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One of the great failings of this government is not providing a punishment for repeatedly issuing unconstitutional orders. He has exactly zero incentive to stop.
Our Congress has allowed a lawless president to do whatever he wanted. It is a MAGA coup dresses as Republicans.
This is pretty much the Republican project all along.
There are no laws; we made the whole thing up
Checks and balances doesn’t work if one party is in charge of everything. I found the John Oliver episode about Hungary to be particularly terrifying.
Imagine if Trump rigged the election so they had a super majority in the senate and a majority in the house. They could rewrite the constitution. What then?
Link?
Nixon could not have been convicted without Republican votes. But Nixon resigned, because he knew Republicans would vote to impeach and convict him. So the system can in theory work, even if the system depends on policing its own.
It is in fact quite normal across democracies, for stuff like this to depend on the votes of the party in power.
The problem here is that Republican representatives are traitors to their oaths. And more importantly, that Republican voters are not demanding their representatives to not be traitors.
So Republican representatives simply know that they only get reelected if they act tribally Republican. Note that this is generally not a problem with Democrat voters.
Nixon had to be charged with crimes and serve prison time for the system to have worked. As usual politicians get that magical get out of jail card when the exact opposite should be happening. They should be held to much higher standards and punishments.
Ford pardoned Nixon, and Ford lost the next election. And the pardon probably played a part in Ford losing. So the system still sorta worked then, if imperfect.
Nixon was never officially charged with any crime. The modern day pardon is an extremely corrupt practice as evidenced by the current administration. It should be removed entirely honestly.
If it is allowed it should be the responsibility of a non-partisan committee. The president could refer someone but should have zero power over it. I think it would still be abused, but at least there could be some checks and balances.
Just make it for death row inmates only. Other than that it should just be handled by the courts.
Ironically, it turns into a problem for Democrat voters.
Re-writing the constitution (e.g., amendments) also takes approval from the states themselves.
According to ... the constitution
There's some circular logic happening which Trump sees through. Much like SCOTUS, the constitution can't enforce itself. So you can just bully it.
There have been cases before where the States threatened to delcare the Constitution null and void due to a pending violation. Contrary to what people think, the States have quite a bit of leeway to deal with things. So far, they have been trying to deal with things legally.
True. I guess he can interpret it however he wants and trust that the supremely court will back him.
I saw he will be the first president sitting in on arguments to the supremely court. I wonder if this is an attempt to intimidate justices that might go against him.
I mean if that doesnt provoke a civil war nothing ever will
It won’t. I’d be more likely to leave the country than to die for it.
what I don't understand is why don't they just come out and say "ok, no more elections. this is a dictatorship now" like they keep tip toeing around it, they keep breaking the law, insider trading, illegal operations, all of it and they've gotten away with it every time. So why do they keep teasing something they know they have a strong possibility of getting away with? who are they afraid of?
They're following the Hungary model, which in turn was a variation on the Russian model.
What they're attempting is a "legal coup," which is the typical modern democracy-to-authoritarianism transition. They want to retain the facade of constitutionality and lawfulness, to avoid creating an armed insurgency situation, and to avoid burning the value of the current economic system by crashing the stock market or causing investment to flee.
Doesn’t Russia still hold elections where Putin always wins? Or North Korea?
I think the idea is you keep having elections so you can say you won.
As opposed to the wonderful and free America, which holds elections where we get a choice between one of two candidates favored by corporate oligarchs. Candidates who are appointed to the candidacy, if the parties so wish, by "[going] into back rooms like they used to and [smoking] cigars and [picking] the candidate that way", as acknowledged by our own courts.
Sure, a third party candidate can run, but without funding they have no actual chance of winning even if their message would otherwise resonate with the public. That's not a functional republic or a functional democracy, it's democracy theater put on by our ruling class to appease the working masses.
Whataboutism.
A. We weren’t talking about that.
B. Yes it sucks too, but the alternative, which we were actually talking about, is objectively worse.
I know, you were spreading western exceptionalism talking points, which is what I wanted to dispel.
North Korea has killed fewer people than America. I'm obviously not pro-Russia but just quantifiably, they have also killed fewer people than America (especially if we're talking Russia as a current political entity and not USSR). Both also contribute less per-capita to the climate change destroying our planet. So "worse" by what metric exactly?
Now they are talking about killing people and the climate. How far we stray, to be edgy.
What are you yapping about?
It's to pacify the enlightened centrists who will go along with it as long as it's supposedly 'what the people want'.