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The one good thing about Trump's abuses of power?

Roadvirus

Roadvirus

Heading North
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It shows us where the weak spots in the checks & balances system are.

So if the Dems retake both Houses in the midterms (with a veto-proof majority) or Trump's term finally ends, they can be given a thicker coating through various legislative means.

The Congress/handling tariffs thing is a perfect example. So is Presidential pardoning & EO power & as i've lately advocated, a mandatory list of standards Cabinet-level nominees have to meet before they can come up in front of Congress for a confirmation hearing (no more sewage swimming worm brain CTers).
 
Agreed fully.

I would like to see a Democrat-led White House and Congress in 2028 that focuses on bolstering separations of power. It will take a certain kind of White House ticket that is comfortable relinquishing power instead of relying on Trump's precedent to simply make things worse, and for certain not every Democrat contender will be willing to do that. (Joe Biden certainly didn't help). That said I suspect it'll be difficult. If Democrats sweep in 2026/2028, their first instinct will be to quickly undo Trump's mess and they'll be prone to over-indexing on EOs and Big Beautiful Bills passed at midnight that nobody reads to get it done quickly. It takes a certain kind of leadership to be able to resist that temptation. I don't believe there are any MAGA candidates who would have any interest in doing so, but on the flip side there likely are Democrats who similarly would fall for the temptation.
 

Democrats want presidents to be able to impose tariffs. Most of the laws that give Trump the power to impose tariffs were signed by Democrat presidents.

Roadvirus said:
So is Presidential pardoning & EO power
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Democrats will never roll those back. Biden pardoned his own son, remember? And the president who issued the most EOs in American history was liberal icon FDR.

Democrats are even more power hungry than republicans are. The reason Trump has so much power today is because of the precedents set by Wilson, FDR, and LBJ.
 
Roadvirus said:
It shows us where the weak spots in the checks & balances system are.
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It does, indeed shows us that the politically left in this country have no idea how to manage the affairs of the country. In fact, they have lost their way in the one thing they were fairly good at, which was uniting in their efforts at division, bringing together diverse victim groups. But those efforts necessarily drove the Party further to the left, as more and more unkept promises were necessary to keep their victim groups waiting.

Now they have put themselves in the position of supporting criminals, a place even some of the wiser heads in their own number won't support. I wonder what The Party will learn from it.
 

Agreed.

Diverse victim groups are criminal, and the homogenous victim group, i.e. white people, is their prey.

You, Sir, are summarily awarded a coveted MAGA for your White Power post:

MAGA
 
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Out of the three things you mention, only one can be addressed by Congress: Tariffs. That's because the Democrats are the ones who gave the President the power to enact tariffs. The other two items are enshrined in the Constitution and Congress can't touch that.

(Well, they can TRY to touch those by way of the Amendment process, but they won't. They know that would be a waste of time.)
 
Well, every President before Trump was able to use that tariff power sparingly or implemented tariffs for reasons that were delusional or moronic.
 
Don't forget Harry Reid blowing up the filibuster for judicial appointments. That turned and bit the Democrats right on the ass.
 
iliveonramen said:
Well, every President before Trump was able to use that tariff power sparingly or implemented tariffs for reasons that were delusional or moronic.
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Right...and look where it got us.

Our money going out to countries all over the world and very little of their money coming back to us. Our jobs going away. Our manufacturing going away. Our intellectual property going away.

It's about time someone...Trump...uses every tool he has, including tariffs, to turn all that around.
 

Please do not laud Democrats.

Your gaslighting not only gives Democrats undue credit, it demeans the wonderful achievement Trump has accomplished.

MAGA.
 
Trump's tariffs aren't going to change any of those things. All it's going to do is raise prices and collect more taxes. It's going to make some of our companies less competitive, because they'll have to use higher priced components than their competitors. It's going to lower the living standards of Americans as they can buy less.

What the US should be concentrating on is tech of the future, not trying to bring back factories that make t shirts.
 
Mycroft said:
Our money going out to countries all over the world and very little of their money coming back to us.
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When the US buys goods from other countries, we send them money, but we get actual products we want back. That’s not a loss, it's an exchange.

And a shit ton of the money does come back. Foreign countries often invest those dollars in the US when they buy treasuries, stocks, real estate, and businesses.

Mycroft said:
Our jobs going away.
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If they're willing to do it cheaper, then why not let them?

If you wanted to, you could make your own clothes and grow your own food, but because of the opportunity costs, you outsource those jobs to other people who can do it cheaper than you can. It's the same with countries.
 
RetiredAtLast said:
That's the kind of stupidity that keeps pushing Dems farther and farther into the weeds.
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Agreed, again.

It is time for White People to fight for our rightful place atop the racial hierarchy, and I am tempted to give you another MAGA, but I don't want to deflate their value.

Nevertheless, a few more white power posts will surely see you awarded a top-of-the-line and highly coveted MAGA.

MAGA.
 

I am not optimistic.

Trump is a "Red Caesar", declaring national security emergencies without an emergency, to seize the power to tax without Congress, to accuse others of "treason" for criticizing him, and to use the Alien Enemies Act as if it were a real war against migrants - all of this and more to have the power of a wartime President without an actual war.

It is worth remembering that Hegseth, a few months ago, warned Nato that the US military had to turn away from Europe to defend the Homefront, apparently meaning illegal migrants and their defenders. And now in LA we have the pretext that Trump was looking for, to demonstrate his military power against both migrants and US citizens who protest. And, if anything, his approval rating will likely rise because of it.

A President's use of military violence against disorderly and violent protests rarely makes him/her unpopular, and I suspect this will only further legitimize Trump's personality cult. Trump has no concern over the correctness of constitutional arguments, or the unitary powers of the executive - those are the rationalizations of Trump loyalists. He simply wants as much power as he can usurp, and to appoint loyalists who will give him whatever stupid, ignorant, unethical or immoral end he desires. And cracking down on the protests will be good for Trump, and what is good for Trump is good for America and thereby legitimizes his King like rule (or so the MAGA crowd believes).

To be fair, Caesarism was not started by Trump. For decades the power of the Presidency has increased step by step, and combined with court opinions giving the President right to not faithfully execute the law (eg to grant mass prosecutorial discretion), has neutered law - making it more aspirational rather than enforceable. And the COVID pandemic and street rage accelerated that loss of faith in Republicanism - an inevitable result when protests are riots (e.g. Minneapolis), when innocents are prosecuted for self-defense, when authorities threaten or retaliate against angry parents for speaking out at school board meetings, or people are "locked down" and made to wear masks and carry vaccination cards for months or told they can't go outdoors and even recreate, more than a year without recourse.

However, Trump is the likely the first to embrace Caesarism openly as legitimate. And so now Trump is the American archetype of the rule by a strongman, and once that becomes the norm then the Republic is a fiction, as was the pretense of Sulla and Augustus that Roman Republic existed as a Republic. Indeed we shall see its full effect after Trump, when the strongman ideology is "Blue Caesarism".

It will take a very special new President to have the love of the Constitution and democratic values to ask, actually demand, that Congress limit his own power. It will take some who will reject the ring of power to be immune to its seductive allure.

My bet is that won't happen after Trump. He or she will keep the usurpation, the tariffs as power, the right to use every law as he/she pleases. When "their" Ceasar takes power nothing will be given back to democracy.

We are firmly on a road we will never leave.
 
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A very thoughtful, but wrong, analysis. The situation is much more simple than you might think.

Trump has two years of which he can be fairly certain, to pull the country back from its extreme leftward drift and away from it's lawlessness. He campaigned to do that, and was elected because of it. Examples are easy to find; the complete abandonment of the immigration laws and the widespread "no cash bail" release of criminals onto the streets. Having limited time, he's taken the approach of, "Better to ask forgiveness than permission." I believe he has much the same feeling about our relations with other countries; for too long we've acquiesced to other countries and the U.N. If voters approve of the change in direction, the GOP will pick up a few seats in Congress in 2026 to make policies into law

There's no ambition to be any shade of "Caesar," just a short time to undo what he and many voters see as years of deterioration. There's no danger of "the Republic [becoming] a fiction." It's just the pendulum being suddenly jerked back toward the right that has the other side so worried.
 
RetiredAtLast said:
It does, indeed shows us that the politically left in this country have no idea how to manage the affairs of the country.
Click to expand...

The Democrats are in control of Congress & the White House?

Are you sure you're in the year 2025 with the rest of us?
 
Mycroft said:
Out of the three things you mention, only one can be addressed by Congress: Tariffs. That's because the Democrats are the ones who gave the President the power to enact tariffs.
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That was when we had Presidents with the ability of self-control.

Right now, we have a 78 (soon to be 79) year old child in a man's body who is prone to temper tantrums when he doesn't get his way & uses/abuses the powers of his office as weapons of revenge.
 

And every time he threatens to use those tariffs, people who have their life savings in the stock market end up losing it.
 


Oh Jesus you dream.


There isn't going to be a real election in 2026.

You've had the last free vote Amerikka will ever have and you elected a rapist/fraud with a track record of open criminality.

You KNEW what you were getting. get used to it.

He's going to be around for a long, long time. And then there are his sons.......
 
Roadvirus said:
The Democrats are in control of Congress & the White House?

Are you sure you're in the year 2025 with the rest of us?
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They claim to be in control of California (see also wildfires) and Los Angeles (see also riots in the streets).
 
Roadvirus said:
And every time he threatens to use those tariffs, people who have their life savings in the stock market end up losing it.
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That's not his fault. People shouldn't put their life savings at the mercy of gamblers.
 
Mycroft said:
That's not his fault. People shouldn't put their life savings at the mercy of gamblers.
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Everything was going fine until Trump got into office back in Jan. Then the markets went to shit.
 
New requirements that should apply to anyone running for President.

Any candidate for President must release 10 years of tax returns to the public.

Any candidate must not be a convicted felon.

Any candidate must be less than 65 years old.

Any candidate must place all investments and business assets into a blind trust.

These things alone would vastly improve the quality of presidential candidates.

EOs are temporary and can be immediately reversed when the next president takes office.
Pardoning of criminals, especially violent ones, should require congressional approval.
 
If the Dems get on power, they should do everything Trump is doing, except in reverse.
 
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