Question: What happens if Trump doesn't leave?

[Valmy]

So, I guess the question is:

how confident are you in the health of American democratic and constitutional institutions to resist Trump's seemingly anticonstitutional and antidemocratic impulses?

Pretty confident. The system gives the minority lots of tools to fuck up the majority.

[The Brain]

If Trump gets weird we can make him chancellor, then he'll mellow.

[Berkut]

   Before I do, let me ask you smug bastards one thing.  At this time in 2015 how many predicted that Trump would be President-elect?

Clearly, if anyone did not predict Trump would win the election, then we cannot predict that he won't engage in a coup and have the government support him in that coup. Because those two things are equally likely to come about. Indeed, all things that at any point anyone thinks are unlikely, are in fact equally likely.

Lets play a game where we list everything we can no longer claim there isn't a good reason to dismiss since we failed to predict Trump's election!

[The Minsky Moment]

So, I guess the question is:

how confident are you in the health of American democratic and constitutional institutions to resist Trump's seemingly anticonstitutional and antidemocratic impulses?

Medium confidence.  In the short run a determined executive whose people pursue aggressive positions on executive power can do quite a bit of damage before counterveiling forces come into play. 

[Barrister]

So, I guess the question is:

how confident are you in the health of American democratic and constitutional institutions to resist Trump's seemingly anticonstitutional and antidemocratic impulses?

But here's the thing.  Raz's hypothesis is a full on coup d'etat - that Trump just flat-out ignores the election result.  That's quite extreme.

We've seen in countries as varied as Hungary, Turkey, Venzuels and even Russia how authoritarian leaders can come to power, and maintain that power, while nominally playing within the constitution.

[viper37]

This is sort of bothering me.  What if 4 years from now Trump runs again for President and loses then refuses to vacate the office claiming the election is illegitimate and he will not recognize the results?  How do you make him leave?

He would be an enemy of the constitution and dealt with accordingly.

By the Tea Party organizing a parade in his support?

[Berkut]

So, I guess the question is:

how confident are you in the health of American democratic and constitutional institutions to resist Trump's seemingly anticonstitutional and antidemocratic impulses?

But here's the thing.  Raz's hypothesis is a full on coup d'etat - that Trump just flat-out ignores the election result.  That's quite extreme.

We've seen in countries as varied as Hungary, Turkey, Venzuels and even Russia how authoritarian leaders can come to power, and maintain that power, while nominally playing within the constitution.

None of those countries have anything evenc  approaching the democratic institutions in oplace that the US has - you need to find some examples of where this has happened in mature western democracies. And you won't find any, at least not that I can think of, because by definition they don't allow these kinds of things - the institutions are more powerful than the personalities.

What fucking sucks about this kind of idiotic hysteria is that it masks the real threat that people like Trump (and plenty like him in the past) pose to those institutions. Not in some half mad power grab, but in the insidious, continual, and quiet erosion of actual representation of the principles that underly those institutions.

The chicken littles scream and yell about coup de etat, and when it never happens, it makes it that much easier to dismiss the legitimate concerns about the erosion of actual principles. Like the effective non-existence of the 4th Amendment, as one example.

[Oexmelin]

But here's the thing.  Raz's hypothesis is a full on coup d'etat - that Trump just flat-out ignores the election result.  That's quite extreme.

I know, but from the conversation that followed, it seemed clear that Raz's concerns were wider than that specific instance, and that people who were answering him were focusing on the technicality of the succession of power. I figured that exchange had run its course, and wanted to ask the more general question.

[Oexmelin]

What fucking sucks about this kind of idiotic hysteria is that it masks the real threat that people like Trump (and plenty like him in the past) pose to those institutions. Not in some half mad power grab, but in the insidious, continual, and quiet erosion of actual representation of the principles that underly those institutions.

This.

Which is why I have been concerned about ongoing research showing the declining rate of support for democracy in actual western democracies, the rising support for military government (even in the US), etc. (For just an example: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/15/opinion/across-the-globe-a-growing-disillusionment-with-democracy.html)

It's something I have seen first hand in my classroom. When I began to teach, I used to force my students to confront arguments in favor of royal absolutism in the 17th century - and it was obvious they had a hard time understanding how it could ever have been supported as a political system. Now, I find myself having to rethink that assignment, as students are increasingly at ease with justifying an absolutist political system, even agreeing, at an unreflexive, gut level, with many assumptions where once that gut feeling was resolutely one of abhorrence.

Even in fiction, I never understood why the whole "murder of the President" thing was such a big deal in TV series. I am even concerned that this, in mass media, has eroded the sense of what democracy is - that is, the American system of government has been equated with its president's physical survival, and thus, anything else below that is unimportant. Were I a patriotic American screenwriter, I would take pride in writing a piece of fiction in which the president is indeed assassinated, and then another guy steps in and takes his or her place, and the system continues. You know, like happened in real life.

[Barrister]

None of those countries have anything evenc  approaching the democratic institutions in oplace that the US has - you need to find some examples of where this has happened in mature western democracies. And you won't find any, at least not that I can think of, because by definition they don't allow these kinds of things - the institutions are more powerful than the personalities.

What fucking sucks about this kind of idiotic hysteria is that it masks the real threat that people like Trump (and plenty like him in the past) pose to those institutions. Not in some half mad power grab, but in the insidious, continual, and quiet erosion of actual representation of the principles that underly those institutions.

The chicken littles scream and yell about coup de etat, and when it never happens, it makes it that much easier to dismiss the legitimate concerns about the erosion of actual principles. Like the effective non-existence of the 4th Amendment, as one example.

None of those nations had the democratic history or traditions that the US has, but in terms of the political institutions - they did.  They all (well not quite for Russia) thoroughly democratic constitutions and electoral systems in place.

A slide to illiberalism and authoritarianism would be harder to do in the US, but it's not impossible to imagine.

[Berkut]

What fucking sucks about this kind of idiotic hysteria is that it masks the real threat that people like Trump (and plenty like him in the past) pose to those institutions. Not in some half mad power grab, but in the insidious, continual, and quiet erosion of actual representation of the principles that underly those institutions.

This.


Which is why I have been concerned about ongoing research showing the declining rate of support for democracy in actual western democracies, the rising support for military government (even in the US), etc. (For just an example: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/15/opinion/across-the-globe-a-growing-disillusionment-with-democracy.html)


It's something I have seen first hand in my classroom. When I began to teach, I used to force my students to confront arguments in favor of royal absolutism in the 17th century - and it was obvious they had a hard time understanding how it could ever have been supported as a political system. Now, I find myself having to rethink that assignment, as students are increasingly at ease with justifying an absolutist political system, even agreeing, at an unreflexive, gut level, with many assumptions where once that gut feeling was resolutely one of abhorrence.


Even in fiction, I never understood why the whole "murder of the President" thing was such a big deal in TV series. I am even concerned that this, in mass media, has eroded the sense of what democracy is - that is, the American system of government has been equated with its president's physical survival, and thus, anything else below that is unimportant. Were I a patriotic American screenwriter, I would take pride in writing a piece of fiction in which the president is indeed assassinated, and then another guy steps in and takes his or her place, and the system continues. You know, like happened in real life.

Indeed. The difference between the US, Canada, the UK, France, etc., etc. etc. and places like Turkey, Russia, Venezuela, etc., etc., etc. is that the institutions are in fact larger than the personalities, and larger than any possible personality, at least in theory.

But when the principles that undermine those institutions erode away, and always, of course, for the best possible reasons (we need to be able to search that phone, or stop that potential terrorist, or make sure everyone gets "equal" results), then in fact we create the facade of the institutions, and the faith that people have in them becomes just as thin as the reality. Then when the next demagogue shows up, their personality is larger than the insitutions, and we have a Putin running things.

Now, using Putin as the example, I don't think there was ever much faith in the Russian democratic institutions to begin with, or even much practical law behind them for that matter.

I think Trump being elected is a sign of the erosion of our faith in democracy, but he was elected in a completely normal manner, in a completely normal election. It didn't take any kind of special changes to the system, he was just elected using the exact same system in place that has elected all the other Presidents. His election is a perversion of the rationality of the electorate, not a perversion of the process.

There is no real worry for me that he won't leave under the exact same process. But I am worried that he will continue to erode civil liberties that have been eroding a long time. When people who presumably want to stop that erosion cannot or will not (Obama), then I am very concerned that someone who could not even comprehend this very post is calling the shots, someone who has displayed not even a disregard for constitutional principles, but complete obliviousness to their existence.

[Berkut]

None of those countries have anything evenc  approaching the democratic institutions in oplace that the US has - you need to find some examples of where this has happened in mature western democracies. And you won't find any, at least not that I can think of, because by definition they don't allow these kinds of things - the institutions are more powerful than the personalities.

What fucking sucks about this kind of idiotic hysteria is that it masks the real threat that people like Trump (and plenty like him in the past) pose to those institutions. Not in some half mad power grab, but in the insidious, continual, and quiet erosion of actual representation of the principles that underly those institutions.

The chicken littles scream and yell about coup de etat, and when it never happens, it makes it that much easier to dismiss the legitimate concerns about the erosion of actual principles. Like the effective non-existence of the 4th Amendment, as one example.

None of those nations had the democratic history or traditions that the US has, but in terms of the political institutions - they did.  They all (well not quite for Russia) thoroughly democratic constitutions and electoral systems in place.

A slide to illiberalism and authoritarianism would be harder to do in the US, but it's not impossible to imagine.

The systems in place don't mean anything though if they are not backed up by faith in those systems by the people and administers of the system.

It's like noting that India has lots of traffic laws just like the US, so we should expect similar rates of accidents. Well, no - if the people simply do not follow the laws, then the fact that the laws exist don't mean much. The existence of the institutions is a necessary, but far from sufficient condition.

[The Minsky Moment]

In the aftermath of WW2, Americans learned 2 lessons.  First, that easy toleration of "trains run on time"-style authoritarianism was dangerous.  Second, that in an international system with a dominant power, it is in the self-interest of the dominant power to spend resources to bolster weaker powers, whether directly (like the Marshall Plan) or indirectly (through security guarantees, tolerance of undervalued D-Mark, etc).  We didn't always keep the the first lesson (thanks Jeanne Kikpatrick and Dulles Bros) although ultimately Reagan made that fully bipartisan; the second element stayed intact and bipartisan through the Cold War and well beyond.

We are now in our third generation since the war and the lessons are being forgotten.  One of the most incredible things for me personally about the last election cycle was Trump's adoption of the "America First" name, a late 30s era organization tainted by pro-German leanings and outright infiltration by Nazi agents.  When Pat Buchanan used the name in connection with his 2000 Presidential run, running on a platform eerily similar to Trump's, he was widely derided, and got less than 1% of the vote.  Times are different now.

As for America's international role, Trump's break is a watershed.  For the first time, America has a Commander in Chief that views the nation's alliance system in purely transactional terms.  It's possible the Artful Dealer will extract some marginal economic concessions from the likes of Japan or South Korea.  But at what cost? There's historical precedent here - there are various reasons why the Athenians lost the Peloponnesian war so catastrophically but one contributor was the transactional nature of their empire.  Athens had fine rhetoric about fellowship between democracies and their protective embrace, but in reality they ran their alliance system in a Trumpian, imperial fashion, using their dominant position to extract large contributions and bully their "allies" politically.  It worked for a time; Athens was able to fund lavish building programs while challenging the Spartans for hegemony, but it all ended in tears.  The "allies" came to see little benefit in the Athenian system, and Athens increasingly bore the heavy and increasing burden of the war on its own. 

Anyway, WW2 is quickly retreating into history non-memory, hanging on on a pastiche half-life of Hollywoodization and video game tropes.  The blood sacrifice gave us 70 years of wisdom.  But no more.

[Razgovory]

   Before I do, let me ask you smug bastards one thing.  At this time in 2015 how many predicted that Trump would be President-elect?

Clearly, if anyone did not predict Trump would win the election, then we cannot predict that he won't engage in a coup and have the government support him in that coup. Because those two things are equally likely to come about. Indeed, all things that at any point anyone thinks are unlikely, are in fact equally likely.

Lets play a game where we list everything we can no longer claim there isn't a good reason to dismiss since we failed to predict Trump's election!

You know, this week I was seriously considering trying to mend the differences between us, and bury the hatchet.  Forget the fact you told bald face lies about me, and yet you continue to deliberately misrepresent my positions.  My point was not that since you were incapable of predicting Trump would win, you can't make any predictions about politics in the future.  My point was that since the conventional wisdom failed to predict Trump falling back on the conventional wisdom to predict his future behavior or the behavior of the of the electorate may not be helpful.  But you had to go on and rant and rave and go on about some email group from 20 years ago.  Please, stay out of my threads.  If I want you to post I'll write "gee, wouldn't it be nice to have the cunt-judge's opinion on this?"

As for the rest, this country is not without electoral problems the most glaring in 1860, but there are several others during Reconstruction.  So the idea that people would violently refuse election results is not completely foreign to the US.  Nor is there a lack of precedent where one branch of government is hindered or even ignored by another.  I don't know if there really is a body of law that sets out strict requirements for an outgoing president or what happens if the President simply ignores it.  My impression is that the founding fathers expected Republican virtue to maintain the system, something we've used for over two centuries. I am not confident civic virtue is enough to stop an authoritarian reality-show star and 60 million people he has managed to convince that they've been robbed of an election.

[Berkut]

Thanks for your advice, but I think I will continue to post in whatever threads I like. Even yours, when the mood suits me, and I won't worry about whether or not you consent to be mocked.

Funny that 100% of the responses to you in this have been 100% consistent, but it is only mine you get all uber enraged over. You are still pissed off about being labeled a liar, aren't you?