US Election 2024

The significance of the enforcement clause is that it makes the determination fundamentally non-judicial in nature - it in no way requires charge or conviction, which is the defence Trump keeps wanting to mount but his lawyers have swerved. That power is not apportioned to the Supreme Court, which makes me think that the SC justices will be very leery of taking it on. I agree the elements you list are where they may find a basis to intervene without what would be in their minds overreaching.

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For the sake of the country, would it be in the best interest of the SC to be close to unanimous in their decision? No matter what the outcome, just show a united front so that there are not people going on on how the decision is politically motivated. So in other words argue law with each other untill you get at least a 7 to 2 outcome either way.

The current SC majority right now has been packed with Federalist Society stooges. There is no virtue in the other justices deciding to go along with some sort of false consensus in the face of repeated bad faith. The Supreme Court is now all but incapable of doing anything but making politically motivated judgements.

The only caveat to that is that two prominent Federalist Society writers are now the leading proponents of the idea that Trump is ineligible under the Fourteenth Amendment.

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4 of this court this week came down against the Supremacy Clause, one of the most unambiguous easy to understand aspects of how our Federalist style of government works (federal laws trump state and local laws). With this majority, made up of such ideologues, they are just swinging for the fences these days in the belief that with the power they now have they don’t need the peoples’ faith anymore.

There was a period where the political motivations of the conservatives on the court was moderated by their desire to appear above the fray politically. Personally it was transparently bullshit, as the entire concept of judicial originalism was advanced by the Federalist Society justices precisely to give them cover for acting politically while pretending to be high brow and honest. But at least the original group of justices taking this direction seemed to be committed to incrementalism in the interest of not ruining their credibility. This new group are not so restrained. And unfortunately nor do they need to be.

Maybe there is hope:
https://twitter.com/AccountableGOP/status/1749872277708013964

Maybe this means something, or maybe most of them vote for Trump come the election:
https://twitter.com/IAPolls2022/status/1749920684556370116

Lisa Simpson Picnic GIF by The Simpsons

Maybe, but what else is there ? It is not yet a foregone conclusion, but yes, I do fear the worst.

So far there is a 10% gap between Trump and Haley. A lot closer than the poll which was about 20% gap. If 33% of NH republicans are maga, then it means a fair amount of independents/moderates voted for him (I think I got that logic right).

In other news, Joe wins NH.

NH GOP has a deep neocon streak, hard to know where that goes between Haley and Trump.

Does the Democrat have to go with Biden? I mean of course it makes sense but constitutionally can they say fuck it, to overcome whoever the Republican puts out, we need another candidate? Or they are obliged to stay with Biden?

Every state picks their own nominee, and actually not even that - they pick delegates who have pledged support for a candidate. Right now, Biden only has a tiny percentage (NH). But there is no real contender against him. It is a weirdly similar situation to 2020, where few people other than the MAGA types were really enthralled by either candidate.

So its actually possible for Biden to step down in favour of another candidate to run for the democrat ticket? something like “resigning” and leaving the presidency vacant for 2 new candidates to fight it out

But he’s not going to, so it’s a waste of time thinking about it.

Can the democrats “pull” him down if they wanted to for the ‘greater good’? Not going to happen but just curious about what the constitution allows for the party

To what end? He is the only (last?) hope of winning. The odd thing is why they did not groom another candidate.

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Thats what I find it funny about the US politics. On the Republican side, they now only have Haley against Trump, and Nikki has absolutely no chance against Trump, probably the most divisive president in recent history and yet the best they can find. Similarly, the best Democrat can muster is Biden? Both parties are shite and to me, the Americans are just trying to vote for the lesser evil. Its now Anything But Democrat/Republican.

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Absolutely. The moment Hillary lost to Trump they should have combed their ranks looking for a candidate who could run this year.
Either they did, and found no one suitable, which would be astounding, or they didn’t, which would be extraordinarily negligent.

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Issue with this is that I’m not sure the Republican leadership particularly wanted him.

I understand the sentiment about Biden but when it comes to finding a “better” candidate it has to be taken into account that Biden is the incumbant president and that he slapped the shit of out Trump in the last election.

It would be pretty presumptuous of the Democrats that they could still win with a change of candidate given the easy narratives about “chaos” etc in the media.

Gavin Newsome seems like he would be a good candidate in future but he’s got a cushy gig as Governor of California. He won’t risk that by going in for a Primary against Biden that he could easily lose.

Biden’s win over Trump last time was more about the rejection of Trump by the average American than it was about Biden’s qualitg as a candidate. I don’t see anything that has happened in the last four years that would encourage people back into Trump’s camp this time around?

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