What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[The Minsky Moment]

Otto your point is that democracy survived in 2020 not because Trump didn't try to subvert it but that he tried and failed because others in authority - judges, Mike Pence, and Brad Raffensperger - stood up to the pressure.  But the GOP and Trump has spent the last four years making sure those guardrails won't be there the next time around. Raffensperger has managed to hang on it his job, but MAGA election deniers have been elected to key positions in states across the country and GOP state legislatures have removed non-partisan election supervisors in other states. As for the courts, Judge Cannon has just submitted her job application for the next Supreme Court seat to open in a Trump administration, and if elected Trump will flood the federal courts with more Cannons as nominations open. Given four years of executive power, with the backing of a Supreme Court promoting the most extreme interpretation of unitary Presidential power and absolute immunity from prosecution over the most egregious constitutional violations, Trump will be perfectly positioned to run roughshod over whatever institutional restraints are still left. To state the belief that institutions will hold up against that pressure is naive.  And you are not naive.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

The reality is Trump is not a meaningful threat to democracy. He will be a bad President, as he was last time. It says a lot about the Democratic party that between two bad parties, many of us only have the option of voting Republican this year because of the unacceptable things the Democrats have adopted.

I know I'm not going to change your mind, but...

How is he not a meaningful threat to democracy?  He tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and continues to this day to say that he was chated of his win.  He encouraged his VP to not certify the election results, which had no basis in law or constitution (something both Mike Pence, and former VP Dan Quayle, agreed the VP had no ability to do so).

He's going to be more than a bad President.  Like hey, I've lived for 9 years under Justin Trudeau - I know a bad leader when I see one.  But there's every reason to think Trump is going to withdraw from NATO once becoming President.  Just think of the catastrophic results of him doing so.  And that's before you get into the weeds of the crazy Project 2025 shit.

So look - I consider myself a hard right-winger.  I obviously don't have a vote in the US (proud Canadian!).  But you definitely have the option of voting Democratic, which "merely" results in a bad President, as opposed to all the crazy shit a Trump 2.0 would bring.

Trump winning is likely then end of the West as a meaningfull powerblock in the world. And that's 'end of the USSR' level shit (with the caveat that the west losing all cohesion is actually shitty, whereas the end of the USSR was net positive)

[Admiral Yi]

What Joan said.

[The Minsky Moment]

As for the election, Trump's favorable numbers have been rock steady at 40-42 percent for the last two years, and his unfavorables in the mid-50s.  That is baked in; it's not changing. Getting grazed in the ear by separated-at-birth-twin of Kyle Rittenhouse isn't going to move that, it will just make his cult worshippers more frenzied.

The counter is that Biden's numbers are worse. But it wasn't that long ago that the numbers were better.  Not good mind you, but better, and a bit better than Trump.  With four months to go there is still a lot that can happen that can move the election.

The other consideration is that not all unfavorables are the same. People view Trump as unfavorable because they think he is a sociopathic liar with contempt for American values and its constitution. Some people have similar hard views about Biden but some portion of his unfavorables are just people who think he's a useless old fart.  The latter view is less than desirable for a Presidential campaign, but it's not necessarily a bar to winning votes.

I.e. there is a significant percentage of voters that view BOTH unfavorably.  And in that circumstance the strength of the unfavorable view matters.  Biden can still win even if his unfavorables are slightly higher as long as enough voters view Trump even more unfavorably.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Otto your point is that democracy survived in 2020 not because Trump didn't try to subvert it but that he tried and failed because others in authority - judges, Mike Pence, and Brad Raffensperger - stood up to the pressure.  But the GOP and Trump has spent the last four years making sure those guardrails won't be there the next time around. Raffensperger has managed to hang on it his job, but MAGA election deniers have been elected to key positions in states across the country and GOP state legislatures have removed non-partisan election supervisors in other states. As for the courts, Judge Cannon has just submitted her job application for the next Supreme Court seat to open in a Trump administration, and if elected Trump will flood the federal courts with more Cannons as nominations open. Given four years of executive power, with the backing of a Supreme Court promoting the most extreme interpretation of unitary Presidential power and absolute immunity from prosecution over the most egregious constitutional violations, Trump will be perfectly positioned to run roughshod over whatever institutional restraints are still left. To state the belief that institutions will hold up against that pressure is naive.  And you are not naive.

No--my point is most of what Trump did was not subverting democracy. It was working within the legal and constitutional framework of democracy. Candidates challenging counts in court is part of our system and always has been.

The other stuff Trump tried to do that was outside the bounds didn't fail because of the forbearance of good people, but because they weren't really viable paths of reversing the election to begin with.

[Admiral Yi]

You left out the fake Arizona electors.

I see a completely viable path: Senate votes not to certify the election results.

[The Minsky Moment]

No--my point is most of what Trump did was not subverting democracy. It was working within the legal and constitutional framework of democracy. Candidates challenging counts in court is part of our system and always has been.

The call to Raffensperger is not part of our system, it is straight up solicitation of election tampering.

The direction to Pence was not some creative lawyering based on ambiguity in the ECA. No reading of the ECA supports that instruction.  We learned during the Jan 6 committee hearings that John Eastman originally acknowledged that Pence had no authority to change the count and his memo acknowledged that the proposed instruction to Pence would violate the ECA.  But the plan was to tie to issue up in the Courts and take advantage of the ensuing chaos. We also know that when Pence objected that he lacked the authority to act in that way, Trump responded that he was "too honest." The instruction was unlawful and Trump knew it.

As for the court challenges, it is unlawful to bring court cases on false grounds and several courts did impose sanctions on that basis. Again, the purpose of the court challenges, with one exception, was not to test out potentially viable legal theories or factual scenarios. It was a fishing expedition trying to find a crooked judge that would side with Trump for partisan reasons. (Fortunately, he did not find one in 2020). His ultimate plan was to get the matter to the Supreme Court in the hope that the judges he appointed to the Court would fix the result for him.  The key point is that while these cases may have followed the forms of legal actions, the purpose and intent was to subvert the election results.

Two additional events are missing. One is Trump's role in the January 6 insurrection, which is pretty glaring and hard to ignore.  The other is the fraudulent elector scheme.  Again, through the Jan 6 commission we have the internal communications where Trump's team acknowledges that it was improper to even gather - much less submit - alternative electoral slates in states after court challenges had been dismissed. Again, the sole motive was not to present legitimate grievances but to subvert the election.

[Caliga]

Trump VP pick announced: Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio.

[DGuller]

What concerns me in the discussion about who the best Democratic candidate may be is that it again seems divorced of any kind of thinking that displays leadership.  It's basically all about who's polling better today. 

What seems to be completely taken out of equation is the effect of inspiration and mobilization that a gifted politician can bring, and which can't be measured in polls because it's not there yet.  I'm all about numbers when they define everything, but being all about numbers when numbers are only part of the story is a disastrous abdication of leadership.

[Admiral Yi]

What concerns me in the discussion about who the best Democratic candidate may be is that it again seems divorced of any kind of thinking that displays leadership.  It's basically all about who's polling better today. 

What seems to be completely taken out of equation is the effect of inspiration and mobilization that a gifted politician can bring, and which can't be measured in polls because it's not there yet.  I'm all about numbers when they define everything, but being all about numbers when numbers are only part of the story is a disastrous abdication of leadership.

Inspiration and mobilization can be displayed in previous jobs, assessed by the voters, and reflected in the polls.

[DGuller]

What concerns me in the discussion about who the best Democratic candidate may be is that it again seems divorced of any kind of thinking that displays leadership.  It's basically all about who's polling better today. 

What seems to be completely taken out of equation is the effect of inspiration and mobilization that a gifted politician can bring, and which can't be measured in polls because it's not there yet.  I'm all about numbers when they define everything, but being all about numbers when numbers are only part of the story is a disastrous abdication of leadership.

Inspiration and mobilization can be displayed in previous jobs, assessed by the voters, and reflected in the polls.

I don't think so, the voters are being asked who they would vote for today, not who they think is the best candidate to nominate.  The future potential inspiration doesn't seem priced in when answering such questions.  The voters haven't yet been affected by the inspiration and energy.

And even if they were asked the second question, they would not be the most informed source, especially when evaluating governors.  Part of leadership is knowing when delegation becomes abdication, and making a call as to who can outperform today's polling numbers in November based on intangibles is inherently one that leadership itself has to make.  Unfortunately the state of leadership in a Democratic party today is about on par with the state of leadership of French military in 1940.

[Sheilbh]

Apart from primaries I'm not sure there's any way to work out if someone can inspire and mobilise. A national election and running for President are very different from literally anything else.

I also think in an election where you'd like to make an argument about truth and being grounded in reality that it's a bit of an issue the Democrats are basically insisting that you should ignore what you can see.

I don't know if Biden's up for it - I do know there's a visible decline since 2020. But all of this "he's very energetic and on top of the detail in private", "he's doing the most demanding job in the world that would flaw a man 50 years younger) etc - it's all a bit late Soviet. Also not sure it's a great look that (as with Trump) leaders from the ROTW basically have to back that line up.

[Barrister]

What concerns me in the discussion about who the best Democratic candidate may be is that it again seems divorced of any kind of thinking that displays leadership.  It's basically all about who's polling better today. 

What seems to be completely taken out of equation is the effect of inspiration and mobilization that a gifted politician can bring, and which can't be measured in polls because it's not there yet.  I'm all about numbers when they define everything, but being all about numbers when numbers are only part of the story is a disastrous abdication of leadership.

Well because if you're asking today - i.e. July 15, 2024 - there's both a very limited amount of time and a very limited number of candidates.

It's one thing to be asking who a democratic candidate should be in mid-2007, when Obama was a rising start but far from the obvious nominee.

Today, less then 4 months from the election, the choices are basically Biden or Harris.  You can give me your arguments about how Gavin Newsome, Gretchen Whitmer or Pete Butigieg's would be better candidates (and they probably would be) - but Biden is the elected nominee.  The only way the nominee changes is if he steps down, and the only obvious candidate if he steps down is his VP.

So yeah - if Biden is polling better than Harris he should stay.  If Harris is polling better than Biden he should go.

Public polling is inconclusive - but presumably the campaign itself has better polling available to it.

[DGuller]

I don't think that the choice is between Biden and Harris?  I think Democrats should do whatever Republicans would've done if the dude with the rifle aimed a little to the right.

[Barrister]

The reality is Trump is not a meaningful threat to democracy. He will be a bad President, as he was last time. It says a lot about the Democratic party that between two bad parties, many of us only have the option of voting Republican this year because of the unacceptable things the Democrats have adopted.

I know I'm not going to change your mind, but...

How is he not a meaningful threat to democracy?  He tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and continues to this day to say that he was chated of his win.  He encouraged his VP to not certify the election results, which had no basis in law or constitution (something both Mike Pence, and former VP Dan Quayle, agreed the VP had no ability to do so).

He's going to be more than a bad President.  Like hey, I've lived for 9 years under Justin Trudeau - I know a bad leader when I see one.  But there's every reason to think Trump is going to withdraw from NATO once becoming President.  Just think of the catastrophic results of him doing so.  And that's before you get into the weeds of the crazy Project 2025 shit.

So look - I consider myself a hard right-winger.  I obviously don't have a vote in the US (proud Canadian!).  But you definitely have the option of voting Democratic, which "merely" results in a bad President, as opposed to all the crazy shit a Trump 2.0 would bring.

Here's more of the reality:

1. Court challenges to the 2020 election - These aren't undemocratic. They are "sore loserism", but challenging electoral counts in court is not new, did not start with Trump, and none of the courts (even ones with Trump appointed judges) did anything egregious. They looked at his bad arguments, throw his cases out, and moved on.

2. Pressuring Pence not to certify. Unhelpfully, the Electoral Count Act has a lot of vagueness in it, if you view Pence's certification as a "purely ministerial" duty, he really has no option. But it isn't 100% unambiguous that is the case. So Trump arguing his interpretation and pressuring his VP to do it, IMO, still isn't outside the bounds of democracy. It is "playing dirty" but it is playing dirty inside the parameters of the rules, which themselves are not black and white on this matter. Most analysis I have seen have suggested that due to the ministerial nature of Pence's certification, had Pence gone along with it, Trump still would not have won, either the Senate could have procedurally bypassed Pence, or there would have been a Supreme Court case where most believe it would have found his certification is ministerial and he can't simply choose not to certify.

3. Pressure the Georgia Secretary of State to "find 11,000 votes" and inciting his supporters in DC on 1/6, is definitely anti-Democratic, but both also failed, and neither IMO is a great way to removing democracy. For one, getting a bunch of rioters to attack Congress could not have legally prevented or altered the election. For two, Raffensperger's actions as Georgia SecState are judiciable, if Raffensperger had violated the law to "find" votes, he would have had courts reverse him and been exposed to criminal charges.

OK, so two main points in reply:

1.

I think your reference to "sore loserism" is telling.  Trump lost.  He knew he lost.  Everyone around him knew he lost.  There was no reasonable case to argue otherwise.  Yet he chose to try and fight that loss to the bitter end.  We're not talking about some junkie forcing me to prove he stole the car because that's his constitutional right (despite it being obvious) - this is a man who wants to be "leader of the free world".

2. You avoided the rest of my points.  Put aside the "end of democracy" stuff.  It's clear (from John Bolton, Trump's own former NSA) that Trump intends to withdraw from NATO.  You know the devastating effect that would have on the world.  There's the whole "Project 2025".  Just from a personal perspective - I'm a long time public servant (although again - proud Canadian!).  Contrary to Trump's propaganda as public servants we are well aware we need to carry out the government's wider agenda, and we endeavor to do so. But we also have a certain duty of impartiality as well.  Government can set out priorities and objectives, but can't dictate what we do on individual files.  For them to do so (and worse to fire people based on purely partisan grounds) is just scary.