2028 Presidential Election

[Harry Bosch]

No, we're fucked. SCOTUS is set for 15 to 20 years, at least. But, we need to get things in motion to reduce the damage coming in the next couple of decades.

First, Alito and Thomas must be impeached and removed. The reasons are obvious and do not need to be repeated. If the dems take the senate that will give them huge control over who gets onto the court.

If necessary expand the court.

You aren't going to impeach Thomas or Alito. They weren't bribed into providing their opinions. They were paid to bother staying on the court in the first place for less money. Their opinions were never in doubt. Their asses in those seats is what is being paid for.

I would have agreed with you. However, today speaker of house, Johnson, stated that he favors impeaching democratic judges:

Mike Johnson endorses impeaching judges blocking Trump policies

Johnson said he's "for it" regarding the impeachment of judges who impede the actions of the Trump administration.

www.washingtonexaminer.com

I hate to see how our country is degenerating. However, we have to fight back.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

WTF?! But I would note Reagan, HW Busb, and W Bush judges have also stepped in the way.

 

[Tigers!]

Never mind the supreme court; You need to expand the presidency.

Have three presidents at a time, with a majority vote required to sign legislation into law, and a unanimous vote required for executive and/or military orders.

Of course, that would mean almost nothing could ever get done, but that's not a bug, it's a feature.

The Romans tried that with their 2 consuls which lead to the Gracchi brothers which lead to Sulla, Caesar and then the empire.
The precedent is not good.

 

[Harry Bosch]

WTF?! But I would note Reagan, HW Busb, and W Bush judges have also stepped in the way.

Yes, it has been good to see that many conservative judges have stood up to Trump. The republican congress has been incredibly weak.

 

[Harry Bosch]

The next year will determine if Newsom remains the top Democratic contender. The economic news I'm seeing out of California is concerning.

Well, California remains one of the best economies in the US, one of the best in the world. The fourth highest economy in the world. Are there specific policy decisions that Newsome has made that negatively affected the economy?

 

[Elixir]

The next year will determine if Newsom remains the top Democratic contender. The economic news I'm seeing out of California is concerning.

Well, California remains one of the best economies in the US, one of the best in the world. The fourth highest economy in the world. Are there specific policy decisions that Newsome has made that negatively affected the economy?

Jason is laboring under a misconception that competence, honesty, the economy or any of the other real or manufactured grievances against Newsom actually matter.
In this era, the top showman wins. Newsom has already supplanted The Felon in that, the only area that matters. Shady Vance is extremely unlikely to even nip around Newsom’s ankles.

 

[Harry Bosch]

The next year will determine if Newsom remains the top Democratic contender. The economic news I'm seeing out of California is concerning.

Well, California remains one of the best economies in the US, one of the best in the world. The fourth highest economy in the world. Are there specific policy decisions that Newsome has made that negatively affected the economy?

Jason is laboring under a misconception that competence, honesty, the economy or any of the other real or manufactured grievances against Newsom actually matter.
In this era, the top showman wins. Newsom has already supplanted The Felon in that, the only area that matters. Shady Vance is extremely unlikely to even nip around Newsom’s ankles.

California is a tech monster economy that is driving tech across the country. As an aside, we are screwed if we don't get back to tech in the US. The world is electrifying and moving to tech. While Russia and the US focus on oil and natural gas, China is booming in solar panels, batteries, and nuclear power. They will take over the energy markets in Europe and Africa in the near future. And then the rest of Asia. And more than likely in the US, unless we get our shit together. Newsome might just be the kind of leader that we need to help us return to high tech.

 

[Elixir]

California is a tech monster economy that is driving tech across the country.

PEOPLE who happen to (be able to afford to) live in California comprise the Tech monster, not the State. In fact if you ask Swiz or any Republitard, the State of CA itself is an impediment to driving anything worthwhile, ESPECIALLY with a central casting comic who mocks their golden calf at the helm.
Of course it’s possible that Swiz and the Republitards are wrong about that, but it doesn’t matter. It’s always 72° and rich people choose to bear the burden of living there even under a fiscally irresponsible trump-mocking comic. I reckon that either fiscal irresponsibility or mocking The Felon holds irresistible appeal for them, since they haven’t fired him.

 

[Politesse]

The next year will determine if Newsom remains the top Democratic contender. The economic news I'm seeing out of California is concerning.

Well, California remains one of the best economies in the US, one of the best in the world. The fourth highest economy in the world. Are there specific policy decisions that Newsome has made that negatively affected the economy?

Jason is laboring under a misconception that competence, honesty, the economy or any of the other real or manufactured grievances against Newsom actually matter.
In this era, the top showman wins. Newsom has already supplanted The Felon in that, the only area that matters. Shady Vance is extremely unlikely to even nip around Newsom’s ankles.

California is a tech monster economy that is driving tech across the country. As an aside, we are screwed if we don't get back to tech in the US. The world is electrifying and moving to tech. While Russia and the US focus on oil and natural gas, China is booming in solar panels, batteries, and nuclear power. They will take over the energy markets in Europe and Africa in the near future. And then the rest of Asia. And more than likely in the US, unless we get our shit together. Newsome might just be the kind of leader that we need to help us return to high tech.

Yes, but outside of California and a handful of other small, urban, educated islands, the American people don't actually WANT to be on top of tech, or any other market. Their goal is to return to the Early Medieval period and become a dislikeable backwater to the rest of the planet. If you remove California and New York from consideration, that's pretty much what we already are and the only thing we want to be. "Great", on our own terms, and no one else's.

 

[bilby]

Never mind the supreme court; You need to expand the presidency.

Have three presidents at a time, with a majority vote required to sign legislation into law, and a unanimous vote required for executive and/or military orders.

Of course, that would mean almost nothing could ever get done, but that's not a bug, it's a feature.

The Romans tried that with their 2 consuls which lead to the Gracchi brothers which lead to Sulla, Caesar and then the empire.
The precedent is not good.

"We tried something different once, two thousand years ago, and it didn't work very well" would be a more persuadive argument if we hadn't tried the current system repeatedly over the last three centuries with often disastrous consequences.

It's pretty obvious by now that having one guy in charge, even with checks and balances, is a disaster just waiting for the wrong guy to come by.

We need to do better. If an idea is so brilliant that you can't find three people who will all agree to implement it when they have the power to do so, then maybe it's a shit idea.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Never mind the supreme court; You need to expand the presidency.

Have three presidents at a time, with a majority vote required to sign legislation into law, and a unanimous vote required for executive and/or military orders.

Of course, that would mean almost nothing could ever get done, but that's not a bug, it's a feature.

The Romans tried that with their 2 consuls which lead to the Gracchi brothers which lead to Sulla, Caesar and then the empire.
The precedent is not good.

"We tried something different once, two thousand years ago, and it didn't work very well" would be a more persuadive argument if we hadn't tried the current system repeatedly over the last three centuries with often disastrous consequences.

It's pretty obvious by now that having one guy in charge, even with checks and balances, is a disaster just waiting for the wrong guy to come by.

We need to do better. If an idea is so brilliant that you can't find three people who will all agree to implement it when they have the power to do so, then maybe it's a shit idea.

I don't know if JK Rowling stole the line but Voldemort's quote "There is no good and evil, there is only power and those too weak to seek it." is really the issue with Governance, even Representative Democracies... the human race in general?

The Founding Fathers got this. The Electoral College was supposed to be the firewall for a person like Trump.

The institutions of fair governance rely on trust, and when you get someone in there that isn't trustworthy, the entire system becomes susceptible. Sociopaths and psychopaths seek out things to manipulate.

However, the real problem in America isn't merely Trump, it is that the GOP has drank the Flavoraid in the House and are feckless for whatever reason in the Senate, and the branch that is supposed to balance out the Executive isn't doing so. If the Dems win in '26 and are seated in '26, Trump's power becomes greatly restricted, but Trump can always go scorched Earth. Heck, people were coordinating to make certain that didn't happen at the end of his first term.

However, going back to fiction, I'm reminded of a scene in the movie With Honors, where the homeless Joe Pesci "refutes" the professor's statement that the President is a King in a brilliant, but short response. Even back then, when I was younger and dumber, felt the response felt hollow as it didn't refer to a solution, but rather a mere concept that things would work itself out because right would defeat wrong. Today, Trump is proving the fictional professor was absolutely right, in fact more so than was even suggested. You just need the wrong people, in the wrong positions, at the right time.

 

[Tigers!]

Never mind the supreme court; You need to expand the presidency.

Have three presidents at a time, with a majority vote required to sign legislation into law, and a unanimous vote required for executive and/or military orders.

Of course, that would mean almost nothing could ever get done, but that's not a bug, it's a feature.

The Romans tried that with their 2 consuls which lead to the Gracchi brothers which lead to Sulla, Caesar and then the empire.
The precedent is not good.

"We tried something different once, two thousand years ago, and it didn't work very well" would be a more persuadive argument if we hadn't tried the current system repeatedly over the last three centuries with often disastrous consequences.

It's pretty obvious by now that having one guy in charge, even with checks and balances, is a disaster just waiting for the wrong guy to come by.

We need to do better. If an idea is so brilliant that you can't find three people who will all agree to implement it when they have the power to do so, then maybe it's a shit idea.

Good job it is not our government.

 

[ZiprHead]

Never mind the supreme court; You need to expand the presidency.

Have three presidents at a time, with a majority vote required to sign legislation into law, and a unanimous vote required for executive and/or military orders.

Of course, that would mean almost nothing could ever get done, but that's not a bug, it's a feature.

The Romans tried that with their 2 consuls which lead to the Gracchi brothers which lead to Sulla, Caesar and then the empire.
The precedent is not good.

"We tried something different once, two thousand years ago, and it didn't work very well" would be a more persuadive argument if we hadn't tried the current system repeatedly over the last three centuries with often disastrous consequences.

It's pretty obvious by now that having one guy in charge, even with checks and balances, is a disaster just waiting for the wrong guy to come by.

We need to do better. If an idea is so brilliant that you can't find three people who will all agree to implement it when they have the power to do so, then maybe it's a shit idea.

Never going to happen.

 

[bilby]

Never going to happen.

Well, not in the USA. The whole idea of the USA was to have a king who was reviewed every few years by a group of reliable men (the electoral college), and replaced if he wasn't doing the right thing. He could also be replaced between times if he pissed off enough senators and representatives.

This is a marked improvement on the "king for life, eldest son takes over" model, but it is hamstrung by the understandable belief at the time that somebody had to be in the role of king, doing kingy stuff like vetoing legislation and pardoning criminals.

Monarchy is a hereditary dictatorship, and dictators suck, but other models of governance are difficult to make work in a pre-industrial world, where communications are slow, and slowing things down still further by requiring discussion (which implies face to face meetings in the C18th) is just asking to be invaded and thrashed by your more nimble neighbours.

The world has changed, and distributed rule is less problematic - except for the perennial problem of how to crowbar power from the hands of the king (whether you call him King, President, First Secretary, Prime Minister, or something else).

The vast majority of us, who have zero desire to be king, need to be protected somehow from the small band of nutters, each of whom is certain that he is the only person up to the task. And they are nutters. No sane person wants to run a country.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Never going to happen.

Well, not in the USA. The whole idea of the USA was to have a king who was reviewed every few years by a group of reliable men (the electoral college), and replaced if he wasn't doing the right thing.

I think you are taking that way too simplistically. Our current form was the second try. The first try involved an impotent Centralized Federal power that had a President that couldn't buy stamps. It barely would oversee the states who could do almost anything, like coin currency. It failed badly.

He could also be replaced between times if he pissed off enough senators and representatives.

This is a marked improvement on the "king for life, eldest son takes over" model, but it is hamstrung by the understandable belief at the time that somebody had to be in the role of king, doing kingy stuff like vetoing legislation and pardoning criminals.

The new government had a Federal Government with some power, however, the states were still provided a ton of leeway. The states would lose than after time after the South lost the Civil War. The Constitution / Bill of Rights contained lots of talk about what the Government was to do and what it explicitly wouldn't be allowed to do.

Yes, direct electoral power was only provided to the people (white males... property owning?) for the House of Representatives. The Senate would be appointed by state elected official(s) and the President was elected by the white males, but with a significant firewall installed. That didn't make the President a king. Particularly because when the US was formed, it wasn't a garden party. Big states didn't true small states, small states didn't trust big states. Balances were installed in order to keep influence of any particular ideal more even. More importantly, the President ain't a king as he ain't declaring legislation. Congress was given that power. The run up to the Civil War saw the most impotent Presidents in our history, as Congress was where almost all the power resided in that period. In literature, The Wizard of Oz is the US President. Hapless, useless, ineffective, but the President had a great reputation.

However, the most important part of this was that this was carved in very erodible stone when Washington stepped down after two terms as the leader, or more importantly, Adams after serving only one. That set a long cycle of adherence to the spirit of the Constitution to move from monarchy. That cycle ended in 2020 and set aflame in 2024.

 

[bilby]

More importantly, the President ain't a king as he ain't declaring legislation.

In which case, Charles III ain't a king either... and nor was George III, even before his illness led to the regency.

 

[bilby]

I think you are taking that way too simplistically.

Well, it's a forum post, not a book on US history.

But the simple fact is that, as your analysis shows, since the Revolutionary War, the US Presidency has steadily gained in power, while the power of European monarchies has steadily declined; The POTUS has been more kingy than most European kings and queens at least since 1918.

 

[Toni]

Never going to happen.

Well, not in the USA. The whole idea of the USA was to have a king who was reviewed every few years by a group of reliable men (the electoral college), and replaced if he wasn't doing the right thing. He could also be replaced between times if he pissed off enough senators and representatives.

This is a marked improvement on the "king for life, eldest son takes over" model, but it is hamstrung by the understandable belief at the time that somebody had to be in the role of king, doing kingy stuff like vetoing legislation and pardoning criminals.

Monarchy is a hereditary dictatorship, and dictators suck, but other models of governance are difficult to make work in a pre-industrial world, where communications are slow, and slowing things down still further by requiring discussion (which implies face to face meetings in the C18th) is just asking to be invaded and thrashed by your more nimble neighbours.

The world has changed, and distributed rule is less problematic - except for the perennial problem of how to crowbar power from the hands of the king (whether you call him King, President, First Secretary, Prime Minister, or something else).

The vast majority of us, who have zero desire to be king, need to be protected somehow from the small band of nutters, each of whom is certain that he is the only person up to the task. And they are nutters. No sane person wants to run a country.

You have exactly no understanding of the US.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

More importantly, the President ain't a king as he ain't declaring legislation.

In which case, Charles III ain't a king either... and nor was George III, even before his illness led to the regency.

I have no idea who those people are and while I am willing to respect the III name, what I can say is that my post was a bit longer than the snipped sentence.

Yes, the Presidency has grown stronger over the last century. But we are experiencing isn't that at the moment. We are watching the GOP acting complicitly to undermine the institutions of our Government. The Trump (and George W. Bush admins) proved how weak our form of Government was.

 

[Politesse]

Never going to happen.

Well, not in the USA. The whole idea of the USA was to have a king who was reviewed every few years by a group of reliable men (the electoral college), and replaced if he wasn't doing the right thing. He could also be replaced between times if he pissed off enough senators and representatives.

This is a marked improvement on the "king for life, eldest son takes over" model, but it is hamstrung by the understandable belief at the time that somebody had to be in the role of king, doing kingy stuff like vetoing legislation and pardoning criminals.

Monarchy is a hereditary dictatorship, and dictators suck, but other models of governance are difficult to make work in a pre-industrial world, where communications are slow, and slowing things down still further by requiring discussion (which implies face to face meetings in the C18th) is just asking to be invaded and thrashed by your more nimble neighbours.

The world has changed, and distributed rule is less problematic - except for the perennial problem of how to crowbar power from the hands of the king (whether you call him King, President, First Secretary, Prime Minister, or something else).

The vast majority of us, who have zero desire to be king, need to be protected somehow from the small band of nutters, each of whom is certain that he is the only person up to the task. And they are nutters. No sane person wants to run a country.

This an absolutely bonkers interpretation of US history...