The consequences: Never before has a former president who is as flawed a candidate as Trump — an individual some have called cognitively challenged and psychologically unstable and who believes in nothing other than himself, his appetites, his instincts and his autocratic ambitions — evidenced, according to major polls, a 50% chance of reelection.
Never before has such an individual commandeered a major American political party, garnered the loyalty of its most radical and/or opportunistic power-players, and forced its moderates to choose between cowardly silence or the termination of their political careers.
Never before could such an individual, if reelected, stand so thoroughly empowered to reject experienced advisors who are faithful to the Constitution — reject “the adults in the room” who might rein in his most authoritarian impulses — and instead appoint loyalists who will do his bidding. In addition those loyalists will enact the fusion of executive-branch dominance, faux-libertarianism and Christian nationalism mapped out in Project 2025.
Never before would such an individual, if reelected, be so thoroughly insulated against criminal indictment and prosecution — all due to the wide-ranging and much criticized presidential-immunity decision rendered by six conservative justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.
For those of you who like to use the bad faith argument that Democrats fear monger every 4 years. THIS IS NOT NORMAL AND HAS NEVER HAPPENED IN OUR COUNTRY.
VOTE! Our lives literally depend on it!
I just want to highlight how important it is to have an incredibly weak and feckless opposition party for the above strategy you outlined to work.
Literally all of this is solvable if the Democratic party had a spine or some cajones. But decorum, tradition, and “norms” mean more to the Democratic Party than they do anything else. The DNC is all about maintaining their entrenched power at the cost of all else. And its exactly why the MAGA movement was able to take hold. The DNC are blatantly corrupt, and completely disinterested in the will of their voters.
And incapable of understanding that most votes for trump are less an endorsement of him than they are a rebuking of the Dems. My entire life I’ve heard “GDP growth, best stock market ever” etc etc, propaganda machine go brrrrrrr, but all I’ve witnessed is everyone getting poorer and life becoming unsustainable. To the point that people who want children aren’t having them because they can’t provide the basic humdrum existence their parents provided - with two working people paychecks. I know a couple, the guy is the head honcho of a small casino - he is the boss, only answerable to the owner, and the gal is head of nursing at their local prison, not jail, prison. They each bring in a healthy 6 figures on their own, and they can’t buy a house. They needed a new van cuz their kids were getting older and moving everyone blah blah. Bought in full, cash, didn’t even blink at it. Didn’t even feel the expense. They can’t provide what their parents provided.
I empathize and understand the accelerationist attitude even tho I don’t share it. Liberals will happily put on all the airs progressivism and fairness, working class/social order grit and determination, but what they say and what they do don’t jjve. They are corporate controlled, fiscally conservative (defenders of neoliberalism), socially conciliatory (they won’t change anything until it means keeping the peace - and them in power) fascists who’ve mastered propaganda. Everything is double speak. The department of defense instead of the department of war. When was the last time we were defending? Department of “energy”, instead of, idk, Advocates for Fighting Climate Change with Nuclear Winter. Idk. Invent NASA and tell them to get off their hienies. And make a better department name with a snappy acronym. Scientists love doing that shit.