POTUS 46.10: A New Hope

[Drew S.]

It is quite likely the Republicans are engaging in systemic voting fraud, which helps explain why they bray so loudly that we are. Everything they scream about is projection.

They are dying demographically and they know it. Their policies are not compatible with democracy and they know that, too. These next few years are more dangerous to the Republic than the Civil War. At least in 1861 the enemy declared itself formally. This time around they will engage in the same treason while denying it all along, like Hitler at Munich, and plenty of useful idiots and credulous cowards will believe them because the truth is unthinkable.

We're in a fight for our lives. It's them or us.

Just curious, how do you think they’re trying to do it? I don’t think there is any doubt they are trying to end democracy right now, and their attempts at suppressing the vote is as shameful of thing that has happened in my lifetime, but it would be hard to pull off adding extra votes in any great numbers with no one finding out.

[psych]

CNN will have you know that there are too many Afghan refugees, some of them pregnant women, at the Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, where temperatures are dropping to freezing at nighttime. This process was supposed to take days, not weeks. I think the solution would have been to just leave them in hot Afghanistan, right? I bet if they actually asked the pregnant women in Germany if they’d rather be slightly cold at night with their freedom eventually in hand, or under Taliban control, they’d choose Taliban control. No doubt the media wouldn’t have reported on the US failing to get more refugees out of Afghanistan, and the process at Ramstein being much faster with 1,000 refugees to process rather than 10,000.

[dxmnkd316]

CNN will have you know that there are too many Afghan refugees, some of them pregnant women, at the Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, where temperatures are dropping to freezing at nighttime. This process was supposed to take days, not weeks. I think the solution would have been to just leave them in hot Afghanistan, right? I bet if they actually asked the pregnant women in Germany if they’d rather be slightly cold at night with their freedom eventually in hand, or under Taliban control, they’d choose Taliban control. No doubt the media wouldn’t have reported on the US failing to get more refugees out of Afghanistan, and the process at Ramstein being much faster with 1,000 refugees to process rather than 10,000.

CNN completely unraveled with Afghanistan. Same with CBS.

[WeAreNDHockey]

Our constitutional crisis is already here.

I hope people think hard about these passages:

Most Americans — and all but a handful of politicians — have refused to take this possibility seriously enough to try to prevent it. As has so often been the case in other countries where fascist leaders arise, their would-be opponents are paralyzed in confusion and amazement at this charismatic authoritarian. They have followed the standard model of appeasement, which always begins with underestimation. The political and intellectual establishments in both parties have been underestimating Trump since he emerged on the scene in 2015.

The Framers did not establish safeguards against the possibility that national-party solidarity would transcend state boundaries because they did not imagine such a thing was possible. Nor did they foresee that members of Congress, and perhaps members of the judicial branch, too, would refuse to check the power of a president from their own party. In recent decades, however, party loyalty has superseded branch loyalty, and never more so than in the Trump era. As the two Trump impeachments showed, if members of Congress are willing to defend or ignore the president’s actions simply because he is their party leader, then conviction and removal become all but impossible. In such circumstances, the Framers left no other check against usurpation by the executive — except (small-r) republican virtue.

And finally, in characteristics the insurrectionists from 1-6 share with many Muslim terrorists and suicide bombers:

The banal normalcy of the great majority of Trump’s supporters, including those who went to the Capitol on Jan. 6, has befuddled many observers. Although private militia groups and white supremacists played a part in the attack, 90 percent of those arrested or charged had no ties to such groups. The majority were middle-class and middle-aged; 40 percent were business owners or white-collar workers. They came mostly from purple, not red, counties.

I honestly believe this country's end is coming, and is likely to happen over the next 2 or 3 cycles of federal elections (mid-terms and presidential, '22, '24, '26). My only question is how violent will the end be?

[Kepler]

https://www.theonion.com/experts-con...res-1847725693

[Kepler]

I honestly believe this country's end is coming, and is likely to happen over the next 2 or 3 cycles of federal elections (mid-terms and presidential, '22, '24, '26). My only question is how violent will the end be?

What do you mean by "end"?

End of democracy? Possibly. The Right has already already abandoned democracy. They want power, period. Anything in their way is "evil." They are heavily armed and violent. This has all the hallmarks of an attempt by the Right to use democracy in order to destroy democracy. This has happened in many countries in the past:

• Germany: 1933
• Austria: 1933
• Spain: 1930's
• Brazil: 1964
• Chile: 1973
• Russia: 1990s
• Hungary: 2010s

It absolutely can happen here. Nothing in the Constitution prevents it. If the Right can gain the three branches they can do, literally, anything. The only branch that could stop them is the courts, so if they dominate the courts then all of our democratic principles are just words on a page to be dismissed and reinterpreted by people like Thomas, Alito, and Barrett.


End of the United States of America? Highly unlikely. Frankly, it's just too profitable for too many powerful interests. The disruption would be too great for the ten thousand or so families who actually own the country. I cannot see them allowing it.

A split is a possibility, and perhaps would be the best solution to avoid bloodshed. It would set up a Northern European-like, urban-dominated democracy and an Eastern European-like, rural-dominated feudal state. I suppose after a while we would just use the latter as a dumping ground for polluting industries and a source of cheap, unskilled labor. It doesn't sound like it would be a very stable long-term solution, and having a human rights nightmare on our border would set up a huge immigration crisis of people trying to flee there and likely being held in by some equivalent of a Berlin Wall. We would also have to worry about it being a constant source of state-sponsored terrorism and revanchism. It would be South Africa at best, and an expansionist, militarized, fascist Christian failed state most likely. Alabama would, finally, get the bomb.

[WeAreNDHockey]

We're in a fight for our lives. It's them or us.

And who wins when one side wants to vote with reasoned logic, facts, voting and all around common decency while the other side will be fighting with lethal weapons? The amount of firearms being stockpiled by the right is off the charts astounding over the last year and a half.

[Kepler]

And who wins when one side wants to vote with reasoned logic, facts, voting and all around common decency while the other side will be fighting with lethal weapons? The amount of firearms being stockpiled by the right is off the charts astounding over the last year and a half.

The army wins. It's not going to be Branch Dildoians mowing down hippies, at least for long. It's going to be the army deployed to counter mass violence by rightwing terrorists.

So it all comes down to, what happens with the army?

The white grunts are them. The POC grunts and the officers are us. Presumably the army eventually just follows its funding. If the civilian leadership is Right and tells them to stand down I can't see them taking a stand for democracy and violating the chain of command. There is just too much institutional risk and too many excuses to hide behind. But, conversely, if ordered to intervene on behalf of innocent people being massacred by rightwing thugs, I can't see them revolting either, since that would cut off the spigot.

[WeAreNDHockey]

The white grunts are them. The POC grunts and the officers are us.

More and more the senior non-coms and the officers will be them, not us. Right now some are still with us, but people don't live forever. More and more people who are making enlisted careers are going to be them. Same with the officer corps. O-1s, 2s and 3s today are far more into the cult of trump that you seem to want to believe. Same with the enlisted who are currently moving from the midlevel ranks into the senior ranks. Why anyone believes differently is a mystery to me. Do you also honestly think white police officers who kill unarmed black men simply need better training? People who believe the things about democracy and the ideals of this country like you or I likely do are not joining the military in the numbers you must think they are.

[Kepler]

More and more the senior non-coms and the officers will be them, not us. Right now some are still with us, but people don't live forever. More and more people who are making enlisted careers are going to be them. Same with the officer corps. O-1s, 2s and 3s today are far more into the cult of trump that you seem to want to believe. Same with the enlisted who are currently moving from the midlevel ranks into the senior ranks. Why anyone believes differently is a mystery to me. Do you also honestly think white police officers who kill unarmed black men simply need better training? People who believe the things about democracy and the ideals of this country like you or I likely do are not joining the military in the numbers you must think they are.

Everybody from Major down is a grunt and doesn't matter. By "officers" I meant Colonel and above. They are, for the vast majority, us. Not you and me educated us but products of the formal military education system us. And they're the ones who make all the decisions. You aren't going to get some low level officer leading a cult of personality coup d'etat of the US military. We aren't the Central African Republic quite yet.

[Drew S.]

When do we start losing smart and/or rich people to other countries in any kind of meaningful quantity? That is what concerns me. I’ve definitely thought about where we would go and assume a lot of others have as well.

[aparch]

What do you mean by "end"?

[...]

A split is a possibility, and perhaps would be the best solution to avoid bloodshed. It would set up a Northern European-like, urban-dominated democracy and an Eastern European-like, rural-dominated feudal state. I suppose after a while we would just use the latter as a dumping ground for polluting industries and a source of cheap, unskilled labor. It doesn't sound like it would be a very stable long-term solution, and having a human rights nightmare on our border would set up a huge immigration crisis of people trying to flee there and likely being held in by some equivalent of a Berlin Wall. We would also have to worry about it being a constant source of state-sponsored terrorism and revanchism. It would be South Africa at best, and an expansionist, militarized, fascist Christian failed state most likely. Alabama would, finally, get the bomb.

While I'm more than happy to break off from the Christian Taliban, the "red states" have a majority of the national park land that I'd like to protect against pollution and development.

Can we just round them up and give them the southeast again?

[rufus]

The Framers did not establish safeguards against the possibility that national-party solidarity would transcend state boundaries because they did not imagine such a thing was possible. Nor did they foresee that members of Congress, and perhaps members of the judicial branch, too, would refuse to check the power of a president from their own party.

What!!!?? You mean our Founding Fathers weren't all-knowing?

Heresy.

[rufus]

But, without democracy, would it continue to be as profitable?

[rufus]

The army wins. It's not going to be Branch Dildoians mowing down hippies, at least for long. It's going to be the army deployed to counter mass violence by rightwing terrorists.

So it all comes down to, what happens with the army?

The white grunts are them. The POC grunts and the officers are us. Presumably the army eventually just follows its funding. If the civilian leadership is Right and tells them to stand down I can't see them taking a stand for democracy and violating the chain of command. There is just too much institutional risk and too many excuses to hide behind. But, conversely, if ordered to intervene on behalf of innocent people being massacred by rightwing thugs, I can't see them revolting either, since that would cut off the spigot.

Ummm, Michael Flynn and his brother are officers.

Again, I believe you're too optimistic here, and are stating what you want to believe, and not what actually is.