How do you see this working, anyway?

Only among those who want to see the other cases as flawed.

 

An entirely debatable proposition. since Trump is the very person for which the concept was introduced.

 

I don't know that the prosecutions were politically motivated to begin with. The most likely one would be the DC case, but particularly in Georgia I remember reading the transcript of President Trump's conversation with the Georgia Secretary of State, and thinking "wow he's coming really close to some legal issues".

In practicality, absolutely it's having a galvanizing effect. Since we are mentioning Hitler already, I could point out his prosecution, and imprisonment had a similar effect on his standing in the Nazi party. Simply as a political comparison. Not a policy one.

It's really irrelevant in the long term. With the ever-continuing consolidation of power under the executive branch regardless of the party in power. It's only a matter of time until a dictatorship emerges in the United States in some form or another. We are fairly close already. The executive has broad power, the congress is barely functioning due to partisan gridlock. The filibuster is dead thanks to both parties. The courts have lost the faith of the public. So if the goal is to prevent a dictatorship it's really too late.

We created this office with the knowledge that at some point a less than desirable person might occupy it. It's going to take someone willing, and able to give up some of that power, and submit themselves to the political scorn of bowing to the minority to prolong this system without upheaval, and I don't see that person anywhere.

In that sense I do see a kind of panic in these prosecutions. The last assault of a doomed system to protect itself from being exposed as what it has become. I think they are past what's going to work. They are afraid, and they have good reason to be.

This again is not to say Trump would be that dictator. He might, he would have the backing of a significant number of Americans. The Democratic Party seems to think he will, but what we should all be afraid of is the fact that there is little stopping anyone holding the office of President of the United States from becoming a dictator should they have sufficient public support.

 

I can agree that the consolidation of power in the Executive Branch is something to be worried about.
I also agree that it's going to take someone willing and able to give up some of that power

The problem facing us right now, is which of the two leading contenders for nomination from the two major political parties is more likely to be that person?

It sure as HELL is not Trump.

I have voted Libertarian since the 1988 Presidential election. The first time I voted for a non Libertarian in that time is in 2020 when I voted for Biden (I voted for Reagan in 80 and 84). I used the "voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil" excuse.

In 2020 (and in 2024 if Biden and Trump end up as the nominees) it may have still been a choice of the "lesser of two evils" but gap between the evil of Trump and the evil of Biden was so wide that Biden qualified as "non evil" in my book...it will be the same in 2024.

Until the GOP rids itself of the last vestiges of Trumpism (not only ridding itself of Trump but ridding itself of any support of Trump) I cannot, in good conscience, vote for GOP at ANY level.

 

~ In a surprise ending, Ms. AOC may become vice president and G. Newsom the new El Presidente ...