What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Tonitrus]

And probably having to face a reality where one would need to use a lot of methods that Trump himself introduced.  That is, lots of firings of his cronies/sycophants and executive orders (though probably with less pageantry).

Not to mention probably some ugly confrontations with the USSC. 

And some angry voters with guns. 30% or whatever the poll suggested who said that Trump was free from corruption?

That has always been a mostly fantastical concern.

[HisMajestyBOB]

I listened to an interesting pod on geopolitics, a local Swedish one. They more or less argued that the US pivot east, heralded by Obama in 2008, is on-going. It's a natural result of the US hegemony being under threat from China.

As part of that it's not in the US interest that Russia is defeated in Ukraine. Russia is a counter-weight to China, and whilst them winning is not necessarily beneficial, them losing hard is very bad for the US. This is the Obama-Trump-Biden-Trump stance on the war and has been consequent regardless of presidency.

Further the argument was that the internationalist policies (free trade, NATO and so on) of the US since the war (WWII that is) has always been a "the state" going against the inclination of both congress and people. The US population is naturally isolationist and the current trend is just that side of the argument gaining influence.

So, Trump is not the cause of the current US move towards isolationism, he's just the half-wit that happens to sit in the Presidents chair during a time when the process is accelerating. But that process would have happened regardless, we saw it under Obama and Biden also.

All of this is to say that if our politicians would have taken their heads out of their asses in 2008 and back then pivoted to increased European autonomy, like Obama said, we would have been far better positioned right now to handle the current mess. What happens now is the result of systematic natural processes that were able to be seen back in the 90's.

I think history will prove the American pivot here wrong. China, for all it's faults, is largely willing to play within the rules-based order, while Russia is not. China does not appear to have the soft power /propaganda abilities or leverage over billionaires needed to undermine and destroy our democracy.

[The Brain]

I mean, even if Trump and his cronies get voted out in 2028 and actually leave the government ... how do you address the damage they did to the ability of the government handling its responsibilities and restore faith with partners abroad and the voting population?

One or two generations of decent behavior will probably convince other countries that the US can be trusted.

[Threviel]

I listened to an interesting pod on geopolitics, a local Swedish one. They more or less argued that the US pivot east, heralded by Obama in 2008, is on-going. It's a natural result of the US hegemony being under threat from China.

As part of that it's not in the US interest that Russia is defeated in Ukraine. Russia is a counter-weight to China, and whilst them winning is not necessarily beneficial, them losing hard is very bad for the US. This is the Obama-Trump-Biden-Trump stance on the war and has been consequent regardless of presidency.

Further the argument was that the internationalist policies (free trade, NATO and so on) of the US since the war (WWII that is) has always been a "the state" going against the inclination of both congress and people. The US population is naturally isolationist and the current trend is just that side of the argument gaining influence.

So, Trump is not the cause of the current US move towards isolationism, he's just the half-wit that happens to sit in the Presidents chair during a time when the process is accelerating. But that process would have happened regardless, we saw it under Obama and Biden also.

All of this is to say that if our politicians would have taken their heads out of their asses in 2008 and back then pivoted to increased European autonomy, like Obama said, we would have been far better positioned right now to handle the current mess. What happens now is the result of systematic natural processes that were able to be seen back in the 90's.

I think history will prove the American pivot here wrong. China, for all it's faults, is largely willing to play within the rules-based order, while Russia is not. China does not appear to have the soft power /propaganda abilities or leverage over billionaires needed to undermine and destroy our democracy.

China is not playing within rules-based order. They're constantly pushing their boundaries just like Russia and doing what they can get away with. Back in the day we pretended that Russia behaved, but looking at it in the rear-view-mirror they never did. It's the same with China.

Whether the US goes fascist or not is neither here nor there in a geopolitical sense. They have the same limitations either way and the same forces will play out. Sure, there might be minor differences, a war with Iran here or an invasion of Cuba there, but it'll lead to the same general end either way. A conflict with China over the Pacific and a tense, but not necessarily awful, relationship with Europe. In the end European and US goals are more or less the same, to contain China.

[The Brain]

OTOH China hasn't expressed explicit intention to invade the Nato homelands, which makes it stand out from Russia and the US.

[Valmy]

I mean, even if Trump and his cronies get voted out in 2028 and actually leave the government ... how do you address the damage they did to the ability of the government handling its responsibilities and restore faith with partners abroad and the voting population?

One or two generations of decent behavior will probably convince other countries that the US can be trusted.

Won't happen. No matter how decent the next few Presidents might be the knuckle dragging barbarians who comprise about 40% of the country will put another jackass in power eventually.

[The Brain]

I mean, even if Trump and his cronies get voted out in 2028 and actually leave the government ... how do you address the damage they did to the ability of the government handling its responsibilities and restore faith with partners abroad and the voting population?

One or two generations of decent behavior will probably convince other countries that the US can be trusted.

Won't happen. No matter how decent the next few Presidents might be the knuckle dragging barbarians who comprise about 40% of the country will put another jackass in power eventually.

Mos Def.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I mean, even if Trump and his cronies get voted out in 2028 and actually leave the government ... how do you address the damage they did to the ability of the government handling its responsibilities and restore faith with partners abroad and the voting population?

One or two generations of decent behavior will probably convince other countries that the US can be trusted.

Won't happen. No matter how decent the next few Presidents might be the knuckle dragging barbarians who comprise about 40% of the country will put another jackass in power eventually.

That can, technically, happen everywhere. After all, France might put Mélenchon in the driver's seat too

[viper37]

I mean, even if Trump and his cronies get voted out in 2028 and actually leave the government ... how do you address the damage they did to the ability of the government handling its responsibilities and restore faith with partners abroad and the voting population?

One or two generations of decent behavior will probably convince other countries that the US can be trusted.

Won't happen. No matter how decent the next few Presidents might be the knuckle dragging barbarians who comprise about 40% of the country will put another jackass in power eventually.

I'm looking at Quebec & Canada here.  

Since the beginning, what I've heard is that once the dust settles, most corporations would be willing to resume trade with the US.

Poilièvre went on a US tour.  He did some pushback on Trump's 51st state idea, but essentially, the message was the we need closer ties with the US.

He has fallen in the polls, but I think it still represent the mood of a certain segment of the population and a large part of the corporate world.

Many of our businesses are American-owned/affiliated.  Many Canadian businesses operates in the US, it's much, much easier there than in Europe.  Even if some States have different regulations, it's not that bad generally to do commerce, most rules are dictated by the Federal authority.  In Europe, you don't just deal with the EU rules, you have to deal with each country you want to export to.  It's impractical and costly for a smb.

If CUSMA/NAFTA gets renewed, a lot of our businesses will want to resume commerce over there.

US has asked for major concessions and I believe some businessmen are more than willing to sacrifice others for their own gain (not surprising).

[Crazy_Ivan80]

In Europe, you don't just deal with the EU rules, you have to deal with each country you want to export to.  It's impractical and costly for a smb.

Yep, it's because the internal market isn't finished. The EU is basically stuck with massive internal tariffs that no one wants to get rid of due to protectionist reasons. Which I understand, but surely there must be a way to streamline much of it without throwing out the baby with the bathwater

[Zoupa]

I mean, even if Trump and his cronies get voted out in 2028 and actually leave the government ... how do you address the damage they did to the ability of the government handling its responsibilities and restore faith with partners abroad and the voting population?

One or two generations of decent behavior will probably convince other countries that the US can be trusted.

Won't happen. No matter how decent the next few Presidents might be the knuckle dragging barbarians who comprise about 40% of the country will put another jackass in power eventually.

That can, technically, happen everywhere. After all, France might put Mélenchon in the driver's seat too

You'll be happy to know he's polling around 20% against Bardella at 80% in a hypothetical 2nd round.

[Zoupa]

I listened to an interesting pod on geopolitics, a local Swedish one. They more or less argued that the US pivot east, heralded by Obama in 2008, is on-going. It's a natural result of the US hegemony being under threat from China.

As part of that it's not in the US interest that Russia is defeated in Ukraine. Russia is a counter-weight to China, and whilst them winning is not necessarily beneficial, them losing hard is very bad for the US. This is the Obama-Trump-Biden-Trump stance on the war and has been consequent regardless of presidency.

Further the argument was that the internationalist policies (free trade, NATO and so on) of the US since the war (WWII that is) has always been a "the state" going against the inclination of both congress and people. The US population is naturally isolationist and the current trend is just that side of the argument gaining influence.

So, Trump is not the cause of the current US move towards isolationism, he's just the half-wit that happens to sit in the Presidents chair during a time when the process is accelerating. But that process would have happened regardless, we saw it under Obama and Biden also.

All of this is to say that if our politicians would have taken their heads out of their asses in 2008 and back then pivoted to increased European autonomy, like Obama said, we would have been far better positioned right now to handle the current mess. What happens now is the result of systematic natural processes that were able to be seen back in the 90's.

This is 2015 thinking. There is no rime or reason to the Trump administration's geopolitical decisions. There's no grand design, no 3d chess, no pivot. Xi could release a statement saying how strong Trump looks and all tariffs would be out the window. Bribe him a bit and Taiwan is gone.

[Syt]

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-mail-voting-elections-47cc334b1fb7742244a9c4f176b355cd

Trump signs order directing creation of a national voter list, a move already facing lawsuit threats

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order to create a nationwide list of verified eligible voters and to restrict mail-in voting, a move that swiftly drew legal threats from state Democratic officials ahead of this year's midterm elections.

The order, which voting law experts say violates the Constitution by attempting to seize states' power to run elections, is the latest in a torrent of efforts from Trump to interfere with the way Americans vote based on his false allegations of fraud. The president has repeatedly lied about the outcome of the 2020 presidential campaign and the integrity of state-run elections, asserting again Tuesday that he won "three times" and citing accusations of voter fraud that numerous audits, investigations and courts have debunked.

The order signed Tuesday calls on the Department of Homeland Security, working in conjunction with the Social Security Administration, to make the list of eligible voters in each state. It also seeks to bar the U.S. Postal Service from sending absentee ballots to those not on each state's approved list.

Trump is also calling for ballots to have secure envelopes with unique barcodes for tracking, according to the executive order, which was first reported by the Daily Caller. Federal funding could be withheld from states and localities that don't comply.

"The cheating on mail-in voting is legendary. It's horrible what's going on," Trump said, repeating his false allegations about mail ballots as he signed the order. "I think this will help a lot with elections."

Democratic states quickly threaten lawsuits, non-compliance

Within minutes of Trump signing the order, top elections officials in Oregon and Arizona, two states that rely heavily on mail ballots, pledged to sue, arguing that the president was illegally encroaching on the right of states to run elections.

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said the state's vote-by-mail system was designed by Republicans and is now used by 80% of voters. Arizona doesn't need the federal government to tell it who can vote, and federal data isn't always reliable, he said.

"It is just wrongheaded for a president of the United States to pretend like he can pick his own voters," Fontes told The Associated Press. "That's just not how America works."

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows told the AP that the order was "laughably unconstitutional" and said her state would not comply. More than a quarter of Maine voters cast mail-in ballots in the 2024 election.

Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar said Trump's order would cripple local election officials charged with implementing it and silence voters counting on casting a mail ballot.

"It doesn't benefit anybody in this country except himself," Aguilar said.

Legal experts noted other potential flaws with the order. David Becker, a former Justice Department lawyer who leads the Center for Election Innovation and Research, said the Postal Service is run by a board of governors, and the president has no power to tell it what mail it can and cannot deliver.

A spokesperson for USPS said Tuesday the agency will review the order. Trump has sought to bring the independent agency under more presidential control, proposing to fold it under the Commerce Department — whose secretary, Howard Lutnick, was on hand for Tuesday's signing.

Trump has long tried to interfere with state-run elections

Trump's March 2025 election executive order sought sweeping changes to how elections are run, including adding a documentary proof-of-citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form and requiring mailed ballots to be received at election offices by Election Day. Much of it has been blocked through legal challenges brought by voting rights groups and Democratic state attorneys general who allege it's an unconstitutional power grab that would disenfranchise large groups of voters.

He also told a conservative podcaster in February that he wants to "take over" elections from Democratic-run areas.

U.S. elections are unique because they are not centralized. Rather than being run by the federal government, they're conducted by election officials and volunteers in thousands of jurisdictions across the country, from tiny townships to sprawling urban counties with more voters than some states have people. The Constitution's Elections Clause gives Congress the power to "make or alter" election regulations, at least for federal office, but it doesn't mention presidential authority over election administration.

"This is Donald Trump turning the Department of Homeland Security into the department of controlling the homeland," said Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

The Trump administration has launched a widespread campaign it says is meant to target allegations of voter fraud that for years have been the subject of false claims from Trump and his allies. The Justice Department for months has been demanding detailed voter registration lists from states in what it has described as an effort to ensure the security of elections, and has sued when state officials have refused to hand them over.

The FBI in January seized ballots from the election office of a Georgia county that has been central to right-wing conspiracy theories over Trump's 2020 election loss. And Attorney General Pam Bondi recently named a "special attorney" with the power to investigate and prosecute cases across the country "relating to the integrity of federal elections," according to a copy of the order.

Voting rights groups raise concerns about current verification system

The Department of Homeland Security's SAVE system for verifying citizenship and immigration status has come under scrutiny for producing flawed results from unreliable data sets, as well as over privacy concerns. One example is that states can conduct bulk searches of the system with Social Security numbers, but few states collect full Social Security numbers as part of voter registration, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

The Trump administration undertook an overhaul of the system last year, but it still faces legal challenges alleging that reliance on the system can lead to errors in identifying citizenship status and affect eligible voters.

At least one Republican elections official on Tuesday defended the SAVE system while downplaying the potential of widespread voter fraud.

Robert Sinners, a spokesperson for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, said their recommendations to the Trump administration have strengthened voter verification and stressed that "the small number flagged as potential non-citizens cannot vote by mail or in person until they provide proof of citizenship."

"The executive order will be decided in court, but in Georgia, we already verify citizenship and will continue to do so regardless of the outcome," Sinners added.

The president is a vocal critic of mail-in voting, alleging that the practice is rife with fraud as he pushes lawmakers to pass a far-reaching elections bill that would clamp down on it. A 2025 report by the Brookings Institution found that mail voting fraud occurred in only 0.000043% of total mail ballots cast, or about four cases per 10 million.

Trump himself has also used mail ballots, most recently last week in local Florida elections. The White House has said that Trump is opposed to universal mail-in voting, rather than individual voters who may need the alternative voting method for reasons such as travel or military deployment.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-mail-voting-elections-47cc334b1fb7742244a9c4f176b355cd

Trump signs order directing creation of a national voter list, a move already facing lawsuit threats

"This is Donald Trump turning the Department of Homeland Security into the department of controlling the homeland," said Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

[The Brain]

Voting won't be around long anyway. We may have seen the last major US election.