[cpitman]

Very. Election officials, across states and across parties, have been faithfully discharging their duties, often under pressure to not do so. This is a responsibility of the states, and not the federal government. If you're concerned, then work as a poll officer on election day.

In Virginia, I get to participate an incredibly professional and structured process that makes it easy for everyone who can vote to vote and makes sure there are many checks that the process is being followed correctly.

[sophacles]

Meanwhile the SAVE act is working it's way through congress. This bill has language that seems to prevent a lot of people from voting:

Women who changed thier last name to their husband's.

Naturalized citizens who come from places where the language requires non ascii characters.

Anyone without a passport.

Anyone from a place where the courthouse burned down taking thier original birth certificates with it... Copies don't count.

To name tens of millions. Maybe trump will interpret the law in a way that lets people vote, or maybe he'll decide that correct interpretation is to limit voting to people more likely to vote for his third term.

[kelnos]

> Maybe trump will interpret the law in a way that lets people vote, or maybe he'll decide that correct interpretation is to limit voting to people more likely to vote for his third term.

Trump doesn't execute those laws, though. The states do, as they are in charge of running elections. Certainly Trump's DoJ could bring lawsuits against states that don't comply in the way Trump wants them to, but it's far from certain that the courts (even Trump's stacked SCOTUS) will agree with Trump's interpretations.

[sophacles]

Federal laws and guidelines for voting must be followed by the states. I don't see this changing with this act. For example - the voting rights act of 1965 is a federal law that states must comply with for elections. This is what the constitution has to say about it for congress:

> The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators

For president it just says states will send electors chosen by the state legislature. This has been the source of immense fuckery for decades... state legislatures often want to ignore the popular vote and just send their party's electors and it's unclear how the current court would sway if that actually happens (particularly if the state's constitution doesn't bind their legislature to send electors based on the popular vote). Further, federal laws like the voting rights act have often been held to apply to presidential election as well as congress.

[rurp]

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. This administration is already much more aggressive and corrupt than the previous go around. Trump has been abundantly clear that he does not like or respect democracy and he might very well have the power to end it now. Congress's authority is already being usurped in blatant ways and they are openly talking about not following court orders. If they completely toss the courts aside and survive the resulting backlash (very likely) our system of government as we know it is over.

The conditions for this are being set as we watch. Dictators always prize loyalty above competence, which is exactly what our current leader is doing.

I don't doubt that nearly everyone involved in managing our recent elections are conscientious and professional, but what are they going to do if a bunch of troops with guns show up to change the results?

[margalabargala]

On the other hand, the popular power of the GOP is currently concentrated around a single person, someone who is also the oldest person to ever start a presidential term, and who does not lead a particularly healthy lifestyle. There is every chance that "What will Trump do during the 2028 election?" will be a question resolved by time and nature.

There is no one waiting in the wings to take over popularly if this happens. Previous people who have at various times looked like they might, have fallen mightily from grace in the eyes of the party, such as DeSantis.

It all falls apart without Trump. And Trump is an old man, doing a stressful job.

[kelnos]

The confusing thing about this is that Trump himself isn't the problem when it comes to actual policy. The Project 2025 stuff is not from Trump's head. He has nowhere near enough domain knowledge to build a policy document like that.

The current problem is that Trump is happy to implement the policies that all these hard-right lunatics have come up with. It's not like Trump writes those executive orders. He just agrees with them and signs them.

Certainly Trump is a problem. He's the one that has united the party around this horrifying agenda, and who is amenable to letting others like Musk dismantle the federal government. The question, after Trump is gone, is if there is anyone else that can motivate the party to vote for someone who will continue to do things The Trump Way (that is, let other, smarter people do things).

I don't know. Like you say, people like DeSantis seemed to have a shot for a bit, but they've fallen out of favor. But it's unclear if these people need another Trump, or if someone with even half of his weird... charisma... will do.

(All of this is of course the standard hypocrisy: Trump and his cronies run on the whole "drain the swamp", "eliminate the deep state" nonsense. But of course Trump just immediately installs a different unelected deep state to run things.)

[margalabargala]

> The question, after Trump is gone, is if there is anyone else that can motivate the party to vote for someone who will continue to do things The Trump Way (that is, let other, smarter people do things).

And I think the answer is no.

You're correct, that none of the policy being pushed through comes from Trump. It comes from various other people who are using Trump as a vehicle for their legislation.

But that doesn't really matter, because Trump didn't run on policy. He ran on force of personality.

I don't think anyone else will be able to strike quite the same balance Trump does, once he's gone. They'll either lean too hard into the policy stuff, which will backfire, or they'll lean too hard into the personality stuff, which leads to broadly unpopular people like Marjorie Taylor Green.

I think the only reason that Trump was/is as successful as he is, is that he has spent literal decades being in the news for something-or-other. By having headlines about him pop up every so often since the 1980s, he managed to engrain himself into the public consciousness in a way that let him then win the 2016 election, and everything since then.

Without that history, the immediate name recognition by everyone, I don't think the 2016 primary would have looked remotely like it did. And I don't think there's anyone else with that institutional name recognition waiting in the wings.

[steveBK123]

Yes, its called "elite rotation"