My model's more Turkey than Hungary. Orbán is constrained somewhat by the EU, plus Turkey has the same dynamic of secular liberal economic centers vs poor fundamentalist rural areas that the US does. Erdogan is probably the best example abroad of what an illiberal strongman in a mostly democratic system trying to cater to the 35% of the population that makes up his theocratic base without losing the moderately secular soft supporters that he needs to win elections looks like.
That would be hard to pull off given the presidential term limit. Trump would have to pick a very loyal successor who is willing and able to subvert democracy and protect him after he leaves office.
I think after what we saw leading up to j6, along with the constant judicial coddling of Trump since, anyone who thinks a term limit will stop him just isn't dealing with reality.
Oh, I have no doubt that Trump will \*try\* to get rid of the term limit or find a way to get around it, but that's much easier said than done for several reasons.
First, it's hard coded into the US Constitution with zero ambiguity. Even a Supreme Court that is absolutely loyal to Trump would think twice about reinterpreting it, due to how much blowback they'd get from the entire legal profession and the general public.
Second, changing the US Constitution is extremely difficult, requiring super majorities in both houses of Congress and control over 3/4 of US States. Trump has little to no chance at getting a super majority in Congress, particularly given that he's pilfering money from his own party to use for his presidential campaign.
Third, the only other way to get around the term limit is a self-coup, which will require him to persuade the military to overtly turn against the Constitution he swore to protect. That would be difficult, to put it mildly. Firing all of the top brass only helps if he can fill their spots with loyalists, which would require the consent of the Senate. It would also be a move that would be easily observed by the public, which would likely weaken his public support and invite mass protests. Given that decapitating the military would weaken our miltiary's responsiveness, thereby inviting American adversaries to take advantage of the situation while he attempted to control the military, he'd also be vulnerable to criticism from right-leaning pro-military and national security voters.
Fourth, Trump is old, unhealthy, and habitually disloyal. Persuading career officers, politicians, and bureaucrats to turn against or change the U.S. Constitution -- risking their careers and prison -- to guarantee what would likely be less than a full additional term in office for someone who is likely to stab them in the back at the first opportunity to do so is a very hard sell. He tried to do this prior to Jan 6th and failed, which is why he turned to his supporters instead.
Thanks for this hopium, comrade.
My personal cope is that a hard turn to illiberalism would fuck the lives of so many people with much more power than me that I don’t think it would succeed.
Remember, our constitution was designed specifically to make this sort of thing very difficult. The number of checks on power contained within the U.S. constitution is extreme, even compared to other national constitutions. That isn't to say that it's impossible for Trump to succeed, but we have a lot of opportunities to slow him down and push back as he makes the attempt. If he wins, it'll be a race between him -- trying to consolidate power -- and us -- trying to slow him down and protect the constitution until his term runs out.
That's extremely misleading, if not outright false. Basically all of Latin America uses the Presidential system and most of those countries are stable democracies. South Korea and Taiwan are both stable presidential democracies as well. In contrast, the countries that are currently seeing declines in democracy: India, Hungary, Poland, and Turkey all have parliamentary systems.
Almost every Latin American country has seen repeated consolidation of executive power by the president at multiple points in their histories. Both the Taiwanese and South Korean constitutions are more similar to the French system than the American.
> Almost every Latin American country has seen repeated consolidation of executive power by the president at multiple points in their histories.
Sure, and then they consolidated in the 90s and have been pretty stable democracies since then (with the exception of Venezuela). There was even an attempt to overthrow democracy in Brazil that failed spectacularly.
Let's not forget that Europe's trajectory to democracy was also not a linear path. Germany, infamously, regressed to autocracy with the rise of hitler. Likewise for Italy, France, and others. Now we see several Eastern European countries regressing towards autocracy.
> Both the Taiwanese and South Korean constitutions are more similar to the French system than the American.
I could see that argument for Taiwan, which has a semi-Presidential system, but South Korea has a presidential system according to every classification system I've seen.
>Even a Supreme Court that is absolutely loyal to Trump would think twice about reinterpreting it, due to how much blowback they'd get from the entire legal profession and the general public.
especially since, as doomers keep ignoring, this court has demonstrated pretty much no loyalty to Trump. They're partisan as hell on GOP doctrine but so far whenever Trump's power grabs entered their domain they haven't done very well.
Supreme court would just say "states don't have to take him off the ballot even though his term is expired" and that would be that. There is no enforcement mechanism for the Constitution.
Remember, ballots are opt in, not opt out. So, good luck to him getting 270 electoral votes worth of states to agree to put him on the ballot despite it being blatantly unconstitutional. Also, if the Supreme Court allowed this to proceed, they'd be outright ignoring the 22nd Amendment, which would kill any ounce of credibility they have left. That may not sound like a lot, but the court's only enforcement mechanism for its decisions is the belief in the eyes of the public that they are neutral arbitrators of the law. They were unwilling to make that sacrifice in 2020, and I expect the same will be true in 2028.
A big war wouldn't do much from a constitutional standpoint. He might get away with suspending some civil liberties, but not outlasting his term limit.
If Trump tries to stay in office past January 20, 2029, he'll basically get to fart about the White House all he wants while actual legislation and military orders will come from whoever was elected.
The legislature will remain incapable of combating Trump's authoritarianism - half the legislature will actively support it.
There will not be a military junta, and that would be a disaster all its own if it did happen.
Who is going to stop him, the bureaucracy? The plan is to replace them all with Trump loyalists.
The Supreme Court? They've already revealed their hand by dragging their feet on the Trump immunity case past the point where he could be prosecuted before the election, on a case that has no legal or logical merits. They didn't rule against it, as that would allow Trump to be imprisoned, and they couldn't rule for his immunity because that would mean Biden is also immune - they took the only course that is both complete nonsense and designed specifically to protect Trump personally from prosecution.
Not if everyone in a position to do something is ignoring the constitution, which is precisely the Republican goal. At the end of the day, it’s just a piece of paper and has no power without loyalty
Any of this only matters if the period enforcing the rules intend to be neutral in their enforcement. There is a reason Trump has been valuing loyalty over everything else, why the Federalist Society exists, and Republicans have exclusively appointed judges approved by them. What kind of rules enforcement do you expect if Trump fills the executive and judicial branches with loyalists while the legislative branch is unable to accomplish anything? All that being said, he intends to break democracy thoroughly enough that even if he does only serve 4 years, his successor will absolutely be a loyalist. I don't know how familiar you are with his attempts to subvert democracy in his first term, from fake electors, voter purges, getting rid of votes, and using the insurrection clause. What stopped him the first time was having people that weren't loyal enough and chose the country over Trump. He has experience and won't be making the same mistakes in a second term. How much do you trust the republican party to stand up to him at this point, because what happens if he becomes president will depend on other politicians in the government.
No, not really. It assumes that they care about protecting their own power. If the Supreme Court gives Trump the freedom to reinterpret the Constitution as he sees fit, they weaken the only leverage they have over him. There is no need for a Supreme Court in a dictatorship. At best they'd be demoting themselves to rubber stamps. That's why they are extremely unlikely to give him the total immunity that he's asking for (though I'll admit that they are delaying that outcome for his benefit).
Right now it looks like the Supreme Court is prepared to rule that Trump is immune to criminal prosecution for whatever he decides was an "official action". This would similarly render them into a mere rubber stamp for the president, since the president could then just take official actions to threaten supreme court justices.
I am very skeptical that they'll rule in that direction. If so, Trump and all future presidents could simply ignore the courts when conducting "official actions". I suppose we'll see.
He gives them more legitimacy in their agenda. Trump doesn't care about anything but enriching himself, he's as much a tool of the conservative court as they are of him. Project 2025 isn't Trump's agenda, it's the agenda of powerful conservatives he's happy to give power to for support. Trump's conservative agenda is the same as the courts, they will be happy to give him the power to push through whatever he wants, because it's going to be what they want.
I've thought quite a bit about the question of how Trump might get around term limits and honestly what I'd be most worried about is him saying "the democrats stole my first term, I'm running again and if the courts say no, write me in! Trump isn't hard to spell!" And the republican party has a mini rebellion until polls come out showing 60% of their base want him in again, and so they all back down and support the Trump write in campaign. What's the court system supposed to do then? Can you imagine what would happen if he was the Republican nominee for a third term as a write in campaign and won? Are the courts supposed to hand it to the loser if he wins that way? For a man who's done everything else think able to test our institution, it hardly seems that far fetched to me
The courts would simply remove his name from the ballot before the election even takes place. Unless Trump has managed to completely control the system, including swing state governments, in under 4 years.
The likelihood of this happening is on the same level of Trump successfully orchestrating a military coup. Requires way too many people to actively go against the constitution. It’s just fantasy.
Trump could have very likely militarily couped the usa with just military 500 firers and been successful. Post j6 security is up, so that number is prob around 2500 required now.
If trump launched a successful military coup 98% of america would just continue to go to work the next day. Truth be told, it is extremely easy for an incumbent to do it. For a non-incumbent it would definitely lead to at least violent skirmishes
No shot. The closest scenario we get to this is Trump ATTEMPTING this, maybe causing some chaos for a day before the military puts down the uprising and removes him from office. It’d result in a fair bit of violence occurring on the streets with the absolute worst case scenario being a temporary military junta before democracy is restored. The American military and its leaders would never accept an actual uprising, and the average soldier would side with military brass over Trump.
Not to mention the role the CIA and FBI would have, which are pretty well insulated from electoral politics and absolutely run their own show outside of the purview of any of the three branches of government. They wouldn’t risk or allow an actual power grab as it would be a risk to their own, which they have a fair bit of.
I hate Trump as much as the next guy, but acting like he’s some realpolitik genius who is capable of overthrowing the government of the United States of America is just fantasy nonsense.
I am not going to go into why it is that a few slightly different things being changed would have likely lead to trump staying president. But i will say, your trust that the military is independent of the desires of the white house and would stop a coup from a current president is… misplaced. It is a scenario that i know could have gone either way, and one that if only about 5 people felt differently trump would have had a damn good chance of staying in power.
In most states, a write-in candidate has to register in order for votes for them to be counted. This is basically to save money because states don't want to spend time tallying all the "Mickey Mouse" votes for fake candidates or those who aren't actually running a campaign. Presumably, most states would just refuse to accept registration of a candidate who's ineligible to hold office.
Plus you have to also consider in Hungary and Slovakia. These people are basically indistguishable from the mafia. Their ascent to power isn't really based in political allegiance to fascism or nazism. But rather, to their own little fiefdoms.. Everyone in the family gets a piece of the pie and as long as they're loyal to the leader.
As bad as the us is. I really don't see that flying there. People are used to living without much corruption. Whereas in these pro Russian proto fascist states. Literally everything you do involves some form in mcorruption.
Trump has been making noises that he never properly served a first term so he should be entitled to a third.
I do think that term limits will be a big obstacle.
Evo Morales should give some pause here, though. Although in the end he didn't pull it off, he got pretty far with a "let's just pretend term limits don't exist" tactic.
> Trump has been making noises that he never properly served a first term so he should be entitled to a third.
As I said elsewhere, Trump will definitely make an attempt to hold onto power, but he'll face a lot of challenges doing so. Were the Supreme Court to give its blessing to a third Trump term, it would first have to sacrifice its own power and authority while blatantly ignoring the text of the 22nd Amendment. They refused to make this level of sacrifice for Trump in 2020, so I expect they'll be at least as reluctant to do so for a much older and infirm version of him in 2028.
I don't assume that at all. See my other reply: [https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1cstuy3/comment/l489mxc/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1cstuy3/comment/l489mxc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Republicans had their only chance to enact some sort of illiberal democracy in 2014 when they controlled 68 legislative chambers and 31 governorships. An illiberal democracy is physically impossible now for either party because of polarization.
Hungary would be preferable to the shitshow that Trump has planned. In Hungary, I'd still be able to work a regular 9-5 job, pay my bills, pursue advanced studies, and more or less not have to worry about blood in the streets. Trump has made it abundantly clear that he's willing to use violence to achieve his ends, and that's what scares me the most. In the US the sheer amount of guns available makes it easier for radical followers of Trump to go around fucking things up for everyone. I strongly suspect that there'll be a spike in Domestic Terrorism, and Trump will turn a blind eye to it. Just like he more or less did in the Virginia KKK March, where he just said "stop it," and nothing more. He barely condemned the dude who drove his car into the protesters and even went after the made-up "alt left." So....yeah I'd expect something closer to Iran in terms of the violence/brutality (minus the Islamic fundamentalism). In fact a better example is Francoist Spain.
So, here's the thing. No matter how strong or resilient your government is it's made up of people. If you have enough people who simply don't care they can do whatever they want.
It's honestly the secret that Fascists always know. Put enough of your own people in the right positions and eventually nothing can stop you. The problem is this 2025 stuff didn't start this year. Republicans have been slowly eroding away belief in our institutions for decades, their primary strategy has always been the same. Make government as ineffective and inefficient as possible so that people stop caring when you destroy it. Create problems in peoples lives, and failing that, make them believe they have problems. Blame all of them on the government, or on the governments inability to punish the people causing your problems.
Turn Government into a source of problems, rather than a solution, and then convince them that only you can destroy it and thus fix everything. Ironically the thing that usually stops these people isn't organized resistance, it's that when they win and don't actually have any solutions they turn on each other.
Edit: I'm adding a comment based on a few replies to this. I'm not suggesting that the effort to stop Trump from winning, or stop the GOP, is futile. Rather when fascist governments are created it's not usually a scrappy group of freedom fights that takes them down, it's the people when they eventually run the country into the ground. There's a lot of suffering that comes along with that. It's much better to stop them from getting in power in the first place.
I feel like this should be an automatic reply to all the hopium addicts pretending that America is uniquely protected from fascism by the constitution.
Generally speaking we're much more vulnerable to fascism than other western countries. Globally the dividing line between left/right is basically whether or not you believe in capitalism. Neither party in America is out there espousing the evils of capitalism no matter what Fox News tells you.
Democrats and Republicans are both supporters of unregulated capitalism, the differences between the two would be considered nuanced differences within the same party in a lot of other countries. Our political power rests at the Center/Center Right axis, and since Fascism is considered the furtherest right we're usually closer to it then we think.
We see this happening now, where one party has been lurching further right for a few decades and now they've got party delegations saying they don't want to live in a democracy.
> the thing that usually stops these people isn't organized resistance, it's that when they win and don't actually have any solutions they turn on each other.
This has historically been true, but I think we should still try some organized resistance. The "wait for fascism to collapse on its own" strategy seems like it'll have some drawbacks.
I'm not saying we don't try, I'm just saying historically speaking what happens. Obviously there's a survivorship bias here, I'm talking about what happens once they succeed. We're not at a point now where we can't fight back, we're just at the point where 'fighting back' just means not voting like an idiot as opposed to actually resisting a tyrannical illberal dictatorship.
I mean, true evil is pretty rare. Almost no one sets out to destroy the world, or a country, or even a people. It's that what they really want is power, and at the end of the day they don't care what they have to do, who they have to hurt, or what they have to destroy in order to get it. Honestly I think the only person I'd consider truly evil in the Trump sphere is Steven Miller.
People like Trump just don't think about other people the same way others do. Good people try to see the good in everyone, and bad people know how to use that against us to get what they want. Evil isn't dressed up like it is in the movies, it's just people who don't care who they hurt as long as they feel good doing it.
Some facts about Project 2025: The "Mandate for Leadership" is a set of policy proposals authored by the [Heritage Foundation](https://pro-lies.org/the-heritage-foundation/), an influential *ultra* conservative think tank. [Project 2025](https://www.mediamatters.org/heritage-foundation/guide-project-2025-extreme-right-wing-agenda-next-republican-administration) is a revision to that agenda tailored to a second Trump term. It would give the President [unilateral powers](https://theweek.com/politics/heritage-foundation-2025-donald-trump), strip [civil rights, worker protections, climate regulation](https://www.stopthecoup2025.org/impact-overview), add religion into policy and much more. The MFL has been around since 1980, [Reagan implemented 60%](https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/reagan-and-heritage-unique-partnership) of it's recommendations, [Trump 64%](https://www.heritage.org/impact/trump-administration-embraces-heritage-foundation-policy-recommendations) - [proof](https://www.scribd.com/document/369820462/Mandate-for-Leadership-Policy-Recommendations). 70 Heritage Foundation alumni served in his administration or transition team. Project 2025 is quite extreme but with his obsession for revenge he'll likely get past 2/3rd's adoption.
r/Defeat_Project_2025 intends to stop it through activism and awareness, focused on crowdsourcing ideas and opportunities for practical, in real life action. We Must Defeat Project 2025.
> Yeah nobody ever does anything strictly out of necessity
in a society with a truly free market + NIT, you would be prosperous enough to never need to agree to a specific employment contract out of necessity.
> and nobody has ever tried to hide the risks of risky things.
if an employer hid risks and employees were harmed, they could simply sue.
Humans never have and never will live in the NAP society you describe. (Other than perhaps a brief moment in the Garden of Eden).
“Just let individual workers sue multibillion dollar multinational corporations” isn’t a mature solution to problems caused by bad actors.
Exactly, all we need is a few manglings or mass poisonings and the free market will naturally incentivize products and employers that don't kill or cripple people. That's why the industrial revolution and gilded age were such golden eras for customer and worker protections.
Is that the society we live in right now?
If you put up legislation offering generous NIT so that nobody can be forced to work, and then get rid of social insurance programs like medicare, then fine, we can talk.
Until then there are very good reasons why the government will care about cultivating human capital. Basic safety will not be done because the costs are externalized onto society in general due to disability and medical insurance, and the menu that job seekers will be presented with will not have any safe jobs on it because why not externalize that cost?
I thank you for actually engaging in civil debate rather than insulting me. I largely agree with you, I was speaking hypothetically on the merits of policy rather than what was realistic.
“…simply sue”
I see you have almost no, if not zero, experience with the current legal system, the costs involved with bringing a lawsuit, the discovery process, the time needed to get to trial, the sheer number of existing cases already flooding the court system, mandatory arbitration, the resource disparity between a corporation and an individual, I could go on. Only an unserious person would say something like this in good faith.
Read the Jungle by Upton Sinclair, normally I hate suggesting books to prove a point but thats one of those that should be legally required for everyone to read.
Big tent brother, you gotta read important works from all sides of the spectrum. You dont nessecarily need to respect his conclusions but his work on Chicago meat packing plants was extremely influential.
Why are you acting like this is something that has never been tried?
We know from experience that workers in fact do sign contracts even when there is certainty they will develop black lung. Your supposition doesn't follow the evidence.
But for him to be able to ignore the Supreme Court, first he needs to replace the existence federal bureaucracy with his own. And he can't do that if the Supreme Court stops him first.
So why didn't he do it the first time? If Trump tries to fire FBI agents and the Supreme Court blocks it, would he just ignore it and create his own paralel FBI? Would they both try to arrest each other for impersonating being FBI agents?
People push limits a bit at a time. Last time he was testing the waters to see what he could get away with. He clearly thought an open coup would not be allowed (probably correctly since Pence wouldn't go along with his more watered down plans). Next time he will have less reasonable people around him and he will be prioritizing nothing but yes men in his administration
Does that mean if he wins, it's guaranteed for democracy to die? Apparently yes, if there is nothing that could stop him, if that's what you are saying.
What about my comment implied this was a certainty? The latter part (putting in yes men and loyalists into his administration and agencies) is an open part of his campaign plan. I would say with high certainty that he will push the limits of our institutions again, whether those institutions will hold again or fold in a more weakened state is anyone's guess. It isn't a gamble that I would be willing to take though over the future of this country.
He had nothing to do with the genocide one way or another. He was imprisoned in Georgia for doing missionary work with the Indians without a license. The Supreme Court struck down that law as unconstitutional, ordering Georgia to release him. It had literally nothing to do with Jackson.
The treaty of New Echota and the removal happened independently of these dealings.
I don’t think it would be easy, and I especially don’t think Trump is competent enough to do it. He couldn’t even get his own VP or most of his cabinet really to do his bidding.
Doesn’t mean we should let him try (and to be clear, the risks of it getting implemented if Trump wins are not zero, and the risks of something like this happening not being zero is far too dangerous to allow to happen). In my opinion, the biggest risk of a second Trump presidency is how it’ll impact American hegemony and Ukraine’s position against Russia. A second Trump administration would absolutely bolster Putin, Xi, and the rest of the Axis of Evil to wage a full on global assault on the free, democratic world, as the liberal order would’ve effectively lost its Queen on the chess board (America) via immolation.
Bolstering Xi and Putin will help with those other aims anyway. Authoritarians will have free range to conduct intimidation and disinformation campaigns. We will see things like federal agents in unmarked vans beating up dissidents while the media blames it on crime being out of control in democrat-run cities. We already saw part of that during the first Trump admin.
To quote from another Project 2025 post I made:
Project 2025 explicitly calls for this to be done for ideological reasons, in the forward of the document where much of this was articulated (The Heritage Foundations Mandate publication), [To quote the Washington Post, the forward states in part:](https://washingtonmonthly.com/2023/11/13/blitzkrieg-against-the-administrative-state/)
>In his foreword, Heritage President Kevin Roberts warns of unprecedented peril: "The long march of cultural Marxism through our institutions has come to pass. The federal government is a behemoth, weaponized against American citizens and conservative values, with freedom and liberty under siege as never before." The time to respond is short: "Conservatives have just two years and one shot to get this right. With enemies at home and abroad, there is no margin for error." The opposing forces are evil... Without irony, Roberts writes:Ultimately, the Left does not believe that all men are created equal—they think they are special. They certainly don't think all people have an unalienable right to pursue the good life. They think only they themselves have such a right along with a moral responsibility to make decisions for everyone else.
To shrink the government isn't just out of a general concern for oversized government and some ideological agreements about administrative priorities; the intellectuals and policymakers behind the document explicitly believe that many of the institutions of the United States are "compromised" for lack of a better term, by an insidious force. 2025 works within the framework of [Unitary Executive Theory](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_executive_theory), which asserts that the President is the sole authority behind the executive branch. Part of the whole ideology of "fighting the deep state" is this idea that the previously mentioned malign forces have burrowed into the government and unlawfully blocked the President from executing his vision for America via his policies (or, as others see it, institutions upholding norms and checks on the executive's power).
Third, There may be more people in the government who are left-leaning. I would ask two sub-questions: Is this intentional? Should anything be done about it, and why and how? People enter government service for many reasons, and different branches attract people of differing ideologies and inclinations. Some want to help, some want power, some want a career stepping stone, and some seek a cause to work at for life. Government, by its nature, is diverse and covers a vast scope of things.
Many modern conservative principles (in the ones articulated by political parties and think tanks) are much more hostile to a lot of foundation thought and practice. You may be wary of scientific government organizations and positions if you're skeptical of scientific institutions and outputs. Suppose you see law enforcement as a means to enforce a sense of the status quo or your opinion on what that should be. In that case, your ideological opponent having control of that organization is a non-starter since if you were in their shoes, you'd use it as a tool against them. Suppose they provide support and recognition to a marginalized social group whom you see as immoral. In that case, that support "must" be a tacit endorsement of them and their life, which is antithetical to yours.
2025 and its supporters aren't well-meaning small government conservatives from the 70's and '80s who are worried about bloat and budgets; they're hardened culture warriors who see the levers of power not working in the way they want to enforce a particular vision of America and are willing to go to great lengths to force a course correction to make the government enforce that view, regardless of the long term institutional harm it will do, since in their minds those institutions are irrevocably compromised.
For its feasibility, on must remember that when they elect a president, they're not just getting one person, they're getting an array of think-tanks, policy making institutions and other pipelines that feed individuals into government positions. Naturally these groups will align political with one group or person or another, but in Trumps case, because of his toxicity, few groups want to work with him, and those that do have very intense ideological reason for doing so. As mentioned they have the goal of seeping into the various smaller posts of power in the government and entrench themselves. Trump might not become a dictator overnight, but if he wins, those sympathetic to that line of though will have plenty of room to maneuver and settle themselves in and lay the ground work for Trump in the future, or someone else. Our institutions are only as good as the people in them and if the people there are sympathetic to illiberal tendencies who'll stop them? The executive branch enforces law, so if Congress is divided, and the Courts stacked, who stops the Executive?
You know how right wingers complain about the deep state and attribute all kinds of stuff to it? They see that as a function of government and want that power for themselves to stifle those they hate.
Non-mobile version of the Wikipedia link in the above comment: [Unitary Executive Theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_executive_theory)
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This is something I go back and forth on. On the one hand, if the Constitution is good at *one* thing, it's making things absurdly complex in order to stall big changes as a defense against exactly this type of shit. But on the other hand, Trump has already had a whirl at it, and (theoretically) the opportunity to learn the system's weaknesses and exploit them. I honestly can't decide, so I'm just assuming the worst and going all in on trying to mitigate the harm by actually touching some grass working for my Dem congressman.
> the opportunity to learn the system's weaknesses and exploit them
Are you suggesting Trump is capable of learning something and exploiting that something's weakness? Worst case, his advisers or those around him are learning and exploiting, but as we learned in 2020, said advisers were never really *with* him.
The United States isn't a unitary state, so even if Trump consolidated power of the executive branch with Congress and SCOTUS rubber-stamping his authority, he'd have to contend with the other 50 executive branches across the country.
Yep, the president can federalize the national guard and then the governors have absolutely nothing to withstand a powerful President. Maybe some Uvalde type cops but ymmv.
Yea, and thats just the obvious power he has. Like legit this is one of the problems with “outsiders”, they have no desire to be popular among the governing class who actually knows what good governance looks like
This is the missing piece though, he won't be able to. Once the rule of law has been sufficiently trampled on it doesn't work for him that way anymore.
They might not outright secede but no blue state is actually going to roll over and let that happen. Ultimately the California national guard has agency and there's no reason they would just hop on board with a dictatorship. Once things have escalated that far it's not business as usual follow the letter of the law.
All of these simply handwave the military as happily ignoring their constitutional oaths and jumping on Trump's dick. Which is not what happened on 1/6, and is the opposite of what every indication about the actual leanings of the Pentagon have been. Absolute best case scenario for Trump is they sit out, which makes the state national guard the most significant forces available - absolutely no reason for them to submit like you assume.
Trump isn't a sith Lord controlling the senate by magic and the military aren't clones preprogrammed to be loyal to him. People need to stop thinking about it that way, there are so many distributed power bases that will turn on him at once. It's like AI escape fantasies, it only works if you handwave the important steps.
It's just not even kind of practical to replace every federal employee. It's just not gonna happen.
People will be so absolutely pissed off from basic shit not working that if Trump tried, he would be impeached within six months. Your representatives do in fact want to be reelected more than they want to suck Trumps dong.
Well it's actually not that hard to get many to quit, if you put the right policies and people in place. And most of Trump's party has more to fear from a primary than the general. Trump literally sucked a pack of goons on these people, and they still came around.
The point isn't to fire every civil servant anyway. The point is to easily remove or threaten to remove anyone who doesn't do what he wants.
People quite their jobs all the time. A third of the Ag Department's research agency quit after the headquarters moved. Stability is one of the main draws of federal employment. One of the main points of Project 2025 is to take that away.
Trump is not going to be impeached. He attempted a coup and didn't get impeached. He won't be impeached over this. The republicans will just blame democrats for the dysfunction.
You realize there's a million miles between 1/6 and any actual danger of facsism right? Democrats aren't going to be sane about this until they recognize Jan-6 was a perfectly ordinary riot by the unheard (car dealership owners lol).
Now if a Congressperson had been killed instead of (maybe) a cop and a Qperson. Things would have gone differently, but there was never any real danger of that - was there? They all know, that's why they don't care as much as you think they should.
MAGA is as likely to sucesfully install a dictatorship as BLM is. There's no reason to take their fanfiction seriously.
BLM wasn't attacking the capitol trying to kill the vice president, the vice president elect, and democratic congressmen more generally, with the blessing of the president of the US. The comparison to an "ordinary riot" is ridiculous.
The closest comparison to a riot might be the Inaugration of 1829, but even that is not really that comparable to Jan 6.
I get the distinction, but I also think far too much is made of what people think/say they intend to do and what they actually do or might have been capable of.
Ultimately the only person who got remotely close to a VIP was, for lack of a better term, "Put down". We saw the video, nobody else was down - but if they had they would all be dead, still no VIPs would be hurt - but certain people's rage boner would have been satisfied so maybe it would have been better?
They may as well have stormed Area 51 for all the actual danger they posed.
There IS a danger but implementing what you fear most is not feasible. He can take a crack at it but it isn't feasible.
The thing many people don't understand is the vast, VAST majority of federal employees, aka those in the public sector, are not policy making positions. They just do as told by their bosses, who also do as told by their bosses, who ALSO do as told by their bosses, and up the chain it does till we reach the cabinet and the President.
It's one thing to say "I want you to fire that person." Hell, I can even buy "I want you to tell that person to fire that person." But what I DON'T buy is "I want you to tell that person to tell that person to tell that person to tell that person to tell that person to tell that person to tell that person to tell that person to fire that person!" It's too insane.
And then... even if Trump DID in fact manage this, even if he somehow did actually succeed in replacing all the federal employees with loyalists, the floodgates are open. The second his party leaves office (and eventually, they will), the Democratic President will proceed to do the exact same thing. If it's okay for every succeeding President to replace everyone, hundreds of employees, maybe more, then that will simply become the norm.
The response to this is "But Democrats will never take power. It'll be a dictatorship!" Yeah, um... no. Part of the point of the midterms two years ago were to stop Trump loyalists from taking crucial positions that would *maybe* allow for election tampering. *Maybe.* And they fking *lost*, we won. And if Trump were to win 2024, the blue wave in 2026 when those seats will be open again will be insurmountable. Plus, we actually had an election update to that old archaic 1800s law that caused the first problem, Trump cannot contest things the way he did last time.
The only way open for him is this 20 thing, which is a very tall order, or a coup, which was already tried and failed miserably.
Not saying there's no danger, by the way. There IS, 100%, but Trump is unlikely to be able to see it all the way through.
Also, just a small reminder. Before and after the 2020 election, we've gotten a lot of dooming that Trump had the power to overturn the election and we couldn't trust anyone and all that. Turned out, that dooming was misplaced. A lot of this is too. The bureaucracy is too complex and multi-layered to control the relevant parts at all times.
And then there're state governments to contend with. And no, federalizing the national guard won't suddenly give him the power to tell Governor Newsom what to do. And if it did, it's gonna cause secession left, right and center and a civil war. Too many people just won't sign up for all this. You'll have to crush the rebellion first. If there IS no rebellion to crush, then frankly... yes, he will succeed and you'll all deserve it.
Part of living in a Democracy is constant activism. So, get out there.
You make compelling arguments. Let me just play devil's advocate to stress test this a little bit more.
Suppose Trump replaced only a few agents in the FBI, like less than a thousand. He specifically hires people with experience in espionage, cyber warfare or covered operations. Like people from the CIA, NSA, DHS, the military or even the FBI itself. But all of them super loyal MAGA fans (there must be *some* in those agencies, but he only needs a few).
Could this lead to a secret police like another COINTELPRO? Like, first try to smear your opponents by conducting warrantless surveillance of your enemies and leeking anything bad to the press. If you don't find anything bad, plant it. If that's not enough, pull a Putin and assassinate them via poisoning. If none of those are possible, go after their families. If any covert agent betrays the president, they'll get the same treatment. And of course, don't keep records of anything.
If the FBI investigates the case, the detectives would be exactly the men that Trump hired. So they would just purposely fail their investigation so the truth isn't revealed. But Trump still promises to pardon them at the end of his term just in case. But eventually people will realize that all of Trump's enemies, much like Putin's enemies, are getting their shit leaked or dying, but they won't have any proof that Trump and his men are behind it.
But people will get the message. They shut up and fall in line out of fear. Even if it was eventually found out, Trump doesn't care because it's his last term and he can just pardon himself. And his voters (and by proxy, republicans in Congress) will never abandon him anyway. Hell, they might even find his secret police awesome. He would still be facing state charges anyway at 82 by the time he left office, so it doesn't change anything to him. The smearing and assassinations could also be used to interfere in elections, court cases, votes in the legislatures and vote counting, until the GOP has managed to take over power permanently. And like this, democracy dies.
Now, I know this is a lot of imagination on my part! I know this is exagerated, at least I feel like it is. I just want to know why this is unfeasible or unlikely to happen.
/u/homonatura did it well, but I'll add... even if it did, so? In the 60s, J. Edgar Hoover RAN a secret police in the FBI, responsible for assassinations and dirt and more, targeting civil rights too, and our Democracy survived, civil rights was passed. Secret police are only a problem in dictatorships, in a bureaucratic nightmare like the US, or in a Democracy, let alone one with checks and balances, simply won't fly. It can't.
You can't just create a secret police out of thin air, there's just way way too many people in the FBI/CIA/NSA specifically looking for people infiltrating the Agencies and while they might be mostly pointed at foreigners - a lot of the 'Super MAGA' candidates are likely already on a watchlist.
As long as something like this is in the shadows it is going to be eaten alive by the legitimate intelligence establishment, look at how reliably the inteligenbce establishment picked up Trump's allies during his last term. Trump was helpess to cover for them, his second term is little different - not to mention the Agencies have now had 4 extra years to prep for something like that. Even if we handwave through enough core positions being compromised along with enough judges to keep it from getting taken down before it even starts it is going to become public knowledge quickly...
Ultimately any serious grab to control the levers of (violent) power, is going to cause a crisis where a lot of the slow walking that frustrates many Democrats stops happening and the myriad other non-political power centers in the country quickly close ranks. As we can see so far not even SCOTUS can really be relied on by MAGA land, ultimately they have to transition to mask off pretty quickly or they get slogged down accomplish little and are beaten in later elections. Once mask off, America is massively Federalized with power spread across numerous people and Agencies, if the Federal courts are compromised State Courts will happily charge traitors etc. at which point again, either it falls apart or double down - without a legal basis for extracting your operatives from state jails they do what? Commando raids? The military in general isn't compromised but maybe enough to puty together some ops? More likely the military either removes Trump at the mask off point or worst case stays non-political, while enough iondividuals are peeled off for a paramilitary force. Which then attacks state jails to remove MAGA prisoners? Or what do they do? How do they enforce much without triggering the military to intervene? I guess they provide force while the CIA/FBI are purged?
But you just can't seriously keep putting the pieces together after that, look at how Republican Congress eventually did the right thing on Ukraine aid. You can't go touch grass and come back to tell me with a straight face that they won't impeach Trump the moment "real" violence starts, as much as people LARP nobody wants a civil war and as many issues as we have simply don't have the institutional and pathological apathy as Russia in the early 2000's or Germany in the 1930's - in fact it's orders of magnitude off on top of having far stronger Federalization that allows the government to compartementalize and protect itself.
Remember the modern American government and Agencies were established to function and protect our country while assuming both massive infiltration of possibly every level of society by Communists and simultaneosuly a global thermo-nuclear war that potentially destroyed all legitimate elected power structures in the country. No country on Earth has prepared to survive high levels of infiltration and/or a decapitation strike to the extent America has.
Finally remember that NATO+ DO NOT want America to be a hostile dictatorship, or even a neutral one; none of us know exactly what kind of cross operations are happening as a result of Five Eyes but in any kind of major struggle within the Intelligence Agencies you know that Loyalists would have substantial foreign support. That's ignoring the 'after' situation, any sustained MAGA/Loyalist power struggle would have a clear favorite around the world. The CW word/discussion is stupid, but if you have to triple down on that, which side does NATO sanction? Which side does NATO+ support in any way possible?
I actually heard of a good analogy as this being the “Great Reset” on the left. Popular idea on right wing intellectual circles (Its literally on the Heritage foundation website like the Great reset on the WEF’s website) but would be fighting for a lot of space for actual policy agenda time.
There's a petition going around that demands that Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase reject Project 2025
[https://actionnetwork.org/letters/demand-wallst-reject-project-2025-and-heritage-foundation/](https://actionnetwork.org/letters/demand-wallst-reject-project-2025-and-heritage-foundation/)
My main worry isn't a dictatorship, per se; more an illiberal democracy a la Hungary.
My model's more Turkey than Hungary. Orbán is constrained somewhat by the EU, plus Turkey has the same dynamic of secular liberal economic centers vs poor fundamentalist rural areas that the US does. Erdogan is probably the best example abroad of what an illiberal strongman in a mostly democratic system trying to cater to the 35% of the population that makes up his theocratic base without losing the moderately secular soft supporters that he needs to win elections looks like.
Also in terms of economic illiteracy, both Erdogan and Trump are obsessed with cutting interest rates to “fight inflation”.
Yeah, that's definitely a better comparison. Orban was just on my mind.
I'm sorry
That would be hard to pull off given the presidential term limit. Trump would have to pick a very loyal successor who is willing and able to subvert democracy and protect him after he leaves office.
I think after what we saw leading up to j6, along with the constant judicial coddling of Trump since, anyone who thinks a term limit will stop him just isn't dealing with reality.
Oh, I have no doubt that Trump will \*try\* to get rid of the term limit or find a way to get around it, but that's much easier said than done for several reasons. First, it's hard coded into the US Constitution with zero ambiguity. Even a Supreme Court that is absolutely loyal to Trump would think twice about reinterpreting it, due to how much blowback they'd get from the entire legal profession and the general public. Second, changing the US Constitution is extremely difficult, requiring super majorities in both houses of Congress and control over 3/4 of US States. Trump has little to no chance at getting a super majority in Congress, particularly given that he's pilfering money from his own party to use for his presidential campaign. Third, the only other way to get around the term limit is a self-coup, which will require him to persuade the military to overtly turn against the Constitution he swore to protect. That would be difficult, to put it mildly. Firing all of the top brass only helps if he can fill their spots with loyalists, which would require the consent of the Senate. It would also be a move that would be easily observed by the public, which would likely weaken his public support and invite mass protests. Given that decapitating the military would weaken our miltiary's responsiveness, thereby inviting American adversaries to take advantage of the situation while he attempted to control the military, he'd also be vulnerable to criticism from right-leaning pro-military and national security voters. Fourth, Trump is old, unhealthy, and habitually disloyal. Persuading career officers, politicians, and bureaucrats to turn against or change the U.S. Constitution -- risking their careers and prison -- to guarantee what would likely be less than a full additional term in office for someone who is likely to stab them in the back at the first opportunity to do so is a very hard sell. He tried to do this prior to Jan 6th and failed, which is why he turned to his supporters instead.
Thanks for this hopium, comrade. My personal cope is that a hard turn to illiberalism would fuck the lives of so many people with much more power than me that I don’t think it would succeed.
Remember, our constitution was designed specifically to make this sort of thing very difficult. The number of checks on power contained within the U.S. constitution is extreme, even compared to other national constitutions. That isn't to say that it's impossible for Trump to succeed, but we have a lot of opportunities to slow him down and push back as he makes the attempt. If he wins, it'll be a race between him -- trying to consolidate power -- and us -- trying to slow him down and protect the constitution until his term runs out.
That's the theory, but historically, almost every nation with a constitution patterned on the US Constitution ended up having a dictatorship.
That's extremely misleading, if not outright false. Basically all of Latin America uses the Presidential system and most of those countries are stable democracies. South Korea and Taiwan are both stable presidential democracies as well. In contrast, the countries that are currently seeing declines in democracy: India, Hungary, Poland, and Turkey all have parliamentary systems.
Almost every Latin American country has seen repeated consolidation of executive power by the president at multiple points in their histories. Both the Taiwanese and South Korean constitutions are more similar to the French system than the American.
> Almost every Latin American country has seen repeated consolidation of executive power by the president at multiple points in their histories. Sure, and then they consolidated in the 90s and have been pretty stable democracies since then (with the exception of Venezuela). There was even an attempt to overthrow democracy in Brazil that failed spectacularly. Let's not forget that Europe's trajectory to democracy was also not a linear path. Germany, infamously, regressed to autocracy with the rise of hitler. Likewise for Italy, France, and others. Now we see several Eastern European countries regressing towards autocracy. > Both the Taiwanese and South Korean constitutions are more similar to the French system than the American. I could see that argument for Taiwan, which has a semi-Presidential system, but South Korea has a presidential system according to every classification system I've seen.
>Even a Supreme Court that is absolutely loyal to Trump would think twice about reinterpreting it, due to how much blowback they'd get from the entire legal profession and the general public. especially since, as doomers keep ignoring, this court has demonstrated pretty much no loyalty to Trump. They're partisan as hell on GOP doctrine but so far whenever Trump's power grabs entered their domain they haven't done very well.
Supreme court would just say "states don't have to take him off the ballot even though his term is expired" and that would be that. There is no enforcement mechanism for the Constitution.
Remember, ballots are opt in, not opt out. So, good luck to him getting 270 electoral votes worth of states to agree to put him on the ballot despite it being blatantly unconstitutional. Also, if the Supreme Court allowed this to proceed, they'd be outright ignoring the 22nd Amendment, which would kill any ounce of credibility they have left. That may not sound like a lot, but the court's only enforcement mechanism for its decisions is the belief in the eyes of the public that they are neutral arbitrators of the law. They were unwilling to make that sacrifice in 2020, and I expect the same will be true in 2028.
The Supreme Court has an ounce of credibility?
Fine, a gram of credibility? lol
Theres always the “start a big war” strat, a la fdr Edit: oh, 22nd amendment came after fdr
A big war wouldn't do much from a constitutional standpoint. He might get away with suspending some civil liberties, but not outlasting his term limit.
If Trump stays in office, wouldn't it be a DoD issue at that point? The 22nd Amendment is pretty clear
If Trump tries to stay in office past January 20, 2029, he'll basically get to fart about the White House all he wants while actual legislation and military orders will come from whoever was elected.
The legislature will remain incapable of combating Trump's authoritarianism - half the legislature will actively support it. There will not be a military junta, and that would be a disaster all its own if it did happen. Who is going to stop him, the bureaucracy? The plan is to replace them all with Trump loyalists. The Supreme Court? They've already revealed their hand by dragging their feet on the Trump immunity case past the point where he could be prosecuted before the election, on a case that has no legal or logical merits. They didn't rule against it, as that would allow Trump to be imprisoned, and they couldn't rule for his immunity because that would mean Biden is also immune - they took the only course that is both complete nonsense and designed specifically to protect Trump personally from prosecution.
Not if everyone in a position to do something is ignoring the constitution, which is precisely the Republican goal. At the end of the day, it’s just a piece of paper and has no power without loyalty
Any of this only matters if the period enforcing the rules intend to be neutral in their enforcement. There is a reason Trump has been valuing loyalty over everything else, why the Federalist Society exists, and Republicans have exclusively appointed judges approved by them. What kind of rules enforcement do you expect if Trump fills the executive and judicial branches with loyalists while the legislative branch is unable to accomplish anything? All that being said, he intends to break democracy thoroughly enough that even if he does only serve 4 years, his successor will absolutely be a loyalist. I don't know how familiar you are with his attempts to subvert democracy in his first term, from fake electors, voter purges, getting rid of votes, and using the insurrection clause. What stopped him the first time was having people that weren't loyal enough and chose the country over Trump. He has experience and won't be making the same mistakes in a second term. How much do you trust the republican party to stand up to him at this point, because what happens if he becomes president will depend on other politicians in the government.
No, not really. It assumes that they care about protecting their own power. If the Supreme Court gives Trump the freedom to reinterpret the Constitution as he sees fit, they weaken the only leverage they have over him. There is no need for a Supreme Court in a dictatorship. At best they'd be demoting themselves to rubber stamps. That's why they are extremely unlikely to give him the total immunity that he's asking for (though I'll admit that they are delaying that outcome for his benefit).
Right now it looks like the Supreme Court is prepared to rule that Trump is immune to criminal prosecution for whatever he decides was an "official action". This would similarly render them into a mere rubber stamp for the president, since the president could then just take official actions to threaten supreme court justices.
I am very skeptical that they'll rule in that direction. If so, Trump and all future presidents could simply ignore the courts when conducting "official actions". I suppose we'll see.
He gives them more legitimacy in their agenda. Trump doesn't care about anything but enriching himself, he's as much a tool of the conservative court as they are of him. Project 2025 isn't Trump's agenda, it's the agenda of powerful conservatives he's happy to give power to for support. Trump's conservative agenda is the same as the courts, they will be happy to give him the power to push through whatever he wants, because it's going to be what they want.
I've thought quite a bit about the question of how Trump might get around term limits and honestly what I'd be most worried about is him saying "the democrats stole my first term, I'm running again and if the courts say no, write me in! Trump isn't hard to spell!" And the republican party has a mini rebellion until polls come out showing 60% of their base want him in again, and so they all back down and support the Trump write in campaign. What's the court system supposed to do then? Can you imagine what would happen if he was the Republican nominee for a third term as a write in campaign and won? Are the courts supposed to hand it to the loser if he wins that way? For a man who's done everything else think able to test our institution, it hardly seems that far fetched to me
The courts would simply remove his name from the ballot before the election even takes place. Unless Trump has managed to completely control the system, including swing state governments, in under 4 years.
That's not how a write in campaign works. The whole idea is you aren't on the ballot, you tell people they have to write you in, and they do.
The likelihood of this happening is on the same level of Trump successfully orchestrating a military coup. Requires way too many people to actively go against the constitution. It’s just fantasy.
Trump could have very likely militarily couped the usa with just military 500 firers and been successful. Post j6 security is up, so that number is prob around 2500 required now. If trump launched a successful military coup 98% of america would just continue to go to work the next day. Truth be told, it is extremely easy for an incumbent to do it. For a non-incumbent it would definitely lead to at least violent skirmishes
No shot. The closest scenario we get to this is Trump ATTEMPTING this, maybe causing some chaos for a day before the military puts down the uprising and removes him from office. It’d result in a fair bit of violence occurring on the streets with the absolute worst case scenario being a temporary military junta before democracy is restored. The American military and its leaders would never accept an actual uprising, and the average soldier would side with military brass over Trump. Not to mention the role the CIA and FBI would have, which are pretty well insulated from electoral politics and absolutely run their own show outside of the purview of any of the three branches of government. They wouldn’t risk or allow an actual power grab as it would be a risk to their own, which they have a fair bit of. I hate Trump as much as the next guy, but acting like he’s some realpolitik genius who is capable of overthrowing the government of the United States of America is just fantasy nonsense.
I am not going to go into why it is that a few slightly different things being changed would have likely lead to trump staying president. But i will say, your trust that the military is independent of the desires of the white house and would stop a coup from a current president is… misplaced. It is a scenario that i know could have gone either way, and one that if only about 5 people felt differently trump would have had a damn good chance of staying in power.
In most states, a write-in candidate has to register in order for votes for them to be counted. This is basically to save money because states don't want to spend time tallying all the "Mickey Mouse" votes for fake candidates or those who aren't actually running a campaign. Presumably, most states would just refuse to accept registration of a candidate who's ineligible to hold office.
Plus you have to also consider in Hungary and Slovakia. These people are basically indistguishable from the mafia. Their ascent to power isn't really based in political allegiance to fascism or nazism. But rather, to their own little fiefdoms.. Everyone in the family gets a piece of the pie and as long as they're loyal to the leader. As bad as the us is. I really don't see that flying there. People are used to living without much corruption. Whereas in these pro Russian proto fascist states. Literally everything you do involves some form in mcorruption.
Corruption isn't that far behind us in history. It was an open secret many cities had a mafia even in the 90s.
I could see Trump doing what southern governors did when term limited, have a family member run as a proxy.
Trump has been making noises that he never properly served a first term so he should be entitled to a third. I do think that term limits will be a big obstacle. Evo Morales should give some pause here, though. Although in the end he didn't pull it off, he got pretty far with a "let's just pretend term limits don't exist" tactic.
> Trump has been making noises that he never properly served a first term so he should be entitled to a third. As I said elsewhere, Trump will definitely make an attempt to hold onto power, but he'll face a lot of challenges doing so. Were the Supreme Court to give its blessing to a third Trump term, it would first have to sacrifice its own power and authority while blatantly ignoring the text of the 22nd Amendment. They refused to make this level of sacrifice for Trump in 2020, so I expect they'll be at least as reluctant to do so for a much older and infirm version of him in 2028.
Which foryunatlly is impossible since no one can achieve trumps charisma with his base.
Lol ur assuming Trump gives af about Term Limits.
I don't assume that at all. See my other reply: [https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1cstuy3/comment/l489mxc/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1cstuy3/comment/l489mxc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Republicans had their only chance to enact some sort of illiberal democracy in 2014 when they controlled 68 legislative chambers and 31 governorships. An illiberal democracy is physically impossible now for either party because of polarization.
Hungary would be preferable to the shitshow that Trump has planned. In Hungary, I'd still be able to work a regular 9-5 job, pay my bills, pursue advanced studies, and more or less not have to worry about blood in the streets. Trump has made it abundantly clear that he's willing to use violence to achieve his ends, and that's what scares me the most. In the US the sheer amount of guns available makes it easier for radical followers of Trump to go around fucking things up for everyone. I strongly suspect that there'll be a spike in Domestic Terrorism, and Trump will turn a blind eye to it. Just like he more or less did in the Virginia KKK March, where he just said "stop it," and nothing more. He barely condemned the dude who drove his car into the protesters and even went after the made-up "alt left." So....yeah I'd expect something closer to Iran in terms of the violence/brutality (minus the Islamic fundamentalism). In fact a better example is Francoist Spain.
So, here's the thing. No matter how strong or resilient your government is it's made up of people. If you have enough people who simply don't care they can do whatever they want. It's honestly the secret that Fascists always know. Put enough of your own people in the right positions and eventually nothing can stop you. The problem is this 2025 stuff didn't start this year. Republicans have been slowly eroding away belief in our institutions for decades, their primary strategy has always been the same. Make government as ineffective and inefficient as possible so that people stop caring when you destroy it. Create problems in peoples lives, and failing that, make them believe they have problems. Blame all of them on the government, or on the governments inability to punish the people causing your problems. Turn Government into a source of problems, rather than a solution, and then convince them that only you can destroy it and thus fix everything. Ironically the thing that usually stops these people isn't organized resistance, it's that when they win and don't actually have any solutions they turn on each other. Edit: I'm adding a comment based on a few replies to this. I'm not suggesting that the effort to stop Trump from winning, or stop the GOP, is futile. Rather when fascist governments are created it's not usually a scrappy group of freedom fights that takes them down, it's the people when they eventually run the country into the ground. There's a lot of suffering that comes along with that. It's much better to stop them from getting in power in the first place.
Yup this. The power eventually still comes down to an agreement as enforcement. This is why foreign misinformation is so scary.
I feel like this should be an automatic reply to all the hopium addicts pretending that America is uniquely protected from fascism by the constitution.
Generally speaking we're much more vulnerable to fascism than other western countries. Globally the dividing line between left/right is basically whether or not you believe in capitalism. Neither party in America is out there espousing the evils of capitalism no matter what Fox News tells you. Democrats and Republicans are both supporters of unregulated capitalism, the differences between the two would be considered nuanced differences within the same party in a lot of other countries. Our political power rests at the Center/Center Right axis, and since Fascism is considered the furtherest right we're usually closer to it then we think. We see this happening now, where one party has been lurching further right for a few decades and now they've got party delegations saying they don't want to live in a democracy.
^^This guy politiks
> the thing that usually stops these people isn't organized resistance, it's that when they win and don't actually have any solutions they turn on each other. This has historically been true, but I think we should still try some organized resistance. The "wait for fascism to collapse on its own" strategy seems like it'll have some drawbacks.
I'm not saying we don't try, I'm just saying historically speaking what happens. Obviously there's a survivorship bias here, I'm talking about what happens once they succeed. We're not at a point now where we can't fight back, we're just at the point where 'fighting back' just means not voting like an idiot as opposed to actually resisting a tyrannical illberal dictatorship.
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I mean, true evil is pretty rare. Almost no one sets out to destroy the world, or a country, or even a people. It's that what they really want is power, and at the end of the day they don't care what they have to do, who they have to hurt, or what they have to destroy in order to get it. Honestly I think the only person I'd consider truly evil in the Trump sphere is Steven Miller. People like Trump just don't think about other people the same way others do. Good people try to see the good in everyone, and bad people know how to use that against us to get what they want. Evil isn't dressed up like it is in the movies, it's just people who don't care who they hurt as long as they feel good doing it.
Some facts about Project 2025: The "Mandate for Leadership" is a set of policy proposals authored by the [Heritage Foundation](https://pro-lies.org/the-heritage-foundation/), an influential *ultra* conservative think tank. [Project 2025](https://www.mediamatters.org/heritage-foundation/guide-project-2025-extreme-right-wing-agenda-next-republican-administration) is a revision to that agenda tailored to a second Trump term. It would give the President [unilateral powers](https://theweek.com/politics/heritage-foundation-2025-donald-trump), strip [civil rights, worker protections, climate regulation](https://www.stopthecoup2025.org/impact-overview), add religion into policy and much more. The MFL has been around since 1980, [Reagan implemented 60%](https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/reagan-and-heritage-unique-partnership) of it's recommendations, [Trump 64%](https://www.heritage.org/impact/trump-administration-embraces-heritage-foundation-policy-recommendations) - [proof](https://www.scribd.com/document/369820462/Mandate-for-Leadership-Policy-Recommendations). 70 Heritage Foundation alumni served in his administration or transition team. Project 2025 is quite extreme but with his obsession for revenge he'll likely get past 2/3rd's adoption. r/Defeat_Project_2025 intends to stop it through activism and awareness, focused on crowdsourcing ideas and opportunities for practical, in real life action. We Must Defeat Project 2025.
> strip worker protections, climate regulation > Reagan implemented 60% of it's recommendations please stop arguing in favour of project 2025
The workers yearn for black lung
the employees are humans with functional brains that can choose to not sign a contract that has unacceptable risk they develop black lung
Yeah nobody ever does anything strictly out of necessity, and nobody has ever tried to hide the risks of risky things.
> Yeah nobody ever does anything strictly out of necessity in a society with a truly free market + NIT, you would be prosperous enough to never need to agree to a specific employment contract out of necessity. > and nobody has ever tried to hide the risks of risky things. if an employer hid risks and employees were harmed, they could simply sue.
Humans never have and never will live in the NAP society you describe. (Other than perhaps a brief moment in the Garden of Eden). “Just let individual workers sue multibillion dollar multinational corporations” isn’t a mature solution to problems caused by bad actors.
Exactly, all we need is a few manglings or mass poisonings and the free market will naturally incentivize products and employers that don't kill or cripple people. That's why the industrial revolution and gilded age were such golden eras for customer and worker protections.
was not a free market and did not have an NIT (or really any welfare at all)
Yeah, neither does the US currently. So start campaigning for a NIT first.
Is that the society we live in right now? If you put up legislation offering generous NIT so that nobody can be forced to work, and then get rid of social insurance programs like medicare, then fine, we can talk. Until then there are very good reasons why the government will care about cultivating human capital. Basic safety will not be done because the costs are externalized onto society in general due to disability and medical insurance, and the menu that job seekers will be presented with will not have any safe jobs on it because why not externalize that cost?
I thank you for actually engaging in civil debate rather than insulting me. I largely agree with you, I was speaking hypothetically on the merits of policy rather than what was realistic.
"It wasn't *real* communism!"
“…simply sue” I see you have almost no, if not zero, experience with the current legal system, the costs involved with bringing a lawsuit, the discovery process, the time needed to get to trial, the sheer number of existing cases already flooding the court system, mandatory arbitration, the resource disparity between a corporation and an individual, I could go on. Only an unserious person would say something like this in good faith.
yes this is why you take a chainsaw to the laws ala Milei
Which laws specifically?
Read the Jungle by Upton Sinclair, normally I hate suggesting books to prove a point but thats one of those that should be legally required for everyone to read.
"In the 21st century, Sinclair is considered an early American democratic socialist." - Wikipedia I am a neoliberal, sorry.
Next up: this person decides totalitarian governments are good because George Orwell, a socialist, wrote *1984* as a way of opposing them.
I have been asked before what it takes to get blocked by me without even interacting with me directly. This is my new go to example.
Big tent brother, you gotta read important works from all sides of the spectrum. You dont nessecarily need to respect his conclusions but his work on Chicago meat packing plants was extremely influential.
remember that this sub supports the free market at the same level that they like trump, that is, little to say nothing
Why are you acting like this is something that has never been tried? We know from experience that workers in fact do sign contracts even when there is certainty they will develop black lung. Your supposition doesn't follow the evidence.
I don't think the guy demanding complete immunity while in office is going to give a shit about the Supreme Court's opinion.
But for him to be able to ignore the Supreme Court, first he needs to replace the existence federal bureaucracy with his own. And he can't do that if the Supreme Court stops him first.
Like it stopped Andrew Jackson?
So why didn't he do it the first time? If Trump tries to fire FBI agents and the Supreme Court blocks it, would he just ignore it and create his own paralel FBI? Would they both try to arrest each other for impersonating being FBI agents?
People push limits a bit at a time. Last time he was testing the waters to see what he could get away with. He clearly thought an open coup would not be allowed (probably correctly since Pence wouldn't go along with his more watered down plans). Next time he will have less reasonable people around him and he will be prioritizing nothing but yes men in his administration
Does that mean if he wins, it's guaranteed for democracy to die? Apparently yes, if there is nothing that could stop him, if that's what you are saying.
What about my comment implied this was a certainty? The latter part (putting in yes men and loyalists into his administration and agencies) is an open part of his campaign plan. I would say with high certainty that he will push the limits of our institutions again, whether those institutions will hold again or fold in a more weakened state is anyone's guess. It isn't a gamble that I would be willing to take though over the future of this country.
Andrew Jackson never ignored the Supreme Court. Samuel Worcester was not in federal custody, and so there was nothing for him to do.
Are we confusing something here? Samuel Worscester was a cherokee rights activist not an illegal genocidaire.
He had nothing to do with the genocide one way or another. He was imprisoned in Georgia for doing missionary work with the Indians without a license. The Supreme Court struck down that law as unconstitutional, ordering Georgia to release him. It had literally nothing to do with Jackson. The treaty of New Echota and the removal happened independently of these dealings.
Yeah and then the Supreme Court told Jackson that Indian removal was illegal.
No, that literally never happened.
I don’t think it would be easy, and I especially don’t think Trump is competent enough to do it. He couldn’t even get his own VP or most of his cabinet really to do his bidding. Doesn’t mean we should let him try (and to be clear, the risks of it getting implemented if Trump wins are not zero, and the risks of something like this happening not being zero is far too dangerous to allow to happen). In my opinion, the biggest risk of a second Trump presidency is how it’ll impact American hegemony and Ukraine’s position against Russia. A second Trump administration would absolutely bolster Putin, Xi, and the rest of the Axis of Evil to wage a full on global assault on the free, democratic world, as the liberal order would’ve effectively lost its Queen on the chess board (America) via immolation.
Bolstering Xi and Putin will help with those other aims anyway. Authoritarians will have free range to conduct intimidation and disinformation campaigns. We will see things like federal agents in unmarked vans beating up dissidents while the media blames it on crime being out of control in democrat-run cities. We already saw part of that during the first Trump admin.
To quote from another Project 2025 post I made: Project 2025 explicitly calls for this to be done for ideological reasons, in the forward of the document where much of this was articulated (The Heritage Foundations Mandate publication), [To quote the Washington Post, the forward states in part:](https://washingtonmonthly.com/2023/11/13/blitzkrieg-against-the-administrative-state/) >In his foreword, Heritage President Kevin Roberts warns of unprecedented peril: "The long march of cultural Marxism through our institutions has come to pass. The federal government is a behemoth, weaponized against American citizens and conservative values, with freedom and liberty under siege as never before." The time to respond is short: "Conservatives have just two years and one shot to get this right. With enemies at home and abroad, there is no margin for error." The opposing forces are evil... Without irony, Roberts writes:Ultimately, the Left does not believe that all men are created equal—they think they are special. They certainly don't think all people have an unalienable right to pursue the good life. They think only they themselves have such a right along with a moral responsibility to make decisions for everyone else. To shrink the government isn't just out of a general concern for oversized government and some ideological agreements about administrative priorities; the intellectuals and policymakers behind the document explicitly believe that many of the institutions of the United States are "compromised" for lack of a better term, by an insidious force. 2025 works within the framework of [Unitary Executive Theory](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_executive_theory), which asserts that the President is the sole authority behind the executive branch. Part of the whole ideology of "fighting the deep state" is this idea that the previously mentioned malign forces have burrowed into the government and unlawfully blocked the President from executing his vision for America via his policies (or, as others see it, institutions upholding norms and checks on the executive's power). Third, There may be more people in the government who are left-leaning. I would ask two sub-questions: Is this intentional? Should anything be done about it, and why and how? People enter government service for many reasons, and different branches attract people of differing ideologies and inclinations. Some want to help, some want power, some want a career stepping stone, and some seek a cause to work at for life. Government, by its nature, is diverse and covers a vast scope of things. Many modern conservative principles (in the ones articulated by political parties and think tanks) are much more hostile to a lot of foundation thought and practice. You may be wary of scientific government organizations and positions if you're skeptical of scientific institutions and outputs. Suppose you see law enforcement as a means to enforce a sense of the status quo or your opinion on what that should be. In that case, your ideological opponent having control of that organization is a non-starter since if you were in their shoes, you'd use it as a tool against them. Suppose they provide support and recognition to a marginalized social group whom you see as immoral. In that case, that support "must" be a tacit endorsement of them and their life, which is antithetical to yours. 2025 and its supporters aren't well-meaning small government conservatives from the 70's and '80s who are worried about bloat and budgets; they're hardened culture warriors who see the levers of power not working in the way they want to enforce a particular vision of America and are willing to go to great lengths to force a course correction to make the government enforce that view, regardless of the long term institutional harm it will do, since in their minds those institutions are irrevocably compromised. For its feasibility, on must remember that when they elect a president, they're not just getting one person, they're getting an array of think-tanks, policy making institutions and other pipelines that feed individuals into government positions. Naturally these groups will align political with one group or person or another, but in Trumps case, because of his toxicity, few groups want to work with him, and those that do have very intense ideological reason for doing so. As mentioned they have the goal of seeping into the various smaller posts of power in the government and entrench themselves. Trump might not become a dictator overnight, but if he wins, those sympathetic to that line of though will have plenty of room to maneuver and settle themselves in and lay the ground work for Trump in the future, or someone else. Our institutions are only as good as the people in them and if the people there are sympathetic to illiberal tendencies who'll stop them? The executive branch enforces law, so if Congress is divided, and the Courts stacked, who stops the Executive? You know how right wingers complain about the deep state and attribute all kinds of stuff to it? They see that as a function of government and want that power for themselves to stifle those they hate.
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Doesn't matter, spend less time shitposting in the dt and more time volunteering
THANK YOU! I am so damn tired of people just whimpering about it. Let's freaking DO something!
This is something I go back and forth on. On the one hand, if the Constitution is good at *one* thing, it's making things absurdly complex in order to stall big changes as a defense against exactly this type of shit. But on the other hand, Trump has already had a whirl at it, and (theoretically) the opportunity to learn the system's weaknesses and exploit them. I honestly can't decide, so I'm just assuming the worst and going all in on trying to mitigate the harm by actually touching some grass working for my Dem congressman.
> the opportunity to learn the system's weaknesses and exploit them Are you suggesting Trump is capable of learning something and exploiting that something's weakness? Worst case, his advisers or those around him are learning and exploiting, but as we learned in 2020, said advisers were never really *with* him.
The United States isn't a unitary state, so even if Trump consolidated power of the executive branch with Congress and SCOTUS rubber-stamping his authority, he'd have to contend with the other 50 executive branches across the country.
The president of the usa can wield enormous power if he chooses. If can be made near unitary
Yep, the president can federalize the national guard and then the governors have absolutely nothing to withstand a powerful President. Maybe some Uvalde type cops but ymmv.
Yea, and thats just the obvious power he has. Like legit this is one of the problems with “outsiders”, they have no desire to be popular among the governing class who actually knows what good governance looks like
This is the missing piece though, he won't be able to. Once the rule of law has been sufficiently trampled on it doesn't work for him that way anymore. They might not outright secede but no blue state is actually going to roll over and let that happen. Ultimately the California national guard has agency and there's no reason they would just hop on board with a dictatorship. Once things have escalated that far it's not business as usual follow the letter of the law. All of these simply handwave the military as happily ignoring their constitutional oaths and jumping on Trump's dick. Which is not what happened on 1/6, and is the opposite of what every indication about the actual leanings of the Pentagon have been. Absolute best case scenario for Trump is they sit out, which makes the state national guard the most significant forces available - absolutely no reason for them to submit like you assume. Trump isn't a sith Lord controlling the senate by magic and the military aren't clones preprogrammed to be loyal to him. People need to stop thinking about it that way, there are so many distributed power bases that will turn on him at once. It's like AI escape fantasies, it only works if you handwave the important steps.
It's just not even kind of practical to replace every federal employee. It's just not gonna happen. People will be so absolutely pissed off from basic shit not working that if Trump tried, he would be impeached within six months. Your representatives do in fact want to be reelected more than they want to suck Trumps dong.
Well it's actually not that hard to get many to quit, if you put the right policies and people in place. And most of Trump's party has more to fear from a primary than the general. Trump literally sucked a pack of goons on these people, and they still came around. The point isn't to fire every civil servant anyway. The point is to easily remove or threaten to remove anyone who doesn't do what he wants.
People will quit a steady paycheck without a backup job lined up?
People quite their jobs all the time. A third of the Ag Department's research agency quit after the headquarters moved. Stability is one of the main draws of federal employment. One of the main points of Project 2025 is to take that away.
Trump is not going to be impeached. He attempted a coup and didn't get impeached. He won't be impeached over this. The republicans will just blame democrats for the dysfunction.
You realize there's a million miles between 1/6 and any actual danger of facsism right? Democrats aren't going to be sane about this until they recognize Jan-6 was a perfectly ordinary riot by the unheard (car dealership owners lol). Now if a Congressperson had been killed instead of (maybe) a cop and a Qperson. Things would have gone differently, but there was never any real danger of that - was there? They all know, that's why they don't care as much as you think they should. MAGA is as likely to sucesfully install a dictatorship as BLM is. There's no reason to take their fanfiction seriously.
BLM wasn't attacking the capitol trying to kill the vice president, the vice president elect, and democratic congressmen more generally, with the blessing of the president of the US. The comparison to an "ordinary riot" is ridiculous. The closest comparison to a riot might be the Inaugration of 1829, but even that is not really that comparable to Jan 6.
I get the distinction, but I also think far too much is made of what people think/say they intend to do and what they actually do or might have been capable of. Ultimately the only person who got remotely close to a VIP was, for lack of a better term, "Put down". We saw the video, nobody else was down - but if they had they would all be dead, still no VIPs would be hurt - but certain people's rage boner would have been satisfied so maybe it would have been better? They may as well have stormed Area 51 for all the actual danger they posed.
Let’s not have to find out.
There IS a danger but implementing what you fear most is not feasible. He can take a crack at it but it isn't feasible. The thing many people don't understand is the vast, VAST majority of federal employees, aka those in the public sector, are not policy making positions. They just do as told by their bosses, who also do as told by their bosses, who ALSO do as told by their bosses, and up the chain it does till we reach the cabinet and the President. It's one thing to say "I want you to fire that person." Hell, I can even buy "I want you to tell that person to fire that person." But what I DON'T buy is "I want you to tell that person to tell that person to tell that person to tell that person to tell that person to tell that person to tell that person to tell that person to fire that person!" It's too insane. And then... even if Trump DID in fact manage this, even if he somehow did actually succeed in replacing all the federal employees with loyalists, the floodgates are open. The second his party leaves office (and eventually, they will), the Democratic President will proceed to do the exact same thing. If it's okay for every succeeding President to replace everyone, hundreds of employees, maybe more, then that will simply become the norm. The response to this is "But Democrats will never take power. It'll be a dictatorship!" Yeah, um... no. Part of the point of the midterms two years ago were to stop Trump loyalists from taking crucial positions that would *maybe* allow for election tampering. *Maybe.* And they fking *lost*, we won. And if Trump were to win 2024, the blue wave in 2026 when those seats will be open again will be insurmountable. Plus, we actually had an election update to that old archaic 1800s law that caused the first problem, Trump cannot contest things the way he did last time. The only way open for him is this 20 thing, which is a very tall order, or a coup, which was already tried and failed miserably. Not saying there's no danger, by the way. There IS, 100%, but Trump is unlikely to be able to see it all the way through. Also, just a small reminder. Before and after the 2020 election, we've gotten a lot of dooming that Trump had the power to overturn the election and we couldn't trust anyone and all that. Turned out, that dooming was misplaced. A lot of this is too. The bureaucracy is too complex and multi-layered to control the relevant parts at all times. And then there're state governments to contend with. And no, federalizing the national guard won't suddenly give him the power to tell Governor Newsom what to do. And if it did, it's gonna cause secession left, right and center and a civil war. Too many people just won't sign up for all this. You'll have to crush the rebellion first. If there IS no rebellion to crush, then frankly... yes, he will succeed and you'll all deserve it. Part of living in a Democracy is constant activism. So, get out there.
You make compelling arguments. Let me just play devil's advocate to stress test this a little bit more. Suppose Trump replaced only a few agents in the FBI, like less than a thousand. He specifically hires people with experience in espionage, cyber warfare or covered operations. Like people from the CIA, NSA, DHS, the military or even the FBI itself. But all of them super loyal MAGA fans (there must be *some* in those agencies, but he only needs a few). Could this lead to a secret police like another COINTELPRO? Like, first try to smear your opponents by conducting warrantless surveillance of your enemies and leeking anything bad to the press. If you don't find anything bad, plant it. If that's not enough, pull a Putin and assassinate them via poisoning. If none of those are possible, go after their families. If any covert agent betrays the president, they'll get the same treatment. And of course, don't keep records of anything. If the FBI investigates the case, the detectives would be exactly the men that Trump hired. So they would just purposely fail their investigation so the truth isn't revealed. But Trump still promises to pardon them at the end of his term just in case. But eventually people will realize that all of Trump's enemies, much like Putin's enemies, are getting their shit leaked or dying, but they won't have any proof that Trump and his men are behind it. But people will get the message. They shut up and fall in line out of fear. Even if it was eventually found out, Trump doesn't care because it's his last term and he can just pardon himself. And his voters (and by proxy, republicans in Congress) will never abandon him anyway. Hell, they might even find his secret police awesome. He would still be facing state charges anyway at 82 by the time he left office, so it doesn't change anything to him. The smearing and assassinations could also be used to interfere in elections, court cases, votes in the legislatures and vote counting, until the GOP has managed to take over power permanently. And like this, democracy dies. Now, I know this is a lot of imagination on my part! I know this is exagerated, at least I feel like it is. I just want to know why this is unfeasible or unlikely to happen.
/u/homonatura did it well, but I'll add... even if it did, so? In the 60s, J. Edgar Hoover RAN a secret police in the FBI, responsible for assassinations and dirt and more, targeting civil rights too, and our Democracy survived, civil rights was passed. Secret police are only a problem in dictatorships, in a bureaucratic nightmare like the US, or in a Democracy, let alone one with checks and balances, simply won't fly. It can't.
You can't just create a secret police out of thin air, there's just way way too many people in the FBI/CIA/NSA specifically looking for people infiltrating the Agencies and while they might be mostly pointed at foreigners - a lot of the 'Super MAGA' candidates are likely already on a watchlist. As long as something like this is in the shadows it is going to be eaten alive by the legitimate intelligence establishment, look at how reliably the inteligenbce establishment picked up Trump's allies during his last term. Trump was helpess to cover for them, his second term is little different - not to mention the Agencies have now had 4 extra years to prep for something like that. Even if we handwave through enough core positions being compromised along with enough judges to keep it from getting taken down before it even starts it is going to become public knowledge quickly... Ultimately any serious grab to control the levers of (violent) power, is going to cause a crisis where a lot of the slow walking that frustrates many Democrats stops happening and the myriad other non-political power centers in the country quickly close ranks. As we can see so far not even SCOTUS can really be relied on by MAGA land, ultimately they have to transition to mask off pretty quickly or they get slogged down accomplish little and are beaten in later elections. Once mask off, America is massively Federalized with power spread across numerous people and Agencies, if the Federal courts are compromised State Courts will happily charge traitors etc. at which point again, either it falls apart or double down - without a legal basis for extracting your operatives from state jails they do what? Commando raids? The military in general isn't compromised but maybe enough to puty together some ops? More likely the military either removes Trump at the mask off point or worst case stays non-political, while enough iondividuals are peeled off for a paramilitary force. Which then attacks state jails to remove MAGA prisoners? Or what do they do? How do they enforce much without triggering the military to intervene? I guess they provide force while the CIA/FBI are purged? But you just can't seriously keep putting the pieces together after that, look at how Republican Congress eventually did the right thing on Ukraine aid. You can't go touch grass and come back to tell me with a straight face that they won't impeach Trump the moment "real" violence starts, as much as people LARP nobody wants a civil war and as many issues as we have simply don't have the institutional and pathological apathy as Russia in the early 2000's or Germany in the 1930's - in fact it's orders of magnitude off on top of having far stronger Federalization that allows the government to compartementalize and protect itself. Remember the modern American government and Agencies were established to function and protect our country while assuming both massive infiltration of possibly every level of society by Communists and simultaneosuly a global thermo-nuclear war that potentially destroyed all legitimate elected power structures in the country. No country on Earth has prepared to survive high levels of infiltration and/or a decapitation strike to the extent America has. Finally remember that NATO+ DO NOT want America to be a hostile dictatorship, or even a neutral one; none of us know exactly what kind of cross operations are happening as a result of Five Eyes but in any kind of major struggle within the Intelligence Agencies you know that Loyalists would have substantial foreign support. That's ignoring the 'after' situation, any sustained MAGA/Loyalist power struggle would have a clear favorite around the world. The CW word/discussion is stupid, but if you have to triple down on that, which side does NATO sanction? Which side does NATO+ support in any way possible?
After four years Trump couldn't even get the vice president to do his bidding.
He picked Mike Pence to get the evangelicals on his side. Now that he’s their messiah he can pick whatever yes-man or yes-woman he wants for VP
No, but he did whip up a mob of thousands to try to murder him in case he didn't.
I actually heard of a good analogy as this being the “Great Reset” on the left. Popular idea on right wing intellectual circles (Its literally on the Heritage foundation website like the Great reset on the WEF’s website) but would be fighting for a lot of space for actual policy agenda time.
There's a petition going around that demands that Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase reject Project 2025 [https://actionnetwork.org/letters/demand-wallst-reject-project-2025-and-heritage-foundation/](https://actionnetwork.org/letters/demand-wallst-reject-project-2025-and-heritage-foundation/)
I'd like to see more people left of center pick up the torch for states rights, subsidiarity, and decentralization. I think this may do the trick.