> Eventually, and in fact about 50% of the time - the OTHER team is in power.. and may just push the overreach further.
Are you sure this is going to be a fact, in the future? How likely is it, that the next elections will still be (somewhat) fair?
Are you sure this is going to be a fact, in the future? How likely is it, that the next elections will still be (somewhat) fair?
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.
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?
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
There were a bunch of people who are easily tricked who latched onto the election fraud claims by habitual liars. That doesn't make the claims true.
I really don't understand what you are trying to do other than distract.
Would you be open to a $10,000 bet that the 2028 election is, as decided by unbiased international publications (BBC, Reuters, etc.), fair?
Yes, if there was some sort of prediction market around that, I would absolutely make that bet. My rationale:
Elections are run by each individual state, not by the federal government. The federal government certainly has the ability to set standards for those elections (and something like the SAVE Act, if passed, will disproportionately disenfranchise likely-Democrat voters), but election integrity is managed by the states. The states don't really have an incentive to mess with their elections. Deep blue and deep red states will get the outcome that likely-of-the-same-party election officials expect/want without the need for any meddling. Swing states generally have enough people in power from both parties that those elections are going to be watched very closely by people who will call out irregularities and provide actual evidence of such, if it truly exists.
The only thing I'm worried about is legal disenfranchisement, but it's unclear if anything new there that happens in the next 3.5 years could meaningfully swing an election.
Regardless, I am less worried about 2028 than I am about the mid-terms in 2026. Not worried election-integrity wise... just worried about the Democrats getting their shit together and retaking at least one of the houses of Congress (and if they can only take one, preferably the Senate, even though that will likely be the more difficult one, as usual).
Obviously I would prefer if these morons on the right wouldn't fall for Trump's conspiracy bullshit, as democracy functions much better when everyone has faith in the integrity of elections. But as long as the elections are fair, that's still something in the "plus" column.