Comment by bdangubic
17 hours ago
what is the US exactly currently if not dictatorship? is there a single thing “President” cannot do right now and if so who would be stopping him? so perhaps on paper US is not dictatorship much like Russia and China are not… We spend decades trying to fight these regimes and lost so much that now we are worse than them :)
> is there a single thing “President” cannot do right now
Stand in the middle of fifth Avenue and shoot someone :)
Have political enemies executed
Get his face on Mount Rushmore
Disband congress
Disband the Supreme Court
Keep Jimmy Kimmel off air
Get Jon Stuart to shut up
Get James comey indicted
Get a national holiday named after him
Etc.
Even when we focus on things he tried to do, there is a lot he couldn’t. Let alone when you look at things he didn’t try to do.
we are 11 months in, please be patient while the process is taking place, be right with you with your list :)
lots of these are of course also just a distraction to discuss at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner vs you know, other things
You said "right now". If you want to change to "will be able to do in the near future, before the end of his second term", that's a (slightly?) different list. But it's also a different comment.
You said "anything", in the context of dictatorship. I only used items in this list which IMO you can reasonably say Putin, an actual dictator, can do. Right now. Except the first one! Because that was a joke, a reference to something he himself said he could do.
If you want to change to "anything which has backroom deal importance, not just bread and games for the masses, but the real things, if you know you know", that's a (slightly) different list.
But, it's also a different comment.
Well he did get Ellen Degeneris to self-deport
He has functionally neutered Congress. It is almost completely meaningless and it is operating without an independent Speaker.
I think he could succeed in principle re: Mount Rushmore, to be honest. I think eventually people will cave in and agree to do it, and then they will just pray to cholesterol that they can wait it out.
The supreme court did just stop him for the moment putting the national guard into chicago
bookmark this for a few days and then come back to it… the story is “… for now” :-)
"rare setback"
it is not a setback, they have to play a little game now and again to entertain the masses. scotus as it was before doesn’t exist anymore and won’t for decades, it now just rubberstamps
1 reply →
[flagged]
I hope you are just trying to be funny cause if you are it is good
Not even believable conspiracy slop for 2023, let alone in almost 2026.
> Ukraine jailed all opposing politicians during the war with Russia and stopped having elections.
No, they did not jail "all" of the opposition. Fair elections cannot be held during an invasion, especially at the rate Russia frauds votes and candidates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accusations_of_Russian_interfe...
It's pretty clear he can barely do anything policy wise. Limited tariffs and immigration / border stuff is pretty much all that he is getting done.
And killing so many sailors in South American waters.
> so many
To be exact, CNN reports that for the period Sep - Dec there have been ~30 boats destroyed in ~26 attacks, with at least ~105 deaths in these operations.
The US govt is of course claiming narcotics smugglers ("narcoterrorism") while others say they are not. The truth is probably somewhere inbetween, though who knows one which end of the spectrum.
What I think is maybe more interesting is the general pressure being applied to Venezuela by the US and the EU.
you don’t need policy, policy is what his predecessors were doing and are now going “wait, we could have done whatever the F we wanted??! damn!!” :)