David Cole: What Could Stop Him?

[Nevilledog]

https://www.nybooks.com/online/2024/11/18/what-could-stop-donald-trump/

No paywall link
https://archive.li/XNkAv

Almost like the cycles of grief, Donald Trump’s reelection has provoked shock, outrage, despondency, exhaustion, and despair. And for good reason. Trump’s first term was a four-year disaster, culminating in his effort to foment a riot to overturn the results of a free and fair election. This time around, there are fears that he will, among other things, prosecute his enemies, conduct mass deportations, further restrict access to abortion, censor school curricula, remove civil service protections, impose high tariffs, and strip birthright citizenship from children of immigrants. He threatened as much repeatedly during the campaign, and his first term in office suggests that he does not make idle threats.

This time, moreover, he won not just the skewed electoral college but the popular vote (albeit by a very small margin). He will have Republican majorities in both houses of Congress and a 6–3 majority on the Supreme Court, including three of his own appointees. And his cabinet and staff nominees to date—including many people whose only qualification for office is their blind loyalty and extremist views—suggest that he considers himself for all practical purposes unchecked. No wonder many are dejected.

But unlike in the stages of grief, acceptance cannot be the end goal here. Nor need it be. If citizens opt for resistance over resignation, we can check Trump’s abuses. The framers of our Constitution, justly suspicious of overweening federal power, inserted multiple guardrails against Trump-like presidents.

Just as no one should underestimate the threats Trump poses, so we ought not discount the headwinds he is likely to face if people oppose his initiatives. Our worst enemy is not Trump himself, but fatalism about our ability to stop him. The Constitution’s checks and balances are not self-enforcing; they work only where citizens and civil society institutions fight back. Trump’s first term showed that when we do, we can limit the damage and turn the tide.

*snip*

[Bread and Circuses]

1. Agree. We stop him

As you know ….No One is coming to save us. Many are already rushing to bend the knee.

We persist daily to claim our rights and guarantees . We insist that the law is upheld.

And if those who hold those roles fail us , we take pitchforks to the streets and die where we lay.

[dpibel]

2. Bookmark to observe aging

This is a hopeful piece. But it assumes that things are compulsory. Like this:

Specific constitutional rights can also constrain the president. Consider Trump’s promise to undertake mass deportations. The constitutional guarantee of due process requires fair hearings, appeals, and judicial review before an immigrant can be removed from the country. Those proceedings ensure that immigrants have an opportunity to defend themselves. Trump has threatened to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, but that eighteenth-century law is a dead letter, as it only authorizes the detention of nationals with whom we are in a declared war—the last of which was World War II. He has also threatened to use the military, but the Posse Comitatus Act imposes significant constraints on doing so internally. Trump is likely to try to shortcut ordinary deportation hearings and detain immigrants to pressure them to give up their appeals—but those actions, too, can be challenged in court as violations of due process.

Are we really convinced that the Trump regime will be much bothered by the "constitutional guarantee of due process"?

When we are looking at people who are clearly untethered from norms and standards, I'm not sure how much hope we can take from, "the rules say..."

[ReRe]

5. All I can say is AMEN

After your last three sentences, I laid my head on my crossed arms on my desk here

and had a real good laugh. Seems like the farther away the election gets and the closer

Inauguration approaches, my heart and mind is weighed down by all the badness that

appears will overtake our government, our country, our people. I do want to listen

to the good reason in my heart and mind, and remember my own advise to beloved

family members We must believe in and defend the Constitution.

[Cassidy]

6. I have little hope that the Judiciary and the Congress will do the right thing, but...

I just read a statistic that 45% of agricultural workers are undocumented immigrants. Forty five percent.
Do we really think farmers are going to shrug their shoulders while their crops rot in the fields? Do we really think the MAGA fools, so concerned about the price of eggs, are not going to notice inflation take off again?

Terrible things are going to happen to innocent people, and I already weep for them. But some of those hate-filled, ignorant Trumpers are going to start noticing when their own ox is gored. Trump will fail again, spectacularly.

One more suggestion I am sure I read on DU. We are entering a hurricane. Problems and chaos will be thrown at us from all sides. So, pick an issue or two that are most important to you personally. Keep your focus on those. Keep your Representatives and Senators appraised of the attacks on those issues.

Our country and our world need us all now more than ever.

[jmbar2]

3. Very comforting article

Thanks for posting.

[Frank D. Lincoln]

4. Although I'm not complacent about what a second Trump term will be like,

that article did give me a measure of hope.