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He's selling Trump 2028 merchandise in the official White House gift shop. Administration staffers don't feel able to say "Of course Trump won't run in 2028 - the constitution limits presidents to two terms" on the record, because Trump wouldn't like it.
Trump is deliberately maintaining strategic ambiguity about whether he will run for a third term. (Even if he wants to, he won't, because age is catching up with him). That is a good reason for people who care about the survival of American democracy to be worried.
In addition, Vance running the show doesn't fix the problem if Vance is also committed to using false allegations of voter fraud to undermine American democracy. And Vance was chosen because he is, indeed, committed to using false allegations of voter fraud to undermine American democracy.
Dammit, stop making me like him! I don't want to like him! I disapprove of him! He's a vulgarian and worse!
But he has a sense of humour in contrast to the wokescolds (imagine President Kamala's merch - a fake plastic cocoanut tree?) and makes me laugh even when I don't want to.
A country that tolerates their leader joking about doing away with the peaceful transfer of power pretty much deserves to have it taken away.
There's actually a big difference between violating a term limit and doing away with the peaceful transfer of power. Trump isn't going to do either, but the former is what he's joking about.
But if after the midterms the House wants to impeach him a third time on the grounds of making Trump 2028 merchandise... hey, I can afford C-Span and popcorn.
I got mixed up because undoing the peaceful transfer of power was more of what happened last time
No, no, what happened in 2020/2021 was a peaceful transfer of power happened unlawfully. Easy mistake to make, I suppose.
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This is such a facile, scolding, humorless comment that I don't know if you're even serious. I suspect that you are, because if you weren't it would probably need to be worded in a funnier way.
Countries don't "tolerate" anything. A country is not a unified mass of likeminds. I assume you mean republicans or Trump supporters here? And by "joking about doing away with the peaceful transfer of power" you mean the hats? How is that the same thing? Or do you mean something else? Personally I'm far more mollified if I think a person is capable of humor than if they're dead serious and solemn in every utterance. Anyway maybe your comment just hit me at the wrong time of day. This is the kind of statement that gets posted as text over some photo and reshared over Instagram and wants to be deep but really says very little.
I mean, imagine there’s a guy with the power to repossess your house and kick you out. And for years, he keeps telling you that he’s going to do it, and then being like ‘nah man, it’s a joke, relax!’. You even saw him at the court doing paperwork related to your house once a few years ago. He oddly keeps talking about doing it. And he even printed out a shirt that shows your house with an evicted sign on it and sells it to people.
Is the ‘joke’ funny to you, or is your response more something like, “hey, fuck you”?
You're assuming that I know what it is you are comparing your hypothetical situation here to. I do not, without assuming. This lack of specificity is what made me dismiss your earlier post. I'm not an autist (as far as I know) and I'm not trying to be overly pedantic here. I feel though as if you are making posts based off of vibes instead of building an argument.
I thought the context was pretty clearly about Trump always joking about ending presidential term limits and staying in power
In fairness I did at the beginning mix two concepts, one of which is the peaceful transfer of power (more of a J6 thing), and the other being presidential term limits.
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He's literally just trolling. One time he was meeting with Dem congressional leadership and offered them the hats.
If true it makes a difference but not that much of one. It's a divisive strategy that is contemptuous of democracy and makes him an enemy of democracy.
Term limits are in opposition to democracy, so Trump 2028 hats are actually in support of democracy.
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"Democracy" is a glittering generality, and not even a very glittering one at that. Democracy isn't an unlimited good after all.
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Which is also what you would do if you really were planning to run for a third term and trying to normalise the idea.
If anyone who wasn't Trump was selling official merch with "Candidate Year" on it, you would say they were running.
Nothing about Trump running again is credible. He has none of the institutional support required to take such a big step, he's already old as hell and would be considerably older by the time it is relevant.
Such a sweeping thing for the most widely criticized president of all time would require things like the military being on board and they simply are not and there is no credible path for them to become so.
It makes no sense.
Thinking it is likely (regardless of his interest or lack) is a sign that he's broken your brain and you need to take a step back and think about actual motivations, priors, and so on.
So he’s just eroding the one norm that keeps the whole project of peaceful transition of power together through the way he talks as president but only for fun and for meme value, not doing it seriously.
Thats not really better.
That's a completely different thing though.
I guess messing with the peaceful transition of power was more something from last time than this time.
Plenty of people disagree on that description of Jan 6, but the fact of the matter is that the issue at hand is about something entirely different, and I think it's concerning and embarrassing how many otherwise wise people think he would go this direction.
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You are the kind of person Trump is trolling.
It isn't bad to be annoyed by stupid shit. If someone who is your ideological foe says stupid shit for malign reasons you probably get irritated too, whether they're trolling or not, especially if they are very powerful. Be honest with yourself.
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Greenland was joking until it wasn't. Gaza was joking (really funny joking, actually) until it wasn't. Since the patterns were the same, Canada and Panama were likely not joking either.
It's the same thing I've noticed /pol/ or even certain communists on Discord do. Make "jokes" targeted in a certain direction. If you press on it at all, it's announced that it's just a joke. It's really boundary pushing, and if circumstances ever became more favorable, you'd find that the sentiments were real.
After Greenland, I am pretty tired of the "just trolling" defense. If he is trolling, it's fundamentally indistinguishable from when he is not trolling. He's lost all right to be trusted about whether he's "trolling" or not. I'm not even entirely opposed to getting Greenland, or other expansions, but in hindsight, it obviously was not just jokes, and I hate the lies being peddled about that.
Greenland was never trolling.
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Not joking, trolling. And if it wasn't... why isn't Greenland under US occupation?
What joking?
It's indistinguishable to you because you were successfully trolled. Trump never had any intention of invading Canada or Greenland; he just made ambiguous remarks and let the media get hysterical when he refused to rule it out.
The deal didn't go through. Were you paying attention? Why has there been rather significant talking about it multiple times over the last year and bragging about the framework of a future deal if it's just trolling?
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/us-military-option-acquire-greenland-denmark-territory-nato-rcna252669
So is all of that trolling, or just the military part of it? This isn't the first time that Greenland has been talked about extensively. What about next time? How much will the military be suggested next time? Does trolling often take the form of multiple officials stressing "vital national security" multiple times over several months? Why troll harder on Greenland and stop trolling on Canada?
The Trump Gaza AI post was made in response to his earlier talks about acquiring it and making it awesome. Don't worry, though, there was nothing to it. That's why Jared Kushner totally didn't seriously suggest putting skyscrapers in it during the Board of Peace presentation. Well, at least they're not talking about making it a state.
Are you sure that it's not indistinguishable to you, too, and you just confidently make assumptions about what it is?
This is the right's version of "it's not happening but it's a good thing". Up until it actually happens, you'll claim "it's not happening". If it were to actually happen, you'd justify it. It's apparently an effective strategy.
Personally, though, I think he should just go for it. I hate Europe. Perhaps if he nuked NATO (figuratively!), then Europe would stop being such a good friend towards the American left.
Wait, so for you the outrageous thing about it was that he offered to buy it?
No. I actually don't think any of it was ultimately that outrageous, though I was briefly offended at the thought of using the military. What I hate, as I've said, is that people think the whole thing was just trolling and that Trump wasn't really serious about getting it. Pretty much all the evidence points towards him being serious about getting it, and if not, then you can't trust the words anyone in his administration is saying, which is even worse.
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@aldomilyar is the person who brought up the third term, not me. I explicitly said I think Trump is too old to run for a third term.
Since I'm not American, I had to look that up. It's only been the rule since 1947 as an amendment to the Constitution. And since it's an amendment, what was amended once can be amended twice, so if a future Congress decides to go back to pre-1947 standards (where the norm was two terms but there wasn't a formal rule about it), or that they alter it to "non-consecutive terms", then why not?
An Amendment to the Constitution would also require ratification by the states. Even if two-thirds of both houses were onboard, it would require three-fourths (38) of the states to ratify - or, to put it another way, 13 states to shoot the amendment down, which would be pretty trivial.
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Well I guess I mean that Trump is sort of ridiculous, which makes his enemies even more ridiculous when they take his jokes seriously.
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If you think there's the slightest chance he'll run, bet me about it.
I just said I think he won't, because he is too old.
But the thread isn't about betting odds - it is about why people who worry about MAGA authoritarianism are behaving rationally or not. A 10% chance that Trump is Hitler is a good reason for Americans who don't want to live under Nazi rule (or foreigners who might have to fight a future Nazi America - the main reason why Hitler is the worst is the aggressive war) to be worrying, but I still wouldn't want to bet on it.
"Trump probably won't do the bad things he says he is going to do" is not very reassuring to someone who saw Jan 6th, and is currently watching him do much more of the bad things he said he was going to do than he did in his first term. Even if true, "The President probably won't send troops to interfere with the certification process if his party loses the election" (which Trump has said he should have done in 2020) is a very, very low bar.
The OP claimed not to understand why people were worried. I think it is very obvious why people are worried, even if you disagree with their judgement about the odds. The idea that Trump is so clearly trolling that only a fool or a lunatic could take him seriously, even though his supporters say they take him seriously (but not literally), doesn't seem tenable to me after January 6th, and even less so after the Fulton County raid.
I maintain a fan theory that Vance will take the throne by assassination after the midterms, diadochos-style. Does that make you feel better?
What about if they emulate the Tetrarchy, but without the extra two and without splitting the Empire into Eastern and Western halves?
Trump is augustus, Vance is caesar (pretty much what is the state of affairs right now with President and Vice-President) until, as noted in other comments, after the mid-terms when Trump elevates Vance to being co-augustus. Trump can then step back to more ceremonial functions leaving his duly appointed and recognised successor to handle more of the actual governing, until Trump's term is over.
No need for bloodshed or internecine wars!
EDIT: Though, thinking about it... maybe an Eastern and Western division isn't that bad either? Trump gets to rule the East, including New York, and Vance gets handed the West (which includes California where, as we get constantly reminded, all his Sinister Silicon Valley contacts and allies are based).
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Certainly he would wait until late January 2027.
Well yes, that's what I meant. 'After the new congress is seated'.
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I think it's pretty much always rational to worry about government authoritarianism, it's just a question of proportionality.
What I think codes as irrational is that the people who claim to be worried about Trump Hitler don't seem interested in stopping him through normal democratic means.
Let's take the recent ICE stuff discussed in another post in this week's roundup. Democrats could sweeten the deal for Republicans by saying something like "we want to pass a bill to pare down ICE's authority. In exchange, we will delete the National Firearms Act and defund the ATF."
This would be a HUGE win for (some) righties, and might be able to pull off enough Tea Party types to pass in Congress (I haven't done a headcount). Obviously the NFA might be a good piece of legislation (it isn't, but for the sake of argument) - but if you think Trump is Hitler, removing a bunch of sworn, armed federal agents from his control is...actually a good thing? So it would be two birds with one stone for the left and something that righties could spin as a win - in other words, a good political play that would go beyond mere grandstanding. Furthermore, it could actually split the GOP coalition since there's a chance Trump would come out swinging against it and that would sour all of the pro-gun right on him.
You can repeat the thought experiment with whatever else you like - abortion, perhaps, or economic regulations.
But that's actually not what you see (or at least not what I've seen). Instead lefties seem extremely concerned about the very specific things Trump is doing that impact them right at the moment and not at all concerned about his ability to exercise federal power in ways that tribally code "left" even when those things are tools that could be used against them. If you're on the right, the left is showing basically zero interest in compromise. The message righties get from the left is whining about how Trump is mean and then how righties should lose and get nothing. That's not a palatable message.
I'm sure due to my media bubble and such there's some stuff that I am missing. Probably I am not being entirely fair. But if Trump is actually dangerously authoritarian, for crying aloud, work with Republicans to disarm as many federal law enforcement agents as you can! Be concerned about how the FBI treated him - go further and suggest they be punished by slashing their funding! Demand more investigation into how Tulsi was treated by DHS and go after their funding too! Pivot towards the IRS next. Map comprehensively every single thing the federal government does that could be turned against lefties but has been used against righties and work with them to defang that power.
By and large, I don't think that is what is happening. The left seems quite content to leave the massive (and often armed) federal bureaucracy in place, even though it would be turned against them if a right-wing authoritarian seized power. Which is why righties think that leftists (at least in power) aren't sincere in their concerns, or (alternatively) are incompetent.
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As gattsuru pointed out, I'm happy to offer 10:1 odds. I just flat out don't believe that anyone actually thinks "Trump is Hitler" is even remotely likely, and I don't think they are actually worried about that.
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If you thought there was a 10% chance for anything, you should be willing to take a bet, just one at steep odds. (Modulo ethical objections to gambling in general, lump value risks, yada.) Even with counterparty risk, I'd take a 10% chance at 50x returns and smile all the way to the bank.
But no one actually believes that number. I'm not sure many people buy 1% as a number.
As a (former) poker player, I feel obliged to point out that these "If you really believed it, you'd bet money on it" gotchas miss the point of betting the odds.
A single bet at 10% odds with a 50x payoff is not a good bet, because there is a 90% chance you'll lose. Twenty bets at 10% odds with a 50x payoff is (probably) a winning strategy. A single bet is not. That's why professional poker players measure success over the long term, not whether a single bet paid off (and they also understand that variance is a bitch). If you're doing polymarkets or something, maybe it's rational to make a lot of bets like this. It's not a rational challenge to a single claim.
Of course there is also the fact that if someone wins betting on "Will the US become a fascist state?" then their payoff is going to be small comfort…
(And yes, while "literally Hitler" is absurd, I think 10% is a reasonable estimate of how likely we are to see something like a descent into fascism. But I'm not going to put money on it because I can't bet on 10 different alternate timelines.)
Going all in on a single 10% 50x bet is stupid but just since it isn't recurring doesn't mean that it isn't obviously something to stake on.
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Aside from that coming across like a reason to never bet on anything that sounds like it might matter, I did explicitly caveat lump value risks. And MadMonzer isn't putting all his chickens in one bet, for better or worse.
((and to bite on the obvious bait: that hasn't stopped you from offering that style of wager unsolicited.))
I dunno!
Half of the time, Monzer's definition of and pathway to fascism is absolutely trivial, or even stuff the Democratic party had done for years or even decades. Oh, the Republican party might bring politically-driven lawsuits to shut down disliked opposition media sources in the scuzziest ways possible (successfully)? They might crack down minutia of contracts when enemies are around, and find myriad exceptions when given political donations? Fire a bunch of federal officials based on nakedly political criteria, and damn the disruption? Defy SCOTUS by just lying to everyone?
Not great stuff, but it's also not exactly the end of the world.
And those are the things that actually seem remotely plausible. MadMonzer loves to ponder deeper hypotheticals, but either they require trivializing the matter to such a point as to set it wholly within the first category ("arrest political opponents" is technically hit by arresting Don Lemon; "concentration camps" by holding people in jail after they've gotten an order of removal before deportation, and I'm not going to insult MadMonzer by implying that it's what he's talking about)...
... or hilariously implausible.
Are you even pretending to believe that there's a 10% chance of Trump suspending the Constitution? Pulling off his suit jacket, falling back on his WWE bonafides, and punching the shit out of Mamdani? Invoke the Insurrection Act "on some spurious pretext" (when several cities have already had politicians and staff directly coordinating groups trying to block enforcement of federal law)? "[W]aging a war against political opponents" with the actual military?
It's just a word, and it just means 'something you don't like'.
Of course this is not something that can happen in reality, but c'mon AI video generators of the world, gimme content!
The last time someone did this as a meme, CNN threatened to doxx them unless they groveled.
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gattsuru is an absolute god, I am continually amazed and have no idea how he does this.
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Dayum, you managed to find a reason to use that one again! That's some dedicated hatin'! Okay, I'll give you that one, though I will point out that I didn't actually demand money stakes to "prove he really believed what he was saying."
No, that I'd put closer to 1%.
(I'd pay to see him get in the ring with Mamdani, though.)
No, as someone who has complained about overuse of fascism myself, no, I do not use fascism to mean "something I don't like" and you should know better. I do not think Trump is literally a fascist, nor the Republican Party, nor ICE. I think the US government, including the past several administrations (not limited to Republican ones!) have shown an increasing tendency to appeal to identify politics, cults of personality, and disregard for previous Constitutional limits, and that there is a ~10% chance this will lead us towards an actual fascist state (for some value of "fascist" - we can argue over exactly what the definition is if you really want to, but I am talking about something we would both broadly agree looks and smells like fascism, not "something I don't like"). In other words, the actual end of the Republic as we know it, at least in all but name.
I do happen to think Trump has fanned the flames worse than Biden or Mamdani or Nancy Pelosi or whomever you'd prefer to blame, but he's not the sole or first cause. (Note also that this is an admission that I have updated my priors somewhat since that argument I had with @FCfromSCC way back when - I still mostly believe the things I said then, but with weaker confidence. On the other hand, the fact that Trump was reelected should have made him update his.)
It's almost like you drew a line in the sand, shrugged and said you weren't impressed when I pointed out the line had been trampled already, and specifically said I "should be able to point this out in a few years" when you were wrong. And now it turns out that of course this isn't the sort of prediction that anyone actually commits to, on the basis of your long-extant experience?
Yes, that's the sort of thing that's pretty memorable.
No, I don't know better. That's a good bit of the frustration, here.
You keep talking about how you push back against unreasonable claims of fascism, and that happens, sure. But in this conversation you KoolAid manned in to nitpick about poker tactics while the other poster is saying 10% Literally Hitler (and making up autogople meetings with generals, and yada yada noonecares).
You dive into conversations about students yelling at professors with discussions of concentration camps, throw calling homosexuality a sin into conversations with the Day Of The Rope, put "don't have free speech (as you fedpost on reddit)" alongside with literal "gulags" out of your own volition.
((and, of course, when it turned out that we didn't have free speech to fedpost on reddit, or to fedpost here, because of course there's wildly hypocritical and politically biased sanction and investigation of Red-leaning fedposting even under a Republican administration, it doesn't even seem like it matters. But, hey, you'll invite me to talk about how I can violate the rules of this website, in case I'm dumb enough to think that anything I could offer would be anywhere near as persuasive as the sword of damocles that a federal subpoena would.))
Fine, there's a range here. Where's the dividing line? Because the Blue Tribe sure as hell hasn't provided an example beyond "things we don't like", you haven't provided an.
And all of that would be fine: you're allowed to have your wrong opinions. But it's never a matter of actually defending these positions, or even defining their borders out to say what they are. It's throw out a cloud of ipse dixit, say whatever can be proven doesn't count, and jam.
Spell it the fuck out, and actually commit to a bit for long enough to risk being proven wrong.
For someone who doesn’t care who’s the wrongest person in Wronglandia, you sure do love to insist that this guy is The Worst One ever.
(while coincidentally glossing over the obvious competition for past examples that could compete on "appeal to identify politics, cults of personality, and disregard for previous Constitutional limits"? The last couple Dem presidents that didn't have brain damage only had scandals about a tan suit and a luxurious cigar, right?)
Is this something that you're actually willing to discuss and provide concrete examples around, or should we just be taking it as gospel that, hey, there's a ton of protesters that you can see, it must be a new level of escalation.
Can we engage with the bit where supposedly sober and serious actors, the best and brightest available from the ratsphere community, are just repeating made-up hundred-kilodeaths numbers because they don't like a policy this time around, when last time they were crying themselves to sleep every night over a photo that -- whoops! -- turned out to be from the Obama admin?
Thank you for at least occasionally updating on evidence.
This punchline would be funnier if a) FCfromSSC, rather than Nybbler, had predicted Trump could never ever ever ever be reelected or b) a bullet hadn't come within inches of making very sure he didn't, or c) that judges didn't order already-cast (primary) ballots for him to not be counted.
I think the only thing we agree on is that we are both frustrated. And I'm answering here because when I throw up my hands and let it go, I later get accused of refusing to answer. But as wrong as you think I am (that's about the only thing I can discern for certain here), I am not being glib or sarcastic or dismissive here when I tell you that there is something about your j'accuse posts that are, besides being annoying, really hard for me to follow.
I don't know if it's the way you write, and I can even entertain the possibility that I'm just not smart enough to get you (I doubt this, but I'm humble enough to own that I am no longer as smart as I once thought I was). But I go through your laundry lists of accusations and feel like sincerity requires me to try to answer them point by point, and I get bogged down in a mixture of "That's completely not what I meant," "That is not what I said and I think you're straw manning me," and "What does he even mean?"
So, really and truly, I'm not sure what you want from me. I mean, besides a wholesale admission that I'm on the bad side and everything I've said for the last five years is wrong. I'm afraid I am not willing to oblige you there. I dunno, some people attack me and at least I know what they are accusing me of, even if it's wrong. Some people attack me and they're just crazy, so I can roll my eyes and move on. You attack me in a very effortful way and I don't even know where to begin rebutting because it's all "You said this and here's a long paragraph about what other people did and isn't this funny and here's something you said four years ago."
I realize this leaves us back where we started.
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Your dedication to insisting that nothing you said in the past should matter, sure is a sight to behold.
I'm not really demanding money stakes either, I'm completely fine with a gentlemen's bet. It's just that he expressed concerns about relative probabilities, and with money you can do things like favorable odds that take them into account.
And yes I think he should prove he actually believes what he's saying. There's nothing unreasonable in stating that he doesn't.
Never happened. I have not denied anything I've said in the past and in some cases I have even amended my opinion. I'm just bemused, as always, at the spite.
Actually, accusing someone of not believing what they are saying is uncharitable and we frown on demands that someone "prove" they mean what they say. Likewise claiming that if you don't put money on it's proof that you don't.
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