Folks, you all know TFG's not leaving office except in a box, right? Because the minute he leaves office, he's going to jail! So how would he stay in power? Berin Szóka at The Bulwark explains how. The 22nd Amendment is pretty plain on whether he can actually run for President again (i.e., he can't), but he might be able to run for Vice-President – whether as the "real" power behind the "President" or as the next "accidental" President, whatever keeps him out of prison – and although the 12th Amendment pretty clearly states that "no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States," a far-right Supreme Court might rule that this eligibility question relates to earlier questions of eligibility and not the 22nd Amendment. Of course, TFG could also just purge our military of "disloyal" generals, run again, win, and have our military forcibly install him in defiance of our Constitution. So we have four more years to turn our backs on him – and on all his enablers.
Mike Lofgren, the ex-Republican who has published some withering Jeremiads against his former party, bids goodbye to America "for the last time" in this Salon piece. And I find Mr. Lofgren's disgust sympathetic. I always thought the people were better than the politicians, and I've known about America's dark side forever, but I didn't believe America had this many dangerously self-absorbed people who value nothing other than a) their own pocketbooks and b) nobody ever telling them they're wrong about anything ever. And the 2024 election reflects badly on the character of most Americans – whether they actually voted for TFG, refused to vote for the Black woman when they voted for the white guy in 2020, or just stayed home, all of those people watched a Grown Man Act Like That for ten years, and not only decided his tantrums were OK, but that they shouldn't stop him from being President. Nothing's irreversible, I suppose, but I doubt America will ever earn my love back.
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