I feel ya - similar here, to file under "If you don't have anything nice to say..." but I continue to rant intermittently. I can rant enough for the both of us!
Re: GOP and the future of US governance *Warning: this post contains pessimism*
Here's what I believe will happen:
- The next four years will be a respite, the administration will fix some things, but not all.
- In the back rooms, the Fascist wing of the GOP will be working to regroup.
- For 2024, the Fascists will choose one of their own, who toes the party line, but who is very smart. I keep seeing Nikki Haley, but I'm not sure. They will have learned that choosing a dumbass like Don Orangione impeded them from achieving their true goals.
- The Lincoln Project folx will try to start a third party, but it won't work. They will know better than to proffer a third party candidate in a presidential election. They will end up reverting to what amounts to a super PAC.
- SCOTUS will remain very literalist - both for good and bad. Legal abortion will disappear from most of the lower 48 (it's almost gone now). Some states will step up to protect their citizenry, but the extreme right wing will never back down. Lawsuits upon lawsuits.
- It will become clear in the US, as it has in other countries historically, that extremism of any kind is very hard to suppress, let alone eradicate.
- Foreign enemies will be become more and more brazen and will continue to destabilize us. Without significant response from the federal government (e.g., by avoiding any signs of conflict such as severe sanctions and suspension of diplomatic ties), this will make it even harder to avoid the slide into darkness.
- Overall, the next 10 years are critical. If the US makes it to 2030 without sliding into one form of fascism or another, I think we'll be ok for another century or so. BUT I remain skeptical that it won't fall into authoritarianism or that signficant violence won't occur trying to keep the US as a republic. Personally I believe it can still get a lot worse before it really gets better. I'm almost 60 and I don't think it will ameliorate in my lifetime.
Cheers.
From an overseas perspective, I don't understand why Trump hasn't been removed from his position? Plus, if republican Twitter is anything to go by, the vast majority support the repubs trying to overturn the election results. As long as their party rules that is all that matters.
In order for him to be removed from office, an Impeachment happens first. It is a trial held in our Senate. The Senators are the jury. We did this and the Senate acquitted him.
If they had convicted him, no guarantee he would leave (see Pres. Bill Clinton). The Senate could vote for removal, but if they don't it's on the Cabinet and others to invoke other parts of our Constitution to make him leave, which they would not have done in this case either.
Re: Twitter and "vast majority" - no, that is false. It's just that the minority are extremely vocal and obnoxious. Rethuglicans, we call them - they are just bullies trying to get their way. The vast majority, including some GOP congress members, support following the law and supporting the election results. It's just that the Fascists are constantly trying to drown out everyone else.
I think that many of your thinking is correct, but I think that we as the light have one very unlikely ally to help us for the next few years.
Donald Trump.
Yes, he will inevitably become an unwilling catalyst in the light's ultimate goal to defeat the right wing fanatics and send them back under their rocks where they belong. Trump will never, ever go away (unless he dies, of course). He will continue to tweet, harass, and do whatever he can to remain relevant.
Unlike many people, I don't think he will win re-election in 2024. I think many enemies will come out of the woodwork and destroy him one way or another. Remember, after January 20, 2021, he is no longer President. He loses so many of the protections that he implemented to save himself from 2016 to today. Putin and others will have no further use for him. Republicans with their own political ambitions will kiss his ring in public and stab him in the back in private. And enemy countries like Iran and China will probably move to destroy his reputation as well, either out of revenge or because they refuse to risk another return of Trump to the White House.
But Trump will refuse to become a "kingmaker," even to his own children. He will not step down and allow others to take over the movement he started (unless it benefits him personally, of course).
So how is he an ally? Because if he continues to make noise, Democrats and Independents will continue to vote in record numbers. Remember, the Millennials are now all able to vote, and the generations after them are much more diverse and less inclined to care about the culture wars that has propelled the Republican base for decades. But the specter of Trump and what he stands for will haunt these voters, and they will do whatever it takes to vote him and others like him out. Yes, there will be pockets of Trumpism for years to come, but the areas they are located in are poorer (in comparison with the rest of the US) and thus means that they will soon be distracted on how to make it themselves (spoiler alert-get rid of the crazy GOP representatives and get some moderates who actually want to solve problems.)
In the meantime, Trump, in his "infinite wisdom," will continue to say that elections are rigged because he lost. Eventually, he will cause his own supporters to stop voting, because they think their votes don't matter. Yes, some of them will go violent. But they go violent no matter what. (I live in Tennessee, and we have been in the top ten most violent states to live in for the last eleven years. Trumpism won't change that.) Sadly, the only way we can stop the violence is to make the conservatives AFRAID of us.
No, we don't need to be violent with them. But we need to show force sometimes. When the BLM marches were taking place, my neighbors were scared because there were so many people participating. They backed off for a while. When I played nice with my neighbors, they continued to harass me until I finally stood up for myself and gave them a taste of their own treatment (I threatened them with charges, so they stopped harassing me because they fear me now.) Likewise, Democrats need to play hard ball in the Senate if we win. We need to ram every single judicial candidate we have and stack the courts. Further, we need to hold the threat of expanding the Supreme Court over the heads of McConnell and, (if he continues to obstruct), do what we need to do and stop being "nice" to them. The time for niceness and politeness is over. We can't afford to be polite in the world they created.
1. Agree 100% again.
2. Huzzah! You go girl with standing up to the nasty neighbors!
3. My dad and stepmom live in Franklin, so I have reasonable familiarity with the culture there (plus I lived in Virginia for over a decade). They have reminded me how violent it is there. They never even go into Nashville proper anymore. (And after that explosion, safe to say they never will.) They keep guns in their house because they are so fearful.
4. I agree about using stronger tactics especially, I keep saying it, but I'm sick of the Dems bringing their NPR totebags to the gunfight(s).
If they had convicted him, no guarantee he would leave (see Pres. Bill Clinton).
I'm sorry, Laura, but this not correct. Impeachment is not conviction; it is only the indictment/accusation. The Senate did not reach the 2/3 majority required to convict/remove him, so he didn't leave office because he didn't have to. If the Senate had voted to convict/remove him, he would have ceased to be POTUS with immediate effect, and the VP would have been sworn in within minutes. That would also have happened to the Orange one if the R's in the Senate had any cojones.
You are correct except that a conviction in Impeachment does not equal removal from office, otherwise Bill Clinton would have left. He was impeached/convicted for lying to Congress ("I did not have sex with that woman"), he never left office, completed two terms, in fact.
With Twitler, we did have Impeachment Hearings. The Senate then voted to acquit him of the charges, so you are correct in that he was not impeached per se, just accused and tried.