Thoughts on the Trump presidency

SuspectUsual said:

Along with bigly and covfede

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covfefe

Tester said:

covfefe

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Ah yeah. You knew what I meant though

SuspectUsual said:

Ah yeah. You knew what I meant though

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Actually, to this day, nobody knows what you and he meant.

You've already lost me, Now Let's assume Trump so how staggers on till the next presidential election, then announces, that he will stand, will that be a step to far for the constitution? or for those in the GOP, that are not part of the cult?

I think it will galvanise the anti-trump vote, and he will lose, and try another insurrection, or declaring the vote void, whatever he can do to not give up power, until he is made to leave,

martin butler said:

You've already lost me, Now Let's assume Trump so how staggers on till the next presidential election, then announces, that he will stand, will that be a step to far for the constitution? or for those in the GOP, that are not part of the cult?

I think it will galvanise the anti-trump vote, and he will lose, and try another insurrection, or declaring the vote void, whatever he can do to not give up power, until he is made to leave,

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At 82?

If he is propped up to complete his term, increasingly uncertain, even his most devoted adherents would realise such a challenge to the constitution would fail. Question is who from either party can then pull together a deeply divided nation.

The Trump legacy is looking a seriously weakened and fragmenting, dangerous America. It's certainly not great.

Trump is now probably unpopular enough that he'd lose if he stood in a fair election against a credible Democrat. But if he stood in 2028 them at least one rule would already have been broken, so I think we can expect that others would be broken too.

He won’t be elected president again. That would require a change to the constitution, and that’s not going to happen. He could, theoretically, stand for Vice President, behind a “puppet” who then stands down immediately from taking office, but I’m reasonably sure the majority of the voting US public would see through that and vote accordingly. As a result there are long odds available on Trump even running in 2028 (10/1).

However I wouldn’t put it past him to try to amend the constitution, fail (bigly), and claim the voting was rigged. Thsi would be the voting of the Senate and House that his party controls.

Bald Rick said:

He won’t be elected president again. That would require a change to the constitution, and that’s not going to happen. He could, theoretically, stand for Vice President, behind a “puppet” who then stands down immediately from taking office, but I’m reasonably sure the majority of the voting US public would see through that and vote accordingly. As a result there are long odds available on Trump even running in 2028 (10/1).

However I wouldn’t put it past him to try to amend the constitution, fail (bigly), and claim the voting was rigged. Thsi would be the voting of the Senate and House that his party controls.

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He might have a majority of both houses, but constitutional amendments require a supermajority of two-thirds of both. So he’s not even close to getting that through, never mind getting three-quarters of the states to ratify.

JamesT said:

He might have a majority of both houses, but constitutional amendments require a supermajority of two-thirds of both. So he’s not even close to getting that through, never mind getting three-quarters of the states to ratify.

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None of the above (perfectly correct) statements mean he won't still go ahead and do it anyway to test the legal system (which he can then ignore).

The forefathers never really planned for someone who might just do whatever they want regardless of the rules.

Only the second amendment seems to be safe, although all those people who have stockpiled guns in case of a tyrannical Government taking over seem to have forgotten how to use them. No issues killing black kids who knock on the wrong door though.

jon0844 said:

The forefathers never really planned for someone who might just do whatever they want regardless of the rules

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That's fairly typical isn't it - a lot of our parliamentary conventions are built around the "good chap" principle, and we've seen in recent years how ill equipped they are to deal with flagrant breaches

SuspectUsual said:

That's fairly typical isn't it - a lot of our parliamentary conventions are built around the "good chap" principle, and we've seen in recent years how ill equipped they are to deal with flagrant breaches

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They also didn't plan for cases where people break the rules and society tolerates and even supports it if the person breaking the rules is someone they support.

jon0844 said:

The forefathers never really planned for someone who might just do whatever they want regardless of the rules.

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Unfortunately they never planned either for a Supreme Court that told an incoming president that he couldn't be prosecuted for any actions he took in the presidential role. When SCOTUS put a sociopathic career con-man above the law, it was never going to produce a good outcome.

But Trump's obsessions with plastering gold leaf over random bits of Washington, and renaming random geographic features, reminds me of a family keeping demented grandpa busy in a corner with anything petty to keep him occupied. In the meantime the behind the scenes authoritarians are pushing forward their own plans while the media and Democrats are distracted by Trump's latest idiocies.

jon0844 said:

The forefathers never really planned for someone who might just do whatever they want regardless of the rules.

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They absolutely did that's why the US Government is structured the way that it is (for instance this is why Congress controls the money). What they didn't plan for was for a Congress to be supine in the face of a President trampling all over their terrain and fail to take any action to curtail their activities. They also didn't plan for the hyperpolarisation of the Supreme Court meaning that one party when in power has to tread extremely lightly to avoid having their attempts at governance ruled unconstitutional whilst the other can get away with almost anything it desires.

That's the fault at the heart of the system. We must never forget that this isn't just Trump acting alone. This is Congress and the Supreme Court enabling him. Does anyone think that if Obama had blown a vast proportion of the US militaries precision guided munitions and air defence missiles for a war which had not actually achieved any of it's stated aims that he wouldn't have been impeached by now? If Obama had tried to have masked thugs roaming the streets of cities in Alabama detaining American citizens at random and murdering some of them that the Supreme Court wouldn't have ruled that unconstitutional? Pick half a dozen other things that Trump has done and put Obama (or any other Democrat you care to choose) in their place and Congress and the Supreme Court would have torn them asunder and they'd likely have done so on a bi-partisan basis!

That's the real rot. Congress and the Supreme Court happily going along with the whims of Trump. That's what the founding fathers didn't plan for.

Agreed. Trump has dangerously exposed that the US is in fact an elective monarchical imperium, and it's only the other legislative bodies, the law and common decency (!) among its population that have kept it in check.

Mr. SW said:

Agreed. Trump has dangerously exposed that the US is in fact an elective monarchical imperium, and it's only the other legislative bodies, the law and common decency (!) among its population that have kept it in check.

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I don't think that we've really learned anything new about the US system of governance - the phrases "checks and balances" and "co-equal branches of government" have been well-known and commonly spoken for about as long as the Republic has existed. What has been exposed is that you have to have checks in order for there to be balance, and that if any of the three branches rolls over and play dead (even worse if it's two of them!) then the whole thing breaks down.

Either Congress or the Courts could and should have stopped the worst of the Executive's excesses, but chose not to - no doubt in the case of Congress because of the influence of one thing that the Founding Fathers didn't account for: the billionaire class.

ainsworth74 said:

That's the real rot. Congress and the Supreme Court happily going along with the whims of Trump. That's what the founding fathers didn't plan for.

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They didn't plan for a bought & paid for (billionare class & powerful lobby groups say hello) and therefore utterly surpine Congress & Supreme Court (mostly) going along with every demand that Trump belches forth basically.