05-18-2017, 04:18 PM
(05-18-2017, 02:45 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:(05-17-2017, 02:31 PM)David Horn Wrote:(05-17-2017, 01:52 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: Let it for now suffice to say that there really is no way that Trump, or Pence for that matter, can be another Hitler. We have a Constitution in place to prevent that. And while we're at it, how many of you feel as though Trump is creating a Constitutional crisis worse than Watergate?
A Yale professor on this morning's Morning Joe made the argument that a slide to authoritarianism is not impossible in the US. His argument centered on the power of institutions, including the rule of law. All of them consist of real people, who may rise to the occasion or not. Failure to respond early in the process of degradation can make any response impossible later.
The biggest threat of authoritarianism isn't Trump but the federal establishment. If the bureaucrats manage to get rid of Trump through their whisper campaign of illegal leaks, the voters will never matter again.
It is better that he resign as news media and bureaucrats gut his credibility than he either establish himself as a full-blown dictator or be toppled in a military coup.
Should he be impeached, then the one certainty will be that a Republican will replace him (unless the chaotic situation of having a Democratic Speaker of the House being in the line of succession as the President and Vice-President resign nearly together after January 3, 2019.
Things are going so bad so fast that we may be unable to wait until January 2019. All that the Democrats can do is to serve as a block against a very bad VP choice in the event that either Pence or Trump resigns or dies.
I do not want a military coup. Our political system is badly broken.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.