You know, DOGE, fascist president and corporations dictating what people can do, institutions being ruined, laws being ignored. Is there any way out of that or is it over? Is the USA done?
God I hope so
Not even close to being done. Right now the biggest changes are a reduction in non law enforcement/immigration government staff and contracts being paid out. The biggest thing coming down the pipeline is Trump clearly wants to free himself of the courts and congress. But it’s far too early to say he’s won that. And even that wouldn’t be the end of things. In the US the states have a lot of autonomy. They are actually the ones responsible for holding elections. So let’s look at a worst case scenario, where he tries to say we shouldn’t have elections.
The first thing that’s going to happen is all the blue states are going to tell him to fuck off and hold them anyways. The second thing that’s going to happen is some red states will also do so, although they’ll likely be less coarse with the language. Then a few more red states will be pressured into having elections by massive protests of people angry they can’t vote anymore. Then while Trump is having a fit because there’s no real way for him to stop this process, we get to learn about a fun feature of the US Congress. There is no law requiring it to meet in D.C. Trump would likely try to claim whatever is left over is the real congress, but without having been elected the Constitution is clear that those states forfeit representation until they hold an election.
So we’d be left with a House that is majority anti-Trump, after all, he tried to make them irrelevant at best. In the Senate we’d likely be looking at something of an even split in 2026. There’s probably 5-7ish red states that would hold elections anyways and combined with the blue states and senate democrats leaving DC they would be able to convene elsewhere with a majority to declare rules of the Senate without Trump’s interference. The new Congress would likely swiftly vote to impeach Trump. The remnants of the old one would protest this but they don’t have any legal power. Only the backing of Trump and propaganda power.
This leaves Vance with a choice. This would be by design because our democratic party leaders only appear to be stupid when convenient. Vance can throw his weight behind Trump and get impeached himself or he can order Trump removed from the White House thus acknowledging the primacy of Congress. If he chooses the first option then Congress simply repeats the process and the presidency goes to the next person in line, the speaker of the house. Yes, Congress can effectively vote one of it’s own members into the White House at any time. This president then declares an emergency and orders the military to secure DC. The military loves process, and loves the Constitution. It is highly likely this order would be followed.
However all would not be well, it’s not a fairy tale. It would likely be the start of an American Insurgency that would take decades to root out. It would certainly be the end of the US as the hegemonic world power. Our Aircraft Carriers would rust in port and our projection of soft and hard power over the world would wither. But we would still be here, just much diminished and never the same in our lifetimes. This is certainly scary but if we all do our part this is as close as we would come to losing our democracy. Far more insidious is the threat of slowly revoking the right to vote. They’d start by raising the age, then by requiring you to not have any debt of specific kinds, then by making harsh punishments for illegally voting, and other such things until voting is effectively restricted to land owners. Certain factions would like to get it to white christian male landowners but that’s probably a decade or more down that line if at all.
Notes -
Why wouldn’t he just send in the military?
2028 isn’t enough time to purge and train enough people to make the military loyal to him. He would be mid project on that at best and the states could effectively counter him into a stand still with their national guard. This would make many people stay home, but the determined voters are likely to be anti-trump because that’s the change incentive. Loyalists will feel like the elections don’t matter.
What’s stopping SCOTUS from declaring the elections invalid?
The states. SCOTUS is only relevant as long as they have reputation of being an impartial arbiter of Constitutional Law. That opinion is already in the trash heap. They could not make such a decision today, or after 4 more years unless they spend the next 4 years setting themselves as at least a mild opposition in a long game. But they haven’t shown that kind of patience.
What happens in Trump surrounds himself with thousands of armed loyalists in DC?
We select a new capital and wish him the best of luck dealing with DC. There is no law requiring DC be the Capital. The Constitution doesn’t even require the states to give up a district, it only provides the legal possibility. There’s no need to engage in that kind of a conflict. Such a group would be arrested bit by bit by Maryland, Virginia, and Federal authorities until it could be resolved swiftly.
I really only lurk on Lemmy, but I felt the need to comment. Thank you for writing this. I’ve been stressed out since the EO was announced. I felt like we were doomed, but this gives me some hope. Even if this doesn’t happen, I feel better knowing there is still a way to possibly course correct.
This is actually one of the more pessimistic courses. It’s probable that Trump gets enough push back that his legacy consists of massively handicapping the civil service, screwing up the economy and our alliances, and then peacefully transferring power to a democratic party president.
One of the other things we need to do is seriously organize to support a more left candidate in the 2028 primaries. Part of this shock and awe is meant to make us give up, not only resisting Trump but also in organizing within the Democratic party.
is seriously organize to support a more left candidate
Americans need to start organizing the network for a general strike and start writing a new constitution.
A new constitution is a really bad idea until we can do a lot more organizing. Conservatives have been practicing for a convention for at least 20 years. If we called one right now they’d steamroll the liberals and we’d have an actual king again.
Thank you for this. It’s so easy to feel hopeless in the face of everything that’s happening, which is exactly what they want.
Yeah, there’s still quite a few good paths here. I can’t guarantee we do what’s needed but I can show how if we demand it from our leaders and publicly support them it becomes really hard for Trump and friends to reach their goals.
You seem far more hopeful than me, and far more intelligent, so I am going to try and hold on to a sliver of hope.
Man that read is some high grade level Hopium of the best quality dang if only the DNC would do half of this instead of rolling and die with a billionaire cock in the mouth.
I’m probably not smarter than you, this is just in my field of study. And to throw a little water on it, it depends on people doing things. We can all sit on our couch and watch the ministry of newspeak broadcasts or we can be in the streets. Our leaders are humans and we can’t expect them to act in a way that endangers themselves without visible support. But it actually takes a heck of a lot to kill a country. We aren’t anywhere near that point yet. Get mad, get in the streets.
The flaw with this scenario is that it assumes Trump would try to simply cancel the elections. Instead, he would be more likely to regulate them in a way that makes unseating him impossible. For example, federal regulations might be implemented that required states to use voting machines, voting machines that are produced by corrupted companies. He just straight up steals the election through rigged voting machines. Or they mess with registrations and voter purges to a level more than the amount that already got Trump elected this time. See the SAVE Act..
Or alternatively, the election systems themselves will be unaffected. However, the candidates will be carefully managed. Any Democratic candidate that would present a significant threat to MAGA will be arrested on trumped-up charges. The courts will miraculously cease to give the Democratic candidate the same leeway they did to Trump when they “didn’t want to interfere with the election.” Or he’ll manipulate the Democratic elites so much that they end up electing someone even more conservative. They end up running Ted Cruz or something insane like that.
Remember, even the citizens of the Soviet Union got to have elections.
He can certainly try, but he can’t pass laws about elections without Congress, which brings the filibuster into play.
Arresting the party leaders of the opposition also generally doesn’t work if you do it more than once or the situation is already very politicized.
At the end of the day it’s going to require us to be in the streets no matter what he tries. Our state leaders need to see that they have support to stand up to Trump.
The problem that I keep seeing here is people saying “well, he can’t do that.”
Stop that. He can do it because nobody’s going to stop him. I mean, you surely don’t expect that little shit Mike Johnson to tell Daddy Trump no. The constitution itself isn’t going to rise up out of its case like Godzilla and crush him. The judiciary isn’t going to come and enforce their decision in person. That just leaves the military. They’re either going to coup him, or not, and I’m expecting the latter case.
That’s not what I’m saying. The entire point here is that he does not have the physical power to interfere in state elections without an act of Congress. The states would arrest any federal agents trying to do so. This isn’t a “gentleman’s agreement” that nobody is enforcing.
Does he not have a way to replace the state agents with ones that will do his bidding?
No, in the USA States have a limited form of sovereignty. They elect their own officials and hold all powers not expressly given to the Federal Government. So while the President has some law enforcement agents, most of them are actually employed by the State Governors and Counties/Cities. The Governors have a Secretary of State that is also elected who are responsible for running all elections in the state.
So if Trump tried to make an Executive Order that only Republicans could vote, (this is meant to be an extreme example, it would backfire hilariously in real life), the states could legally ignore it. However if Congress passed that as a law and the Supreme Court upheld it then the states would be legally bound to prevent anyone not registered as a Republican from voting for federal offices.
The thing is the Republicans don’t have enough of a majority to just pass any law they want. So it’s very unlikely there will be an extreme voting law in the next 2 years. So if federal agents showed up trying to enforce an Executive Order from Trump it is highly likely they would be arrested by the state or city police for interfering in voting.
if Trump tried to make an Executive Order that only Republicans could vote
The way authoritarians have done this before is arrest enough of opposition party members. Other ways of blocking members of Congress to show up for a vote could be travel restrictions due to a state of emergency because of a terror attack for example. You can combine this with other methods.
You might have 5 arrested on made up charges, 4 can’t leave their home because of protestors blocking them, 3 are blackmailed, 2 are bribed to stay away, 1 is murdered. This could even start with one or two members of congress getting murdered. Then a state of emergency is called including. Tragically not all members can make it in time to vote in the emergency session.
if federal agents showed up trying to enforce an Executive Order from Trump it is highly likely they would be arrested by the state or city police for interfering in voting.
Trump doesn’t need to succeed in all states with this or even send in federal agents. There are enough state governments run by MAGAs, who will fall in line.
Things don’t need to be properly done. Some chaos as cover and the slightest plausible deniability is enough.
So you end up with some kind of election reform, that’s not accepted by all states. This means the president can declare a further emergency and suspend elections until further notice. Alternatively only elections run according to the new rules are accepted by the federal government. Non compliant states can hold elections, but they will be declared invalid by the supreme court.
More and more every day…
As you failed to prevent fascism at the voting booth, you will have to learn how to stop it now. This is the situation the second amendment had been written for. After being abused to allow criminals and mentally retarded to get access to weapons they should never have, you can now put them to good use.
I hate to say it, but yes. Everything we’ve predicted from trump has come true thus far.
The insurrection was predicted
The migrant camps were predicted
The ice raids were predicted
Roe v Wade was predicted
SellingGiving Ukraine to Russia was predictedBanning DEI was predicted
The list goes on but more importantly these were all seen as hypothetical worst case scenarios. We should stop treating the next steps like they are hypothetical. America has fallen, and civil war is next.
Former presidents at least recognized they had the responsibility to take care of both the people who voted for them and the people who didn’t. Trump only sees the people who voted for him and the people he needs to make an example of.
I hate to say it, but the DNC is weak and won’t help us anymore. I supported Kamala like hell and believed that they could figure it out but they just don’t and won’t.
I’m not a violent person. I hate the thought that I’d ever be forced into a situation where I need to either learn how to fight or die (because right now I’m SOL). I never wanted to find myself rooting for assassins and feeling like the world would be better off of certain people were dead. I’d rather believe the world would be better off if certain people were alive.
But all I see in the future is a federal coup backed by sycophants in the Senate and supreme Court that then collides with the governors of blue states who won’t bend the knee.
TL;Dr if we don’t go full dictator, we are going to civil war, and we deserve it.
Nah it’s gonna get looted and pillaged and generally go to shit but will be saved by the aheer economic power of being one of the few places left on earth with enough farmland to feed billions when the other breadbaskets start getting decimated by ecological collapse
It depends on if Barron Trump is like his father or not.
Because that is who Trump has chosen to lead once Trump dies.
If we don’t get a handle on the debt it will be like Greece 2.0
Communist revolution
God I hope so. I have absolutely no reason to keep surviving, I hate being alive, I hate that any of you are alive, let’s get the nukes out and boil the fucking oceans.
deleted by creator
Organic chemistry was a mistake, one we have the arsenal to correct. Push the whopper button.
No. It’s going to get worse for a while, maybe forever, but it won’t ever collapse until outside forces put boots on the ground. The thing about the USA is that it’s the United States, not singular state, so even if the Federal Entity is in turmoil or even collapses: the USA will continue operating at limited capacity.
The day that the USA is done will be the beginning of the third great war.
its been screwed since OBAMA was president, conservatives including poc cant get over the fact they had a half-AA as a president. ever since putin and the gop have been riding on racism and sexism as thier key election goals, and only recently anti-lgbtq+
Magic 8 Ball says: Most Likely
laws being ignored
