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If Trump wins the next election, take that as the signal of the point of no return. It happened to Rome, it can happen to America.

1970-01-01 2y ago
It can also fail outright if voters and Congress pick up the scent of Emperor at midterms. History does not always repeat. If it did, we would not have had democracy to begin with.
- zamalek 2y ago
  I think in this case it will require the non-voters picking up the scent of a monarch. This is why I believe that point is yet to come (though I do believe that the belief that we are passed it is also very rational, only history will know).
blatantly 2y ago
Trump the person or Trump the family or even Trump the idea.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
jfengel 2y ago
We are already long past the point of no return. He is the manifestation of a popular will. Even if he vanished tomorrow, those voters will remain. They will not be daunted by an electoral setback. They control the Supreme Court, and will for decades. They control a majority of state legislatures -- which control how voting and districting work. We've been past the point of no return since 2016. If you still had hope then, it should have died the same day Ruth Bader Ginsburg did. At this point it's all just telling ourselves fairy stories. It gets monotonically worse from here, and there is no longer anything we can do about it.
- mptest 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - stephen_g 2y ago
    It's an issue we're seeing all around the West - previously centre-left parties unfortunately were cowed into supporting 'soft-neoliberalism' over the last 30-40 years, and now that's shown to not improve the living standards of the many (but works amazingly for the wealthy), voters are looking for anything that looks different than the status-quo. Unfortunately that plus a bit of culture war drives them into the populist right. Obviously that's a worse choice (at best it's just corrupt crony-capitalism under a veneer of caring about the little guy, at worst outright fascism) but we all have to admit that parties like the Democrats (and Labor in the UK and Australia, etc.) haven't had policy platforms to make changes that really and substantially help the struggling working-class for decades. It's hard for us to see, because most people commenting on hacker news are in the professional class and the status-quo works quite well for us.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > that plus a bit of culture war drives them into the populist right And the establishment refusing to run new candidates. If there is a single person to blame for Trump 2.0, it’s Biden.
      - CapricornNoble 2y ago
        How the Democrats went from having an excited and involved Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard in 2016, to pushing to re-elect a cognitively-impaired 80 year old in 2024 would make for an interesting expose, that's for sure.
    - ipsento606 2y ago
      > now that's shown to not improve the living standards of the many Inflation-adjusted median real income is up 20% since 1990 in the US. Unemployment is lower. Life expectancy is higher. Air pollution is lower. Crime is lower. Gay marriage is now legal. The living standards of the many in the US have demonstrably improved dramatically over the last 30-40 years. Housing affordability is worse, but that is largely due to local rather than national politics, and the policies that have lead to unaffordable housing are largely non-partisan (in that homeowners across the political spectrum are for restrictive zoning and against development). It's true that many people feel that living standards have not improved. I don't have an answer for that beyond speculation.
solomonb 2y ago
He can't run again.
- zamalek 2y ago
  You say that now. Every system designed to protect the constitution has been captured by him. America has 4 years to set things right, it had better make it count.
  - shadowgovt 2y ago
    Supreme Court Judges have careers that outlive Presidents. I think people consistently misinterpret the overturning of Roe (a calculated, focused effort that took decades and overturned specific judicial precedent that basically had created a right-to-privacy from whole cloth) with "Trump has SCOTUS in his pocket." He doesn't. The GOP got the two things they wanted from tilting the SCOTUS in their direction; there's no reason to believe this SCOTUS is about to start looking at the bare-face text of the Twenty Second Amendment and decide there aren't any words there. The incentives just aren't there. Especially because it's pretty obvious that if they do ignore that text, it becomes pitchfork time and their necks are no less vulnerable than the President's. (ETA: And that's ignoring that individual states are not obligated to put him on the ballot if he's inelligible to run for a third term, and by-and-large, Americans do not vote for names not on the ballot because they don't know their own civil rights).
    - fundad 2y ago
      This is assuming one needs to campaign in an election in order to continue their command of the executive branch and the military. I'm pretty sure the president's claim that he can serve a 3rd term means he'll serve for however long he determines, as an official act. Any court that dares issue an order to the contrary will have as little power to enforce their order as they are demonstrating now.
      - shadowgovt 2y ago
        He could certainly kick off a Constitutional crisis by just ignoring the law, on that we agree. But that's always a risk. He could make a kill list of Congress members to assassinate starting alphabetically and it would be the same category of problem.
mullingitover 2y ago
Don't know why you're getting downvoted, he is openly stating he plans to try to violate the 22nd amendment of the Constitution[1]. If you think that can't happen, think about this: the Constitution already prohibited him from running as an insurrectionist. Multiple states found that he committed insurrection and the US Supreme Court forced him on their ballots anyway. The reason: they assert that the amendment isn't self-enforcing, and congress must proactively write a law in order to create enforcement measures for the 14th amendment's prohibition on insurrectionists. They didn't, so he was allowed to run and take office. That same logical jiu-jitsu the GOP used to successfully violate the 14th amendment could just as easily be used on the 22nd. [1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-third-term-president-constitutional-1.7497480?cmp=rss https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-third-term-president-con...
- zamalek 2y ago
  Don't discuss comment voting :) [1]. I'm an adult and can handle it, corrective votes will be issued by others if its warranted. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
userbinator 2y ago
He's already 78. Edit: Born June 14, 1946 - you do the math.
seivan 2y ago
[dead]
ojbyrne 2y ago
We’re a long way from that: 1. He’ll have to change some rules to run again. There will be a lot of resistance. 2. Midterm elections (November of 2026) could take away majorities in the house and the senate, and hopefully bring impeachment back into the picture. 3. There are special elections next Tuesday - 2 house seats in Florida and a Supreme Court justice in Wisconsin. It’s encouraging that Republicans are worried about these, the apartheid billionaire is spraying money all over Wisconsin. Yes it’s dark and depressing, but things can be changed long before the next Presidential election.
Ygg2 2y ago
> If Trump wins the next election[..] It happened to Rome In Rome, Cezar didn't become the dictator for life, he got stabbed to death. What happened is that his successor, Octavian, took control of real power while pretending that the republic was fine. In reality Republic died before Cezar, while Octavian played Weekend at Bernie's.

1970-01-01 2y ago

It can also fail outright if voters and Congress pick up the scent of Emperor at midterms. History does not always repeat. If it did, we would not have had democracy to begin with.

zamalek 2y ago
I think in this case it will require the non-voters picking up the scent of a monarch. This is why I believe that point is yet to come (though I do believe that the belief that we are passed it is also very rational, only history will know).

blatantly 2y ago

Trump the person or Trump the family or even Trump the idea.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

jfengel 2y ago

We are already long past the point of no return. He is the manifestation of a popular will. Even if he vanished tomorrow, those voters will remain. They will not be daunted by an electoral setback. They control the Supreme Court, and will for decades. They control a majority of state legislatures -- which control how voting and districting work. We've been past the point of no return since 2016. If you still had hope then, it should have died the same day Ruth Bader Ginsburg did. At this point it's all just telling ourselves fairy stories. It gets monotonically worse from here, and there is no longer anything we can do about it.

mptest 2y ago
[flagged]
- stephen_g 2y ago
  It's an issue we're seeing all around the West - previously centre-left parties unfortunately were cowed into supporting 'soft-neoliberalism' over the last 30-40 years, and now that's shown to not improve the living standards of the many (but works amazingly for the wealthy), voters are looking for anything that looks different than the status-quo. Unfortunately that plus a bit of culture war drives them into the populist right. Obviously that's a worse choice (at best it's just corrupt crony-capitalism under a veneer of caring about the little guy, at worst outright fascism) but we all have to admit that parties like the Democrats (and Labor in the UK and Australia, etc.) haven't had policy platforms to make changes that really and substantially help the struggling working-class for decades. It's hard for us to see, because most people commenting on hacker news are in the professional class and the status-quo works quite well for us.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > that plus a bit of culture war drives them into the populist right And the establishment refusing to run new candidates. If there is a single person to blame for Trump 2.0, it’s Biden.
    - CapricornNoble 2y ago
      How the Democrats went from having an excited and involved Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard in 2016, to pushing to re-elect a cognitively-impaired 80 year old in 2024 would make for an interesting expose, that's for sure.
  - ipsento606 2y ago
    > now that's shown to not improve the living standards of the many Inflation-adjusted median real income is up 20% since 1990 in the US. Unemployment is lower. Life expectancy is higher. Air pollution is lower. Crime is lower. Gay marriage is now legal. The living standards of the many in the US have demonstrably improved dramatically over the last 30-40 years. Housing affordability is worse, but that is largely due to local rather than national politics, and the policies that have lead to unaffordable housing are largely non-partisan (in that homeowners across the political spectrum are for restrictive zoning and against development). It's true that many people feel that living standards have not improved. I don't have an answer for that beyond speculation.

solomonb 2y ago

He can't run again.

zamalek 2y ago
You say that now. Every system designed to protect the constitution has been captured by him. America has 4 years to set things right, it had better make it count.
- shadowgovt 2y ago
  Supreme Court Judges have careers that outlive Presidents. I think people consistently misinterpret the overturning of Roe (a calculated, focused effort that took decades and overturned specific judicial precedent that basically had created a right-to-privacy from whole cloth) with "Trump has SCOTUS in his pocket." He doesn't. The GOP got the two things they wanted from tilting the SCOTUS in their direction; there's no reason to believe this SCOTUS is about to start looking at the bare-face text of the Twenty Second Amendment and decide there aren't any words there. The incentives just aren't there. Especially because it's pretty obvious that if they do ignore that text, it becomes pitchfork time and their necks are no less vulnerable than the President's. (ETA: And that's ignoring that individual states are not obligated to put him on the ballot if he's inelligible to run for a third term, and by-and-large, Americans do not vote for names not on the ballot because they don't know their own civil rights).
  - fundad 2y ago
    This is assuming one needs to campaign in an election in order to continue their command of the executive branch and the military. I'm pretty sure the president's claim that he can serve a 3rd term means he'll serve for however long he determines, as an official act. Any court that dares issue an order to the contrary will have as little power to enforce their order as they are demonstrating now.
    - shadowgovt 2y ago
      He could certainly kick off a Constitutional crisis by just ignoring the law, on that we agree. But that's always a risk. He could make a kill list of Congress members to assassinate starting alphabetically and it would be the same category of problem.

mullingitover 2y ago

Don't know why you're getting downvoted, he is openly stating he plans to try to violate the 22nd amendment of the Constitution[1]. If you think that can't happen, think about this: the Constitution already prohibited him from running as an insurrectionist. Multiple states found that he committed insurrection and the US Supreme Court forced him on their ballots anyway. The reason: they assert that the amendment isn't self-enforcing, and congress must proactively write a law in order to create enforcement measures for the 14th amendment's prohibition on insurrectionists. They didn't, so he was allowed to run and take office. That same logical jiu-jitsu the GOP used to successfully violate the 14th amendment could just as easily be used on the 22nd. [1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-third-term-president-constitutional-1.7497480?cmp=rss https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-third-term-president-con...

zamalek 2y ago
Don't discuss comment voting :) [1]. I'm an adult and can handle it, corrective votes will be issued by others if its warranted. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

userbinator 2y ago

He's already 78. Edit: Born June 14, 1946 - you do the math.

seivan 2y ago

[dead]

ojbyrne 2y ago

We’re a long way from that: 1. He’ll have to change some rules to run again. There will be a lot of resistance. 2. Midterm elections (November of 2026) could take away majorities in the house and the senate, and hopefully bring impeachment back into the picture. 3. There are special elections next Tuesday - 2 house seats in Florida and a Supreme Court justice in Wisconsin. It’s encouraging that Republicans are worried about these, the apartheid billionaire is spraying money all over Wisconsin. Yes it’s dark and depressing, but things can be changed long before the next Presidential election.

Ygg2 2y ago

> If Trump wins the next election[..] It happened to Rome In Rome, Cezar didn't become the dictator for life, he got stabbed to death. What happened is that his successor, Octavian, took control of real power while pretending that the republic was fine. In reality Republic died before Cezar, while Octavian played Weekend at Bernie's.