Nowhere GirlPeople tell you to "vote!" because they don't know what to do either about the man who controls the entire federal government and its military, who immunizes himself and his allies for committing crimes, who has a supermajority on the corrupt high court to back him up, and whose party is trying to make it impossible to vote against them.
If rules and norms were going to save us, it would have happened by now.
There was so much pearl clutching over Trump telling federal courts to go fuck themselves but none of these people adjusted their strategy for how to deal with him because of it.
"You have to have faith in the system!"
Why? o.O
I don't think I've ever seen it put so straightforwardly but:
Even if Democrats somehow manage to take over Congress or the White House in the future, they are going to have to break the law in order to ensure Trump and Republicans don't get away with it and aren't able to do it again.
Presidential pardons are going to have to be treated as worthless. Corrupt SCOTUS rulings ignored. You have to uproot all of it and throw it away.
Or this will just happen again.
DavidP@gwynnion From outside the USA, the answer seems to be that the President needs to be much less powerful - no ability to pardon *anyone*, no ability to force the DoJ to investigate *anyone*. Otherwise, when you get mafia Don in charge, the wheels fall off the whole system.
Michael Maguire 🇨🇦 🇬🇧🇨ðŸ‡ðŸ‡®ðŸ‡¹@davidP @gwynnion I feel the Westminster-derived democracies effectively happened upon this solution by keeping the concept of a monarch but over time reducing their role to being mostly ceremonial. Instead the House of Commons ("congress" if you like) grew in power. Not perfect but still I think better than just electing an all-powerful king every 4 years.
@michaelmaguire @gwynnion interesting, isn't it? In the UK we have had some absolutely god-awful prime ministers, but the amount of damage they could do was limited by the system (with the exception of stuffing their mates into the House of Lords). Imagine if they could prosecute or pardon at will!
@michaelmaguire @gwynnion also, linked to that: I'm not a fan of a hereditary monarchy either. In an ideal world, I'd like an elected head of state, but with robust checks and balances. How you prevent that from being misused when the House of * is also broken, I don't know