Author Topic: The Trump Presidency  (Read 399587 times)

Offline Zakalwe

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #1035 on: May 18, 2020, 11:16:41 AM »
Well worth a read: https://www.ft.com/content/97dc7de6-940b-11ea-abcd-371e24b679ed

A Croatian once said (of civil war and mass graves due to genocide) "don't think that it can never happen in your country. I used to think like that".

Its also worth spending an hour listening to this interview: Yes, i know that the interviewer, Griffin is a nutjob, but some of the stuff talked about is remarkably prescient (and chilling).
"As I mentioned before, exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who was demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell nothing to him. Even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents, with pictures; even if I take him by force to the Soviet Union and show
him [a] concentration camp, he will refuse to believe it, until he [receives] a kick in his fan-bottom. When a military boot crashes his... then he will understand. But not before that. That’s the [tragedy] of the situation of demoralization.

So basically America is stuck with demoralization and unless... even if you start right now, here, this minute, you start educating [a] new generation of Americans, it will still take you fifteen to twenty years to turn the tide of ideological perception of reality back to normalcy and patriotism.As I mentioned before, exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who was demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell nothing to him. Even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents, with pictures; even if I take him by force to the Soviet Union and show
him [a] concentration camp, he will refuse to believe it, until he [receives] a kick in his fan-bottom. When a military boot crashes his... then he will understand. But not before that. That’s the [tragedy] of the situation of demoralization.

So basically America is stuck with demoralization and unless... even if you start right now, here, this minute, you start educating [a] new generation of Americans, it will still take you fifteen to twenty years to turn the tide of ideological perception of reality back to normalcy and patriotism.


The more i look at Trump in the US, Johnson in the UK, Brexit and the rise of populism, the more I am convinced that Putin is a stone-cold genius at this stuff.

Apologies...I don't know why some of the original post was in strikethrough.
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Offline Jason Thompson

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #1036 on: May 19, 2020, 06:39:04 AM »
The lawful ways to remove a President are painfully few.  There's no Thundering Cockwomble provision in the Constitution

Well I think that motion should be table immediately. The Thundering Cockwomble Amendment is clearly desperately needed.

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Even Sen. McConnell tried to jump on the bandwagon of blaming the previous administration.

Indeed, but at least he had the sense to say he was obviously wrong when so many people pointed out that the previous administration left them a playbook, a team of experts and showed it to the current administration during the transition, before the current adminstatration forgot the book existed, disbanded the experts and defunded the research.

It's terrifying that someone like Trump can display their total unhinged detachment from reality so blatantly and people will still think he's doing great.
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Offline gillianren

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #1037 on: May 19, 2020, 10:06:04 AM »
It's because we're obviously conspiracists moving the goal posts all the time.
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Offline JayUtah

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #1038 on: May 19, 2020, 01:39:33 PM »
Well I think that motion should be table immediately. The Thundering Cockwomble Amendment is clearly desperately needed.

That function was supposed to be carried out by the Electoral College.  One of the duties the Framers envisioned was to prevent obvious cockwombles -- nevertheless elected by popular vote -- from attaining the Presidency.  Alexander Hamilton said it best in Federalist no. 68.
Quote from: Alexander Hamilton
The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States.
But over time, the various States undermined this function with the so-called faithless elector laws.  The States are free to determine how their electors are chosen, but more murk surrounds whether the States may direct how those electors should vote.  Requiring them to vote the directive of the plebiscite removes their ability to deflect the occasional thundering cockwomble.  The point was to make it so difficult to become President that the system would not need to allow casual means of removal that could be for political purposes.  Once sworn, the President is reasonably free from challenges to his authority.

There are calls to elect the President and Vice President directly.  That runs up against the statistical feature of the Electoral College.  Sparsely populated States have disproportionately more sway in the election.  In the modern popular mind, this violates the "One person, one vote" maxim.  And accidentally, the sparsely populated inner states tend to have more conservative politics than the heavily-populated coastal areas.  This means the Electoral College can presently be said to have a conservative bias.  The vote from it does not match the nationwide vote on the left-right spectrum.

Now throw in gerrymandering.  The Senate is elected by the States at large, usually by direct popular vote.  The House is elected by district, with each State being free to draw the districts as it sees fit, according to the apportioning of the seats to the State following the decennial census.  The only requirement in the Constitution is that the districts be equal in population, to a practical degree.  Subsequently, laws and court rulings have provided other criteria (e.g., race) along which House district boundaries may not be drawn.  But the Supreme Court has specifically declined to rule on whether political party is a disallowed criterion.

The Framers evidently felt that even if district boundaries were drawn by the political arms of the State governments, there would be enough checks and balances to prevent chaos or corruption.  They envisioned a more utopian process where different interests would be represented sufficiently in the various branches of local governments that district boundaries would be a well-considered compromise.  And they likely did not foresee a time when the evolution of information science and demographics would allow drawing boundaries with an almost certain knowledge of how it would vote until the next redistricting.  The redistricting that will occur in 2021 faces no legal obstacle in entrenching districts for whatever political party currently holds power in each State.

So the electoral features that were supposed to protect us from thundering cockwombles has now paradoxically enabled it.  Election was, of course, the first and foremost means envisioned to remove an errant President.  Yes, we have impeachment to deal with a President who acts blatantly contrary to law.  But it was supposed to prove difficult to wield, and it has so proven.  This is because the Framers were conscious of the abuses of the legislative powers of impeachment as exercised in Europe.  The relatively short term of the Presidency was supposed to limit the amount of damage a wantonly incompetent or undesirable President could do.  Because the Executive branch has grown into such a monster, U.S. government can effectively wreak a lot of havoc in four years.

Some people mention the 25th Amendment.  But this would be misapplied, unless President Trump manages to self-medicate himself into a hydroxychloroquine-induced heart attack.  The 25th Amendment cannot practically be used to sideline a President who is merely incompetent.  "Unable to discharge" is interpreted as being prevented by physical circumstances outside his control from fulfilling the office.  And since it can only be executed by the President himself or by his cabinet, it is presumed it won't be used politically.

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Indeed, but at least [Sen. McConnell] had the sense to say he was obviously wrong...

To his credit.  He was probably legitimately unaware of the transition efforts and had simply assumed the President was telling the truth.  This time he chose to stick with the facts instead of merely parroting White House rhetoric.

Of course it didn't really amount to a reversal.  Despite Sen. McConnell's unqualified retraction, the White House has simply slipped down to the next rung on the ladder.  Yes, there was a playbook and yes, the incoming White House team was briefed and trained on it.  But now, supposedly, the White House rejected that plan early on as allegedly unworkable.  The White House now claims that they supplanted it with a better plan -- Trump's plan, referring to the published one as the "Obama-Biden" plan in an attempt to taint the Democratic candidate-presumptive in the process.

But of course that rhetoric doesn't fly.  First, the Trump plan was apparently to do nothing and hope it all blew over.  That's obviously less interactive than the Obama-era plan, which outlines quite a lot of things that should be done early and assertively.  So you can't blame the results of inaction on a plan that calls for action.  Second, if there was a Trump plan, why is it necessary to blame failure on the plan you rejected?  If we're following the Trump plan, then it's clearly the Trump plan that's failing.  If we're following the Obama plan, such that failure can be blamed on him, then why do we need mention of an (unused) Trump plan at all?  Finally, the Obama plan underscored that, at the time, the national PPE stockpiles were probably insufficient to respond to a large pandemic.  The Trump administration has made a big deal about this, saying that Pres. Obama "left the cupboards bare."  This is probably true, although an exaggeration.  But the outgoing Obama administration warned the incoming Trump administration of this three years ago.  It's now Pres. Trump's problem, and he did nothing to fix it.  In fact, he went so far as to dismantle even what Pres. Obama had managed to build in the time since dealing with the Ebola virus.  Even worse, it's something he could have addressed as a win-win, saying for example that he's putting Americans to work building up the national supply of medical equipment that his predecessor had let fall short.

Whoever said this administration sounds like children fumbling for excuses when caught misbehaving is spot-on.  There is no attempt to recount the facts of history.  There is simply an attempt to insulate the President from criticism -- and to enable his criticism of others -- at all costs.  This is the Trumpian pattern since the 1980s.  It's how he has failed at business time and again and earned the reputation among New York businessmen as a con-man and fraud.  It's why no American banks will lend him money.  He simply cannot deliver, and insists -- according to silly, toe-shuffling stories -- that his failure is someone else's fault.

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It's terrifying that someone like Trump can display their total unhinged detachment from reality so blatantly and people will still think he's doing great.

Reality isn't what it used to be.  Fox News and others are ready with conspiracy theories to explain it all, with important-looking headines and talking heads to give it the illusion of legitimacy.  This is what I'm told the President had a Twitter meltdown over on U.S. Mothers Day.

That's how you get Attorney-General William Barr dismissing charges against a Trump ally, but it's okay because Gen. Flynn was just an innocent, naive guy railroaded by a Justice Department that Pres. Obama had weaponized against the GOP.  (Ironic, isn't it, that the Trump administration is doing exactly the things they accuse "Obamagate" of doing.)  And now this supposedly straightforward dropping of charges is being held up treasonously by an "Obama judge" who insists on letting legal scholars weigh in on the propriety and accuracy of A-G Barr's argument.  (Yes, there's an argument in the motion, and no, the judge doesn't have to accept it.)  Judges routinely grant a prosecutor's motion to dismiss, but the judge's higher calling is to ensure that justice is served.  Gen. Flynn is entitled to a fair process, not a favorable process.  That doesn't stop Fox News and others from blaming it all on the Deep State -- the "real" swamp that Pres. Trump vowed to drain.

Consider also the recent dismissal of an Inspector-General in the State Department.  Of course it was an Obama appointee, so that's just Trump draining out more of the Deep State that's "politically" harassing his dedicated public servants who are just trying to do their jobs.  One of the accusations the I-G was investigating was the approval of an arm's deal against the wishes of Congress.  That's mired in separation-of-powers questions.  But the other accusation was using official staff as personal assistants.  Pres. Trump's supporters are saying that's a bogus, inconsequential charge, made only to give the I-G a pretext to go after a Trump appointee.

No, it isn't.  The primary purpose of the Inspector-General system in the United States is to combat fraud, waste, and abuse.  As a Department of Defense contractor, I'm required to conspicuously post the I-G contact information and encourage workers to report any amount of fraud, waste, or abuse of taxpayer-provided resources, even if it's me committing the abuse.  Even small infractions count.  And while business executives often enjoy having their paid staff run errands and things for them, that's with essentially private money.  It's often acceptable in the business world to slush some money to keep executives happy.  You cannot do that with taxpayer money.  Anyone who is providing personal assistanceship services to a public employee has to be budgeted to do that as part of their job.  Slushing public resources for personal enjoyment is a major no-no at any level of government service, in any amount.  But of course for Trump's supporters, this is the first time they've heard of it.  So they see it through the lens of a Deep State Inspector-General using a flimsy excuse to go after a Cabinet Secretary.  It's all about the facts you leave out.

"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams

Offline Obviousman

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #1039 on: June 01, 2020, 05:10:15 PM »
Like I said earlier: Trump has no leadership skills at all. Instead of leading people and stopping this madness in the US, he reverts to character and simply attacks, attacks, attacks.

I think that a number of people are now seeing this, how he has failed to quell the riots and is in fact stoking them.

Offline Peter B

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #1040 on: June 01, 2020, 07:59:55 PM »
Like I said earlier: Trump has no leadership skills at all. Instead of leading people and stopping this madness in the US, he reverts to character and simply attacks, attacks, attacks.

I think that a number of people are now seeing this, how he has failed to quell the riots and is in fact stoking them.

...and yet this isn't turning into anything beneficial for Joe Biden. If Biden thinks that sitting back and letting Trump's obvious shortcomings speak for themselves will turn into votes for him, I think he's badly mistaken. For all the people who are galvanised to protest either against Trump's mismanagement of the pandemic response or police violence against minorities, there are just as many people who are frightened of what they see to cling to Trump ever more tightly. To those people Trump represents stability against, respectively, seemingly erratic/arbitrary state governors or lawless violence.

Offline twik

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #1041 on: June 01, 2020, 08:54:22 PM »
You had a nice democracy while it lasted, Americans.

I wonder if Bob B. will return. I remember in 2016 how he stormed out after telling what a disaster a Clinton presidency would be, with illegal aliens taking all our jobs and taxes increasing. I wonder if he feels this is worth it?

Offline Jason Thompson

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #1042 on: June 02, 2020, 03:28:25 AM »
I am glad I'm not American right now. I keep seeing all these people calling on citizens to vote Trump out in November but I can't for a second imagine he will actually go willingly even if it's a landslide against him. He's already trying to de-legitimise the outcome, and now he has demonstrated that he is willing to turn the military on its own citizens. Gun control discussions are well and truly screwed now, because as I understand it this is exactly why the right for cvilians to bear arms was introduced: so they could defend against use of the military against them.  Of all the places to see a mentally deranged dictator springing up, I never expected it to be the US.

In only slightly lighter news, I went on Twitter yesterday and told our Prime Minister to take his disingenuous words of support for the LGBTQ community in Pride Month and shove them. How dare a man with such well-publicised homophobic views offer such words without even a hint of an apology for any previous comments?
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Offline smartcooky

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #1043 on: June 02, 2020, 06:19:32 AM »
It has been America's misfortune to have the worst president ever in the White House at time when the country is facing one of the worst national and international crises - no competence, no leadership, no affinity for his fellow Americans, no effing idea!

At this time, I am eternally thankful every day that I do not live in the USA!
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Offline LionKing

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #1044 on: June 02, 2020, 07:58:52 AM »
Haha..It seems what I suggested some time ago of demonstrations against Trump started to happen. All the best
“When you go through a hard period,
When everything seems to oppose you,
... When you feel you cannot even bear one more minute,
NEVER GIVE UP!
Because it is the time and place that the course will divert!”
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Offline Jason Thompson

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #1045 on: June 02, 2020, 08:53:23 AM »
These were demonstrations agains police brutality, against systemic racism, against opression. They had damn all to do with Trump himself, but of course he has made it all about him, by doing a photo-op, by telling the governors of places where protests turned violent they are essentially failures for allowing it to happen, and by threatening to turn out the guard on his own people. Anything, anything at all, except a message calling for national unity, showing a willingness to listen, showing that he in any way gives a flying f**k about the country and citizenship he is supposed to be the leader of.

And the scariest part? There are still plenty of people who think this is somehow better than anything we'd have under anyone else.
"There's this idea that everyone's opinion is equally valid. My arse! Bloke who was a professor of dentistry for forty years does NOT have a debate with some eejit who removes his teeth with string and a door!"  - Dara O'Briain

Offline gillianren

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #1046 on: June 02, 2020, 11:08:59 AM »
The pastor of the church where he had his photo op has already spoken out against him.  But yeah--honestly, I think this would be a good place for one of the other Democratic candidates to start really showing leadership and then forcing a brokered convention, because I have no confidence in Biden.  If need be, I'll vote for him in November anyway, but I was already displeased about having to do so.
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Offline JayUtah

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #1047 on: June 02, 2020, 01:24:09 PM »
No, we never really had a good democracy.  The Framers copied the Westminster model and tried to adapt it to governing in the absence of an aristocracy.  All it did was allow a different kind of aristocracy to co-opt it.  The play my avatar comes from puts a wonderful line in Ben Franklin's mouth:  "Revolutions ... come into this world like bastard children -- half improvised and half compromised."  Tensions between slave-holding states and Abolitionist states have never been resolved, despite all that's happened.  Tensions between rich and poor have never been fully addressed.  Because Donald Trump is such an immoderate buffoon, it's tempting to lay all this at his feet, or even at the feet of his Republican enablers.  And there's plenty of fault to lay there, but what we're seeing happen to the United States right now has been brewing and bubbling for decades.  I've talked to some historians who say it started roughly 100 years ago.  Donald Trump's despotism and his party's complicity are just the most acute symptoms.

As much as we excoriate the Republicans for eviscerating what little dignity remains in the United States, I have no confidence either in Joe Biden or any Democratic front-runner.  That's because the Democratic party is fractured, disorganized, and politically incompetent.  The major parties really are polar opposites in so many ways.  Republicans are competent robber barons.  Democrats are altruistic bunglers.  It's for that reason that it takes only a little bit of conspiratorial rhetoric to make the Republican base believe that they would be so much worse off with Democrats in charge.  There is a dearth of leadership at the national level across the board, in my opinion.  Whoever is President next cannot just rest upon the laurels of not being Donald Trump.  That's way too low a bar to have to clear.

And yes, let me tell you what it takes for a President to make an enemy of the rector of St. John's.  Presidents who have even an iota of Christian observance have worshiped at St. John's since the time Washington was rebuilt following the War of 1812.  Donald Trump, of course, has never set foot in it.  Nor would any of his base, since the Episcopal church in America is seen as a liberal sect of Christianity.  At the time the President decided to stage his photo op, the porch of the church was being used as a first-aid station for people injured by police.  Yes, the area was cleared forcefully by DC police, including the use of tear gas and rubber bullets.  The President and his entourage barged their way onto the church grounds -- private property, I might add -- without even notifying the clergy ahead of time or acknowledging their presence.  I live across the street from an Episcopal church.  I know their clergy.  These are some of the most dedicated, longsuffering, "seen-it-all" kinds of people I've met.  It takes a very uncommonly high level of boobery to make an Episcopalian clergyperson speak out publicly against you politically, especially the rector of the parish the President traditionally worships at.

I've lived in places that could arguably be called war zones -- at least places where violence and civil unrest were common occurrences and fully-armed troops were a common sight.  Yes, my city is starting to look like one of those.  I live between Fort Douglas (ironically named after Lincoln's opponent) and the downtown area.  So I got to watch Humvee's rolling down my street Saturday carrying young Utahns in body armor, armed to the teeth.  I'm now under a dusk-to-dawn curfew for a week.  This is certainly not the America I was told to build, cherish, and protect.  Nor is it anyplace I want to live.

Second Amendment rhetoric is fraught.  Originally the plan was for the United States not to maintain a large standing army, for just the reason we're seeing.  The fear was that the might of the Federal government would be used to undermine or simply quash State sovereignty.  States were encouraged to form "well-organized militias" (a term that meant something quite different than how it's used today).  If needed, the U.S. government could raise an ad hoc army of substantial size by incorporating State militias.  The decision was made to have a standing navy because of the practical problems involved, and its low probability for effective use as a tool of domestic tyranny.

The overall aim was to keep weapons in the hands of the citizenry in order to prevent the government from being the only ones who are armed.  This was a sensible thing in 1780, when the major fear was a repeat of what the colonists had just been through.  But today it has been warped thoroughly out of proportion.  Moreover, the notion that those today who are amassing private arsenals are doing so against the threat of tyrannical government have had to show their true colors.  Egged on by the National Rifle Association, they have railed against Democrat leaders who are "coming for their guns" in order to disarm the population, when all that's being proposed is reasonable gun control rules.  But the rhetoric this weekend was that now these wannabe-soldiers should mobilize to protect police officers from protesters.  "Tyranny" is being defined along party lines, it seems.

This terrifies actual police officers.  The last thing they want in such a situation is a bunch of angry, heavily-armed, untrained, testosterone-fueled play-actors escalating an already problematic situation.  The President's reference yesterday to the Second Amendment is being interpreted by many as a dog-whistle call to do just that.  Police departments are quite capable of protecting their own officers when needed.  To my knowledge, there have been no injuries to police during these protests.  And local leaders -- nearly all of whom are far better leaders than Donald Trump -- are working hard to de-escalate violence.  We have a very capable mayor.  She doesn't need The Donald's help.  And unlike Pres. Trump, she actually cares about the people on all sides of the contention.  And people in general.  It seems that all Donald Trump cares about is how these protests are making him personally look "weak."

That's really what it still is.  We can read this President almost entirely by only a few personality traits.  He's still seeing this crisis only in terms of winners and losers.  Specifically of losers.  He doesn't believe in the win-win.  He doesn't accept when he loses.  His advice that governors and mayors have to "dominate" the problem is disastrous government and even not good business advice.  Trump's residency is in Florida precisely for the reason that New Yorkers ran the bum out of town.  He couldn't do business anymore in New York because he had so "dominated" the field that no one would lend him money or work for him anymore.  But he "won."  And that's all that mattered to him.

Now the fear is whether the President can use the Insurrection Act of 1807 to send Federal troops into the States to maintain his idea of order.  The Posse Comitatis Act of 1878 forbids the use of national troops to enforce civil law.  This was a legislative response to some questionable practices during the U.S. Civil War, addressed partly by the Supreme Court case of Ex parte Milligan.  I wrote previously about Milligan.  As long as the civil authority is intact and functioning, military authority may not be allowed to supersede it.  As recently amended, the Insurrection Act allows the President to deploy troops to restore order and put down rebellions.  It has actually been invoked several times, but either at the request of or with the permission of the relevant State Governor.  It has never been invoked to send troops to States that don't want them.  As such, there is no guiding jurisprudence regarding what the limits of the Act might be.  And the most recent amendment to it, following Hurricane Katrina, is so ineptly worded that it could possibly be read to support a number of actions.

In a larger sense, what's being protested here is the behavior of an already highly militarized police force.  As has been noted, well-equipped SWAT teams are patrolling U.S. cities while people fighting a dangerous infection -- remember that pandemic from a few weeks ago?  No, of course you don't -- are using makeshift protective equipment.  Not only is this an odd allocation of resources, the last thing you want to do to people who are protesting heavy-handed law enforcement is to make the hand heavier.  The horrific video of a man being slowly murdered by a policeman while his fellow officers stand by and watch is telling for more reasons than just the obvious human-rights atrocity.  Notice how the incident was filmed and commented upon by several bystanders.  This happened in full view of the public, overtly photographed.  The officers there had no reason to believe they would be held accountable in any way.  It didn't matter to them that evidence was being collected of their illegal activity.  They had every reason to expect nothing whatsoever to come of it, because it is very much the systemic problem that racial minorities in American have warned us about for decades.  The problem is not that it's suddenly starting to happen, but that it's being more routinely photographed and published.
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams

Offline Ranb

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #1048 on: June 02, 2020, 03:50:51 PM »
I am glad I'm not American right now. I keep seeing all these people calling on citizens to vote Trump out in November but I can't for a second imagine he will actually go willingly even if it's a landslide against him. He's already trying to de-legitimise the outcome, and now he has demonstrated that he is willing to turn the military on its own citizens....
Trump will not be president in January 2021 if he is not elected again even in the event the election does not take place.  The president-elect (Biden?) would be sworn in then he could direct the Secret Service to evict Trump from the White House if required.  If there is no election, someone in the line of succession will take Trump's place. 

Ranb
« Last Edit: June 02, 2020, 03:52:27 PM by Ranb »

Offline JayUtah

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #1049 on: June 02, 2020, 07:59:48 PM »
Indeed, the terms of the President and Vice President end unequivocally at a specific day and time prescribed in the Constitution.  Unless Donald Trump is re-elected to the office by the electoral college, he will automatically cease to become President without any other action.  His further physical presence in the White House as President will be unlawful.

There is a history of contesting the outcomes of elections.  Since Donald Trump has previously tried to litigate his way out of his problems, he might try that.  But his tactic previously has been to litigate his opponents into the ground, rarely arriving at the merits of any one case.  That won't work here.  His opponents would have deep pockets and skilled lawyers.  Undoubtedly the cause of action in such a case would be allegations of voter fraud.  But no one who has argued widespread voter fraud has been able to supply the slightest bit of evidence for it in amounts that would affect the outcome.

The President's willingness to deploy federal troops is a matter of rhetoric.  But the actual military commanders have discretion.  Pres. Trump may be the Commander-in-Chief, but he is still constrained to give lawful orders.  A military officer ordered to secure Trump's position unless Trump is the lawfully-elected President would be on the hook later to justify his obedience to a clearly unlawful order.
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams