Nightwingdragon

Dems could have run on fixing the actual flaws in the system that are allowing this coup

It would have accomplished exactly nothing if they did. Voters aren't interested in "fixing the system". It would have come off as Democrats caring about nothing but "making power grabs" while ignoring kitchen table concerns such as the price of groceries. It would have come off as Democrats being more disconnected from the needs of everyday voters than they already are.

Harris, or whoever the dem nominiee would have been, would have been focusing on "fixing the system" while Trump just made all the same empty promises about "bringing down the price of eggs on day one", and he would have won by an even wider margin. Your average voter gives exactly zero shits about how things work in DC and what does and doesn't need to be fixed.

As said by others in the comments, there are quite a few things that come into play here, which all would be true regardless of who the actual sitting President is.

• The Constitution of the US is seen as the Supreme Law of the Land. The US being subservient to the ICC would be a direct violation of that. The ICC does not and cannot carry any legal weight in this country.
• There are already laws in place saying that the US can and will use military force in order to extract a US citizen held by the ICC.
• The US is, by far, the most powerful military in the world, and it isn't even close.
• The US is also the cornerstone of the global economy. Any attempt at enforcing sanctions against the US in order to force compliance with any kind of international law would likely simply be ignored, and would probably do more damage to the sanctioning country than to the US anyway.
• The US is host to the United Nations. I don't think I have to say what kind of shitshow would happen if the UN tried to arrest the leader of the country that's hosting it.

The ICC could issue a warrant for Trump's arrest as a symbolic gesture, but it would have about as much practical effect as if I had issued it.

This is all a result of decades of the GOP and Mitch McConnell's policies of "Whatever the Democrats are in favor of, we must be against, no matter what" and "Ban it and everything associated with it." taken to their most extreme extremes.

They were against Covid vaccines and wanted them banned. When people asked "what about other vaccines", it became "ban them too". Science? Fuck it, science is bad, ban that too! And without science, who needs research? Might as well get rid of that. Just teach the kids the truth: God created everything, you don't need science, and that cough will go away eventually......

<> Don't need Alzheimer's research if people aren't gonna live long enough to suffer from it!

Me smart, see!

There was a little kernel of sanity behind that ruling, though. Absent a clear conviction for a crime that smells like insurrection,

The House of Representatives, by a majority vote, found that Donald Trump engaged in insurrection and impeached him for this after January 6th. The Senate failed to vote to remove him from office, but this does not change the fact that he was found to have engaged in insurrection by the House of Representatives.

who gets to decide what insurrection means?

The House of Representatives already did.

Texas would have taken Biden off based on some bullshit theory that he was instigating a foreign invasion of migrants.

And when either the House of Representatives votes to impeach him for it, then he can be removed from the ballot as well. They tried, and failed. Repeatedly.

And if the courts just randomly decide that Biden's actions constituted an insurrection, we have much bigger problems to deal with, as the courts at that point can just declare anything they want as an insurrection, including political dissent.

The language behind a third Presidential term is much, much clearer. The plain text of the amendment bars it

Going based on the "kernel of sanity" thing, the argument is that it was meant to bar more than two consecutive terms, and was not meant to bar non-consecutive terms. The argument is that those who wrote the amendment knew the importance of being specific, and if they wanted to bar non-consecutive terms, they'd have specifically said as much.

There is absolutely nothing barring Trump from running for a third term.

The Supreme Court literally just hand-waved away another Constitutional amendment that should have barred Trump from running for a 2nd term, let alone a third. And they basically did it on the legal precedent of "because fuck you, that's why." All 3 branches of government have completely ignored the blatant constitutional violations he's committed since taking office. There's absolutely nothing stopping the Supreme Court from just striking down another constitutional amendment because hey why not and letting the guy run as often as he wants.

And remember, we even had one state legislator asking why we even have elections instead of just handing the votes to Trump......

Didn't one of Trump's professors call him one of the dumbest students he ever had?

In that light, these two are perfect for each other.

I know it goes without saying, but can you imagine if Biden or Obama literally went on national television and declared to a United States governor "I am the law!" like he's a dollar-store Judge Dredd?

Well let's just put it this way.

• Chuck Schumer just found out that he is under one of Trump's retaliatory investigations for a comment he made over 5 years ago. Rather than tell Trump to fuck all the way off, he's basically groveling and saying it was all just one big misunderstanding.

• NY Governor Kathy Hochul just declined to remove Adams from office and is saying she's gonna keep an eye on things. Because having a mayor that was indicted on multiple corruption charges and who is being openly blackmailed by Trump is A-OK to have in charge of the country's biggest city. Surely nothing can go wrong here.

So let's just say I have little faith in our elected representatives doing a god damned thing. So far, all our elected officials (and for that matter, our entire judicial system and media ecosystem as well) have proven that they will first bend the knee and kiss the ring before doing anything that might be viewed as "resistance". All of them. The whole god damned lot of them. The ones we elected to be the first to hold up the pillars of our society when threatened are proving to be the first ones to step aside the minute they see someone with a sledgehammer.

Are we looking at the same article? This piece is literally a fact check.

I think the guy you're responding to was making a statement about the lack of fact-checking in the media in general, not with this piece in particular.

Thanks, Obama.

Trump is a Russian asset. This has been known for years.

Our alphabet soup (FBI, CIA, NSA, etc.) have far more information about this than the general public. This has been known for years.

His base does not care. This has also been known for years.

Congress, who has the power to impeach and remove a Russian asset sitting in the Oval Office, will do exactly nothing about it. This has also been known for years.

In other words: We know, nobody cares, it doesn't matter. Nobody's going to do anything about it.

Zelinsky came into power in 2019. You might wanna go check on who was President at that time.