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Notes -
On the sqs thread, @Capital_Room had an interesting query, about whether Trump is actually being authoritarian:
Is there anything to this: "The Coup We've Feared Has Already Happened"?
Is this what it seems like to me — just more lefty pearl-clutching and crying wolf — or is there something to the arguments James Bruno and Tonoccus McClain are making?
Some of the commenters like @MadMonzer offer an interesting response:
That substack is a bad take on it - the best version of the theory I have seen is spread across multiple posts on lawfaremedia.org. But the underlying story is absolutely serious, and as far as I can see it is true. The three-bullet version of the story is
The slightly longer version is:
The claim that Trump and Johnson are trying to change the US budget process to one where (at least as regards discretionary spending - the only changes to entitlement spending have been done in regular order through the OBBBA) Congress does not meaningfully exercise the power of the purse seems to me to be straightforwardly true.
Overall I tend to agree that Trump's admin is acting in authoritarian ways, and even moreso than past administrations. However, it seems to me that the Congressional structure is so broken that, it kind of makes sense?
The way I see it, and the way Trump et al probably sees it, is that the Three Branches as they exist are extremely dysfunctional, and cannot do the actual job of governing the country pretty much at all. This has allowed NGOs and other non-state actors to come in and basically take over by deploying social and cultural capital in key areas, craftily created a sort of secret network of influence, etc.
The only way for us to get out of this morass, the theory goes, is to have a strong executive who basically burns this gridlock down. Though I don't know if Trump's team would want to restore a functioning American government after or just keep an extremely strong executive.
Anyway, I can't say I fully agree with Trump's seeming plan to just destroy jurisprudence for the executive and do whatever he wants, but I admire the sheer boldness. OTOH, I'm also not convinced that the U.S. has more than a 2% chance of meaningfully falling into an authoritarian dictatorship under Trump, or even in the next 10-20 years. Hopefully I don't eat my words!
Trump is pulling a bunch of shenanigans, but they don't seem really different in kind from past shenanigans. The US hasn't passed a full budget since 1997. And that he's got Johnson on board means he's not actually leaving Congress out of it. The tariffs are going through the court system as normal. The Nvidia thing is an interesting reversal of "the power to tax is the power to destroy" (Trump can lawfully forbid the export), and is probably unconstitutional, but the trick is for someone to have standing. But all of this is pretty normal pushing of boundaries, combined with an especially dysfunctional Congress. It's not an overthrow of the system.
What is the bright line for you that would show an actual overthrow of the system?
The wild applause in the about-to-be-dissolved Senate.
I don’t think George Lucas gets enough credit for writing a pretty realistic government overthrow. The later stuff in the Clone Wars and other tv shows about the troops having mind control chips is annoying and unnecessary, because to an outside observer that’s not privy to the viewer’s secret knowledge, the Jedi really do look like they were pulling shady maneuvers. Look at the facts:
Palpatine actually did a pretty good job tricking the Jedi into looking like they were trying to overthrow the Republic, and I don’t think the rank and file would object to their orders based on what they know.
Point of clarity: When Windu and the Dying Squad of Jedi arrived, they went to arrest the chancellor, not assassinate him. Thus the "I AM the senate" line, and Windu's "Not yet" (bzzzzzzzzwang ignition of lightsaber).
It was Yoda who went in with the intention of actually offing Sidious, who by then had been proven a sith lord.
Unless you're typing out the news as reported by the legacy Coruscant media, in which case yes, the masses can be tricked.
When Anikin and Mace Windu are arguing in front of the window, Mace specifically says that Palpatine is too dangerous to be left alive and that his corruption of the courts makes the justice system inadequate to deal with him. He’s definitely arguing for an impromptu extra-judicial killing right there in the office.
The Jedi are justified if you know everything that’s going on, but from a public perspective it’s all very suspicious looking.
I mean to be clear, the Jedi really do act like pompous jackasses. They happen to be correct, but they have plenty of bad press from being douchebags.
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True. But this is after the initial confrontation, where Sidious has murdered at least two jedi and shown clearly his darkside self. Yes from a public/filtered perspective it's dubious.
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