Former president tells Glenn Beck he would have ‘no choice’ but to lock up opponents ‘because they’re doing it to us’

  • Hyggyldy
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    14510 months ago

    I was wondering if the actual quote was something more weaselly than that but nope.

    Beck: “If you become president will you lock people up?”

    Trump: “The answer is you have no choice, because they’re doing it to us.”

  • @Rusticus@lemmy.world
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    10210 months ago

    Well he campaigned on “lock her up” and despite nearly a dozen investigations and her testifying in front of Congress for 10 hours, guess what happened? Zippity doo daa

      • @ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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        1210 months ago

        You’re thinking of Reagan testifying before Congress about Iran Contra.

        It worked for Karl Rove and Dick Cheney when they talked about vote manipulation in 2004.

        It was also the only way Spiro Agnew got through his corruption hearing in front of Congress while Nixon tried to do the same for Watergate until the taped conversations were released.

        It’s a time tested conservative play when confronted by a request to tell the truth: don’t lie but deny the allegations. Weirdly, I can’t find any time a democrat, Hilary or otherwise, repeated “I don’t recall” for their entire testimony. It just seems to be a conservative play.

  • @KaiReeve@lemmy.world
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    9010 months ago

    His entire campaign in 2016 was ‘locking up’ Hillary. If he wasn’t able to accomplish that in 4 years, what makes him think he can follow through with this promise now that he has numerous enemies on both sides of the aisle?

    Nothing short of a full-blown Shutzstaffel will fulfill even a fraction of his current campaign promises.

    • @MammyWhammy@lemmy.ml
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      4810 months ago

      Playing devil’s advocate, the Trump team didn’t expect to win and quite frankly had no clue how to pull the levers of power for a large portion of his presidency. If, God forbid, he is reelected that will not be the case. They will know how to play the system much more effectively than they did last time.

      • @atticus88th@lemmy.world
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        1710 months ago

        If that happens then my grandchildren will be living in nearly the identical series events my grandmother escaped from.

        We have learned nothing from our past mistakes.

      • @Djinger@lemm.ee
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        510 months ago

        Furthermore, they’ve been bleating about the left doing exactly what he’s saying despite it not being the case, so his followers and acolyte will 100% back him when he does it for real. Another Big Lie

      • @n0m4n@lemmy.world
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        410 months ago

        They learned some of what didn’t work. That does not translate to being able to any better ability to lead a nation. Authoritarians always fail on the fatal flaw of believing their own BS, and sycophants reaffirming that delusion. Kings, Popes, Hitler, Putin, Dear Leader, and now Xi all were inflicted with that delusion.

      • @hitmyspot@aussie.zone
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        210 months ago

        Haven’t most abandoned him and bad mouthed him. It will be new incompetents and deplorables. Some will be the same, but they are the background people.

        I wonder if seeing the problems some allies now have seeking alternative employment or opportunities will give them pause. Then I remember they are not great critical thinkers.

        The more moderate Republicans stayed away and rightly so. I don’t think they will be tempted to rejoin. Luckily, he’s got much less chance. His base is shrinking, albeit at a much slower rate than it should. People are more aware of what a terrible person and president he will be. Those paying attentiyalready knew.

    • @some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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      310 months ago

      He’s never believed that he’d be able to lock up anyone other than PoC and migrants. His base bought into it. I don’t thing this promise is going to hold nearly the same support as last time. Sure, they’ll still love him to death and try to elect him but I don’t expect that they’ll be so sure that he’ll make this happen. But it’s a re-run and americans are famous for watching garbage television, so who knows.

  • @CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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    7010 months ago

    What else would this douchebag do, really? He had 4 years and the only thing he “accomplished” was tax breaks for the elite.

    Of course this tiny petty man will use the power of the office to exact revenge. He’s not going to do anything for Americans.

    • @kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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      10 months ago

      He had 4 years and the only thing he “accomplished” was tax breaks for the elite

      He also “accomplished” making intentional allies a lot less willing to trust the US.

      • @Clown_Tempura@lemmy.world
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        -2310 months ago

        To be fair, a lot of those deaths were inevitable. Trump did not create the anti-vax movement. He just taught it to torture itself with horse dewormer to own the libs.

        • @ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.world
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          3310 months ago

          To be fair and accurate, he lied to the country about the seriousness of the outbreak. He’s on recording in Feb 2020 flat-out telling Bob Woodward it’s going to be bad, it’s much more deadly than the flu. At the same time he’s publicly calling it a hoax, that its going to go away, like a miracle.

          The people that trusted him didn’t take it serious because he told them not to, and then accused everyone taking it serious to be fools or intentionally trying to create a panic and steal their liberties. Had he simply allowed the scientists and the CDC to speak candidly and deferred to them, thousands upon thousands of lives would have been saved.

          • @Clown_Tempura@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Oh I don’t mean to imply he is not responsible or try to make light of his disastrous incompetence, the absolute shithead definitely got many people killed by insisting the biggest public health crisis in recent memory was no big deal. A solid quarter of the US population to this day still hangs on his every word. I’m just saying that with or without him, a good chunk of people were going to refuse to get vaccinated or practice social distancing no matter what. This undercurrent of contrarian mental illness in America is not new.

            • @Wilibus@lemmy.world
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              1010 months ago

              And deliberately normalizing that behavior is the issue. Same thing with racism, Trump doesn’t create or promote racism, he just normalizes the racist behavior.

              • @Clown_Tempura@lemmy.world
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                10 months ago

                Well that goes without saying. These people were always like this, but social norms forced them to be more quiet about it. Career conman and karma Houdini Trump comes along and shows his people that not only can they be be open and proud of their worst qualities, they can get away with their behavior in nearly all cases.

            • @orclev@lemmy.world
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              410 months ago

              This undercurrent of contrarian mental illness in America is not new.

              Sadly, you’re correct, this is very much not new. That’s a political flier from 1955 put out during the height of the red scare and McCarthyism. I’d say conservatives need new material, but it’s very clear that the old material is working just as well today as it was 70 years ago.

        • mesamune
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          2110 months ago

          Hard disagree. He specifically said it would go away in two weeks.

      • @No_Ones_Slick_Like_Gaston@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        While both of these statements are true, Obama did it to get the US out of the recession hole where the previous 8 years of unsecured mortgages and crazy walls street bets from investment banks created endemic risk and failure propagation.
        Very different outcomes of the same moneys, specially considering we even turn some profit on sellin the bailed out car companies and once they paid some of these loans.

      • @vivadanang@lemm.ee
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        910 months ago

        it’s important to understand each of their reasoning:

        Obama added to the national debt in order to jumpstart a stalled economy that was deep, DEEEEEEP in the shitter after Bush just noped’out after letting the housing market explode and adding two wars to the bill. Paying all that shit off, PLUS, what was planned to be damned-near-universal-healthcare but became JUST a huge expansion to most people’s health benefits (the ACA).

        Those are things Obama’s admin paid for and we saw actual, tangible returns on. The economy roared back to life. Medical costs and insurance costs went down.

        What benefits did we see from Trump’s deficit ballooning tax cuts? hmm lemme look here… ah, the report says JACK SHIT.

        Unless you’re a billionaire.

        So yeah, they both added to the national debt but at least most americans received a functioning economy and a chance for healthcare from Obama. Genuinely, Thanks Obama!

  • @Hazdaz@lemmy.world
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    6110 months ago

    They aren’t even hiding that they are wanna-be dictators anymore.
    And “freedom” loving conservatives just cheer this on.
    They “love” America so much, they want to destroy our democracy. The level of hypocrisy amongst the Right is astonishing.

    • @Hazor@lemmy.world
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      1310 months ago

      Most of the followers can’t see past “we’re going to save America from the evil Democrats”. It’s not as if Fox News or OAN put the fascist behaviors on display. They genuinely believe Trump when he says the Democrats are persecuting him, rather than that the justice system is prosecuting him for crimes - his only “crime” was trying to save America from those evil commie Democrats, after all. They take all the BS at face value because … tribalism and fear or something?

      The only people in the Republican party who actually understand what’s happening are the rich and the powerful. Everyone else, the voters especially, are just useful idiots.

    • @CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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      1010 months ago

      If you’re expecting someone to actually enforce consequences on him for this you haven’t been paying attention.

        • @Wilibus@lemmy.world
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          010 months ago

          I’m kind of worried about that being the case. Not American though, you should probably be more worried if you actually live there.

            • @Wilibus@lemmy.world
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              010 months ago

              Being an outside observer I am kind of excited for him to flee the country and attempt to run for president of the United States from somewhere like Russia or North Korea.

              Best. Timeline. Ever.

                • @Wilibus@lemmy.world
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                  010 months ago

                  Which part exactly? Him being found guilty, him trying to flee the country, or him continuing to claim victory after fleeing the country?

                  This timeline is eerily close to a conceivable reality.

  • @Red_October@lemmy.world
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    5610 months ago

    So they screech about the justice system being weaponized because they’re being tried and prosecuted for their crimes, and then turn around and in the same breath just flat out say they’ll weaponize the justice system. Classic case of saying the quiet part out loud.

    • Evie
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      2110 months ago

      Project, deny, gaslight, then project again. The GOP maga play book

    • @escapesamsara@discuss.online
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      1110 months ago

      Most conservatives, as in all of those not in charge, have issues with empathy; specifically imagining the inner world of any other human being. That’s not to say that cannot do this very simple human activity, rather they specifically cannot imagine any other human on the planet thinks any differently or has any other motivations than them. Therefore if they would do something in a situation, then everyone in that situation must be trying to do the thing that they would do.

      They believe democrats are weaponizing the justice system, because it’s what they would do, and thus they assume anyone that failed to do that before now was simply prevented from doing so – now that they see ‘weaponized’ justice happening, they think it’s fair game for their guys to do it.

    • @krakenx@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      If you (in the general sense) don’t believe that Trump and his cronies committed crimes, then you would likely believe that the justice system is being used to attack him. If it’s being used to attack him, then him doing the same to his opponents is equivalent and fair.

      Whether or not you believe he committed crimes is dependent on your news sources, ability to fact check and think critically, and your trust in the justice system.

      A very significant portion of the population doesn’t believe he committed crimes.

  • @Rapidcreek@reddthat.com
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    4410 months ago

    They need to ask ab9ut this during these republican debate/PR events. Do you support tump’s call tto arrest his political opponents?" Yes or no,

    • @theangryseal@lemmy.world
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      2410 months ago

      Ummm, that’s not the question you’re hoping it is.

      They chanted “lock her up!” at rallies.

      The people who still support this man (and it’s a lot of people) would turn against anyone who answered with a no.

        • @dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1510 months ago

          The people being asked the question will not answer in good faith. They are blood thirsty, they are angry, and they want a scapegoat, not a civics lesson.

          • @Rapidcreek@reddthat.com
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            710 months ago

            If those peo0le who are running for president are blood thirsty, we should probably know about it before voting starts.

            • @escapesamsara@discuss.online
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              310 months ago

              DeSantis was a lawyer for Gitmo; Trump wanted to execute five innocent black men before he had any political ambitions; Vivek fully embraces the caste system that benefited his family in the past, and has pretty openly suggested he wants to use violence to implement it here. We know the people who are running for president are blood thirsty, they don’t hide that in any way. They chose to run on a conservative platform, violence is inherent to the ideology, and on top of that frequently advertise how well they would play the role of violence if elected.

              • @theangryseal@lemmy.world
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                210 months ago

                Those 5 black men he wanted executed were between 14 and 16 years old.

                He wanted to execute five black and Hispanic children. That’s what he wanted to do. Paid from his own pocket to advertise it too.

                I’m not correcting you because I disagree, I just wanted to drive that point home.

                Your comment is 100% on point aside from that little error.

              • @aesthelete@lemmy.world
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                210 months ago

                I agree with all of this, but unfortunately none of it is framed this way in the media.

                The mass media kinda has a “Jews for Hitler” vibe going about it right now, because a lot of Trump’s “political enemies” are journalists. They should stop pussyfooting around that fact and stop covering this as a horse race because if he wins he’s gonna run his horse right over them first with the rest of us not too far behind.

            • @WarmSoda@lemm.ee
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              10 months ago

              You can listen to to to them talk at any recorded rally they have. There are interviews with these people. Websites. PACs. Years of history. Television debates are not the only way to know thier thoughts. None of these people appeared out of thin air.

    • @LeFantome@programming.dev
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      1310 months ago

      They already asked them if they would support Trump as nominee ( their political rival ) if he was arrested and imprisoned. I think 6 of 8 said “yes”.

      • @Wilibus@lemmy.world
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        210 months ago

        Technically 5 of 8 said yes, DeSantis waited to see what everyone else did and then raised his hand as well.

          • @Wilibus@lemmy.world
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            010 months ago

            Hesitating isn’t the same as waiting to make sure you’re on the same team as the popular kids.

            If anything hesitating puts him marginally above these other bootlicking fascists.

  • Queen HawlSera
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    10 months ago

    Once again the Right is accusing the Left of things the Right wants to do.

    Pretty sneaky trick really.

    Say your enemy is going to do something

    Do it

    Get told “Hey you’re doing X”

    Tell them “Projecting much? Everyone knows you’re the one who’s doing X, I even said so before you accused me of anything!”

  • @JdW@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Apart from the whole dictator thing, they had the presedential power for 4 years and managed to lock up exactly nobody… Not saying they’re not dangerous but why would their base believe them this time, action should really speak louder than words with those simpletons and Trump has been all words.

    • Evie
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      3410 months ago

      He is a dictator… I feel like if we get to that point… Congress agreeing to bills is the least of our problems coming

      • FlashMobOfOne
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        1710 months ago

        Agreed.

        Trump has a very good chance of making it back, and when he does, everything he did up to and including 1/6 will be validated. We will be an overtly fascist country for at least four years, but likely longer.

        • FlashMobOfOne
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          -1510 months ago

          Won’t be hard to do when they don’t have to lie about what a shitty president Biden has been for the poor and middle class. He won 2016 because 6,000,000 lost their homes under Obama and he didn’t do anything meaningful to stop it.

          • Evie
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            1310 months ago

            “I’m mad at president bidenz so I support a fascist dictator taking over to make sure I get revenge on the party I feel wronged me…”

            Be gone traitor.

            • FlashMobOfOne
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              10 months ago

              I don’t support it, but I’m a Democratic Socialist. You guys elect shitty people and don’t listen to us and then inexplicably blame us for your failures.

              And I do sorta hate that team color is so important to you and yours that it’s going to lead to the US becoming a legit fascist country.

              • Evie
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                710 months ago

                Uh huh… Yeah, very convincing argument…

            • the post of tom joad
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              -410 months ago

              If you don’t want a hive-mind of samey ideas then don’t dismiss ideas outright because you don’t agree. What a disgusting point of view.

              Why not reflect on how easy it would be to find a comment like yours in some right wing trumper sub?

              • Evie
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                10 months ago

                I would if the argument being made was madein good faith and not the ‘welp nothing we can do cause both sides suck’ argument… Have nuance… if not, don’t spout apologist bs here for the right wing terrorists trying to force us inro fascism

          • @ZzyzxRoad@lemm.ee
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            1210 months ago

            Anytime there’s a conversation about trump, fascism, and white supremacists in America, there’s always at least one of the “dEmOcrAtS sHoUld HaVE dOnE MoRe” crowd. It’s so stupid, I can’t help but think it’s very intentional misdirection. Like it’s some astroturfed bullshit from a conservative think tank.

            America is shitty for the poor (there is no middle class anymore). So at this point, if voting for someone who is not a fucking fascist dictator is all we can do, then that’s what we’re going to do.

            • @CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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              610 months ago

              Yep, and the GD “liberal media” is not helping when they continue to play this horse race nonsense like the cowardly corporate quislings that they are. They are acting like nothing is really at stake other than which party is running things and that “both sides” are more or less equal.

              This is just not true.

                • @CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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                  10 months ago

                  True - just like in 2016, they played the “oh my word, some people find Hillary problematic, or too shrill, or too much non-male, and whataboutthoseemails and isn’t she over-prepared for debates, and ermagawd she fainted, I tellz ya!” and other stupid and dangerous games… - they are now doing the “some people” find Biden too old, etc.

            • @SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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              10 months ago

              Joe Quimby is so weak he allowed Sideshow Bob, a convicted criminal, out of prison. So you should vote for Sideshow Bob!

            • PorkRollWobbly
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              210 months ago

              It isn’t all we can do, but it’s a pretty good thing to do. It’s part of my Diversity of Tactics.

            • @Johnmannesca@lemmy.world
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              110 months ago

              The real question is, how do I know this isn’t some kind of misdirection from an even more dangerous opinion for both parties?

            • FlashMobOfOne
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              -210 months ago

              What you think is irrelevant. You’re just as powerless as the rest of us to stop this.

              We voted anti-fascist in 2020. What we got was (depending on where you live) a 30% - 50% cost of living increase, a trillion-plus war spending per year (and we can’t know the exact figure because we’re funding other countries’ wars now too), a national abortion ban, and zero action on housing scarcity on top of it. We got no meaningful action against anyone involved in the January 6th domestic terrorist attack, despite Biden having Congress on top of the presidency. We might be lucky and get one high-profile Proud Boy behind bars, maybe.

              This isn’t an intentional misdirection. This is reality.

              The people we voted for did a shit job, and as we saw in 1930’s Germany, no one is going to care if a person is fascist or not if that person is the candidate of change. 2024 is a lost cause, and it’s because Democrats didn’t do more when we handed them power.

              • @kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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                810 months ago

                What we got was (depending on where you live) a 30% - 50% cost of living increase,

                Coat of living going up by ridiculous levels is a global issue, not an exclusively American problem, and certainly not caused exclusively and personally by the current American president.

                • @aesthelete@lemmy.world
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                  510 months ago

                  IMO COL increases were mainly driven by record inflation in housing due to COVID coinciding with record low interest rates. Then there was also the cartel setting the price of gas high to recoup their pandemic belt-tightening, legitimate and illegitimate supply chain issues, and corporate interests hiking prices in order to pad their profit margins as the government cheese shop was starting to close up.

                  These conditions were somewhat similar no matter which country you live in, and played out in similar ways on a global scale.

          • prole
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            910 months ago

            Bro, what are you even talking about? Are you lost?

    • prole
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      10 months ago

      Has nobody on the internet ever read a history book? Who cares what Congress thinks when you have an autocrat jailing his political opponents? It’s not relevant anymore.

      • @CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        This. Far too many sympathetic fascist-curious, fascist-adjacent, and outright fascists in the Republican Party (and the police, and the army and the FBI, etc…) that DGAF about institutional norms.

        We still have not even gotten to the bottom of their coup attempt - just WHY did they issue stand-down orders for J6? What was Flynn’s involvement, as well as his BROTHER’S involvement?

        These people thought they were going to get away with it. We already nearly lost our country - these assholes are likely to make sure they don’t fail next time.

      • @dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        910 months ago

        In order for Donald Trump to become an autocrat, he’d have to dissolve 2 of the 3 branches of government. In order to dissolve the branches of government, he’d need one of the branches of government that he doesn’t control to agree to be dissolved. Then the SCOTUS would have to rule on the constitutionality of Congress being eliminated, which, if they’re acting ethically (har har) they would immediately halt. He can sign executive orders, but the more EOs a president signs, the more they create tension within the voting population, potentially leading to unrest and if left unchecked, worse.

        • prole
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          10 months ago

          All of that shit goes out the window when you have an army of racist cops, and potentially the actual US military backing you. I’d like to think they’d shut it down real quick, but enlisted men are overwhelmingly conservative (and Trump supporters) if I recall. There are militias who have been “training” (most of them are probably a joke, but let’s not forget what the Bundys did with just a few guys) for decades for a moment like this.

          This is what I meant when I mentioned reading history books. This is far from uncharted territory. This is how these things happen historically. We’re watching it happen in realtime.

          • @Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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            810 months ago

            Civil war might be preferable to letting them take power peacefully because it won’t stay peaceful. I have no doubt that they’ll find people to run death camps if it comes to that, my question is how much will everyone else do to oppose them. If they start arresting journalists, then that’s a sign that it’s about to get very bad.