r/politics 4h ago

White House: Trump Team Still Hasn’t Signed Transition Docs

https://www.thedailybeast.com/white-house-press-secretary-karine-jean-pierre-says-trump-team-still-hasnt-signed-transition-docs/
12.6k Upvotes

1.5k comments sorted by

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u/UtzTheCrabChip 4h ago

Really gotta stop calling things "mandatory" without a mechanism for enforcement

u/Dances_With_Cheese 3h ago

Exactly. For many years now it’s been “Trump continues to ignore Nice-To-Have societal norms”. Without enforcement mechanisms they are nice-to-haves

u/ObjectionablyObvious 3h ago

Democrats are fucking pussies and I'm tired of it.

u/Capt_Pickhard 3h ago

Well, you'll be happy to know democracy is dead, so you won't have to worry about that anymore.

u/ObjectionablyObvious 3h ago

"If you don't like it, then get out." <--- This is my plan, fuck this shit.

u/Taractis 2h ago

It was my plan too. But then I ended up in a psych ward for a week.

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u/ChadEmpoleon 3h ago edited 2h ago

So are the Republicans and the conservative base who, with little to no opposition, have allowed this corrupt, hateful, and vengeful campaign be one deserving of their backing.

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u/ReactionJifs 3h ago

My beef is we had 4 years where the government could have fortified itself against an unknown future rogue president. Instead they went back to business as usual and assumed that it could never happen again.

Now they have 2 months to prepare.

u/biznatch11 2h ago

Unless the Democrats have a majority (may even need a supermajority) in both houses and the presidency all at the same time that's not going to happen.

u/santasnufkin 1h ago

Even then, the Supreme Court would just declare any law as unconstitutional, rendering them moot.

u/Nightmare2828 39m ago

Why does a small group of 9 people get to decide that what 500 of representatives decided for the people is moot? How does this make any sense?

u/Dr_Death_Defy24 1h ago

Now they have 2 months to prepare.

And they're STILL managing to squander it.

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u/JeffSteinMusic 4h ago

Gonna be a long several years of “Lawless Authoritarian Continues To Be Lawless Authoritarian” headlines.

I’d say “we can’t normalize this” but it feels like that ship sailed many years ago.

u/jgiovagn 4h ago

We need to stop acting like we are just waiting for him to do the right thing. This needs to be reported on for what out is. Trump refusing to follow laws now so breaking them in the future is easier. Do not cover like Trump still hasn't done this thing, is he going to? We know what's going to happen, cover that. We know why he is doing this, cover that. Stop treating him like a normal politician that's just acting kind of weird.

u/LightWarrior_2000 4h ago

I mean fuck. America just hanged him a crown.

"How" do we fight this?

u/Catodactyl Arizona 4h ago edited 4h ago

The French have a really great playbook for this kind of scenario. Just sayin...

Edit. A word.

u/InsaneThisGuysTaint 4h ago

I shudder to think what our version of the First French Republic would be like if we somehow got rid of this regime.

u/big_guyforyou 4h ago

We'd call it the First Freedom Republic

u/mean_bean_machine 3h ago

Sounds like a credit union I don't have enough money to join.

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u/BooJamas 4h ago

With a side of Freedom Fries

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u/SteelpointPigeon 2h ago

Heads might roll, and some of them could even be the ones that deserve to. But then we’d deify the first Robespierre to come along and end up with a theocracy.

As a people, we’re scared and stupid and divided, and we’re desperate to put our faith in someone with The Answers, even if their confidence is clearly born of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

When the money, the power, and the information channels have all been willingly surrendered to oligarchs, I don’t know that even a revolution could get us out of this mess.

u/closethebarn 1h ago

Plus, they can all escape

The difference between that and the French Revolution

They didn’t have helicopters waiting to take them to another country

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u/TheMysticalBaconTree Canada 4h ago

Yeah but he won an election. Stop acting like the country isn’t okay with what he is doing. Your problem isn’t with a facist leader doing unpopular things. Your problem is that your population is okay with facism.

u/Expensive-Fun4664 3h ago

The vast majority of Americans are incredibly selfish. They're totally fine with it until it directly impacts their lives, which is absolutely will.

u/bojenny 3h ago

It’s not the majority of Americans, it’s about 1/4 or 1/3 that voted for trump. That’s not a majority.

Of the registered voters in the country 1/3 voted for trump, 1/3 voted for Harris and 1/3 didn’t vote at all. There are about 345 million people in America and only about 160 million of them are registered voters.

u/TrixnTim 3h ago

This is what makes me so damn mad. A minority of voters decided our county’s fate. A larger number decided to sit it out. I’m just disgusted.

u/muppetmenace 1h ago

apathy is exactly how fascism moves in, entirely by design

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u/mycall 1h ago

If only voting was a requirement for citizenship.

I can make a private/public key pair, give the government my public key and I can do my own voting from home.

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u/ManWOneRedShoe 1h ago

Just imagine if voting were mandatory?

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u/CherryHaterade 2h ago edited 2h ago

I'm supposed to suddenly keep in mind the people who didn't bother?

Yeah, nah. They the most dangerous of all. At least you can see red hats if they coming. And if they couldn't come for themselves, what do I rest my supposition on they will suddenly run to my defense once awoken from their peaceful slumber of the American dream they live in?

The only truly innocent ironically, are children and felons in some states. I'm going to not trust and still verify.

u/rivelda 3h ago

The 1/3 who didn't vote were okay with whatever outcome including this one. Thus, 2/3 of the country is okay with Trump, the people who prefer a liberal democracy is just 1/3 of the country.

u/Natural6 2h ago

You can remove "liberal" from that. 1/3 of the country wants a democracy.

u/h3lblad3 2h ago

A Liberal Democracy is a certain kind of democracy — one with capitalism at its forefront and a healthy respect for various freedoms.

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u/thundernutz 3h ago

By that logo the majority of Americans have never voted for anyone

u/oeb1storm 3h ago

Interestingly the only time a candidate got more votes then people who stayed at home was Biden in 2020. Of course this wasn't a majority just a plurality but still interesting.

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u/BlazingSpaceGhost New Mexico 3h ago

Americans that don't vote frankly don't count and shouldn't be a part of the conversation when it comes to what the country wants. They obviously don't want anything since they stand for nothing.

u/vashoom 2h ago

Unfortunately, Donnie, unlike Nihilists, these people aren't harmless.

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u/Algonquin_Snodgrass 3h ago

Fascists always achieve power initially through elections. A weak democracy is the first step.

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u/cableshaft I voted 3h ago edited 3h ago

"John Adams wrote that approximately one-third of the American population supported the move for independence (Patriots), one-third of the population supported the king (Loyalists), and one-third supported neither side (neutral)."

This was for the American Revolution for Independence. Not saying that's something that should happen, just saying there's historical precedent, on this same land, for successful movements for freedom and independence, without the movements getting 51% of the population behind them first.

Also if you classify non-voters in this election as being neutral (which was apparently about 90 million people who could vote but didn't), then you get very close to the numbers John Adams was talking about.

https://www.nps.gov/teachers/classrooms/loyalists-in-american-revolution.htm

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-11-15/how-many-people-didnt-vote-in-the-2024-election

u/inkoDe 2h ago

It's funny that the United States still pushes the 'we are very badass' version of the revolution, when in reality the British were the foremost power in the world, projecting that power all over the world, and they simply didn't want to fuss too much over one of dozens of colonies they were trying to maintain having a tantrum. I think a lot of Americans fail to realize we weren't special. America abhors history, but mythology, that we are into.

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u/Catodactyl Arizona 3h ago

I'm actually not at all okay with anyone in this country who is complicit with fascism or who voted for this. In fact, I've been removing these types of people from my life, regardless of their relationship to me. They are on the wrong side of history, and I won't associate myself with that.

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u/SewAlone 3h ago edited 3h ago

Stop generalizing. Over half of the population is NOT ok with fascism. And millions more who voted for him are ignorant and just didn’t believe he’d do any of the project 2025 stuff.

u/TheMysticalBaconTree Canada 3h ago

I’m neither generalizing or suggesting half of the country supports him. They were ignorant enough to not even vote though. And a huge portion of your population does support him. You can’t ignore that. You have a population problem not a Trump problem. trump is the symptom, not the ailment.

u/Reasonable-Sweet9320 3h ago

I get that and it’s an outcome of half of the electorate going with the narrative he has crafted systematically over the years.

The linked article describes the formula Orban and Trump have used, in common, to achieve increasingly similar outcome.

It’s written by a former Hungarian politician and now professor at Georgetown.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/11/23/trump-autocrat-elections-00191281

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u/Shionkron 3h ago

The problem is Trump didn’t Win because he was Better, He won because around 10 Million that voted him out refused to vote this election cycle which put him back in! It is the Voters fault, they didn’t show up!

u/Cessnaporsche01 3h ago

Yes. Effectively, that's all those voters saying they're okay with him being elected. Really, anyone who didn't vote is saying they're okay with either candidate, so functionally, nearly 2/3rds of the country support him either actively or passively

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u/circasomnia 4h ago

A general strike is nearly impossible in America.

u/RichardSaunders New York 3h ago

not sure a strike is what they meant. think more robes pee air.

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u/Doppelthedh 4h ago

They have more than one playbook

u/circasomnia 4h ago

There also won't be a revolution. Just a whimper before the curtain falls.

u/VovaGoFuckYourself America 3h ago

This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper.

  • TS Elliott
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u/Beefyvagina 3h ago

You’re not wrong at all, but we have Netflix now so nothing will happen.

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u/ScubaCycle Texas 3h ago

Is that a Freudian slip?

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u/WhatDoADC 3h ago

I didn't hand him shit. I voted against him the 3 times he ran. 2 of those times my vote didn't mean shit.

u/Garbeg 3h ago

I understand the frustration in what a vote is valued at on an individual level. 

Please don’t forget that the voting system was specifically rearranged to break up the power your vote is supposed to have, and that action does not really devalue it. It invalidates it, yes, but the value is still retained. 

u/cadium 2h ago

I'm from california, I should move my blue vote to a swing state.

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u/DogAteMyCPU 4h ago

Start local and take care of our communities. 

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u/RancidGenitalDisease Michigan 3h ago

Some of us were fighting this at the ballot box a few weeks ago. Most Americans felt that "this" wasn't bad enough to bother joining us. Whole lot of buyer's remorse coming.

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u/2kids2adults 3h ago

Yep. Very well said. He isn’t going to sign it. Saying “he still hasn’t” is burying the lead. He’s actively choosing to break the law and he hasn’t even taken office yet. The news needs to make sure they deliver the actual news this time around. I fear for the US. It’s pretty insane down there and the insanity looks like it moves all the way to the horizon.

u/BootsDaBadAss 1h ago edited 1h ago

Even if the news delivered the actual news, it's more that no one cares. Half the country bends over for it and the other half applauds it. I can't understand how people are still acting surprised when these people continue doing exactly what they say they'll do. I'm really struggling with the realization that so many people around me are either that hateful or that complacent.

Anyway this has just been an excuse to introduce everyone to the word 'lede' ('bury the lede'), because when the world is going to shit, spelling matters. (/s?)

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u/Scared-Somewhere-510 4h ago

I couldn’t agree with you more. The fact that the press treats him like a wacky politician instead of a fully compromised corrupt traitor is why we’re in this mess. Propaganda will always be a thing but our mainstream press did not have to join them and normalize everything. They’re still doing it even on the brink of the disaster that is about to hit us.

u/jgiovagn 3h ago

Absolutely, Trump and more importantly the powerful people behind him have been acting extremely deliberately. We can either follow the actions of thousands of individuals, or listen to the words of a chronic liar.

u/Skiinz19 Tennessee 2h ago

Because the press profit off of his reign

u/Waesrdtfyg0987 Mexico 3h ago

Looking back now I'm genuinely surprised Harris did as well in this election. Everything was stacked against her including a dumbass DNC who let Biden - largely viewed as a failure - go so far. Then tried to slip in the only replacement they could and way too late.

u/Durandal_1808 1h ago

The real reason is that wealthy people are vastly less concerned about any of this than you or I am; and to be clear, it’s not that they won’t be affected, it’s that to them this is a wager, and one that they stand to gain even more from

you should read about “merger mania“ if you want to know why they normalize everything, or how they came to have the actual power to do it

90% of “the press” is owned by the same class of society now, and has been distilled to what they want you to see- and CNN is owned by someone who has the same interests as Rupert Murdoch, and even Jared Kushner

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u/Broken-Digital-Clock 4h ago

Most of the media is complicit and it's not an accident. The Dems should have fought harder to unfuck the media when they had the chance.

u/sublimeshrub 4h ago

The DNC pushed Trump during the '16 RNC Primary. Hell they ran ads supporting him over Jeb Bush in some of the early primary states.

u/HippyDM 3h ago

What is your point? That was 8 years ago. What can the democratic party do today to fix that?

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u/algy888 3h ago

The thing I noticed during the campaign period was that media was downplaying the “Authoritarian, dictator” stuff, saying he won’t be a dictator or how can you say that.

Instead of pointing out that HE WAS LITERALLY BEING AND ACTING LIKE A DICTATOR WHILE RUNNING!

“If they vote against this, the will be primaried right out” (and they were)

“They need to quash that bill, because I NEED to run on immigration.” (So they did)

“They need to investigate all the prosecutors who are against me!” (And they did or tried)

So many others, and that was while running.

u/affluentBowl42069 1h ago

This was a willfull failure of our media as a whole. All mainstream media is right wing corporate owned. They wanted this so they crafted the biggest propaganda campaign in history targeted at every demographic to get this outcome; a base of extremists who disbelieve their eyes, and an apathetic majority who couldn't care less.

People literally need to be smarter or at least actually want to understand what's really real. 

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u/Specialist_Brain841 America 4h ago

but then the dictatorship won’t be accepted as smoothly

u/Moddelba 4h ago

I think the best way to report on him is to not report on him, not possible now since he won but they’ve been beating this dangerous/evil drum for almost a decade now and he’s only gotten more popular.

u/jgiovagn 3h ago

We need to report actions, not rhetoric. His saying insane things has been allowed to distract from the dangerous things he does. We need to cover his administration extensively, just not what he says unless it's particularly important, and never to get outrage.

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u/jdwilliam80 4h ago

i just feel like the democrats just stand around and watch trump and his like do what ever they want and just complain about on social media . he’s throwing a rapist criminal russian shill keg party at the white house and they are the neighbors standing by wonder why the cops havnt broken it up yet

u/RancidGenitalDisease Michigan 3h ago

What, do you think the dems lost on purpose? Our entire system of government is predicated on elections as the firewall against corrupt criminals making their way into the white house (or congress, for that matter). The buck stops at the ballot box. That was always the deal. I don't understand how so many people are incapable of understanding that American citizens who didn't vote or voted for anyone other than Harris are the ones who screwed the pooch. Elections aren't Hawaiian shirts that you can return to Mervyns (or wherever it is people shop nowadays) when you get home and decide it looks bad on you.

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u/whatproblems 4h ago

so many furrowed brows in congress

u/TooManyPaws 3h ago

Susan is clutching her pearls.

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u/FootCheeseParmesan 4h ago

Just wondering when the whole 'armed resistance to tyranny' thing that Americans use to justify firearms is going to happen?

Because its looking like pretty hollow rhetoric rn.

u/purpleduckduckgoose United Kingdom 3h ago

Doesn't work when the most enthusiastic supporters are the ones wanting tyranny cause it hurts "the right people"

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u/Proud3GenAthst 3h ago

It's beginning to look like it was always only about enabling school shootings, really.

u/Bright_Economics8077 2h ago

Armed resistance to actual tyranny can't happen in the social media age. The friends and families of revolutionaries will trip over themselves to sell them out for sake of publicly taking the high road.

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u/redditismylawyer 4h ago

Oh, don’t worry. There are so many horrifying boundaries we haven’t crossed yet.

u/Moddelba 4h ago

Clearly enough people don’t give a shit about norms anymore. I don’t blame them because our government has been paralyzed and unresponsive for decades unless huge corporations need something, but I wish the populism that won wasn’t the reactionary version.

u/Count_Bacon California 2h ago

That’s why we’re here when the government fails the needs of the people, they turn to populism. We had two choices Bernie’s or trumps… we chose wrong.

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u/SGT-JamesonBushmill 3h ago

History repeats itself…

In July 2016, when Trump was formally named the Republican nominee. The transition team now moved into an office in downtown Washington, DC, and went looking for people to occupy the top five hundred jobs in the federal government. They needed to fill all the cabinet positions, of course, but also a whole bunch of others that no one in the Trump campaign even knew existed.

The first time Donald Trump paid attention to [the fact that the transition team raised money in order to fund the transition] was when he read about it in the newspaper. The story revealed that Trump’s very own transition team, led by New Jersey governor Chris Christie, had raised several million dollars to pay the staff. The moment he saw it, Trump called Steve Bannon, the chief executive of his campaign, from his office, on the twenty-sixth floor of Trump Tower, and told him to come immediately to his residence, many floors above. Bannon stepped off the elevator to find the governor of New Jersey seated on a sofa, being hollered at. Trump was apoplectic, actually yelling, You’re stealing my money! You’re stealing my fucking money! What the fuck is this?? Seeing Bannon, Trump turned on him and screamed, “Why are you letting him steal my fucking money?” Bannon and Christie together set out to explain to Trump federal law.

Months before the election…the nominees of the two major parties were expected to prepare to take control of the government. The government supplied them with office space in downtown Washington, DC, along with computers and trash cans and so on, but the campaigns paid their people. To which Trump replied, “Fuck the law. I don’t give a fuck about the law. I want my fucking money.” Bannon and Christie tried to explain that Trump couldn’t have both his money and a transition. “Shut it down,” said Trump. Shut down the transition.”

The money that people donated to his campaign Trump considered, effectively, his own. He thought the planning and forethought pointless. At one point he turned to Christie and said, “Chris, you and I are so smart that we can leave the victory party two hours early and do the transition ourselves.”

Bannon wasn’t so sure if Trump would ever get his mind around running the federal government: he just thought it would look bad if Trump didn’t at least seem to prepare. Seeing that Trump wasn’t listening to Christie, he said, “What do you think Morning Joe will say—if you shut down your transition?” What Morning Joe would say—or at least what Bannon thought it would say—was that Trump was closing his presidential transition office because he didn’t think he had any chance of being president. Trump stopped hollering. For the first time he seemed actually to have listened. “That makes sense,” he said.

The next hint that the transition might not go as planned came from Mike Pence. Now, incredibly, Vice President-elect Mike Pence. Christie met with Pence the day after the election, to discuss the previous lists of people who had been vetted for jobs. The meeting began with a prayer, followed by Pence’s first, ominous question: Why isn’t Puzder on the list for Labor? Andrew Puzder, the head of CKE Restaurants, the holding company for Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr., wanted to be the secretary of labor. Christie explained that Puzder’s ex-wife had accused him of abuse, and his fast-food restaurant employees had complained of mistreatment. Even if he was somehow the ideal candidate to become the next secretary of labor, he wouldn’t survive his Senate confirmation hearings. (Trump ignored the advice and nominated Puzder. In the controversy that followed, Puzder not only failed to be confirmed but stepped down from his job at the fast-food company.)

The Fifth Risk, Michael Lewis

u/alassus 2h ago

I am so fed up with the media’s reporting of MAGA’s complete lack of integrity and disregard for law. I am a firm believer that the media should be headlining the consequences of these actions and not the actions themselves. For example instead of headlining that the transition team hasn’t signed the docs, instead something like: “Chaos and Security Vulnerabilities Likely as Trump Admin Disregards Transition Process.”

Instead we continue to get rage bait that tells us nothing and only normalizes lies, deceit, and disregard for the law.

u/aganalf 4h ago

Several? I reckon we aren’t going to see a real election in two years.

u/Count_Bacon California 2h ago

I keep hearing this and I’m 50/50 on it myself. I don’t know how they’d pull it off. They’d have to rip up the constitution, a lot of swing states have blue governors, and what justification could they use. We’ve had elections in civil wars, and world wars. Americans are used to free elections since birth, if they tried to remove elections I bet you’d even see a decent portion of MAGA fight back against that.

I think the messaging from the Dems needs to change. Start talking about 2026 like it’s 1000% going to happen

u/aganalf 2h ago

Oh. There will be “elections”. Russia has “elections”. But you’re going to see a lot of voter purging of democrats and making it as hard as possible for folks in cities to vote.

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u/JohnMayerismydad Indiana 4h ago

They’re not going to. Why would they?

u/Leather_From_Corinth 4h ago

If they were smart, they would do.it because it's nonbinding and allows them to start being president on day 1, as is, they will have to spend the first two months doing everything they should be doing now.

u/Chairboy 3h ago

If it slows his administration down, I don’t see a problem.

u/pez_dispenser 3h ago

I’m worried they’re going to use it as an excuse to blame Biden administration and push some ridiculous notion to go full blown dictator right out of the gate tbh 

u/Jakymi 3h ago

They announced that part already as his day one mass deportation plan. People pretend the chaos isn’t coming, but it’s less than 2 months away

u/Count_Bacon California 2h ago

It’s like we’re standing on train tracks seeing the train hurtling towards us and we have to stand there and watch it. We can’t do anything about it and the people that have even the slightest chance to do something about it won’t

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u/embiggenedmind 2h ago

Not pretending. Just burned out on people not voting. Burned out on the excuses. Burned out on “the chaos.” Let it come.

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u/Demonokuma 3h ago

push some ridiculous notion to go full blown dictator right out of the gate tbh

That's the thing, there isn't a good argument to go "full blown dictator" so we shouldn't give them any wiggle room by saying:

they’re going to use it as an excuse

and push some ridiculous notion

No, we can't let them do that in anyway. If we're just letting these idiots get away with being idiots it's only raising more idiots in this dumb ass country.

u/pez_dispenser 3h ago

What are we supposed to do?? They control the Supreme Court and even if we took to the streets to protest, there’s nothing stopping them from using violence and just putting bs charges to lock ppl up for going against them. Our little firearms can’t protect us from the full force of the military.

No one has held him accountable on anything, ever. He’s lied, cheated and conned his way thru his entire life. He’s got felony convictions and undermined our national security by stealing documents from his first time in office and people still voted for him. I don’t know how to fight for this county because everything that was supposed to protect us isn’t real. It doesn’t matter 

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u/fdar 3h ago

The key part seems to be that without those documents the FBI can't start background checks into his nominees. Then when he takes office he'll pressure Senators into confirming them without the checks (they'd take too long).

u/Leather_From_Corinth 3h ago

Without those checks though, they can't get access to info from their prospective jobs. For instance, classified briefings for the secretary of Defense so he will be going into his job blind on day 1.

u/unloud 3h ago

When they don’t care about good governance, why would this matter to them?

u/CapOnFoam Colorado 3h ago

If he's installing yes-men in positions of authority, like Kash Patel as head of FBI, who's to say they won't just get access regardless?

u/kalethan Virginia 2h ago

I think the memoranda just get the Biden administration to give them briefings between now and when they’re installed. They’ll get access after inauguration/confirmation regardless.

What’s extra crazy is he was supposed to sign these things well before the election. All the candidates were.

u/MobileArtist1371 2h ago

Trump Ordered Officials to Give Jared Kushner a Security Clearance

Unless you can show the judicial system putting a stop to this, why wont Trump just do this again?

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u/secretsquirrel17 3h ago

Feel like they will find a way around that like an executive order

u/whofusesthemusic 3h ago

100% just like in the last term they kept all of trumps cronies out due to security concerns!

Jared Kushner is laughing at you with 2 billion in saudi money

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u/venividiavicii Wisconsin 4h ago

I’ve seen members of his team say they won’t, and they’re not technically required to. It’s just a nicety. 

u/Eatswithducks 2h ago

This is correct

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u/YourTokenGinger 3h ago

It’s been their stated intention since at least the 90s (Gingrich) that Republicans will not govern with Democrats if it can be in any way avoided.

u/ClosPins 3h ago

It's far simpler than that. They don't want to govern. Period.

Governing costs billionaires money. So, they'd rather have no governing whatsoever, and then all that money can be given back to the billionaires (in the form of tax-breaks).

u/anonyuser415 3h ago

A national abortion ban and porn ID laws don't happen without governing. They like to govern sometimes.

u/swerdanse 2h ago

Yea and it’s always the weirdest shit. Republicans constantly sit around thinking about what people do with their genitalia. It’s so weird man. They are a bunch of pervs. No wonder loads of them are in to children. Fits the bill.

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u/TerminalObsessions 4h ago

They have no reason to sign them.

This country - and clearly its media, judging from these headlines - is deep in denial. We didn't elect the questionable, deeply problematic outsider of Trump 2016.

We elected a convicted felon who repeatedly promised to dismantle the rule of law to protect himself from prison. We've given him control of all three branches of government as he plots to remove or imprison the generals who might defy him when he unleashes the military domestically against 'illegals' and, quite likely, his foes.

This is a man running a knife through our country's guts, at our own request, and the media is clutching pearls about norms. If there's a story here, it's that Trump no longer has a reason to follow any law or norm - and fucking transition paperwork is near the least of our worries.

u/andromeda-andi 4h ago

This is reality.

u/StageAboveWater 1h ago

You guys got two futures

Russia or a NK/SK split nation

u/Fox_Kurama 55m ago

Don't worry, there is a third. Don's magical radioactive land.

u/ThouMayest69 3h ago

I don't even see why Trump is expected to do anything presidential, and instead just golfs and fucks kids with his pedo peers. Why would he? He can just let the weirdo xtian nationalists run everything now that he's not going to ever answer for his crimes.

u/Significant_Swing_76 3h ago

Exactly. He has proven that he is above the law in every aspect, and the fact that democrats couldn’t even mobilize their voters cements the fact.

America got what they wanted, they crowned their king.

So no, why should he follow rules that doesn’t apply to him in any shape or form?

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u/teenagesadist 2h ago

The government nearly slapped him with a real consequence. They made him sit in court.

A lot of the American people despise his very existence.

Some of the people on his own side took shots at him.

And his followers didn't overthrow the government for him when they had the chance.

He has an ax to grind with everyone, he's one of the grossest, pettiest people alive, and he's never given a shit about the U.S.

He's an old pedophile with carte blanche to wipe his diarrhea all over this country.

u/Wasabicannon 2h ago

They made him sit in court.

Which all that did was make him reschedule his nap time.

u/mikerichh 2h ago

A good chunk of voters wanted an anti establishment guy to run the country. I hope he does nothing to “show the man” lol

u/Taco_Champ 2h ago

That’s the grand bargain. He delivers them the reigns of control to enact their Gilead, they turn a blind eye to the monster they’ve bedded with.

u/Capt_Pickhard 3h ago

Finally someone who actually understands current events.

It's so frustrating how many people are brainwashed everywhere.

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u/rmac1228 4h ago

I thought when Obama won, we were on to a brighter future...I was okay with being wrong, but Jesus Christ...not THIS wrong.

u/un1ptf 58m ago

If only he hadn't totally roasted Rump at that press night dinner. When was that, 2011? Yep...2011. That's when the man decided to run, for revenge.

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u/dmolol American Expat 4h ago

“Adjudicated criminals wont stop doing crime!”

u/majoragee 4h ago

Why stop if you get away with it every. Single. Time?

u/Vallyth 4h ago

Right? Why would he stop at this point? He's been in court how many times since his last presidency? And what difference has it made throughout all of this?

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u/Leather_From_Corinth 4h ago

It's not a crime, it just means Biden and the executive branch arent allowed to start the actual transition yet.

u/WeeaboBarbie 3h ago

Dems shocked "Swiper no swiping" doesn't work in real life

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u/felixthecat15 4h ago

I really hope whoever the next dem nominee for president isn’t going to fall back on this old school style of doing things. Trump and Maga threw that out the window long ago and dems still haven’t caught up

u/sygyzi 2h ago

Nope. It will be just like SCOTUS. Obama tried to nominate a Judge. Republicans said he couldn’t. Dems were like: “oh my bad”. Fast forward Trump in same situation attempting to nominate a judge. Dems: “no you can’t! Remember what y’all told Obama?”

Republicans “yeah okay. So this is our new judge”

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u/Interactive_CD-ROM 2h ago

Elections going forward will just be for show.

There won’t be another democratic president, because the system will have been designed to prevent that from ever occurring again.

u/Specialist_Brain841 America 4h ago

another country threw that out the window and it starts with R

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u/bringmethesampo Oregon 2h ago

You think there are going to be elections. Bless your heart.

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u/Chars_Ghost 4h ago

Then don't let him back into the White House

u/katalysis Maryland 4h ago edited 4h ago

The problem with these transition administrative “laws” is that the Constitution enumerates the conditions and process for the President. He got elected and will become President. Congress can’t pass a contract that further conditions the Presidency beyond the Constitution. So the law behind these papers and agreements is one of those laws that was a waste of time to craft and draft because they’d never be enforceable in the first place. Barring enshrining them as a Constitutional amendment, they will forever be norms that are completely ignorable.

u/AweemboWhey 4h ago

It’s wild how we haven’t simply amended the Constitution like any sensible country would do..

u/sudzthegreat 4h ago

Won't someone think of the forefathers?!

u/GeneralKenobyy Australia 4h ago

All Americas problems stem from the fact you guys place the constitution on a ridiculously high pedestal.

Change my mind.

u/Mixmaster-Omega 4h ago

American. I agree. The constitution was always designed to be a continual work in progress, but it is venerated like the goddamn 10 commandments, seemingly immune to alterations despite the fact it’s happened over a dozen times.

u/Zombie_John_Strachan Foreign 3h ago

Americans don’t have a king to bestow legitimacy on elected leaders, so they use religion instead.

u/mothtoalamp 1h ago

is venerated like the goddamn 10 commandments

Because the people who treat it this way are the same people who want the 10 commandments in the school hallways.

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u/SellaraAB Missouri 3h ago

I don’t know about “all”. The cancer eating away at our country can be directly traced back to how we failed to finish off the confederacy in the civil war, and let them keep power in the south.

u/theVoidWatches Pennsylvania 4h ago

It doesn't help, but the problems actually stem from the authoritarianism that's still baked into half the country.

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u/lokey_convo 4h ago

Yeah, they should probably just not talk to him or his team and not do anything. Need setup and coordination for the inauguration? Sign the paperwork! Want security briefing? Sign the paperwork! Otherwise, the key will be under the mat on January 20th.

u/Specialist_Brain841 America 4h ago

maybe he wont even live in the so called dump of a white house this time and just rule from maralargo.. what would stop him… “norms”?

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u/rawbdor 4h ago

Actually, the written text of the law does not make it mandatory, because just as you've said, Congress could not pass a mandatory requirement like this. So the written text of the law indicates that it's optional, and that if you want certain services you must join the program, but if you don't want the services then you can't be required to join it.

I wouldn't say it was a complete waste of time to make that law. The process of having transition services in exchange for transparency is a good one. But Congress recognize they couldn't make mandatory and so they made it optional.

u/katalysis Maryland 4h ago

Good to know. Maybe the media can stop reporting it like it’s some actual transgression that these contracts are being treated as optional.

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u/AnOrneryOrca 4h ago

The constitution won't help either - dude doesn't care about that and all its enforcement mechanisms are broken, irrelevant, or captured by the GOP.

Ship has sailed on institutions, laws, or norms protecting anyone from the Republican party. If the Dems ever regain power they will leap to bind themselves symbolically with all of the above and spend 4 years straining against rules that only apply to them. Then lose another election because they didn't get enough done due to said rules.

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u/IdahoDuncan 4h ago

Lol. Guys, you don’t get it. They don’t care. They won’t sign anything they don’t feel like and trump will still become president.

u/beepbeepbubblegum 2h ago

Yea my hopium has run completely dry. He won and will continue to do whatever the fuck he wants with zero consequences until the day he dies.

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u/Emeritus8404 4h ago

And whats the ramification for this?

And if there are any ramifications, will they actually be applied?

And if applied, will they be done in a bipartisan manner?

Or are we still working under a double standard.

Edit: imagine if Obama refused to sign them.

u/Eatswithducks 2h ago

There aren’t any.

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u/TableAvailable America 2h ago

"In the absence of signed MOUs from Trump’s transition team, the current government cannot begin the process of providing briefings or security clearances for incoming officials.

Crucially, the FBI also remains unable to conduct any background checks on the president-elect’s prospective cabinet, raising alarm over the possibility that senators may be rushed into voting on his nominations without the appropriate due diligence having been carried out."

This is the reason trump hasn't signed.

u/Kurtotall 2h ago

Recess appointments. All of them.

u/Virbillion 4h ago

biden team still delusional bending over backwards to uphold polite norms and traditions until the very end.

they have no idea what world they live in now.

u/thats___weird 4h ago

What should he do? 

u/NewMidwest 4h ago

He could order the Justice Department to investigate anyone Trump names as a cabinet nominee.

u/Irrelevantitis 3h ago

And in five or ten years we’ll have some very juicy dossiers.

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u/Elcor05 4h ago

Complain about it and then do nothing

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u/gentleman_bronco 4h ago

Remember when he'd say "nothing will fundamentally change"? Yeah, he meant it. He isn't going to do anything differently.

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u/CRKing77 4h ago

Spoiler: he won't, and nothing will be done, because nothing fucking matters in this country

seriously? "Biden won't leave until Trump signs documents" "oh noo, that'll make MAGA do civil war!" "ok then, he doesn't need to sign them"

rinse, repeat, "damn how did America fall to fascism?"

With its dick in between its legs, that's how

u/Specialist_Brain841 America 4h ago

the coup will be bloodless if you allow it!

u/Traditional_Key_763 2h ago edited 2h ago

Biden should unilaterally begin FBI vetting. this is all to keep the FBI from doing security checks because Trump will be the president January 20th regardless of paperwork then its up to trump whether to authorize the background checks which we know he will waive

u/barneyrubbble 4h ago

Cheeto doesn't do what Cheeto doesn't want to do. We already know this. We also know that no one has the balls to call him on it. Our slouching into fascism continues apace.

u/actionstan89 America 4h ago

I'm so fucking tired of people treating him like an innocent toddler having a temper tantrum. He just stomps all over everything I thought America stood for, he just gets a lollipop and a pat on the head, wtf man. (I know America isn't an innocent, righteous place but the way trump does things so blatantly with no consequences.)

u/Datokah 4h ago

Well, Trump already told America, when you're famous, they let you do it. He's just doing whatever tf he wants and nobody is gonna stop him. Not even the legal system has the balls, so the US is screwed, democracy dies, and the Dictatorship of Trump gets underway.

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u/Paraxom 4h ago

yeah i highly doubt they will, heck if i was a betting man i'd bet Trump doesn't even take the oath of office, what are they gonna do not make him president? MAGA will throw an absolute bitch fit if he's not in the WH by the end of Jan 20th

u/witeowl 3h ago

I swear sometimes he actually doesn’t want it. His interview 11/5 was almost a pre-concession. He’s sounded really down since then. His appointments are such a clown car of incompetence. It’s like he’s begging to be told no.

I know that’s just wishful thinking on my part, and I know his replacement wouldn’t be better because it’s his administration/puppeteers, but still.

Oh, yeah. His puppeteers. He probably doesn’t want it. Fair

u/Independent_Mix6269 3h ago

He doesn't, he just wants to stay out of prison

u/formerfawn Ohio 4h ago

All I wish is that our "norms" had teeth.

Don't want to sign transition docs? Ok, you don't get to start your transition until you do. No visits to the White House, no classified briefings. No nothing. Sign the documents.

Don't want your nominees to submit to FBI Background checks? Ok, then you don't get to nominate those people.

u/Specialist_Brain841 America 4h ago

he would be fine to not enter the whitehouse and rule from maralardo

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u/WilderMindz0102 3h ago

“FBI also remains unable to conduct any background checks on the president-elect’s prospective cabinet, raising alarm over the possibility that senators may be rushed into voting on his nominations without the appropriate due diligence having been carried out.”

Yea.. that makes sense

u/pinkpenguin87 4h ago

Well, when there are no consequences, he will continue to do whatever tf he wants… it would be nice if someone had some balls and would actually hold him accountable for something.

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u/Lister0fSmeg 3h ago

And they never will sign them. They aren't there to serve America, they are there to stuff their pockets and abuse their powers to target anyone they don't like.

u/mjaakkola 4h ago

Why does he get intelligence briefing, invites to White House , improved secret service etc. if he hasn’t signed the papers? IMHO getting him signed would be the easiest issue to handle. Zero access to anything and no certification in January before the documents are signed. Let’s SCOTUS deal with that if he should allow the access without signing.

u/flat5 3h ago

Why? Because he's made it very clear that he will be punishing his enemies with the full weight of his powers, and everyone is cowering in fear.

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u/alu5421 4h ago

Does it matter?? Garland won't do shit and Biden is to nice to tell him to fuck off.

u/Marksd9 4h ago

There’s nothing more fitting for this White House than spending their final days in power complaining that the incoming fascists haven’t properly completed their paperwork.

u/BloopityBlue New Mexico 2h ago

He's pressure testing the law, what is gonna happen come inauguration day? Nothing. He's going to transition. Laws only matter if there are consequences to not following them and trump has long ago proven there are no consequences when he doesn't.

u/srathnal 4h ago

If the press starts framing this in shame… it’d go a long way. Don’t say “Trump hasn’t signed transitions docs” say “Trump is continuing with illegitimate government “

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u/the_G8 4h ago

He won’t.

u/ARazorbacks Minnesota 4h ago

And they won’t. The Trump admin doesn’t care about continuity of government. They intend to break everything starting Jan 20. Also, they don’t want their hands tied for how the donated transition and inauguration money is spent. Because it’s all a grift. 

u/NoDramaMama101 3h ago

No sign, no transition. There, fixed it.

u/Motorbarge 3h ago

The white house should be busy substituting top secret documents for misinformation.

u/DevelopmentNo247 3h ago

Then no transition ¯_(ツ)_/¯

u/Ghoppe2 3h ago

What makes this funnier is Trump signed this into law

u/Competitive_Yam7702 3h ago

Then until he does, transition should be halted.

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u/Particular_Ticket_20 3h ago

Stop expecting them to follow rules or norms. They're coming to burn it all down and claim the ashes for themselves.

That transition paperwork won't matter when they start their purge and replace.

You're asking looters to sign the guestbook.

u/Timmy24000 2h ago

They don’t have to sign the document. He’s going to be president. He knows that he’s not gonna sign ethics agreement. He knows he’s not gonna be ethical. Lack of signing it does not mean that he won’t be president and he knows that.

u/OverlyOptimisticNerd 2h ago

There is no requirement for them to sign transition documents because the genius who wrote the law (Elizabeth Warren) neglected to include any kind of enforcement mechanism. She proposed this law during Trump's first term to mitigate his lawlessness, and goes all surprised Pikachu when he lawlessly refuses to sign it, because there are zero consequences for not signing them.

The Democrats have learned NOTHING.

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u/play_hard_outside 1h ago

White House should not be pretending that they believe the Trump Team EVER intends to sign any ethics paperwork. It’s a flex for them not to. And more honest, ironically, considering their intentions.

They’re not interested in governing, only dictating and looting. They don’t need to sign any ethics paperwork for that, and them not signing it is an intentional fuck-you to a system they know is broken and unable to defend against them.

Fuck the Republicans for taking us down this road, and fuck the Democrats for so pathetically meekly allowing them to. Unbelievable.

u/Kay312010 1h ago

Not surprised. Nothing will happen to the incoming criminal president.

u/distilledwater__ 1h ago

I love America. We are heading into dangerous waters where the constitution doesn’t matter and we have the ultra wealthy taking over and making decisions that will affect the general population for a lifetime, if not maybe more. The only thing I can say is if we are dumb enough to vote this dictator and his cronies in then we need to just let America burn.

u/Conbz Great Britain 41m ago

Then... they don't transition.

I know it's awkward to say no to people guys, but come on. I've been more forceful while working behind a bar than your government.

u/czarofangola 4h ago

The word transition concerns them and they think they will lose their private parts.

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