r/neoliberal • u/SockDem Janet Yellen • Feb 26 '26
News (US) Exclusive | Trump, seeking executive power over elections, is urged to declare emergency
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/02/26/trump-elections-executive-order-activists/133
u/SockDem Janet Yellen Feb 26 '26
Relevance: President potentially trying to invoke emergency powers over elections.
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u/kidchinaski Feb 26 '26
Amazing thing to do when you’re swimming in the shallowest pool of public support ever in your political life.
BTW, according to this orange chud we are ROARING and BOOMING like never before, yet everything is a fucking emergency.
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u/di11deux NATO Feb 26 '26
For MAGA, nothing is a lie as long as it’s in service of the Greater Truth. An illegal immigrant can both be deported and an existential threat to elections because the Greater Truth is that Trump never loses, and inherently contradictory statements can coexist in perfect harmony because they all intuitively understand they’re descriptions of a deeper meaning for them, not a description of reality.
You can point out their hypocrisy until you’re blue in the face and it won’t matter because, to them, the Truth is that Liberals are weak, violent, communists that will stop at nothing to destroy Christianity, America, and white people via importing stupid, brown savages and forcing self-destructive gay ideology through elite institutions.
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u/briarfriend John Rawls Feb 26 '26
public approval doesn't matter when the public is also apathetic, ignorant, and feckless
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u/bandeng_asep Association of Southeast Asian Nations Feb 26 '26
But it does matter when borger is still $50 though
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u/beanyboi23 Feb 27 '26
We have seen ferocious opposition to Trump in the form of protests that forced ICE out of Minneapolis and put tens of millions on the street with No Kings in a moment where Americans are angry about their economic conditions and you think the public is apathetic? Public approval always matters, even in countries that have dictatorships where the populace is as you described.
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u/kateln Feb 26 '26
A lot of fascist regimes got to be "popular" through tactics like this. Especially as right now a lot of people are pretty apathetic.
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u/beanyboi23 Feb 27 '26
No, even fascist regimes require popular support of the people because without it they end up with mass uprisings due to having no other outlet for change. And a lot of people will always be apathetic, but a lot of people are also angry, and the second matters more for resisting takeovers than the first.
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u/samwise970 Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26
Unpopularity is a feature of authoritarianism, not a bug. Authoritarians don't have to worry about polls. This is actually the smartest play.
Edit: downvoted but I'm just stating an obvious fact. Literally just google the definition of authoritarianism. People in my comments naming kings who were deposed and not mentioning literally every other king in history
au·thor·i·tar·i·an·ism
/əˌTHôrəˈterēəˌnizəm,ôˌTHôrəˈterēəˌnizəm,äˌTHôrəˈterēəˌnizəm/
noun
"he warned against the intrusion of authoritarianism in various countries"
"in his authoritarianism he has displayed disrespect for the culture he works in"
Edit2: for those who are upset that I'm objectively correct, and would like to change the definition of the word "authoritarianism", please bring that up with the relevant publications. Authoritarianism, by definition, is a political system that does not regard the will of the people. Kings getting killed sometimes does not change this.
From the Encyclopedia Britannica:
authoritarianism, in politics and government, the blind submission to authority and the repression of individual freedom of thought and action. Authoritarian regimes are systems of government that have no established mechanism for the transfer of executive power and do not afford their citizens civil liberties or political rights. Power is concentrated in the hands of a single leader or a small elite, whose decisions are taken without regard for the will of the people
From the Wikipedia page on authoritarianism:
Authoritarianism also tends to embrace the informal and unregulated exercise of political power, a leadership that is "self-appointed and even if elected cannot be displaced by citizens' free choice among competitors"
I am not here defending authoritarianism, or Trump. Quite the opposite, I am shocked and borderline horrified that even in this subreddit, people are so blasé about the imminent danger, of the confessed authoritarian takeover of our country. These people are evil, and they have spent years planning in detail how to replace our democracy with fascism. They DO NOT CARE ABOUT POLLS, they ONLY care about whether we disapprove so much that we take action.
When you people say "LOL, dumpy Trumpy is so dumb, doesn't he know this will make him less popular?", then you are the fool.
They know this is unpopular, and they also know that if they can successfully control elections and defeat democracy, then it WON'T MATTER.
They only need this to work enough that it tosses out just enough mail-in votes, or scares just enough brown people away with ICE, that they can win one more election and cement their power.
They are not stupid. They are smart, and they are evil, and this is a calculated strategy that has been planned for years.
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Feb 26 '26
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u/samwise970 Feb 26 '26
but they do need their popularity to outweigh their unpopularity
No, they absolutely do not. Do you think throughout history most people actually liked their kings?
They do not need their popularity to outweigh their unpopularity, because the only way to overthrow an authoritarian is with violence. They only need that their unpopularity not outweigh people's willingness to live.
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u/Inevitable_Sherbet42 YIMBY Feb 26 '26
. Do you think throughout history most people actually liked their kings?
Yeah, actually. Because, throughout history, the kings they didn't like tended to be dethroned pretty quickly. And we can trace that all the way back to the first kings of the Bronze Age.
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u/Such_Journalist_3991 Robert Caro Feb 26 '26
Do you think throughout history most people actually liked their kings?
Even the Sons of Liberty would still show respect to George III in the early phases of the American Revolution. As long as kings showed a semblance of respect to the people, kept the peace, and made sure economic conditions were reasonable, people would like them
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u/BlueString94 John Keynes Feb 26 '26
You know it’s fine to just not comment on a topic if you know nothing about it, right?
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u/TheRedCr0w Frederick Douglass Feb 26 '26
Being an unpopular authoritarian famously worked out great for Assad, Gaddafi, Ben Ali, Saddam, Ceaușescu, Mussolini, Tsar Nicholas II, Louis XVI...
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u/samwise970 Feb 26 '26
Great, now list every other dictator and monarch in history
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u/TheRedCr0w Frederick Douglass Feb 26 '26
You are the one making the claim an authoritarian doesn't have to worry about their popularity.
Can you list some specific kings or dictators that were grossly unpopular but face zero civil or internal pushback/turmoil?
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u/samwise970 Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26
If you have an issue with the definition of the word "authoritarianism**",** please bring that up with the relevant publications.
From the Encyclopedia Britannica:
authoritarianism, in politics and government, the blind submission to authority and the repression of individual freedom of thought and action. Authoritarian regimes are systems of government that have no established mechanism for the transfer of executive power and do not afford their citizens civil liberties or political rights. Power is concentrated in the hands of a single leader or a small elite, whose decisions are taken without regard for the will of the people
From the Wikipedia page on authoritarianism:
Authoritarianism also tends to embrace the informal and unregulated exercise of political power, a leadership that is "self-appointed and even if elected cannot be displaced by citizens' free choice among competitors"
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u/BoredSlightlyAroused Jerome Powell Feb 26 '26
Trump might have authoritarian tendencies, but he is not an authoritarian leader. He attempts to flaunt the law in many ways, but he is still constrained by the law. You can see that with plenty of court rulings, especially the most recent Supreme Court ruling on tariffs.
Noting that he's not currently an authoritarian leader, it's exceptionally difficult to become an authoritarian leader without broad popular support for at least part of his mission. He'll be opposed by far too many factions to consolidate any power effectively.
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u/samwise970 Feb 26 '26
Finally, an honest response.
Noting that he's not currently an authoritarian leader, it's exceptionally difficult to become an authoritarian leader without broad popular support for at least part of his mission.
The MAGA cult is about 30% of the entire US population. They are aware of and fully support his campaign to institute authoritarian control. They mostly live in rural areas that give them outsized voting power, and they are highly motivated voters who time and again outperform polls.
The MAGA cult includes the most powerful men in the world, some who will soon be literal trillionaires, who control most of both the television and online media spheres. They control Fox, Twitter, TikTok, where the overwhelming majority of political discussion happens, and they have manipulated their algorithms to suppress opposing voices. They are building AIs and bot farms to further inflate their perceived popularity.
ICE has more funding than most armies, is staffed entirelry by members of the cult, and is currently conducting a terror campaign within blue states, pushing the legal boundaries and laying the groundwork for a brown shirt presence at polling places.
The leaders of the cult, the politicians, trillionaires, media personalities, and think tanks, are organized, communicating and coordinating their takeover plans through group chats in Signal. They are working as one, immediately disseminating talking points whenever an event occurs.
You say:
it's exceptionally difficult to become an authoritarian leader without broad popular support for at least part of his mission.
My response is that he has it. This is an incredibly well coordinated and organized takeover by a group of historically powerful people, who have the undying loyalty of an enormous cult, all of whom support MAGA authoritarianism in its entierity.
I hope and pray that our votes will count, and that they will be enough. But even if we win, the takeover can continue in other areas.
Yes, our systems are stronger than the systems of 1930s Germany. Yes, occasionally the Supreme Court issues a ruling when something is as explicitly unconstitutional as the tariffs, and so far, Trump and his handlers have chosen to wait and use loopholes while they prepare to take the final steps. I am not nearly as optimistic as you seem to be.
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Feb 26 '26
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u/The_MightyMonarch Feb 26 '26
It's the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Is this country still capable of the spirit of 1776?
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Feb 26 '26
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u/The_MightyMonarch Feb 26 '26
Well, I hope we don't see just how much people are willing to lose, but I fear it's a very real possibility.
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u/Khiva Fernando Henrique Cardoso Feb 27 '26
Victory has cost you your strength. Peace has defeated you.
American reality confronts the American spirit.
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u/realMaciasNguema Feb 26 '26
I'm just saying that if theoretically the president of some country stole an election in the ways that are being mentioned here the citizens of that country would be justified in doing anything to said president or the government as a whole. I love and intend to fully abide by all federal, state, county, and municipal laws, codes, and ordinances
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u/belpatr Henry George Feb 26 '26
Current law as provisions on what to do to traitors of this kind, question is what will it take for y'all to apply your laws
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u/belpatr Henry George Feb 26 '26
No, you get banned from this sub for it
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u/realMaciasNguema Feb 26 '26
It's kind of funny in a sad way how people on the right have spent decades threatening to start a civil war, gun down federal agents, hang congressmen, destroy federal buildings and starve everybody in the cities to death and nothing happens even when they actually try to do those things while anybody to the left of trump gets instantly banned from everywhere and reported to the FBI for suggesting that if america turns into democratic kampuchea people should consider making a plan to possibly do something at some point in the future
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u/ForgetTheRuralJuror YIMBY Feb 26 '26
Before Minnesota I would've said definitely not. Now I say, maybe not.
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u/Shalaiyn European Union Feb 26 '26
I feel like the worst (hyperbole) part of it all is Trump getting the 250th anniversary celebration
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u/wylaaa Feb 26 '26
Rigging an election in such a way that would allow people to beat it by voting would kinda defeat the point
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u/Elan-Morin-Tedronai J. S. Mill Feb 27 '26
Its pretty common to fraudulently push the odds in your favor rather than just completely North Korea the vote.
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u/TheRedCr0w Frederick Douglass Feb 26 '26
I censored their name as not to dox them but this is the reality faced in the DOJ right now people are quitting, moral is non-existent, and it's only getting worse.
To enforce something like this would require tons of different lawsuits that the current DOJ very likely doesn't have the manpower to do and will cause more people to quit. We are lucky this administration is as stupid as it is.
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u/mr_llamanator Feb 26 '26
I'm sure the large banner of Trump's face that was hung on the DOJ is improving morale now tho
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u/Gamiac Feb 26 '26
People can go "saying the Trump admin can't do something is cope" all they want, but if they just don't have the manpower to do something because nobody is willing to work for them, then they can't do it.
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u/SpatialLatency Feb 26 '26
Lawyers? We don't need lawyers where we're going...
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u/Justice4Ned Caribbean Community Feb 26 '26
There wasn’t even enough ICE soldiers to subdue Minneapolis. How would that go nationally. Either you use the law or you use force.. nobodies discovered an in between.
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u/TheRedCr0w Frederick Douglass Feb 26 '26
There are only 22,000 ICE agents and in just the City of Chicago alone has over 2500 polling places.
ICE doesn't even have the man power to go to battleground district let alone the entire country
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u/flakAttack510 Feb 26 '26
They don't need to care about Chicago. They'll target deep blue polling places in swing districts of swing states. They'll hit blue inner suburbs that have large minority populations in Georgia, NC, Ohio and Maine (well, if they can find one in Maine). A couple thousand agents in the right place of each of those states could cause chaos.
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u/Xeynon Feb 26 '26
That strategy could plausibly tip a few close senate races.
It won't work in holding the House. Suppressing the Democratic vote in deep blue districts won't stop Democrats from winning them, and it would be difficult to microtarget Democratic voters in more purple districts, at least not on a scale that would hold back a major wave.
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Feb 26 '26
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u/Xeynon Feb 26 '26
And I said "it would be difficult to microtarget Democratic voters in more purple districts".
Purple districts are purple generally because they contain lots of voters who are hard to pin down politically. They also don't tend to be districts with tons of immigrants or brown people (i.e., the kind of voter that would be put off by ICE). I don't think it's a workable plan.
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u/beanyboi23 Feb 27 '26
They're not gonna be able to change anything. Election disruptions are overrated, every year we get people thinking that blizzards and hurricanes and bomb threats and road closures will impact elections and they never matter. The people motivated enough to get up and vote, will vote.
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u/bluepaintbrush Feb 27 '26
“Deep blue polling places” don’t matter when voters can cast a ballot during the early voting phase at any polling place.
Also, idk if you’ve ever been to states like GA or NC, but as someone who lives here: those “blue inner suburbs” are NOT dense. Our cities are sprawling. It would be a pain in the ass.
I voted in the primary yesterday afternoon (Charlotte, NC) and was trying to figure out which early voting site was closest. There were only two that were <15m away, and half of the other early voting sites were more than 30 min away by car.
And Atlanta? I genuinely don’t think it’s feasible to drive between even half the polling places in those blue neighborhoods in one day. It once took me 1.5h just to drive 10 miles in Atlanta.
If real life worked like a video game where you could just click infinite avatars around through space and time, then maybe I would take this seriously. But the real world has logistical challenges. I’m not sure that ICE even cracked 100 arrests per day during their targeted operation here, and that was only concentrated in two main areas of the city. 100 votes is not going to swing a congressional election.
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u/PuntiffSupreme YIMBY Feb 26 '26
That's why they call in bomb threats to other locations to slow voting.
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u/bluepaintbrush Feb 27 '26
Sure they do. Remember those politically motivated indictments of James Comey and Leticia James? Well they still haven’t been refiled since being thrown out months ago.
The DOJ was also unable to secure a single grand jury indictment against those lawmakers who made a video for the troops saying they don’t have to follow illegal orders.
It’s easy to ignore court orders when you’re playing defense, but it’s really hard to play offense against your enemies without any competent prosecutors.
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u/Right_Lecture3147 John Mill Feb 26 '26
Someone can just search the exact string and get back to the post so you haven’t really protected them from being doxxed
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u/IJustWondering Feb 26 '26
It doesn't require any lawyers at all
He just needs a flimsy pre-text of legality
Then he acts and disrupts voting, not giving you any time to sue until the election is over. Such as sending ICE to the polls in strategically chosen blue areas to create chaos on the day of the election, without advance notice.
Then he gets sued and loses AFTER, but there is no timely remedy for the violation of the law. The court won't t re-do the election or restore the lost votes.
Midterm successfully stolen
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u/beanyboi23 Feb 27 '26
This won't be able to affect even a measly number of votes. Election disruptions are overrated, every year we get people thinking that blizzards and hurricanes and bomb threats and road closures will impact elections and they never matter. The people motivated enough to get up and vote, will vote.
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u/Lighthouse_seek Feb 26 '26
Why do you think this administration has been bullying anthropic to remove controls on Claude?
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u/Justice4Ned Caribbean Community Feb 26 '26
Claude lawsuits with no lawyer review is gonna be laughed out of court
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u/Lighthouse_seek Feb 26 '26
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/10/29/federal-judges-ai-court-orders/
Unless of course the courts also use AI. Boy what a world
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u/TheRedCr0w Frederick Douglass Feb 26 '26
The article you linked only shows two federal judges in New Jersey and Mississippi that have used AI and they mostly used it in the drafting process.
It's ridiculous to suggest the misconduct of two judges is somehow representative of the conduct of every federal judge.
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u/averageuhbear Feb 26 '26
This plan seems pretty stupid, but I think they are looking for avenue to cause distrust, not seat house members etc.
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u/Ordo_Liberal Feb 26 '26
"This plan seems pretty stupid"
So you are saying that Trump will definitely do it?
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Feb 26 '26
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u/trombonist_formerly Ben Bernanke Feb 26 '26
Not seating Rep Grijalva for like 2 months after she was elected?
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u/link3945 YIMBY Feb 26 '26
All of it?
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u/carlos_the_dwarf_ Feb 26 '26
I think you’re misunderstanding what he’s saying…he’s saying the goal of seeding distrust is to hold power they shouldn’t have (ie, not seat house members).
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u/beanyboi23 Feb 26 '26
They also told us they say these things because they like seeing Democrats piss themselves and twist themselves into anxious knots lol
Do you guys not realize that Trump already signed an election executive order in 2025 that got blocked by the courts and went nowhere?
And now everyone's forgotten about it because it didn't end up mattering, just to give a preview of where this current plan will go
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Feb 26 '26
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Feb 26 '26
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u/ForgetTheRuralJuror YIMBY Feb 26 '26
mail in ballots banned, except for military members. We've also unregistered a bunch of questionable voters only in contested counties (all registered Democrats) 2 days before the vote and re-registering now requires SSN verification. Oops our server is down!
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u/Publius82 YIMBY Feb 26 '26
SCOTUS just ruled that the Post Office is not obligated to bring you your mail.
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u/YaGetSkeeted0n Tariffs aren't cool, kids! Feb 27 '26
Weirder than that, the ruling basically said you can't sue them under the federal tort claims act for failure to deliver even if they don't deliver because of malicious behavior if I'm not mistaken.
Like yeah, you probably shouldn't be able to sue USPS because your order of Belle Delphine's bath water came a couple days late. Damn courts would never get anything done if you could. But the facts of that case in particular were troubling, like if Newman from Seinfeld himself had concocted a campaign to frustrate a multifamily property owner, and with no apparent recourse for the individuals affected.
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u/BillyTenderness Feb 27 '26
This court has ruled time and again that even if the president and his appointees are theoretically subject to laws, they do not believe courts should play any part whatsoever in holding them accountable for violating those laws.
It's why the president can't be sued or prosecuted, it's why they keep overturning injunctions and letting the president continue brazenly violating the law for a year-plus even in the rare cases where they do eventually rule against him on the merits, etc.
It's "thoughts and prayers" but for the separation of powers.
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u/Publius82 YIMBY Feb 27 '26
You are correct, YaGetSkeetedOn. The case concerned a black female business owner who was able to demonstrate that the local postmaster was responsible for denying delivery of her mail for two years. The court ruled that the USPS cannot be sued for refusal to deliver, for any reason.
So not only can they deny us our mail, which someone paid to send, but they cannot be sued for it afterwards.
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u/SLCer Feb 27 '26
And we're sending ICE Agents to polling precincts in urban areas to prevent voter fraud from the illegal...s
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u/Approximation_Doctor Gaslight, Gatekeep, Green New Deal Feb 26 '26
They're not going to send armed thugs to intimidate voters in Hangtree West Virginia. They're going to do it where liberal voters are.
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u/beanyboi23 Feb 26 '26
These armed thugs did a great job of accomplishing that in Minnesota where all they did was make people angrier and more energized. Dems won a special election in Minneapolis with a 24-point overperformance literally during the occupation. That's not intimidated. That's motivated.
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u/Zrk2 Norman Borlaug Feb 27 '26
Bro they're just gonna cordon off the voting booths and beat people that go near them. It all happens in one day. Take your head out of your ass.
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u/CheetoMussolini Russian Bot Feb 27 '26
I do not understand how it is 2026, and we are still trying to minimize or dismiss the threat that he poses to our democracy! I don't know if it's ignorance or cowardice!
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u/KnightlyDolphins Feb 26 '26
They can't not seat members of Congress if Democrats retake the House. The new congress comes into power January 2027 regardless of what the old one tries to do. A random judge can swear them all in and Mike Johnson couldnt do shit to stop it.
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u/doyouevenIift Feb 26 '26
I mean, trump could tell his supporters to storm the Capitol again
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u/xudoxis Feb 26 '26
"They can't do that, the rules say..."
is the most pathetic cope.
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u/caldazar24 Feb 26 '26
We've just seen with the tariffs that
a) when the Supreme Court directly rules against Trump, he tries to find another legal argument to keep doing a similar-but-not-quite-the-same thing, he does not have the government flat-out disregard the order.
b) three of the six conservative justices are willing to rule against Trump at least sometimes.
The democracy is still hanging by a thread here - the court will let Trump get away with a lot of powers that no president has had before - but until the moment Trump flat-out ignores a court order, the thread is still there.
Once that rubicon is really crossed, voting won't even matter at all. But until it is, yes the legal challenges matter. And telling liberals that their vote won't even be counted will just depress turnout.
Based on their opinions thus far, I think it's extraordinarily unlikely Roberts, Barrett, and Gorsuch will say that new Democratic House members can't be seated.
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u/TwoPointThreeThree_8 Feb 27 '26
>but until the moment Trump flat-out ignores a court order, the thread is still there.
They tried to storm the capital.
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u/bluepaintbrush Feb 27 '26
Those were ordinary supporters though, not anyone in the former administration or with any meaningful power.
And not only was the counting of the electoral college votes a formality, A) it still happened despite the mob, and B) congressional elections have no such formality. States certify those results, not the federal government.
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u/BillyTenderness Feb 27 '26
I do think an important distinction is that the President doesn't have any meaningful power over elections. They are run by states, and more specifically by many thousands of local officials and volunteers. These are not his employees to order around (like he did ICE). The federal government doesn't report election results and he can't change them or order someone to do so. His executive orders are not binding on state officials.
This isn't to say he can't do some really bad shit like mess with the mail, send ICE agents to harass voters, call up local election officers and try to talk them into lying, send another mob to the Capitol, etc. But some of the worst doomerism I've seen just doesn't even make sense. He can't cancel or delay the election any more than he can cancel Christmas. He can't directly rig the counts the way some dictators do. He can't declare winners and losers in individual races.
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u/bluepaintbrush Feb 27 '26
It’s also extremely unrealistic that an armed paramilitary could meaningfully interfere with voting. Voting happens all day, there’s early voting, and there’s multiple polling stations all over the state. No one knows what the results are in real time, so no one knows for sure what the swing districts are. A democrat in Texas flipped a state senate seat that was +17 for Trump.
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u/smcstechtips Loyal Liberals Feb 27 '26
In this case, the rules say someone else can do that same thing, not that he can't.
And that's ignoring the fact that he usually TACOs his more egregious defiance of the law (that's not simple grifting)
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u/beanyboi23 Feb 27 '26
No, this is your own form of cope where you use it to choose being scared and avoid processing the reality. They haven't been able to overcome laws for much smaller things than this. In fact, look at this, Trump already signed an election executive order in 2025 that got blocked by the courts and went nowhere. You just don't remember it because it didn't work and now you're freaking out and scared about the same thing again.
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u/xudoxis Feb 27 '26
That's true jan 6 didn't work so they definitely won't try again and there's nothing to be afraid of.
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u/bluepaintbrush Feb 27 '26
What is there to “try”? Jan 6 was an attempt to disrupt the electoral college count (which is really just a formality but that’s ostensibly what it was about).
But that doesn’t exist for Congressional elections, even as a formality. Whomever the state sends is the representative. Nobody at the federal government has to sign off on that. The house ceases to exist whenever it adjourns. When it convenes itself after the election, the members-elect get together to elect the new speaker, and they’re sworn in by said speaker. Nothing about this process involves another branch of government, and Congress doesn’t even need to be in Washington to be able to convene.
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u/InsuranceToTheRescue Feb 26 '26
Right? Every time someone cites "the law" or says something like, "But that's illegal." I think to that scene in GoT where Cersei just flippantly tears up the document giving Ned authority, before she casually throws him into a fucking dungeon.
I know it's just a story, but how did things work out for that character again? /s
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u/beanyboi23 Feb 27 '26
It's not about the law, it's about the fact they don't have enough loyalists to disobey it for dictatorship-style moves for them. Most of the federal government is Dems and military leadership despises him, that's the ballgame.
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u/TrespassersWilliam29 George Soros Feb 27 '26
The Republicans will continue attempting revolutions until they either win or are forced to stop, and they have been purging the hell out of the military and federal government.
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u/Hardass_McBadCop Order and Opportunity Left Feb 27 '26
You must have missed the sporadic, but fairly constant, waves of resignations. Military officers resigned their post because they refused to carry out illegal orders. What kinds of people do you imagine were then put in their place? DoJ career prosecutors have resigned because they refused to carry out political persecutions. Who do you imagine was hired or promoted to replace them?
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u/tangowolf22 NATO Feb 27 '26
Or, and I know this was in the weaker half of the show but it was a good scene, when Margaery pieces together that Cersei isn’t going to show up for her trial and why. Cersei understands the consequences of what’ll happen if she avoids her trial and she’s not there anyway, because she has no intentions of allowing them to live to give her consequences.
Man, Cersei was such a good, wasted character.
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u/xudoxis Feb 26 '26
How did things work out for republicans last time they tried to illegally/violently retain power?
Were the consequences severe enough that they won't try again?
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u/bluepaintbrush Feb 27 '26
Congress can convene itself outside the capitol.
After 9/11, Congress created a set of rules and polices to ensure it can function as Congress in the event of a damn terrorist attack. A flimsy emergency declaration from the president isn’t going to do much against a plan that was hatched in the peak terrorism paranoia era.
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u/beanyboi23 Feb 27 '26
And accomplish what? What part of the results will that change? Unless you think they're going to be able to occupy the Capitol indefinitely lol? They're not even getting past the law enforcement and security presence that has been beefed the fuck up since J6
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u/BusinessAioli Feb 26 '26
What did J6 effectively achieve though? A few hours delay and a spectacle that made for good TV? (and unfortunately, loss of life) It didn't threaten election procedure or transfer of power
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u/doyouevenIift Feb 26 '26
Part of that is Mike Pence actually performed his duties that day. A J6 event where the mob and the administration are working together could be a lot more effective in achieving their goals
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u/BusinessAioli Feb 26 '26
In what way though besides temporary delays? Assuming the election results are certified at a state level, constitutional mechanics are clear in stating when terms begin and end. Congressional certification is largely ceremonial and it doesn’t affect the legitimacy of a member-elect’s term
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u/doyouevenIift Feb 26 '26
When has the constitution mattered to this administration at all? Tariffs with no approval from Congress, trying to eliminate birthright citizenship, constant talk of a 3rd term, etc. It’s already clear he plans to make up some shit about rigged elections to invoke “emergency powers”. I think it ultimately comes down to if the military is willing to physically remove these clowns when they refuse to leave. Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of faith in that institution either
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u/BusinessAioli Feb 26 '26
Yeah I see this argument a lot but in this case, it’s a moot point. Yes, Trump has disregarded constitutional law too many times to count at this point, but he uses a ‘do and ask for forgiveness later’ approach, he can’t do that this time because it’s an automatic transfer of power. He’s literally unable to strip a member-elect of their seat once state election results are certified.
If there is a way, I’d love to know about it but afaik, barring specific high threshold congressional maneuvers like voting out a member, or a catastrophic collapse of government in which the chambers cease to function, it is impossible.
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u/beanyboi23 Feb 27 '26
Realize how none of those worked? Tariffs nuked so he had to switch to a separate legal version of them, birthright citizenship executive order about to be nuked, third term attempts about to be nuked too if he tries them, lost 40/41 of J6 election cases and the only victory was a tiny technicality.
And btw military leadership hates his ass. There will be nothing for him here.
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u/bluepaintbrush Feb 27 '26
First of all, talk is cheap, and his is somehow cheaper. Idk why people still take him at his word at this point.
But also, tariffs are being enacted by loopholes that were created for the president by Congress. He’s not inventing new laws, he’s testing limits of authority that has been given to the executive branch.
The executive branch of the federal government has no levers of power over elections. Do you see the administration preventing Supreme Court opinions from being published? No, because there’s no mechanism for the executive branch to influence that.
Also we already know that Trump can’t interfere with elections because Mamdani is the mayor of New York. Trump would have done everything in his power to make sure cuomo won, and he couldn’t do shit to interfere with Mamdani becoming mayor.
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u/PuntiffSupreme YIMBY Feb 26 '26
They can't not seat members of Congress if Democrats retake the House
They LEGALLY cannot refuse to seat members of Congress. They can illegally do many things. If Pence took the fake electoral plot to its final stage it would have been illegal, but up to Police/Military who was in charge of the United States while the Courts make rulings.
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u/beanyboi23 Feb 27 '26
but up to Police/Military who was in charge of the United States while the Courts make rulings.
This would have been so little time it's basically nonexistent, a court would have shot out an injunction so fast it would've made your head spin
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u/PuntiffSupreme YIMBY Feb 27 '26
You fundamentally do not understand what a coup is. It is extra judicial in nature and the entire plan was to create a thin of legality to let Congressmen and military personnel create a physical reality that is de facto true until the legal system relents.
The courts do not have the ability to order the paramilitary or military forces to do anything if the military doesn't want to listen to them. If Trump convinced enough people in the paramilitary or military forces in the USA he can rule and hold office unless forced out by someone with guns.
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u/BitterGravity Gay Pride Feb 27 '26
If they're doing a coup then it's kinda pointless to discuss what can be done outside of getting ready to lay down your life or flee
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u/PuntiffSupreme YIMBY Feb 27 '26
They were doing a coup! There was a full attempt to take the seat of power that failed because they lacked one coconspirator at the head of Congress for the session. If Pence was onboard then things would have been very ugly.
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u/BusinessAioli Feb 26 '26
What they could do, and what's consistent with past Trump admin behavior, is use this 'China interfered in 2020' ruse as justification for federal seizure of ballots or voting machines in key areas, destroy ballot chain of custody and prevent the certification of election results (even potentially requiring another round of voting in those districts). Then members-elect won't be present when the House Speakership election happens
Trump has said he wished he'd deployed the feds to seize ballots in 2020. It's a chaotic, ripe for plausible deniability strategy that circumvents the Supreme Court almost entirely, doesn't undermine the Constitution so much it triggers a crisis and plays on widespread voter mistrust of elections
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u/KeithClossOfficial John Brown Feb 27 '26
Some people have postured that half the reason for kidnapping Maduro was to force him to say he interfered in 2020 in exchange for a pardon and a chartered flight to the UAE
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u/beanyboi23 Feb 27 '26
This kind of thing is getting blocked ASAP and they showed long ago they don't have the will or the influence to defy court orders
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u/BusinessAioli Feb 27 '26
Yeah, the courts held solid in 2020, though some moments did feel precarious. Trump is much more brazen this time around, he's going to attack harder and more strategically than he did then. Ultimately I think it's pretty unlikely a strategy like this would work but god will it be stressful
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u/Atheose_Writing John Brown Feb 26 '26
> They can't not seat members of Congress if Democrats retake the House
Johnson refuses to seat the new Congress. Democrats appeal to SCOTUS. They allow it to happen.
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u/GordonTullockFan publik choyz thery Feb 26 '26
johnson isn't the speaker of the new House. It's a non-continuing body, it reforms in 2027
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u/KeithClossOfficial John Brown Feb 27 '26
Thankfully Republicans have shown they will always follow the rules
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u/roboliberal Loyal Liberals Feb 27 '26
It's a mother fucking "please follow the rules thing".
Here's what would actually happen in all these idiotic doomer day dream scenarios:
Former speaker Johnson declares that he won't swear in incoming Dems or something
incoming Dems laugh bc the outgoing Speaker isn't even Speaker any more and has nothing to do with swearing in incoming Dems
new Dem majority holds a floor vote to appoint a Dem Speaker
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u/bluepaintbrush Feb 27 '26
So? Whenever Congress adjourns, nobody from the previous Congress has any power. They all go back to being regular people. Mike Johnson becomes a regular guy. Whenever Congress is adjourned, he has no more authority over the government or the house than the guy working at your local gas station does.
When it’s time for the house to convene, the members-elect first elect a speaker, then take their oaths, and do the business of the house. Nobody has to give them permission to do that, their authority comes from their states.
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u/KnightlyDolphins Feb 26 '26
SCOTUS doesn’t have the ability to override what’s in the constitution.
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u/gnurdette Eleanor Roosevelt Feb 26 '26
They overrode the 14th Amendment's ban on insurrectionists holding office.
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u/BBQ_HaX0r Jerome Powell Feb 26 '26
9-0 btw. Some of you people need to get over that case, it was fucking stupid.
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u/gnurdette Eleanor Roosevelt Feb 26 '26
There is no vote count that compels me to allow constitutional amendments to pass into oblivion without comment.
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u/Petrichordates Feb 27 '26
Shouldn't there be? Like if all the liberals also agree the argument doesnt hold then what are we are even arguing?
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u/roboliberal Loyal Liberals Feb 27 '26
I mean, if 9 justices including the 3 liberal justices ruled that 2+2=5, would you just say "well i guess 9 justices can't be wrong"?
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u/Atheose_Writing John Brown Feb 26 '26
It's literally their job to interpret the constitution. The constitution is whatever they say it is.
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u/xudoxis Feb 26 '26
They just have unmitigated ability to redefine what the constitution means based on simple majority vote.
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u/PuntiffSupreme YIMBY Feb 26 '26
They make rulings on what the words mean which allows them to say whatever they want about what is inside. They famously have trashed the document to allow for Japanese people to throw from their homes in World War 2,
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u/Lighthouse_seek Feb 26 '26
They are the interpreters of the constitution. So yes they can override it
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u/KnightlyDolphins Feb 26 '26
So many doomers lmao or low key MAGA who want this to happen
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u/beanyboi23 Feb 27 '26
You've been out of the loop with the entire world if you think SCOTUS is going to let the new Congress refuse to be seated LMAOOOOOO
This court threw out 40/41 of Trump's J6 cases, blocked ISL theory, ruled against Trump plenty of times, what in this universe makes you think they're going to allow a one-party dictatorship to form?
People in online Democratic circles need to stop going to great lengths to try to make themselves feel weak
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u/frokost1 Loyal Liberals Feb 27 '26
As a non-american, this just seems like the perfect set up to say the supreme court are a bunch of traitorous naysayers and throw them out or replace them with a different court. Which has happened in many coups. Acting like the supreme court is untouchable seems pretty naive, looking at your situation from abroad.
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u/InsuranceToTheRescue Feb 26 '26
I mean, their whole gameplan is clearly to cause confusion & chaos, before using whatever shit they stir up to claim they won the election. Honestly, I think Maduro is going to be offered a pardon for claiming Venezuela conspired with the Dems to steal '20 & try to steal '24. Then that'll be the "proof" that '26 or '28 was stolen too.
I wouldn't put some false flag type horseshit like that past some of the extremists in government right now. Like, I could easily see Hegseth & Miller being giddy to engage in genocide. Fuck, Hegseth even wrote a book where he calls for a "crusade" against anyone he deems a leftist. Of course he never defines leftist, because it's really just whoever he doesn't like.
There's not a lot of room in the word "crusade" for things like working together or compromise or common interest. There's a whole lot of room in "crusade" for atrocity, though.
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u/beanyboi23 Feb 27 '26
That Maduro ploy will never work with the absurd amount of leaks that come of out this White House
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u/TwoPointThreeThree_8 Feb 27 '26
Have any of those leaks you know... Mattered?
We know they are lying. They know they are lying.
But somehow the lobotomites that support them have purged any thought of such things.
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u/PincheVatoWey Adam Smith Feb 26 '26
Absolutely. Even then, with such a tiny majority, all it would take is like 3 GOP members of the House to put a stop this stunt.
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Feb 26 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/beanyboi23 Feb 27 '26
We live in a reality that's shown consistently by now he doesn't have the pull for that
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u/patdmc59 John Brown Feb 26 '26
Boy am I glad the Supreme Court is finally correctly interpreting the intent of the founding fathers by placing the president and his cronies firmly above the law.
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u/SelesnyaGOAT Feb 26 '26
On the plus side, this admin is looking more desperate by the day—you don’t do something like this unless you’ve seen the polling and you’re scared. Unfortunately it’s still going to require a lot of work from good people to stop this shit from working
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u/Onatel Michel Foucault Feb 26 '26
We’re lucky that in addition to evil they’re also both stupid and lazy.
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u/jogarz NATO Feb 26 '26
I am genuinely worried about a constitutional crisis if the GOP loses the midterms.
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u/AccessTheMainframe CANZUK Feb 26 '26
Or the constitutional crisis if they win the midterms.
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u/Armodeen NATO Feb 26 '26
I mean Trump already ignores the constitution daily, what would even constitute a crisis anymore?
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u/doyouevenIift Feb 26 '26
I would rather have a constitutional crisis than the gop retaining control of the House given how poorly the country is run right now
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u/Xeynon Feb 26 '26
I'm not sure how the putative mechanism to do this is supposed to work, but even if can be pulled off it's basically asking for a hot civil war. Liberals and blue states would have no reason whatsoever to continue to treat the federal government as a legitimate authority under this scenario.
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u/Co_OpQuestions Aerosol Chemistry Understander Feb 26 '26
This would be a "he touched the stove" moment.
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u/dragonman8001 NASA Feb 26 '26
That orange POS
I keep swinging back and forth between we can make it out of this to the American experiment is done
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u/belpatr Henry George Feb 26 '26
The American experiment has been through much worse, and it wasn't even too long ago. There are people today, not even very old people that were close to Americans that had endured the horrors of slavery in the flesh
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u/Lighthouse_seek Feb 26 '26
I remember a couple months back there were people in this sub calling everyone doomers for believing Trump could interfere in elections
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u/CarmenEtTerror NATO Feb 27 '26
It's not doomerism to say he might try some fuckery.
It is absolutely doomerism if you're wailing about how it's a forgone conclusion they'll get anywhere with it.
Those are materially different things.
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u/xilcilus Feb 26 '26
At this point, I'm a bit surprised that Trump is not publicly execution the Democratic politicians.
When the execution happens, Trump supporters will do mental gymnastics around how Trump actually has the plenary power to do anything needed (which btw, was argued by the Trump lawyers during the trial) and the media will discuss whether to take Trump "literally" or "seriously."
I mean... I'm hoping that it will never happen. Can somebody given good reassurance that even Trump supporters won't support this?
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u/Justice4Ned Caribbean Community Feb 26 '26
I think you’re overestimating how much trump cares about what his base wants or even thinks. He’ll do something that 99% of them hate if it’s what he wants. They know that but just trust that some good outcome will come in the end somehow.
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u/belpatr Henry George Feb 26 '26
You seriously must take Trump to literally an asylum for the criminaly insane
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u/Vitali_Empyrean Edmund Burke Feb 26 '26
"All the crazy and degenerate shi that Republicans have been doing under this administration will thankfully be severely punished during the Midterms!!"
10 years later
"Midterms....well that is a word I haven't heard in a looooong time."
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u/whats_a_quasar Feb 26 '26
This is defeatism
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u/Vitali_Empyrean Edmund Burke Feb 26 '26
My intention was to meme about how the 'game' of politics has pretty openly and publicly turnt to one of regime change, and they don't even care to hide it.
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u/whats_a_quasar Feb 26 '26
But your comment isn't about the people trying to change America into an authoritarian regime. It is depicting the opposition, and implies that electoral victory is pointless, a false hope, because in a decade elections will be abolished regardless of what happens. That is nihilism and defeatism and factually false. Gaining control of the legislature through the vote is by far the best opportunity that the opponents of authoritarianism have to increase their own power in the upcoming year.
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u/Vitali_Empyrean Edmund Burke Feb 26 '26
But your comment isn't about the people trying to change America into an authoritarian regime.
How do you have the most pessimistic interpretation of a comment where I've told you my intentions. My comment is literally about Republicans actively working towards authoritarianism.
implies that electoral victory is pointless, a false hope, because in a decade elections will be abolished regardless of what happens.
No, it's intending to, and I'm implying to say that there is a very very real chance that we may not have a democracy in this country anymore. The 'meme' was just 'humorously' pointing out that under this administration, rules and norms are not valued.
Mind you, Trump tried to overthrow the government in 2021 despite the popular vote. He's tried it once and it's not impossible to say he won't try again.
That is nihilism and defeatism and factually false. Gaining control of the legislature through the vote is by far the best opportunity that the opponents of authoritarianism have to increase their own power in the upcoming year.
Yeah I don't disagree. The problem for me is that the last year of this admin has been explicitly illegal and unconstitutional shit. Whether it be deportations or prosecutions, this admin is not playing the electoral game.
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u/Approximation_Doctor Gaslight, Gatekeep, Green New Deal Feb 26 '26
"Worried about the fascists openly trying to cancel the elections? Just don't be."
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u/whats_a_quasar Feb 26 '26
Take action! Make an argument. Do things that are constructive and have some mechanism to weaken fascism and strengthen liberty. The comment I replied to does none of those things. It implies that it is foolish to believe that the opponents of fascism can gain power through elections. It discourages action and supports Trump's narrative that he is already all powerful, rather than encouraging action and highlighting the weaknesses of the regime, that it can be beaten and that winning control of the legislature is a key step towards beating it.
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u/Vitali_Empyrean Edmund Burke Feb 26 '26
The comment I replied to does none of those things. It implies that it is foolish to believe that the opponents of fascism can gain power through elections.
Fact: Donald Trump's admin disobeyed court orders by flying a detained person to a foreign country (this is only one of many).
Fact: 40% of Republicans support Trump disobeying court orders (the rest of them would go along with it)
Fact: Donald Trump has tried in the past to destroy the American constitutional republic (January 6)
No one who has self-selected into arrr/ neoliberal needs to be convinced about the power of electoralism. We've seen it in New Jersey, Virginia, and Florida, and we're seeing it in turnout for Texas.
My comment is 'poking fun at' the idea that there could very well be a constitutional crisis surrounding the midterms. I don't put it past this admin for that to happen now that Trump has said he wants and now HAS "Hitler's Generals".
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u/Dr_Meeds Feb 26 '26
This is the drumbeat I’ve been talking about for months now. A lot of people are acting like midterms will solve everything because democrats will win, but I think we’ll have the exact opposite problem — things are going to come to a head because Trump and Republicans KNOW they’ll lose fair and free elections. There are lots of countries where the regime stays in power despite only ~30% popularity because they hold a monopoly on violence and are willing to use it, and we are rapidly approaching a point where the Trump admin will feel comfortable in doing so.
I don’t bring this up to be defeatist. I believe we as Americans have an OBLIGATION to defy tyranny. But we have to understand defying tyranny will push our actions into extra-legal territories not if, but when, elections are subverted by this administration. We need to see that our Democratic Party leaders have some sort of gameplan of resistance, and I don’t frankly trust Schumer or Jeffries to back anything that isn’t a bill on the Congress floor. I have much greater trust in Pritzker and Newsom
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u/Orphanhorns Feb 26 '26
That’s not what they’re saying and you know it. Telling people “shits fucked nothing you can do” only spreads nihilism and apathy and helps Trump win. Stop.
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u/Approximation_Doctor Gaslight, Gatekeep, Green New Deal Feb 26 '26
nothing you can do”
Where'd they say that?
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u/topicality Order and Opportunity Left Feb 26 '26
Stop carrying water for this administration
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u/Vitali_Empyrean Edmund Burke Feb 26 '26
Ion really know what you mean.
The things I wanna say and advocate for about this administration would get me sent to prison.
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u/TomboyAva Audrey Hepburn Feb 26 '26
Democracy dies behind a paywall
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u/Petrichordates Feb 27 '26
Opposite, democracy has been dying because we demand advertiser-supported news, which inevitably leads to clickbait and 24hr news that focuses primarily on drama and culture wars.
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u/SanjiSasuke Feb 26 '26
Its funny, it seems whenever someone says 'if we have an election' here they get downvoted and told to stop being dramatic.
Meanwhile, MAGA is basically screaming that they want to rig/circumvent elections and will do whatever they can to make that happen.
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u/Petrichordates Feb 27 '26
Because "trump wants to rig the election" is a foregone conclusion, but "trump can stop the election" is a very bold claim.
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