President Donald Trump concluded his Republican midterm convention on Thursday by leading the audience in a pledge … to himself.
Trump asked the crowd to raise their right hands and begin: “I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States.”
The crowd dutifully repeated the line, calling Trump “the greatest president in the history of the United States.”
Trump added: “that loves us so much he can’t even breathe.”
The crowd again repeated the line, but then it got a little harder to follow.
“That I will go out with my family, my friends, I’ll do it anyway, I don’t care if I’m registered or not. I’m going to try and cheat like hell like they do,” he said. “There’s never been bigger cheaters, they don’t care. I am going to go out and I am going to get my friends, my family, and we are going to vote on November 3rd or we are going to vote before that.”
Unable to repeat all of that, the crowd cheered.
Trump realized he lost them and reset.
“Are you ready?” he asked. “Here’s the way you ― “
But he wasn’t ready himself as he got sidetracked by people in the audience. He tried once more to finish, with the crowd repeating after him, but left them behind as he went off on another tangent.
“So help me God,” he concluded.
The crowd repeated that part heartily.
“You know what happens if you don’t vote?” Trump asked. “You go to hell!”
So much blasphemy that he’s telling his supporters they’re going to hell!
Such an outcome would lead to a strong man consolidating power, but first would lead to warlords, oligarchs with their own bastions of power, security services left derelict after the collapse of government would turn to highway robbery, aforementioned warlordism, and organized crime.
Then you have what is left over of the military, and whomever consolidates that, is the new supreme leader.
We could talk all day about how it would play out under different scenarios, but the collapse of governments in the US would be a very very bad thing if we weren’t organized to institute a better system. That system could even be broken up into several, countries.
Otherwise the new boss is at best the same as the old, and in all probability much worse, with a lot of pain and suffering before that happens. And when that strongman takes power as an autocrat, future autocrats only get worse.
Plato noticed every single republic follows the same formula from representative government through stages of oligarchic repression to “democracy,” as defined by the ancient greeks up until like the 19th century when it became a positive buzzword rather than a strong man rallying the population to seize absolute power. Then the autocracy degrades in time through successive leaders and is overthrown and a republic re-instituted.
No republics have since broken with the formula even if they haven’t run through the stages yet.
Yeah, an uncontrolled collapse could be catastrophic. That’s an argument for building decentralized institutions capable of surviving a federal crisis, not necessarily an argument for preserving the existing federal state indefinitely.
I am not speaking of preserving this federal state, but a new federal state, in line with the constitution and all of it’s amendments, which honestly is a decent framework and better than anything we could hope for if we started new at this point in time.
The feds have ursurped power year over year, they aren’t supposed to be doing almost any of what they are doing according to the constitution, and all laws contrary to that are illegal and unefnforceable, according to that highest law.
The feds are supposed to handle international relations, trade, and interstate commerce. But they are forbidden from enacting barriers to trade within the states or movements of people. That’s about it.
The States obviously need their own restorations to their constitutions and that of the United States.
Plus practically, you won’t get support for an overthrow and new system. You can get support for a restoration, which amounts to the same thing in most ways.
I don’t need support for an overthrow and new system, the collapse is inevitable. We are currently in the middle of it.
Reformation is NOT the same thing. When you’re working with the framework that we have (a 250 year old document that is miserably outdated) and nobody willing to treat it as anything other than some sacred text passe down from on high, you’re left with what you’re left with. Less than one amendment to the Constitution per generation and no public of civic desire to continue to amend it.