15 ms·

Trump blocks postal funds to prevent expanded mail-in voting

138 points by maydemir 6y ago

aerovistae 6y ago
This is so insidious and depressing. Nothing the Republican party does surprises me anymore. He outright said today that he's doing this to stymie mail-in voting, and the Republican party supports him on it. The president is outright saying "I want to hinder the vote for everyone, across the board" and the Republican party supports it. It's so sad. This is a taste for Americans of what it must feel like for many people across the world in less fortunate countries every day, for as long as anyone can remember. I can't imagine living with this indefinitely with no hope of change.
- tunesmith 6y ago
  It's also another disincentive for him to get the pandemic under control. Because if we got down to tens or hundreds of infections per day per state, there'd be less need for mail-in voting.
  - Falling3 6y ago
    Who specifically is being disincentivized?
    - tunesmith 6y ago
      Trump. The pandemic works for him, because then more people want to vote by mail, which he can limit through defunding the post office. If the pandemic isn't as much of an issue, then he can't limit the supply of voters as easily.
- pstuart 6y ago
  It's only going to get more brutal -- Trump is terrified of losing the legal protection of the presidency and will not hesitate to do literally anything to hold on to it. This election is a referendum on the survival of humanity. I recognize that the previous sentence seems hyperbolic but I believe it to be the case. I'm terrified.
  - syshum 6y ago
    In some ways I agree, but I bet I disagree what they referendum is because a Biden/Harris Presidency Terrifies me
    - qdigital 6y ago
      What exactly about a Biden/Harris presidency terrifies you? Strong language there.
      - syshum 6y ago
        Well I am a libertarian, Both Biden and Harris are known "Tough on Crime" Authoritarians, I also oppose 99% of their platform including government run healthcare, extreme theft errr taxation, open social programs for anyone that happens to be physically located inside the boarders, their Identity / Social Justice Warrior politics, I could go on and on I support federalism, I support individual liberty, I support meritocracy. all of which they stand against
        Miner49er 6y ago
        They literally support none of those things (except maybe identity politics).
        pstuart 6y ago
        The think tanks' efforts to brand "socialism" as authoritarianism have paid off. M4A being painted as an authoritarian nightmare is a slick trick on their part.
        syshum 6y ago
        Can you point me to a non-authoritarian socialist nation, now or at any point in the past... Socialism fails very quickly if not backed by an Authoritarian form of government... Only with Authoritarian enforcement can it survive and then only with extreme poverty and misery for most people.
- thu2111 6y ago
  The president is outright saying "I want to hinder the vote for everyone, across the board" No, he isn't "outright saying" that. This is the kind of statement that Scott Alexander rightfully criticised some years ago when people started saying Trump is "openly" racist: http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wolf/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wo... Here's an actual quote from him: "Mail-in ballots are very dangerous - there's tremendous fraud involved." That's what he is outright saying. Mail fraud is not a US specific problem. UK elections have had the same problems. In one case someone who had previously been jailed for mail voting fraud took an Instagram selfie of himself in the counting room. An MP has written an article about mail voting fraud here: https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/there-is-widespread-abuse-of-postal-votes-this-simply-cannot-go-on https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/there-is-wides...
nine_zeros 6y ago
Up until a few years ago, such news only came from distant third world countries. How much have we regressed!
sg47 6y ago
The Republican party wants to be a dictatorship. They are putting party over country. They don't want to lose and win at all costs. I wish Obama had done something like this to make sure Trump didn't get elected (this statement is intended to trigger Republicans and force them to defend Trump's actions)
- pstuart 6y ago
  Indeed. We have fallen to a fascist coup. The question is whether or not they can hold on to it.
- Tostino 6y ago
  There were so many things which aren't horrible for our democracy which could have been done to change how 2016 turned out. Not taking a shit on the progressive wing of the party at every step may have helped some, actually campaigning in some of the states she assumed to have in the bag and then lost may have helped too. Obama doing something anti-democratic, illegal, etc to ensure Trump wasn't elected is not a step I would ever support.
- war1025 6y ago
  > The Republican party wants to be a dictatorship. They are putting party over country. They don't want to lose and win at all costs. The Democratic party seems much more interested in seizing power by force than the Republicans. Every time I see this line of thought, the only thing I can figure is that it's the classic idea of "You see the worst of yourself in your enemies"
  - sg47 6y ago
    No, Republicans are and have always been the corrupt ones. If at all anything, Democrats are too fair because you know they tend to be decent human beings. Republicans are too power hungry and want to win at all costs.
    - war1025 6y ago
      This is a garbage point of view, and I would suggest that you are blinded by party propaganda. The majority of Democrats are good people. The majority of Republicans are good people. As fun as it is to claim the other side is the devil, most people want basically the same things.
briantakita 6y ago
Ballot box stuffing has occurred numerous times in American History. Even ids are not a panacea. https://www.theepochtimes.com/fake-id-seizures-on-the-rise-most-from-china_3458249.html https://www.theepochtimes.com/fake-id-seizures-on-the-rise-m... Plato's critique of a Democracy is it's the son of Oligarchy & degenerates into Tyranny... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_five_regimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_five_regimes
- nawgz 6y ago
  Paywall'd right-wing source was the best you could do?
  - briantakita 6y ago
    Ad hominem is the best you can do? No paywall btw. Just submit an email address.
    - nawgz 6y ago
      No, I could do much better than ad hominem, but why bother? You pointed out a vanishingly small type of crime against mail-in ballots - with no numbers about how much crime occurs against real "voting booths", at that - and that was supposed to justify an intentional dismantling of a constitutionally guaranteed service for political gain by one party. This is clearly disingenuous on the face of it, and if it's not, and you really believe what you're saying, that's even worse and equally unlikely to have you yield from your position.
- flaque 6y ago
  The epoch times is a propaganda site and shouldn't be used as a legitimate source.
  - briantakita 6y ago
    I have the feeling that any site that reports against your narrative will be deemed "a propaganda site and shouldn't be used as a legitimate source". Good luck speaking to your echo chamber. At least I can see what your what your ideological opponents are focused on. The silence of some news organizations re: the seizure of these fake ids is deafening, btw... https://www.foxnews.com/us/authorities-seize-thousands-of-fake-ids-in-kentucky https://www.foxnews.com/us/authorities-seize-thousands-of-fa...
WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
Florida introduced absentee ballots just after the 2000 election. Since then it's been extensively used by deployed military along with anyone else who wants it. Dozens of general and primary elections later, we can see it didn't put those elections at risk. As a side note, effectively crippling mail-in voting would prohibit many FL elderly (mostly R) from voting.
- jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
  The executive branch is obviously trying to get in our heads and create as much chaos and turmoil as humanly possible. Possibly with funding from other nations. We're being CIA'd right now.
- syshum 6y ago
  Absentee ballots making up a small part of the total vote count is alot different than the majority of voting taking place via mail in on my levels not just security but logistics, and several other factors It would be one thing if it rolled out with a defined planned over the course of a few years. it is something else when it is an emergency measure rolled out with no plan in an ad hoc manner
  - WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
    FL's extensive and lengthy trial of absentee voting was a success from every angle. The thing one does after completing a wildly successful trial is to roll out the actual program in the manner and degree that it's needed.
    - syshum 6y ago
      The miami herald seems to disagree that is was a "success from every angle" https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article224873455.html https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article224873455.htm...
- auganov 6y ago
  President Trump has explicitly said he's okay with the system in Florida. Universal mail-in voting is different in that every registered voter gets a mail-in ballot without even requesting one.
jdc 6y ago
American democracy hangs in the balance. It's time for some very loud civil disobedience, folks.
- Simulacra 6y ago
  By voting for Trump.
  - pupppet 6y ago
    The bubble some people live in..
xg15 6y ago
> Democrats denounced Mr Trump's comment, saying his position is an attempt to prevent Americans from voting him out. I mean, his comment was openly admitting that...
jungletime 6y ago
Since the election of the president by law has a fixed date. All votes cast on time, but that arrive late or get lost don't count. As a citizen, you can do everything right, vote and your vote will still not count. Whats wrong with pencil and ballot dropped into clear acrylic box, simple and works 100%.
- tashoecraft 6y ago
  Run out of pencils, voter makes mark on both candidates (check on one, x on other), counter decides to drop a bunch of additional ballots in, your vote is visible to the outside so the person who paid you to vote a certain way can verify. Voting is a hard problem.
  - jungletime 6y ago
    This is why you have representatives from both parties next to the ballot box, and third party observers, to make sure this doesn't happen.
- WalterSear 6y ago
  1. Covid 2. That's also being fucked with. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/09/12/report-court-ruling-caused-mass-voting-place-closures-southern-u-s/2272866001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/09/12/report... https://www.governing.com/topics/politics/sl-polling-place-close-ahead-of-november-elections-black-voters.html https://www.governing.com/topics/politics/sl-polling-place-c... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-locations/southern-us-states-have-closed-1200-polling-places-in-recent-years-rights-group-idUSKCN1VV09J https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-locations/so...
- Simulacra 6y ago
  It doesn’t allow for manipulation, ballot harvesting, or fraud. All Democrat policies for increasing vote turnout - lowering the voting age, no ID, mail in - increase the chances of fraud.
bitxbit 6y ago
This is a very strong case for a general public strike. The only way for this administration and the Republicans to back off is for the financial market to crash.
war1025 6y ago
I like Trump in general, but the USPS is also basically my favorite government organization, so this irks me. USPS has always provided superior service for us compared to UPS or Fedex. I am hopeful they'll be able to fix their budget issues by fixing their cost structure. It seems completely asinine to block their ability to make sound financial decisions and force them into providing an inferior service instead.
- DFHippie 6y ago
  You can fix their budget issues by removing the burden placed on them in 2006 that they fund their pension obligations for 75 years. No other entity, government or private, labors under this burden, providing for the retirement of employees who are not yet born. They were profitable for the six years before this law was passed, by Bush and the Republicans, and they would have been profitable for the last 6 years had it not been for this law.
- RealityVoid 6y ago
  Looking from outside the country: how? How can you like him? I know I will probably not start a good discussion by my question. But I hope to do so. What could someone like in this man? I struggle to find any redeeming qualities. Not from the US, but looking from the outside, it seems your country is collapsing on itself and people are cheering on this word little individual that shows little abilities. Just puzzling to me.
  - war1025 6y ago
    > How can you like him? Consider that all major US media outlets are driven by ad-spend, which is in term driven by views. Views are driven by outrage. Trump is a great target for outrage. The media love to hate him. He loves to let them hate him. If you turn off the news, the country is in general humming along just fine. Stock market is doing great. No new wars. Finally doing something to address major trade imbalances with China. If you listen to the news, everyone and their mother is dying in the streets of coronavirus. In reality, roughly 1-3% of the population has even caught the virus. Deaths are way down from March/April. For a country and a president that are supposedly incompetent to the point of collapse, things are going pretty damn great.
734129837261 6y ago
The third world nation known as the "United" States of America, not to be mixed up with the United States in North America that is Mexico, nor Canada–which is also a nation of states that stand united, has an identity problem it seems. Bipartisan politics are ruining the nation, as corrupt politicians whose political careers are funded by companies, with nobody standing in the way. Will Democrats be able to fix it even if they get elected? I don't think so. Joe Biden is just another yes-man puppet. They are probably more corrupt than we like to admit, too. Doesn't mean the Republicans are better or worse, I'm saying it's the same thing: an illusion of choice. Illusion being the key word. What the USA needs is a complete overhaul of the political landscape. And that requires something grand. Something like many generals getting together and deciding to overthrow the government, and to install an intermediary government of scientists and specialists to figure out what kind of government would be best. The role of the military would be to strike down any civil unrest about this with decisive and lethal strikes. Designate the Republican and Democratic parties as domestic terror groups. Lock up the current politicians; try them in court. Once corruption is proven, make them the ONLY prisoners in for-profit prisons. But seeing as none of that is going to happen, nothing will change. If things go the way they seem to go, Trump will serve another 4 years at the very least.
- DFHippie 6y ago
  Over the top cynicism doesn't help. Biden isn't the second coming of Jesus, but to suggest he and Trump are the same kind of politician as Trump, or that his cabinet and appointees will be of the same kind as Trump's, is insanity. Trump is the first president we've had who behaves as he does. Nixon, who wasn't nearly as corrupt, felt compelled to resign because he thought the Republicans of his time wouldn't back him up. Things have changed. And if they change for the worse they can also change for the better. Democrats (and Republicans) are domestic terror groups? Was Obama a terrorist by your estimation? Carter? And the cure for this is a military coup? When has that ever worked? False equivalency and hyperbole ensure things don't get better.

138 points by maydemir 6y ago

This is so insidious and depressing. Nothing the Republican party does surprises me anymore. He outright said today that he's doing this to stymie mail-in voting, and the Republican party supports him on it. The president is outright saying "I want to hinder the vote for everyone, across the board" and the Republican party supports it. It's so sad. This is a taste for Americans of what it must feel like for many people across the world in less fortunate countries every day, for as long as anyone can remember. I can't imagine living with this indefinitely with no hope of change.

tunesmith 6y ago
It's also another disincentive for him to get the pandemic under control. Because if we got down to tens or hundreds of infections per day per state, there'd be less need for mail-in voting.
- Falling3 6y ago
  Who specifically is being disincentivized?
  - tunesmith 6y ago
    Trump. The pandemic works for him, because then more people want to vote by mail, which he can limit through defunding the post office. If the pandemic isn't as much of an issue, then he can't limit the supply of voters as easily.
pstuart 6y ago
It's only going to get more brutal -- Trump is terrified of losing the legal protection of the presidency and will not hesitate to do literally anything to hold on to it. This election is a referendum on the survival of humanity. I recognize that the previous sentence seems hyperbolic but I believe it to be the case. I'm terrified.
- syshum 6y ago
  In some ways I agree, but I bet I disagree what they referendum is because a Biden/Harris Presidency Terrifies me
  - qdigital 6y ago
    What exactly about a Biden/Harris presidency terrifies you? Strong language there.
    - syshum 6y ago
      Well I am a libertarian, Both Biden and Harris are known "Tough on Crime" Authoritarians, I also oppose 99% of their platform including government run healthcare, extreme theft errr taxation, open social programs for anyone that happens to be physically located inside the boarders, their Identity / Social Justice Warrior politics, I could go on and on I support federalism, I support individual liberty, I support meritocracy. all of which they stand against
      - Miner49er 6y ago
        They literally support none of those things (except maybe identity politics).
        pstuart 6y ago
        The think tanks' efforts to brand "socialism" as authoritarianism have paid off. M4A being painted as an authoritarian nightmare is a slick trick on their part.
        syshum 6y ago
        Can you point me to a non-authoritarian socialist nation, now or at any point in the past... Socialism fails very quickly if not backed by an Authoritarian form of government... Only with Authoritarian enforcement can it survive and then only with extreme poverty and misery for most people.
thu2111 6y ago
The president is outright saying "I want to hinder the vote for everyone, across the board" No, he isn't "outright saying" that. This is the kind of statement that Scott Alexander rightfully criticised some years ago when people started saying Trump is "openly" racist: http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wolf/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wo... Here's an actual quote from him: "Mail-in ballots are very dangerous - there's tremendous fraud involved." That's what he is outright saying. Mail fraud is not a US specific problem. UK elections have had the same problems. In one case someone who had previously been jailed for mail voting fraud took an Instagram selfie of himself in the counting room. An MP has written an article about mail voting fraud here: https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/there-is-widespread-abuse-of-postal-votes-this-simply-cannot-go-on https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/there-is-wides...

nine_zeros 6y ago

Up until a few years ago, such news only came from distant third world countries. How much have we regressed!

sg47 6y ago

The Republican party wants to be a dictatorship. They are putting party over country. They don't want to lose and win at all costs. I wish Obama had done something like this to make sure Trump didn't get elected (this statement is intended to trigger Republicans and force them to defend Trump's actions)

pstuart 6y ago
Indeed. We have fallen to a fascist coup. The question is whether or not they can hold on to it.
Tostino 6y ago
There were so many things which aren't horrible for our democracy which could have been done to change how 2016 turned out. Not taking a shit on the progressive wing of the party at every step may have helped some, actually campaigning in some of the states she assumed to have in the bag and then lost may have helped too. Obama doing something anti-democratic, illegal, etc to ensure Trump wasn't elected is not a step I would ever support.
war1025 6y ago
> The Republican party wants to be a dictatorship. They are putting party over country. They don't want to lose and win at all costs. The Democratic party seems much more interested in seizing power by force than the Republicans. Every time I see this line of thought, the only thing I can figure is that it's the classic idea of "You see the worst of yourself in your enemies"
- sg47 6y ago
  No, Republicans are and have always been the corrupt ones. If at all anything, Democrats are too fair because you know they tend to be decent human beings. Republicans are too power hungry and want to win at all costs.
  - war1025 6y ago
    This is a garbage point of view, and I would suggest that you are blinded by party propaganda. The majority of Democrats are good people. The majority of Republicans are good people. As fun as it is to claim the other side is the devil, most people want basically the same things.

briantakita 6y ago

Ballot box stuffing has occurred numerous times in American History. Even ids are not a panacea. https://www.theepochtimes.com/fake-id-seizures-on-the-rise-most-from-china_3458249.html https://www.theepochtimes.com/fake-id-seizures-on-the-rise-m... Plato's critique of a Democracy is it's the son of Oligarchy & degenerates into Tyranny... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_five_regimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_five_regimes

nawgz 6y ago
Paywall'd right-wing source was the best you could do?
- briantakita 6y ago
  Ad hominem is the best you can do? No paywall btw. Just submit an email address.
  - nawgz 6y ago
    No, I could do much better than ad hominem, but why bother? You pointed out a vanishingly small type of crime against mail-in ballots - with no numbers about how much crime occurs against real "voting booths", at that - and that was supposed to justify an intentional dismantling of a constitutionally guaranteed service for political gain by one party. This is clearly disingenuous on the face of it, and if it's not, and you really believe what you're saying, that's even worse and equally unlikely to have you yield from your position.
flaque 6y ago
The epoch times is a propaganda site and shouldn't be used as a legitimate source.
- briantakita 6y ago
  I have the feeling that any site that reports against your narrative will be deemed "a propaganda site and shouldn't be used as a legitimate source". Good luck speaking to your echo chamber. At least I can see what your what your ideological opponents are focused on. The silence of some news organizations re: the seizure of these fake ids is deafening, btw... https://www.foxnews.com/us/authorities-seize-thousands-of-fake-ids-in-kentucky https://www.foxnews.com/us/authorities-seize-thousands-of-fa...

WarOnPrivacy 6y ago

Florida introduced absentee ballots just after the 2000 election. Since then it's been extensively used by deployed military along with anyone else who wants it. Dozens of general and primary elections later, we can see it didn't put those elections at risk. As a side note, effectively crippling mail-in voting would prohibit many FL elderly (mostly R) from voting.

jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
The executive branch is obviously trying to get in our heads and create as much chaos and turmoil as humanly possible. Possibly with funding from other nations. We're being CIA'd right now.
syshum 6y ago
Absentee ballots making up a small part of the total vote count is alot different than the majority of voting taking place via mail in on my levels not just security but logistics, and several other factors It would be one thing if it rolled out with a defined planned over the course of a few years. it is something else when it is an emergency measure rolled out with no plan in an ad hoc manner
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
  FL's extensive and lengthy trial of absentee voting was a success from every angle. The thing one does after completing a wildly successful trial is to roll out the actual program in the manner and degree that it's needed.
  - syshum 6y ago
    The miami herald seems to disagree that is was a "success from every angle" https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article224873455.html https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article224873455.htm...
auganov 6y ago
President Trump has explicitly said he's okay with the system in Florida. Universal mail-in voting is different in that every registered voter gets a mail-in ballot without even requesting one.

jdc 6y ago

American democracy hangs in the balance. It's time for some very loud civil disobedience, folks.

Simulacra 6y ago
By voting for Trump.
- pupppet 6y ago
  The bubble some people live in..

xg15 6y ago

> Democrats denounced Mr Trump's comment, saying his position is an attempt to prevent Americans from voting him out. I mean, his comment was openly admitting that...

jungletime 6y ago

Since the election of the president by law has a fixed date. All votes cast on time, but that arrive late or get lost don't count. As a citizen, you can do everything right, vote and your vote will still not count. Whats wrong with pencil and ballot dropped into clear acrylic box, simple and works 100%.

tashoecraft 6y ago
Run out of pencils, voter makes mark on both candidates (check on one, x on other), counter decides to drop a bunch of additional ballots in, your vote is visible to the outside so the person who paid you to vote a certain way can verify. Voting is a hard problem.
- jungletime 6y ago
  This is why you have representatives from both parties next to the ballot box, and third party observers, to make sure this doesn't happen.
WalterSear 6y ago
1. Covid 2. That's also being fucked with. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/09/12/report-court-ruling-caused-mass-voting-place-closures-southern-u-s/2272866001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/09/12/report... https://www.governing.com/topics/politics/sl-polling-place-close-ahead-of-november-elections-black-voters.html https://www.governing.com/topics/politics/sl-polling-place-c... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-locations/southern-us-states-have-closed-1200-polling-places-in-recent-years-rights-group-idUSKCN1VV09J https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-locations/so...
Simulacra 6y ago
It doesn’t allow for manipulation, ballot harvesting, or fraud. All Democrat policies for increasing vote turnout - lowering the voting age, no ID, mail in - increase the chances of fraud.

bitxbit 6y ago

This is a very strong case for a general public strike. The only way for this administration and the Republicans to back off is for the financial market to crash.

war1025 6y ago

I like Trump in general, but the USPS is also basically my favorite government organization, so this irks me. USPS has always provided superior service for us compared to UPS or Fedex. I am hopeful they'll be able to fix their budget issues by fixing their cost structure. It seems completely asinine to block their ability to make sound financial decisions and force them into providing an inferior service instead.

DFHippie 6y ago
You can fix their budget issues by removing the burden placed on them in 2006 that they fund their pension obligations for 75 years. No other entity, government or private, labors under this burden, providing for the retirement of employees who are not yet born. They were profitable for the six years before this law was passed, by Bush and the Republicans, and they would have been profitable for the last 6 years had it not been for this law.
RealityVoid 6y ago
Looking from outside the country: how? How can you like him? I know I will probably not start a good discussion by my question. But I hope to do so. What could someone like in this man? I struggle to find any redeeming qualities. Not from the US, but looking from the outside, it seems your country is collapsing on itself and people are cheering on this word little individual that shows little abilities. Just puzzling to me.
- war1025 6y ago
  > How can you like him? Consider that all major US media outlets are driven by ad-spend, which is in term driven by views. Views are driven by outrage. Trump is a great target for outrage. The media love to hate him. He loves to let them hate him. If you turn off the news, the country is in general humming along just fine. Stock market is doing great. No new wars. Finally doing something to address major trade imbalances with China. If you listen to the news, everyone and their mother is dying in the streets of coronavirus. In reality, roughly 1-3% of the population has even caught the virus. Deaths are way down from March/April. For a country and a president that are supposedly incompetent to the point of collapse, things are going pretty damn great.

734129837261 6y ago

The third world nation known as the "United" States of America, not to be mixed up with the United States in North America that is Mexico, nor Canada–which is also a nation of states that stand united, has an identity problem it seems. Bipartisan politics are ruining the nation, as corrupt politicians whose political careers are funded by companies, with nobody standing in the way. Will Democrats be able to fix it even if they get elected? I don't think so. Joe Biden is just another yes-man puppet. They are probably more corrupt than we like to admit, too. Doesn't mean the Republicans are better or worse, I'm saying it's the same thing: an illusion of choice. Illusion being the key word. What the USA needs is a complete overhaul of the political landscape. And that requires something grand. Something like many generals getting together and deciding to overthrow the government, and to install an intermediary government of scientists and specialists to figure out what kind of government would be best. The role of the military would be to strike down any civil unrest about this with decisive and lethal strikes. Designate the Republican and Democratic parties as domestic terror groups. Lock up the current politicians; try them in court. Once corruption is proven, make them the ONLY prisoners in for-profit prisons. But seeing as none of that is going to happen, nothing will change. If things go the way they seem to go, Trump will serve another 4 years at the very least.

DFHippie 6y ago
Over the top cynicism doesn't help. Biden isn't the second coming of Jesus, but to suggest he and Trump are the same kind of politician as Trump, or that his cabinet and appointees will be of the same kind as Trump's, is insanity. Trump is the first president we've had who behaves as he does. Nixon, who wasn't nearly as corrupt, felt compelled to resign because he thought the Republicans of his time wouldn't back him up. Things have changed. And if they change for the worse they can also change for the better. Democrats (and Republicans) are domestic terror groups? Was Obama a terrorist by your estimation? Carter? And the cure for this is a military coup? When has that ever worked? False equivalency and hyperbole ensure things don't get better.