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Northern Ireland26225 Posts
On July 02 2024 07:46 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2024 07:40 WombaT wrote:
As DPB stuck some numbers up earlier that polling reflects a surprisingly low shift in opinion after that disastrous debate performance by Biden.
I guess this is likely explicable by perhaps it being hard to find genuine undecideds, and thus you won’t see much movement. I’m not alone here in feeling this is gonna be an election not of favourability, those lines in the sand are mostly drawn already, but in galvanising turnout.
In this regard I mean, isn’t this Supreme Court ruling an absolute gift? I mean if your goals are to have a Democrat winning this election.
You combo this with the movement on Roe actually happening versus being hypothetical, or perpetual hot air and you’re kind of doing the kinds of thing that would worry even a very lukewarm potential Biden voter I think those are fair points and slight silver linings for otherwise tragic scenarios. If Biden wins in November, I still don't see him abusing the Supreme Court's ruling though. I don't think Dems have the stomach for that, even to merely prove a point. I think the next Republican President will do it though, especially if it's Trump.
I’m not exactly a fan of the GOP, to do a performance art piece in in understatement. By and large I don’t think they’re much more corrupt than the Dems, be it your more regular, clearly undesirable accepted corruption or straying outside those already generous lines into overt criminality.
Unfortunately we’ve got Trump who is almost at a 90s cartoon villain levels of just transparent fuckery.
But also fortunately we have Trump for the same reasons. What would be a worrying hypothetical for others becomes a ‘oh this will absolutely come into play’ when it’s Trump.
I somewhat agree with GH on the long-term pitfalls of less expensive evil politics which is another discussion, but for that cohort who aren’t enthused, the more ‘evil’ you just proudly stack out there on the pyre the harder that position is to maintain.
If I was a strategist in this phase I don’t think ‘yeah the Supreme Court that you changed the balance of think Presidents should have various immunities. And by Presidents it’s just you’ is a particularly good look.
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On July 02 2024 09:02 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2024 07:46 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 02 2024 07:40 WombaT wrote:
As DPB stuck some numbers up earlier that polling reflects a surprisingly low shift in opinion after that disastrous debate performance by Biden.
I guess this is likely explicable by perhaps it being hard to find genuine undecideds, and thus you won’t see much movement. I’m not alone here in feeling this is gonna be an election not of favourability, those lines in the sand are mostly drawn already, but in galvanising turnout.
In this regard I mean, isn’t this Supreme Court ruling an absolute gift? I mean if your goals are to have a Democrat winning this election.
You combo this with the movement on Roe actually happening versus being hypothetical, or perpetual hot air and you’re kind of doing the kinds of thing that would worry even a very lukewarm potential Biden voter I think those are fair points and slight silver linings for otherwise tragic scenarios. If Biden wins in November, I still don't see him abusing the Supreme Court's ruling though. I don't think Dems have the stomach for that, even to merely prove a point. I think the next Republican President will do it though, especially if it's Trump. I’m not exactly a fan of the GOP, to do a performance art piece in in understatement. By and large I don’t think they’re much more corrupt than the Dems, be it your more regular, clearly undesirable accepted corruption or straying outside those already generous lines into overt criminality. Unfortunately we’ve got Trump who is almost at a 90s cartoon villain levels of just transparent fuckery.
I'll be honest, Republicans are just as fascist without Trump. Trump was just a massive gift to them in terms of making their insaneness more mainstream.
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On July 02 2024 07:20 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2024 07:10 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 02 2024 06:49 Acrofales wrote:On July 02 2024 06:45 Mohdoo wrote:
Just to be more clear what I am saying: when you start off by saying “that’s not how this works”, you are ignoring the expansive history of legal engineering to achieve a desired result. Every “way something works” has many links and dependencies. It’s all easily compared to a mechanical machine. Change enough pieces and the machine works differently. I think it’s very likely there exists some list of changes needed to force the trial to happen tomorrow. That list may be 20 pages long. It might be shorter. It might be longer. But I truly do think when “and Biden can order people to do illegal things” is put in the gas tank of this list, it’s suddenly entirely possible. But it’s also possible my request is not reasonable. I wouldn’t be surprised if what I am describing would require a fleet of experts to even design the idea.
I mean, I got it right here: Seal Team 6 takes everybody Aileen Cannon loves hostage. They threaten to shoot them one by one unless the trial starts tomorrow. Obviously not reasonable, but apparently now legal. You can't actually let Trump become president if he'll be able to legally do stuff like that day 1 right? You have to exploit that if you're Biden and you're left with no other choice but giving that power to Trump...right?!? I haven't looked into whether the people carrying out such stuff would be immune or if refusing such an order would qualify as a crime in and of itself, but I wouldn't bank on Trump not being able to find enough sympathetic minds in the US military/police to do stuff like that and much worse for the Biden's and countless more people. I don't know, I think in some ways it has really simplified Biden/Democrats options so that quite specifically Biden and his supporters will be to blame if they hand such power over to Trump regardless of this election's results. Because ultimately, Biden will have the final say, and his supporters will be the reason he does. Even if the executioners aren't immune, they can be pardoned by your monarch. So, in practice, immunity. Unless it's a state crime, in which case Biden would also have to "exert pressure" on governors to obtain the desired outcome 
Well damn, that's a good/terrifying (and painfully obvious now that I think about it) point. It's tough to already know Democrats are fanatics for "the rules" and they're totally going to hand Trump the power to do this and worse to them and anyone else he wants to in obsequious veneration of said "rules". All in a vain plea to not end up at the wrong end of their guns with the rest of us.
Doesn't help that Republicans don't understand no one is really immune, and that eventually when they run out of the obvious targets they'll turn inward, even on their previous champions.
I dunno, shit seems dire if Biden/no one around him can do whatever needs to be done to truly protect the people of the US of all political stripes (including the overt fascists ironically) from losing the things they hold most dear to a fascist fever dream.
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On July 02 2024 09:02 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2024 07:46 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 02 2024 07:40 WombaT wrote:
As DPB stuck some numbers up earlier that polling reflects a surprisingly low shift in opinion after that disastrous debate performance by Biden.
I guess this is likely explicable by perhaps it being hard to find genuine undecideds, and thus you won’t see much movement. I’m not alone here in feeling this is gonna be an election not of favourability, those lines in the sand are mostly drawn already, but in galvanising turnout.
In this regard I mean, isn’t this Supreme Court ruling an absolute gift? I mean if your goals are to have a Democrat winning this election.
You combo this with the movement on Roe actually happening versus being hypothetical, or perpetual hot air and you’re kind of doing the kinds of thing that would worry even a very lukewarm potential Biden voter I think those are fair points and slight silver linings for otherwise tragic scenarios. If Biden wins in November, I still don't see him abusing the Supreme Court's ruling though. I don't think Dems have the stomach for that, even to merely prove a point. I think the next Republican President will do it though, especially if it's Trump. I’m not exactly a fan of the GOP, to do a performance art piece in in understatement. By and large I don’t think they’re much more corrupt than the Dems, be it your more regular, clearly undesirable accepted corruption or straying outside those already generous lines into overt criminality. Unfortunately we’ve got Trump who is almost at a 90s cartoon villain levels of just transparent fuckery. But also fortunately we have Trump for the same reasons. What would be a worrying hypothetical for others becomes a ‘oh this will absolutely come into play’ when it’s Trump. I somewhat agree with GH on the long-term pitfalls of less expensive evil politics which is another discussion, but for that cohort who aren’t enthused, the more ‘evil’ you just proudly stack out there on the pyre the harder that position is to maintain. If I was a strategist in this phase I don’t think ‘yeah the Supreme Court that you changed the balance of think Presidents should have various immunities. And by Presidents it’s just you’ is a particularly good look.
Agreed. I don't think that's a good look either, but then we'll inevitably find an issue-focused poll that says that 50% of Americans would trust Trump when it comes to selecting fair Supreme Court Justices or preserving democracy or being better for the economy or getting us through a global pandemic or being an honest person or not cheating on his wives or not committing fraud or not raping people or whatever, and it makes me question why so many people apparently excuse that "look" that you and I don't think is a good one. And that seems to be despite the ever-increasing stacks of "evil", which we agree should - eventually - persuade a lot more people that enough is enough. A lot of people either don't know or don't care, and it's becoming harder and harder to stay blissfully unaware of these issues.
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Northern Ireland26225 Posts
On July 02 2024 09:23 Luolis wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2024 09:02 WombaT wrote:On July 02 2024 07:46 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 02 2024 07:40 WombaT wrote:
As DPB stuck some numbers up earlier that polling reflects a surprisingly low shift in opinion after that disastrous debate performance by Biden.
I guess this is likely explicable by perhaps it being hard to find genuine undecideds, and thus you won’t see much movement. I’m not alone here in feeling this is gonna be an election not of favourability, those lines in the sand are mostly drawn already, but in galvanising turnout.
In this regard I mean, isn’t this Supreme Court ruling an absolute gift? I mean if your goals are to have a Democrat winning this election.
You combo this with the movement on Roe actually happening versus being hypothetical, or perpetual hot air and you’re kind of doing the kinds of thing that would worry even a very lukewarm potential Biden voter I think those are fair points and slight silver linings for otherwise tragic scenarios. If Biden wins in November, I still don't see him abusing the Supreme Court's ruling though. I don't think Dems have the stomach for that, even to merely prove a point. I think the next Republican President will do it though, especially if it's Trump. I’m not exactly a fan of the GOP, to do a performance art piece in in understatement. By and large I don’t think they’re much more corrupt than the Dems, be it your more regular, clearly undesirable accepted corruption or straying outside those already generous lines into overt criminality. Unfortunately we’ve got Trump who is almost at a 90s cartoon villain levels of just transparent fuckery. I'll be honest, Republicans are just as fascist without Trump. Trump was just a massive gift to them in terms of making their insaneness more mainstream.
Personally I think it’s the other way around, despite despising their politics in general and the spinelessness of dealing with Trump
It’s a broad church conservative party taken over by a cult of fascist personality, rather than a latent facist party waiting for some figurehead IMO.
If we’re talking European politics that party is at a minimum two parties, maybe more.
I’ll never miss a chance to bash the GOP but Trump is just this unique brand of poison. It’s not like they didn’t try to keep him out initially
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On July 02 2024 08:52 farvacola wrote:
Of course it will be, the courts have guaranteed and expanded their role in near every corner of governance. The garbage “official acts” test Roberts dreamed up is a malleable piece of trash that sets no real standard, meaning everything can be fought over in court using expansive terms that invite judges to apply all sorts of different views of government. And that’s only one among a host of court-empowering rulings.
This term wasn’t about Trump or Biden, it was about what this SCOTUS thinks of its power over the other branches and it has made its views on that issue very clear.
Without going down a rabbit hole or stepping beyond my expertise, it seems to me much of the old progressive court era(s) was that same thing, except that the political objectives were more aligned. I'd rather have the courts more powerful in their own sphere but less in others. but I suppose that's precisely where something like Chevron becomes controversial. courts read laws and agencies implement them, and we hope they both read them the same way
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So like, do Democrats have any plans to deal with the state of things with the Supreme Court and the seeming rising tide of christo-fascistic nightmares, are they just sort of hoping they stop losing elections forever or do they have some sort of intention to do something about it
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On July 02 2024 10:17 Zambrah wrote:
So like, do Democrats have any plans to deal with the state of things with the Supreme Court and the seeming rising tide of christo-fascistic nightmares, are they just sort of hoping they stop losing elections forever or do they have some sort of intention to do something about it
Blindly hoping they never lose elections (no matter how bad their candidates get), starting with this one, and going into perpetuity is the plan/doing something about it for them as far as I can tell.
EDIT: I thought I was being a bit sardonic, but it turns out Maddow is literally saying it...
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On July 02 2024 09:31 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2024 09:02 WombaT wrote:On July 02 2024 07:46 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 02 2024 07:40 WombaT wrote:
As DPB stuck some numbers up earlier that polling reflects a surprisingly low shift in opinion after that disastrous debate performance by Biden.
I guess this is likely explicable by perhaps it being hard to find genuine undecideds, and thus you won’t see much movement. I’m not alone here in feeling this is gonna be an election not of favourability, those lines in the sand are mostly drawn already, but in galvanising turnout.
In this regard I mean, isn’t this Supreme Court ruling an absolute gift? I mean if your goals are to have a Democrat winning this election.
You combo this with the movement on Roe actually happening versus being hypothetical, or perpetual hot air and you’re kind of doing the kinds of thing that would worry even a very lukewarm potential Biden voter I think those are fair points and slight silver linings for otherwise tragic scenarios. If Biden wins in November, I still don't see him abusing the Supreme Court's ruling though. I don't think Dems have the stomach for that, even to merely prove a point. I think the next Republican President will do it though, especially if it's Trump. I’m not exactly a fan of the GOP, to do a performance art piece in in understatement. By and large I don’t think they’re much more corrupt than the Dems, be it your more regular, clearly undesirable accepted corruption or straying outside those already generous lines into overt criminality. Unfortunately we’ve got Trump who is almost at a 90s cartoon villain levels of just transparent fuckery. But also fortunately we have Trump for the same reasons. What would be a worrying hypothetical for others becomes a ‘oh this will absolutely come into play’ when it’s Trump. I somewhat agree with GH on the long-term pitfalls of less expensive evil politics which is another discussion, but for that cohort who aren’t enthused, the more ‘evil’ you just proudly stack out there on the pyre the harder that position is to maintain. If I was a strategist in this phase I don’t think ‘yeah the Supreme Court that you changed the balance of think Presidents should have various immunities. And by Presidents it’s just you’ is a particularly good look. Agreed. I don't think that's a good look either, but then we'll inevitably find an issue-focused poll that says that 50% of Americans would trust Trump when it comes to selecting fair Supreme Court Justices or preserving democracy or being better for the economy or getting us through a global pandemic or being an honest person or not cheating on his wives or not committing fraud or not raping people or whatever, and it makes me question why so many people apparently excuse that "look" that you and I don't think is a good one. And that seems to be despite the ever-increasing stacks of "evil", which we agree should - eventually - persuade a lot more people that enough is enough. A lot of people either don't know or don't care, and it's becoming harder and harder to stay blissfully unaware of these issues.
That was my immediate thought, too. This should be "a bad look". But that doesn't seem to matter anymore. Imagine if we (and by that i mean the public) held Trump to the same standard as Bill Clinton or Nixon. But all the things making him completely unelectable don't seem to reach or impress the people voting for him, so i highly doubt something as abstract as this would.
If anything, republicans will spin it as "should the democrats have this power?"
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If anyone is struggling to explain to a friend or acquaintance just how bad this ruling is, John Dean -Nixon's WH counsel who participated in the Watergate coverup - believes that under this ruling Nixon would have had no criminal liability for his part in Watergate.
news.yahoo.com
EDIT (to avoid a double post):
It is worth considering that regardless of the actual boundaries on the president's actions under this ruling, Trump is almost certainly going to believe that he is allowed to do significantly more than that. He had previously conflated Trump the person and Trump the president in ways that make it clear he did not really distinguish between private acts and official acts, and instead considered his acts to be official acts because he was president and he was doing those things.
Trump's first term was "plagued" by people in his cabinet and the federal bureaucracy telling him that no, he could not do this thing or that thing just because he was president, because the president is not a king as doesn't have this or that power. Today, the conservative establishment has made it a public priority (see: project 2025) to fill as much of Trump's cabinet and the federal bureaucracy with people who will not say no to Trump and instead work to enable him. As such, I find it extremely unlikely that a second Trump term will run into that same problem of people telling him that what he wants to do is not within his purview as president when he inevitably moves beyond the bounds of what can be considered an official acts.
tl;dr:
Regardless of the actual limits remaining on the president following this ruling, if reelected Trump is going to act like he has none, and the people around him are more likely to enable him than restrain him. He may find himself criminally liable for some things after leaving office, but the amount of damage he can do before then is immense.
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On July 02 2024 10:17 Zambrah wrote:
So like, do Democrats have any plans to deal with the state of things with the Supreme Court and the seeming rising tide of christo-fascistic nightmares, are they just sort of hoping they stop losing elections forever or do they have some sort of intention to do something about it
They don't have to win forever. They have to win long enough to reshape the court. Clarence Thomas is 76. Alito is 74. Roberts is 69. Replace two and the court is sane again. Even replacing just one makes the court 5-4, allowing the least evil Republican to flip or soften a ruling. (IIRC Roberts used to do this frequently when the court was 5-4, and plenty of today's 6-3 rulings have a concurring "yes, but" where one of the justices wanted a less aggressive ruling.)
It's not infeasible to hold the presidency until 1-2 aging scumbags dies or retires. It's a shitty position, but it's winnable.
There's also the possibility of winning big once, and then expanding the court. Democratic politicians usually clutch their pearls at that sort of scandalous norm-breaking, but that may shift in the face of insane court rulings.
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On July 02 2024 16:46 Severedevil wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2024 10:17 Zambrah wrote:
So like, do Democrats have any plans to deal with the state of things with the Supreme Court and the seeming rising tide of christo-fascistic nightmares, are they just sort of hoping they stop losing elections forever or do they have some sort of intention to do something about it They don't have to win forever. They have to win long enough to reshape the court. Clarence Thomas is 76. Alito is 74. Roberts is 69. Replace two and the court is sane again. Even replacing just one makes the court 5-4, allowing the least evil Republican to flip or soften a ruling. (IIRC Roberts used to do this frequently when the court was 5-4, and plenty of today's 6-3 rulings have a concurring "yes, but" where one of the justices wanted a less aggressive ruling.) It's not infeasible to hold the presidency until 1-2 aging scumbags dies or retires. It's a shitty position, but it's winnable. There's also the possibility of winning big once, and then expanding the court. Democratic politicians usually clutch their pearls at that sort of scandalous norm-breaking, but that may shift in the face of insane court rulings.
The life expectance of a 76 year old man is about 10 years. I would assume that surpreme court justices get the best of the best healthcare treatments.
To flip the court to sane, you would need two of those three to die. Mathing this out is hard, but it is not unlikely that this will take a dozen years. Meaning the democrats would have to not lose the presidency in the next three elections (doesn't sound likely), and the US will become increasingly more shitty until that point.
This sounds like a bad solution.
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On July 02 2024 17:44 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2024 16:46 Severedevil wrote:On July 02 2024 10:17 Zambrah wrote:
So like, do Democrats have any plans to deal with the state of things with the Supreme Court and the seeming rising tide of christo-fascistic nightmares, are they just sort of hoping they stop losing elections forever or do they have some sort of intention to do something about it They don't have to win forever. They have to win long enough to reshape the court. Clarence Thomas is 76. Alito is 74. Roberts is 69. Replace two and the court is sane again. Even replacing just one makes the court 5-4, allowing the least evil Republican to flip or soften a ruling. (IIRC Roberts used to do this frequently when the court was 5-4, and plenty of today's 6-3 rulings have a concurring "yes, but" where one of the justices wanted a less aggressive ruling.) It's not infeasible to hold the presidency until 1-2 aging scumbags dies or retires. It's a shitty position, but it's winnable. There's also the possibility of winning big once, and then expanding the court. Democratic politicians usually clutch their pearls at that sort of scandalous norm-breaking, but that may shift in the face of insane court rulings. The life expectance of a 76 year old man is about 10 years. I would assume that surpreme court justices get the best of the best healthcare treatments. To flip the court to sane, you would need two of those three to die. Mathing this out is hard, but it is not unlikely that this will take a dozen years. Meaning the democrats would have to not lose the presidency in the next three elections (doesn't sound likely), and the US will become increasingly more shitty until that point. This sounds like a bad solution.
It's an even worse solution than it sounds on its face.
Besides Democrats potentially needing to win the next 3-4 presidential elections (potentially requiring 3 different winning candidates) in a row (Democrats have never done this), they would still need to bring a case to the supreme court and get a corrective/prescriptive ruling (it's not even clear there's a simple way to fix this with a new ruling). Then they need to never lose the court again. Which they can only be confident doing if they don't lose for ~30 years.
The Democrat appointees won't live forever. That would mean needing to win the 5th presidential election in a row to not lose Sotomayor's seat, then the 6th one for Kagen's. Then maybe you could lose a 1 or 2 without losing the court. That's also presuming they all retire younger than Biden would be at the end of his 2nd term. If they pull an RBG, Democrats could need ~40 years of uninterrupted presidential election wins just to secure the court for maybe a generation.
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On July 02 2024 17:44 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2024 16:46 Severedevil wrote:On July 02 2024 10:17 Zambrah wrote:
So like, do Democrats have any plans to deal with the state of things with the Supreme Court and the seeming rising tide of christo-fascistic nightmares, are they just sort of hoping they stop losing elections forever or do they have some sort of intention to do something about it They don't have to win forever. They have to win long enough to reshape the court. Clarence Thomas is 76. Alito is 74. Roberts is 69. Replace two and the court is sane again. Even replacing just one makes the court 5-4, allowing the least evil Republican to flip or soften a ruling. (IIRC Roberts used to do this frequently when the court was 5-4, and plenty of today's 6-3 rulings have a concurring "yes, but" where one of the justices wanted a less aggressive ruling.) It's not infeasible to hold the presidency until 1-2 aging scumbags dies or retires. It's a shitty position, but it's winnable. There's also the possibility of winning big once, and then expanding the court. Democratic politicians usually clutch their pearls at that sort of scandalous norm-breaking, but that may shift in the face of insane court rulings. The life expectance of a 76 year old man is about 10 years. I would assume that surpreme court justices get the best of the best healthcare treatments. To flip the court to sane, you would need two of those three to die. Mathing this out is hard, but it is not unlikely that this will take a dozen years. Meaning the democrats would have to not lose the presidency in the next three elections (doesn't sound likely), and the US will become increasingly more shitty until that point. This sounds like a bad solution.
This is more or less where I land atm, if Trump loses this next election and becomes just completely and absolutely too old to win another election then with Democrats having such a barren talent pool I dont see them doing any better than our previous pattern of switching between Republican presidents and Democrat presidents, which means we'll just most probably be fucked.
I'd really like to know if the Democrats actually have anything special to do about this because a party who is focused on incremental change over a long period of time with a fixation on norms that prevents them from exercising power in the way their opponents do feels like one of the worst sorts of parties to have when fighting a rising tide of fascism
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EPT
