democracy in the US is very low.
I'm not a Trump supporter, I just don't believe that the system is at any serious risk from Trump.
> Yes, but Nazi atrocities would not be legal in our system.
As I already pointed out, shit doesn't have to be "legal" (or otherwise) to be bad or immoral. Separating migrant kids (just one of the many examples) from their parents is not "legal", yet it has happened, it is happening now, and will continue - that's the deliberate plan for this admin.
> I just don't believe that the system is at any serious risk
I assure you, US citizens who were deported and got separated from their kids do have a completely different perspective. Democracy is essentially and practically dead in the US, at least for some categories of Americans.
It is bad that some US citizens have been wrongly deported, but it does not mean that democracy is dead in general or for some categories of Americans, unless maybe you mean specifically the category of Americans who are US citizens and have been falsely deported. Which is a very small category. I am not claiming that US democracy is perfect. I am claiming that Trump is very unlikely to topple US democracy over.
Has Trump done things that are questionably legal or flat-out illegal? Yes. Has Trump ever managed to come close to overthrowing US democracy? No. None of his partial or full violations of the law have come anywhere close to overthrowing US democracy.
Nah, lol. The Constitution says "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice". So even if, hypothetically, he got cheated in 2020, the fact remains that he has already been elected twice. If it turns out that he has actually been elected three times and got cheated out of one of those times, he still clearly can't become President again.
Trump himself seems to acknowledge this but seems to be making the argument of "it's not fair I got cheated, they should make it up to me by letting me run again".
Well, no. The Constitution is very clear. If you want to run again you're gonna need a Constitutional amendment.
The law isn’t self servicing. What the Constitution says only matters if it is actually enforced, and whether anyone is willing and able to do that is very much unclear.
I feel like debating whether he even can run for a third term makes the premise that he got cheated on accepted. Pretty sure there’s some kind of manipulation in there to make people forget that he lost 2020
Sorry, when I was talking about manipulation I was not implying that you specifically were trying to do that. I just feel when reading some media that the kind of "2020 election theft" bullshit gets less and less challenged every time it gets thrown in the air. Not saying you’re defending it, I’m just tired of Trump as a whole I guess…
I find that my attention gets drawn to the opposite phenomenon: it is very common for mainstream newspapers to call Trump's election fraud claims false right as they describe those claims. I mean sentences like "Trump falsely claimed that the election...". This always draws my attention because the same newspapers do not usually do this when public figures claim something false, so it sticks out like a sore thumb. I don't think the election was stolen from Trump, but when newspapers do this it makes me feel like they're treating me like an idiot who has to be verbally manipulated into thinking that the election wasn't stolen from Trump. Rather annoying.
if you occupy the office of vice president and something happens to the unfortunate president elect, i heard the VP is acting prez. imnot sure of the particulars, but im thinking about a case where someone having been elected for two terms, becomes a VP, and supersedes the elected president, due to terrible circumstances.
lol. Even among a party crowded with self-serving grifters and imbeciles, who would be insane enough to nominate Trump as VP? The mind boggles at the thought.
I would assume that even if theoretically Trump did serve as VP, in the event of the President's death he wouldn't be able to step in and they would just go up the line of succession. He would remain VP indefinitely.
I assume that's how it's supposed to work. Who knows how it would actually work? SCOTUS might just decide it's fine because the Constitution doesn't explicitly say otherwise, or something.
The 12th amendment text suggests he couldn't be VP because he is ineligible to be elected president under the 22nd amendment, and the 12th requires the VP to be eligible to be president. But that's about elections.
He could be appointed to the VP, potentially, but that would mean the Republicans would have to put up a ticket with the intent of the elected VP resigning so the elected President can nominate Trump as his new VP. Then get Congress to confirm Trump, which would require a Republican majority in both houses. The new VP would have to be onboard with this, or not onboard but have so many skeletons in their closet that a resignation can be forced. Which would make them a bad running mate and drag the ticket down.
I think there are many, many more things people think he can't do that he hasn't actually been able to do. The number of things people think he can't do and that he has done is tiny compared to the number of things people think he can't do and that he actually can't do.
The vast majority of things that Trump does are things that people actually think he can do.
I mean, it is theoretically possible that he becomes an absolute dictator. But so many people would have to change their minds for that to happen that in practice it is very unlikely.
> But so many people would have to change their minds for that to happen that in practice it is very unlikely.
In his previous administration there were at least some checks and balances. This administration is completely unethical in all kind of levels. Frankly I won't be holding my breath.
The courts have ruled against a number of this administration's actions, that's the "checks" in checks and balances at work here. His power is not absolute despite what you may read in many HN comments.
EDIT: And if you really think his power is absolute, then how is Kilmar Abrego Garcia still in the US?
First: Trump lost in 2020. He lost. He didn't have it taken from him, he lost. I don't know if he's too much of a narcissist to admit that, or too surrounded by yes men to actually hear the truth, but he lost.
But second, even (in an alternate universe) if he had been cheated in 2020, what he gets to make up for it is the right to run in 2024. That's it. There is no actual logic (legal or otherwise) where he gets a third term on top of this one.
No. Just no. In fact, not only no, but "no" with some other words that I shouldn't say in front of the impressionable youngsters here on HN.
If he tries, and the courts don't stop him, it's going to be a civil war. (Or it won't, which arguably might be worse.)
Mmhmm, and here comes the media sanewashing….
Guess this’ll be the ultimate test of just how compromised SCOTUS is.
The local ultimate
words are words. i'm holding my breath until the national guard gets called out and they declare martial law.
given just how many felonies he's facing if he loses -- probably gonna happen.
What felonies? Per SCOTUS nothing he does in office is a crime. Also he can simply pardon himself.
That's not what the decision said, and the pardon is only for federal crimes. He doesn't have the power to protect himself from states.
> He doesn't have the power
We've been saying this stuff since 2016, and it feels like some autotherapeutic, self-convincing gibberish that a victim chained in the basement whispers over and over. And when the rapist comes kicking in the door, they be like "but, but... this ain't right..."
We should stop hypothesizing and assume he'd do the worst, because as the (recent) history shows, he'd do much worse than anyone ever expected. Because the guy is a psychopath. He doesn't care about laws, words, or ethical norms.
> We should stop hypothesizing
Hypothesizing? He has failed to pardon people convicted in state courts already, because he doesn't have the power to do it. This isn't some untested hypothetical. He issued a pardon for Peters in Colorado and it didn't stand. Why? Because she was convicted in a state court.
Stop spewing nonsense.
> Stop spewing nonsense.
dafuk you're saying? We have a nonsensical president in office and I'm pretty sure the way the midterms are seemingly going, he's not going to accept the results. You don't need to have a wild imagination, at this point it's the most sense-making assumption. We have a guy who broke the law before, breaking the law as we speak, and guaranteed to break the law again. That is not nonsense - that is at this point common sense.
> dafuk you're saying?
What I wrote in my first comment (restated for clarity):
> Trump cannot pardon people for state crimes.
You responded suggesting that I'm just hypothesizing. Suggesting that you believe he can pardon people for state crimes.
I responded with a comment pointing out that he has tried to pardon people for state, not federal, crimes and failed. That's dafuk I'm saying. I'm not hypothesizing, he has tried to do it, and failed to do it. You're the one hypothesizing about things that are the opposite of what has happened in reality.
He does not have absolute power. Is he a terrible president? Yes. Has he committed crimes? Certainly. Is his power absolute? Again, no. You're not operating in reality if you think it is. He has been checked on numerous things during this term. Enough things? No, but he does not have absolute power. So stop acting like he does.
> he does not have absolute power.
And that's the point! He's inflicting SO MUCH damage even without it. I don't even want to imagine what he'd do if he'd had it.
Checks and balances are working. He hasn't been able to achieve nearly close to everything that he would achieve if he was actually unrestrained. For example, the system didn't let him become President in 2021, since the system believed that he had not been elected. There isn't much reason to think that Trump will suddenly figure out how to get past the system.
> how to get past the system.
What the fuck are you guys even talking about? Have you not following the news of the past (not even years, months and weeks)?
He's been routinely breaking the rules.
- Two impeachments landed nowhere.
- Mueller report - at least 10 episodes of obstruction of justice, DOJ gave him not even a slap on the wrist.
- Border wall national emergency declaration.
- Executive actions and shuttering agencies. USAID, the Department of Education, CFPB, USAGM/Voice of America. Several courts ruled these actions unlawful, and what? Where's USAID today?
- Challenging election results. He openly pressured Pence to reject certified electors.
- Illegally kidnapping sitting president.
- Illegal war.
- Illegal deportations.
- National Guard deployment in Los Angeles.
- cutting Harvard's funding.
- January 6 pardons and other pardons of allies.
- Firing sitting FBI director.
This isn't even a comprehensive list. Imagining just about any other president doing any of that, walking free and keeping the power seemed inconceivable before. Check and balances clearly not fucking working! Not with this motherfucker.
I don't like many of those things, but many of those things are not illegal. Many were done by previous Presidents as well (that doesn't mean they're good, but it does mean they're not without President). None of them mean that Trump has escaped checks and balances in a way that seriously endangers the system.
For example, as far as I know the war is not technically illegal. And wars of this nature have been done by many previous Presidents.
I don't know why firing the FBI director would constitute getting past the system. Trump's the head of the executive branch after all.
Executive actions have been widely used by previous Presidents. Should they be more limited? I think so, if it was up to me I'd probably reduce the power of the Presidency in general. But Trump wouldn't be able to, for example, use an executive action to allow himself to run for a third term. If he tried, people would just laugh at him.
National Guard deployment in Los Angeles is within the President's normally agreed-on authority and did not lead to any sort of danger to democracy.
Etc.
Well, forced deportation of Jews into camps was "legal" too. The Enabling Act of 1933 let the executive make laws without the Reichstag. After that, legality measured nothing. So the test for checks and balances is not "was it legal?" The test is "can courts, Congress, and watchdogs still stop the executive?"
If you're not seeing "any sort of danger to democracy", you're either deliberately blind to what's going on, or you're simply supporting the regime, in which case I see no difference.
>Well, forced deportation of Jews into camps was "legal" too.
Yes, but Nazi atrocities would not be legal in our system. And Trump does not have enough hard-core supporters to make it legal to send his political opponents to concentration camps.
>If you're not seeing "any sort of danger to democracy", you're either deliberately blind to what's going on, or you're simply supporting the regime, in which case I see no difference.
I see potential dangers to democracy coming from the Trump administration, but no serious ones. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to fight against the potential dangers, it just means that the chance that Trump will actually end democracy in the US is very low.
I'm not a Trump supporter, I just don't believe that the system is at any serious risk from Trump.
> Yes, but Nazi atrocities would not be legal in our system.
As I already pointed out, shit doesn't have to be "legal" (or otherwise) to be bad or immoral. Separating migrant kids (just one of the many examples) from their parents is not "legal", yet it has happened, it is happening now, and will continue - that's the deliberate plan for this admin.
> I just don't believe that the system is at any serious risk
I assure you, US citizens who were deported and got separated from their kids do have a completely different perspective. Democracy is essentially and practically dead in the US, at least for some categories of Americans.
It is bad that some US citizens have been wrongly deported, but it does not mean that democracy is dead in general or for some categories of Americans, unless maybe you mean specifically the category of Americans who are US citizens and have been falsely deported. Which is a very small category. I am not claiming that US democracy is perfect. I am claiming that Trump is very unlikely to topple US democracy over.
Has Trump done things that are questionably legal or flat-out illegal? Yes. Has Trump ever managed to come close to overthrowing US democracy? No. None of his partial or full violations of the law have come anywhere close to overthrowing US democracy.
> Which is a very small category.
There is a certain poem that you should read.
Nah, lol. The Constitution says "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice". So even if, hypothetically, he got cheated in 2020, the fact remains that he has already been elected twice. If it turns out that he has actually been elected three times and got cheated out of one of those times, he still clearly can't become President again.
Trump himself seems to acknowledge this but seems to be making the argument of "it's not fair I got cheated, they should make it up to me by letting me run again".
Well, no. The Constitution is very clear. If you want to run again you're gonna need a Constitutional amendment.
The law isn’t self servicing. What the Constitution says only matters if it is actually enforced, and whether anyone is willing and able to do that is very much unclear.
Can we also not forget that he did NOT get cheated? He lost the election, and is incapable of producing proof of wrongdoing because there aren’t any.
He’s a dangerous lunatic.
I don't think anyone here is claiming that he got cheated.
I feel like debating whether he even can run for a third term makes the premise that he got cheated on accepted. Pretty sure there’s some kind of manipulation in there to make people forget that he lost 2020
>I feel like debating whether he even can run for a third term makes the premise that he got cheated on accepted.
Only if the readers are incapable of understanding hypotheticals. Also, like Jtsummers said, I'm not even debating it.
Sorry, when I was talking about manipulation I was not implying that you specifically were trying to do that. I just feel when reading some media that the kind of "2020 election theft" bullshit gets less and less challenged every time it gets thrown in the air. Not saying you’re defending it, I’m just tired of Trump as a whole I guess…
I find that my attention gets drawn to the opposite phenomenon: it is very common for mainstream newspapers to call Trump's election fraud claims false right as they describe those claims. I mean sentences like "Trump falsely claimed that the election...". This always draws my attention because the same newspapers do not usually do this when public figures claim something false, so it sticks out like a sore thumb. I don't think the election was stolen from Trump, but when newspapers do this it makes me feel like they're treating me like an idiot who has to be verbally manipulated into thinking that the election wasn't stolen from Trump. Rather annoying.
> I feel like debating whether he even can run for a third term
hax0ron3 didn't debate it, though. They said, unequivocally, that Trump can't be president a third time. From the top comment in this thread:
>> he still clearly can't become President again
Where's the debate? It's certainly not in that comment.
if you occupy the office of vice president and something happens to the unfortunate president elect, i heard the VP is acting prez. imnot sure of the particulars, but im thinking about a case where someone having been elected for two terms, becomes a VP, and supersedes the elected president, due to terrible circumstances.
lol. Even among a party crowded with self-serving grifters and imbeciles, who would be insane enough to nominate Trump as VP? The mind boggles at the thought.
I would assume that even if theoretically Trump did serve as VP, in the event of the President's death he wouldn't be able to step in and they would just go up the line of succession. He would remain VP indefinitely.
I assume that's how it's supposed to work. Who knows how it would actually work? SCOTUS might just decide it's fine because the Constitution doesn't explicitly say otherwise, or something.
The 12th amendment text suggests he couldn't be VP because he is ineligible to be elected president under the 22nd amendment, and the 12th requires the VP to be eligible to be president. But that's about elections.
He could be appointed to the VP, potentially, but that would mean the Republicans would have to put up a ticket with the intent of the elected VP resigning so the elected President can nominate Trump as his new VP. Then get Congress to confirm Trump, which would require a Republican majority in both houses. The new VP would have to be onboard with this, or not onboard but have so many skeletons in their closet that a resignation can be forced. Which would make them a bad running mate and drag the ticket down.
Everyone has been saying he can’t do most of the things he does on a regular basis. I won’t rule out a 4th term, either.
I think there are many, many more things people think he can't do that he hasn't actually been able to do. The number of things people think he can't do and that he has done is tiny compared to the number of things people think he can't do and that he actually can't do.
The vast majority of things that Trump does are things that people actually think he can do.
I mean, it is theoretically possible that he becomes an absolute dictator. But so many people would have to change their minds for that to happen that in practice it is very unlikely.
> But so many people would have to change their minds for that to happen that in practice it is very unlikely.
In his previous administration there were at least some checks and balances. This administration is completely unethical in all kind of levels. Frankly I won't be holding my breath.
The system has plenty of checks and balances that are outside of his administration.
The courts have ruled against a number of this administration's actions, that's the "checks" in checks and balances at work here. His power is not absolute despite what you may read in many HN comments.
EDIT: And if you really think his power is absolute, then how is Kilmar Abrego Garcia still in the US?
Constitutions can be changed by other means. See Saddam, Gadhafi etc. Trump's story is heading in a similar direction.
No, it's not.
I wonder how much of it is his incessant spite vs trolling vs saying something to see himself in the news cycle
No. No. NO. That is not how any of this works.
First: Trump lost in 2020. He lost. He didn't have it taken from him, he lost. I don't know if he's too much of a narcissist to admit that, or too surrounded by yes men to actually hear the truth, but he lost.
But second, even (in an alternate universe) if he had been cheated in 2020, what he gets to make up for it is the right to run in 2024. That's it. There is no actual logic (legal or otherwise) where he gets a third term on top of this one.
No. Just no. In fact, not only no, but "no" with some other words that I shouldn't say in front of the impressionable youngsters here on HN.
If he tries, and the courts don't stop him, it's going to be a civil war. (Or it won't, which arguably might be worse.)
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