[taurknaut]

I'm not really sure if you can call it a "coup" if all parties involved admit he was legitimately elected. Furthermore, this isn't exactly a bait-and-switch. He told us what exactly what he wanted to do. We already knew he would try to do illegal stuff. If you break the law and nobody who voted for you complains (unrealistic I realize, but bear with me), is the rule of law really that secure? If we only criticize Trump when he breaks the law, but not the democrats when they send arms to Israel in blatant violation of the Leahy Laws, how can we get upset when people push the boundaries further?

It's been more than 20 years (or might be about that?) that we passed the law that said "if you prosecute Bush for warcrimes we will invade the Hague". Granted, we were never a treaty cosigner (sharing the lovely company of Russia, North Korea, and Iran), but it's very convenient we have a "laws for thee but not for me" attitude.

Look I'm just saying we've been headed in this direction for a while and I don't expect the institutions we're supposed to care about preserving doing much to stop it. Americans need to get a lot more mad if they want politicians to represent them well. I'd hazard a guess most americans have never contacted their representatives, vote in their non-swing state (effectively making their vote worthless), and pat themselves on the back for a civic duty well done. I think we've gotten ourselves into a position where politicians who have spent most of their careers failing to pass legislation now need to pull political ability from who the hell knows where to actually follow through on their promise to fight facism. Very grim times.

[moogly]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-coup

[exceptione]

What most people do seem not to grasp here is that MAGA is full steam working to make sure it doesn't matter who you are going to vote. Trump is just the smoke screen.

IF, by a rare circumstance, the media moguls decide to not sane-wash the incredible fire-hose of lies, corruption, fake news, and religious extremism, and the DEMs get into office in some next term, those DEMs will find the state destroyed beyond repair.

Health epidemics, broken foreign relation relations, dysfunctional government agencies (filled to the brim with stupid or evil clients from the shadow elites), downright abolished agencies, information sphere completely muddied in Musk-style, tech oligarchs sworn allegiance to MAGA (done), abolishment of fact checkers (in progress), removal of experts and intelligentsia (busy), impoverished voters (in progress).

You can enter the cockpit, but MAGA makes sure you are never going to fly again. If you want to get somewhere, you will need the fixers.

People here are discussing legalities with a situational awareness of 3 millimeter maximum. This feverish is understandable, we MUST interpret things like they are normal. If you want to keep it that way, don't read the next sentence.

As soon as the news broke of Trumps reelection, all cases where dropped quickly. That is all you need to now.