Trump

[gilesgoat]

.. of course .. as you do in USA when going to a peaceful protest pushing a weelchair .. How could you NOT carry an AR15 .. and maybe a couple of hand grenades "just in case"

.. what a strange world we live in ..

In Lisbon, generally a quieter city than several others, a 80 year old white guy shot and killed a 35 year old black guy that was sitted in a street bench with his dog. He clarified after arrest it was not racism, the problem was the black guy's dog.

More than a dozen people who work or are regulars to the stores and cafés in that area state they have watched the 80 year old going by there often and racially insulting the black guy who sat regularly with his dog at that hour (lunch time).

Indeed we live in a strange world.

.. thankfully he did not have a "trompetita"

Aw .. is SAD anwyay

[F-ZeroOne]

Trump wants to delay the election, because of course he does:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53597975

Fascist in "trying to do away with democracy" shocker. Always thought he'd probably find some way - indefinite "delays" seem as good as any

Added of course to his fallback plan of claiming that the election result will be in some way invalid as it'll be the most corrupt, fraudulent election in history (his words, not mine) - unless of course he wins, in which case they can immediately throw him in a river and pick someone else as a result of the most corrupt, fraudulent election in history.

Right?

[KlaxonCow]

He might well try to delay the election, but the Constitution of the United States explicitly provides the date at which the incumbent ceases to be the President.

So if the next President is not decided by that date then, simply, the United States of America will not have a President. He can't stay on, at his own discretion, as the Constitution doesn't allow it.

And, more crucially, he not only ceases to be the President of the United States of America, but he also ceases to be its Commander-in-Chief. Ergo, the US military are also not obliged to follow any orders he gives from that point forth.

Which I think is the real pragmatic nail-in-the-coffin for him with any plans to try to extend his Presidency.

On that date, he is no longer Commander-in-Chief. The US military, CIA, FBI and other agencies - that he has, of course, spent his Presidency attacking and undermining - are no longer obliged to follow his orders. And why the fuck would they support him to "hijack" the Oval Office? He's fucked them over and insulted them repeatedly as President. This guy has only made enemies.

On the contrary, those agencies and the army will be fighting over who gets to do the honours of storming the White House to drag his orange arse out of there.

Because, in the end, it does all boil down to the violence inherent in the system, doesn't it?

[gilesgoat]

Trump wants to delay the election, because of course he does:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53597975

Fascist in "trying to do away with democracy" shocker. Always thought he'd probably find some way - indefinite "delays" seem as good as any

Added of course to his fallback plan of claiming that the election result will be in some way invalid as it'll be the most corrupt, fraudulent election in history (his words, not mine) - unless of course he wins, in which case they can immediately throw him in a river and pick someone else as a result of the most corrupt, fraudulent election in history.

Right?

ONE thing Alex Jones ( well NOT him really, another one on his show ) said correct is that "no matter how things go, it's going to be CHAOS" ..

If Biden wins T. will start screaming that "it's all rigged the election is NOT correct !"

It T. wins .. "it's going to be mega chaos" ..

It's .. interesting .. we'll see what happens, FROM FAR AWAY !!

[tufty]

He might well try to delay the election, but the Constitution of the United States explicitly provides the date at which the incumbent ceases to be the President.

So if the next President is not decided by that date then, simply, the United States of America will not have a President. He can't stay on, at his own discretion, as the Constitution doesn't allow it.

The constitution is just words. Just words written on paper, and Trump has already shown that he doesn't care about those words. He might not be legally allowed to carry on as president, but, were he to do it, it would take action to push him out, and willingness to have absolute chaos in the country following that action. Because it would be absolute chaos, with Trump brazenly claiming an actual coup and his fanatical supporters believing it.

I've already seen Trump supporters asking why he shouldn't delay the election, why he shouldn't be able to carry on after delaying the election, etc.

[gilesgoat]

He might well try to delay the election, but the Constitution of the United States explicitly provides the date at which the incumbent ceases to be the President.

So if the next President is not decided by that date then, simply, the United States of America will not have a President. He can't stay on, at his own discretion, as the Constitution doesn't allow it.

The constitution is just words. Just words written on paper, and Trump has already shown that he doesn't care about those words. He might not be legally allowed to carry on as president, but, were he to do it, it would take action to push him out, and willingness to have absolute chaos in the country following that action. Because it would be absolute chaos, with Trump brazenly claiming an actual coup and his fanatical supporters believing it.

I've already seen Trump supporters asking why he shouldn't delay the election, why he shouldn't be able to carry on after delaying the election, etc.

I wonder if it's some sort of "ironic justice" .. with all the shit USA has done/does around the world ( for its own gain ) .... "they were not attacked by anyone else" ( well not directly ) .. "they ended up destroying themselves with their own hands" .. ..

I think it's REALLY "the unavoidable consequence of extreme capitalism" .. eventually you get a point where differences are too big , resources are too few, accumulation of power is too concentrated in small places .. "the system can not go on like that forever", eventually it will explode and we may be looking at its explosion right now ...

[edit] - also it's NOT just purely an economical problem .. it's also a non-small and 'equivalent' moral problem .. you look all the "messages" around about "what we should do, what we should be, what we have to had" and the idea of "justice" .. it's all wrong .. and "the wronger it gets, the less you can actually feel for other people".

Again it's "going into extremes".

[KlaxonCow]

The constitution is just words. Just words written on paper, and Trump has already shown that he doesn't care about those words. He might not be legally allowed to carry on as president, but, were he to do it, it would take action to push him out, and willingness to have absolute chaos in the country following that action. Because it would be absolute chaos, with Trump brazenly claiming an actual coup and his fanatical supporters believing it.

Indeed.

This is why I went on to point out that Trump has managed to piss off the CIA, the FBI and numerous military generals with an almost systematic efficiency.

The law is just words. But words ultimately backed up by "the violence inherent in the system".

These institutions - that Trump has endeavoured to ensure have no love for him whatsoever - actually carry out physical action - violence, if necessary - to enforce the letter of the law.

And, yes, violence - as it's prone to do - might well bring about absolute chaos.

But the bottom line is, well, fuck them. You cannot hold an entire nation hostage to the threat of violence. Call their bluff. They wouldn't stand a chance against the most stupidly over-resourced institutions on planet Earth.

There really is no choice in the matter. The alternative is just letting Trump set himself up as "tyrant for life". Because if he's allowed to resist giving up the office in this instance, then why on Earth should he give it up at any point at all? If he's allowed to just declare any election that he doesn't win as "rigged" and carry on anyway, then there's no point in having an election at all.

It cannot be allowed. Even at the price of absolute chaos and violence.

Sic Semper Tyrannis.

[tufty]

It cannot be allowed

It shouldn't be allowed. Trump's been stomping on the constitution from day one, and carrying out al the plays in the fascist dictator's bedside primer*. And he's been allowed to do it, because the people with the political power to stop him want to stay in power. Every one of those incursions into unconstitutional or undemocratic behaviour - well, it's only a little bit, after all, and it's in our favour. Trump will almost certainly lose any fair election, so more gerrymandering, shutting down polling stations, voter suppression - it's in our favour. People will be afraid to go out and vote in areas where there are few polling stations and they'll have to wait in line for hours - it's in our favour, just make sure the whitey righties get to vote easily. Make baseless claims on mail-in voting resulting in massive fraud - that works in ur favour too, either we get to stop it for those aforementioned scared voters, or claim the election was invalid if we lose. Anything we don't like, we can claim it's fake news. Push the election back due to the current health crisis, "until it's safe for people to vote" (read - until we can suppress enough votes to ensure a win), well, it might be a little bit unconstitutional, but it's in the public interest. After all, won't somebody think of the poor children voters? Its in our favour. Cling on to power. Tie the system up in lawsuits if necessary. Convince yourself that it really is fake news. Convince yourself that what you're doing really is in the public interest. Convince yourself that the free press really are the enemy of the people. Convince yourself that another 4 years of Trump is better than 4 years of Biden's "leftism". They're marching lockstep with Trump. Some may have a few qualms, but they know that showing them publicly will result in becoming an unperson, so shut up, keep your head down, cling on to power.

IMO, the US will be very lucky to escape a dive into fascism at this point.

* Well, all 14 of the items in Umberto Eco's list in Ur-Fascism, anyway. It should be noted that this is not the same list as the one frequently posted as a meme on faceache and the like, but he's done all of them too.

[gilesgoat]

*SNIP*

Sic Semper Tyrannis.

Well he can't be re-elected more than once and serve more than 2 consecutive terms no ?

.. or is he going to change that too and say that "the president can stay forever" ?

( I think he tried to push for that ? Or was someone else ? )

[tufty]

Also..

The people aren't going to rise up. The ones who should be rising up, the second amendment nuts, are watching federal forces kick the shit out of people, mace people, abduct people, do all the things the "well regulated militia" are supposed to be there to stop if you listen to them talk when you want to restrict their ability to stroll around with a fucking machinegun. I'm sitting there watching because it's not me that's being beaten and maced and abducted. It's the "lefists". Those aren't just normal people protesting, they're "terrorists". They are the enemy. The other. The 5th column. They deserve to be beaten, maced, abducted. Hell, I'm waiting for the feds to call me up and we can go shoot some fucking niggers.

Sure, there's still a few people in the courts who believe in the rule of law, but Billy boy Barr will have them replaced before long. After all, they're a bunch of leftists, activists, deep state operatives put in place by Obama, or Bush, or Bush, or even Reagan.

This is no fucking Joke. Bill Barr, the Attorney General, claimed the other day not to know if Trump could delay the election. In the same interview, said that the logical conclusion of mail-in voting was massive fraud.

[gilesgoat]

IMO, the US will be very lucky to escape a dive into fascism at this point.
*SNIP*

It's the same we were thinking in Italy when the Lega and M5S came at power .. but .. "luckily" in Italy "no one can agree with anyone" .. that much that at some point even that collapsed badly but yes it's not the first time I heard that "there's an overall feeling the whole Europe is plunging into fascism".

Reading this, especially those 14 points https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism there's a bit of those 14 points in various political currents, certainly Mr Toupee seems to be "quite close" to all 14 ...

I think "the problem with globalism" is really "the multi mega corporations" ( maybe ? ) because instead of being "a huge open market with many possibilities" becomes really more a "survival of the strongest" and "monopolization"/"invasion" of ALL the possible place/kill ALL the competition.

That's why "a thing without some regulations/intervention in places cannot work" you can't really have IMHO a 100% free market without any government interventions to "protect the smallest".

So "the globalism fails", "people are scared" want to go back to a "much more closed envirronement" eventually to the idea of "the strong nation that can do it all by itself" .. which of course it's impossible .. but there you go while suddendly stuff like fascism, maybe "with another name/hidden within other ideologies" now "sounds good".

That or things like Brexit, the bigs empires, the self-sustaining nation, "our best friends", "the magic deals", etc. etc.

.. balooney ...

[tufty]

( I think he tried to push for that ? Or was someone else ? )

It was "a joke". Or not.

But it doesn't matter. King Don steps down, King Jared takes his place. Or maybe Queen Ivanka.

[gilesgoat]

( I think he tried to push for that ? Or was someone else ? )

It was "a joke". Or not.

But it doesn't matter. King Don steps down, King Jared takes his place. Or maybe Queen Ivanka.

I don't think it was a joke at all, I remember someone at some point saying "considering the fact the president could be re-elected an indefinite number of times" or such ?

[tufty]

I don't think it was a joke at all

It's always a "joke" when he's called on something. I don't think it's a joke either.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/18/poli ... index.html

There is, of course, nothing stopping the US rewriting the constitution to allow more than 2 terms, or even instituting a "president for life" in the image of the despots he so admires.

[Harlequin]

I wonder if it's some sort of "ironic justice" .. with all the shit USA has done/does around the world ( for its own gain ) .... "they were not attacked by anyone else" ( well not directly ) .. "they ended up destroying themselves with their own hands" .. ..
…
Again it's "going into extremes".

I suspect that breaking liberal democracies by exacerbating their inherent internal tensions to drive people to opposing extremes has been a deliberate policy of certain non-liberal foreign powers for whom social media is a weapon gifted to them by those very democracies.

The U.S. is by no means the only country currently screwing itself up with its own hands. The question is what external forces may have turned so many hands against each other in similar ways in the past half-decade or so.

There really is no choice in the matter. The alternative is just letting Trump set himself up as "tyrant for life". Because if he's allowed to resist giving up the office in this instance, then why on Earth should he give it up at any point at all? If he's allowed to just declare any election that he doesn't win as "rigged" and carry on anyway, then there's no point in having an election at all.

It cannot be allowed. Even at the price of absolute chaos and violence.

Sic Semper Tyrannis.

Meanwhile, Russia has just "voted" to allow Prime Minister/Acting President/President/President/Prime Minister/President Putin to stay in power until at least 2036.

Well he can't be re-elected more than once and serve more than 2 consecutive terms no ?
.. or is he going to change that too and say that "the president can stay forever" ?
( I think he tried to push for that ? Or was someone else ? )

The Twenty-Second Amendment bars anyone from the U.S. presidency for more than two terms in total, consecutive or not. Many resolutions have been put before Congress aiming to repeal the restriction, starting from five years after it was first ratified. In addition, Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan argued for repeal while Bill Clinton did indeed suggest weakening the restriction to only consecutive terms (as in Russia).