The experience of the world suggests that your faith in secret service or the military is grotesquely unfounded: those guys break fascist at the fall of a hat, let alone a coup d’etat.
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Oh, I have no faith that they won’t sign up for fascism. But I do have some confidence that, if asked to serve an asshole incompetent wanna-be dictator who has insulted them at every opportunity, that they’ll take a pass and wait for the next one.
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Well here’s hoping we never have to find out which of us is more right on this?
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We can both be right, and avoid crossing over from the Stupid Timeline to the Dark Timeline. 
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Son-out-law.
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I mean, I rock a mean goatee. More of a Van Dyke, really, so I’d fit in in the Dark Timeline. But eventually, it just gets too itchy.
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This.
Strangely, it was the exact opposite side of the aisle that always assumed (or masturbatorily hoped) that they’d need guns to deal with an illegal overthrow of US law corrupting the Govt…
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I hope you’re right but until now I haven’t seen any promising signs and now that unemployment is skyrocketing I think people will think twice about raising their voices. It reminds me in some ways of the Milgraine Experiment- how far will people continue with some thing that they know is wrong just because someone in a position of authority told them to? The experiment proved that most people will go pretty far and that its not a behavior unique to Germany. " I was just following orders" is one of the most chilling sentences that exists. The Trumps having people working for them who collude with evil dictators from foreign regimes on a daily basis. Everyone knows it and most of the Republicans seem cool with it. When Khashoggi (a US citizen) was murdered by a evil regime did we run into the streets and invade the White House? No, Trump goes on tv every day and says " fake news" and we let it go until the next outrage and then we let that go. We say to ourselves, " well when the election comes…" How easy would it be to tell people, " well we had to send in the National Guard to polling stations in ( fill in any swing state) because we know that the Democrats were fixing the election. How many people see armed guards in front of polling stations and then just go home? The guys in the National Guard say, " I was just following orders. "
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Aaaaaaaaand here we go:
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I often say, and will now repeat, projection is like a superpower of the right wingnuts. If they accuse us of a thought or plan, it is because they are actively carrying it out currently and cannot imagine that they are any more evil than the hated left.
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Actually the Milgram experiment proved that resistance to authority increased when it was presented as orders. Folks would proceed with the torture if they were cajoled and convinced that it benefited a greater good (ie, science) but if they were ordered or told “you must proceed” resistance was extremely common.
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He’s been saying he might not accept election results since 2015, for practically every contest that’s important in anyway.
Along with all the fraud claims.
It’s exactly why this is a subject of speculation. But it’s got the same end points. If he takes it to the point of law suits and investigations, and that sufficiently muddies the subject to say there isn’t a clear winner.
Well then it’s the Democratic House or line of succession when his term ends. That’ll still create massive problems. But not Trump is president forever problems.
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With apologies for cranky spitballing and rant-y what-ifs; I am off coffee this week and next…
Ye gods I hope you’re right. Thanks for this. I shall continue work to get out the vote.
I remember years ago chuckling and SMH at Drumpf’s pathetic posturing. Now I feel like a fool for having underestimated him and his legion of enablers, greedy sycophants and co-conspirators.
This Barr?
https://twitter.com/CaslerNoel/status/1260972592711811075
Does Cult45 really need legal cover these days?
Do they just play the pandemic card and–presto!–all bets are off?
Tie it up in complicit courts with politcally appointed pet jurists?
Justice deferred is justice denied?
Seriously, are we underestimating them yet again?
They tend to think big, I’ll give them that.
Obviating the opportunity to vote by mail during a pandemic is AFAICT merely their latest iteration of voter suppression.
At the moment, thankfully, Crosscheck is suspended.
What if there are enough co-conspirators to moot this point:
?
Rhetorical math problem et al:
How many governors (24D, 26R) would be required to effectively–regardless of legality–bork the presidential election November? How many willing [politically appointed, names withheld, zero-accountability] electors? Will Cult45 actually agree step out of power, to relinquish one of the mother-of-all-gravy-trains: classified information used as stock tips…
… among countless other versions of profiteering opportunities? Cult45 seems perfectly willing to sacrifice us for that.
I agree with you 95%.
Here’s a possible other 5%: Cult45 goes through the motions to keep the veneer of rule of law, with every accusation a confession, with this playbook in hand:
The toxic trifecta of Facebook+Fox, Kushner+DisasterCapitalistsCronies and Russian operatives feed a vocal, toxic/violent minority of USAians who are simply too damn credulous and/or too lazy to factcheck the Liar-in-Chief.
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I think it depends on whether we are talking about the people Trump’s brought into the government with him, the people who were there before him, or “the People” as in the general populace.
The people who Trump brought in with him are mostly loyal, but as Sondland showed, there are even some of them who only go so far. The general populace is already mostly angry (and I’m not talking about the faux protesters) but will mostly lick boots if there’s a crackdown. But the career civil servants have already shown that most of them won’t do illegal shit for this guy. There are leaks like crazy, whistleblowers are a weekly event, and people who already defy the intent of orders while sorta kinda following them.
Here’s an example: you know how Trump keeps talking about how Obama left the military with no ammunition? That comes from his continuing misconception of why military leaders told him they couldn’t attack Iran when he wanted to. The generals told him that they didn’t have the munitions in place to make the attack. So now he thinks they literally didn’t have enough bullets (thanks, Obama!). But they were really just resisting starting WWIII on this dope’s say-so.
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However, it’s not nearly as ugly as that. There are several anti-Trump Republican governors on that list, including Vermont and Maryland. Even Baker in Massachusetts, who I wouldn’t have imagined as anti-Trump before the pandemic, has been acting completely in opposition to the administration.
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It goes back to what you were saying about next steps and upshots.
How does Trump follow up a claim that the election is illegitimate? What steps are neccisary to potentially flip the results and give him a second term after a loss?
He issues an executive order, it’ll spur a court case.
He can start a DOJ investigation, but congress can investigate on it’s own, as can every state. And that eventually ends in the courts.
He can file a suit in federal court. But so can everyone down to individual voters.
What are all those courts and investigations, most of which he can’t control find poking around the legitimacy of an election?
Cause it isn’t going to be millions of secret pedophiles and illegal immigrants voting 10 times and Nancy Pelosi personally hacking the planet. But there’s an awful lot of GOP voter suppression going on.
For it to go his way it also needs to get wrapped up in less than 2 months. Cause on January 20th some one else gets sworn in.
How many moving parts need to be altered, how many other parties need to be done away with before January to alter that path? Or how drastic an action would take to get over that inertia, in two months?
People should be much more worried about him winning the election. Cause four more years is potentially long enough to properly set up such a slide into dictatorship. And even though Trump’s crew don’t seem to have their shit together enough to accomplish something that complex it creates a “the next guy” problem.
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If I were an American, I’d be less worried about a slide into dictatorship, and more about Trump & co. running America into ground and wrecking the civil service and Federal government.
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I’ve been saying for a couple of years now:
Everybody was surprised when ⊥rump was elected in 2016.
Nobody should be surprised if he is re-elected in 2020.
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