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Stop with these kind of comments. Do you honestly think the Supreme Court would allow a President to win a 3rd term? “We can all be certain” should be translat

Stop with these kind of comments. Do you honestly think the Supreme Court would allow a President to win a 3rd term? “We can all be certain” should be translated to “I feel like making a crazy rant here”. “Experiment is over” - the election is in 7 weeks, let’s hold off on the “get out while you can” comments until it’s over. How confident are you in your statement that the “American experiment is over”? Care to bet $10k on there being a free and fair election in 2028? I get “Yes”, you can have “No”.

chrismsimpson 6y ago
Read: don’t say “I told you so” until it’s absolutely too late
geofft 6y ago
> Do you honestly think the Supreme Court would allow a President to win a 3rd term? Why wouldn't they? They have nothing to gain from opposing it, and much to lose. I mean, do you honestly think the United States Postal Service would dismantle its own machinery and send out misinformation about elections?
- bluedevil2k 6y ago
  They have lifetime appointments, what would they have to gain by ruling against a Constitutional Amendment??
  - geofft 6y ago
    They don't have lifetime appointments - they have appointments during "good behavior." Who's going to determine when they've started behaving badly? I mean, the history of basically every country that has fallen into single-party rule is the story of good intentions, including the belief that people will listen to the constitution, not counting for much in the face of real-world political power. I'm not saying it will happen to the US; I'm saying it's naive to believe it can't happen.
    - jessaustin 6y ago
      The More-Stupid-Wars Party has ruled USA for at least a couple of decades by now.
      - geofft 6y ago
        If you mean that you're treating the Democrats and Republicans as a single party, sure, there's a decent argument for it, but also, it's a "party" that permits significant internal dissent and debate. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union remained a single party until the end, but the country started on its path towards becoming freer and less authoritarian when they became open to internal dissent. Frankly, independent of actual political goals, the most concerning thing about the state of US politics is the extent to which the Republican Party does not tolerate internal dissent. There was a lot of it in early 2016, and it all evaporated as people fell in line behind a cult of personality (a term introduced at the start of the above process in the CPSU, incidentally). Regardless of whether you're left or right or center or anywhere else, if you're at a place where disagreement with the leader is a reason to question your loyalty and good faith, you're at a place where there's far less pressure for the leader to serve the country than for the country to serve the leader. (This is why it's not particularly helpful that the leader isn't super competent or even that the leader is not on team More-Stupid-Wars - a position that, by itself, I agree with. I also enjoy it when trains run on time.)
lovehashbrowns 6y ago
What's crazy about that rant? Trump already has his reasoning for wanting a third term. Two remaining lines of defense for the American people were (1) Elections and (2) the Supreme Court. 2 is now gone. Republicans (Aka trump) are working hard on 1. By the way, what happens when election results are contested? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore
- bluedevil2k 6y ago
  I’ll extend my $10k wager to you as well then. Will Trump get a 3rd term? I’ll get “no” and you can have “yes”.
  - lovehashbrowns 6y ago
    I am an immigrant who relied on the Supreme Court to stay in the US legally. I don't think it'll do you much good to have a 10k wager with me, lol.
bleepblorp 6y ago
Understanding how modern societies fail was my professional field. The United States is following in the footsteps of many countries that transitioned from democracy to authoritarianism. The judiciary was the last remaining bulwark that had been slightly slowing the erosion of democratic rights. With the judicial balance of power now in the hands of a president who has both taken steps to conduct an unfair election and has repeatedly expressed desires for extra-constitutional powers, it is naive in the extreme to imagine that American democracy is not mortally wounded. America is turning itself into a cross between apartheid-era South Africa and Putin's Russia. While Trump has accelerated this trend, it is a trend far larger than him and it will not be stopped even if Biden somehow becomes the next president. Even if there is a Biden victory and some solution in the Senate, there must be no doubt that a 6-3 GOP USSC will overturn any pro-democratic, or anti-authoritarian, reforms that might be approved by Congress. I reiterate, the alarm bells are ringing for America as a free society and it is time for anyone who doesn't want to live in The Handmaid's Tale to get out because things aren't going to get any better.
- ApolloFortyNine 6y ago
  What do your studies say about creating new states to gain more votes in the senate? Something that's already been introduced in the house. Worse even its being created by shrinking the zone that was purposefully created to not be a state. Puerto Rico would undoubtedly also give 2 more democratic seats, but at least it's a large American territory, not something we're artificially creating for more votes.
  - bleepblorp 6y ago
    The general problem with any kind of pro-democracy reforms is that the people who need to approve reforms are precisely the people who benefit from current antidemocratic policies. No one will approve reforms that will end their careers. Some of the US' democratic problems could be helped by splitting up the more populous states so their populations have more representation in the Senate and Electoral College, but any such plan would need to be approved by flyover state Republican Senators who benefit handsomely from the status quo. Given that the GOP party line--echoed by both McConnell and Trump--is that fixing US democracy would be a Democratic power grab, meaningful reforms are dead on arrival. This is especially true as any meaningful reforms would, by definition, remove the Republican party's disproportionate hold on power. Sadly, I don't see a way out of this. With no route for peaceful reform, the usual escape route for irreconcilable differences within a country is civil war, but the human geography of the United States makes another civil war very unlikely. An inexorable slide into deepening authoritarian oligarchy/kleptocracy seems unavoidable.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Do you honestly think the Supreme Court would allow a President to win a 3rd term? Do I think a Supreme Court starting with the current one, with Ginsberg’s empty seat and probably Justice Breyer’s replaced by the kind of people the current Republican Party would appoint and confirm (assuming Trump gets a second term and the Republicans hold the Senate) would allow Trump to serve beyond the end of his second term with a fig leaf of an excuse of emergency preventing normal process, even with the 22nd Amendment in place? Probably not, but I don't see it as outside the realm of possibility. > Care to bet $10k on there being a free and fair election in 2028? I get “Yes”, you can have “No”. No one who has publicly expressed concern about an incipient authoritarian regime can expect to be able to collect and enjoy their winnings if the answer is no, so that's never going to be a bet they'll accept no matter how certain they are of the outcome.
- bluedevil2k 6y ago
  So now we’re claiming the entire US monetary system is going to collapse (and as a result most likely the worlds monetary system)? The more levels down we go in the comments here, the crazier the conspiracies.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > So now we’re claiming the entire US monetary system is going to collapse (and as a result most likely the worlds monetary system)? No, that's not why outspoken critics of an incipient authoritarian regime would not be likely to be able to collect or enjoy their winnings if the regime was successful in establishing itself. The monetary system is in no way part of the issue.
geofft 6y ago
> Care to bet $10k on there being a free and fair election in 2028? I get “Yes”, you can have “No”. Coming back to this because we don't have free and fair elections today: https://twitter.com/AnthonyTilghman/status/1307360544559706113 https://twitter.com/AnthonyTilghman/status/13073605445597061... And the Electoral Integrity Project gave North Carolina's 2016 elections the rating you'd give if it didn't have free and fair elections, and more people were wrongly denied the ability to vote in Georgia's gubernatorial election (overseen by the eventual winner) than decided the election, and so forth. So, I'm interested in potentially taking this bet. Can you define what you mean by "a free and fair election"? (The EIP's conclusions were widely contested, so I'm not saying we should accept them as a standard, but I would like to set an objective standard.)

chrismsimpson 6y ago

Read: don’t say “I told you so” until it’s absolutely too late

geofft 6y ago

> Do you honestly think the Supreme Court would allow a President to win a 3rd term? Why wouldn't they? They have nothing to gain from opposing it, and much to lose. I mean, do you honestly think the United States Postal Service would dismantle its own machinery and send out misinformation about elections?

bluedevil2k 6y ago
They have lifetime appointments, what would they have to gain by ruling against a Constitutional Amendment??
- geofft 6y ago
  They don't have lifetime appointments - they have appointments during "good behavior." Who's going to determine when they've started behaving badly? I mean, the history of basically every country that has fallen into single-party rule is the story of good intentions, including the belief that people will listen to the constitution, not counting for much in the face of real-world political power. I'm not saying it will happen to the US; I'm saying it's naive to believe it can't happen.
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    The More-Stupid-Wars Party has ruled USA for at least a couple of decades by now.
    - geofft 6y ago
      If you mean that you're treating the Democrats and Republicans as a single party, sure, there's a decent argument for it, but also, it's a "party" that permits significant internal dissent and debate. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union remained a single party until the end, but the country started on its path towards becoming freer and less authoritarian when they became open to internal dissent. Frankly, independent of actual political goals, the most concerning thing about the state of US politics is the extent to which the Republican Party does not tolerate internal dissent. There was a lot of it in early 2016, and it all evaporated as people fell in line behind a cult of personality (a term introduced at the start of the above process in the CPSU, incidentally). Regardless of whether you're left or right or center or anywhere else, if you're at a place where disagreement with the leader is a reason to question your loyalty and good faith, you're at a place where there's far less pressure for the leader to serve the country than for the country to serve the leader. (This is why it's not particularly helpful that the leader isn't super competent or even that the leader is not on team More-Stupid-Wars - a position that, by itself, I agree with. I also enjoy it when trains run on time.)

lovehashbrowns 6y ago

What's crazy about that rant? Trump already has his reasoning for wanting a third term. Two remaining lines of defense for the American people were (1) Elections and (2) the Supreme Court. 2 is now gone. Republicans (Aka trump) are working hard on 1. By the way, what happens when election results are contested? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore

bluedevil2k 6y ago
I’ll extend my $10k wager to you as well then. Will Trump get a 3rd term? I’ll get “no” and you can have “yes”.
- lovehashbrowns 6y ago
  I am an immigrant who relied on the Supreme Court to stay in the US legally. I don't think it'll do you much good to have a 10k wager with me, lol.

bleepblorp 6y ago

Understanding how modern societies fail was my professional field. The United States is following in the footsteps of many countries that transitioned from democracy to authoritarianism. The judiciary was the last remaining bulwark that had been slightly slowing the erosion of democratic rights. With the judicial balance of power now in the hands of a president who has both taken steps to conduct an unfair election and has repeatedly expressed desires for extra-constitutional powers, it is naive in the extreme to imagine that American democracy is not mortally wounded. America is turning itself into a cross between apartheid-era South Africa and Putin's Russia. While Trump has accelerated this trend, it is a trend far larger than him and it will not be stopped even if Biden somehow becomes the next president. Even if there is a Biden victory and some solution in the Senate, there must be no doubt that a 6-3 GOP USSC will overturn any pro-democratic, or anti-authoritarian, reforms that might be approved by Congress. I reiterate, the alarm bells are ringing for America as a free society and it is time for anyone who doesn't want to live in The Handmaid's Tale to get out because things aren't going to get any better.

ApolloFortyNine 6y ago
What do your studies say about creating new states to gain more votes in the senate? Something that's already been introduced in the house. Worse even its being created by shrinking the zone that was purposefully created to not be a state. Puerto Rico would undoubtedly also give 2 more democratic seats, but at least it's a large American territory, not something we're artificially creating for more votes.
- bleepblorp 6y ago
  The general problem with any kind of pro-democracy reforms is that the people who need to approve reforms are precisely the people who benefit from current antidemocratic policies. No one will approve reforms that will end their careers. Some of the US' democratic problems could be helped by splitting up the more populous states so their populations have more representation in the Senate and Electoral College, but any such plan would need to be approved by flyover state Republican Senators who benefit handsomely from the status quo. Given that the GOP party line--echoed by both McConnell and Trump--is that fixing US democracy would be a Democratic power grab, meaningful reforms are dead on arrival. This is especially true as any meaningful reforms would, by definition, remove the Republican party's disproportionate hold on power. Sadly, I don't see a way out of this. With no route for peaceful reform, the usual escape route for irreconcilable differences within a country is civil war, but the human geography of the United States makes another civil war very unlikely. An inexorable slide into deepening authoritarian oligarchy/kleptocracy seems unavoidable.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> Do you honestly think the Supreme Court would allow a President to win a 3rd term? Do I think a Supreme Court starting with the current one, with Ginsberg’s empty seat and probably Justice Breyer’s replaced by the kind of people the current Republican Party would appoint and confirm (assuming Trump gets a second term and the Republicans hold the Senate) would allow Trump to serve beyond the end of his second term with a fig leaf of an excuse of emergency preventing normal process, even with the 22nd Amendment in place? Probably not, but I don't see it as outside the realm of possibility. > Care to bet $10k on there being a free and fair election in 2028? I get “Yes”, you can have “No”. No one who has publicly expressed concern about an incipient authoritarian regime can expect to be able to collect and enjoy their winnings if the answer is no, so that's never going to be a bet they'll accept no matter how certain they are of the outcome.

bluedevil2k 6y ago
So now we’re claiming the entire US monetary system is going to collapse (and as a result most likely the worlds monetary system)? The more levels down we go in the comments here, the crazier the conspiracies.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > So now we’re claiming the entire US monetary system is going to collapse (and as a result most likely the worlds monetary system)? No, that's not why outspoken critics of an incipient authoritarian regime would not be likely to be able to collect or enjoy their winnings if the regime was successful in establishing itself. The monetary system is in no way part of the issue.

geofft 6y ago

> Care to bet $10k on there being a free and fair election in 2028? I get “Yes”, you can have “No”. Coming back to this because we don't have free and fair elections today: https://twitter.com/AnthonyTilghman/status/1307360544559706113 https://twitter.com/AnthonyTilghman/status/13073605445597061... And the Electoral Integrity Project gave North Carolina's 2016 elections the rating you'd give if it didn't have free and fair elections, and more people were wrongly denied the ability to vote in Georgia's gubernatorial election (overseen by the eventual winner) than decided the election, and so forth. So, I'm interested in potentially taking this bet. Can you define what you mean by "a free and fair election"? (The EIP's conclusions were widely contested, so I'm not saying we should accept them as a standard, but I would like to set an objective standard.)