Donald Trump the Megathread part II - Mod Warning added to OP 10/1/26

Some wild scenes already of police brutality. Always interested me to know what percentage of US law enforcement officers (both local and federal) back Trump.

Its bizarre the cops unions backed for Trumps re-election when one of his campaign promises was to pardon all of the J6 rioters who attacked the Capitol police.

People had better stop looking to the system to enforce the U.S. constitution because large parts of it are currently controlled by people who have professed/exhibited a personal loyalty to Trump. This is a key difference between this term and his previous one. In his previous term, a lot of his cabinet picks appeared to be advised by establishment Republicans who, whatever else one can say about them, didn't seem prepared to let the U.S. lapse into a full on authoritarian dictatorship. So, you still had people who pretty much prioritised the U.S. constitution above whatever crazy orders Trump might try to give.

Trump's government and all their enablers will call anyone who rises against him to enforce the constitution a 'criminal'. Tyrannical governments always do.

This highlights the most egregious flaw with the US presidential system IMO. That there is no means for a democratic change of the Executive once elected. That for 4 years, the country is tied to the whims of whomever is in power barring invocation of the 25th amendment and even at that? It's not a change in executive, it's a refresh with the No2 promoted.

There's no need for the Executive to maintain a congressional majority when they can rule via edict, sorry EO and when SCOTUS has shown itself to be wholly compliant. It is a system that has up until 2016, worked but, only because no one really sought to actively push the accepted boundaries not indeed against the separation of powers.

However, Now a 2nd term President is railing against one pillar of government and actively ignoring their rulings. Whilst keeping Congress on such a short leash that they are irrelevant too.

The usual counter argument in favour of why US style federal democracy works is that with staggered terms for Senators and biennial congressional elections, that the electorate gets to position the Congress as a counter to the Executive. Some also argue that the fragmentation of Federal, State, Local keeps people sufficiently busy with local issues. Like voting for school boards & county taxes, that the federal Govt plays only a small part in "real" life.

That only works when Congress is treated as an equal partner in Govt and indeed, when policy is exercised via legislation rather than Executive Order.

No system of Government is perfect but few systems have been undermined to the extent of the current US model and survived. Fewer still such inherently flawed systems have survived without facing actual revolution.

Without serious overhaul of American political systems? This pattern of Executive extremism and societal risk will only continue.

I don't know what shape that overhaul will take. Be it a new Constitutional Congress, some form of genuine political compromise and voter reform that reflects 1 person - 1 vote and that land doesn't vote. The exercise & control of both a political mandate & executive power have forever been altered and to some extent, placed beyond judicial oversight. How that is rectified? Is beyond my ken when I look at current political landscape in US.

The most important aspect of any stable government, by far, is a stable public. There is no democratic system you can establish that will survive any significant length of time if there is extreme polarisation of political views and cynicism among the public. The only system you can really have is a pretty much unanswerable authoritarian type one i.e. a dictatorship or total monarchy who quells dissent with hard force, and expunges opposition through execution, imprisonment, deportation and 'reeducation'.

If you want to re-establish a stable, or relatively stable, liberal democracy in the U.S., you have to do some very fundamental work to rebuild a broad public consensus. It's only when you have that foundation, that you can have a stable democratic system on top of it.

They knew he was a chaotic, moronic, narcissistic bully from his first term and they voted for four more years of that. Even when he lost against Biden he still got the largest losing candidate share of the vote ever.

Roughly one third of the US electorate want the country to go up in flames.

The polarisation of the Electorate is a serious issue. It's one that is an issue elsewhere too but is tempered to an extent by electoral systems that don't rely on FPTP nor are reliant on a 2 party state (apart from the UK and the 2 party state there is near finished as far as Tories are concerned at least).

Is it what they chose? Yes, any rational person looking at Trump from outside the US knew this was going to be a shít show.

Yet, in the course of his campaign he repeatedly denied knowledge of project 2025. He demurred to the supremacy of the courts and did his utmost to present a veneer of "reasonableness" to demonstrate that he had both learned from the errors of his 1st term and that he would aim to more even handed in a new term.

That "reasonable" Trump is the image that his campaign team spent the entirety of the campaign trying to hammer home and a very tame US media environment helped him do so.

As to who's to say such a method of removal couldn't have been used against Biden or any other "normal" POTUS? No one, that's the point in a way. That governing should require the continuing consent of the governed. Not just their assent on a day in November that lasts 4 years regardless of how poorly the elected performs. That at the very least, a continuing congressional majority and the ability to enact legislation rather than rule by edict, is the sign of a functional democracy.

If one cannot command a majority to pass legislation? Then in what purports to be a representative & democratic Republic? How can one govern legitimately?

Yes, we'd better. Because you're just unable to understand the point that's being made.

In a gameshow type voice... "Here's what you could have won..."

Would have been a far more stable and dutiful president without a doubt, but elections are a hearts and minds thing and Kamala didn't have much of a real message, courted vapid celebrity endorsements and thought it fitting to trot out Liz Cheney, of all people, on the campaign trail.