[balabaster]

Um... isn't the constitution designed to prevent shit like this happening?

I have no special interest in American politics as I just watch from the other side of the border, but I'm pretty sure my understanding of the political system down there is full enough that I'm right in saying that a sitting president can't legally follow through on threats like that without getting evicted from office.

Aren't there failsafes and backup plans and laws and a justice department to prevent presidential overreach?

This is the whole purpose of the three branches of government.

[hannasanarion]

Just because the constitution was intended to have certain properties, doesn't mean that it actually does.

For example, the chief architects of the Constitution, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, tried several times to eliminate the Electoral College with amendments once they saw how it behaved. They wrote extensively about how their intention had been subverted and the language they chose was a mistake, but other politicians rebuffed their efforts to fix the mistake, and decided instead to exploit it: presidential candidates can ignore most of the voters.

[toyg]

Paraphrasing a certain mustachioed totalitarian, how many federal agents does the Constitution command? Is the Constitution going to personally storm the White House? Even if it did, what would happen if there were resistance at the other end?