The Joe Biden Presidency II : He's too old...or something like that!

Well, yeah. I already said, multiple times, this was the biggest blunder of Biden and his team.

I assume your question was rhetorical, because we agree on this.

 

[Susan Collins voice] I'm sure he learned his lesson. [/Susan Collins voice]

 

Well there's the understatement of the century.

 

I think you might need to take a break and go outside for a while if you think there are fascist on the Supreme Court.

 

I dunno. Sammy Alito and Clay T are pretty fash adjacent.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...immy-carter-vote-kamala-harris-100th-birthday

“”I’m only trying to make it to vote for Kamala Harris,” Carter told his son Chip this week, as his grandson Jason Carter recounted to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.”

 

I don't think that's true. In many respects he's actually in a better position than Hitler was when he took power.

Trump has a huge amount of influence at the top of the judiciary, (something that Hitler didn't have in early 30's), with the SC. They've already deemed anything he does as OK if he's the president.

The GOP will give him complete support and that means that roughly 50% of the political structure will back or, at least, won't openly oppose him.

The GOP has already gerrymandered voting in many areas of the states so whether the majority are against him... what difference does it make if they can't vote, their votes won't be counted or, even if they are, they're then overturned when their electoral college votes are sidestepped because of 'voting irregularities' like... y'know... them voting.

Also I don't know if you fellas are fully aware of how things are viewed from certain parts of the country that aren't in the 'librul' echo chamber of bigsoccer...



A fuller discussion on similar lines is here...



Or here...

https://ifs.org.uk/inequality/trade-and-inequality-in-europe-and-the-us

Many economies in Western Europe have experienced a sizeable increase in income inequality since the 1980s, and inequality has grown even more rapidly in the United States. Whereas educated workers in skilled occupations benefited from rising salaries, wages have stagnated for many less educated workers in unskilled occupations. The rising inequality in advanced economies coincided with a period of globalisation that was characterised by rapid growth in international merchandise trade.​

So lower paid jobs have disappeared and the jobs that do exist are in precarious employment that can be taken away at the drop of a hat.

I mention this simply to say that, despite the conditions in Germany being objectively a LOT worse than they are now in the west, people at the bottom probably don't feel that great about their situation and that position is exacerbated because they're being repeatedly told they're right by social media... something else that wasn't available to Hitler.

So I don't think it's a simple situation and the juries out on whether people won't feel inclined to fall for a conman like Trump, Farage or le Pen who offers easy answers to complex questions.

 

Trying to figure out what happened now for the 2055 AP exams is going to be lit.

 

The term "lit" was considered to be a positive term in 2024 (T/F?)

 

[QUOTE="Tribune, post: 42436787, member: 83874”]In order to saveguard your dictatorship, you need hundreds of thousands of brownshirts willing to crack the heads of the opposition. There is no equivalent in the United States of the SA and SS or the Rosguardia.
[/QUOTE]
We aren’t 100% certain about this. If Trump wins the election, this is one thing I think the cult could actually pull off.

 

Thankfully my wife will be retired by then.

 

Georgia without Atlanta and Savannah isn't Georgia. And heaven help the poor bewildered people of North Carolina if that state broke up. It'd collapse into a dozen countries.

 

Again, if all democratic processes and norms have broken down, and Trump is committing more and more abuses and openly defies the Constitution, none of these factors matter too much.

What matters is level of popular support, support from the administrative state, law enforcement, the military and the existence of paramilitaries capable and willing to enforce the dictator's will.
Yeah, Project 2025 plans to replace tens of thousands of career civil servants, but: 1. it takes time to accomplish this; 2. many of the Project's recruits will be imbeciles whose only quality would be devotion to Trump. Good luck trying to run a country in this manner, in the long term. Not to mention that this kind of mass firings would create massive social discontent. The persons fired to make room for Trump loyalists can easily form the core of anti-Trump movements, as their main organizers and motivators.

An oppressed people does not care what the courts and a Congress full of sycophants think, so "how many divisions do John Roberts and Mike Johnson have"?

As for being backed by 50% of the political structure, the Enabling Act of 1933 had 444 votes in favor, 94 against and 109 absentee: that's 70% of the Reichstag voting to end democracy. Do you see even 50% of Congress voting for something similar? Heck, I think even some Republicans will defect, especially in the Senate.

Ask Nicolae Ceausescu or Slobodan Milosevic how rigging the vote worked for them.

Oh, at first, they very well might: but once unemployment soars and the prices keep increasing, a lot of people will have second thoughts.

Well, we aren't 100% certain of anything, but at the moment, such organizations do not exist. The SA had 400,000 members in January 1932 and close to 2 millions in 1933 and their willingness to attack the anti-Nazi opposition had already been tested before Hitler came to power - so, in January 1933, they were fully prepared to enforce Nazi rule.

 

Maybe not fascist, but definitely fascist sympathizers...

 

Interesting post and thanks for the thought put into responding

In general, I think it's a mistake to imagine that history will repeat itself in precisely the same way but I can see a reflection from the past in Trump's progress towards a form of fascism.

Whether it's exactly the same is neither here nor there.

Regarding the first part, (popular support), that's why I mentioned the people who have been made worse off by globalisation, automation and immigration where they're forced to compete with people around the world. Those were the people who were attracted to Hitler because he was the one who seemed to be taking them seriously. I mean, obviously he wasn't but then, Trump doesn't care about the poor and uneducated either.

Regarding the other groups, I'm not sure there will be resistance from the groups you mention any more than there was last time against actions including enforced separation of families of immigrants, particularly after an influx of 'volunteers' of 'true believers' of real 'mercans' who couldn't get another job.

Indeed, some of the people you mention, (law enforcement?), would probably be MORE than willing to crack a few heads of 'libruls' and with the power of the state behind them, they'll be effective.

Regarding the 'administrative state'... don't forget, it's been part of that administrative state that's actually been used in suppression of votes. So the idea there will be a healthy resistance to all aspects of a Trump administrative takeover is... well, 'hopeful', shall we say.

In the long run that will probably be useful in generating a response but in the short term I think the existing levers of power will be sufficient to generate the necessary degree of control used, at least in the initial period.

Couldn't we have said the same thing about his first term?

As you know, the enabling act was nominally in response to the reichstag fire which Hitler accused the communists of setting.

As previously stated, it's a mistake to think things will go exactly as they did before but I can envisage methods by which Trump could generate a 'crisis', (or one could present itself), which he'd then use to grab certain levers of power.

It almost certainly wouldn't be exactly the same thing... but it would amount to it.

???

Well, it's already been done in many areas, so..

Also, Ceausescu was in power for almost 25 years. Not sure that's a great example.

Additionally both of those individuals faced the force of a unified west, including America so I don't see how that's going to work when it's the largest western power that's the problem.

As someone pointed out the other day, for many Germans the initial days of the nazi regime weren't actually that bad, (unless they were a Jew, socialist, trades unionist, etc.).

So the idea there will be an initial response to some things is probably wishful thinking.

Like I say, it won't be a replay of what happened.

 

My argument is that Trump has much more hurdles to clear in order to put into place his own dictatorship than other elected dictatorships like Hitler or Putin, as he does not benefit from the same favorable circumstances. When you weigh all the pro's and con's, it is not even close.

Come on, man, crying wolf does us no favors. His first term was chaotic and incompetent, but (until near the end) it was not more dictatorial than your typical Republican administration. Even the Russia shenanigans were no much worse than Nixon's crap when he convinced South Vietnam to pull out of the peace negotiations to deny Humphrey a boon.

Some Democrats and people on the left have taken the habit of calling "fascists" even rational Republicans like McCain or Romney, for cheap political purposes, and that undermines the validity of our warnings when an actual fascists like Trump show up. Trump wanted to be a dictator, but in his first term he mostly flailed around ineffectively.

So no, we could not have said the same about the first term, because we have never been at the point where we could say a significant number of people were oppressed or that the Constitution was defied.

When I said that "An oppressed people does not care what the courts and a Congress full of sycophants think", I had in mind after actual totalitarian measures, like:
- ordering the arrest of the Democratic leadership and never Trumpers by the FBI and other law enforcement, in retaliation for their Anti-Trump opposition;
- urging MAGA mobs to devastate office buildings of Democratic party and attack Democrats, Trump critics and "leftists" (on a large scale, not isolated events).
- trying to pass laws forbidding criticism of the president in the name of "national security";
- asking the Republicans to nominate him again, in defiance of the 22th Amendment;
- cancelling elections altogether.
And others like that.
If Trump's first term had been a dictatorship, Kathy Griffin would have been tossed in a jail without too many formalities after her stunt.

The point is that Ceausescu and Milosevic rigging elections was meaningless. Once the army decided it won't defend their regimes, they both fell in a matter of days.

It is not rigged elections which keep a dictator in power.

And the unified West did not play a big part in the fall of Ceausescu. It was the realization that Romania need not fear another Soviet invasion which emboldened the anti-Ceausescu elements. This is not a factor for the United States, because there is no one to invade them.

Also, Ceausescu did last for 24 year, but his regime was far, far more entrenched that a MAGA government could ever be. The Communist Party in 1989 had around 3-4 million members out of population of 23 millions. It was entrenched at all levels of society. There was no opposition whatsoever. All members of the administration, all officers of the army (not to mention the secret police) were party loyalists. Censorship was a fact of life, there was no possibility of protest. Whatever (secret) opposition existed within the party, it had to operate underground and, obviously, could not organize itself effectively.

Yes, because the Nazies managed to keep the regular Germans economically comfortable for a while - and the contrast with the period prior to that helped. Trump is unlikely to manage that.

Yes, and I have no doubt that Trump will try. But a MAGA "dictatorship" will crack open like a melon when a serious popular backlash will occur.

Worse off by globalisation??? Forced to compete with people around the world??? I have lived in Romania under Ceausescu. At that time, if you wanted to buy some milk for your kids, you had to wake up at 3 AM, go the nearest food store and stand in a queue with 1000 other people. I have seen people running desperately from store to store to buy bread, only to burst into tears when they were seeing that bread ran out everywhere and had to return home empty handed. If you wanted meat, you better hope you had some relatives in the countryside who could spare a chicken or some pork... otherwise, tough luck.
With all due respect, the obese western society has no clue what deprivation, to the point of starving, actually means.