There definitely are examples of bumbling incompetent strongmen. But the real clowns typically succeed only in countries with much weaker institutions than we have in the U.S. Authoritarians who rise to power in countries with relatively strong institutions (e.g., Erdogan in Turkey), however dangerous they may be, generally are not as bumbling and incompetent as Trump.

Of course. But it's one thing to abuse norms in favor of, and during the term of, an elected president. It's quite another to abuse norms in favor of someone who is trying to stay in power notwithstanding the results of an election.

The latter is much more costly than the former, especially if the effort to keep the person in power is ultimately unsuccessful.

It's worth remembering how close we are to the brink here. If Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, it is very possible, and perhaps likely, that Trump would attempt to postpone the election because of some combination of (i) alleged inability to safely hold elections because of COVID; (ii) alleged credible evidence of plans by a foreign power to interfere with the election; and (iii) alleged credible evidence of inevitable fraud related to mail-in voting.

This scenario would be alarming possible for several reasons. First, the risk of (i) is real. It's just a question of degree and what safety risks we would be willing tolerate to preserve democracy. And (ii) is at least theoretically plausible, although it almost certainly would be a pretextual explanation if offered by Trump.

Why would an openly corrupt and political court not rule the way Trump asks them to ?

Enough with this already. The SCOTUS isn't apolitical, but it also is not ruling reflexively in Trump's favor in every case. If you followed the Court closely, you would know that it has infuriated Trump with several of its decisions.

Good thing the Florida Court in 2000 was legit.

To be fair to your bias towards the morality of lawyers the court more likely works for donors and the party at large than Trump.
Although he did get two of them cushy lifetime gigs.

Although if Trump is lucky and RBG has to step down early he can get a 20 something on in time for the decision.

I know that's what I would do once I realized no one was going to lift a finger to stop me.

I guess I disagree with the idea that our institutions are strong at this point. The Electoral College, impeachment, the 25th Amendment, all the institutional things that we're taught are supposed to stop an openly fascist president have all failed. If the only real backstop for Trump is for a bunch of unelected generals to veto the process by force, man that seems like Banana Republic shenanigans to me.

But how many infantry divisions does the SCOTUS have?

They both already had cushy lifetime gigs.

Institutions are weaker than they were, but they are still much stronger than they are in many countries. We still have an entirely free press. We still have elected officials who accept court rulings as the law of the land. We still have a legislative branch that is capable of thwarting presidential initiatives.

Think about what this country would look like if Trump were, indeed, the emperor he would like to be. Obamacare of course would be gone. An absurdly high percentage of federal resources would be devoted to building the wall. The travel ban would still be in place and likely would have been expanded. Reporters who criticized Trump would be in jail. All major news outlets would be completely coopted. Thousands of protesters would be dead. Upcoming elections would be postponed or outright rigged. It would be impossible to get accurate information about COVID from any source, much less the government.

This counterfactual is evidence that the country's institutions have been diminished but not destroyed. We are not living in the Dear Leader's North Korea, or even in Erdogan's Turkey or Assad's Syria.

But no one should mistake my relative confidence in the strength of U.S. institutions for confidence in Trump's decency. He has none. There is no norm or institution for which he has any respect. There is no limit on presidential power that he would observe as a matter of principle. The failure of people like Inso0 to appreciate or care about what this country would look like if Trump had absolute power is a grave oversight. In many respects, by supporting Trump, they are recklessly chipping away at our institutions just so they can get lower taxes or whatever. And if you chip away at the wall for long enough, we all know what happens.

Fair point.

I tend to think that Trump is in reality just a punk woosie who wouldn't have the guts to try to pull anything off and that we're all overreacting. But then I think of how McConnell stalled and rigged the Supreme Court nomination.
Trump can only get away with his crazy dung if he has enough people backing him up. Alone against the will of the people he, like anyone in power, is nothing.
That's the key, How much true support will he still have come November.

Thanks Obama.
Thanks Pelosi.
Thanks Schumer.


Oh yeah, thanks Biden.

This is the problem.
Not Turmp but the entire corrupt system.
The SCOTUS actually legalized open bribery. I mean.....why would you be surprised if they openly appointed a president over the will of the voters next ?

Yes. It is much easier to argue that the SCOTUS has an establishment GOP bias than a bias in favor of Trumpism. Trumpism is deeply anti-intellectual. Whatever you think of the SCOTUS justices, I would not describe any of them as anti-intellectual. It's almost impossible to have their backgrounds and be anti-intellectual.

You are delusional if you believe that someone like Rubio or Jeb would have nominated justices that were different in kind from Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. Gorsuch and Kavanaugh would have been on the list of appointees for any GOP president. The same is true for all the other people who were seriously considered last time around (Colloton, Kethledge, Sykes, Hardiman, Pryor, etc.).

Well, the hypothetical we have been debating involves Trump losing the election and refusing to leave office. In the hypothetical we are discussing, the answer to your question is "not enough".

If Trump wins the election, then he obviously has enough support to do crazy ****.

Sure. They all use the same list.

They're smart. I don't know if you can be an originalist and be an actual 'intellectual' though. Seems kind of anti in fact.

I think you could argue Fox is no longer Free Press even if not controlled by Gov't. It has become an almost 100% propaganda tool.

I think you can Trump and Co have not just disdain but also disregard for judicial rulings utilizing every tool to make the process of Courts and Laws impotent knowing justice delayed often equals justice lost.

I think we can say the Legislative branch has shown themselves to be near impotent in actually stopping any action Trump wants to under take even his most blatant and illegal actions. All they can do is say 'bad boy' but then let him carry on doing it.

Not that the above is a counter to your position but I think we need to highlight how easily Trump showed he really cannot be stopped from doing anything and all they really can do is say 'bad boy'.



I am not sure people fully understand how damaging this Trump Presidency will be to the US going forward. His Presidency and exposing that if you rely on Norms and Morals and Standards to govern a POTUS you have nothing when you have a POTUS who does not care about them will lead the Legislative bodies to try and codify in law everything that prior was governed by a NOrm.

The difficulty in that is that law struggles to contemplate each and every bad thing a bad actor might do and by which methods. And laws need to clearly spell everything out or people escape punishment even when we all agree it is wrong. Sorry but the law did not spell that out specifically, sorry about your luck.

That is why Norms which are more along the line of "I will know a bad action when I see it' and relying on a House and Senate that would punish such actions illegal or not was a much better method.

Things get really sticky if Biden wins in a way similar to how Bush beat Gore where it takes a Supreme Court ruling on controversial issue (such as should those ballets be counted from that District that is heavily Dem) when Trump and his team are arguing loudly, that those ballets should not count and are likely all fraudulent. And instead of the court blocking key ballots being counted as they did for Bush and against Gore, they instead rule to allow those ballots and those are the defining votes for Biden.


Trump will cry foul in any loss but in a case like that he would inciting his supporters to riot. I honestly would not be surprised to see an entire wave of right wing terror attacks including an attempt on Biden's life as his nuttier supporters would think it was a coup taking place and they were fighting to save "america and Trump".

In any other time you might say that sounds like hyperbole but I would actually bet on that, in a scenario such as a i lay out.

So, you’re saying I shouldn’t decide to protest vote this election?

What do I do if I want to
1. Not vote for a rapist AND
2. Not give Trump a legitimate pretext to prevent Biden from assuming power after Biden narrowly wins?

The biggest thing Trumo has working in his favor is that so many still believe all this.

Remember this land was built on genocide, slavery, segregation, colobial imperialism. Robust institutions of oppression. It's a small step to turn them on the majority, not a big step.

Thanks for posting the link to that really funny article. I got a really good laugh from it.

Which part of what I wrote do you believe is wrong?

Only bolded is clearly true. "still" is tendentious. The US had its cold war mccarthy period where it had anything but a free press.