Right. We didn’t make a big enough deal out of the fact that so many of Trump’s staffers from the first administration were either discarded or turned on him. That’s very telling. Now he is surrounded by Yes Men and sycophants
More than Jan 6th, they are just better prepared now. Trump 1.0 wasn’t prepared to make all the changes they wanted to do. Trump 2.0 came with a complete step by step game plan to dismantle everything very quickly and without any opposition. John Oliver explained it in detail.
Trump 2.0 also came with blanket immunity from prosecution for disregarding the law and any court orders he doesn't like provided to him by the US Supreme Court.
John Roberts' belief in 'Unitary Executive Theory', a holdover core belief he's held since he was a Council for Reagan whom he advised during Iran-Contra, led him to side with the other reich-wing nutcases on the Court on a ruling that holds that a President is immune from prosecution when exercising the 'core powers' of the presidency.
That ruling has created a monster that no one body or branch of our Govt will be able to easily reign in now. It should be no surprise to anyone that Trump is operating with impunity, because the USSC said he could.
It was a fairly large component of Harris's campaign ads. Now, why she didn't have one ad blasting his COVID response or listing terrible decisions he made in his first term is beyond me.
I spent the vast majority of early and mid 2020 desperately trying to make people understand that if he wins again it's going to be 1000 times worse because this time he actually understands that being president is not the same thing as running a business and that there are checks and balances and he has spent the last four years unilaterally removing every possibility of having anyone in his orbit that would be willing to try to stop him. Like John Kelly and Mike Pence are horrible, terrible people yet they refused to violate the constitution for him. Trump learned his lesson, and this time around way before the election he had already removed everyone but the most ass kissing sychophants.
There is literally no one who will even try to stop him anymore. Our country is done. We are fucked. We are completely fucked. And the number of people who don't realize this yet, the number of people who still believe that someone or something will be able to stop him is astonishing to me. We are absolutely goddamn fucked in every possible way. No one is coming to save us, no one is going to stop him. We will be an authoritarian oligarchy within 18 months
Not if every single non Trumper riots on the streets and oust him from his palace. This has been done before. Regimes have been toppled. All you need is the will of the people, not quitting en mass like educated democrats have been bred to do.
Problem is they've weaponized the stupidity of the Trump base to stand opposed to any rebellion on the left. We need a fair amount of the Trumpers to switch sides so it doesn't turn into a civil war.
Look I hear you and if this goes on, you will have a civil war on your hands. I don't see a way out of it, especially because there's too much emphasis on gun culture in USA. But look Asad was ousted, tyrants have been toppled, Indians kicked out the British after a bloody 200 years of exploitation. No system of power is so entrenched that it cannot be rooted out with enough death and blood. But that's it, that's a heavy price to pay.
On the flip side, I have to say — trump is and will be able to dismantle American relatively easily and legally-ish. If it's so easy, so bloodless and unobstructed for him to seize power and plant a dictatorship, what does it say about the system that made it possible? Maybe you guys need a civil war. And to rethink your elections, your executive bodies and how you give power to your leaders
And a lot of very wealthy and powerful people whispering in his ear. Trump's a man that is willing to make deals, you know he's happy to listen when Musk and Thiel start yapping, as long as there's a bag in for Papa Trump.
Yup, Trump's first cabinet had at least some people that were actually qualified for their positions, had at least some sense of morality, and stood up to Trump eventually.
They were obviously all replaced with unqualified loyalists that would never have gotten anywhere near the Oval Office in any other administration. It all points to the broader goals of Trump's administration of identifying and removing obstacles to Trump's authority.
As disastrous as many of Trump's orders have been so far, the real pain is still to come once power is more fully consolidated.
We made a huge deal out of it but his cult just buys into the whole "they were part of the deep state" or whatever BS Fox tells them to believe. There is nothing you can tell a Trump supporter that will make them stop supporting him
I think Trump is also being controlled much more than last time. So I think this is true to an extent I also think there are some wielding more influence on Trump than before.
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u/Mattie_Doo 18h ago
Right. We didn’t make a big enough deal out of the fact that so many of Trump’s staffers from the first administration were either discarded or turned on him. That’s very telling. Now he is surrounded by Yes Men and sycophants