The "If Trump wins...." Prediction thread

[stankeylegjones]

In one case, though, that fight is alongside the arrayed force of the federal government, and in the other case, we're having to fight against those institutions.

Yes, imo, it will be a much more difficult fight if Trump wins. But I will still fight, and others will as well.

However, when Kamala wins, there will still be parts of the federal government that will still be against unification and uplifting of all.

 

[nycfan]

I’ve been trying to convince myself that maybe it will be really bad in the short-term but (silver lining) bad enough to break MAGA as a cohesive political block. It could take a long time to recover the (further) damage he could do to the judiciary, US influence abroad, tax policy and the economy, though.

 

[nycfan]

How Alarmed Should We Be If Trump Wins Again?

Even many of the ex-President’s opponents haven’t grasped the scale of the man’s villainy.

www.newyorker.com

“… A central story of American public life during the past three or four decades is (as this writer has noted) that liberals have wanted political victories while reliably securing only cultural victories, even as conservatives, wanting cultural victories, get only political ones.

Right-wing Presidents and legislatures are elected, even as one barrier after another has fallen on the traditionalist front of manners and mores. Consider the widespread acceptance of same-sex marriage. A social transformation once so seemingly untenable that even Barack Obama said he was against it, in his first campaign for President, became an uncontroversial rite within scarcely more than a decade.

Right-wing political power has, over the past half century, turned out to have almost no ability to stave off progressive social change: Nixon took the White House in a landslide while Norman Lear took the airwaves in a ratings sweep.

And so a kind of permanent paralysis has set in. The right has kept electing politicians who’ve said, “Enough! No more ‘Anything goes’!”—and anything has kept going. No matter how many right-wing politicians came to power, no matter how many right-wing judges were appointed, conservatives decided that the entire culture was rigged against them.

On the left, the failure of cultural power to produce political change tends to lead to a doubling down on the cultural side, so that wholesome college campuses can seem the last redoubt of Red Guard attitudes, though not, to be sure, of Red Guard authority.

On the right, the failure of political power to produce cultural change tends to lead to a doubling down on the political side in a way that turns politics into cultural theatre. Having lost the actual stages, conservatives yearn to enact a show in which their adversaries are rendered humiliated and powerless, just as they have felt humiliated and powerless.

When an intolerable contradiction is allowed to exist for long enough, it produces a Trump. …”

 

[aGDevil2k]

If the Supreme Court were to overturn Obergefell - and with this Court that's a distinct possibility, and if Trump wins he'll likely get to place even more justices on the Court - how long do you think it would take states like NC to eliminate gay marriage within their borders? This is the state that a little over a decade ago passed an amendment banning gay marriage by a wide margin. That's exactly what happened with Roe, and not only did red states eliminate abortion rights, many of them did so to the most extreme limit possible.

Ok so if it was overturned then Amendment 1 would be back live

The hiccup now though is that federal law says states have to recognize marriages from other states. So basically, and I'm sure that would be challenged but the 14th is a help, NC wouldn't perform them anymore but may likely have to recognize legal ones performed elsewhere

 

[Mulberry Heel]

Ok so if it was overturned then Amendment 1 would be back live

The hiccup now though is that federal law says states have to recognize marriages from other states. So basically, and I'm sure that would be challenged but the 14th is a help, NC wouldn't perform them anymore but may likely have to recognize legal ones performed elsewhere

Well, one would hope, but federal law only works if the courts and government officials are willing to enforce it, and I have little faith in Trump-appointed judges or GOP federal and state officials in upholding the law. I could also easily see them changing the law.

 

[superrific]

Ok so if it was overturned then Amendment 1 would be back live

The hiccup now though is that federal law says states have to recognize marriages from other states. So basically, and I'm sure that would be challenged but the 14th is a help, NC wouldn't perform them anymore but may likely have to recognize legal ones performed elsewhere

There's also the Full Faith and Credit clause in the Constitution. I don't know what federal law you're referring to, but I'm confident the FFC clause would protect out of state marriages (just like it protects out of state divorces). And the conservative justices love FFC so I am skeptical that they would mess with it.

But whatever the legal status of those marriages, they would be newly subject to ridicule and stigma.

 

[nycfan]

Loading…

www.politico.com

“… Trump is weighing a go-it-alone approach to presidential transition planning, which could dramatically slow his takeover of the federal government. …

The decision not to take federal assistance allows them to raise unlimited funds without disclosing their donors, while avoiding oversight from federal bureaucrats … [But] it will limit the information he and his team can access to understand current federal operations and challenges.”

 

[ZenMode]

1. Your second sentence (actually third, but you used a run-on) makes no sense.
2. I knew what you were trying to do. And I posted what I did with a purpose in mind also. Let's suppose I'm wrong. Let's suppose Trump does nothing of what he says he will do, the term ends uneventfully and everything is back to normal in 2028. What do I have to answer for? A bit of hysteria, possibly.

But let's suppose you're wrong. What are you going to do? Say "whoops"? What will you do when Trump orders a drone strike on a group of protesters? The blood will be on your hands and everyone who voted and/or apologized for Trump. So will you devote your life to public service? Will you roam the Earth like Jules Winfield? Will you give your money away? What will you do to make up for what you have done? Oh, right. Nothing. You will do nothing. You will carry on as always.

3. This illustrates an important difference between you and me. I care about other people, so when I see danger, it makes me want to do something. You do not, so when you see danger, you just point and laugh at the people trying to help. I care to have a good society. I want the world to make progress toward a better society for everyone. You look at the efforts of people like me and pull out popcorn because everything is a fucking joke to you and you think that is your moral superiority.

Going all "grammar police", to make yourself feel smart, doesn't impress me.

The hysteria, I believe, is a significant part of the divide we see in the country. That political divide, which manifests itself in the form of demonization, a complete lack of charity and an unwillingness to communicate, isn't something we should want to feed because truly bad things happen when the ability to communicate breaks down.

Maybe I'm overly optimistic but, from where I sit, there is very little difference, hysteria-wise, between the left and right at this point in time.

This discussion has nothing to do with caring or not caring about people. BTW, I want equal rights for everyone. If you're a female and want to live as a male, I don't care. If you're a guy who wants to marry a guy, go for it. You have my full support.

 

[sleehrat1955]

If Trump were to win, Vance would be POTUS within 18 months. Talk about a disaster.....

 

[superrific]

Going all "grammar police", to make yourself feel smart, doesn't impress me.

The hysteria, I believe, is a significant part of the divide we see in the country. That political divide, which manifests itself in the form of demonization, a complete lack of charity and an unwillingness to communicate, isn't something we should want to feed because truly bad things happen when the ability to communicate breaks down.

Maybe I'm overly optimistic but, from where I sit, there is very little difference, hysteria-wise, between the left and right at this point in time.

This discussion has nothing to do with caring or not caring about people. BTW, I want equal rights for everyone. If you're a female and want to live as a male, I don't care. If you're a guy who wants to marry a guy, go for it. You have my full support.

If you think it makes me feel smart to point out run-on sentences -- well, it's kind of sad that thought would even come to your mind. What makes me feel smart is talking to my engineer son about his computational linear algebra class and realizing that I remember more from my bachelor's in physics than I thought. Or when I see through the Supreme Court's bullshit. I would say that correcting grammar is what I do with my 10 year olds, but their grammar is terrific. I pointed it out because I thought it was three sentences but then I saw that it was two.

The "hysteria" is quite simple: if Trump does what he says he will do, it will be a catastrophe for the country and for the world. We don't need the crazy conspiracy theories that people on your side of the divide do. We don't invent theories about space lasers and microchips in vaccines and Democrats eating babies and controlling the weather. Those are your people. All we do on this side of the divide is react to what the candidate does and says. And we know his track record, and his track record is one of utter incompetence, malice and mendacity.

If you think reacting in horror when a candidate says he is going to use the military on Americans, especially when in fact he has tried to do that on at least two occasions and one of his J6 lieutenants (who will almost certainly be part of his cabinet, after he's pardoned) is on record saying exactly that, there's something very wrong with you. Very, very wrong. If you don't react in horror when Trump and his GOP lackeys make it a policy position to appease the closest thing Europe has had to Hitler since Hitler (i.e. Putin), then something is wrong with you.

And thus the divide again becomes people who live in reality and people who don't. And all you do is both-side relentlessly. With lies upon lies, of course.

 

[IllegalMotion9999]

sleehrat1955, I was thinking the same thing last night. IF Trump wins, there is very little chance he completes the term. He mostly will make sure to pardon himself for any and all crimes past, present, and future. then get out.
Vance replaces the Donald as President and gets to nominate the next VP, who would have to be approved by Congress.
My guess is that the VP nominee would be Eric Trump or someone else in the Trump family.
That scenario should be brought up more by Dems....keeping in mind that Biden is two years older than Trump so that him being President for four years is highly unlikely.

 

[WaynetheDrain]

The last time Trump was president, he mishandled a medical epidemic so horribly that over a million U.S. citizens died. Then he topped it off by sending a mob of his mouth-breathing deplorable army to violently attack our capitol to stop the certification of his opponent's election win. It was only due to a brief attack of conscience from his Vice-President that we weren't plunged into a civil war.

Now imagine the idiocy it takes for someone to start a thread like this believing that we are over-exaggerating the threat that a second Trump presidency would visit upon this country.

 

[superrific]

I’ve been trying to convince myself that maybe it will be really bad in the short-term but (silver lining) bad enough to break MAGA as a cohesive political block. It could take a long time to recover the (further) damage he could do to the judiciary, US influence abroad, tax policy and the economy, though.

If he puts in the tariffs he promises and the deportation efforts he promises, then that would almost certainly break MAGA's back. One would hope it would lead to the mother of all wave elections in 2026.

The judiciary can be fixed with the political will to do so. Courts can be expanded. Jurisdiction can be changed. And the whole "life tenure" for judges thing makes no sense. I've never understood why people are so convinced that the constitution requires it. There are two points here:

1. Congress creates the judicial circuits. It's added circuits in the past. It could also eliminate circuits. If Congress passed a law to eliminate the Fifth Circuit, where would the Fifth Circuit judges go? This doesn't work for the Supreme Court, obviously, but otherwise. If Congress passed a law to create a new 12th Circuit to cover what is now the Fifth and the 10th, and directed that Circuit to adopt Ninth Circuit law, it would be an entirely new circuit.

2. The constitution says that judges serve during good behavior. That implies that there is bad behavior. It also implies that bad behavior for judges includes something more than an impeachable act (because otherwise the good behavior clause would be unnecessary, since the impeachment clause already applies). So judges can be removed for reasons other than having committed High Crimes or Misdemeanors, if that constitutes bad behavior.

And nowhere does the Constitution specify the procedures for removing judges for bad behavior, leading to the inference that it can be done by Congress or the president.

3. This is admittedly a slippery slope, but a) I have no confidence that the GOP wouldn't try those hijinks if the liberals ever were to get a majority and b) is the slippery slope worse than what we have? What would happen if we removed judges, and then they removed our judges? We might get a Supreme Court run by reactionaries?

Now whether there is political will to do any of that is an open question. One would hope, though, that the president and Congress would be assertive and not let the judiciary run amok just because.

 

[HeelYeah2012]

With the increasing number of people putting you on ignore on a daily basis (congrats on that), you'll soon be living in an echo chamber in here b/c you'll only be talking to yourself. I'm sure some won't, including me, but we're mostly masochists who enjoy a little irritation but also enjoy sassing our irritators. Politics may be your hobby, but sass is mine.
That is pretty much the only future possible for you in here, but you clearly seem to enjoy it as well. But as far as substantive discussion, there will be none. Your mind is made up, as are most of your interlocutors'. I don't see that changing on either side, certainly not as a result of ostensible discussion with you about any political issue.

No one is going to change anyone’s mind on here about who to vote for for president. That’s never been my goal. My goal in visiting here is to see what the left is saying and offer my own differing perspective since 99% of folks here are voting against Trump compared to only 50-52% of the nation as a whole voting against Trump.

 

[HeelYeah2012]

I know that self-awareness is not one of your strengths, and that you do not routinely, if ever, pause for reflection, but it needs to be repeated until you start to understand -

You. Are. Not. Center. Anything.

You are not a centrist. You are not a moderate.

I’m center-right, not a true centrist. But I’m a lot more centrist than the vast majority here. Most here just blindly vote straight ticket for the Magic D.

 

[finesse]

Pretty simple. The more educated tend to be anti Trump. That weights this board automatically in that direction. The educated ones who favor Trump who aren't trolls or some other Type of provocateur realizes that they are at a serious disadvantage in a legitimate debate and stay away. Why is this that hard to understand? Trump sucks in every way and the Republicans have been bad for the economy, job creation and everything else since WWII. Any real research proves that.

 

[superrific]

Republicans have been bad for the economy, job creation and everything else since WWII. Any real research proves that.

this isn't true. I assume by "real research" you're referring to something other than just counting jobs gained or lost during a presidency (which is silliness and unreflective of reality). And if you look at the economic policies pursued by the two parties SINCE WWII (that's a long time), there's good and bad both ways.

If you narrow the time period to this century, you are correct.

 

[finesse]

this isn't true. I assume by "real research" you're referring to something other than just counting jobs gained or lost during a presidency (which is silliness and unreflective of reality). And if you look at the economic policies pursued by the two parties SINCE WWII (that's a long time), there's good and bad both ways.

If you narrow the time period to this century, you are correct.

This seemed pretty convincing to me. Please point out the flaws in the numbers.

Economic performance is stronger when Democrats hold the White House - EPI Action

Besides the pronounced superiority of macroeconomic performance under Democratic presidents, the fruits of economic growth are also distributed substantially more equally under Democratic presidents.

epiaction.org

 

[hedge]

When Trump had a Republican majority in both chambers, there were still some traditional Republicans around to stifle his fuckery. Those folks are largely gone, either by being primaried by MAGA candidates or resignations.
There’s a very good chance that Republicans will again hold a majority in both chambers 3 months from now, but instead of people like Paul Ryan, Mike Gallagher, Liz Cheney, Ben Sasse, Mitt Romney, we have people like Lauren Bobert, MTG, Matt Gaetz, Anna Luna, Tommy Tuberville, Markwayne Mullen, Josh Hawley, JD Vance and Ryan Zinke.

Between massive turnover within the GOP congressional caucuses, an ethically flexible majority on SCOTUS and a plan to circumvent the administrative guardrails (Project 2025), there’s very little to stop him from indulging in whatever fuckery he likes.

Consternated upvote for "ethically flexible"...

 

[superrific]

This seemed pretty convincing to me. Please point out the flaws in the numbers.

Economic performance is stronger when Democrats hold the White House - EPI Action

Besides the pronounced superiority of macroeconomic performance under Democratic presidents, the fruits of economic growth are also distributed substantially more equally under Democratic presidents.

epiaction.org

The effect of a president's economic policies are not limited to that president's time in office. In fact, they usually have their main impact after they leave the office, with the exception of stimulus passed at the beginning.

So "the economy does better under Dems than Pubs" is a silly and unserious way of assessing management of the economy. Sure, it counters equally unserious people who think that the GOP is great on the economy 'cause Reagan, but it's not the truth.

For instance, Eisenhower was president for 8 years, the last two of which were a recession. Back then, recessions were less avoidable than I think they are now (it's possible that we've seen our last business cycle recession, which would have been 2000 and that was short and mild). So his tenure, which was prosperous more generally, ended with a whimper so in aggregate, the economic performance wasn't good. That, however, was just a matter of timing, not policy. So then the Dems take over and there's a boom coming out of the recession. Again, to be expected (it was like the Reagan "boom" in that regard). Then Nixon took over as the boom was nearing its end, so the economy was inevitably going to falter and the oil embargo sure as hell didn't help.

Here's how I would rate the major economic policies (at least the ones I can think of off the top of my head):

Kennedy trade liberalization = good
Infrastructure spending, Eisenhower -> Johnson = good. Infrastructure cuts, Reagan and Bush = bad
Nixon's suspension of Bretton Woods = good (though I'm not sure whether to give him credit for that; his other economic policies in response to the oil shock suggests that he threw everything at the wall and this one happened to stick).
Kennedy tax cuts = good
Reagan 1981 tax cuts = eh. Not good, but no lasting damage that I know of
Reagan 1986 tax cuts = in general good, bad in some specifics
Clinton harvesting the peace dividend and tax changes in 1993-94 = good
Bush tax cuts of 2001 = eh
Bush tax cuts of 2003 = bad
Bush deregulation of banking oversight = very very bad
Obama stimulus 2009 = good
Obamacare = good

It's a mixed record. It's not mixed after 2000. One issue where there was clear demarcation was antitrust. Since Reagan, the GOP has been wrong about antitrust and the Dems right (though it has not always been a significant focus).