What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Needs more 'sieg heils'

[Valmy]

Good luck with the midterms etc.

Considering all the effort he and the Supreme Court have done to make the legislature completely irrelevent I am puzzled why he cares how many seats the Republicans have.

[crazy canuck]

Good luck with the midterms etc.

Considering all the effort he and the Supreme Court have done to make the legislature completely irrelevent I am puzzled why he cares how many seats the Republicans have.

The trappings of democracy are still important.  It's the substance of democracy that has become irrelevant in your country.

[grumbler]

Considering all the effort he and the Supreme Court have done to make the legislature completely irrelevent I am puzzled why he cares how many seats the Republicans have.

Because a House Democratic majority could open impeachment proceedings and force testimony under oath. Actual impeachment is impossible, of course (Senate Republicans willing to rule based on the evidence are mighty thin on the ground), but the humiliation would be acute.

[HisMajestyBOB]

Two, maybe four, years of investigations and committee meetings. How will the Republicans ever survive??

[grumbler]

Two, maybe four, years of investigations and committee meetings. How will the Republicans ever survive??

 

[HisMajestyBOB]

It will be great to have the Democrats in the majority just to slow down the GOP from fucking things up. But I'm sceptical that the Democrats will accomplish anything. The Republicans aren't hiding their corruption and are openly contemptuous of the rule of law. Investigations and hearings feel like just theater.

The real test is what the Democrats do if they get a trifecta in 2028, and if they can make real change or if they fritter it away again and lose Congress in 2030.

[Syt]

The real test is what the Democrats do if they get a trifecta in 2028, and if they can make real change or if they fritter it away again and lose Congress in 2030.

They will also need a SCOTUS majority.

[HisMajestyBOB]

The real test is what the Democrats do if they get a trifecta in 2028, and if they can make real change or if they fritter it away again and lose Congress in 2030.

They will also need a SCOTUS majority.

 
Court reform, curbing the influence of billionaires, addressing or overcoming the conservative dominance of the media, political reform to end gerrymandering... We need a new New Deal, and it will have to be done in the face of staunch and potentially violent opposition, and with a much narrower majority than FDR had. Not impossible, but it requires far more intelligence and savvy from our politicians than I think they have.

[crazy canuck]

Ideally, yes. But I think anyone who has an optimistic view of the future of the United States is putting way too much faith in the institutions that underpin liberal democracy recovering quickly.

I think that's magical thinking.  Liberal democracy in the United States has been declining for the last couple of decades.  I think it was about 10 years ago that I started discussing the topic and linking books that I suggested people here, and particularly the Americans here, start reading and take seriously.

I have no doubt that there are some Americans here who have taken the decline of their liberal democratic institution seriously.  But they are definitely in the minority of Americans generally

A couple of elections do not fix that back slide into autocracy.

[Syt]

Democracy, like religion, is nothing without lived practice and adhering to its tenets.

[Valmy]

Fuck I wish I could hibernate and wake up once it is over.

[Tonitrus]

The real test is what the Democrats do if they get a trifecta in 2028, and if they can make real change or if they fritter it away again and lose Congress in 2030.

They will also need a SCOTUS majority.

Considering all the effort he and the Supreme Court have done to make the legislature completely irrelevent I am puzzled why he cares how many seats the Republicans have.

Because a House Democratic majority could open impeachment proceedings and force testimony under oath. Actual impeachment is impossible, of course (Senate Republicans willing to rule based on the evidence are mighty thin on the ground), but the humiliation would be acute.

I would throw in impeachment of all the USSC members that voted for Presidential immunity. Plus an additional one on Clarence Thomas for corruption.

[The Brain]

Would false testimony under oath here be a federal offense?

[DGuller]

Would false testimony under oath here be a federal offense?

I don't recall.