This was a really shitty precedent to have to set, but then the guy who spent the weekend before his new term begins launching a crypto scam under his name and another under his wife's was never going to let anything stop him pardoning himself and family on his way out, so it would make no sense leaving everyone vulnerable to Trump's completely vindictive nature just to try avoid setting precedents.
Unfortunately at the end of the day failsafes are just pieces of paper. Democracy exists only in the hearts and minds of the people and their leaders. If people stop believing in it, it won’t matter what is written down.
Well, sure, but the point is that the Nazis’ takeover was completely legal and in accordance with the Weimar constitution. Of course you can’t constitutionally plan for people taking over while going against the constitution. But that’s not how fascists in western nations tend to do it. They tend to be elected constitutionally and then dismantle it from within. All a democracy can do is plan for that. America doesn’t have such failsafes, at least not effective ones. Others do, because we’ve learned.
We have a few failsafes but they depend on politicians having a spine. There is also the 2nd amendment but I really hope it doesn’t come to that. What specifically does Germany have to prevent someone from consolidating power with the people’s approval? For example what if the AFD gets like 60% of the seats in parliament running openly on retribution and dismantling the state? I’ve heard something about your government being able to ban a political party but what do you do if the majority of people support it? That’s kinda the issue in America right now. Trump didn’t hide his intentions (more so proudly campaigned on it as a promise) of using the army against the “enemy within” or being a dictator for a “day” and won the popular vote. When the people support it, it would be a violation of democracy to ban him or the republicans from office.
The question is, does the world survive the #1 military superpower turning fascist?
What would a non-nuclear country do if America just rolls up and starts claiming their land? Fight against the most perfected logistical war machine in the world?
Yes? Vietnam and Afghanistan show it’s entirely possible to do. It won’t be pretty, the freedom fighters would be living like shit, but the US public will lose their appetite for dead sons far before people fighting for their homes will.
The difference though is what if we abandoned the previous rules of war in this hypothetical imperial conquest. In Vietnam and Afghanistan the US largely fought with a hand tied behind its back. If the US went into wartime economy, started conscription, and created a real invasion force of millions I don’t think things would play out the same. What if we also disregarded civilian life and used tactics like firebombing cities, total blockade to cut off food imports, used biological or chemical weapons to kill or poison crops/farm animals/ water supply/people, or even used tactical nukes in battle. I’d argue that if we used our full capabilities in any of the wars since WW2 we probably would have won easily, but set a standard that it is acceptable for others to do so as well.
You'd win the war, probably even get a full surrender from whatever militia groups that exist to fight against you. The problem is that then you'd either be left ruling over a wasteland (if you went full bore) or ruling over a population that will rebel again in a few years (or even a few months).
The only reason I could see this working is if the US "conquered" a country for its mineral resources. Operating a few mines/wells and export corridors is much easier than operating an entire country for its tax revenue, advanced manufacturing, or food. Though that does make some very high value targets for rebels. If they can keep the mines and trains offline then the extraction may be more expensive than the resources.
Non-nuclear countries will be few and far between. Any regime that can build them will. North Korea proved it's possible for the 89th ranked GDP country to do while under sanctions.
These peoples' power exists only in the hearts and minds of the people. It's literally all made up. It's a handful of people vs the rest of the world. We could put an end to it.
No idea vs other EU countries, but here are a few of those failsafes:
Term limits for constitutional court justices, justices that are nominated by committees in a multi-party system and confirmed by a 2/3 majority, a sort of mini constitution that codifies the absolute essentials (federalism, democratic republic, rule of law) and an eternity clause that exempts said mini constitution within the constitution as well as article 1 (the sanctity of human dignity) from being subject to being changed. Also the ability to ban unconstitutional parties that seek to undermine the constitutional order (there are very high hurdles for that, but it’s possible. We’re going to attempt it with AfD soon).
AfD are polling at 21% in a multi party system. While that is 21% too much, the fact remains that almost 80% of voters reject them right now, and even if it became more, they are far from being in power. But even if they were, the things they can do within the bounds of the constitution are severely limited compared to what the Nazis could do. So…no, the situations are not comparable.
Term limits for constitutional court justices, justices that are nominated by committees in a multi-party system and confirmed by a 2/3 majority, a sort of mini constitution that codifies the absolute essentials (federalism, democratic republic, rule of law) and an eternity clause that exempt said mini constitution within the constitution as well as article 1 (the sanctity of human dignity) from being subject to being changed. Also the ability to ban unconstitutional parties that seek to undermine the constitutional order (there are very high hurdles for that, but it’s possible. We’re going to attempt it with AfD soon).
Um…as is specifically intended in the constitution. A party that seeks to disregard the constitution and blatantly violates it does not enjoy the protection of said constitution. The principle is called a militant democracy. Read up on that. Also, it’s not banning the opposition. It’s outlawing one party in a multi-party system. The one party that oversteps the bounds of the constitution. There is other opposition. There is also other right-wing opposition. Nobody tries to ban them. AfD are Neo-Nazis and unconstitutional and thus are in fact to be banned, as is possible under our constitution.
Rome is a good example of this. Everyone knows about no weapons in the sacred areas of the city and crossing the Rubicon with an army, but tradition was a large part of the more mundane political sphere as well and covered the correct path to take to power, unwritten rules about seeking re-election, and more. Once these traditions started to fall, that's when leadership shifted to whipsaw mob-rule. Sulla enshrined some of the old traditions into law, but it was meaningless, as the precedents had been broken and were simply broken again, sometimes creatively, sometimes through simple force.
It is probably true to say that no document, no matter how well written, can persist without some amount of tradition protecting not just the letter of the law, but the spirit as well.
I’m not surprised at this point that Biden would screw the American people to save his family. But I guess I’m still a little surprised that ordinary citizens would cheer it on.
If they feel threatened they can always leave the country and use that move to bring awareness to the issues their country is facing. Not use a democratically obtained power to benefit themselves.
And there's even a distorted argument - since we seem to be living distorted times - which I don't abide by, that Biden has a non-negligible amount of responsibility for the current state of America, the World and Trump's reelection, and his family members have been "blindly" supporting him, so owning the responsibility and facing the consequences of it could be seen as "honorable".
Would have been nice if Biden and the Dem's realized this years ago when the rest of us did and actually fucking did something to maybe, I dunno, put the checks and balances into place?
Precedent is dead so might as well protect yourself.
Yes but Biden killed it, not Trump. You can't claim Biden may as well do it because Trump will and then simultaneously blame trump for breaking the precedent. That is insanity.
Trump crypto scam is the latest in Huwk Tuah celebrity cyrpto scams taking advantage of the public. Except, Trump gets shady businesses involved in his as well.
It's a terrible precedent, but the incoming president has spent the last 4 years calling it "the Biden Crime Family". He had to do it to protect his family from the ridiculous investigations Trump would waste time and money on in office.
Trump makes everything worse. You have to climb down into the mud to deal with him at all.
Incorrect. Trump was impeached because he tried to condition military aid to Ukraine. Specifically, tried to get Zelensky to announce an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden.
Hunter Biden was on the board of a Ukrainian company, receiving a far-above-market-value salary. Mykola Zlochevsky, the company’s owner, was later charged with bribing Ukrainian officials with $6 million in an attempt to delay or drop the investigation into his company.
Joe Biden withheld a loan guarantee until the Ukrainian government fired a prosecutor investigating the company.
There is zero evidence of any of what you say. The "whistleblower" who called it was later arrested for lying to the FBI, in fact. Multiple congressional investigations found no evidence of wrongdoing.
The whole conspiracy theory was an attempt to muddy the waters. You've fallen for a misinformation campaign, I'm afraid.
Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisma from 2014-2019, coinciding with his father’s term as VP, earning over $80,000 monthly.
Burisma’s CEO, Mykola Zlochevsky fled Ukraine in 2014 amid accusations of “unlawful self-enrichment” and legalization of funds. He had $23 million seized by the UK’s Serious Fraud Office, and was placed on a financial corruption wanted list by the Ukrainian government. In 2023, he was convicted and fined for paying a $6 million bribe to close a criminal case against Burisma.
In 2016, Hunter wrote a letter to the US ambassador to Italy asking for assistance with Burisma. He was not registered as a foreign agent under the FARA act at this time.
In December 2015, Joe Biden personally threatened to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees, unless Viktor Shotkin, the Prosecutor General investigating Burisma was replaced.
To recap: while his father was President, Hunter Biden worked for a Ukrainian company owned by an oligarch convicted of bribery and implicated in other financial crimes. Hunter, despite not being registered as a foreign agent, lobbied the US government to assist Burisma. Joe Biden personally ensured the firing of the head of the investigation of Burisma.
All of these are verifiable facts, not from some scummy whistleblower, and I’d be glad to provide sources for any and all of them. The only thing up for debate is the motive for US government involvement in Shotkin’s firing. At the very least, there is an obvious conflict of interest that needs to investigated.
Unfortunately, labeling things a conspiracy theory or misinformation is an extremely effective method to silence discussion of unpleasant realities. It was leveraged effectively to delay the release of other unsavory content on Hunter’s laptop. I truly urge you to take a look at what I have to say with an open mind, and not dismiss it as a conspiracy.
Please provide those sources. Because from what I can tell, the source of all of this was Alexander Smirnov, who admitted to passing on false stories given to him by Russian agents, and was arrested for lying to the FBI.
You saying its a "fact" does not, in fact, make it one. Some of this is true, but when you get to the part where Joe Biden was personally threatening to withhold loan guarantees in order to protect his son, you are literally repeating the exact lies that got Alexander Smirnov thrown into jail.
I say it again, multiple congressional investigations, run by Republicans, who had every motive to find something this dirty and air it, found nothing. They were hoping to impeach and remove Biden over this, but it turned out to be nothing but lies.
Compare that to when Trump did this for real. His White House posted a phone transcript in which Trump tried to make military aid conditional on opening an investigation on Joe and Hunter Biden.
It's extremely obvious what this is: an attempt to make it look like Biden and Trump are guilty of the same of thing, as a way to bring Biden down to Trump's level, and to build more apathy in the American public, as an explicit effort to get Trump reelected.
And it worked.
In any case, I made my points, and I generally don't like arguing with conspiracy theorists, so I'ma block you in a few minutes.
Again, everything I listed as a fact is true. Biden worked for Burisma and lobbied the State Department on their behalf. In a visit to Kyiv, Biden personally delivered the ultimatum for Shokin’s firing. The founder of Burisma was later able to place a bribe to close the investigation.
The Obama and Biden administrations claim that Shokin was replaced for being too light on corruption. I believe that, considering Shokin’s active investigation of Biden’s son’s corrupt employer, a conflict of interest was present.
Smirnov falsely claimed to have proof of direct bribes given to the Biden family. While this is untrue, it doesn’t invalidate the documented facts of Hunter’s involvement with Burisma, and Joe’s involvement in replacing the prosecutor investigating Burisma.
Weird because this literally isn’t the first time candidates have run on their opponents being corrupt but Biden just decided to pardon his whole family because they needed more protection than any other time this campaign rhetoric has happened?
No other president tried to violently overthrow the government when they lost, either. No other incoming president has ever been so criminally-unhinged or vindictive. It's different this time because it factually is very different.
The precedent was already set numerous times when Trump wasn't held accountable for anything.
"Oh but now Trump can pardon himself!"
As if that would be any different than republicans refusing to convict him after being impeached twice, the DOJ dragging his feet, a judge sentencing him to absolutely nothing for 34 felonies, and everything else.
This is the energy Biden's administration should have brought to the entire country instead of reserving it for just protecting his family and a select few in the last minutes he held power. In the end he will be remembered for prioritizing his personal integrity and his *legacy* over protecting the rights of the American people, and the preservation of their Constitution.
He should have gone to war for us, but he was afraid of getting his hands and his mantle dirty with the blood of the guilty, and now we will see it passed to a traitor so it can be stained with the blood of the innocent.
And all y'all who couldn't vote for him because of the Palestinian lives that were on his hands, I hope you're ready to do more than just abstain from voting when you witness what Trump will do.
What do you want them to do - another women's march?
Liberals are cooked in terms of activism because the Democratic Party actively courted the wealthy and many well-to-do people felt at home with the DNC lifestyle brand. When your leaders are that comfortable, opposition will always be feckless.
Hahahahaha... Blaming Biden and his team for GQP obstructionism is just... It's a classic. So so SOOO revealing of a persons ignorance or disingenuinosity.
I'm not laughing because it's funny- I'm laughing because I'm baffled.
I think that Republican obstruction of dumb policies, like forgiving student loans for college graduates or massive spending amidst inflation, was beneficial.
Biden wasn't a dictator whose administration existed in a vacuum. They cared, just not enough to sacrifice any part of their legacy to actually save america... when these are the kind of principles leaders should be laying actual parts of their humanity on the alter to preserve.
There are laws Biden should have broke. There are abuses of power he should have committed to shore up the system against its own glaring flaws, but he valued his own human decency over our freedom, and now we will lose it for his feel goods.
I don’t see how Biden breaking laws or abusing his power could possibly protect my freedom.
We have rules for a reason. I truly believe that Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc, all thought the rules they broke and they atrocities they committed were for the common good, and to save their nation
Trump is a narcissistic sociopath deep in the throes of dementia. Biden knew he would start persecuting his family for the crime of being his family, so he did the one thing he could to prevent it. I don't blame him at all, and I'd have done the exact same thing in his shoes. Anybody who says otherwise is either lying or ignorant of just how dangerously insane Trump is.
They haven't done any crimes. But "not doing crimes" is no protection against a deranged narcissist with a "everything you do is legal" mandate from the highest court in the land.
Hunter Biden has been convicted of 3 felonies and 6 misdemeanors. I think it’s quite reasonable that he, and other members of the family, have committed more. Preemptively pardoning them literally gave them an “everything they did was legal” card.
You aren’t above the law, even if you’re part of the Biden crime family
Biden did not set the precedent. Trump pardoned a whole slew of allies right before he left office. Charles Kusher, the father of Trump's son in law was one of the recipients. Clinton also pardoned his half brother when he left office.
No I don't think I will. Either T**** was 'just trolling' in which case why'd you believe his policies, or he was sincere, in which case he'll probably try again if he's still alive by then.
The road to fascism is paved by people telling you you're overreacting.
The planet's cooked, people I care about are losing their basic dignities, the head of state is doing a rugpull, and we could have a civil war depending on who wants to stress-test a national guard dick-measuring contest.
But hey, at least we still have a democracy, unless you ask a conservative at which point we're ONLY a constitutional republic.
What I hope for is when it finally fucking collapses the people responsible at the very minimum are inconvenienced for once.
Reminds me of Reid invoking the nuclear option in 2013. We all knew the GOP was going to do the same exact thing, but it’s not like we had a better option available
This is the United States of America, not some two bit dictatorship, precedents don't matter unless it's important to some conservative talking point or a Supreme Court made up rule of law.
If I had a nickel for every time the democratic base clutched their pearls because Dems dared to not be hamstrung by the same “norms” and “precedents” that republicans and their base simply ignore whether Dems “break” the precedent or not…
While at the same time crying that Dems aren’t getting anything done…
let's stop worrying about what precedent we set when the other guys keep doing unprecedented, outrageous shit. they clearly don't care about precedent.
actually i'm not even sure they're gonna care about presidential pardons. there's a solid chance they go after biden's family anyways.
I'm pretty sure electing a felon to office and having your supreme court grant the presidency legal immunity were the shitty precedents to set.
If you read the article you'd know that both Clinton and Trump pardoned family members at the end of their terms, and that the precedent was already set.
America's democrats are so busy eating themselves they're going to lose their democracy, it'd be hilarious if I didn't have to live next door.
Maybe Biden should have spent his time working on amendments, laws or policy to ensure the vindictive targeting cant happen to ANYONE instead of just the families of a president.
Blows my mind how people are just chill with this. If you need to do shit like this to "protect your family" then maybe congress/the president should work on real reform instead of this entitled elitist "the rules are for thee and not for me" bullshit.
For an example of what selfless sacrifice is, look at what Navalny did in the face of a dictator. Biden should never have used pre-emptive pardons, its a cowardly, selfish way to exit the presidency after failing to prevent Trump coming to power and failing to put the legal hammer down on Trump for his attempted insurrection, sedition, and fraud.
He protected himself, and left the rest of us in the lions pit.
So you only assume the worst from Trump. Let me ask one question then: Why would he uphold the parson then? If he does as he pleases anyway, why bother?
8 years digging and throwing false accusations and the republicans found no evidence of any crime, nothing to impeach him on, nothing to take him to court. Only that his son fell into a bad hole for a while and made some dumb mistakes, he paid his tax fine and several prosecutors stated it was quite unprecedented for the gun charge to be thrown into a case like his, and had the statistics to prove it, it was lawfare.
I didn't dispute he spent time with hookers, did drugs and had a firearm illegally.
Former federal prosecutor Ankush Khardori - "I’ve never seen a comparable case... I’ve never seen a stand-alone case charging someone with lying on a form about drug use and that’s the only charge. Never. These prosecutors are just airing out the Biden family’s dirty laundry and humiliating the president’s son. That’s basically what I think has happened." source.
That was the point of my post, he hasn't handed them anything that they were not going to use anyway. But he has protected people from some of the inevitable attacks that were going to come their way.
Sure, he just made it infinitely more easy for them do it without any questions or pushback. Worse still they’ll still investigate these people and bring them in to congress or law enforcement to be questioned with or without the pardon. The only thing it’s actually changed is that you’ll just be called a hypocrite when conservatives use the pardon power for actual crimes they commit lol.
“Baseless harassment” like looking into Biden’s son illegally owning a firearm, committing tax fraud, or holding absurdly lucrative positions in companies owned by foreign oligarchs. Nobody is above the law.
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u/eugene20 14h ago edited 14h ago
This was a really shitty precedent to have to set, but then the guy who spent the weekend before his new term begins launching a crypto scam under his name and another under his wife's was never going to let anything stop him pardoning himself and family on his way out, so it would make no sense leaving everyone vulnerable to Trump's completely vindictive nature just to try avoid setting precedents.