|
2024 US Election Thread? 2024 US Election Thread (pg. 7)
|
View this Thread in Original format
| JEO |
| Ah, man. I still had a tiny bit of hope that it wouldn't come to this, but that's basically it for Ukraine and, possibly sooner than I'd like to imagine, big parts of Eastern Europe. I wonder if Trump's voters have any idea of what could be happening to the US's influence in the coming years and decades. Or is it what they want? For the US to be "just another country"? Because let me tell you... There's a fair bit of work to be done for you to be accepted among the normies. |
|
|
| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by ziptnf
At what point is the legislative process just going to become superfluous in Trump's America? |
Easy there, Nick. I know I've knocked the US elsewhere (being South American taught me to be a bit sceptical of your foreign policy), but the US is a pretty damn awesome country, albeit flawed as any human institution is bound to be. Here's why this democratic backsliding is much more difficult than you probably imagine.
Grab the popcorn, and here we go, because Virginia is not Venezuela just yet! ;)
How to Kill a Republic if you're Fanta-stic (and Why It’s Bloody Hard)
There are two kinds of people who dream of dismantling a democracy: the ones who want to do it quickly, with tanks and flags and late-night emergency broadcasts (e.g. here, before I came into this world), and the ones who want to do it quietly, with technicalities and loopholes and the kind of legal jargon that makes even the keenest political nerds’ eyes glaze over. The first lot always fail. The second lot mostly fail, too.
Let’s say you’re the Prime Minister — except not, because that wouldn’t work, would it? Let’s say you’re the President of the United States, which means you’re not just the Head of Government, you’re the Head of State, too. You’ve got everything lined up: the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the motorcade, the fancy pens. You tell yourself history will remember you, but not in the way you want. You tell yourself power is meant to be used, not borrowed. You tell yourself America is waiting for someone strong and orange enough to lead it. A very stable genius. The most stable :D
And yet.
Act I: The House of Commons, But Worse
Congress. On paper, it’s yours. But Congress is like a Thanksgiving dinner with 535 uncles. No one agrees on anything. Your party is your party, but half of them are thinking about their re-election campaigns, and the other half have convinced themselves they’re part of some grand institutional tradition. The few who actually have a spine are a nightmare, because they think they’re fighting for democracy rather than just making your life difficult.- Step one: Get them in line. You try. You promise. You threaten. But American politicians, bless them, have a knack for looking after themselves first. Their donors come first. Their poll numbers come first. And when push comes to shove, half of them would rather be the heroic dissenter than your loyal foot soldier.
- Step two: Govern by emergency. Get the public scared. Tell them everything is a crisis. But the trouble with crises is that people get bored of them. They go back to worrying about petrol prices, their mortgage payments, whether their kid is failing maths. You can’t hold their attention forever, and when you lose the people, you start losing Congress.
- Step three: The law is only as strong as its enforcers. You tell the Department of Justice to sit this one out. Some do. Some don’t. Bureaucrats aren’t glamorous, but they’re stubborn. They delay. They resist. You fire one, but there’s always someone else to take their place. You fire enough, and suddenly, everyone starts paying attention.
But, let's suppose the legislative branch crumbles. Sad! So what then? :p
Act II: The Judges Who’d Like to Be Remembered Kindly
Yay, you stacked the Supreme Court. Amazeballs! You picked Justices young enough to still be there when your grandchildren are sitting their A-levels. You thought that meant control. It doesn’t. Even the ones you handpicked, the ones who smiled and nodded through confirmation, have ambitions beyond you. They don’t owe you. They owe their own reputations. And they like their reputations, don’t we all? Even Brett wants to be invited to the beer club reunion at some point. - Step one: Get them to rubber-stamp your overreach. Some do. Some don’t. Some wring their hands and write long, agonised rulings that amount to “Well, technically, yes, but we don’t like it.”
- Step two: Expand the bench? In theory, great. In practice, even your own party starts backing away. They don’t want to be the ones who finally break the system, because they know the pendulum swings back, and when it does, they’d rather not be on the receiving end.
- Step three: Even the friendliest Court doesn’t enforce laws. It just interprets them. Someone still has to act on their rulings. States still have to comply. Federal agencies still have to do as they’re told. And inconveniently, they don’t always do as they’re told.
Fine, now let’s suppose the judiciary also folds, because we've all seen too many Roland Emmerich films where every public building with a star-spangled banner goes up in flames :wtf:
What do we have left?
Act III: The Public, Who Will Not Shut the Hell Up
You try to control elections. You make it harder for the wrong people to vote, easier for the right ones. But American states love their autonomy. Judges block your new rules. Activists sue. Local election officials drag their feet. Even the ones who are theoretically on your side can’t get their act together quickly enough.
You control the press? No, you control parts of it. The others won’t shut up. In fact, they get louder. They publish leaked documents, expose dodgy deals, run op-eds by ex-advisors who’ve suddenly developed a moral compass. You push back, but the more you attack them, the more people start listening.
You control the military? Not quite. Not yet. The generals are polite, but they’re sceptical. They play along until they don’t. They know where their loyalties really lie, and it’s not with you personally. It’s with the institution. And institutions, unlike Presidents, outlast everything.
And then—nothing. No fireworks, no final act. Year Three arrives. The midterms happen. Your own party starts to distance itself.
They’re tired of explaining your latest controversy. They don’t want to be the ones justifying why you’re still in office when their own voters are getting restless. Not even a well-placed covfefe can save you now. The best covfefe. Many people are saying it, or so you thought :(
And that’s it. You didn’t lose in a great, historic moment. You lost in a slow, miserable decline. The courts refused to move quickly enough. The bureaucracy buried you in procedural hurdles. The military held its distance. The press kept shouting. The people, in their infuriating, inconvenient way, still had a say.
And in the end, you’re left with nothing but a long, grumbling farewell address, the press snapping photos as you step into the waiting car, and the Secret Service reminding you, yet again, that you don’t get to just ‘stay’ at the White House. You reach for the phone, hoping for back-up, maybe even a few extra votes. But all you get is: 'Sir, this is a Wendy’s'.
That's history, taking notes, shaking its head, and moving on (for now, that is, I'm assuming it'll be just one term). |
|
|
| SYSTEM-J |
I wish I could share your jaunty optimism, Lira, but we're already seeing scenarios where Trump is talking about firing FBI agents or Musk is justifying gutting federal departments and authorising massive public data breaches on the grounds of hunting out vague, unproven "corruption". These are exactly the tactics we've seen in countless past dictatorships where political opponents and dissenters are dragged away on tenuous charges so quickly that the rule of fair law can't possibly be applied, and those left standing quickly become scared for their livelihood or even their freedom. In that kind of witch hunt, protecting your "reputation" quickly goes out the window for all but the most staunchly principled.
As for Ukraine... a month or so ago it briefly seemed like Trump was taking a positive anti-Russia stance on it, but that's predictably evaporated and he's going to thrash out a deal with Putin without even bothering to consult the rest of NATO. Trump rarely seemed that interested in foreign policy during his first term, but he seems vastly emboldened on the world stage this time around. Already his proclamations on Greenland, Gaza, Ukraine and international trade as a whole have been alarmingly aggressive. |
|
|
| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
I wish I could share your jaunty optimism, Lira, but we're already seeing scenarios where Trump is talking about firing FBI agents or Musk is justifying gutting federal departments and authorising massive public data breaches on the grounds of hunting out vague, unproven "corruption". These are exactly the tactics we've seen in countless past dictatorships where political opponents and dissenters are dragged away on tenuous charges so quickly that the rule of fair law can't possibly be applied, and those left standing quickly become scared for their livelihood or even their freedom. In that kind of witch hunt, protecting your "reputation" quickly goes out the window for all but the most staunchly principled. |
I mean, sure. I’m not saying the US is untouchable, or that it won’t take a hammering for the foreseeable future. You’re right that purges and loyalty tests are standard tactics in creeping authoritarianism, and that political fear can be corrosive in ways that aren’t immediately visible. Once enough people start worrying about their jobs, their safety, their family’s future, principle can go straight out the window. I’m not under any illusions about that.
But I think there’s a difference between Trump talking about mass purges and actually pulling them off. The problem with institutions — annoying, clunky, slow-moving as they usually are — is that they’re designed to make sudden takeovers incredibly difficult. And while executive orders will be flying right, left, and centre, the whole system is built to resist, delay, frustrate. If it wasn’t, his first term would have looked very different, wouldn't it? There’s a reason dictators tend to start with a full-on coup or a very long con instead of four years of tweeting through it.
I’m still a glass-one-third-full kind of guy, not because I think America is going to stroll out of a second Trump term without a scratch (that's impossible), but because undoing democracy isn’t like flipping a table... it’s more like trying to carve a sculpture out of jelly. You can bash away at it, but the thing keeps wobbling back into shape, and no matter how relentless the executive orders, there’ll be bureaucrats and judges and journos making life difficult in a thousand small ways. Annoying people. People who delay things. People who refuse to get with the programme. People who, frankly, might just be tired enough to say no.
Maybe I’m projecting too much from Brazil’s experience, and maybe Trump is an altogether different beast, but if our scrappy, imperfect institutions withstood Bolsonaro’s incompetence, maybe the US — problematic and bruised — will still end up as a flawed democracy after four more years rather than an entirely performative one. I’d be more worried if there was a version of Trump who was less lazy, more competent, and a little more patient, but that’s not the Fanta menace we’re dealing with. Also, a Trump-Musk fallout seems probable in the long run, and honestly, the sooner the better :p |
|
|
| SYSTEM-J |
I think there's a very clear difference between Trump's first term and this one. First time around he almost seemed baffled by where he'd found himself and there was a lack of structure around him. Aids and appointees were fired and replaced almost weekly. It's only when he lost the election that he belatedly shifted to trying to undermine the system.
This time around he's arrived with a much clearer sense of purpose and a pre-written statement of intent with Project 2025, and while he may well fall out with Elon Musk soon enough, pretty much on Day One he gave the guy the keys to gut the federal government. If you look at the stuff Musk is doing now under the pretext of "efficiency" and rooting out "corruption", what do you think they will do to the electoral voting system four years from now? |
|
|
| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
If you look at the stuff Musk is doing now under the pretext of "efficiency" and rooting out "corruption", what do you think they will do to the electoral voting system four years from now? |
No, no, I totally hear you. I'm well aware this isn’t 2016 Trump, baffled by where he’s landed, surrounded by staff who don’t know if they’re supposed to be running a country or filming a reality show. This time, he’s walking in with a list: of people to fire, of departments to gut, of ways to make the whole machine work for him. And Musk, well, if his whole efficiency schtick means blowing up institutions in pursuit of "truth," imagine what that looks like when it’s the actual government instead of just X, formerly known as Twitter, formerly known as Prince, formerly known as a functioning platform. I honestly lost track of the name changes long ago :toothless
But the thing is, Trump still isn’t a planner. He’s not an ideologue. Maybe I’m underestimating him, but let’s be honest, he’s more of an egotist. He doesn’t have a grand vision of authoritarian control. He just wants everything to serve him, personally, in the moment. That makes him a generalissimo without the clonazepam — unpredictable, impulsive, and, to be fair, pretty damn lazy. Even when he had total control of Congress, he spent more time rage-tweeting than actually governing. The scary thing isn’t that he’s an efficient dictator-in-waiting — it’s that he doesn’t have the patience for a long game, which means he’ll be more erratic, more destructive, and more likely to stumble into an actual crisis without a plan to get out. A more disciplined authoritarian would be far more dangerous (thankfully, Trump has the patience of a toddler trying to load YouTube on bad wifi :D).
And yeah, I get the concern about purging the federal government, but that’s not as easy as Musk gutting Twitter or X or whatever it’s called next week. Twitter is one company. The US government is massive, and there are entire layers of career civil servants who don’t answer to the White House directly. Even if he fired thousands of officials on Day One, that still leaves a bureaucracy full of people who know how to stall, resist, and leak like crazy. Project 2025 sounds terrifying on paper, and I watched the Jon Oliver episode on that too — but on paper, so did half of his first-term plans that never actually materialised. Even if he wants to bulldoze through the system, courts, lawsuits, and plain old bureaucratic inertia will slow him down. America’s government is many things, but efficient isn’t one of them, as I recall it.
And then there are elections. If democracy breaks, it’ll be because people stop believing in it, not because Trump personally hacks the system. The electoral process isn’t a single structure that can be flipped off like a switch — it’s thousands of independently run elections, state laws, local officials, and courts. He can purge federal agencies all he wants, but he still doesn’t control how votes are counted in blue states. If anything, after 2020 and the 6th of January, those officials are going to be more paranoid, more careful, and more resistant to federal overreach, not less, don’t you reckon?
But I think we can both agree that the real question isn’t just "Can Trump break democracy in four years?", but "Can he weaken it enough that the next guy finishes the job?" Because that’s how these things usually go, isn’t it? One leader smashes the windows, the next one moves in, and changes the locks :(
And yeah, elections (if we’re still calling them that by then) matter. I’m bracing myself for next year’s midterms because if he loses the majority in either (or both) chambers, that slows everything down. That forces him to actually negotiate instead of bulldozing his way through. That buys time. And if there’s one thing a creeping authoritarian hates, it’s waiting in line: whether at a court, a ballot box, or a McDonald’s drive-thru :p |
|
|
| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
And then there are elections. If democracy breaks, it’ll be because people stop believing in it, not because Trump personally hacks the system. |
I talked about this in the thread Zharen made straight after the election result. The fact Trump convincingly won re-election tells me that the majority of American voters don't believe in the sanctity of democracy anymore. Because this is the man who tried to overturn an election result right in front of everyone's eyes, a man who incited a riot that invaded the very seat of American democracy in an attempt to overthrow that result through physical violence. Everyone saw what happened, everyone knew exactly what they were witnessing. And they still voted for him again four years later. |
|
|
| ziptnf |
| And, news flash, despite all the insane that’s happening, the motherer was *cheered* at the Super Bowl. I overhear conservatives in public all the time talking about how thankful they are that “Trump is in office taking care of all the dumb liberal ”. They want this. the institutions that have stood for 250 years, they have a chance to make America white again, and they’re taking it. They don’t care what freedoms they give up along the way. |
|
|
| emc^2 |
Long time listener, sigh.
Over 10 years ago I stupidity asked here which other sites you fools visit outside of here, and what do you know, someone said reddit. I wish I could travel back and time and hit myself with a 2x4, so I wouldn't be that stupid. I've become a Reddit dweeb since then and stopped coming here because it was getting way to edgy and antisemitic. Idk how many suspensions lira handed out to me for my stupidity. Reddit was a much more vibrant replacement.
However, that decade fried my head and turned me into a "libtard". I no longer think Israel is on the right side of history, and much like United States is digging its own grave among the lost to history countries and empires.
Perhaps the greatest lie we all been fed is that aliens and lizard people don't exist and are stuff of folklore. One look at Elon and Trump kinda makes it not so outlandish anymore. They're not humans, not like us. (Ha)
Well, if cryptobros believe we live in a simulation, then I might as well believe we live among the rejects and degens of lizard people, and those c*nts are hellbent on bringing about the Armageddon. I have no other explanation.
Idk where to hide from news anymore, so I came here, the only place that felt warm, while being silly and sufficiently insulated from the world outside. But as they say, you can never go home again.
maga, Trump, anyone who supports them for whatever reason.
I love Canada, my old and nationalistic Ukraine with all its flaws, and I hate the ing that calls itself "United States". It's ing embarrassing to be here lately and apologizing to the world. I don't know what next 4 years will bring, but I don't want to be in America to find out.
Tldr - maga are ****s, I'm sorry we failed you, world. And I wish we can go back to making tranceaddict great again
And ps. I no longer hate mnml. Fckn srs
Brejcha broke me 😁 |
|
|
| Sykonee |
I've never believed in the Lizard People thing, but whenever I see Peter Thiel in an interview, I start to wonder...
/or maybe he's sweating in hot anticipation over the potential harem of DOGE Youth Elon's assembled for him |
|
|
| planetaryplayer |
| I’m a lizard person |
|
|
| SYSTEM-J |
| Sharks aren't lizards, brother. |
|
|
|
|
