No. of Recommendations: 4
Trump definitely politicized institutions and issues that should have remained apolitical. He acted like a company owner - if you don't agree with him then you're gone, right or wrong doesn't matter. Truth doesn't matter. We saw this with Covid the most vividly, but also with setting the path of a hurricane with a sharpie. Comey was fired, Jackson-Johnson was rewarded.
100% agree with you here.
That is very far from trying to change the constitution to be a dictator for life.
But you don't have to change the constitution. You just have to ignore it. Dispense with it.
Example.
You lose an election, but do everything you can - legal and illegal - to get people to ignore that and let you stay in office as president. Questioning the election and even filing lawsuits to challenge things is perfectly legal. But when every case it tossed out for lack of evidence, you are done. You lost. So you whip up a crowd to try to scare Congress into letting you stay in office. That's crossing the line into completely ignoring the constitution.
I don't think he is that ambitious or unrealistic.
Then you haven't been paying attention. He actually did try to ignore the constitution once. He didn't succeed. That time. He should not be given another shot at it.
Plus there is no path for him to do that. Way too many democratic (as in democracy) hurdles. I am sure the Congress and the Supreme Court will rebel against him, if only to maintain their own constitutional powers.
Once again, just pay attention. The Supreme Court just handed the President an extremely wide immunity for actions while in office. Trump is already using that ruling to attempt to get court cases which would hold him accountable for his actions dismissed. Congress' only tool is impeachment. That has failed twice. Congress will not hold him accountable because there are too many weak Trump worshippers who have been elected to Congress. Mike Pence - the Vice President of the US - was the only straw that didn't break during Trump's last attempt at overturning a free and fair election. This time around Trump has chosen a weak toady, a mini-Trump with no moral underpinnings, as his Vice President. He will not stand up to Trump.
So while I agree that there are a number of hurdles to cross, he has already shown the ability to knock those hurdles down. And he is set up to knock down the hurdles that stood against him last time around. There is only one hurdle left - this upcoming election.
We already know that Trump has undemocratic tendencies. That he does not accept NO for an answer under any circumstances. He is still claiming that he won the 2020 election, and far too many people agree with him - including members of Congress and quite possibly sitting Supreme Court Justices. He cannot be allowed near the levers of power again. Policies simply don't matter in this setting. The only thing that matters are the moral underpinnings each candidate brings to the office. Trump has none. Biden is one of the few genuinely moral people remaining in government today.
Many on the right refuse to see this. The way they justify their support for Trump is to try to say that Biden is the same. That he's a criminal head of a family criminal enterprise. But as soon as those claims get anywhere near a court room, Trump is shown time and again to be the one who is head of a criminal family, while the accusations against Biden melt in the light of truth that courts shine.
--Peter
