Ben Rhodes called that picture "a permanent stain on the American story." It was taken June 2nd. Within a day, Mark Esper had walked back National Guard involvement in the protests, forcing Bill Barr to get LaMigraSWAT to stand in. Within a week of that, LaMigraSwat had been dissipated from Portland. It is abundantly clear that this administration will do everything that it can to set up an oligarchic dictatorship. I have been surprised and disheartened by the stuff they've been allowed to do by the people who could stop them. However, consequent events have demonstrated that while the resistance to their authoritarian moves are tepid, support for said-same is more so. If the Republicans had been driven by agreement and assent, rather than grudging opportunism, we'd be done already. That much is clear. Right now, the people running the country are the ones who think they have the most to gain personally. The available gain, however, is diminishing at a rapid clip. You'd never heard of Louis DeJoy prior to May 6. Few people had. There simply aren't that many bootlickers left. The GAO determined an hour ago that the acting DHS brass can't even legally hold the position. That opens up a whole bunch of legal challenges about what they've done. Team Trump, in other words, can do a whole bunch of shit in the short term. If that keeps them in power, they have a better chance of making it long-term. But what they're building and doing don't have the structure behind them to withstand legal challenges. I heard you say "so what?" Trump doesn't build coalitions. He doesn't have a legacy. Outside of his cult of personality he has no coattails. Inside of his cult of personality he has no rewards. We've watched four years of craven opportunists weigh how long they have to orbit the black hole in order to advance their interests. The less they have to lose, the more they have to gain. This is why we're now intimately familiar with lightweights like Stephen MIller. Peter Navarro? He's a Wall Street in-joke. Also Defense Production Act policy coordinator and special advisor to the president. We've seen Larry Kudlow doing choppertalk. There are vastly more qualified individuals out there, many of whom are idealogically aligned with the fascists. Yet they've been absent from public policy because their calculus says to stay away from the black hole. "In addition to Massachusetts and D.C., Monday's filing was brought by Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin." WolframAlpha won't give me a quick'n'easy read on the population of those states. However, seventeen states means 34 senators. If 17 governors decided that an election was illegitimate we would be in a full-blown constitutional crisis... but we also wouldn't be accepting another Trump term until all the votes were counted. And there's been a lot of state coordination from the very beginning. The Supreme Court doesn't owe Trump shit. And they don't appear to be particularly beholden to his interpretation of the law. Say what you will about Brett Kavanaugh (and there's plenty to say), but he sided with the majority in saying 'naah voting matters.' Right now, Roberts' legacy is saving Obamacare... and gutting the Voting Rights Act. He's sided pretty succinctly with voting rights ever since, almost as if he learned something. You get even a couple states to argue that the election was unfair and it will go to the Supreme Court. We're losing now. Badly. We continue to lose. However, one thing 2020 has taught us all is we can always lose worse. here's the real question: who still has something to gain from a Trump administration? Now - how much do they have to gain from an illigitimate Trump administration? If you can convince me that number is greater than the number of opportunists who stand to gain more from a different administration, I too shall be concerned. But as I see it, the reason the Trump back bench is so weak is because nobody of any real weight thinks they can get anything out of it anymore.
Judicial: Even if they could rule justly, it would move at a glacial pace and America would lose
Sorry. There was a typo in my “judicial,” section. Should read, “ Judicial: Even if they could rule justly, it would move at a glacial pace and America would lose interest. Cause Americans are dumb.” Fixed it. My point was that the longer he drags anything out, the more likely he is to retain power. The mobs attention will switch to him doing the next crazy thing. Edit: great reply btw.
A firehose of history on a daily basis has made me jaded about the relevance of the general public. I mean look at us: a plurality of Americans didn't vote for Trump. And yet. Bernie Sanders enjoyed greater popular support than Hilary Clinton. And yet. Two thirds of Americans support Medicare For All. And yet. Eighty-five percent of stocks are owned by ten percent of the population. And yet. My argument against a perpetual Trump administration is that for power brokers, Trump is a bad investment. I think they've largely gotten what they can out of him and from this point forth it's just chaos. I mean, who stands to lose the most from voter suppression? Republicans. The dude does what he wants, which is whatever the person physically closest to him can convince him to do. That's borne fruit for archetypal neocon throat-crushing up to this point but they aren't getting reliable payoffs anymore. "When the looting starts the shooting starts" has lost the Republican party a goodly slice of the American youth vote (and retained the nazis they would have had anyway). He's toxic to the long-term prospects of the Republican party and the Republican party knows it. And the short-term is nearly over.Should read, “ Judicial: Even if they could rule justly, it would move at a glacial pace and America would lose interest. Cause Americans are dumb.”