"Yes, so sort of the idea is to have some a conservative revolution in which you use the levers of the state to cram as much of the conservative social agenda as possible and then to hell with the next, the Democratic government once it comes into power."
It is unclear why you think there will ever be another "election" after a second Trump term. As you say, the objective of the right here is power -- allowing elections is contrary to the idea of obtaining ultimate power. Whether you look at Hitler's Germany or Orban's Hungary or Putin's Russia, elections were/have been eliminated -- and until the governments collapse, there will not be another.
Sounds like hyperbolic MSNBC narrative. Short of getting the backing of the entire US armed forces, there is no way under the US system for Trump or any other President to outlive the next election. And if they try, thank goodness for the 2nd amendment.
All he has to do is install loyalist senior military officers, and purge any who oppose him. This is really not complicated or unusual. Happens all over the world all the time.
Where ON EARTH did you build this fictional, unsubstantiated narrative that Trump won't allow any more elections??? The neo-con Liberals have co-opted the MAJORITY of media and have built a wall of information to protect them from being exposed for doing it and have even arguably have stolen the 2020 election by suppressing truths about Hunter Biden and the Biden's affairs in Ukraine by censoring free speech across social media. FOR GOODNESS SAKE, the Biden administration is now trying to defend itself for violating the 2nd Amendment and censoring Free Speech across ALL SOCIAL MEDIA!! Polls have clearly shown that people would have voted very differently if this information wasn't fraudulently suppressed. The authoritarians are already in power and tightening their grip. What is the matter with you people. You're willing to swallow a camel while straining at a gnat.
The President does not have the authority to stop an election and there is no Consitutional manner of doing so. Even storming the houses of government doesn't stop an election and its outcome. The only way Trump and his cronies could accomplish this is to get the armed forces to back him. Anything else leads to a stalemate and destruction of the country ie civil war, or a crushing of the revolt. The USA is a rule of law country and that is deeply embedded in conservatives as well as liberals. Progressives and far right not so much.
If the US is a rule of law country, why do most Liberal states not require showing ID for elections, why did they defund the police and cause crime to rise exponentially, and why is Biden not being tried for violating the 2nd amendment to win the 2020 election. Seriously, take off the rose colored glassed for one minute and try to be objective.
Yup ID should be mandatory where there is easily obtainable ID.
I'm not aware of anyone who defunded police, although attempts by progressives were made which the majority did not support. Besides attempting to defund police or rather change the laws with respect to funding the police has nothing to do with being a rule of law country. The police are not identical with the laws. I find progressives to not be rule of law types but thankfully they are a minority.
I'm at a loss with respect to your comment regarding Biden and 2nd amendment and winning the 2020 election.
The US is the ONLY COUNTRY IN THE FREE WORLD that doesn't require mandatory ID for Federal elections. Read that again. And it's primary the case ONLY in Democratic states. Why is that?
2nd. I travel across the US regularly and every Democratic state is rife with lawlessness. NYC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago - horrific to walk around. Crime, murder, theft are off the charts. Have you seen San Francisco? It's literally a zombie apocalypse. The Democrats have ruined society in these regions.
As far as the 2020 elections, Biden and the 2nd amendment violation, if you don't know, you need to do some reading because this proves my point about the MSM being co-opted by the Liberal party.
The Biden administration has been SUCCESSFULLY sued by the Attorney Generals of Missouri, Louisiana and several other states who have formed a coalition to sue the White House for violating the 1st amendment (my apologies for stating 2nd - it was a typo). They have succeeded in getting an injunction against the White House to prevent them from interacting with social media.
The White House has appealed and it is now going all the way to the Supreme Court.
The President of the US violated the US Constitution and violated Free Speech in America. This is quite literally front page news in ANY era, and yet NOBODY is talking about it. Why is that?
By suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story, suppressing the story about Biden's involvement in Ukraine with Burisma and suppressing factual information about the pandemic and pushing false information, Biden manipulated the information that would have affected the outcome of the election.
Over 50% of people polled have stated that they'd have voted differently if they'd known the truth.
The Democrats accused Trump of colluding with the Russians in spreading misinformation and disinformation in what we know now was a smear campaign funded by Hilary Clinton and more importantly, the White House has been found GUILTY of doing that which they accused Trump of in 2016.
They quite literally spread misinformation and disinformation to affect the outcome of the 2020 election.
This is not the Liberal party that we knew 50 years ago, folks.
That's as substantive as saying that you sound like a Pollyanna with your head in the sand. The US just had its first attempted coup. Couldn't happen here, right?
In terms of intent and Trump's culpability I agree it does not matter, but in terms of a threat to democracy it definitely matters. It was a clown trial balloon at most to see what would happen. Everyone is now prepared for a second clown attempt besides even if Trump wins in '24 he won't even be on the ballot in '28.
No they won’t. It’s idiotic to think hand guns and AR-15s are any match for the modern military, not to mention all the Trump loving cops itching to use their SWAT gear.
He’s already floated “terminating” the Consitution and in 2020 suggested delaying the election -- literally his own words! The GOP pretended like they didn’t hear him. But since then they’ve learned they can even memory-hole January 6th.
He has trained a generation of Republicans that there is no bar to low, no rule that can’t be ignored. I fully expect that in a second term he would simply ignore the courts with two words: “make me.” And his cheerleaders in the party and right wing media will enthusiastically support it every step of the way.
The Soviet and Chinese constitutions had their versions of the bill of rights, including free speech and right of assembly. It doesn’t matter if the institutions don’t enforce them.
And that’s exactly why this discussion about the administrative state is so important.
Firstly I never suggested the populace vs the military. Two different scenarios - populace vs populace or if military is involved that would be different.
Next, Trump didn't actually suggest "terminating the constitution" which would mean suspending it entirely. He said terminating "rules regulations and articles including those in the constitution" which don't allow the overturning of the election. He claimed this would be a just outcome as the election was illegitimate. It's not the dumbest thing I've ever heard him say and I have to agree that some of the state rule changes to accomodate the Covid pandemic were illegitimate, and much of the MSM was biased against him. Nonetheless the election was fair more or less.
I think more GOPers are core conservatives and will stand by the constitution just like Pence. I think you are underestimating the number of Republicans who back Trump because he is anti-progressive. Very different. They'll follow him to overturn the progressive agenda but that's as far as they go. Sure there are fanatics in there as well but that is a smaller contingent.
Russia and China are historically rule by law (by authority) and not rule of law countries. The US is distinctly rule of law.
As far as changing the disposition of certain elements in the adminsitrative state, well that is fair game for a President and certainly what the Biden administration has been doing.
Operative sections: (1) PREAMBLE: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. (2) TENTH AMENDMENT: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Does the Preamble authorize the federal government to legislate in support of public education, the arts, worker safety, protecting the environment, public health, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.? Plus necessary funding and personnel to enforce those laws? Arguably, the states should have had the primary role for some of these developments, but many fell short of providing for the "general Welfare" of ALL their citizens. The federal government stepped in again and again in an attempt to equalize citizens' "general Welfare." If the federal government is to be reduced in scope and scale, the states need to pick up the slack that would result. The impact of slavery, and its aftermath, is a big part of how the current "big government" situation came into being.
The bothsiderism here is a bit gratuitous IMHO. Some progressives might want to use the state to advance their goals, but they don’t have the power to do so, at least not to nearly the same degree. The right wing has vastly more power, partly because they’re advantaged by peculiarities in our system (Electoral College, Senate, etc), but mostly because they have much, much more money. The excessive attention to dumb things that university professors say vs the enormous power of oligarchs and their enablers (RW media, corrupted courts) gets tiresome.
I think that is no longer the case. Apart from psot secondary institutions, the progressive agenda has been coopted by :
i) media (NYT, WaPo, CNN, MSNBC,...);
ii) many corporations (Disney, Meta,...);
iii) certainly the current Federal adminsitration and many, many state and city adminsitrations (NY, California, Illinois,...);
iv) other institutions (teachers unions, ADL/SPLC, K-12 schools and boards).
The rise of the crazy extreme right wing agenda is a direct result of the rise of the progressive agenda which is also illiberal. We should resist both.
Omitted from this discussion: our mammoth federal government might not have become so large if the various states had provided services, protections and supports to their citizens consonant with the Bill of Rights and Constitution.
Would you please give an example of a service, protection or support that is consonant with the Bill of Rights and the Constitution that is not provided by the states. And what makes it consonant with the Bill of Rghts/Constitution if it's not specifically required.
You didn't answer the question: Why would you think that Trump and his cronies would need "backing of the ENTIRE US armed forces."? (Suppose there is a corporal in Missouri that does not back Trump.)
Not interested in quibling. Yes I'll give you that corporal in Missouri. Anything short of total backing will result in a stalemate and destruction of the country.
Sorry, don’t agree. The MSM (which does have real power) is very influenced by RW memes, see eg the endless hand-wringing over Biden’s age, with much less attention to Trump’s much more apparent cognitive decline or authoritarian plans. (That has improved a little recently, but there’s a long way to go. There was a recent study that showed how the NYT in particular is very responsive to RW concerns over LW ones.). Corporations (which again have real power) do make a lot of gestures to wokeness, but continue to pursue an aggressive agenda of lowering tax rates and regulations, including ones that protect consumers, workers, the environment, etc. The wokeness stuff is mostly performative IOW. Teachers’ unions, universities etc have relatively little political power, which is precisely why they get targeted so much by the DeSantises of the world. There are certainly people on the left who are rigidly ideological and shouldn’t be trusted with power (I’ve been SMH over much of the Gaza commentary for example), but they have very little actual power compared to oligarchs and their political enablers.
The MSM is primarily co-opted by the neo-con Liberals who have no interest in true liberal principles. Those are a ruse. The MSM has become a propaganda machine for the liberal party.
NYT does allow some conservative voices but it is predominantly left or progressive. CNN allows little right wing voices, and MSNBC and WaPo virtually none. For foreign news, Guardian and Economist are very progressive. On the right, WSJ is conservative but I suppose the elephant in the room is Fox which I do not consider to be news and certainly not MSM but it is influential. On balance, in terms of reach or impact or influence in our society, the MSM imo is predominantly left/progressive mosty because of its readership. In terms of Biden/Trump cognitive decline I think Joe wins that but perhaps only because Trump always had questionable cognitive ability. The MSM seems to be covering for Joe except when the DNC is floating a trial balloon.
Corporations are adopting ESG and DEI perhaps reluctantly and it does remain to be seen whether this will be more than just lip service. As far as trying to lower corporate taxes I don't hear this anymore now that the US (Trump) lowered rates to be consistent with most other countries. As far as regulations, perhaps that is industry specific.
Teachers, boards and teachers unions are together the most powerful group in the long run - they are the MSM for K-12 students.
"Yes, so sort of the idea is to have some a conservative revolution in which you use the levers of the state to cram as much of the conservative social agenda as possible and then to hell with the next, the Democratic government once it comes into power."
It is unclear why you think there will ever be another "election" after a second Trump term. As you say, the objective of the right here is power -- allowing elections is contrary to the idea of obtaining ultimate power. Whether you look at Hitler's Germany or Orban's Hungary or Putin's Russia, elections were/have been eliminated -- and until the governments collapse, there will not be another.
Sounds like hyperbolic MSNBC narrative. Short of getting the backing of the entire US armed forces, there is no way under the US system for Trump or any other President to outlive the next election. And if they try, thank goodness for the 2nd amendment.
Why would you think that Trump and his cronies would need "backing of the entire US armed forces"?
All he has to do is install loyalist senior military officers, and purge any who oppose him. This is really not complicated or unusual. Happens all over the world all the time.
Clearly there are many who would be willing:
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/09/15/dozens-of-retired-generals-admirals-sign-letter-backing-trump-reelection.html
Concur -- my point exactly. (And the example of Flynn shows how easy it would be.)
Where ON EARTH did you build this fictional, unsubstantiated narrative that Trump won't allow any more elections??? The neo-con Liberals have co-opted the MAJORITY of media and have built a wall of information to protect them from being exposed for doing it and have even arguably have stolen the 2020 election by suppressing truths about Hunter Biden and the Biden's affairs in Ukraine by censoring free speech across social media. FOR GOODNESS SAKE, the Biden administration is now trying to defend itself for violating the 2nd Amendment and censoring Free Speech across ALL SOCIAL MEDIA!! Polls have clearly shown that people would have voted very differently if this information wasn't fraudulently suppressed. The authoritarians are already in power and tightening their grip. What is the matter with you people. You're willing to swallow a camel while straining at a gnat.
No need to respond to members of the Trump cult.
The President does not have the authority to stop an election and there is no Consitutional manner of doing so. Even storming the houses of government doesn't stop an election and its outcome. The only way Trump and his cronies could accomplish this is to get the armed forces to back him. Anything else leads to a stalemate and destruction of the country ie civil war, or a crushing of the revolt. The USA is a rule of law country and that is deeply embedded in conservatives as well as liberals. Progressives and far right not so much.
If the US is a rule of law country, why do most Liberal states not require showing ID for elections, why did they defund the police and cause crime to rise exponentially, and why is Biden not being tried for violating the 2nd amendment to win the 2020 election. Seriously, take off the rose colored glassed for one minute and try to be objective.
Rubbish.
Yup ID should be mandatory where there is easily obtainable ID.
I'm not aware of anyone who defunded police, although attempts by progressives were made which the majority did not support. Besides attempting to defund police or rather change the laws with respect to funding the police has nothing to do with being a rule of law country. The police are not identical with the laws. I find progressives to not be rule of law types but thankfully they are a minority.
I'm at a loss with respect to your comment regarding Biden and 2nd amendment and winning the 2020 election.
I think I'm pretty objective.
The US is the ONLY COUNTRY IN THE FREE WORLD that doesn't require mandatory ID for Federal elections. Read that again. And it's primary the case ONLY in Democratic states. Why is that?
2nd. I travel across the US regularly and every Democratic state is rife with lawlessness. NYC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago - horrific to walk around. Crime, murder, theft are off the charts. Have you seen San Francisco? It's literally a zombie apocalypse. The Democrats have ruined society in these regions.
As far as the 2020 elections, Biden and the 2nd amendment violation, if you don't know, you need to do some reading because this proves my point about the MSM being co-opted by the Liberal party.
The Biden administration has been SUCCESSFULLY sued by the Attorney Generals of Missouri, Louisiana and several other states who have formed a coalition to sue the White House for violating the 1st amendment (my apologies for stating 2nd - it was a typo). They have succeeded in getting an injunction against the White House to prevent them from interacting with social media.
The White House has appealed and it is now going all the way to the Supreme Court.
The President of the US violated the US Constitution and violated Free Speech in America. This is quite literally front page news in ANY era, and yet NOBODY is talking about it. Why is that?
By suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story, suppressing the story about Biden's involvement in Ukraine with Burisma and suppressing factual information about the pandemic and pushing false information, Biden manipulated the information that would have affected the outcome of the election.
Over 50% of people polled have stated that they'd have voted differently if they'd known the truth.
The Democrats accused Trump of colluding with the Russians in spreading misinformation and disinformation in what we know now was a smear campaign funded by Hilary Clinton and more importantly, the White House has been found GUILTY of doing that which they accused Trump of in 2016.
They quite literally spread misinformation and disinformation to affect the outcome of the 2020 election.
This is not the Liberal party that we knew 50 years ago, folks.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/09/08/5th-circuit-ruling-covid-content-moderation/
That's as substantive as saying that you sound like a Pollyanna with your head in the sand. The US just had its first attempted coup. Couldn't happen here, right?
Hardly a coup. Attempted maybe but by dumbasses and wouldn’t have accomplished anything anyway.
It doesn't matter that it was a clown coup with no chance of succeeding. It was still a coup attempt.
That is what the news tells you, not what the video tape tells you.
What video? Link or it doesn't exist.
In terms of intent and Trump's culpability I agree it does not matter, but in terms of a threat to democracy it definitely matters. It was a clown trial balloon at most to see what would happen. Everyone is now prepared for a second clown attempt besides even if Trump wins in '24 he won't even be on the ballot in '28.
Again, you're assuming the status quo ante Trump. That is not a good assumption after a second term.
The people who support the second amendment the most will be on the side of Trump. Bank on it.
If Trump tried to postpone the election indefinitely, everyone, including those on the left, will be newfound supporters of the 2nd amendment.
No they won’t. It’s idiotic to think hand guns and AR-15s are any match for the modern military, not to mention all the Trump loving cops itching to use their SWAT gear.
He’s already floated “terminating” the Consitution and in 2020 suggested delaying the election -- literally his own words! The GOP pretended like they didn’t hear him. But since then they’ve learned they can even memory-hole January 6th.
He has trained a generation of Republicans that there is no bar to low, no rule that can’t be ignored. I fully expect that in a second term he would simply ignore the courts with two words: “make me.” And his cheerleaders in the party and right wing media will enthusiastically support it every step of the way.
The Soviet and Chinese constitutions had their versions of the bill of rights, including free speech and right of assembly. It doesn’t matter if the institutions don’t enforce them.
And that’s exactly why this discussion about the administrative state is so important.
Not trying to support Trump but where to start.
Firstly I never suggested the populace vs the military. Two different scenarios - populace vs populace or if military is involved that would be different.
Next, Trump didn't actually suggest "terminating the constitution" which would mean suspending it entirely. He said terminating "rules regulations and articles including those in the constitution" which don't allow the overturning of the election. He claimed this would be a just outcome as the election was illegitimate. It's not the dumbest thing I've ever heard him say and I have to agree that some of the state rule changes to accomodate the Covid pandemic were illegitimate, and much of the MSM was biased against him. Nonetheless the election was fair more or less.
I think more GOPers are core conservatives and will stand by the constitution just like Pence. I think you are underestimating the number of Republicans who back Trump because he is anti-progressive. Very different. They'll follow him to overturn the progressive agenda but that's as far as they go. Sure there are fanatics in there as well but that is a smaller contingent.
Russia and China are historically rule by law (by authority) and not rule of law countries. The US is distinctly rule of law.
As far as changing the disposition of certain elements in the adminsitrative state, well that is fair game for a President and certainly what the Biden administration has been doing.
Operative sections: (1) PREAMBLE: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. (2) TENTH AMENDMENT: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Does the Preamble authorize the federal government to legislate in support of public education, the arts, worker safety, protecting the environment, public health, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.? Plus necessary funding and personnel to enforce those laws? Arguably, the states should have had the primary role for some of these developments, but many fell short of providing for the "general Welfare" of ALL their citizens. The federal government stepped in again and again in an attempt to equalize citizens' "general Welfare." If the federal government is to be reduced in scope and scale, the states need to pick up the slack that would result. The impact of slavery, and its aftermath, is a big part of how the current "big government" situation came into being.
The bothsiderism here is a bit gratuitous IMHO. Some progressives might want to use the state to advance their goals, but they don’t have the power to do so, at least not to nearly the same degree. The right wing has vastly more power, partly because they’re advantaged by peculiarities in our system (Electoral College, Senate, etc), but mostly because they have much, much more money. The excessive attention to dumb things that university professors say vs the enormous power of oligarchs and their enablers (RW media, corrupted courts) gets tiresome.
I think that is no longer the case. Apart from psot secondary institutions, the progressive agenda has been coopted by :
i) media (NYT, WaPo, CNN, MSNBC,...);
ii) many corporations (Disney, Meta,...);
iii) certainly the current Federal adminsitration and many, many state and city adminsitrations (NY, California, Illinois,...);
iv) other institutions (teachers unions, ADL/SPLC, K-12 schools and boards).
The rise of the crazy extreme right wing agenda is a direct result of the rise of the progressive agenda which is also illiberal. We should resist both.
The only solution is to have both sides WORK TOGETHER, not against each other.
Omitted from this discussion: our mammoth federal government might not have become so large if the various states had provided services, protections and supports to their citizens consonant with the Bill of Rights and Constitution.
Would you please give an example of a service, protection or support that is consonant with the Bill of Rights and the Constitution that is not provided by the states. And what makes it consonant with the Bill of Rghts/Constitution if it's not specifically required.
That is deranged. Hunter Biden selling access to his father should be important to everyone. Only a true cultist would deny it.
You didn't answer the question: Why would you think that Trump and his cronies would need "backing of the ENTIRE US armed forces."? (Suppose there is a corporal in Missouri that does not back Trump.)
Not interested in quibling. Yes I'll give you that corporal in Missouri. Anything short of total backing will result in a stalemate and destruction of the country.
Sorry, don’t agree. The MSM (which does have real power) is very influenced by RW memes, see eg the endless hand-wringing over Biden’s age, with much less attention to Trump’s much more apparent cognitive decline or authoritarian plans. (That has improved a little recently, but there’s a long way to go. There was a recent study that showed how the NYT in particular is very responsive to RW concerns over LW ones.). Corporations (which again have real power) do make a lot of gestures to wokeness, but continue to pursue an aggressive agenda of lowering tax rates and regulations, including ones that protect consumers, workers, the environment, etc. The wokeness stuff is mostly performative IOW. Teachers’ unions, universities etc have relatively little political power, which is precisely why they get targeted so much by the DeSantises of the world. There are certainly people on the left who are rigidly ideological and shouldn’t be trusted with power (I’ve been SMH over much of the Gaza commentary for example), but they have very little actual power compared to oligarchs and their political enablers.
The MSM is primarily co-opted by the neo-con Liberals who have no interest in true liberal principles. Those are a ruse. The MSM has become a propaganda machine for the liberal party.
My thoughts -
NYT does allow some conservative voices but it is predominantly left or progressive. CNN allows little right wing voices, and MSNBC and WaPo virtually none. For foreign news, Guardian and Economist are very progressive. On the right, WSJ is conservative but I suppose the elephant in the room is Fox which I do not consider to be news and certainly not MSM but it is influential. On balance, in terms of reach or impact or influence in our society, the MSM imo is predominantly left/progressive mosty because of its readership. In terms of Biden/Trump cognitive decline I think Joe wins that but perhaps only because Trump always had questionable cognitive ability. The MSM seems to be covering for Joe except when the DNC is floating a trial balloon.
Corporations are adopting ESG and DEI perhaps reluctantly and it does remain to be seen whether this will be more than just lip service. As far as trying to lower corporate taxes I don't hear this anymore now that the US (Trump) lowered rates to be consistent with most other countries. As far as regulations, perhaps that is industry specific.
Teachers, boards and teachers unions are together the most powerful group in the long run - they are the MSM for K-12 students.