We basically get two chances if you want to follow the normal procedure. Swing congress during the midterms and lock him up for the remainder of his term and or elect a democrat in four years who will tear up the stack of executive orders and make the rounds apologizing to everyone.

There are many autocrats around the world, look up what happened to free elections after they came into power.

Spoiler alert: they quickly deteriorate and the next 3-4 cycles become far less free than the election cycle that put them into power.

We won't even get those chances if either Roberts or Barrett roll over.

I mean both of those options (minus the locking up) were tried last time. Even if Democrats were to win elections as described, another round of apologies and saying nice things about institutionalism is not going to cut. I felt pretty sure Trump had a good chance of being re-elected from 2022 onward, Democrats simply didn't want to believe that a large part of the electorate are assholes or that they would need to change up their policy/electoral/comms game. Some of them still don't want to believe it.

Oh please

I think you have your head in the sand.

This Harvard thing is just one example. Just saw a report this morning (Aus time) of an Australian detained, stripped, and held overnight in a US federal prison. She was just coming in to visit her husband.

Who the hell will want to come to the US now? You are going to suffer a massive reverse brain drain. You got a 30% tariff tax, kidnapping of random people off the street including US citizens, blatant and overwhelming corruption at the highest levels, weaponizing of government to target people, institutions and private companies.

Good luck in the midterm 'elections'.

It will all depend if he is able to keep control past the 2028 elections. If he can, it's a dictatorship for life with family successors.

He is openly lining up the whole thing already: being able to do another term, "stolen elections", etc.

Wanna bet?

Yes.

So the US won't survive until 2029. That means it won't exist as a country? Or GDP will be down by at least 50%? Happy to bet against either at even odds.

I'm not the guy you were arguing with. But let me take a stab at defining "US".

To me, the US isn't just a geographic boundary. It's not even a collection of people. It's primarily the Constitution, and the limited government that flows from it.

If in 2029 we have a Constitution that is still theoretically in force, but in practice is ignored by the government, does the US still exist, or not? To me, even if something with that name exists, it's not the same US that existed in November 2024.

So I think that, if you're going to do this bet, you have to define the boundary conditions very carefully. Something with the "US" name will most likely exist in 2029. But will it be a zombie, or will it still be the same entity as it was before? And if it's a zombie, which of you wins the bet?