askchapo

A more important question is: Is that even necessary? Why would liberals dismantle the facades that keep citizens calm? The powers that be can simply do whatever they want, courtesy of a friendly supreme court and an effectively-nonexistent left opposition.

Not at all, for at least two reasons:

• There's zero need for it, considering both branches of the US's one-party state will carry out all the policies of its ruling class with equal vigour.
• It's useful to maintain the semblance of professionality and consistency that these constitutional / legislative customs give to the US government.

When Democrats tell you the other guy is the greatest threat to democracy, don't believe them. The CIA is, and they love the CIA.

The electoral system is already vestigial. Would the Heritage freaks dispense with the charade? Maybe, but what would it accomplish? Leaving it in place means you can get Ba'ath party election results (since the courts are compromised to the point that redistricting can only benefit that goal) and get at least another 5 years of libs saying "well, they won fair and square, guess we just have to vote harder" while you govern from the bench unopposed.

Just to reiterate what everyone else said better than me if the capital class really thought Trump was going to do these things and they didn't want it to happen then they'd do anything besides promoting him to a position where it was possible he could get it done, so best case they're lying and worst case they're lying and planning to end democracy themselves with him as the perp to pin it on

States are just going to continue on the present course of voter disenfranchisement. An auto-coup would be counterproductive.

Personally, I think there's too much of an industry around the spectacle of the election for it ever to be in danger. While many of the politicians and talking heads are idiots, the monied(sp?) interests know there is a benefit to the illusion and play both sides. Whether or not the think tanks like heritage foundation understand their role, idk, but the Koch brothers funding them did. But, all that being said, it feels like a lot of people have failed upward into positions of power that don't have a clue. So, who knows? We could continue the slow steady collapse or some jackboot thug wannabe might get put into positions of too much power.🤷

the american government is already effectively dismantled and is still consistently capable of only contract enforcement and sporadic spectacular violence

all trump can do is budge that de facto state toward de jure and to further decrease the USA's legitimacy in the eyes of its residents

There's already basically no term limits in most positions of power. Other than some minor differences domestically, what functional difference has their been in the executive branch since Reagan?

I agree with most of the posts here, this has already been accomplished. This is end stage neoliberalism.

"If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal."

The capitalist class doesn't need to destroy liberal democracy to keep everyone in line so nothing should change. We might go to having a right wing strong man with a political party that returns to an older kind of political corruption with party machines that strong arm the populace to vote how they want and stuff the ballot boxes as needed. Basically what the US did to create "democracies" around the world like in Russia.

In like 10-20 years there might be a decline in the treat economy and the crushing weight of neoliberalism might spawn an actual socialist movement. If that happens then there would be the bipartisan dictatorship under the Hunter Biden/Barron Trump copresidency where they share the share the presidency like Roman consuls to crush anything anticapitalist.

After a few years they might let go of the dictatorship and institute a multiparty democracy like the eurocucks have with defanged social democrats as the furthest left option and proclaim progress.

It's kaye fabe pro wrestling drama jinned up to get voters to vote. Propaganda works. Hell, after visiting Reddit I almost thought about Voooting for !but then I remembered xibe-check We already had Trump for 4 years. None of that happened.

Abolishing term limits maybe, but elections? Nah, they'll just make it harder for minorities and poor people to vote as they've been doing for decades.

I'd say extremely unlikely

If he wins, and he gets to the end of his term without reaching Bidenesque levels of senility, I think he's very likely to make a half-assed attempt to declare himself dictator or go for a third term or something. If that happens, liberals will scream that it's the end of the world, and chuds will make another poorly planned attempt at storming a government building, but the political system will overcome it by simply ignoring them and continuing on with elections normally.

0% because the US's political system is a fundamental part of US political theater. Trump will get someone who won't miss if he messes with that.

The public having an illusion of input into how the country is run is central to keeping it going without popular revolt. A very brief timeline:

1. Country starts. You can refer libs to Natopedia on this one, and most of them won't even dispute anything because that's settled history from when our country was Not Nice. There were at least two layers of protection for the owning class from the will of the people -- states were allowed to determine who could vote, generally agreeing on white male landowners, and the Senate was appointed. There was a choice quote from one of those guys pretty much predicting the popular appeal of dividing up the holdings of large landowners and the necessity of the Senate to ensure against it, but I haven't been able to dig it up -- little help? Thank you, @peeonyou, for finding Madison's quote!

2. Political parties emerge. This was practically inevitable and happened almost right off the bat, meaning that anyone who wanted a country that's not so shitty had to get the buy-in of powerful people who wanted it to continue to be shitty. By the time the landholding requirement for voting was gone, our current duopoly was solidly entrenched. Still at least two layers.

3. The Seventeenth Amendment passes. Direct election of senators seems like a big win for the people, but who was behind it? William Randolph Hearst, a newspaper magnate. It was a statement of confidence in the propaganda instruments; the people were so propagandized that there was no longer concern about them voting in their own self-interest. Still at least two layers.

4. Three-letter agencies come into being. If you try to challenge white supremacy, you get killed. The Civil Rights movement allows black people to vote for either wholly-owned party. At least three layers.

5. The Information Superhighway revolutionizes everything. The initial internet hype was that anyone's reach could extend worldwide. Ron Paul. Bernie Sanders. Even if we say that the internet completely supplanted corporate media, there are still two layers.

6. The internet turns into bullshit. The internet consolidates down to four sites sharing memes from the other three. All of them work with the three-letter agencies to ensure that nothing ever changes. TikTok allows people to see the carnage in Gaza and is slated to be banned. The DNC argues successfully in court that it doesn't have to be democratic and doesn't lose any supporters. Genocide Joe's handpicked successor could win without ever getting a single vote in an open primary. Corporate media, bourgeois political parties, three-letter agencies and an approaching great firewall give the owning class more insulation from popular sentiment than ever before and virtually nobody cares.

From the above trajectory, it seems the the owning class has the least to worry about as in any time in the history of the country, so why would they allow a new chapter to be written in which their control is revealed to be brute force supported by nearly nobody?

I think Trump hoped January 6th to be that sort of event, but it failed miserably. It failed because the only people willing to do anything about it were the chuds that showed up to his rally. They lacked any kind of shared political theory or goals. Some were there to have fun, some were there because they believed in Qanon, some wanted a christofacist dictatorship, and some thought they could fix the "voting irregularities" and go back to being a representative democracy. All those same impediments exist today for any kind of dismantling driven by citizens.

It could still happen if Trump suddenly got institutional backing for such a thing, like from the military, courts and big business, but it seems super unlikely. The bourgeoisie gets everything they need from both parties, why send America into economic chaos to keep one dipshit in charge?

I'm not from the US but I'd be pretty surprised if deciding on the length of a presidential term limit is something a president could just decide on.

Like doesn't something like that require an act of congress? I'd be surprised if it doesn't require a supermajority to even get through there.

Conditions could change quickly after Israel likely loses the Galilee and its collapse is hastened. A lot of our para fascist structures (largest carceral state on earth, CIA, major shareholders' fixers, organized crime, foreign/neocolony intelligence agencies, groups like ISIS) have been about maintenance of empire, and so as the empire slips any of the "leaders" can be the one under which a desperate, overt fascist pivot occurs.

He's far too lazy to do anything radical like that.

No, I don't think so. Trump's popularity seems like all time low and Kamala's recent surge in popularity gives the impression that the government has a couple more terms of this is the most important election of your lifetime. If Joe Biden had stayed in, maybe but the vibes just aren't right for this when the Dem base is ready to demean themselves with another ultra conservative progressive candidate. This is entirely vibe based opinion

No, the US system is designed so nothing ever happens. He's a fairly traditional Republican.

Pretty realistic. It's easy to dismiss the threat of a second Trump administration as Democratic fearmongering to chase after donations and motivate voters, but the Dems have proven at every turn that they care more about decorum than about wielding power as a tool to affect the world. The right is increasingly moving in the opposite direction-- decorum doesn't matter, winning matters. Getting what they want matters.

When Trump trashes the entire administrative 'deep state' that restrained him during his first administration, through Schedule F shenanigans or violence, what are the Dems going to do? A Republican administration, doesn't even have to be Trump, can totally remove any and all tools that could be used to restrain the Administrative Branch's power, and concentrate it all in one person. Dems would quiet down and fall into line President von Hindenburg style, instead of using what they have left to form the nexus of some kind of competing power structure. Something something we need peace to heal the nation.

One party is fascists, the other is West Wing LARP. The fascists can do a LOT of damage if all they get as pushback is Sorkinesque tweets.