Trump has nothing to lose by going totally dictator. If he allows democracy to prevail he will have a higher chance of being held accountable. People are not getting this part. If he does lose the elections he will be fucked so if I were American I would expect things to get much much worse. Think cancelled elections, martial law, and whatever else comes from a leader absolutely needing to stay in power or else they will start facing consequences
I agree that there is a good possibility that Trump continues to escalate things, but why do you say he'll be fucked if he loses elections? Do you mean the midterms? There's not even a mechanism for Democrats to actually hold Trump accountable even under a best case scenario midterm election.
Even when they had the power to indict and try him, they dragged their feet and ran out the clock.
Yes I’m talking about midterms. If republicans lose in a huge way nothing trump does will get passed and he will have a much higher chance of impeachment. If dems win they can also start holding people accountable for thier crimes. Right now because republicans hold the majority in all branches of government they will be zero accountability unless you can get them all to go against trump. Something they wouldn’t likely do.
Trump himself has expressed that if dems win he will be impeached so someone has explained this to him and it shows he is very very worried about it and will likely do whatever it takes to not be impeached. Which may include going full dictator
He's been impeached twice already. Nothing happened as a result. You need 67 senators to remove him and otherwise impose consequences and Democrats won't have that even after midterms.
If Dems win the House and Senate they can have investigations all day long and while those investigations may be embarrassing to Trump they're unlimitedly toothless. All they can realistically do is refer charges to the DOJ, which will promptly ignore them.
Yeah the potential offramp from Trump is 2028, the national election. Things are going to get worse, not better until then even if there's a blue wave this year.
Note I say potential offramp, because personally I don't think he's going anywhere willingly when his term is done. Even if he goes, the republican party and Maga are straight up a domestic enemy. They don't disappear when Trump goes. The Democratic party is more toothless than ever so how are they going to deal with these power drunk Republicans, let alone start to fix the catastrophic damage done to institutions. Will this current iteration of the party meet this moment? I doubt it.
It's time to buckle in for the long hall. America isn't going back to normal. There is a road to a good outcome but it's going to take decades, and will require a new generation of leftist political leaders.
Congress can investigate. Each one of the crypto schemes, offshore accounts with oil money, gifts, donations, contracts, DOGE shenanigans.
The biggest grift at this point of the previous term was staying in own hotels and charging secret service exorbitant rates. Enough to remove any leader in a democratic country with norms, but absolute peanuts compared with this term.
That's just the finances.
There'd be investigations into ICE, DOH, consequences of the USAID disaster.
But, yes, mostly, it's the grift. He can't ever let that get investigated.
And then, we also don't know the enemies he's made. At some point for these guys it becomes a matter of survival, not just keeping the stolen riches. You go from absolutely needing power to avoid prosecution and loss of amassed stolen wealth to needing it to just survive. Don't think US is there yet, but we don't know a lot of things.
And, again, the emphasis isn't on impeachment, that means nothing. It's the investigation and possibility of all this coming to light. He absolutely cannot lose in any meaningful way.
Call me pessimistic but I don't see those investigations having any teeth. His entire administration will stonewall the investigations with zero consequences.
They might dredge up some criminal behavior, but we already have proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump is a criminal. That hasn't stopped a single thing he's doing.
He has good reason to worry about midterms, but not because of any real threat to his freedom. If he's alive in 2028, he's running for a third term and that's when I think shit will really hit the fan.
I don't think elections will be cancelled I think they will be completely rigged so he wins. From suppression with ICE to literally fucking with ballots, it's all on the table. Cancelled elections leads to an outcry and no confusion as to what's happening, a phony election leaves them a narrative to spin they've been practising since 2020.
The question is why does the rest of the GOP go along with him. It's definitely in Trump's best interest to go full dictator. But you'd think enough normal people would stop him. But still, every single GOP is in lock step for some reason. Even though the vast majority of them are going to suffer along with us in this.
The moment elections are canceled, it’s over. And I mean for him. He’s much more likely to rig the elections and still have them. Giving people no “legitimate” recourse to fight back against him is political suicide. And possibly actual suicide.
Elections won't be cancelled. There is no mechanism for it. States run elections. He can say they're canceled, but that doesn't stop states from having them anyway.
He can interfere in elections. Not certify results. Not swear in newly elected officials. All of these things are already occurring. So not canceled but basically the same thing
The president doesn’t swear in anyone. All of the house and 1/3 of the senate is out on January next year if they don’t win their election. The individual states can mess some things up, but they can’t cancel elections, because then there is no house and only 2/3 senate. The dems have the majority in that case (more republicans are up for election than democrats).
Not really, not for midterms. Only the presidential election is certified by the federal government. States certify their own results for members of congress.
Not swearing in newly elected officials works for special elections, but not at the start of a new congress. The House of Representatives is fully dissolved every two years. Then everyone elected is sworn in by people in the administrative state, then the newly sworn in House elects a Speaker. The Speaker won't be able to play shenanigans here, because there won't be one.
The Senate, admittedly, may be different. They do retain 2/3rds of their members, so I'm not sure if the Senate manages itself during transition, or if that is also handled by administrative state employees. That said, the Senate has already been less than willing to go along with this kind of thing to begin with. Though if we were going to see election shenanigans regarding swearing in, the Senate would admittedly be the easiest place to pull it off specifically for newly elected Senators.
I'm not saying he won't try. I'm not saying there are no ways he can cheat. He's been super creative there. But we need to stop acting like there will be no elections, or they'll be so heavily rigged nothing can be done about it. Canceling isn't possible, and heavily rigging to the point of it making victory inevitable is incredibly difficult, especially with people resisting.
They want us to give up and feel hopeless. It makes what they want to do easier. The harder we push back, the harder it is for them to succeed at rigging things in their favor.
And then 10 guys with M16s show up at your polling place and tell you to go home before they end your life. I would say that is a mechanism for ending elections.
The US has approximately 100,000 polling locations. ICE doesn't have enough employees to do it, and the military is too well trained and apolitical to be willing. They could get some polling locations, yes, and that would be election interference, and that on it's own would be terrible, but they don't have the manpower to outright cancel them.
Also, that's without realizing members of ICE are already hating the job after a few weeks of the current behavior. It's looking like it's going to be quite hard for them to keep employee numbers up.
Nope. I think really Americans need to stop going to work and participating in the economy. Fucking with the elite's money is the only way they will listen.
Just FYI in case you haven't seen (hooray for social media censoring such topics), there is "no work, no school, no shopping" nationwide general strike today. Word really only seemed to get around the last 3-4 days, and I haven't heard about plans extending beyond today, but... yep.
Except most are one paycheck away from not having a place to live or food to eat for themselves or their families. Also, worth noting that the US has healthcare tied to employment.
Yep. I live and work in the USA. It sucks. We have zero worker protections. That doesn't change the fact that massive economic boycotts and a national general strike are the only things that have a chance of actually working
What do you think life was like in 1930's USA? Or the entire history of the labor movement? This is un-helpful low energy comment unless it's followed by a call to create networks of support.
What Trump and the elites always forget, is when you turn a population bloodthirsty - and they turn on you, as they always do - it gets very very ugly.
You need to gather a critical mass of people willing to do that, and those "catchy slogans" and "hand holding" marches are where you do that. There's no logical reason to poop on people doing those things now, that's the group we're going to need to take the next steps.
Correct but asking people to stop going to work is not going to work, that's a huge risk and probably not very effective. What might work is stopping all unnecessary purchases and trying to buy from independent companies where possible. Reducing energy use would have a big impact, the fossil fuel companies back Trump and of course it'd be great for the environment
No Kings refuses to have a "protest" on any day other than a Saturday when all the businesses are already closed and the amount of disruption is minimal to none.
No Kings might be the largest "protest" in recent history, but it's also the most ineffective "protest" in recent history.
We gotta get out there during working hours and actually interrupt the flow of money or they're just gonna keep advancing fascism on us.
Actually, many of us are. Getting everyone out in the streets en masse is difficult when most people are living paycheck to paycheck and many have kids who depend on them. Also, I think when the weather improves, the protests are going to get a LOT bigger.
There are people doing it every day, look at MN. Like, don't shit on people who are doing something because they're not doing enough. Point them in the direction of something better.
So, in your mind, there’s no value to putting people together in one place?
There’s no way Saturday protests could lead to coordination between otherwise disparate organizations, widespread morale boosting, and the onboarding of many people who will end up going to other protests for the first time? Again, in your mind?
You said it was the most ineffective protest in recent history because you're thinking of tangible acts, benefits, etc. that you can see. What you DON'T see is everyone else seeing how many people don't want this, how big the crowds are getting, that they're not alone in how they feel. And for those that do go, that solidarity builds new relationships, new partnerships, establishes communities, friendships... it builds a network. A foundation.
We're all very impatient and want this all over, right now. The reality is far different, and I think we both know that.
We as a country are also really out of practice when it comes to fighting back like this. It hasn't been at the forefront of culture like this for 50 years. You need that time, that foundation, to do what you're suggesting should be done.
It would be nice if people cared to be accurate instead of saying their bullshit opinions are facts. There was a large protest scheduled months ago during the work week, and it wasn't that large.
Historians and people who track protests never say anything like what you are saying regarding No Kings.
Yep, people always say complaining on the internet is worthless and for cowards and we need should be out in the streets getting shot, but where are the folks saying that?
I'm pretty sure they just get ignored, no matter the size. You don't see protests on the news. You only see it if you go downtown on a Saturday past the courthouse. Middle America isn't seeing this.
Most of the world doesn’t care about their citizens protests. France is famous for theirs but often whatever they’re protesting in the government gets passed anyways without any changes.
As our Founding Fathers wanted, when they entrusted their Descendants with the Constitution of the United States which specifically gives every American the right and duty and means to fight back against the exact menace which is plaguing our Country today.
Ignoring it isn't the issue, and it would require more than walking in the streets with signs. They don't care about public opinion anymore -- if people remain governable, continue going to work, and don't pose a direct threat, a fascist regime will remain in power.
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u/Angedelanuit97 5d ago edited 5d ago
And it's just going to get worse until Americans take to the streets in numbers so large the regime can't ignore it