WatDabney

Yes

Who cares if the people know the system is corrupt if there’s nothing they can do about it.

Because for the moment, there's not "nothing they can do about it."

Most notably, the dictatorial power they established for Trump's benefit is not yet in Trump's hands - it's in Biden's. And particularly in light of the fact that he's withdrawing from the race, he's entirely free to do whatever he pleases. Like, for instance, haveTrump and every single other person who's a part of this planned coup executed. Or, for instance, pardon any and all private citizens who might take it upon themselves to do the same.

The fascists aren't going to be safe until that power is in their hands. And that won't be until after the election.

The strategy you’ve outlined relies too heavily on their winning the election fairly.

Not at all

The only difference I see between him winning fairly and him losing is whether the act that will mark the moment at which the autocrats fully and publicly play their hand is the attempt to get him into office in spite of his loss or whatever they put the highest priority on after his win.

In either event, the time for them to play their hand is later - not now.

I actually hope that you're right, because that would mean that the cabal that intends to overthrow democracy in the US is much more stupid than I had thought.

In the first place, the whole idea that a candidate might be prohibited from dropping out and/or that the party would in that event be prohibited from choosing a replacement is farcical on its face. Beyond that, the SC explicitly ruled after the 2016 race that the DNC is essentially entirely free to do whatever the fuck they want. Additionally, they recently ruled regarding Trump's removal from ballots that states are not free to do whatever the fuck they want.

What that means is that in order to rule in such a way as to deny a replacement would reveal the complete and utter corruption of the system almost four months before the election, which would be an exceedingly stupid thing to do.

The far better strategy would be to just bide their time, let the democrats do whatever they choose to do, then implement the coup after the election (and preferably as close to the inauguration as possible) so they can accomplish it all at once, then hide behind the president's newly granted dictatorial powers.

I didn't expect that, but i'm entirely unsurprised.

I'm sure Trump feels especially at ease being "interviewed" by a fellow abuser, liar and Putin fellator, so Jr. was instructed to bring him along as a first step toward getting him back on the air.

They're just trying to shift back to keeping their desire for a plutocratic/christofascist autocracy on the down-low.

The problem is that their goals are explicitly anti-American, but their supporters tend to pride themselves on being, if anything, ultra-American.

And as more of the details of Project 2025 are revealed, an increasing number of those lunkheads are starting to go, "Derrr... hey, wait a minnit! This don't sound very American to me!"

So the fascists have shifted to that age-old "What, that? I don't know anything about that - someone else must've left it here. Just ignore it."

I'm often reminded of a bit on Top Gear years ago, when they were talking about "turbo" as a marketing tool in the 80s, when you could buy "turbo" sunglasses or "turbo" watches or "turbo" after-shave.

One month is not a "trend."

This is like compulsive gambler logic - 48 losses in a row followed by 1 win - "Woohoo! I'm on a winning streak now!"

If the GOP had any decency left, its members would be discussing whether to dump Trump for a candidate who isn’t out to bulldoze democratic institutions in favor of autocracy

Except that they want to bulldoze democratic institutions in favor of autocracy. That's their explicit goal.

Trump isn't the important part to the Republicans - he's just the one who happens to have a chance to deliver what they want.

Just the first of many, MANY more to come.

The Republican plan, rather obviously, is to take this election by whatever means necessary - fairly, or if that fails fraudulently, or if that fails by judicial fiat, or if that fails by force.

That's the biggest reason I don't even call this a revolution. It's a coup.

Yeah - I hesitated to post that, since even with the clearly negative characterization of all of the clearly negative aspects of it, it still sort of sounds as if not defending democracy is the right thing to do, when it's really only "right" in an extremely narrow, warped, relativistic and brazenly evil sense.

Still though...