jfish26 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 04, 2025 3:31 pm
MICHHAWK wrote: ↑Tue Feb 04, 2025 2:40 pm
4 years from now a demonrat will be back in the white house
Did the Supreme Court structure its newly-created immunity doctrine in a way that suggests the R majority anticipates there ever being a D-majority Court?
Are Congressional Rs acting in a way that anticipates there being ballot box accountability in 2026?
Is Trump acting in a way that anticipates there being ballot box accountability in 2028?
There are...checks notes...three branches of our government. All three are controlled by Republicans.
None of the three is acting as if control will ever change hands.
Just to circle the square here.
If the Supreme Court (controlled by Republican appointees, including three of Trump's own) decides against Trump - say, on the nakedly unconstitutional birthright citizenship EO, or the nakedly illegal impoundment EO - and Trump simply says, "neat" and more-or-less carries on anyway...there is a
single guardrail left: impeachment and removal.*
Impeachment requires a House majority. The Republicans control the House.
Removal requires a Senate supermajority (2/3). The Republicans control the Senate.
Only then - and, even then, only
if the R-controlled Court doesn't somehow retcon its ludicrous immunity ruling into another brand-new rule that as a legal matter it is not possible for a President to have been (for impeachment and removal purposes) convicted
at all of a "high crime [or] misdemeanor" - is there even any
hope that the military would no longer recognize Trump as Commander in Chief, and would enforce the Senate's conviction.
If the military does enforce the Senate's conviction, then you can expect widespread disruption (and the survival of our country is in the balance).
If the military does NOT enforce the Senate's conviction, then you can expect widespread disruption (and the Constitution will have become, effectively, dead letter).
We're so awash in
news that this isn't being seen very clearly. But for all its procedural jibber-jabber, it's not
complicated at all.
These were the stakes of the 2024 election.
Stakes that didn't seem to matter, against the price of eggs or whatever else.
* By far the LIKELIEST outcome (on any near-term hypo) is that the Court rules against Trump, Trump says "neat" and more-or-less carries on, and there aren't votes enough for impeachment to carry the House. My opinion is that such a fact pattern makes the Constitution damn close to dead letter.