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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
It bears reminding that servicemembers are still human beings and perfectly capable of following unlawful or utterly repugnant orders because they agree with them, even if their duty requires that they don't go through with them.
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."We can think of this as a sort of race. Will the likely sweeping Democratic victory in Congress in 2018 give us enough leverage to block the worst of Trump's actions until he can be voted out in 2020? Will Trump manage to tear down enough checks and balances before then to make Congress' actions moot? Will he sabotage the Census to give Republicans a boost in national elections for the next 10 years?
Would any act by Trump or his administration get enough Senate Republicans to vote to convict him on impeachment?
edited 13th Apr '18 8:30:30 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"![]()
Yes and they're human beings which mean they can be alienated by an incompetent and boorish President, since Trump has worked very hard to alienate the Intelligence communities and a lesser extent the military I am supremely confident the idea of a Trump backed coup is nothing more than hysterical alarmism.
edited 13th Apr '18 8:30:45 AM by Fourthspartan56
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangA Trump-backed coup is unthinkable, but it's also not what we're talking about. The question is more whether the military would stand by as Trump destroys our political institutions and gets himself enshrined as President for Life. In other words, would the military stage a coup against Trump if he tries to become a dictator?
edited 13th Apr '18 8:32:58 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"![]()
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Ok, that is a different question.
Though I have to wonder, how exactly would Trump do that? Because frankly that sounds like something that would be difficult if he were a competent and savvy President, and he most certainly is not. His administration has been a dumpster fire of incompetence and chaos, that is not the kind of foundation you build a defacto autocracy. Putin for all his obvious flaws actually made people's lives better and has the savvy to consolidate power, Trump has none of that.
So while this isn't as hysterical as the idea of Trump launching a coup it's up there, as a realist I'm extremely skeptical.
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Agreed.
edited 13th Apr '18 8:37:26 AM by Fourthspartan56
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangThing is, Trump doesn't really have to be some mastermind to weaken democracy. All he has to do is chip away at the USA's institutions. Which he has been doing slowly but surely via not hiring people in the State Department, dissing the NSA, CIA, and FBI, filling the Cabinet with people hellbent on demolishing their Departments, nominating shitty people to be judges...
Disgusted, but not surprisedAgain, it's not a matter of an affirmative act to get himself voted King. It's what he's doing already: installing corrupt and incompetent officials, obstructing justice, destroying institutions, tearing down his opponents with such juvenile rhetoric, and generally making a mockery of all the political norms we've built over the centuries.
If it were just Trump, it wouldn't be a problem, but the Republican Congress has signaled that it's going to do nothing meaningful to stop him. The judicial branch, while still holding on, is under savage attack by Republicans around the country, something that'll take decades to repair. The Republican media machine is doubling down on building a walled-off culture opposed to the very idea of facts and reality.
What if he wins simply because there's nobody left to say "No"?
Slight
.
Edit: To be clear, I don't expect this to happen. The demonstrations that took place over healthcare and taxes will look like nothing compared to what would happen if Trump guts the Justice Department to end the special prosecutor or pardons everyone involved, and does not immediately get impeached. There's plenty of social conscience left in this country, but will it matter if nobody in power listens?
edited 13th Apr '18 8:44:04 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Right but I don't really see how "weakening US institution" logically jumps to "defacto autocrat". And considering how a Blue wave is rather likely come midterms think it's quite likely that we'd see a large number of elected officials who would not support such things.
So is such a thing impossible? I'm not going to go that far but it is implausible enough that I wonder why we're seriously talking about this? Trump weakening government institutions is bad because they do good work, not because he'll magically make himself a defacto autocrat which is something that requires either competence or the mother of all opportunities. And I just don't see Trump having either.
edited 13th Apr '18 8:46:43 AM by Fourthspartan56
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang![]()
![]()
Will it be in time, and enough, I wonder.
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Yes, for the military to get involved in politics would be fundamentally against the founding design of this country. Which is why we can't count on them to save us from Trump, other than by refusing his orders.
edited 13th Apr '18 8:47:06 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Well that's completely different, yes Trump could cause damage that could lead to worse damage down the road. Though considering there's a good chance that come 2020 we could have a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress I think that the damage could be contained.
And if the Census is bollixed up enough, we might never get another Democratic President. This is the lasting institutional damage we're talking about: falsified demographics, courts ignoring blatant abuses, ongoing and unchecked voter suppression, disinformation campaigns motivating waves of hate-based retaliation against anyone standing up for their rights, the dismantling of the justice system that's supposed to hold politicians accountable...
My only hope, the thing that gives me comfort here, is that Trump and his cronies repeatedly demonstrate that they're so hilariously incompetent that they can't even turn America into a dictatorship properly, and thus we have enough time to fix what they've broken.
By the way, House Republicans voted in lockstep for a Constitutional amendment to outlaw the deficit
. It failed, because it needs a two-thirds majority, but barely a single GOP congressman stood up and voted against it because the point was to put on a show for their voters. That's the level of malfeasance we're dealing with.
edited 13th Apr '18 9:00:16 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Are you sure?
Military personnel here tend to be fairly critical of their own government, while there are plenty of soldiers who voted Democrat, or are liberals.
Frankly it seems the distance between the military and civilians has grown so wide that everyone automatically assumes the entire military is right-wing. Nobody really bothers to check for shades of gray.
Heck, there are a ton of veterans who are Democrats. And a lot of Vietnam vets especially.
edited 13th Apr '18 9:00:50 AM by TheWildWestPyro
Figther fears are right in a way, while trump incompetent have robed him of any oportunity of changing things around for the worst, the election already create a big divide in the population and it will continue to grow over time, the dems will have work a lot to bring people united after this.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"

It was mentioned earlier in this thread but not only do servicemebers not have any obligation to follow unlawful orders, they’re actually required not to.
Trump trying to get the military to take over the country would most definitely be an unlawful order.
They should have sent a poet.