And if you do feel that way, please quit trying to spread it to other people, FFS;
it’s hard enough to cope these days as it is.
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Agreed. But in theory you have that through the impeachment process which is operated by those trusty elected members of Congress you all voted for.
And yes, we’ve seen how “well” that can work in practice.
But that is a result of lots of voters actively supporting Trump and lots of Trump supporting Republicans being in Congress and voting for Trump, i.e. the political system working exactly as intended.
Sure. That does no harm to the theory though which explicitly acknowledges that it is a shitty system. The question is always is there a better one. Answer: yes, almost certainly - but can enough people agree on what it is?
I’m not sure which violation you’re referring to. I don’t really see how you can get around the problem of having to have somebody who can decide whether a document is secret or not. It’s not exactly the sort of thing you can have a mass vote on.
Someone has to make decisions of that sort and therefore one has no option but to give someone the power to do so.
There is even a review system baked in as mentioned above. Improvements definitely welcome but difficult.
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Doesn’t mean it’s not fascism, tho. Considering how much the GOP is seeking to literally break the electoral system, and go back to the days when a large part of the population is literally UNABLE TO VOTE, we have to think bigger than just “VOTE”… If there is voter suppression at play, the whole situation is different and it requires more than just “vote.” There are people who are willing to go beyond voter suppression to violence against people who want to vote.
How’d that work with a president who pretty evidently broke the law when congress was stacked.
Which was a minority of Americans. But sure… “democracy works” I guess. As long as it’s white men voting, and not the rest of us.
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I don’t disagree with any of that.
I think that sets out the problem perfectly.
The system you have is not an unworkable one (there is obviously room for lots of tweaking, for example get rid of Electors entirely and adjust the number of presidential votes each region gets to something sensible or just vote directly for President) - so long as the franchise is sufficiently available and exercisable.
Which as you say the Republicans are doing their utmost to prevent.
What can one do about that? I don’t know. Certainly trying to persuade republican voters and elected officials that their course is fundamentally wrong would help but they don’t seem to be listening.
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Fuckin’ A; I wish folks who are not directly imperiled by the fuckery going on in US politics were not so often patronizing in their commentary.
This is not some mere esoteric ‘thought exercise’; it’s literally life or death stakes, for a whole helluva lot of us… and what happens in the US does have a residual impact on the rest of the world.
Thanks for all your input, anyway.
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In theory the impeachment and removal process outlined in the Constitution would also have the advantage of expediency; if Congress so chose they could remove a grossly unfit President from office in a matter of days whereas the logistics alone of organizing a National referendum would require months of preparation.
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Yeah. I don’t think republicans care. They like the rigged system and there is no convincing them morally or logically. The only way within the system is to get democrats and the left wing motivated enough to incrementally rebalance the power. Get the rightwing judges replaced the same slow and steady way the republicans did. I want to be optimistic. Demographically the left should have an advantage. But the system is SO rigged between the electoral college and redistricting, that it’s gonna take enormous population shifts or extreme events effecting peoples lives to change anything. If a 2 plus year long pandemic, a never ending Russian war, a totally corrupt former president, and extreme climate change don’t change minds I have no idea what will. I really understand how German citizens supported the Nazi state, how Americans accepted slavery etc now. The blinders are off. I wanna believe the majority of people are good but there are a LOT - (maybe not a numerical majority but way too many) irredeemable horrible people out there. I mean YES please vote. For heavens sake, don’t get disillusioned and say “they’re all the same”. That drives me nuts. But we have a serious uphill battle because of the rigged system.
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Part of the problem is the division of modern media after the end of the Fairness doctrine. Movement conservatives have weaponized the distrust of government that emerged in the 1970s in order to dismantle what they dislike. They embraced the racist backlash against our Democracy becoming a real thing. Even then, if Nixon’s case had gone to congress, he would have been removed from office, because movement conservatism did not have total control of the party then. They do now, and they got their via dirty means, not by ideas. These are dangerous fascists, and we must call them out as such.
And there are no easy answers, other than push for candidates who want to make our government what it was meant to be (making our freedom possible). That and holding people who seek to undermine democracy responsible for their actions. so… lock him up.
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Thanks for wearing a mask in the church!
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Especially those of us on your borders. Believe me, we’re paying attention up here.
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Fascism is on the rise all over, and it is a detrimental existential threat to us all.
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More of us than a lot realize. Not to downplay the immediacy of what they are doing to black people, to women, to LGBTQ people in America. But after things like how they handled the pandemic or taking away the EPA’s ability to fight climate change, it should also be clear they do not just have residual impacts on the rest of the world, they are literally pushing mass death everywhere.
Not everyone is on the lower decks but we are all in this boat.
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I’m sorry.
Yes, it does. We live in the world you shape. Something the rest of us are quite well aware of. Which is why we take a more than casual interest.
Agreed and agreed. And not just him.
I don’t understand how there can be sitting members of Congress who assert that Biden did not win the election and that Trump is actually President. How can that be? Any such claim should preclude you from office immediately.
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Precisely.
When I said ‘all of us,’ that’s exactly what I meant… even those of us who don’t think they are at any risk whatsoever due to their privilege, money, delusion or an unsustainable combo of all three.
Aye, they actively want to be ‘kings of the ashes’ and that’s just scary as fuck.
Lastly, there’s a big fucking difference between what actually is and what “should be.”
We don’t live in the land of ‘Should Be’, so anyone genuinely wanting to survive this push towards ‘the edge of the cliff’ needs to snap out of it ASAP and deal with the actual unpleasant reality at hand.
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He’s planning to sell them. To Putin, xi, or the saudis. No other reason to keep them. He can’t read them, he doesn’t understand basic grammar let alone military tactics or nuclear science.
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Given this defense,
“As we can all relate to, everyone ends up having to bring home their work from time to time. American presidents are no different," “President Trump, in order to prepare for work the next day, often took documents, including classified documents, to the residence. He had a standing order that documents removed from the Oval Office and taken to the residence were deemed to be declassified the moment he removed them.”
it follows that the documents are eligible for release in full through FISA…
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There will be no need for Biden to pardon him.
If he’s convicted of anything he produces a pardon he gave himself on January 19th 2021.
Absurd? Sure but this is trump.
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These crimes occurred after that day. The pardon wouldn’t apply.
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