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goobster  ·  2917 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Trial Balloon for a Coup? Analyzing the news of the past 24 hours

Interesting. A bit sensationalist. And I think it gives Trump - essentially a bumbler with money - far too much credit for orchestrating a large-scale disruption of a complex set of systems he has little to no real understanding of how they work, or what they do.

It's the other snakes in the pit that scare me.

Like Dubya, some seriously bad people with bad intentions for the state and the American people, now have a puppet that can control, who has completely self-isolated himself from all reasonable and measured inputs.

There is no longer anyone with a reasonable mind speaking into Trump's ear. (And by "reasonable" I'm including the incredibly horrid Paul Ryan, who - in the last 3 months - has begun looking like a fucking Boy Scout, after being an epic shit for his entire life.)

Either they are dumb enough to think they can turn the ship of government in a couple of weeks, or they are intentionally driving it on the rocks, just like they promised when campaigning.

Either the Republican Senate and the DHS (and other branches) grow a pair and say NO, or the entire power structure comes tumbling down.

Because the whole secret to the entire US Government is that it is run on the base assumption that nobody is really going to do anything bad. Everyone trusts that people are in their positions because they are good at what they do, and have good intentions.

We now have actively bad actors, with bad intentions, holding the levers of power, and there really is no recourse.

Individuals within agencies can hide documents, dodge phone calls, "forget" to do things they have been asked to do - in other words, make dumb ideas get mired in bureaucracy - and block the bad actors.

Or someone can go to court. And fight for what's right. And take YEARS to get to a ruling. Which cannot actually be enforced by anyone.

So great. The Supreme Court decides that Trump is a terrorist, and he is convicted. Who, EXACTLY, walks up to the White House, armed, gets past Trump's personal security detail that are on HIS payroll, and puts the cuffs on the motherfucker and takes him to jail?

See? The government is designed to work as long as everyone pretty much acts like reasonable people.

But the unreasonable are now in power.