Comment by johnnyanmac

8 months ago

Legit inquiry, do you think Trump will last to 2028? I personally don't, but it can go all sorts of ways.

As an aside, I also consider a civil war as "not making it". Having to wage war on the people you lead is fundamentally a failure of all systems.

Yes. The only way Trump is ousted is if Democrats somehow get a supermajority in the House and the Senate and impeach and remove him, which isn't going to happen. Republicans will always close ranks around Trump at this point. He definitely won't leave office peacefully, if at all. What happens after that, I don't know.

  • Trump's health is a big open question, though.

    But even if Trump is out of the picture, that just means we'll get president Vance, which is likely to be even worse.

    • Not even close. The whole Republican party is lock step with everything DT says. Not a single member of Congress will oppose him. DT pushes through all kinds of things that they don't want, eg. RFK is a lifelong granola Democrat with wildly unpopular opinions but every single Republican confirmed him.

      Nobody else in the party has this kind of power. Not JD, not Desantis, not the Koch brothers, nobody. When he's gone, it's over.

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  • The House has sole power over impeachments. Simple majority vote. The difficulty is scheduling it, the leadership controls this. A more likely path is four Republicans could make a declaration to caucus with the Democratic party, and change the leadership. Again, simple majority vote.

    The Senate has sole power over impeachment trials. The trial and conviction vote have no quorum requirement. Republicans will have to show up and vote to acquit, explicitly, to protect Trump.

    The law is clear, upon conviction the president is removed from power. The only power any person has is the power people voluntarily give to him. He can also throw poop if so inclined, he's plenty full of it.

    But if not one thing is yielded to him, if without any violence he is simply not obeyed, he becomes naked and undone and nothing, just as when the root receives no nourishment, the branch withers and dies. - Étienne de La Boétie, Discourse on Voluntary Servitude: Why People Enslave Themselves to Authority

    • The House of Representatives just needs a majority vote to approve the articles of impeachment, but to convict, the Senate requires a two-thirds vote. That's what I meant by a supermajority. My bad for the miscommunication.

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