@mcfate not if he gets elected. It's the billionaire backers of Project 2025, and other such endeavors that have been quietly stacking the courts etc. that will be in charge. They want Vance to be president and he will institute amendment 25 and have Trump declared unfit for office - the courts and house will go along with it and then you can kiss what little remains of your democracy goodbye.

@NorthernInvader

That's far from a sure thing, and it seems defeatist to call it a slam-dunk. He'd have to control both Houses of the Congress AND the courts. None of those things is a slam-dunk.

Not to mention that he'd have to come up with a way to deal with all the civil unrest that would inevitably ensue.

But if you feel a need to depress yourself over uncertainties, I can't stop you. I just don't see the point or the upside.

@NorthernInvader

Hey, if he's so terrific at "stacking courts", how come his record on 2020 election cases was oh-and-sixty?

@mcfate the only court that counts in the end is SCOTUS and that's stacked 6-3 now.

@NorthernInvader

They haven't acted as a complete rubber stamp for him, either. How is mifepristone still available? How come they rejected a case about the DoJ "investigating" parents for going to school board meetings?

There's still half the country opposing all of this to contend with. Is he going to send Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito out with six-shooters?

Please don't try to tell me that the military will just say, "Okay, whatever." I don't have that low an opinion of them, myself.

@NorthernInvader

Imagining the worst possible outcomes is easy, just neither helpful nor useful, in my opinion.

@NorthernInvader

Just to put a stake in the ground, not getting one's way one hundred percent of the time is not the same as "having to kiss what little remains of your democracy goodbye".

Democracy seems to be reasonably healthy in California, if not always to my tastes.

@holon42 exactly, all the while angling for a way to take advantage of it.