• jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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    4 months ago

    Vote Biden. Then vote D again in '28, '32, '36, and '40.

    Flip the House. Widen the lead in the Senate.

    Thomas is 75, Alito is 74, if they don’t get replaced between 24 and 28, it’s virtually assured they’ll be out between 28 and 32.

    The problem then becomes the next two oldest justices, Roberts and Sotomayor, so we have to hold the Presidency through probably 2040.

    • Wogi@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      The last time a single party held the presidency for more than 12 years was when FDR won 4 times. Prior to that it was civil war reconstruction.

      Keeping the white house from 2020-2040 would be the longest single party streak without one president occupying the office more than 8 years. 3 consecutive Democrats would need to win. Ignoring the Democratic Republican steak at the beginning of the 19th century, because at one point everyone ran as a democratic Republican regardless.

      My point is, what’s plan b?

    • Eatspancakes84@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Just to add, if Trump wins, they will certainly step down and Trump will appoint 40-year olds to the SC. Possibly the crazy lady from Florida. Voting Blue is the only thing that will stop this distopia.

      • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I could see him nominating Cannon and Giuliani - sure Rudy would only be on the court until he died but Trump would still appoint the replacement five months later.

        • Asafum@feddit.nl
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          4 months ago

          They wouldn’t put Rudy up there, it’s too much of a gamble when they could literally just put Ben Shapiro on there because there’s no such thing as an unqualified judge anymore and be safe forever.

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Voting blue isn’t enough, though. It’s the bare minimum to keep the lights on while trying to repair the broken status quo that the Dem leadership and their owner donors love so much rather than let the fascists create something much worse.

    • worldwidewave@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Yea absolutely, but also off-year elections are important too! We elect the House every 2year, the senate every 6, and there’s tons of local issues on the ballot every year.

      • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Absolutely this. This is why Dems have had control of all 3 houses (house of reps, Senate, presidency) for only 4 years of the last 24 years. Voters don’t show up and then GOP gets one of them. We’ve all seen what happens when it’s president and not Senate - the GOP Senate blocked Obama’s supreme Court Justice.

    • Delusional@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      It’s so fucking ridiculous that this needs to happen for America to not become a dictator/fascist country. Why the hell do we have to fight so hard to protect our nation’s well-being. How come these assholes can attack our country from within constantly for decades without anything happening to them. Ridiculous.

      • trafficnab@lemmy.ca
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        4 months ago

        The nature of democracy not being a system that relies purely on violence for legitimacy (unlike authoritarian forms of government) means that it is a constant forever war against the lapping waves of fascism attempting to slowly erode away our democratic institutions (because we, thankfully, don’t just use violence to immediately silence dissidents)

        I think an entire generation of people raised in the peace dividend have forgotten this fact, figured that democracy is the natural course of things, ignored its badly needed maintenance, and are swiftly being reminded of it now that the damage is so readily apparent

      • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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        4 months ago

        Because the founders assumed that our rulers would be rational actors. They didn’t have a plan for an entire party going bad. “Oh, sure, we’ll just add an impeachment clause so nobody has to get assassinated…” (paraphrasing Ben Franklin):

        https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/american-presidents-can-be-impeached-because-benjamin-franklin-thought-it-was-better-assassination-180961500/

        "The Founding Fathers wrote impeachment—originally a Roman political institution—into the constitution for the purpose of removing an official who had “rendered himself obnoxious,” in the words of Benjamin Franklin. Without impeachment, Franklin argued, citizens’ only recourse was assassination, which would leave the political official “not only deprived of his life but of the opportunity of vindicating his character.”

        But they didn’t take the extra step to realize “What happens if that party refuses to impeach? Or indict? Or convict?” Suddenly there is no alternative.

        Ideally, there needs to be a process to nullify the entire party, but I have no idea how you’d go about it.

        • trafficnab@lemmy.ca
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          4 months ago

          The founders were entirely aware that not only an entire party, but the entire government could become irrational and work against our best interests: that’s why we have the second amendment as a backstop and last line of defense against authoritarian rule

      • ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        money.

        there’s more to it, but basically money.

        money spent on elections to convince idiot sheep to vote for the wolf. money spent (invested) on the elected to get more money.

        if PACs were shut down, and companies not people, and private donations capped, and the IRS watched money transfers like a hawk - it would slow some of the work of the billionaires.

        why do we fight? because of money.

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        This is why just electing Biden and conservative Democrats like him isn’t enough.

        He’s had the power to expand the court or at the very least encourage Congress to do so (which the Democratic majorities absolutely would if he leaned on it hard enough) since day one and aware of the problem since before he even started his campaign, but he’s so far refused to and, like that other stance of his that the majority of the country disagrees with him on (his unconditional support of the genocidal apartheid regime), it’s extremely unlikely that he’ll ever change his mind.

        Same goes for the rest of the out of touch Dem leadership: they’re supposed to represent everyone to the left of literal fascists, but in reality they mostly represent their rich owner donors and the increasingly tiny portion of the population that think the American Fascist Party has some good ideas but haven’t yet drunk the kool-aid.