This seems to imply that the president elect can make unilateral guarantees contravening US law. That’s a surprising outcome.
The future has been clearly telegraphed, and who is going to stop him?
In his own words years ago, he could shoot someone on 5th avenue and his supporters would find excuses for him.
Does he have a coherent position on this that these actions support?
I'm not really joking, because that really does seem to be the underlying philosophy in what he does: it's whatever he thinks makes him the "big man tough guy". Trying to analyse things beyond that just doesn't make much sense.
Now on Taiwan, he's already stated previously that he will _tax_ China if they invade Taiwan. This contradicts long standing US policy of not stating exactly what action the US will take in the event of invasion, and has had the result of pushing up projections of exactly WHEN China will invade Taiwan to be within the next two years, during Trump's presidency.
The only thing that will possibly make this change is as a condition of financial supporter Elon Musk, who needs those NVIDIA cards that come out of Taiwan so he can pursue his religious mission of winning the AI race. And that's only if TSMC manufacturing capabilities can't be dragged out of Taiwan and set up elsewhere in a sufficient timeframe to reduce the impact if China were to invade Taiwan.
What you or I view as "big man tough guy" doesn't necessarily align with what Trump views as "big man tough guy". In Trump's view, "solving" the problem of Taiwan one way or the other, when so many other presidents have "failed" to do so, makes him the big man. Whether he completely screws over American interests in the process – never mind the people of Taiwan – doesn't really enter in the calculation.
Simply put, this is law breaking. The President-elect is making promises to break the law day one. This is not surprising.
> With respect to a foreign adversary controlled application, the President may grant a 1-time extension of not more than 90 days with respect to the date on which this subsection would otherwise apply to such application pursuant to paragraph (2), if the President certifies to Congress that, […]
where “would otherwise apply” is pretty clearly not predicated on the preceding section having come into effect or not.
>the President may grant a 1-time extension of not more than 90 days with respect to the date on which this subsection would otherwise apply to such application pursuant to paragraph (2), if the President certifies to Congress that-- (A) a path to executing a qualified divestiture has been identified with respect to such application;
>(B) evidence of significant progress toward executing such qualified divestiture has been produced with respect to such application; and
>(C) there are in place the relevant binding legal agreements to enable execution of such qualified divestiture during the period of such extension.
It seems highly unlikely any of those criteria are being. Trump is not even suggesting it, never mind providing receipts.
(A very common example: many people in the US can walk into a store and buy marijuana without fear of prosecution because the last several presidents -- from both parties -- have chosen not to enforce that particular federal law.)
Certainly the courts can (and sometimes do) get involved, but the only thing that can force the executive branch to act is for the House to impeach the president, and for the Senate to convict. And the House is not going to impeach Trump over this, or pretty much anything.
Scenario one: We get an FDR style leader to fix this stuff after a massive economic collapse and public backlash. (As Biden posited in his farewell address.) This will either lead to court packing or (like last time) the lapdogs on the court will accept their new leashes.
Scenario two: The federal government suffers a partial or complete collapse, and the US ends up being city-states or like the former USSR. (I think this is more likely, and also what Putin wants, assuming he can’t keep Trump under control.)
It’s also possible we’ll continue to have fair elections and the courts will stop abusing their power. This seems the least likely to me.
Under all other scenarios, we’re completely screwed and the current courts will already go along with it.
So you think there's a >50% chance that one of your scenarios will happen? Would you like to put some money on that bet?
Biden wasn't considered to have broken the law when courts threw out his plan to forgive school debt. The president tried something, the courts found the order to be invalid as the rule didn't fit the current laws, and everyone moved on about their business without claiming the president broke the law or implying he should have been charged.
There is a good chance there will be no more fair elections in US.
What the hell happened? For anyone that honestly believes that, why pack up and go home when Trump wins the election?
The question is about how we handle the coming elections four years from now, not the previous one. If he's going to be a dictator it will only be possible when he's in power.
By what the hell happened I mean what happened to those claims? Did people not believe then, or are they resigned to the election results meaning we just accept the end of democracy?
If I revolt against the government that is 100% breaking democracy.
If I wait and see what the next admin does, that is maybe 50% (fake numbers) likely to break democracy.
You can think DJT is bad for democracy and also think it is more bad to try to toss out an election he won.
If you're revolting because democracy is already lost, or the loss is imminent, you weren't breaking it.
> You can think DJT is bad for democracy and also think it is more bad to try to toss out an election he won.
Not if you truly believe democracy is doomed with his election. I don't believe that, but if someone does I don't see how waiting for it to happen helps.
Ending democracy is a very serious thing. It shouldn't have been used hollowly by either party, and if it wasn't hollow then people should be standing up to stop it.
We did do whatever we could to stop it. We tried every avenue available.
We tried impeachment twice, but he was protected by his party. The first time they protected him for extorting a bribe from a foreign government. The second time they protected him for inciting an insurrection. We tried the DOJ but he was protected by a federal judge he appointed, and supreme court justices two of which he appointed granted him sweeping immunity from prosecution. We tried to constitutionally disqualify him from running on the basis he incited an insurrection, but again he was protected by judges he appointed. Our last recourse was to run on a pro-democracy candidate during the election but the people rejected her.
So we tried everything. But the election was fair. He won. That's that. We tried everything else, and anyway at this point it's too late without resorting to a violent coup, which supporters of democracy won't do. There are no other pro-democratic avenues left to protect democracy from Trump. Sucks it turned out this way, but at least you can't say you weren't warned.
You mean like the two assassination attempts vs Trump? Which only made Trump's power greater and consolidated more support?
Aggressive actions literally make Trump stronger. That's literally failing to work and we're living in the fallout of that. I'm not sure how to stop Trump but inciting violence seems like the wrong answer to me.
Besides, its the US Military. We all know that its impossible to actually rebel vs the Army. What do you want a rebellion to do? Grab a couple of AR15s while the Army literally brings in tanks?
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Aggression is a failing move. But so was a political campaign that tried to convince people of Trump's dangers. So that's that. Or are you seriously trying to bait people into arguing that more violence was the answer here? Did you literally forget the election already?
What more "marching" do you want? The only escalating point now is violence because all the marching from 2024, 2020 and all other years accomplished nothing. Indeed: even just "marching" in 2020 was apparently "too violent" as Black Lives Matter (a march to protect African American lives) somehow got twisted by Donald Trump and his politics into a "violent" march.
I think it makes sense that people are cautious about the next steps. But what the hell are you wanting people to march for? To deny the election and cause a liberal Jan 6th event? What are you even talking about? Even if people did that, it'd only play to Donald Trump's persecution complex and he'd get more power anyway. And its not like anyone would be marching to force Biden or Kamala back into office, neither candidate is popular enough.
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The actual move is to retreat from Federal level politics and hold firm at the State-level side. If the Federal Government is lost, the focus should be on more local bastions and defenses.
The fact remains: the resistance wants to be peaceful and non-violent. You've taken away the voice of the peaceful ones by labeling them as violent at every turn. So we know marching doesn't work anymore. Its not like the movement is dead, its just resting for now as people figure out what the new plans are. But its clear that a direct assault vs this ideology isn't working.
My point at the start of this thread was that, in my opinion, the level of certainty with which people claimed Trump's election was directly voting for an end to democracy does not align with actions since the election results were in. Either people didn't believe those claims even while saying it, they have since been convinced otherwise, or they rolled over knowing full well that democracy is over within a matter of years.
My point is why is the latter so hard to understand?
There isn't a way to resist directly anymore (especially as both Biden and Kamala are insufficient to serve as the focus of a hypothetical coup). There are other plans in place to have resistance at the State levels, where it will be more obviously beneficial.
Any most of the escalations we can do are once again, counteracted by the simple history that is the assassination attempts. It's clear that the path to violence to stop this madness is closed.
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It's not the time for direct confrontation at the federal level on this subject. It's the time to pull back and defend at the State level.
Have you seriously thought about how to stop this in any way in the past few months? Your questions are so shallow it's making me think you only have talking points to share. After an election loss like that (not a landslide, but still an obvious loss), there is no coup potential or other kind of way for the Democrats to even try to hold onto power.
Not quite sure what talking points you think I have to share here, I thought I was laying out a logical flow that doesn't make sense to me.
Circling the wagons at the state level is a good short term approach, though if successful I don't see how it doesn't first run into the unfortunate need for violence.
As a country we have spent the better part of a century moving a large portion of powers to the federal level. States can't just ignore that and do what they want without repercussions. Maybe more importantly, I don't see how a stage could continue to run democratically as part of the union if democracy is destroyed at the federal level, there would just be too much conflict there.
This point. The point I've been quoting specifically.
I've stated why this is an incredibly shallow perspective on repeated occasions. I'm not going to repeat myself.
> As a country we have spent the better part of a century moving a large portion of powers to the federal level.
Tough shit. Democrats lost the Executive, both branches of the Legislative, and the Supreme Court. Democrats have literally nothing in the Federal level anymore. Or have you forgotten how this election has gone?
Its all Republicans here on out at the Federal level. The ONLY plan is to fight at the state level to protect those close to us.
The Federal level has been completely and totally lost. The ONLY plan that makes sense is to build bulwarks at the state level, and if that isn't enough then maybe even at the municipal / city level.
And so the organizations pushing these lies need to move onto the next lies to keep the rage and fear going. Maybe this time around it'll be Trump is secretly controlled by China - must be why he reversed the TikTok ban.
His campaign is large enough that there's probably some guy in it, no more than a degree or two separation away, banging a Chinese spy a la Eric Swalwell. Tie it to Trump, start a new committee of absurdity and away we go.
It'd actually provide some logic to banning TikTok which was just politically absurd when Trump would predictably reverse that, to much fanfare.
Trump is the most willing and equipped to strike a fatal blow to Democracy.
People have already marched against him. Now they rightly fear for their safety.
I get your point here, though if I'm not mistaken they defined the boundary of what any president can be legally held accountable for while in office. It wasn't a blank check or a one-off rule only for Trump.
> People have already marched against him. Now they rightly fear for their safety.
Marching really isn't the answer if democracy truly is at stake, unfortunately. I very much dislike Trump and don't expect him to do well by our country, though I don't personally see enough to think he is actually going to tear down our democracy. Hopefully that's right and we don't get to the point of actually having to defend it.
Genuinely. Because for me, it’s enough for someone to incite an insurrection, and to argue in front of the Supreme Court it should be legal for him to use the military to murder his political opponents. Why does that not read “wannabe dictator” to you?
Because I gotta say, if you’re wrong and he wants to tear down our democracy, the time to defend it was the election. Now we just have to deal with the fallout.
He was president once, and was not able to pull off a successful insurrection, or murder any political opponents. And he probably won't do so this time.
Trump doesn't need go full militant to end democracy. He could literally just cause enough bullshit in the process to where the two choices are either let things continue as he wants them two, or mass civil unrest and economic shutdown, and most people don't have a sense of nationalism to pick the latter. So US dies a death by 1000 cuts.
The only hope is that there are more people like Pence on the Republican side that when duty calls, they do the right thing.
Checks like Congress, a majority of which is terrified to stand up to him even after an attempted coup and comically bad cabinet appointments?
Or the courts, many of whose judges he appointed and shamelessly render verdicts (often on his behalf) without recusing themselves over conflicts of interest?
Or the executive branch, of which he is the head, and can cycle department heads like an episode of The Apprentice?
> He was president once, and was not able to pull off a successful insurrection, or murder any political opponents
The US passed an entire amendment to its constitution to prevent insurrectionists from repeated attempts to take over. The fact that he attempted to do so is already treason. One doesn't have to succeed to be disqualified. Otherwise what's the point of the amendment? Just keep trying until you succeed.
The first time Democrats tried to impeach Trump, Trump argued in front of the Senate that he's allowed to commit crimes, including extorting bribes, as long as he does it for the good of the country. On that basis, the Senate acquitted him. So now the the standard set by Republicans is that even in the case of extortion and bribery, the president should not be removed from office as long as he had a patriotic heart.
Worse than that, the Supreme Court affirmed that the president has sweeping executive immunity, making any prosecution of an impeachment case impossible; the Executive controls all of the information Congress would need to prosecute the impeachment, and as we saw during Impeachment I, Trump is fine to just flout congressional subpoenas. Furthermore with the new doctrine of Presidential Immunity there is no judicial recourse for them to compel production of the documents they would need to prove an impeachment case.
Finally, we further know impeachment is impossible because when they tried it, Trump argued the correct recourse was the courts. But when we tried the courts, Trump argued the correct recourse was impeachment. That cannot be the case in a functioning system.
I do think trump is capable of it, as where others in the past. I just haven't seen enough to think its an legitimate enough threat to have made me warn others that it will happen. I could always be wrong.
And so if someone does make that argument in front of the highest court in the land with the intent to avoid accountability for inciting an insurrection, as Trump did, maybe that person would be a bad person to give immunity from criminal liability because of their outlook on the scope of their own power.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-suggests-hell-us...
The Boy Who Cried Wolf is an excellent tale I regularly read to my children. The moral is one of the utmost importance.
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4398223-trump-t...
And what, exactly, is someone supposed to do about it? Legally. Besides voting, obviously. That ship already sailed.
The president-elect literally floated the idea that his voters wont ever have to vote again if he won.
You're wondering why people who are pro-democracy are respecting the outcome of the election?
Pro-democracy people will want to find ways to strengthen or preserve democracy (or at least limit the damage) in the face of threats to it, not blow it up themselves.
The courts were too slow to stop the sweepstakes and now that Trump is in power, we all know Musk would be pardoned of this crime. So no one is bothering to prosecute.
The election fraud already happened. Now tell me who the hell is going to punish the troublemakers?
I don’t have an answer to your question.
Because the reality is, a good majority people in the USA have a very good life, even the lower class, contrary to what the media may have you believe. So when the majority doesn't show up to vote, its because they think it doesn't matter who is in charge.
These are the people everyone should hold primarily responsible for whatever bad things happen. The MAGA type crowds are always going to exist in one shape or form, and its everyone's responsibility to vote so that the bad side doesn't take power.
Not sure if you are serious, but the problem on both sides of the disagreement is caused by the illusory nature of consciousness, and is exacerbated the fact that our culture does not study that phenomenon despite how incredibly important it is.
This is what people should be arguing over rather than yet another consequence of it.
Who's going to look at it? Whichever sycophant ends up being AG?
I could see a world where the lawyers have cooked a progressively more egregious set of legal violations to test the bounds of the new authority granted by the Supreme Court. Up next is probably a mandate that foreign diplomats/us government employees stay at trump properties at exorbitant prices for “security purposes”.
If you're talking about a future administration, we've already seen what happens when Trump leaves office and people try to hold him accountable: absolutely nothing.
People have been saying that about Trump's antics literally his entire life.
1000% yes. Not only is it going to survive, but it will probably beat out all other major fiat currencies over the next 4 years.
If you're comparing against other major fiat currencies that's a pretty easy bet. The only way the dollar loses meaningfully, or fails completely, is if it is no longer the reserve currencies given priority over those other fiat currencies. This has to happen eventually but it seems pretty safe to say it won't happen within four years.
No, Trump can’t legally postpone or give reprieve to TikTok. The time has passed for that.
Once Congress has enacted a statute and the President has signed it into law, the executive branch must enforce it. An executive order cannot override or suspend a duly passed law unless Congress included an explicit waiver or suspension provision in that law. Nothing in the text of this act appears to grant the President such discretion, so there is no straightforward way for the President to “undo” or pause the ban by executive order. The only way to alter or lift the ban would be through new legislation or a valid constitutional challenge in court.
That seems unlikely considering the Supreme Court already rules on the matter.
Also, both the House and the Senate have pending legislation to extend the deadline.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/391 https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/103
* Legally the executive is not granted this power.
* But in practice they are because who's going to make them?
The entity responsible for enforcement always has this power. It's why DA races where the platform is essentially law nullification by way of non-enforcement have been happening for some light criminal justice reform that can't get through the legislature.
So then presumably this goes back into court, and then what?
There will be no consequences and therefore few limits to his power.
Welcome to the new dictatorship.
I'll post this here for posterity:
He'll find a way to get a 3rd term in power. Maybe he'll claim the constitution means no 2 consecutive terms, maybe he'll just ignore it, start a war, whatever.
But I'd be willing to bet on it. In fact, I just might...
I think we're all very certain that a thorough investigation into the 2020 election will clear up any concerns about it.
The only relevant aspect is whether the president has an obligation to enforce federal law or not. And the precedent is very clear: they do not.
It is anything but clear and the subject of ongoing legal battles. https://www.cato.org/commentary/yes-states-can-nullify-some-...
Again, you picked an example of a real conflict between state and federal law and compared it to an unambiguous law passed by congress confirmed by the supreme court that the incoming POTUS will simply ignore.
No, that is not normal. Feeling like i'm going to be gaslit everyday for the next 4 years so i'll save that statement somewhere in a word doc.
We can play this game all day, so let's just agree Democracy is broken.
Obama was surprisingly tough on immigration. ICE was doing raids at the time, I remember hearing about raids at the industrial chicken farms not far from where I live. Obama was also working heavily with Mexico to stop immigration at Mexico's southern border.
Illegal immigration is going to be an unsolvable problems regardless of party, as long as we have the incentive of welfare programs that make it financially lucrative just to physically be in the country. I'm not arguing to get rid of those programs, but the incentives are there to come illegally and there's just no feasible way to secure such a large border with land, air, and sea travel.
In essence, the executive branch already had a chance to veto the law, but didn’t do so. The signature of the President (whomever that is at the time) seals the fate of the law.
"Apple is obligated to follow the laws in the jurisdictions where it operates. Pursuant to the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, apps developed by ByteDance Ltd. and its subsidiaries — including TikTok, CapCut, Lemon8, and others — will no longer be available for download or updates on the App Store for users in the United States starting January 19, 2025."
[1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/121596 - "About availability of TikTok and ByteDance Ltd. apps in the United States"
Donald Trump is very unpredictable, but one thing seems to be clear from his behavior. Anything that serves to benefit himself or his family tends to receive his favor. And there are billionaires swirling around him ready to do him favors two of whom are potential buyers for TikTok.
Or what?
(I'm not being flippant. Are there consequences I'm not aware of if he decides not to enforce?)
The thing that is shocking to me about the current TikTok situation is that while Trump may be free to say "I won't enforce this law", he can't write any sort of executive order overturning the law, and I think it's pretty disgusting the media isn't pushing back against this more (except for Kara Swisher, who made this exact point) and saying this isn't possible.
The law is explicit that any company (like Apple, Google or Oracle) that provides services for TikTok would be in violation of the law and subject to large penalties. Nothing Trump says as president can change that without Congress acting. So it is simply baffling to me that these major companies would be willing to put themselves in serious legal jeopardy with just what amounts to a pinky promise and a wink from Trump.
It's President Trump, what are you going to do about it? The man has been regularly breaking the law since 2016 and there is never any political will to stop him.
Trump v. U.S. established it's not illegal when Trump does it.
As any other mixed authoritarian regime, the laws matter somewhat but are also balanced with the intent of the guy on the top.
And I did say authoritarian, not dictatorship, those aren't the same level. There's a lot of shades of black between Norway and China.
Of course lawfare is the tool of the democrats, and not republicans, like you seem to believe.
All those opportunist-narcissist shit-stirrers out there rely on the prudent and consequently slow self fixing mechanisms of societies (beyond the dumb and lazy childish masses vegetate below these figures and so looking up to them) like viruses on the delayed adaptation of the immune system. The host that feed them may easily die this way? Not their problem!! They have their shine and rule moment and they do not have much of miserable and futile life left anyway, f*ck others!