fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5649 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5649 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Ted Lasso]

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05. [SPOILERS for Jurassic World Dominion]

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06. [SPOILERS for Jurassic World Dominion]

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07. [WARNING for discussion of marital infidelity]

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08. [WARNING for discussion of incest]

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09. [WARNING for discussion of child abuse, sexualization of children]

Notes:

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Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

as someone who is a) male and b) british i have no skin in this game

i do however have a question; why is it that when trump was president he was presented more or less as an all-powerful dictator who could do whatever he wanted, but now biden's in charge he's seemingly powerless to do anything other than bemoan it as "a sad day"? it seems like this was the sort of thing people elect democratic presidents specifically to prevent

Trump rammed through 3 Supreme Court Justices and they serve for life. There's nothing Biden can really do about that.

There are other things they can/should do but the Democrats are pretty weak at protecting anything while the Republicans are really good at destroying anything they can get their hands on.

Speaking as another Brit so I may be fuzzy on the details...Republicans don't give a shit about etiquette or tradition (in certain directions) when they have power and will obstruct/shut down government to get their way. A lot of what is happening can be traced back to Obama not doing anything during the slim window where the Dems controlled both houses and Mitch McConnell (one of those people where even as a non-American, I can't wait for him to die) made it his mission to straight up prevent Obama/any Democrat doing anything once the Republicans got control of Congress.

And the Democrats have a laughable solution to this..."we'll not stoop so low and work within the established framework" - good going guys, the GOP literally does not give a shit and they have played the long game to get their way, meanwhile you're still doing the "we need to reach across the aisle" shite.

Bonus: people who are more likely to vote Democrat (young people, black people, LGBT people etc) become so disillusioned with this circus that they often don't vote in great numbers. Guess who did for the last 50 years? People who care about NOTHING else but getting Roe repealed. And the Republicans said that they would do it (if you vote for them) in their campaigns, constantly.

The end result being...a wholly unsuitable candidate became president and was able to ram through justices to fulfil McConnell's agenda. I can't believe I'm going to sort of defend Trump (but not really) but he really wasn't the brains behind the operation, but he brought his cult along with him and that's all that matters.

As an American: You hit the nail on the head completely.

people who are more likely to vote Democrat (young people, black people, LGBT people etc) become so disillusioned with this circus that they often don't vote in great numbers

This is the part that pisses me off: the number of people behaving like spoiled children and going "if they don't give me everything I want, I'm just going to not vote at all!" Even my five-year-old niece can understand that sometimes we don't get everything we want and have to make compromises. If you don't vote, you don't get to cry about how things turn out, because by not voting you basically agreed with whoever got picked.

Yeah I have to admit I struggle with it because for one thing, Republican voters (and Conservatives in my country) don’t seem to have the same problem as long as it means their guy wins.

At the same time I do kinda get where the disillusioned folk are coming from. I can’t do it (not voting) because I drag myself out to the polling station even when it’s hopeless, but I know I’m probably coming from a fairly privileged position in the first place.

Republicans also went through about 40 years of civil wars in their party dedicated to ensuring that all of their elected politicians were totally in line with and fully, zealously committed to achieving the goals of their base voters. And that's not just about agreeing with the base on policy questions, it's also about credibility. So that's part of the reason why it's not a problem for Republican voters. They know that if they vote for Republicans, and Republicans win, then they'll do as much as possible to carry out Republican goals.

But here's the thing: if you don't vote, you have literally NO right to complain about how things turn out. None. Because you decided you didn't care. You don't get to suddenly change your mind and care afterward.

But these people somehow think they can just not vote and then boohoo when whoever gets voted in is the person they absolutely didn't want. Sorry, but fuck off with that shit. You made your bed, now lie in it and shut up.

Trump was not really as powerful politically as you perceived him. A lot of what was going on with Trump was more so that his very existence as a political figure emboldened and empowered the worst forces in American politics. His actual substantive accomplishments as a politician were quite limited - he actually didn't get very much done, other than a ruinous tax cut. His biggest accomplishment was simply that he appointed a lot of judges, which is important because the judiciary now effectively functions as the primary legislative body for the federal government. But when the judiciary pushed back at Trump, it was often an effective check on his ability to accomplish what he wanted to accomplish.

So from that point of view, we can see the similarities and the differences between Trump and Biden. Like Trump, Biden is limited to a significant degree in what he can accomplish by the power of the judiciary. Unlike Trump, who spoke for his support base and effectively empowered them as a national political faction, Biden is unable or unwilling to effectively use the bully pulpit, communicate what he stands for, and sell it to the American people. And Biden is unwilling to stretch the boundaries of executive power to try to accomplish his goals in the way Trump was.

Alright. Here's a decent, if basic, breakdown of the checks and balances system in the 3 branches of US government. http://factmyth.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/US_government_checks_and_balances.jpg

This system is imposed under the Constitution, and was meant primarily to prevent the President from becoming a dictator, but also to make sure that no one branch of government can call all the shots. The system has flaws. One of those flaws is that the Supreme Court has the fewest checks, because judges are supposed to be impartial. Another is that the whole system falls apart if the branches don't follow the rules.

So, for example, if a President decides he's going to do whatever the hell he wants and the majority of Congress sees that as an opportunity to stack the Supreme Court and thus refuses to check his power when appropriate, then you end up with a Judicial Branch with a political agenda. So we've got that, coupled with a Legislative Branch that's about split down the middle technically, but leaning slightly right because some people enjoy grandstanding. Now, the appropriate check to the Supreme Court's power in overturning Roe v. Wade would be for Congress to propose a constitutional amendment that overrides the Court's decision. That is... unlikely with the Congress that's currently in place.

There's not a constitutional way for the President to override a Court decision. He can recommend legislation and add justices, but legally that's the extent of what he can do. And if he oversteps his constitutional authority, he gets smacked down by the Legislative Branch which has suddenly remembered that they can do that now.

In addition to what the above comments have said, Trump did whatever he wanted because he and his advisors didn't particularly care whether something was legally defensible. A bunch of his executive orders were subsequently struck down because they were unconstitutional, but they still fucked shit up for a lot of people in between his signing them and their being struck down.

That's not how a president generally governs, because it's disruptive, chaotic, a waste of everyone's time, and reflects badly on the president's political acumen. Unlike almost every other president (including Biden), however, Trump reveled in disruption and chaos, didn't care if he was wasting everyone else's time, and was far more interested in pandering to his base than doing anything resembling actual politics.

[ SECRET POST #5649 ]

Re: Roe v. Wade thread.

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Re: Roe v. Wade thread.