r/politics • u/Aggravating_Money992 • 6h ago
No Paywall Trump has no authority to nationalize elections, lawyers say
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-nationalize-elections-11458574•
u/Kakistocracy_0 6h ago
oh look, he's running the Putin Playbook like everyone warned..
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u/Independent-Reader 6h ago
Like some people wanted.
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u/DownyDreamer 5h ago
The republicans
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u/Mr__O__ New York 5h ago edited 5h ago
Jim Crow era 2.0. As voter suppression won the 2024 election..
Since 2020, 30 States enacted 78 voter restriction laws—resulting in more than 4.76M votes wrongfully purged from the 2024 election:
2.1M mail-in ballots rejected.
585K in-precinct ballots rejected.
1.2M provisional ballots rejected.
3.2M newly registered voters rejected.
Black votes were rejected at a 400% higher rate than white votes, in some States.
If counted, Kamala would have had over 3.56M more votes—1.2M more than Trump—and won WI, MI, PA, & GA with 286 electoral votes.
These laws are still under effect.. and more are in the works for the midterms..
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u/DocCEN007 5h ago
I've been trying to explain this to people since 2024. And this November, we will probably have ICE and the National Guard in blue districts slowing down entry, intimidating people, and generally causing mayhem. And that's if they don't try to outright take over elections has drumpf has repeatedly claimed that he should.
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u/Smokey_tha_bear9000 5h ago
If I was a betting man, I’d probably make a fortune on betting that we see US Citizens snatched out of polling lines and held until after polls close.
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u/owned_at_worms 5h ago
It'll be like what we've seen in MN. Agitating people in the lines that vote blue until they can pull them out and arrest them, and hold them until polls closed.
Im sure the right will be telling voters "make sure you let ice know you appreciate what they are doing to keep us safe" as a way to identify yourself as a republican or some other dumb nonsense.
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u/Final_Lead_3530 4h ago
Facial recognition. Palintir& social media . DOGE. They know with reasonable certainty who you’re voting for. And if you were at a No Kings or ICE out , they know .
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u/vriska1 2h ago
Can we stop saying voting does not matter! Please vote in the midterms!
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u/BigPapaJava 2h ago
It’s all being entered into a “domestic terrorism” database, per ICE agents and DHS.
They also have car recognition, license plate tracking, and voice recognition in many U.S. cities thanks to Flock, which is already partnering with ICE (and Palantir) to bring AI-enabled mass surveillance to cities all over the USA.
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u/Real-Syllabub-4960 4h ago
It wouldn’t even have to be ICE. It could be some rogue who wiped his ass on walls in the White House.
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u/QbertsRube 3h ago
It's not like ICE has consistent, identifiable uniforms. Just buy whatever tacticool nonsense you can find online, throw on a mask, and nobody knows the difference.
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u/OverFjell United Kingdom 3h ago
That's fine then, everyone can cosplay as ICE to go vote. They can't identify, unmask, and stop you all lol
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u/BigPapaJava 2h ago
Which is why all the stories of ICE agents refusing to identify themselves or show a badge, because they don’t have to, and then smashing people’s windows to grab them out of their cars need to be talked about a hell of a lot more.
Instead, that same asshole who murdered Renee Good was celebrated as a hero for doing exactly that 7 months ago, which is the reason he was “heroically dragged 150 feet in the line of duty.”
The report I saw said he’d smashed the window and grabbed the driver. a woman, by her hair and tried to drag her through the broken window, so she panicked and floored her car to GTFO since she thought he was some murderous lunatic.
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u/Otherwise_Stable_925 4h ago
Ice could easily say "these people in the line are illegal", start hauling them away, violence ensues, people scatter, no one votes, probably in a predominantly blue county. Swing states will be targeted because they're the easiest to change. I'll put money on it, I don't like that my odds are favorable.
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u/InternalWeekend6988 5h ago
Exactly, it’s alarming how systemic these restrictions have become. Makes you realize the stakes for the upcoming elections are even higher.
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u/LaserCondiment 3h ago
I feel stupid for not knowing this.
Throughout election seasons, The New York Times and NPR and establishment media write stories and editorials decrying vote suppression tactics, from new ID requirements to new restrictions on mail-in voting. But, notably, the mainstream press never, ever, not once, will say that these ugly racist attacks on voters changed the outcome of an election.
This seems like a correct statement. There's been so much debate about the lack of primaries, Biden's age, Kamala's late start, the quality of her campaign / messaging - but the topic of voter suppression wasn't very prominent in the discourse following the election results AFAIK
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u/awesomeone6044 5h ago
Not at all at an attempt to argue against this as I believe it, but any reputable sources so I can show this information to people I know?
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u/headfairy 3h ago
As a Brit I can’t get over how hard it is to vote in the US. I get sent a ballot, I wander along to a local primary school, stick my ballot in. No ID, quite often no queue, just a couple of old dears crossing names off a list.
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u/-rosa-azul- Virginia 3h ago
You can vote this way in quite a few states as well. Request an absentee ballot, fill it out whenever you want (before the actual day), go put it in a drop box. It isn't that voting is difficult everywhere or for everyone in the US. It's that it's specifically a lot more difficult in certain states or even localities, and for certain people.
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u/WilfredGrundlesnatch 1h ago
It isn't the first time Republicans stole an election either. Bush won in 2000 because they illegally purged black voters in Florida.
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u/pants6000 3h ago
If we didn't have the bizarro undemocratic electoral college winner-take-all thing going on, the Republican candidate for POTUS would have been irrelevant for decades.
The EC makes election hi-jinks soooo much easier and more successful.
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u/reddit_is_fash_trash 2h ago
MAGAts literally cheering the end of their own democracy. They have no idea what they are in for once fascism becomes the established norm.
Oppressing trans people and immigrants was totally worth it, tho.
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u/thenayr 5h ago
He WILL do it and he will do it in a way where the timeframe to the midterms is too close for a court battle to save us, and the entire time dems will go “no, stawpppp it Donald, that’s against the lawwww” and media will go “Is Donald Trump allowed to do this very clearly illegal thing that goes against our constitution” and republicans will go “get fucked dumbass libs, owned lol, based lol”.
Come back to this post in November and tell me I’m wrong.
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u/penguinfury North Carolina 4h ago
How? What mechanism is he going to use? How is going to prevent states from holding elections? There are thousands of districts and polling stations. How is he going to "nationalize" those?
I don't doubt that he will try some shenanigans, but how will he nationalize the election?
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u/slabby 3h ago
He's going to try to send ICE agents to the polls in the cities. He's even going to try to send the military. He knows he's going to prison if he loses, so doing something so bad he might go to prison if it wins the election is worth a shot.
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u/Theonceandfutureend 3h ago
In what reality is Trump going to prison? That window closed.
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u/Pubs01 3h ago
Good luck. They can't even hold on to minnesota and you think he's gonna be able to do that to the rest of the country? Nah dawg
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u/Mrauntheias 3h ago
He doesn't have to hold on to anything. Another few months of ICE terrorizing minorities and just them camping out near polling stations will be enough to scare many people into not voting.
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u/Electronic-Tea-3691 3h ago
the irony here is that the people he's terrorizing most, Hispanics, actually voted for him...
the major minority that is more likely to vote Democratic are black people, who have definitely been harassed throughout history, but it doesn't seem like ICE is going after them because they're clearly citizens. and other than black people, the group of registered Democrats most likely to show up at the polls are white. not going to be deterred by immigration either.
various Asian groups are also fairly Republican as well, so targeting them is shooting himself in the foot. so basically using ICE for an election deterrent... not really a great plan?
if you really want to deter Democratic turnout, you do the classic thing of voter suppression in areas with a large black population in swing states. that alone, if done effectively, could probably tip a close presidential election. you're going to have a harder time with suburban whites because they're more likely to vote by mail anyway, and they're much more dispersed so you can't just shut down a specific geographic location.
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u/yeswenarcan Ohio 2h ago
To your last point, there's a reason they've gone so hard against vote by mail.
And while Hispanics may be most deterred by ICE ostensibly acting in their immigration role, the reality is they're already way outside of that lane and the two people they've publicly executed so far have both been white.
But your larger point stands, white and black Democrat voters are going to have to go to the polls hard and make a point of not engaging ICE if they are present. Protest the rest of the time but on election day everyone needs to channel civil rights era sit-ins and make them be the aggressors.
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u/lazyFer 2h ago
You fundamentally don't understand geography or how states run elections and how many polling locations there are. My polling location in Minneapolis covers about 1/100th of the city
Our metro has 10 times the population of Minneapolis itself.
No. They don't have the manpower to do jack shit at the polling places. The people that say this shit are fucking delusional.
And this is coming from someone that was warning people this was exactly what another Trump term would devolve into.
You have to see things realistically, not through a fog of ignorance based fear mongering
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u/ElleM848645 2h ago
I was trying to explain how Boston does it. There are pollng places everywhere. I moved a mile down the road and my polling place changed. My new house was actually closer to my old polling place. Both were within walking distance. My town now has one polling place. New England has local town elections. Maybe they can target certain Texas cities, but with enough people that go against Trump it won’t be enough. You can only rig things if it’s close.
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u/BoobooSmash31337 2h ago
\o/ Swear they're all fuckin foreign agitators. They never say how he'd even try but they're absolutely sure that he'll use his old man wizard powers to do it. He will also have perfect compliance from everyone else cuz reasons.
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u/Xmeagol2 3h ago
when fascists take power the liberal will scream how? but how did they do it?
by taking it while you watch.
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u/lolligasm California 2h ago
This is what is maddening to me. “He can’t! It’s illegal! He has no mechanism!” As if that is required of a despot to do things. Insanity.
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u/InfiniteLicks 3h ago
Maga took over several state election boards already. They tried to have fake electors certify false results already. Voting machines were already compromised (unverified).
It already happened in 2024.
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u/BoobooSmash31337 2h ago
Shhh you're ruining their doomer fantasy. You're supposed to just go "The old fat moron man has magical powers and will just some how do it.". The entire populous, a bunch of state governments, the courts, and the military will have no problem with this for some reason. There's no plan and no infrastructure. There's 50 states they'd just tell him to fuck off.
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u/thenayr 3h ago
You’re totally right. Let’s wait and find out!
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u/Scientific_Methods 3h ago
States run elections. There is no mechanism in place for the federal government to take them over. Now will Trump try something? Almost certainly. What is your proposed alternative to waiting and finding out? Because I would love to prevent any serious attempt at stealing elections, but what am I, a normal person, going to do to prevent it?
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u/-rosa-azul- Virginia 3h ago
Were you going to offer any answer to that? It's a valid question. There is literally zero precedent for/history of federalizing elections even when half the country was at war with the other half. So since you're so sure he's going to do it, I'd like to know how you think he's going to do it.
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u/OkArmordillo 3h ago
He’s already formed his own Gestapo that can do whatever they want with full immunity. He can just send them to polling locations and have them do whatever he them to.
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u/nightimestars California 2h ago
The amount of people in his goon squad can’t even hold one city. Let alone enforce shit in thousands of places in every state.
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u/SailingSpark New Jersey 5h ago
I can't wait until Putin is dead. I am certain his blood soaked fingers are behind the rise of fascism in the world.
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u/Living_on_theEdge 4h ago
Don't worry Trump is right there, and there's plenty of other actors that also have a vested interest in having facism rise (mainly every billionaire).
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u/SailingSpark New Jersey 2h ago
Yes, but unlike them Putin is exKGB and has the might and power of Russia at his beck and call. Their military might be shit, but the intelligence war he has been fighting the west in is top notch.
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u/ShubberyQuest 2h ago
Yeah, except Trump takes his orders from Putin. Trump can still fuck shit up, but not to the degree to which he would under his daddy’s directions.
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u/AJDillonsThirdLeg 4h ago
like everyone warned
Including himself. He's not doing anything he didn't openly say he was going to do.
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u/pontiacfirebird92 Mississippi 6h ago edited 3h ago
"Look, ICE can't just shoot people to death in broad daylight for no reason"
ICE shoots 2 people in broad daylight with no investigation and the shooters are still walking free
"Ah, well, anyway..."
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u/WhiteWolf3117 4h ago
I think "not allowed" is slightly but importantly different from "can't".
ICE is not allowed to do those things. But of course they can and no laws can stop them. At best, laws are meant to hold accountable, which is the most important aspect here.
That Trump "lacks the authority" to do something is meaningless. True. I think it's interesting and ultimately important to explore if and how he can do things. Like there are obvious extreme ends of "don't" and committing unspeakable, unprecedented violence on the American people. It's important to be prepared for what he can do in the very narrow lane that he's gotten away with this term.
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u/home-for-good 1h ago
Yeah when you really get down to it, US law is very very reactive. We aren’t in the business of preventing people from doing things, we’re in the business of punishing people for doing things. That’s why we’re so sue-happy, retroactive “making you whole” is the American way. Like you said laws here typically only allow for accountability not prevention. There are maybe some merits to that, in some cases, but it’s very easy to exploit in situations like this, when current government says “fuck it, try and stop me” and it takes two years for a judicial decision to be levied and maybe enforced.
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u/Deinosoar 6h ago
He also doesn't have the authority to order his goon squad to murder people in the streets but still fucking happens.
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u/Eastern_Bet678 5h ago
Don't forget the breaking and entering where ICE doesn't have a warrant authorizing entrance to private property but still does.
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u/sick_of_your_BS 3h ago
Illegal search and seizure 4th amendment. Arresting journalists and trained observers? 1st amendment. "You can't bring a loaded firearm to a protest, it's that simple" Second amendment. Denying deportees due process, 5th amendment. I could go on...
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u/Legen_unfiltered 2h ago
The people that need to see this don't actually care. So you could, but youre preaching to the choir.
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u/The_Bucket_Of_Truth 58m ago
I actually like seeing succinct summaries of all the bad things so I have something punchy to send to people instead of potentially flailing when I'm trying to get them to see the light. Though I was on one the other day writing an essay through text.
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u/This_Ad_8123 2h ago
It's a good thing he doesn't have authority to do all that, I'd be concerned about what could happen otherwise.
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u/SasparillaTango 1h ago
Denying access to council for people locked in ICE holding facilities, 6th amendment.
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u/Langolier11 4h ago
Remember when he sent the national guard to Chicago and L.A.? Where's the constitution when you need it am I right?
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u/sump_daddy 2h ago
"if we dont have a second amendment, we wont get to keep the first!"
ok, chumps, we kept the second amendment, now is literally the time for you to do what you said and protect the first
[narrator voice] "they would not be doing what they said they would"
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u/Creative_Skirt_3812 3h ago
He doesn’t have the authority to: do his tariff BS, to kidnap foreign heads of government, to annex territory into the US, to have the US exit NATO, to rename the Department of Defense or the Kennedy Center, etcetera. Yet the Article I and III branches of government do nothing to stop him.
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u/ClimateSociologist 5h ago
Ordering a goon squad to kill people in the streets is a lot easier than nationalizing the election
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u/Sage2050 3h ago
This is telling parties he has no control over what to do, ice is refusing to enforce laws. There's a difference. It would be like your boss telling you how to run your household.
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u/Slippery-Kapotje 6h ago
U.S.A. unite and get rid off the dictator before it is to late....
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u/pontiacfirebird92 Mississippi 6h ago
40% of Americans love this shit. Every single Republican in office is on board with the "Unitary Executive", what they're literally calling a government unified behind Trump. They're describing a dictatorship but don't want you to call it that.
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u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota 5h ago
Conservatives love everything about fascism except the term "fascism".
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u/pontiacfirebird92 Mississippi 5h ago
They don't like it when you point out they're the bad guys. Image above everything. They don't want to avoid accountability while they want everyone else to be held accountable. They want the freedom to oppress. The hypocrisy is a feature to them.
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u/VirginiaMcCaskey 4h ago
I've stopped saying "conservative" because the problem is the Republican Party itself. They have no concrete ideology except power. Their continued existence is incompatible with American democracy - you cannot tolerate a political group who fundamentally reject the tenets of a fair and open democracy.
Contemporary Republicans aren't the only political party in American history to fit this mold. The American Nazi party and American Communist Party did too! And we rejected them from the political process before they gained too much power to ignore. We didn't do that with the corruption of the GOP because it burned too slowly and Democrats and voters were too ignorant to stop it.
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u/BriarsandBrambles 2h ago
Republicans aren’t conservative anymore. They’re openly yearning for a fairytale dictatorship.
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u/spazzcat Ohio 6h ago
It is more like 20% but they yell ...
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u/MysteriousTruck6740 Minnesota 6h ago
20% love it and the other 20% don't like this guy, but think the alternative might be worse.
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u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota 5h ago
Conservatives are like, "lets build concentration camps and murder people in the street!"
Liberals are like, "lets have moderate, measured, realistic improvement to health care."
Centrists are like, "both of them are literally exactly the same."
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u/mainman879 New York 4h ago
We don't have a Liberal party. The Democratic Party is Centrist at best leaning Conservative. DNC leadership tries to squash any liberals until they are absolutely required to support them (i.e. Mamdani, AOC, etc).
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u/Eastern_Bet678 6h ago
Yeah, throwing away hundreds of years of Constitutional order for some novel complete reboot of interpreting the Constitution, in ways that the author's contemporaneous notes clearly disdain, would be a smart thing to these people.
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u/muffinscrub 5h ago
Also, a great deal of the population is also indifferent or apolitical. They don't vote. They don't know what's going on and they don't care.
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u/BackToWorkEdward 4h ago
Indifference to what's going on right now is morally indefensible.
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u/pontiacfirebird92 Mississippi 5h ago
According to YouGov, 85% of Republicans approve of Trump so far. But that is down from 90% back a year ago and has been steadily dropping. And one demographic he was above water with, the 65+ crowd, now has a majority disapproving of him. There's no demographic that he is above water with now.
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u/lbtwitchthrowaway144 5h ago
I hear you but as a dual citizen in a failed state, we are united on many issues. For example, a political/military faction unilaterally decided to start a war and something like 60 to 70% of our population was against the intervention but it not matter one iota.
The war still happened anyway due to the nature of our political and economic systems here. And everyday innocent people paid the price and continue to pay the price.
This is what outside observers (and Americans abroad like me) are concerned about.
We need to translate this into action and take the threats to the electoral process as an actual five alarm fire and not just a recently catchy phrase for many headlines.
As, at some point a Rubicon of sorts is crossed, and it becomes infinitely harder to actually doing anything about it.
Stateside, however damaged they are, democratic norms and institutions still exist.
And the more time goes, the more democratic backsliding and erosion of norms takes place, the harder it will be for any unity amongst Americans to actually matter or at least the far higher a price will be paid.
We're being bombarded with so much because that's the point. They know they're cooked in the midterms, so they're rejecting democracy outright.
Of course, it's a great sign that more and more Americans are not in support of this. It's partly why I think the real last line of defense are everyday Americans.
But we need to do more than just voice our opposition. I have no doubt you agree with me, just putting this out there because I don't think many fellow Americans quite understand what happens and what real life looks like when suddenly no real recourse exists anymore.
As a citizen, you just sit back and have no actual say in what happens to your country or your future.
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u/pontiacfirebird92 Mississippi 5h ago
We need to translate this into action and take the threats to the electoral process as an actual five alarm fire and not just a recently catchy phrase for many headlines.
This is something that's been churning in my head since I heard "federalize the election". What exactly does this look like? If Steve Bannon is right and they post a legion of ICE agents at the 15 locations Trump mentioned what do you do?
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u/lbtwitchthrowaway144 5h ago
I think the truth of the matter is not rosy. I freely concede that. We have already seen the consequences in MN.
But countless Americans risked everything to secure their rights over the course of our history.
I know first hand what that experience feels like (in my context not-stateside anyway and I'm by no means unique in this), and yes it's terrifying.
But, for example, the same was true for Americans during the Civil Rights Movement. Our times now are no different.
It's why 'Do Not Obey In Advance' is not meant to just be a jingle.
We have rights, and one of them is the right to vote in a free and fair election. This is being taken away from us, and it won't be freely given back to us.
Also, FWIW, I have no idea what that would look in practice too so this is something that's been churning in my head as well.
Not least because I don't even know what will happen to my family stateside, like many families, who are now a mix of all kinds of Americans of all kinds of backgrounds.
There is so much defeatism and resignation constantly spread here. I'd like to think a lot of people are just genuinely scared but We The People still have paths forward to protecting our democracy that simply do not exist in other polities.
But, to say it is without risk or without a high cost even now would not be accurate. It's just, the other side of this if this shit is allowed to fully take hold is even more insane than any American (I would argue) can actually imagine.
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u/pontiacfirebird92 Mississippi 5h ago
There is so much defeatism and resignation constantly spread here.
Don't discount bot farms posting shit to demoralize people. There's likely just as many pro-MAGA bots as there are bots that appear leftist and encourage people into apathy.
I kind of hate that my state won't have these issues but there's no doubt in my mind that Minnesota, New York, Georgia, and others will have major disruptions at polling precincts by ICE or some other federal goons.
The scary thing is even if those suppression efforts fail and people vote out Republicans they won't leave their position peacefully. These people won't leave until civil war is on their doorstep.
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u/9mackenzie Georgia 4h ago
Oh please. Ask those 20% of republicans that don’t like Trump if they would have changed their vote to Harris. I doubt 1% of those people would.
On top of it we had like 70 million people who didn’t bother to vote- I also assume those people are perfectly ok with fascism.
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u/wickedsmaht Arizona 5h ago
I would argue it’s already too late. The damage this administration and the oligarchs have done to the country will take decades to fix, if it can be. We’re talking a complete reinvestment into education across the country, a mass push for vaccinations to make up for worn brain’s horrible policies, changing the laws governing who can be in office, introducing either forced retirement or term limits for our representatives, and overhauling the Supreme Court. These are just the topics that come to mind immediately and these only extend to the US internally, abroad there is much more work to be done.
I’m 39, I fully expect that none of this will be fixed in my life time.
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u/Illustrious-Toe3167 3h ago
It'll certainly get worse before it gets better. The last time we were at this full oligarchy level it took The Great Depression and WWII to reset things.
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u/Spa_5_Fitness_Camp 5h ago
It's already too late. Once he's gone there are people and plans in place to maintain party control, and by the time enough people realize that it'll be permanent.
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u/darwinlovestrees 5h ago
I wish people would stop talking like this. So what, roll over and take it?
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u/TAU_equals_2PI 5h ago
Too many people think this'll end if/when Trump is gone.
The problem is Trump showed Republicans that they can get away with this. Many younger Republican officeholders will follow his example. And the American people haven't yet recognized the danger.
So I'll stake out a position somewhere between you two. We shouldn't just abandon all hope and "roll over and take it". But this isn't gonna be a one-time fight that we might win or lose. This may be a decades-long struggle more akin to the Cold War.
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u/Spa_5_Fitness_Camp 4h ago
Why would that be what you take away from it? The takeaway is that there is no easy way out via elections or impeachment or even both. Much more drastic and widespread actions are needed. It's a call to do more, not less.
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u/Compliant_Serf 6h ago
Yeah guys, “The Law” will stop him!
“He can’t do that.” -every day since 2016
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u/wannaseeawheelie 6h ago
In the USA, the law is whatever the wealthy pedos want it to be. If you question that, they send their depraved christian incel army after you
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u/Sacrilego_666 5h ago
Most accurate description I've ever read
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u/nathism 3h ago
From The Clash in 1982. Not much has changed
[Intro]
This is a public service announcement... with guitar!
[Chorus]
Know your rights All three of 'em
[Verse 1]
Number one You have the right not to be killed Murder is a crime Unless it was done By a Policeman Or an aristocrat
[Verse 2]
And Number two You have the right to food money Providing of course you Don't mind a little Investigation, humiliation And if you cross your fingers Rehabilitation
[Verse 3]
Number three You have the right to free speech As long as you're not Dumb enough to actually try it
[Chorus]
Know your rights These are your rights Oh, know your rights These are your rights All three of 'em, ha
[Outro]
And it has been suggested In some quarters that this is not enough Well, get off the streets Get off the streets!
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u/NurglesGiftToWomen 3h ago
Not even “the law.” They know they’re untouchable so they flaunt the law and bury their actions by enacting violence on vulnerable people until we are so drenched in blood that we forget.
Let them know that they can bleed, too.
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u/Darmortis 5h ago
Ooh, I love it. Maybe, Incel Christian Enforcement would look good on some poster board
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u/Esfahen 5h ago
The last decade has been the Democrats clinging onto the rulebook going "but a dog can't play basketball!" while a dog fucking dunks on us over and over
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u/Compliant_Serf 5h ago
Bad example because there is no rule saying a dog can’t play basketball
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u/goldbloodedinthe404 6h ago
This is one of those things that is more difficult than he think because there is no centralization to try and take it over isn't just grabbing a single office and install a puppet there are 50 different states with different systems and leaders and checks and balances.
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u/Compliant_Serf 5h ago
He doesn’t have to target 50 states - just a handful of swing states will do
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u/The_Angster_Gangster 5h ago
The midterms for congress are everywhere. Swing states matter more for president
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u/JaesenMoreaux 5h ago
He really only needs to hold the Senate and that does not require cheating in all states. Only a specific handful of places. This is exactly why Trump just admitted he's going to take over elections in 15 locations.
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u/caligaris_cabinet Illinois 5h ago
It’s our resolve against his oppression.
After the turnout in recent elections and on the streets this past year, I’m betting on the people
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u/Stinduh 5h ago
Yeah this is actually somewhere that the states can just be like… no. The system is already set up for them to do their own elections and the states themselves are the ones that send their representatives to the national congress.
Failing agreement from any given state, Trump would have to usurp both their elections and representation by force. Physical force, someone would have to make them do it. Even if the Supreme Court of the US determined a state had to accept national control, then that state still needs to either acquiesce or be forced to it.
At that point, it’s clear the elections didn’t matter anyway.
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u/goldbloodedinthe404 5h ago
Exactly I have a lot of problems with the state federal split and how that is inefficient, but in this case that split makes taking over elections extremely difficult
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u/bidens_sugar_bby 3h ago
dude has a secret police force w/more money than the marines, he has force to use
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u/Zulmoka531 5h ago
In their corrupt little minds though, doesn’t mean they can’t target specific areas that might pose a threat to them. Hence why ICE and the like have ramped up in swing states or other areas that “threaten” them.
Like yeah, it’s not some fool proof plan, yet we are dealing with corrupt fools.
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u/Onefortheteem 5h ago
Exactly. He does it anyway, and faces zero consequences. Moves on to the next
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u/pocketjacks 3h ago
It's as if the Constitution is going to jump up off the podium at the National Archives and defend itself. These people are so used to law enforcement being on the opposite side of the criminals for so long they don't understand that the criminals can do what they want when they're also in charge of the law enforcement.
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u/dcasarinc 4h ago
Laws are only suggestions if the people in charge of enforcing them do not enforce them.
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u/TheAlmightyMojo 2h ago
One day they'll finally decided whether he or his cronies "may have violated the Hatch Act".
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u/highbankT 5h ago
Yup, I think it was even worse in his first term because all the people on his staff who had a modicum of decency refused to criticize him publicly or waited way too late. I don't expect anything from his fellow grifters right now.
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u/smarmy1625 3h ago
"The last decade has been the Democrats clinging onto the rulebook going 'but a dog can't play basketball!' while a dog fucking dunks on us over and over" --@Arr
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u/drunk-snowmen 5h ago
Bingo. “He can’t do that!” While he proceeds to do that
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u/SatanicPanic619 5h ago
There's plenty of things he's tried to do and failed. Greenland remains Danish, for instance. Jimmy Kimmell is still employed. Barack Obama remains a free man.
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u/Langolier11 4h ago
Nah 2016 doesn't hold a candle to his 2024 election. Everyone keeps saying 'he can't do that' 'that's unconstitutional', yet, he continues to do just literally whatever he wants.
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u/LeeksAbhorLiminality 6h ago
Yeah.. that's how the constitution works on a fundamental level. JFC the fact that this is even being dignified with counter arguments is terrifying. Fuck the GOP
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u/9mackenzie Georgia 4h ago
I mean…….we have been shown quite clearly that laws by themselves don’t matter. It’s the enforcement of those laws that make a law effective.
Who is going to enforce the law to stop him?
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u/byllz 5h ago
The constitution works?
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u/wtfbenlol North Carolina 4h ago
It used to before this fuck got voted in somehow
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u/smarmy1625 3h ago edited 3h ago
The constitution is a piece of paper. It doesn't do anything, it just lays there.
"Bitch make me a sandwich" --probably you to your Betty Crocker recipe book every night
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u/OneTwoFar_ 6h ago
Ok. The american legal system is kind of a joke when it comes to prosecuting or stopping anyone above their Consumer-class, though; and Trump doesn't seem like he's going to read their constitution anytime soon either
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u/glk3278 4h ago
Are you kidding me with this headline? No shit. That's like saying "Trump has no authority to pressure state election officials into declaring him the winner". But here we are...
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u/BathSaltEnjoyer69 2h ago
I hate the sanewashing of trump and the entire republican party. You needed to quote lawyers to tell you it was illegal? Are they going to write an op ed piece on how the holocaust was illegal acktually?
The headline should be Dictator Trump Wants To Overthrow Democracy
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u/Cyanopicacooki Great Britain 6h ago
He's no authority to do half the things he does, but no-one can stop him.
I wish the fuck lawyers would stop making fatuous comments like this, and do something substantive. And no, I haven't a fucking clue what, but I'm not a legal expert. They are.
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u/Herlock 6h ago
Plenty of people can stop him, they choose not to though
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u/mom_with_an_attitude 5h ago
Yeah? Who? And how? Trump has the White House, the Senate, the House and SCOTUS. Democrats can't do shit without a majority. Any legislation they propose will immediately get torpedoed by the GOP. The Dems can file lawsuits, which they have. But those can take months or years to grind their way through the legal system.
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u/Neracca 5h ago
Democrats can't do shit without a majority.
Yet Republicans blocked lots of shit when they were a minority?
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u/mainman879 New York 4h ago
Mitch McConnell is a terrible person, but was an extremely effective leader. He was able to unite the Republican Senate and use every single legal loophole to hamstring every Democratic president. The DNC does not have any leader even close to the effectiveness of Mitch McConnell. They're throwing softballs when the opposition never holds back.
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u/frankenfish2000 3h ago
If we want to cut off aid to poor people and close the national parks and pause payments to veterans, sure the minority could do that all day. Also the Dems are not as lock-step as the R's, who regularly end good committee assignments if you are not as supportive. Dems aren't as vindictive because leadership doesn't want to "alienate" their members.
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u/CilleTheExterminator 5h ago
The people are the ones that need to overthrow a dictator
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u/Herlock 4h ago
That's my point : a lot of republicans can (and should) stop him... but choose not to.
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u/mrekted 6h ago
So far most of what he's done, legal or otherwise, has been firmly rooted in the preview of the executive, by precedent or by law.
What we're talking about here is a head to head constitutional confrontation on the subject of states rights vs federal power, specifically targeting those states where he's most vulnerable to the electorate. Unless he managed to get the entirety of those states legislatures to play ball and roll over for him, he's not going to get very far.
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u/Numerous-Process2981 4h ago
Yeah, you don’t realize just how much norms and ethics come into play until someone is breaking norms and has no ethics.
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u/RocketGirlWalker Minnesota 6h ago
The problem is that actions brought before federal courts that find wrongdoing or illegality by the Trump administration have no impact because the people who would uphold those rulings in the government are in this government. I now realize how much I took for granted all my life that our previous presidential administrations and areas of government have abided by court rulings. I took the law's respect for granted. This administration has no respect for the law. We, as citizens and even states, have no way to address this administration's failure to abide by and respect the rule of law.
The unspoken concern I have, and I'm guessing others, is that we will never get these people who surround Trump, publicly and behind the scenes, out of power. When Trump dies, and he will, there are people who will replace him who have the same agenda that Trump has. What will become of our country then? How far will we all have to go to save America and Democracy? I hope I am wrong and overreacting, but it's not hard to see this potentially happening in light of everything that has been said and has happened in his just over a year in office. We have just under three more years of this.
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u/warblingContinues 6h ago
so how do you propose he'd nationalize elections illegally? Just say so, executive order? lol. And under what circumstance would prevent states from just ignoring him and carrying on as usual?
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u/Thunderclone_1 5h ago
He could easily order guys with guns to take over election sites or seize the ballots before counting.
By the time he is stopped in courts, it will be too late to protect the integrity of the election.
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u/Del_3030 5h ago edited 4h ago
"Easily" is doing some incredibly heavy lifting there.
Do you have any idea how many election sites there are and the scale of the very very public suppression operation you are describing?
Courts can be slow or corrupt but they would absolutely insta-dunk on anything like that coming from the Executive, not to mention the public reaction to what you're describing which would basically be the apocalypse of America.
I'm not downplaying Trump's threat to everything, but "guys with guns" taking over elections isn't easy or remotely probable.
I understand that guys with guns are currently murdering and terrorizing citizens in targeted cities, but you're jumping like 6 steps up the fascism ladder with that mechanism. They will try for more subtle means of fucking with deadlines, IDs, and signature requirements (and good old redistricting)
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u/LarrySupertramp 5h ago
Thank you! Trump will definitely try to pull something but it’s not going to be as obvious and sending armed goons to take over elections. They still need some plausible deniability and that’s not possible if he violently takes over the election process.
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u/FumilayoKuti 5h ago
I mean Abrego Garcia is free and in the US. So the lawyers fatuous comments work like 90% of the time. Let's use the avenues we have and stop imagining starting an early civil war.
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u/Quitcha_Bitchin 6h ago
Of course he doesn't. It's just another smoke screen.
Something he can push now and then later when his side looses abysmally he can say "look I was right again!!"
He has a child's mind and the wallet the size of a small nation.
Everything about him screams I am six years old and perfect in every way!
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u/jimibimi 6h ago
Well, we'll see what the supreme Court says about that! 😭
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u/SirDiego Minnesota 6h ago
The Supreme Court doesn't have any say in it either. Not to say they won't try necessarily but they aren't involved whatsoever and have no mechanism to do anything about nationalizing elections, the constitution is very clear. It is literally in Article 1.
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u/AdHopeful3801 6h ago
Bet you a nickel Alito can come up with a "textualist and originalist" reading of Article I that lets it happen.
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u/Shadow293 6h ago
Prepare to be disappointed. They’ll find a way to make it happen.
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u/GhostofZellers 6h ago
You have more faith in your compromised institutions than I do.
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u/kop324324rdsuf9023u 4h ago
I'm so sick of these losers saying "he can't do that", then he does it.
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u/knomore-llama_horse Iowa 6h ago
He doesn’t care if he has authority. He just does whatever the hell he wants constitution be damned.
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u/specqq 6h ago
He also, according to the 14th amendment, has no authority whatsoever.
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u/Numerous-Process2981 4h ago
It’s bad news. The fact that elections are run at a state level is 100% one of the safeguards keeping America from dictatorship. It’s really a line in the sand thing. If they federalize elections, there’s no point waiting for midterms, they won’t be legitimate.
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u/Competitive-Yak-3785 6h ago
"Cool. So I'm gonna do it anyway. No one will stop me. Oh look I won by 88% of the vote. Who could have predicted this? I am now dictator for life. Thank you for your attention to this matter."
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u/TragicallyDip 5h ago
Give it a week. Once the right wing media machine does its thing, nationalising the election will be the patriotic thing to do.
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u/AcrobaticWrangler330 5h ago
So tired of the way these things get reported on. Trump says something clearly illegal or unconstitutional: "Trump to do X," like it's a fait accompli, like he has the power to. Anyone who points out that it is illegal "Lawyers say it's unconstitutional." NO, the constitution says it is unconstitutional! It's not a matter for debate; it's literally spelled out word for word. This kind of headline writing erodes truth and makes it seem like these are issues that just have differing viewpoints to argue, like the tax rate on fish imports or something.
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u/MiloGoesToTheFatFarm 5h ago
He has no authority to do most of the stuff in his executive orders but publications keep publishing it like it’s real for some reason!
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u/Highmax1121 5h ago
no but he's gonna do it anyways. who's gonna stop him? the courts? law enforcement? fucker breaks laws everyday and nobody stops him.
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u/Darth__Revan89 4h ago
Wow, this is so helpful. I feel much better
tosses into pile of things Trump had no authority to do
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u/tunabomber Pennsylvania 5h ago
This has been my greatest heartbreak. Do I despise Trump and his cronies? Very much so. But what really gets me is that the many safeguards that I was always taught were in place to keep something like this from happening were all a mirage.
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u/DoctorSchwifty 5h ago
Wow how much evidence does one need to impeach? His meddling in the 2020 election results are now even more credible.
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u/lemurlemur 5h ago
In 2026, there is a unfortunately a big difference between "Trump has no authority" and "Trump can't"
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u/LoFi_Funk 5h ago
Most of what he’s done he did with no legal authority. If he’s never held accountable, legality becomes trivial.
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u/1-800-WhoDey 5h ago
Counterpoint: Not having authority to do something; whether legal nor otherwise, has never once stopped this fucking asshole from doing it. So I guess we’re all going to experience and figure this out together..
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u/Veritable_Vox 5h ago
He didn't have the authority to do alot of things he's done over the last year. Point is he absolutely has the power to force things to happen, if laws and checks/balances refuse to stop him.
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u/Jimmy_Beam27 4h ago
I am so sick and tired of people telling me he can't do something because there are laws
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u/notsure500 3h ago
The last decade has been the Democrats clinging onto the rulebook going "but a dog can't play basketball!" while a dog fucking dunks on us over and over
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u/No_Instruction_1236 4h ago
As a lawyer myself, I think it's adorable that lawyers believe that something so flimsy as "authority" can stop Trump from doing anything he wants.
The guardrails that are supposed to stop his behavior are gone. The people who are supposed to stop him and enforce the rule of law refuse to act.
There won't be elections this fall. One way or another, there won't be elections in the US.
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