Realistically... How fucked is the US?
Realistically... How fucked is the US?
(Disclaimer: I voted against Trump and anyone who supported him in my state.)
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The goal is to remake the US into something else. A Christian Patriarchy + Oiligarchy with sham voting every four years. The biggest wild card in their plans is Trump, but as long as he gets to pretend he's Putin 2.0 -- which literally means being able to point his finger to see someone killed -- he'll be happy and easy to play.
Overall, there's no limit to how fucked we are. There are no brakes and there's no steering wheel.
Think militias deputized as enforcers.
Think protests put down by the military ordered to shoot to kill.
Think indoctrination of children and political/militaristic organizations for teens.
Think history books rewritten, science education dumbed down, evolution and global warming illegal to even mention.
Think marriage rights taken away.
Think voting rights taken away and voting laws rammed through to ensure Republicans win.
Think Republicans getting enough state legislatures both to call a Constitutional Convention and to ratify a slew of amendments to rework citizenship, enshrine Christianity into the constitution, and generally butcher the Bill of Rights.
Think "real Americans" going after and imprisoning and/or killing hundreds, thousands, millions of other Americans.
Think purity tests and identification papers, total surveillance, digital tracking of every word and action and movement.
Think of your street with a dead body in the middle of it and everyone afraid to go near it.
Think of being terrified for your own life if you accidentally hear someone say something against The Party.
Think of this very comment used as evidence to lock me up or have me killed.
There is nothing, nothing at all, standing in their way. Like in most one-party systems, the competition among the players will be to see how extreme they can get in order to prove themselves to their party, while the rest of us who vainly hope they'll show restraint will pay the price.
I hope I'm wrong about most of the above. It may not get that bad. But, again, we've gone over the cliff and there's nowhere but a helluva lot of straight down.
So the frightening thing us that everything you have written is possible, if Republicans as a whole prioritize it. Trump can't do it all himself, but Trump + Congress + a compliant Supreme Court definitely can. There are some remaining checks on the whole process, but they are weak and amount to delay tactics.
The biggest check right now is the Military itself. The Military swears an oath to the Constitution, not to the President. That oath will be tested. The Military brass understands their role in all of this. They understand their use on US soil is extremely limited. A lot of the super-fascist stuff will involve them, and they don't want to be involved. If Trump fires a bunch of Generals right away, that's a really bad sign, because it means he is going through the various chains of command and trashing it all until he finds a leader willing to violate that oath for him.
If they haven't arrested Trump yet then they lack what it takes to do it now.
They don't need to arrest him, they just need to say "no" if he asks them to do something blatantly unconstitutional.