[freeone3000]

He does if the President says he does! That’s the beauty of a pardon. There’s not a limit, as many people can be pardoned as Mr. Trump wants.

And you can’t arrest the president because he’s immune from prosecution for official acts: pardoning is an enumerated constitutional power!

So what’s left is impeachment for the president and congress does not want to do this.

And none of that will fall on Musk or DOGE. The government has made itself unable to prevent this.

[rsynnott]

> That’s the beauty of a pardon. There’s not a limit, as many people can be pardoned as Mr. Trump wants.

It's really quite an odd power; very few developed democracies have a _personal_ pardon power today (some kind of vaguely pretend to; in the UK pardons are done by the monarch _at the direction of the government_, say). I think the US just stuck it on the presidency because at the time of independence the president was kind of a stand-in for the monarch, and the British monarchy had it at the time. The US then failed to get rid of it when everyone else did, instead relying on norms and basically on everyone behaving themselves to regulate it.

[thesuperbigfrog]

So is there a legal way to stop what is happening?

If the current legal framework were software, I would say that this is an exploit chain that gives root access to the government / country.

If there is not legal way to stop it, what is the alternative?

[freeone3000]

Ideally, not electing a person who would abuse those powers. Secondarily, the “immune from prosecution” was a supreme court decision as a result of the events of January 6th, so the 2024 election was a pretty important one.

The current legal method available now is an impeachment process, iterated until we have a president who values societal norms and stable government. (Depending on how you feel about JD Vance not also pulling this shit.)

Currently 28 of the 51 republicans in the Senate are up for re-election in November of 2026; this is a possibility for a makeup change, but a remote one.

It appears a large enough percentage of americans want this that there’s no real possibility of changing course at this point; even the assassination attempts have failed. Understand that over 40% of americans do want what is happening now, as backed up by current polling. Never comply in advance, do not follow illegal orders, and make good friends with your neighbours.

[prawn]

I think one aspect not covered in your comment is whether or not all voters are getting an accurate representation of what's happening. If what they read/see just confirms their favoured view, it might be hard to say with confidence that any portion of the population do want what is actually happening at any given point.

Or separately, whether they feel very strongly about some things that are happening, enough to overlook other things that they'd likely disagree with but don't understand or care about as much.

[Filligree]

The legal way to stop it is impeachment. Full stop. Nothing else can do with a president that’s gone this far rogue; the courts can at best slow him down, but at worst nothing stops Trump from ignoring them.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

You missed state-level action. The president cannot intervene in such matters (at least not in any legal, direct sense).

[timbit42]

I expect Trump to ignore Biden's presidential pardons in the near future.

[anigbrowl]

Same. The rationale for doing so doesn't have to stand up, it just needs to be a soundbite that is easy for MAGA supporters to remember and repeat.