We should play the long game and try to curry favour with Barron Trump (hope I spelled it right)
Actually it will be spelled something like "His High lordship, Protector of the Americas and Defender of the White Christian Faith, Emperor Barron Trump"
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Fuzz - "He didn't speak to the media before the election, either."
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He didn't declare it, and he didn't look for a judicial approval for anything. He's moving fast on all fronts, too fast for an unorganized opposition to realize what's happening and do something.
He's already acting as if the coup has already happened. Him and his administration are already doing obviously illegal things, and even going directly against the constitution. (The president can not give orders that are in conflict with what congress has decided, so he can't just for example shut down the funding for anything that has congress approval.)
He could of course ask the congress to rubber stamp his decisions, but that would be a bad move, as it would imply the congress has power over his decisions.
The plan (certainly not his plan, but the plan of his administration) seems to be mostly working. People in government are already acting as if Trump has the power to do what he wants, and that belief is what makes power real.
Basically the plan I laid out in this thread at one point. Replace the government administration with loyalists who will do what they are told, and then all he needs from congress is to not get in the way. He doesn't even need a majority of the congress behind him, he just needs enough support to keep congress from actively getting in his way.
The way he's going after army and intelligence leadership is what makes it really, really obvious that he's doing a coup, because those are the other main organizations that could get in his way.
What ever happens, I think we can say goodbye to democracy as we knew it. Doesn't mean a different democracy won't come out of this crisis, but classical liberalism will not survive this challenge.
Unorganized opposition is an understatement. Which inspirational leader is going to stop him? Chuck Schumer? T
The Democrats need to respond at both the micro and macro levels but probably view these tasks as too daunting
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He didn't declare it, and he didn't look for a judicial approval for anything. He's moving fast on all fronts, too fast for an unorganized opposition to realize what's happening and do something.
He's already acting as if the coup has already happened. Him and his administration are already doing obviously illegal things, and even going directly against the constitution. (The president can not give orders that are in conflict with what congress has decided, so he can't just for example shut down the funding for anything that has congress approval.)
He could of course ask the congress to rubber stamp his decisions, but that would be a bad move, as it would imply the congress has power over his decisions.
The plan (certainly not his plan, but the plan of his administration) seems to be mostly working. People in government are already acting as if Trump has the power to do what he wants, and that belief is what makes power real.
Basically the plan I laid out in this thread at one point. Replace the government administration with loyalists who will do what they are told, and then all he needs from congress is to not get in the way. He doesn't even need a majority of the congress behind him, he just needs enough support to keep congress from actively getting in his way.
The way he's going after army and intelligence leadership is what makes it really, really obvious that he's doing a coup, because those are the other main organizations that could get in his way.
What ever happens, I think we can say goodbye to democracy as we knew it. Doesn't mean a different democracy won't come out of this crisis, but classical liberalism will not survive this challenge.
Ezra Kleins guest today was a conservative anti-trumper, who thinks all of this is terrible but reversable and will be really worried once they defy a court order. I was a little disappointed in Ezra for now pushing back on this harder, because the courts are largely a captured institution that have made several clearly unconstitutional ruling over the past few years, and it is a long standing legal strategy of Trumps to bury the opposition in litigation and proceed anyways. Even if he complies with the letter a court order, he finds new different or creative ways to continue violating the spirit of the court order under the assumption that his supreme court will bail him out in the end.
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That country is already unrecognizable from the one we knew before Trump went down that escalator in 2015. And because Republicans are spineless turds, they're just gonna let it continue to descend into complete chaos. All because voters couldn't bring themselves to vote for a woman. Bravo America, you f'n morons.
It all comes down to voting for a woman?
What it comes down to is an arrogant and out of touch Dem party that focused on keeping Trump front and center the entire time Biden was in office, further riling up his base. It also comes down to not forcing Biden out of the running before it even began (which was woefully obviously necessary) and making Harris (rightly or wrongly) seem like a last resort candidate instead of having a proper process play out that more disenchanted voters could get behind instead of not voting.
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What it comes down to is an arrogant and out of touch Dem party that focused on keeping Trump front and center the entire time Biden was in office, further riling up his base. It also comes down to not forcing Biden out of the running before it even began (which was woefully obviously necessary) and making Harris (rightly or wrongly) seem like a last resort candidate instead of having a proper process play out that more disenchanted voters could get behind instead of not voting.
There's a lot more to it than that. We're dealing with a complicit corporate owned MSM and massive disinformation network backed by big money that did nothing but attack Biden and Harris for 4 years straight, helping pave the way for Trump to get back into power.
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What it comes down to is an arrogant and out of touch Dem party that focused on keeping Trump front and center the entire time Biden was in office, further riling up his base. It also comes down to not forcing Biden out of the running before it even began (which was woefully obviously necessary) and making Harris (rightly or wrongly) seem like a last resort candidate instead of having a proper process play out that more disenchanted voters could get behind instead of not voting.
To be fair, it is a little suspect that out of the 3 elections where Trump has been a candidate, all 3 Democrats were objectively the correct choices but only an old white man beat him.
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"I see as much misery out of them moving to justify theirselves as them that set out to do harm." -Dr. Amos "Doc" Cochran
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The group of arabs that supported the idiot have changed their name from Arab Americans for Trump, to Arab Americans for Peace. They apparently have an issue with his plan, and oh, he hasn’t met with Arab leaders yet in America.
"Hey, this guy that did terrible things his first term, and promised he would do terrible things this term, is doing terrible things! But he doesn't have a weird laugh, and he's a rich white guy! How could we ever have seen it coming?
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Not all people but there are more than enough to fall for the lies of the biggest grifter who ever drew breath, drawing the world, possibly, to the brink of war. It’s bloody terrifying.
Not all people but there are more than enough to fall for the lies of the biggest grifter who ever drew breath, drawing the world, possibly, to the brink of war. It’s bloody terrifying.
Like half the people I know in real life; and every single American I know in real life. It’s ####ing me up.
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There's a lot more to it than that. We're dealing with a complicit corporate owned MSM and massive disinformation network backed by big money that did nothing but attack Biden and Harris for 4 years straight, helping pave the way for Trump to get back into power.
Exactly.
Biden picked a fight with the tech giants, attacking their misuse of power with antitrust lawsuits. They responded by essentially burying democracy.
When corporate money finds a popular authoritarian leader to back, this is what always happens.
Liberal democracies just can't handle a bad faith actor with deep pockets and media power, they're too vulnerable to propaganda.
There probably isn't a peaceful democratic way out of this anymore. The Democrats can't lead an opposition. All they have is legislative and administrative processes, which Trump has already bypassed.
He will absolutely walk over legal orders very soon. After all, he's been granted legal immunity already, and he has set the precedent for granting anyone supporting him immunity.
Last edited by Itse; 02-05-2025 at 11:07 PM.
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Guess I better start planning my move to Mr. Lee's Greater Hong-Kong when the tech companies complete their coup and we fully transition into Snowcrash
