This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
"I am hereby cancelling all Executive Orders, and anything else that was not directly signed by Crooked Joe Biden, because the people who operated the Autopen did so illegally."
So this feels like a bit of an escalation to me. My attempt at an analysis, from someone who is not American:
Overall, I feel like this is kind of a misplay from Trump - I think that it guarantees that the next Democrat administration will do the same to his executive orders and pardons. I worry that this will lead to each administration basically cancelling everything that the previous one did, which I worry will lead to more power being entrenched in the permanent bureaucracy (as the administration's actions will all be seen to be impermanent, so the bureaucracy will just ignore orders they don't like). Some will argue that is the current state of affairs, and I don't necessarily disagree; the worry is that it would prevent another Trump-like figure from actually making changes.
I also think that this is one of those actions that does lend a bit of credence to the accusations that Trump is acting like a fascist. To be absolutely clear: I think there is no actual informational value in almost all accusations against Trump of any sort; I think that almost everyone who accuses him of anything has started from the position of "Trump bad" and used that to justify any and all accusations against him. That being said - this feels like the sort of action that will kick off another escalation cycle. One thing that I've noticed about a lot of US political escalations is that they often start with an action that is fully legal, but against form; the other party then does something that is mostly-legal, which the first party then uses to claim that the first party has completely abandoned the rule of law. I am right-wing biased (I lean libertarian, but that's a "more libertarian than we are now", as opposed to an "absolute libertarian") - but even with that, I can't think of an equivalent on the left to this.
So, for the American commentators - should I be concerned about this? Is this just Trump saying shit, is there a left wing equivalent I missed, is there some form of precedent that excuses it? Did I miss something major in my interpretation of it? Is this just not a big deal at all?
Ignoring the merits, which other people who know more about than me are debating in the rest of the thread, I think the key point is that this is probably a shitpost. When Trump announces a substantive policy change on social media, it is normally followed up with an official announcement on the White House website within 24 hours or so. In this case, probably an executive order to the National Archives or some other record-keeping office to identify and publish the list of Autopenned Biden admin acts that were considered invalid.
There seems to be a shitposting escalation in the last few days. This is one of the biggest "announcing something that would be a substantive policy if real but not actually doing it" shitposts to date, but the other one is even bigger - the announcement on Truth Social of a no-fly zone over Venezula. This would be, if serious, a literal declaration of war under international law. But it was not serious - US airlines already stopped flying in Venezuelan airspace a week ago after an FAA announcement that it was not safe, and Latin American airlines are still operating flights to and from Caracas as scheduled. I do not think Trump has purported to declare war (as opposed to threatening it) by shitpost yet.
The online TDS crowd are moving towards a consensus around "Trump's shitposting habit is getting worse due to a combination of age-related decline and stress-driven crackup". I think this is plausible, but wouldn't bet on it - assuming my political opponents are sane until proven otherwise is a useful intellectual discipline. The best explanation under this constraint is that the shitposts are trial balloons for various escalations. In that case it doesn't look good - the lack of outrage from fence-sitting Republicans (not MTG, but the people who might be the next MTG) makes a US attack on Venezuela more likely.
No such thing as "declaration of war" under modern international law. No wars either, only police actions and special anti-terrorist operations.
Last time US officially declared war was in 1942 against Bulgaria.
Why the difference between 2003 and today, why Iraq war had to be prepared by two years diplomatic and propaganda offensive, while now the orange man points with his mighty finger on map, says "bomb this" and everyone is fine with it?
Iraq back then was still seen as serious enemy, and significant US casualties were expected. No one takes Venezuela seriously at all.
I don't think everyone is fine with it - the usual anti-Trump forces both inside and outside the US are responding with outrage calibrated to the fact that this is a shitpost and not an actual announcement of a no-fly zone. But the marginal Trump supporter either ignored it or responded along the lines of "Obvious shitpost - lol TDS if you care about it"
Also Bush needed to the diplomatic prep for Iraq because he wanted the largest coalition he could get, notably including Tony Blair, whereas for Trump attacking Venezuela the whole point would be do to it unilaterally as a way of reminding your allies that you don't need them.
My gut feeling is that if Trump does indeed announce a real no-fly zone over Venezuela, and then sends US planes to Venezuela to shoot down civilian airliners violating said no-fly zone, his domestic political support will collapse rapidly. The absence of Trump-sympathetic voices saying "don't attack Venezuela" (compared to the number of Trump-sympathetic voices saying things like "release the Epstein files" or "be more careful with tariffs") is evidence that my gut feeling is wrong.
The US is not going to be deliberately shooting down civilian airliners (not even Venezuelan ones) in Venezuela, and even another USS Vincennes incident would be bad for Trump's domestic support.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Why is there no paper trail involved, no chain of custody, and no witnesses? Biden himself shouldn't really be necessary for this exercise, any more than a pardon by HW Bush is no longer valid. People were in the room when he signed the pardon or ordered the pardon signed, there's a diary entry in the official records showing where Biden was at the time and who was with him, there are secret service agents and aides who were there. There's a whole lot of people who could prove or disprove this theory even if Joe Biden is dead. The fact that none of them are willing to go under oath on the topic would tend to indicate that there's a big mess being swept under the rug, because this isn't a hard fix.
The impact going forward would tend to be strict chain of custody and multiple witnesses attesting to the signatures.
I don't really understand why the Autopen is remotely accepted in this case. In much the same way that I think fillibusters should require actually talking continuously for as long as they want to hold the Senate up.
I guess I'm modestly sympathetic here to the idea that the Senate gets to make it's own rules, and that time on the Senate floor at least should be precious. I can at least understand the chamber deciding on the current rules, under which I believe the presiding party could demand a talking filibuster, or choose to pivot to other business.
I suppose I could also be sympathetic to the Executive setting it's own clear rules (by Executive Order, I suppose) for official decrees, but in this case it seems the process isn't really that clear, as are the limits on delegating specific powers.
The senate can set its own rules, but I have an opinion as to what those rules ought to be.
The executive is different, in that the POTUS in this day and age is simply never alone and untracked. There should be multiple, multiple, individuals who can testify under oath that Biden signed those orders or ordered them to be signed. The POTUS is maybe only alone in the bathroom, and at Biden's age maybe not even there. Somebody saw him sign these orders, or if he ordered them signed someone carried out the order, and likely he discussed it with multiple people before doing it. Where are these people and why aren't they providing a clear chain of custody and evidence that it happened?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This is already happening with regularity.
But not universally, at least not as it stands today. Most EOs aren't cancelled for political optics reasons, as far as I can tell. They're more usually superseded by laws or struck down by courts. Despite that generally being the case, there's an EO signed in 1948 that is still technically in effect. There are also orders from Kennedy, Carter, Bush I and Clinton on the books. Furthermore, there are many EOs from GW Bush and Obama that have never been rescinded or superseded.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
To be perhaps excessively fair to Trump:
In 2024 Speaker Johnson met Biden and asked about an executive order pausing new natural gas permits that Biden signed a few days previously. The response was horrifying:
Who the fuck signed that executive order if not the executive? Some anonymous staffer set LNG export policy without Biden's approval or awareness?
The use of the autopen itself is not actually concerning They've been in common use by US presidents for centuries. Biden not being aware of executive orders he supposedly recently signed is very concerning and I'm fine with Trump issuing a contrary executive order.
Having read Trump's announcement: he doesn't specify pardons. I hope he won't try to reverse pardons and he'd fail anyways.
Not only should the head of state personally sign every single executive order, (no auto pens), they should also recite the executive order before signing it in a publicly accessible video/broadcast without an autocue. Order too wordy or the president unable to recite it perfectly from memory? Tough, guess that particular executive order isn't valid then until he manages to do it.
Once the lawyers are done with them, the executive orders will be passed to ChatGPT (sorry, the age of the English-Lit Bro is over) to be reformulated as Dr. Seuss poems, so they're easier to remember.
Can't say I'd complain.
You know we may be onto something here.
Quoth the digital oracle:
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
To be clear, that wasn't an executive order. The administration announced that DOE would be pausing issuance of new permits while they reviewed the process, but there wasn't anything official that was signed by the president, unless you include an official announcement on the White House website. I have no idea whether this is something that DOE would have had to consult with the president about before doing, or how much involvement Biden had, or whether it's something his communications team decided the administration would take credit for.
I'd also mention that there's a fundamental disconnect between what oil companies want and what consumers want, and the GOP seems to regularly conflate these interests. I spent a decade in the oil and gas industry, and we are happier the higher prices are. This isn't any different from most industries. But there's political pressure to keep prices as low as possible. The policy would have the natural consequence of putting downward pressure on natural gas prices by limiting the industry's ability to export. This may have been bad for the industry but good for consumers. If increased feasibility of exports were to cause prices to quadruple, I don't think most Americans would be saying "Thank God that the oil and gas industry is doing well!"; no, they'd be bitching about high costs, as they should be. I don't even think most Americans would agree that gas prices should have some kind of floor to ensure that the industry maintains a minimum degree of profitability. I don't know whether the policy in question was any good on a fundamental level, but you can sell it either way.
More options
Context Copy link
Ironically, Trump did this exact thing with the pardon power.
It's not uncommon to actually not know every single pardon being done in high levels of detail, the president is supposed to have capable and trustworthy staff to do the nitty gritty shit for them after all. They're presented with the general idea, the summaries, and then sign off on it. You can't expect them to have intimate details of every Tom, Dick and Harry. Of course, I think most can agree that the executive should do a proper job like not presenting cop beaters, or drug traffickers or smugglers, or fraudsters wiping away the debt they owe to their victims but that's part of why you're supposed to have good trustworthy staff that won't present those to you.
But still, it wouldn't matter if Trump personally knew who Chengpeng Zhao is and the specific details of how Binance under him intentionally avoided rules to help stop the laundering of money for Hamas, drug trafficking and CSAM materials on Binance because his staffers just referred to it as a "Biden witch hunt" if it wasn't in the context of trying to say pardons don't count.
He said he did it without knowing who the guy is. He didn't say he never did it. So, not quite "this exact thing" (at least, not in this instance).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The complicating issue is that many presidents do the "what? what? I don't know what you're talking about" all the time - Trump himself (low hanging X tweet video in question) literally within the last few days pulled it himself, and also has a history of this kind of thing as a tactical pseudo-deniability measure (I have lost track of the number of people who are wonderful friends one day, and the next year once they do something bad are suddenly suck-up hanger-ons that he 'barely knows'). It's taking advantage of and leveraging any wiggle room/benefit of the doubt in your political favor.
So there's personal judgement which is one thing - we can judge ourselves which are 'legit' and which are deliberate all we'd like in the political arena - but legal judgements are a totally different thing with totally different standards.
Presumably, in my opinion, if a president doesn't agree with the use of the pen by his office, it's incumbent on the president himself to correct it. And if he doesn't, then it's presumed legit. I'm not a fan of successive presidents attempting to reverse engineer intent and state of mind, and on a practical level of course we seem to all agree it's a bad precedent and hard to administer fairly.
More options
Context Copy link
The problem with Biden's mental decline is that while him not remembering signing the order could mean that a staffer signed it for him, it could also mean that he forgot he'd signed it/didn't know what he was doing when he signed it. Which aren't good either, but are legally trickier to overturn if he hadn't been declared incompetent at the time.
In case people think this is only something the elderly do, I was just notified that a fairly popular concept in a subfield I’ve worked in was in fact published by my professor and myself, not by my successor. And sure enough, the paper I remember writing with my prof does have a section just on that concept. Thing is, I’ve spent the last 15 years absolutely convinced I had nothing to do with the concept and it was only my successor and professor who were involved. And I’m in my fourties.
It sure would be nice if we had your attribution to your contribution and presence, so we don't have to rely on fickle memory.
Something only you could do, that is in itself proof.
Something like a unique signature, maybe.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Then there ought to be some kind of evidence that could be produced, no? Minutes of a meeting where Biden was briefed and made a decision, something like that?
Couldn't those also be faked? Like, if you're willing to illegally usurp the president's power to pardon someone, I feel like faking meeting minutes is small potatoes.
They could be, but you'd be surprised how many conspiracies and wrongdoings that occur and then unravel because someone couldn't be arsed to cover their bare asses in the wind. People who have power aren't always the ones who construct elaborate schemes to conceal themselves: sometimes, they're just dumbasses who put all of the incriminating evidence on a laptop and hand it over to a PC repair shop and don't even bother to pick it up because they just buy a new one.
Cough, cough.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The pardons & commutations were outrageous. Commuting the sentences of thousands of fraudsters who were already in home confinement due to policy is quite.. something.
Basically Epstein's deal (he built himself a new jail wing, could spend most of the day in his 'office', only had to sleep in prison), but to loads of lower level non-violent crooks.
Why that happened in the first place only makes sense in context of US politics. I'm not sure even Britain is that pro-white collar criminal.
Yes Biden's pardons were ridiculous. Mass pardoning and clemency to thousands of people including murderers and child abusers. But that's the president's power not subject to second guessing by courts or future presidents. If Trump goes after Biden's pardons then courts will stop him.
What stops the executive from sicking the FBI or some other three letter agency up their asses 24/7 and going after them for jay walking and not paying their taxes properly?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Regarding 3, Trump or his team made it clear early that the Hunter pardon is the only/one of the only pardons they unambiguously believe was signed by Joe's hand.
So either they wanted to precommit to not going after his kin or they really believe it to be in a different class.
More options
Context Copy link
There is a vast gulf between executive orders and pardons.
With EOs, he can just sign another EO declaring the first one void. Just tweeting about it is not enough, though.
My guess is that at least half of the EOs are probably non-partisan stuff which most presidents would generally want to keep, and just getting rid of all of them will be unpopular, but if each president was willing to have their staff go through all the current EOs and evaluate them, that would sound beneficial.
Pardons can not be reverted, it would defeat their whole point. Now, if a criminal had personally conspired with White House staff to get a pardon without the president noticing, forging his signature etc, then my guess is that the courts would indeed declare such a pardon void.
But in any cases where the beneficiary of the pardon did not obviously illegally conspire on his own behalf, I think it would be generally beneficial to let the pardon stand, rather than creating a situation where pardons no longer offer legal certainty.
Also, Biden's broadest pardon scandalously benefits Hunter Biden. The persons inside the WH who had any interest in pardoning Hunter are Biden and his wife, not anonymous staff who were running his administration.
Finally, Trump is a master of wielding pardons as a political tool. One might be excused to think that he would have the sense to avoid establishing any precendent where pardons are declared null and void.
More options
Context Copy link
I know it will never happen, but I'd love to see Bidden on a podium reciting the names of everyone he pardoned in alphabetical order, and then challanged to do the same in reversed alphabetic order.
What would that prove? Paperwork is paperwork.
More options
Context Copy link
What a ludicrous thought experiment. No president in the last 100 years would have the slightest chance of passing this test, it's not even close, and that fact is probably to their credit. Do you want your president wasting their time memorizing some first and last names?
I'd rather that they considered each case carefully that came to them, and only pardoned people who they believe deserve it, instead of those recommended by their staff. If the number of people pardoned gets to be so high that they can't remember them, then that's a sign that something is super broken with the way people are being convicted. The presidential pardon is supposed to be a tool of last resort.
I don't think group pardons like the Carter Vietnam draft dodger pardons or the Trump Jan 6th pardons reflect a broken process - in both cases they reflect a system working as advertised, followed by a retroactive decision by the person with the authority to do so that it should not have done.
In neither case would the President (or a high-level advisor) spending time looking at each individual draft dodger or Jan 6th rioter have improved the process.
More options
Context Copy link
Well, not necessarily. Could also be something broken with the White House/President.
More options
Context Copy link
Excuse me, what?? Regardless of how carefully considered each pardon case is, even if we just assumed that they were all personally very carefully considered by the president himself, this would still be a completely ludicrous test.
Have you ever worked in case management before in any area of law? Or really in any administrative work. Lawyers routinely are involved in hundreds and thousands of cases over their career. I dare you to go up to the lawyers in your life and tell them that because they can't remember the names of each litigant they actually did not, in fact, carefully consider any of their cases. This is a patently absurd bar that is being made up as a hurdle for Biden for political reasons, and the premise completely falls apart on its face.
How do you think the president should be informed of potential pardons if not through recommendations??? Should the president decide pardons based on who he sees on the news that night? Do you want him to personally comb through the lists of convictions every week or month? Once again, this would be an absurd waste of the president's time for little (no?) gain.
I mean, the number of pardons that I would consider to be "the right number" within a presidency is 0. The point of the presidential pardon is to deal with cases in which there is no other recourse; the whole reason it is in the system at all is that even if all other parts of government are attempting to screw you over, you still have the option to plead to one democratically elected man, and convince him you deserve freedom.
The system you want is one where it is used as a run-around for the justice system; I claim that if it is so corrupt that you need the pardon to balance it out, it needs to be burned to the ground and rebuilt.
I prefer to talk in pragmatic terms, not the land of theoretical 0 pardons and spherical cows. The justice system is not perfect, and so the pardon is used as a balancing measure for corruption in other branches of government.
In the current world we live in, if the president would like to free some unlawfully convicted people, it is much easier for him to pardon them than to overhaul the entire legal system.
I would like the president to free unlawfully convicted people, as I imagine many people do. I would also like the president to not spend all his time doing this valuable activity with all the labour it entails. That is what his staff is literally there for.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Cancelling executive orders are an escalation cycle, but not a very serious step. Biden entered office bulk-cancelling Trump's executive orders, and I would expect to see the same thing happen again the next time the White House changes hands regardless of Trump's actions here.
Pardons are more serious, if he tries to prosecute someone with a pardon, for behavior clearly covered by the pardon. The courts will, absolutely unsurprisingly, boot such an attempt very early in the process; there's zero votes to review the pardon power at SCOTUS, and not many in the 5th Circuit. That's a kinda bad, because there's some evidence available that people used the power of the pardon without Biden's direct acknowledgment and maybe without even having been delegated that power, and that can go into some really bad (and Nicholas Cage movie-) tier problems. But it's not really resolvable this way, and it'll encourage and invite new and innovative attempts in retribution that have courts willing to rubber-stamp wrong Blue-Tribe opinions on this matter.
If it's just making sounds that could cover that, but not acting on it, it's a step in the escalation spiral that was crossed over a decade ago.
Trying to argue that autopen'd signatures on full legislation is void would be a massive escalation. Not as big as I wish it was, since there's been a few other cases where Presidents stopped defending or enforcing laws that they didn't like, but still huge and with a wide variety of downstream effects, some of which would be so bad that I don't want to talk about them publicly.
There's been a pretty wide array of counterexamples. I'm a big fan of The Saga Of Defense Distributed, because it culminated in the courts specifically accepting the argument that a previous court-recognized settlement wasn't worth the toilet paper it was written on, but see for example Bank Pause Letters for a space where I don't have a lot of sympathy for the victims, or this mess for just a wide variety of examples.
Thank you for your response; if I understand it correctly, it basically is:
likelyalmost certainly strike it down; if they don't, super bad.Thank you for the examples; I was thinking too narrowly (I was thinking specifically of the presidential pardon power), but I agree that Defense Distributed is basically the same.
I'd also consider bringing prosecutions that would be incompatible with active executive orders, for acts committed while those executive orders were active, to be a bad escalation. Not an unprecedented one, but because such a modification doesn't count for ex post facto stuff a space that has a lot of There Be Dragons.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Oh, there were several pardons that covered "any offenses against the United States" committed from Jan 1, 2014 up to the date the pardon was issued. Hunter Biden got one of those, and so did Anthony Fauci and Mark Milley.
This is not a completely new thing; witness President Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon "for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974."
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Biden already did that. Biden’s first months were spent canceling even good or anodyne Trump orders. That’s how we got a crisis at the border and the Afghan deal changing. They undid Trump’s order about creating a statue garden.
Maybe you don’t understand the issue here.
The issue is not that Joe Biden didn’t check all his boxes and dot his eyes when filling out paperwork so now Trump has the excuse.
The issue is that there is good proof Biden didn’t himself actually issue the orders signed under his name.
What makes an executive order or pardon valid? Well, it’s issued by the President. That’s how that works.
I, the poster Shakes, could issue an executive order banning tuna on toast. Who cares? Nobody, I’m not the president.
I could sign Joe Biden’s name on the executive order banning tuna on toast. Who cares? I’m not the president.
What if I sign my executive order from the Oval Office? And I use a Joe Biden’s name? And Joe Biden is taking a nap?
It is alleged that scores of presidential decisions were made by presidential aides acting without presidential authority. Because Joe Biden was obviously going senile in the Oval Office. (The official story is Biden just decided to sign an order dropping out of the 2024 race one day. The official story is Biden was diagnosed with this rare slow-growing cancer only after his term ended.)
Republicans in the House are actively investigating the possibility that Biden staffers sold pardons to anyone willing to pay the bribe. Are those valid pardons merely because someone stamped Biden’s signature on them while he was taking a nap?
So it’s not impressive if you suggest that, to diffuse this crisis, Biden could have one of his aides issue a denial…
If we're talking historical precedent, presidents and their close circles have played fast and loose with the 'rules' (which aren't actually codified really) for literal decades, which to me again says that if something is done against their will, it's on them personally to reverse it. For example, FDR somewhat infamously had tons of stuff done by his wife in his name, as just a baseline example.
In that light, Biden and Autopen modern criticism is a pairing that looks a lot like the famous isolated demand for rigor.
What if I drug the president and lock him in a wheelchair so me and five aides can run a shadow presidency? What does historical precedent say about the case where I keep the president in a back room and you aren’t allowed to see him? Am I a hypocrite if I think that’s different from a secretary lying?
If you drug the President against his will, that’s obviously a crime. And I’m quite skeptical you could get away with it as a premeditated act. It’s really no different than people who worry about the President getting personally blackmailed - yes, it’s technically a risk, maybe even a real one, but it’s a crime that stands on its own, not one we need to try and catch in the second degree
Who’s going to prosecute? Everyone is treating Trump attacking the autopen as more ridiculous than the autopen itself
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
They call that the Woodrow Wilson administration.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
You are correct, I don't understand the issue here - thank you for the explanation. I was thinking here like Jill Biden, but I see now that wouldn't be terribly convincing.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Consider all the things that Trump says he will do that never come to fruition and some have literally no chance of ever happening. From literal promises like lower prices, end to Israel/Ukraine conflicts both on day one (which we're way beyond) to the impossible like lowering medicine prices by 1500% or the trillions of tariff revenue. His admin boldly claims to have saved millions of lives from fentanyl. He's a natural liar and anything he says needs to be interpreted under this lens. Just go back a few months and you see this exact same sort of nonsense like threatening to take Greenland, make Canada into a state or whatever.
And it's not just him, it's the whole structure around him. Musk went on Fox News during the doge period literally promising increased social security payments, it was Pam Bondi who said they saved 258 million lives, and multiple parts of the admin during and before the campaign (and even earlier this year!) were all claiming to be fine with releasing the Epstein files
Only to go on and threaten MTG/Massie/etc for trying to get the files he had no problem with it and was "inclined" to do, then when the votes were clearly against him suddenly be ok with doing it again at the same time he orders an investigation to be started for the purpose of delaying things more.
So the first question is why take anything he says seriously? He lies as naturally as he breaths and he makes ridiculous bold claims that will never happen. His admin tries to follow up with some "well I guess we kinda technically did it if you're half blind and squint" way like with the flag burning EO where Trump boldly claims to make flag burning illegal whereas the EO doesn't do that whatsoever (and has no ability to) so maybe we'll see some noise of them larping about it but until they actually take a meaningful step forward, why is it any different than the rest of his larps?
Here is my heuristic: if Trump is promising the American people the Moon, he can safely be ignored. (Excepting Ghislaine Maxwell, whose quality of life he really did improve substantially.) If he promises to attack his enemies, then he can be expected to at least make a good faith effort to do so, consequences be damned.
How well the latter will work depends a lot on the specifics. His progress on defeating free trade is rather impressive (though I think there is still a court decision pending if he had the authority to enact tariffs on that scale). Directing his AG to attack his enemies has mostly been meh, because he does not do a good job of convincing the courts. Getting rid of illegals and/or Hispanics is something where he is actually making progress due to his willingness to spend a ton of taxpayer money to have his goons deport school girls. Sending the national guard to cities to punish them for voting against him is more meh, for the most part he is making the liberals mildly uncomfortable.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Democrats were already guaranteed to maximally escalate if they take the presidency back.
Here are some things which Democrats could do to escalate maximally once they have the presidency:
This is just from two minutes brainstorming, there is likely more.
My best guess is that the Democrats will do none of the above, and the things which they will do will generally be less escalating than the stuff on this list. Sure, they will go through any pardon given to Trump's allies and read the fine print, searching for any offenses which are not covered by the pardon. And they will certainly overturn many of Trump's EOs, just as Trump is overturning many of Biden's EOs.
None of those four, but they promised to Nuremberg anyone working for Trump, once they came back to power. Of course, it's not really feasible to prosecute every single person who worked for Trump - an in fact, in Nuremberg and after, not every single Nazi had been prosecuted and many, especially low-level ones, comfortably re-integrated into the society later - but it would certainly be a serious escalation. And I don't see why not do it at least to some measure - it's not like the Republicans are going to retaliate in kind. And tbh they don't need to escalate beyond that - while some totalitarian regimes descended to the point where the life of every single citizen was in peril, in most of them, day to day, one was relatively safe if one conformed and did what they are told. There's no need to murder or outlaw or bomb every single opposing person - it's enough to destroy a tiny active part and credibly threaten that the same will happen to any single person that makes trouble. And no need to suspend elections or anything like that - I mean Russia has elections. USSR had elections. As long as you control the counting process, the press, the narrative, can import voters by millions, and can occasionally just ban candidates - there's no risk in holding as many elections as you'd like. There's not even a need to have a dictatorship - DSA, Communists and Democrats can duke it out while successfully excluding anybody to the right, see California for example.
Even if president Newsom (or whomever) will have such ambitions, I think the SCOTUS will not like him banning the Republicans, and the army will likely not obey his orders to occupy the SCOTUS.
Also, given the context, I think the Nuremberg trials were rather fair. Some Nazis were actually acquitted, and a few more only received prison sentences (and were quickly released once the 'newly democratized' Germans took over).
If the Democrats released a statement to the effect that they considered the attacks on suspect civilians which the US navy had just shipwrecked by missile strike a war crime, and were going to send the whole chain of command to the Hague (e.g. the spiritual successor to the Nuremberg trials) to answer for it, I would actually applaud that. (Sadly, this is not going to happen, because a military which will follow the orders of the president without hesitation is useful to whomever is the president.)
Most successful Democratic politicians are not terminally stupid. Unlike the (mostly newcomer) MAGA crowd, they have long thrived under the present political system. Anyone who has heard of the French and Russian revolutions knows that it is impossible to coordinate around "let us use violence (or other dirty tricks) to get rid of the outgroup, but then forsake dirty tricks and play fair among ourselves". If moderate Democrats (think Hillary) coordinate with DSA and commies to get rid of the Republicans, the next act in the play will inevitably be SJ Democrats and the far left coordinating to get rid of the moderates. Russia and the USSR are/were in fact one-party systems where elections do little to influence policy. The skillset to thrive in such a system is likely very different from the skillset required to win primaries.
Making a big show of "successor empire to all other European empires moving in and taking over makes a big show of failing to brutalize the population any more than is absolutely necessary" is a massive deal. Europe had not been conquered in living memory like that (other than the Nazis; Napoleon did it too but he had been dead for a while), and the fact the Americans had the restraint to do this maintains a certain fiction that European populations still believe to this day- that they were "liberated" and not "conquered" (which is, in objective fact, what happened to them).
Perhaps, but since the entire reason the Hague exists is for the US (and Europe so long as it doesn't conflict with US interests re: Israel) to legitimize killing elites in non-US/non-European nations that oppose the aforementioned countries' interests (which is half the reason the signatories are who they are, and why the US is not a signatory to that agreement) it would be rather unusual for the US to try and kill off domestic enemies that way. Of course, most of the provinces are aligned with the conservative/Blue faction, so it wouldn't technically be out of line with how that "court" is typically used...
More options
Context Copy link
Not sure what this is arguing for. Nobody argued they are.
And they created, in many states, a political system which is essentially one-party state, with zero chance for a non-Democrat or non-Leftist to be ever elected to any position of power. The Republican party is not banned, but it does not exist as a political entity. They would very much like to create the same situation nationwide.
You do not need a revolution for that. Revolutions are messy and unpredictable. Change some electoral maps, change some demography, change some laws, allocate some budgets, jail or bankrupt a couple of people who are too dangerous - and you get a uni-party system with all the external trappings of a democracy, but without any chance of anybody on the right to ever get any power.
It's not "will be", it is. Look at New York, Portland, Seattle and so on. Surely, the left will fight among themselves. But they will destroy the Right first, and then will fight among themselves.
And yet, even they had "elections". So surely there's nothing that would prevent having "elections" between islamo-communists and trans-socialists. That's exactly my point - there's no need to cancel elections. If that's the only choice you'd ever want to have, then there's no reason to worry. If you'd like some more choice, you are already out of luck in all the blue spaces, and very well soon may be out of luck nationally. You will have plenty of elections, without any real choice.
More options
Context Copy link
The whole "don't follow illegal orders. Why am I saying this? No reason" kerfluffle was not long ago.
Just in case somebody is dense and doesn't get the message, they are now saying it openly: https://notthebee.com/article/psaki-and-guest-explain-that-following-orders-from-trump-to-investigate-mark-kelly-should-result-in-nuremberg-style-trials
And that's a solid strategy - they are saying if you act against us, we will retaliate powerfully and personally against anybody working for Trump, using the whole force of the Federal Government. It is a credible threat because that's exactly what they did in Biden years (and, partially, in Trump years too). The similar threat from the Republican side, however, does not look credible - not that they are even trying, beyond emptily yelling "lock her/him up" on social media - because they are completely unable to deliver on it. Thus, for Democrats it is a winning move - unless Republicans find any way to counter it. Which they currently don't seem to be able to.
Some of us are not actually American, you know. I'm not dense, I just don't watch American news.
I didn't mean any people in this discussion, sorry if it isn't clear. I meant people in the US that pretended this was just a theoretical lecture on existence of illegal orders and not a threat (which of course they knew it isn't theoretical and it is very much a threat).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I think you need more than the presidency to do some of those things. The 15th Amendment forbids disenfranchising people on account of race (and the 19th on account of sex), and the President doesn't have the power to abolish elections or control the legislature/judiciary.
Courts have read some very expensive definitions of "franchise" (see Gingles, which is admittedly under SCOTUS review at the moment), and it's not impossible to see something like a policy of "must make as many majority-minority districts as possible" (which isn't that different from the Louisiana v. Callais case previously mentioned) would probably get past at least a few blue judges, although probably not the current high court.
More options
Context Copy link
And the 2nd claims that the people's right to bear arms may not be infringed, and the 1st states that Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech. Seems to me that the Amendments are simply words on an old sheet of paper if someone doesn't want to respect them.
My point is that you do need either the ability to repeal those amendments, or a SCOTUS which will ignore them in dereliction of its duty (and packing the SCOTUS needs the legislature as well as the executive).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I think that's a tad too culture warry - I don't disagree that they'll retaliate, but I think it's a bad idea to lock into "yes my opponents are literally demons who eat babies and choose the maximum evil possible." I don't think Biden was the most awful president possible for the right - nor do I think he did the most possible harm to the right of any possible president. There is a lot of room to pick someone who is way more harmful and destructive - just look up here at Canada where our population increased by around 15% in 10 years almost exclusively from immigrants, and our housing costs literally doubled.
If you gave Joe biden 10 years it would be way more than 15%
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Can you define "maximally escalate" in your claim? I can think of many levels of escalation that I would be willing to bet all my polymarket monopoly money on not happening.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Trump's been saying some variant of this for a while now. I think it's mostly just blather, because he hasn't moved to prosecute anyone covered by autopen pardons. Most executive orders are cancellable by the executive anyway; while IIRC there have been a few cases where courts have found one administration (Trump's) can't cancel a previous administration's orders, I expect any such cases still in question to be overturned. What can't be overturned are pardons and signatures on legislation, and as far as I know Trump has made no attempt to bypass any particular one of those, though he's claimed on social media that they are invalid.
As for what he's saying, it's certainly true that if Biden didn't give the order, an autopen signature is invalid. It's a forgery. And no, having Biden stating they were done on his order now doesn't cure the issue; he would have had to have said so during his term.
Pretty much agreed. He always had the power to cancel executive orders, rhetoric aside. Canceling pardons is another matter.
Agreed that if someone used Biden's autopen without his knowledge or consent, that would be invalid. The issue is burden of proof. I would imagine that if Trump actually tried to challenge it, it would be assumed Biden signed it unless Trump has proof to the contrary. That strikes me as consistent with the Supreme Court's ruling of absolute immunity for core Presidential acts and privileged communications.
More options
Context Copy link
I believe most of these have been APA related: you can't cancel them arbitrarily or capriciously, and there are required notice and comment periods before enacting (some) changes. Of course, then there was the DACA case where apparently the APA comment period was required to cancel something that never had such a period to enact --- we were close to dueling federal (nationwide) injunctions demanding "X" and "not X" in ways that are probably very related to the SCOTUS decision to limit nationwide injunctions.
I'm not sure offhand if it's strictly covered, but as a thought experiment it'd be interesting to see if the APA were to allow, say, changing the comment period: "whoops, the next administration needs to wait 4 years to enact policy changes, conveniently including changing the comment period back." Or the rules as passed by Congress aren't constitutional, I suppose. I wouldn't endorse such a wrench in the works, but I won't be surprised if it gets tried.
More options
Context Copy link
Sorry, can you explain more about this? I thought that the issue at hand was that we didn't know whether Biden had approved the autopen usage, whether his staff had used it and he had later approved it, or whether his staff had used it without his knowledge? I would've thought that he could say now "Oh yeah, I had definitely approved that" and then it counts as approved (as we can't really tell the difference between him approving before or after).
The rest of what you said makes sense to me - so even though he claims the executive orders are invalid, it doesn't actually matter because in all likelihood he can just cancel them anyways using his current presidential authority.
I think Nyb is talking about cases where it could be clearly demonstrated that the President was not involved in the approval process. Later saying he would have approved it anyways wouldn't cure that.
Are there any cases where this has been established beyond reasonable doubt?
I would consider even a short verbal exchange ("Mr President, we have another ten pardons ... " -- "Just sign the damn things!") to be sufficient that the president had granted approval.
So the only cases where the non-involvement of the president could be established beyond reasonable doubt would be either with a staffer confessing or them bragging in writing about being able to bypass Biden.
Given Trump's history of outrageous claims on little to no evidence going back to Birtherism, I would be very surprised if he had any evidence which would convince a jury, rather than just blabbering.
Perhaps not, but you are the one bringing up the context of a criminal trial, which does not otherwise seem relevant.
Pardons are, for better or worse, a topic in the realm of criminal procedure in that they decide if someone will go to prison or not. I think it is reasonable that the standard for forged pardons applied is the same as for other criminal evidence.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
How about Biden at the time asserting he didn't sign an executive order.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Thank you, that clears things up - I didn't realize there were any such cases.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link