I’d argue that the government itself has been in revolt against the constitution since when Gingrich took over Congress, but a valid argument can be made for it starting with Reagan
i even know a lot of people who cite Nixon as where our constitutional collapse started. laws only matter if they're obeyed
It started with Andrew Johnson.
I'm not making a joke. You can't have people go to war against the U.S. from within the U.S. and then not hold the wealthy elites who led it accountable.
Since the Civil War, the rebels and their descendants have continued to try to destroy the U.S. and their efforts have finally reached the tipping point.
i don't disagree. the american civil war is the tent pole event through which all other analysis of american history needs to be analyzed. certain lefty folks will tell you it's the great depression but i think that's fundamentally just examining american history through the lens of when the poverty of the southern tidewater finally reached the northern cities. yes, brown and black people were hit harder by the great depression, so the great depression is still a useful tent pole, however the missing context of why brown and black people didn't have as many protections from poverty is very important, and that reason is that by not enforcing reckoning against the wealthy elites who enacted the civil war to continue owning people, every enforcement of poverty in the tidewater was allowed to repeat
That’s another starting spot I don’t disagree with, there’s a lot of through lines that could be traced back even to things like the business plot or even the founding of the John Birch Society
WILSOONNNN!!!!!!!!
Edit: The Insurrection and Sedition Act of 1913. That, and a few other key policies of The Wilson administration, led directly to The Business Plot of 1933, who idiotically chose Brigadier General Smedley Butler to lead the coup.
And who was involved with both Nazis and the business plot?
Prescott Bush, father of George H. W. Bush who would become head of the CIA before being vice- and then president. Grandfather of George Bush who would be president after a controversial election was handed to him by SCOTUS and would preside over the US during 9-11 and the massive stripping of rights that the Patriot act and others accomplished in the name of security.
But I'm sure none of any of that relates.
Or subjectively and generally enforced.
In my opinion it was the creation of the CIA, and Nixon was the last nail in the coffin... with Reagan as a result.
Once you have "black budgets" with no transparency, it's over... it's just a matter of time, as it grows exponentially every budget.
I agree. This starts with Nixon and Ford giving a pardon was a huge mistake. The US needs to have a president actually go down. Until then, it's really a dictatorship.
Honestly, letting the president pick the guy who replaces him if he's thrown out isn't a great idea.
Well that was devised before parties existed. The most popular candidate was president and the person with the second most votes became vice president. It was a way to force compromise but, of course, we amended the constitution to have P and VP run together.
So, originally, if the president died, vacated office, etc., it was the second most popular presidential candidate that became president.
Yeah, that'd be even worse under the current climate. All they'd have to do is get second place, and then BANG! Change of plan, boys!
Kamala would be VP and take over once the dementia gets too harsh.
“But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist.”
― Lysander Spooner, No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority
If nobody does anything, it shows the constitution is worthless. It can't or won't be enforced.
We get what we get until then.
If nobody does anything, it shows the constitution is worthless.
What if some people do some things, but they're mostly perfunctory or performative and done more as a means of fund raising off gullible rubes than obstructing a tyrannical state government?
What if other people do things, but are immediately categorized as lawless radicals and foreign-sponsored insurgents who want the country to fail?
What if still other people do things, but they are in support of the tyrannical administration - either explicitly through armed support or implicitly through financing and propagandizing in defense of the state?
What if a large body of people don't know what to do or who to align with, because so many different high profile people with different motivations and ideologies all claim they are Constitutional supporters acting in opposition to anti-Constitutional tyrants?
I seen more action when George W Bush got elected, at least from the entertainment group. Now everyone seems afraid to do anything.
Twenty years of people being beaten down will have that effect. The degree of police brutality and surveillance is suffocating
If you consider that "doing something," then that's part of the problem.
Someone didn't learn what the word "thing" means.
Asking a bunch of open-ended what-if questions to contrast what's actually happening is fine, but @underpantsWeevil@lemmy.world and apparently you aren't seeing that these "things" aren't doing shit. So, effectively, it's the same stance I'm taking - just framed differently.
"What if X is done and Y is this?" That's my point. If nothing is changing despite our efforts, then nothing is being done. The Constitution is worthless right now and no number rhetorical questions will change that. Isolated, low impact regional flare-ups won't do much and can be locally suppressed and painted as disgruntled "ANTIFA" or whatever the state wants to call it next.
The Constitution is being ignored. We as a nation are failing to hold our government accountable in a meaningful way. If this election in November proves to actually unseat Trump's coalition, then the next step will be for politicians to fortify against him and others like him, then codify the changes in a way that can't be subverted by regular means.
Asking "What if" a bunch of times doesn't do or say a thing to help fix the Constitutional crisis we're now facing. So, get off your high horse and come down to earth with the rest of us who want to actually fight instead of casting unhelpful dispersions.
You were asked to consider that people are doing things while others do useless things and others still don't know what to do. Basically to look at reality and suggest what should be done. This was my reading anyhow. Your reaction is to imply anyone who would question you is cool with the status quo. Basically you're useless but especially self righteous about it.
I'm saying that the people who can and should enforce it are not only not doing anything, but blocking us from our normal measures.
We need to do extra.
If nobody does anything, it shows the constitution is worthless. It can’t or won’t be enforced.
That's 100% a problem with enforcement, not the American Constitution. "Nobody does anything" has nothing to do with the Constitution as written.
The Constitution is great, and has worked very well through even a Civil War and multiple crises. If it weren't, this robber administration would not be spending so much goddamn time in court trying to tear it all down.
The Constitution is a work of art, and the older I get the more brilliant I think it is. Don't knock it until you've studied it, and the 250 years of history it has already pulled us through.
Sorry your constitution is shit. It needs to be updated for modern times. It is not the holly relic you guys like to think it is.
As I said to another just now, the lawmakers are not doing their job. They're either ignoring or blocking the correct course. They're obligated to follow their oath to the Constitution. If that's not broken, then I don't know what is.
Furthermore, yes, it's an artful document that's 250 years old now. It needs a little help. It needs an update. In our current state, I could see our government using Chat Jippity to write those updates.
It had a good run, but it's been beaten to death now. We need a new one. Even the founding fathers never imagine it would last more than a few decades, nothing wrong with moving on now.
He's been revolting for a long time.
This guy gets it, right until the end, when he says that if Democrats gain control of Congress again, they should.... Impeach him again? What good will that do? They don't have enough support for that in the Senate.
I think it is sufficient to reassert Congressional oversight, by simply telling this man "No." Don't confirm any more of his judges. Don't fund any of his priorities. Send him their budget, and make him veto it. Pass resolutions to get us out of this dumb war, make him veto that. Make sure the Public knows who is holding all the shit up when he single-handedly shuts down the government again.
He is a bully. Nobody ever defeated a bully by following rules and sucking up to the teacher. They do it by punching back.
The problem with not attempting another impeachment is that it even further lowers the bar for what counts as impeachable behavior. The lesson going forward for conservatives will be that corruption, personal enrichment, stealing and hoarding classified information, inviting other nations to meddle in our elections, using EOs like they allow you to dictate new laws, and mob-style 'negotiating' with our allies, are all perfectly OK from now on.
If they somehow managed to gain 2/3 majority in both congressional branches, then absolutely impeach him.
Hell, they still may be able to if they gain a simple majority.
For an impeachment to result in removal from office, you only need 1/3 of the House, but 2/3 of the Senate. Because only about 1/3 of the Senate is up for re-election in any given year, it's pretty much impossible for Democrats to get there in one election. So, even if Democrats take control of the Senate, they would need 15 or so Republicans to go along with it for it to stick. That is extremely unlikely.
Overriding a Presidential veto takes 2/3 of both houses. But I think that is much more likely to happen if Democrats take control of both houses, because they can start negotiating with Republicans and put enough things for them to vote for in bills to reach that threshold. Members will have an easier time voting against the President in individual bills than they would on impeachment. I think he would actually be more pissed off if multiple vetoes get overridden than he would if they successfully impeach him.
If they flipped all 20 current Republican held seats this year, and keep all of the currently Democratic held seats, they could actually hit 69 Democrat Senators, but that's highly unlikely.
they could actually hit 69 Democrat Senators
Not likely, but it would be....
.... Nice!
Nice.
Yes. The nicest part is that they would need 4 sacrificial lambs to keep maintaining the status quo, on every single vote, since 66 is Filibuster proof.
what is likely to happen. the opposing (to the white house) party, i.e. the democrats this go-around, gains control over congress. between needing cloture votes for everything in the senate, constant veto threats and the inability to override them, and a lunatic in the white house hell bent on total destruction and swiping everything he can possibly get his or his buddies' hands on.. congress literally cannot do anything to 'fix' anything, due to lack of votes within their own chambers. the corrupt administration continues being corrupt, perhaps even leveling-up their corruption stats even more. congressional democrats start investigations and hearings, but without bipartisan support--nothing could ever come from those. congressional republicants would blame 'nothing being done' by the unproductive session on the majority democrats. come 2028, it's a toss-up again for who and what wins.. it would be a toss-up, anyway, if the elections would be fair.. but they are already not going to be. so we're fucked. we're already raw and bleeding, but they're coming back for more.
People have been ringing the alarm bell since ~2015; but so much of the Murc's Law Media opted to point a camera at an empty fucking podium for an hour or so rather than spend that time letting the American people what a fraud and a phony he was known to be before taking office the first fucking time.
So much of the traditional media's megaphone was squandered these 10+ years.
The NYT certainly did their part Tone Policing and bothsidering, IIRC. Or accepting framing from the right on donnie - classic example being was to pretend that people were outraged about the "grab them by the pussy" talk because he said the word "pussy". The word "pussy" was absolutely not the fucking problem and casually talking about sexual assault is not "locker room talk".
Oh, you’re just noticing now are you? Most of us noticed over 10 years ago when it started…
Good of the NYT to wake up to the problem they actively participated in creating.
lol, i’m not convinced that they’ve woken up. More like… It’s nice when one their lower-tier reporters (who can still think independently) gets to punch through and speak their mind once in a while. Although, the cynic in me believes that it’s just a bit sprinkled in the shit here-and-there for the purpose of maintaining the pretense of respectability with what still remains of “the left” among the readership of NYT after its massive capitulation to the Trump regime.
Which is caaalllllleed? NYT Opinion person?
Anyone? Beuller?
In Oregon we ONLY do paper ballots so best of luck to the Feds if they try to dictate how my state exercises its constitutional guarantee to run it's own elections.
And Congress.
And SCOTUS.
Regulatory capture works for more than just corporations.
Some rich New Yorker is doing what all rich New Yorkers would do given half the chance.
Poor people in rural areas who spend all of their time terrified of big cities and hating coastal elites: "I love this guy!
In other news: The sky is blue, fish swim, and birds fly! More at 11!
Trump Violates His Oath to Uphold and Defend the Constitution
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