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Remember that the post-2020 US election Time article "The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election"? Somewhere between a victory lap and credit-claiming at a time it was generally thought Trump's political prospects were dead, it was a rare look behind the scenes of retroactively-admitted coordinated political obstruction and shaping efforts.
It was also the article with the memorable distinction of-
Well, the New York Times on Sunday published a more pre-emptive form of democratic fortification: The Resistance to a New Trump Administration Has Already Started.
The article in short is a look at different wings of the Democratic Party apparatus, and steps they are taking in anticipation of a Trump victory to foil the predicted efforts of the 2025 Project. Some of these fears seem a good deal less grounded than others- Trump has been an abortion moderate such that it's hard to see why a Democratic governor would need to stock years of abortion supplies in a state warehouse beyond political theater- but then the article is quite likely a form of political theater. As far as election-year advertising goes, it's both a 'here are all the horrible things that could happen' fear campaign-
-with the ACLU specifically focusing on four areas of potential lawfare-
-but all with a back-edge 'but we thwarted him before and can do it again' of tribal-protection promise.
Not necessarily optimistic, but a 'we will fight for you' solidarity / call for support framing.
While there is the occasional (potentially deliberate) amusing word choice in ways that anyone who has used the term the Cathedral might appreciate-
The core strategies include the following, none of which are particularly surprising but which are good to see identified clearly in advance:
-Passing executive actions in the Biden administration before certain timelines so that Trump can't immediately revert them
-Litigation waves to tie things in court, with recruitment of sympathetic plaintiffs with likely standing already occuring
-Implicitly by virtue of the acknowledged past strategies and current participants, more protests
-More explicitly legal preparations to prevent/limit federal intervention in protests
-A national-scale counter-ICE network to disrupt immigration raids
-Pre-emptively doing self-auditing of activist group finances in preparation of politically motivated IRS scrutiny
-Various state-based nullification theory application (such as 'inter-state commerce doesn't apply to FDA if I already have the goods in-state')
-Use of Never-Trump 'ex-Republicans' groups as part of the Democratic network, especially the Principles First organization.
(Principles First was a Never Trump wing of the Republican Party associated with Liz Cheney that started in 2022 during the anti-Trump former Republican establishment's efforts to reassert control / torpedo Trump's post-presidential prospects by cooperating with the Democrat-led impeachment trial. Since then, and her fall from the Republican Party, it's been casting itself as an alternative to CPAC. Interestingly it also works in concert with Ranked Choice voting lobbying. (In the US, ranked choice voting is often, but not always, associated with the Democratic Party, at least in the sense of pushing for it in Red / Purple, but not Blue, states.)
LOL. Sure, I might have found this troublesome in 2016. By 2020, it was clear Trump wasn't going to Lock Her Up. Now, with both the Justice Department AND state prosecutors being used as weapons against Trump, I'm actively hoping he does so. The only way back from this involves having it thrown back at its instigators. And if we don't step back, "one term in office and one term in jail" is more tolerable if it applies to both Republicans and Democrats rather than just Republicans.
Maybe have the locals control the riots?
What's that? Did you say "taking care that the laws be faithfully executed"?
IMO the "professional civil service" experiment has failed. It replaced civil servants who were cronies of those in power with civil servants who were aligned with the interests of one party at all times.
Somewhat troublesome, but pretty much all executives try to do this, so it's not special to Trump.
My reasoning is somewhat different, but I'm with you here. It's a very good thing for politicians to face motivated legal scrutiny and while I have many misgivings about a second Trump term, vigorous politically motivated prosecutions are a clear positive. It is healthy for a society when their elected officials need to take care not to break the law.
This assumes that it is possible to not break the law. "Three felonies a day" is exaggerated only in that the number is less than three per day. It's still plenty per career.
Do you pay off pornstars with company money and cook the books to cover it up, conspire to prevent the duly elected President assuming office, or continue to keep a trove of classified docs at your home after the Feds explicitly ask for them back?
None of the things Trump is being charged with are three felonies a day bullshit. All four criminal indictments involve malum in se behaviour - the theory for the false accounting being a felony based on a predicate campaign finance violation is a stretch, but the fact that Trump committed misdemeanor false accounting was clearly established in Court.
Trump used his own money to reimburse his lawyer for paying off stormy Daniels; legal expenses is a literally accurate descriptor. And classified docs is quite literally three felonies a day behavior; the fbi found some in Biden’s corvette.
I’m assuming you mean the Georgia case with conspiring to prevent the duly elected president from assuming office. That doesn’t seem a quite accurate descriptor- Trump actually believed he won Georgia and was trying to convince raffensperger to come up with the proof.
How can you know what Trump actually believed?
Have you considered the alternate possibility that he never believed the election was stolen?
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It prevents otherwise very qualified people from running all the time. If they don't have the pull they must kowtow or have their "crimes" exposed.
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