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Is there a mechanism for him to suspend elections and stay President forever? No.
Will he try anyway and cause a shitload of drama? Probably.
God forgive me, but the amount of screaming hysteria in the media (and that's not even touching what is on social media) is entertaining.
Also extremely worrying, because it really is building Trump up to be a potential candidate for the Republican nomination. He doesn't even have to turn up to the official debates, he's getting so much free publicity. It's going to be "okay, whoever does end up as the sole runner after the debates will then have to go up against Trump".
If he gets selected, it'll be on the 'opposition' stirring people up into a tizzy about him. Who even knows if he could win a second term? The way talk is going, you would think it was all over bar the shouting and once he gets back, this is what is going to happen, noooooo!
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Trump AG prosecute Obama, Biden,Hilary, Fauci etc.. Also people who criticize him. People get violent. Atmosphere of fear, people are afraid that one wrong move will fracture the republic (or try to make that move because it feels virtuous given that your side is right).
Replace generals with Trump loyalists? That doesn't get you all the way there, but it helps. Then you have a choice between an internal military coup to get rid of the Trump loyalists at the top, and maybe they say that it's better to have another term of Trump than to destroy the Republic; they might be right.
You could see how they would think it's reasonable. The first term didn't count because the deep state interfered, and this makes some kind of internal sense, so this would be his first real full term, or maybe the next one, because he will need to use this one to eradicate the deep state.
Ya, I have a hard time seeing any of this happening.
The thing is, for the first term, we were told all this was going to happen anyway. People were online asking about how they could flee to Canada ahead of the jackboots marching in the street to drag gays and minorities off to be tortured in the camps.
What happened, in reality? Pretty much business as usual, apart from Covid. And getting conservative judges on the Supreme Court, which I really never imagined he'd either try or even get done. Congratulations there on a real achievement.
We didn't get the Third World War, the nukes flying, the end of days, crashed economy, torture conversion camp for gays, the Christofascist theocratic regime. So why think that even if he somehow manages to win a second term, this would happen? Too much "wolf! wolf! look there's a wolf!" cried the first time for me to believe all the "no really a wolf this time!" this time round.
We did get the attempt to overthrow democracy. So there's that.
Oh, you mean the setting up of CHOP and CHAZ and people forming little militias that killed the very people they were supposed to be protecting?
Not that, huh?
I was more talking about Trump's actions, but sure, there was that too.
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I'm hardly informed about goings-on over the pond, but isn't that a bit of an exaggeration? Not that democracy is flawless or working overly well, but I'm having a hard time seeing attempts to overthrow it outright in the recent past.
No, I don't think it's an exaggeration. He lost an election and tried very hard to stay in power regardless. That is a central example of an attempt to overthrow democracy in my book.
Hm. Alright. Hearing "overthrow", I expected something more effectual, but I suppose I can see where you're coming from.
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From the Trump side, we did see an attempt to overthrow democracy, and it was successful: the Biden coup.
If 2020’s election season and J6 were indeed a Biden coup, it was portrayed to those in the know as a way to pre-empt a seemingly inevitable Trump coup, complete with Nancy Pelosi’s daughter capturing events for a documentary intended to portray events as a 9/11-style attack.
If it was a Trump attempt at seizing power, it was the most ridiculously convoluted and ineffective plot in political history, with an impromptu army of hundreds of thousands just giving up without firing a shot.
If it was all just a series of bad game theory moves which gave each side's actions the illusion of malfeasance through tribal lenses, it is a tragedy of democracy all around.
You can apply this excuse to the more naive of Trump's supporters, but it can't be applied to Trump himself. The "Biden coup" is not a thing he reacted to, it is a thing he invented out of whole cloth to justify his attempt to stay in power.
I would rank it as possibly the second most convoluted and ineffective plot in political history after the Beer Hall Putsch.
Sounds like the BHP was radically successful in comparison:
By comparison, on J6, the sitting President’s social media accounts were suspended or deleted, and he wasn’t publicly seen in the media for months afterward.
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I mean, get enough loyalty from the army, declare it, kill anyone who objects?
That's how it typically goes, right?
Sure, the US has historically been pretty resistant to this, and probably will continue to be, but it's not like there's no mechanism by which this could imaginably happen. History has plenty of examples.
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There are legal mechanisms for him to remain POTUS until his death assuming he can win the vote. He has loyal children of age. He can just run one of his children for decades. And that would not violate the constitution.
He might even be more effective that way as people would feel more comfortable that he’s not sitting on the nuclear button.
China and Russia have both been in a similar situation. Putin and Deng were both considered the ultimate power when they had no official position.
By "legal mechanisms", do you mean holding a Amendment Convention to repeal the 22nd Amendment? How on earth would he secure 3/4 of state legislatures and/or state conventions? Seems like an unserious concern to me.
His children can run with him the power behind the scenes.
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Remember the "ha ha only joking" T-shirts when it was assumed Hillary would It's Her Turn Now? All about how it would be 2 terms for Hillary, then run Chelsea for 2 terms, then Michelle Obama, then Sasha and Malia... perpetual female one-party rule for decades was a great idea when it was Our Guys doing it.
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