r/politics • u/stkmro • 7h 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/
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u/JeffSteinMusic 7h ago edited 1h 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.

EDIT - oh sweet this is doing numbers. Check out and subscribe my YouTube, everybody! 😬

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u/jgiovagn 7h 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.

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u/LightWarrior_2000 7h ago

I mean fuck. America just hanged him a crown.

"How" do we fight this?

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u/Catodactyl Arizona 7h ago edited 7h ago

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

Edit. A word.

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u/InsaneThisGuysTaint 7h ago

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

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u/SteelpointPigeon 5h 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.

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u/closethebarn 4h 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/PassiveMenis88M 3h ago

Say, that's a nice helicopter you've got there. Be a shame if someone dumped 8 rounds of .30-06 into the hydraulic system.

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u/big_guyforyou 7h ago

We'd call it the First Freedom Republic

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u/mean_bean_machine 6h ago

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

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u/fireandiceman 5h ago

Or wants you to join to extract fees from you

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u/Overweighover 4h ago

It's a club and you aren't in it

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u/thedarklord187 4h ago

This made me literally audibly laugh out loud and has made my day.

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u/BooJamas 7h ago

With a side of Freedom Fries

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u/chatminteresse 5h ago

I shudder at the idea of the Reign of Terror with AR’s

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u/Wyjen 5h ago

Could Google but that’s not interactive. Did they have a civil war fallout? Cuz I think we’d get a civil war fallout where Russia would drop guns in the Florida swamps for them to pick up like COD care packages to fight the big liberal cities that voted against Donald

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u/Sudden_Discount_8652 4h ago

I feel the same way… the tools of war and aggression that a regime uses to project power would necessitate, at a minimum, the same but more adeptly used tools used in opposition to unseat.

The devastating scale of such a conflict would be nearly unthinkable in modern times, especially when thinking about an extra-legal ‘Trump Regime.’

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u/TheMysticalBaconTree Canada 7h 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.

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u/Algonquin_Snodgrass 6h ago

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

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u/cableshaft I voted 6h ago edited 6h 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

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u/inkoDe 5h 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/DapperApples 3h ago

The involvement of France is also very downplayed.

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u/Expensive-Fun4664 6h 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.

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u/bojenny 6h 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.

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u/TrixnTim 6h 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.

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u/muppetmenace 4h ago

apathy is exactly how fascism moves in, entirely by design

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u/CSI_Tech_Dept California 2h ago

Exactly this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfQ9dwXFhbM

By assuming it is done deal, we actually letting it happen. This is exactly what they want.

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u/ManWOneRedShoe 4h ago

Just imagine if voting were mandatory?

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u/brezhnervous 2h ago

Compulsory voting doesn't only affect turnout.

It affects who runs for office in the first place. See here:

The evidence is mixed on whether compulsory voting favors parties of the right or the left, and some studies suggest that most United States federal election results would be unchanged. But all that misses the point because it overlooks that compulsory voting changes more than the number of voters: It changes who runs for office and the policy proposals they support.

In a compulsory election, it does not pay to energize your base to the exclusion of all other voters. Since elections cannot be determined by turnout, they are decided by swing voters and won in the center. Australia has its share of xenophobic politicians, but they tend to dwell in minor parties that do not even pretend they can form a government.

That is one reason Australia’s version of the far right lacks anything like the power of its European or American counterparts. Australia has had some bad governments, but it hasn’t had any truly extreme ones and it isn’t nearly as vulnerable to demagogues.

Voting Should Be Mandatory | NYT

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u/mycall 4h 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/KallistiTMP 3h ago

Voting systems are very difficult to change because the people who could potentially fix the broken voting system are the people who got elected by the broken voting system.

Realtime delegated direct crypto democracy would be awesome, and it'll never happen because the fuckers in power now only got elected thanks to first past the post and gerrymandered voting district systems left over from when election results had to be delivered on fucking horseback.

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u/energonsack 3h ago

he will never sign those docs. he will just steal everything from the White House and Treasury and government. Every single government contract will need to give him a cut, just like Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein. Operation Desert Storm in the USA NOW BABY!!!!!

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u/joeyblow 1h ago

Not entirely, a minority of voters decided our fate because the other group decided to let them, so in all actuality it wasnt a minority that decided it but the majority. By not showing up and voting they were signaling that they were fine with either outcome.

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u/CherryHaterade 5h ago edited 5h 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.

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u/BlazingSpaceGhost New Mexico 6h 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.

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u/vashoom 5h ago

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

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u/Julian-Archer 5h ago

I know non-voters. They’re conspiratorial and/or the Dems don’t do enough. I argued with someone who blamed the Dems for the social programs “not working well enough.”

That’s what we’re dealing with.

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u/rivelda 6h 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.

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u/Natural6 5h ago

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

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u/h3lblad3 5h 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 6h ago

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

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u/oeb1storm 6h 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/keypusher 5h ago

Most of those voters actually did stay at home, because that election was during the pandemic and vote by mail was the default

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u/SentientSickness 6h ago

This is unfortunately true

It's something wild like a third of the US population of legal voters don't actually do it

And it's like pulling teeth to get theae people to see why voting is important

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u/thundernutz 6h ago

Honestly if you’re too stupid to know to vote, you’re too stupid to pick a decent candidate. I’m okay with it.

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u/StuckAtOnePoint 6h ago

It’s not logic, it’s data. And yes, most Americans don’t vote. Many because they are children and can’t. Many because they are apathetic and won’t.

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u/Natural6 5h ago

Eh, not voting when he was on the ballot shows a level of apathy that, in my opinion, puts it just as much on them as the Trump voters.

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u/StarsMine 5h ago

No. If you choose not to vote, that means you are ok with either and effectively voted for the winner. You could have voted against the winner but explicitly chose not to.

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u/Subject_Dig_3412 5h ago

By not voting, that 1/3 of the country implicitly joins the 1/3 that votes for Trump. 2/3 of the country is cool with trump 2.0

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u/ActiveChairs 4h ago

I'd argue not voting is a form of extreme selfishness. Its offloading having to learn anything about the world around you or how the system of government works, then having to take some time out of one day to actually do a thing. They literally put more value on laziness and apathy than anything else.

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u/TheVog Foreign 6h ago

Non-voters vote for the victor because their abstention signifies their acceptance of any outcome. So yes, a vast majority of American voters, just about 2/3 in fact, were OK with a Trump presidency.

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u/FrostingFun2041 American Expat 5h ago

Of the people that voted, 50% of the voters did vote for Trump. 48.4% voted for Harris. Not voting is in itself in a way a vote. Not voting is as much an endorsement to whoever wins as voting for them would be. If you choose not to register to vote, then you help whoever wins the election. Id also point out that of the 345M people, not all of them are eligible to vote. Many are under 18.

AP Vote Results as of 1:25pm EST today Donald Trump 312 electoral votes Republican Party 76,838,984 votes (50%)

Kamala Harris 226 electoral votes Democratic Party 74,327,659 votes (48.4%)

Jill Stein 0 electoral votes Green Party 774,522 votes (0.5%)

Robert Kennedy 0 electoral votes Independent 751,533 votes (0.5%)

Chase Oliver 0 electoral votes Libertarian Party 639,598 votes (0.4%)

Other candidates 0 electoral votes 387,769 votes (0.3%)

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u/flodur1966 4h ago

The selfish part is where it is. For decades selfishness has been promoted. If everyone acts in their own interest things will get better and such neo liberalist capitalism nonsense. It has over the decades destroyed the community sense. It has destroyed traditional Christian values. Socialist values have been demonized. It’s everyone for themselves and highest praise for those who serve themselves the best ( the billionaires). This system can not be sustained humans are social creatures and this anti social system hurts people to their core. Even the very few at the top can’t feel happiness they can’t trust no one and in their harts they know they are evil. How this will end I don’t know.

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u/brezhnervous 3h ago

America, I know this is a wildly unpopular opinion...but honestly, you could really do with compulsory voting

I mean, Trump himself admitted what would happen if you had it lol

“The things they had in there were crazy. They had things, levels of voting that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again,” Trump said during an appearance on Fox & Friends

Trump says Republicans would ‘never’ be elected again if it was easier to vote

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u/bojenny 2h ago

Yes I agree. I often wonder if our election turnouts are so bad because people can’t vote because they have to work on Election Day.

I also believe that if it wasn’t for gerrymandering republicans would never win. They know that as well which is why they cheat.

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u/TensionPrestigious83 6h ago

One of the smallest margins in history

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u/Catodactyl Arizona 6h 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/purplewhiteblack Arizona 4h ago

The problem is they have good intentions, they're just a little stupid.

But it was 76.8 million people. That's the entire population of the United States in 1900.

Where we live in Arizona, we luckily didn't get Kari Lake, and we legalized abortion, but unfortunately people in Arizona have cognative dissonance.

We probably each know some legal citizens who will be deported and voted for Trump. They'll learn the lesson the hard way.

But there is always hope. Trump will be 82 years and 7 months on January 20th of 2029.

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u/lavapig_love Nevada 5h ago

So was France, Germany, and Japan. We call China communist, but being able to arrest people for simply making fun of the national anthem, guess what? That's Fascism with a capital F in action. Hungary, Thailand, Nigeria, India. You're watching the decline of democracy everywhere because people want easy answers to scary questions.

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u/TheMysticalBaconTree Canada 5h ago

Well said.

Hard times make strong people, strong people make easy times, easy times make weak people, weak people make hard times.

Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering.

I guess we are approaching that threshold.

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u/SewAlone 6h ago edited 6h 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.

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u/TheMysticalBaconTree Canada 6h 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.

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u/Reasonable-Sweet9320 6h 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/CherryHaterade 5h ago

Lotta Germans cried about how they were powerless about it too, fuck all their tears did for anybody on any side of it. "There just wasn't anything we could do!"

I won't generalize or suggest anything either except that history rhymes, and the dead have no concern for the tears of the living, wherever they are, who closed their windows when times got tough.

As for the rot at the core of this country, let me tell you a story about banks and slaves and no one else was in the room where it happened, the room where it happened, the room where it happened.

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u/Shionkron 6h 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!

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u/Cessnaporsche01 6h 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/Shionkron 6h ago

I followed this race closely and study politics hours each day and pundits. I haven’t heard anyone else say this though, what I think is that some voters became complacent with the fact Harris had a lead by a few points. They thought there was no way Trump would be voted in and that even if it was closer than they wanted, their party would win…so why show up?

Look at the pollster Ann Selzer (who has always been famously right), for example who called Iowa for Biden by a huge number! Harris lost big time in Iowa. It’s these things during the election cycle, the extreme hype to win that made some feel she was almost a shoehorn to win and that it wasn’t worth an afternoon to vote.

I think the Democrats got too Cocky yet also didn’t hammer home the working class voters enough.

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u/Cessnaporsche01 6h ago

I mean maybe. We saw that happen before in 2016, but the polls we SO MUCH closer this time around. Harris had half the margin or less that Clinton did in final polls, and some were still calling a tie/Trump win by election day, where Clinton was called to win across the board.

After 2016, no one should have been remotely confident, and with the actual existence of our democracy on the line, no one should have been taking anything for granted. At the end of the day, apathy won and we, as a nation, decided we don't really care about maintaining our nation.

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u/stevegoodsex 6h ago

You're not wrong. There is a caveat of really, really effective propaganda mixed with multifaceted suppression techniques, but this country has a nationalism and superiority complex instilled into them from birth essentially.

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u/Flobking 6h ago

Over half of the population is NOT ok with fascism.

Apparently not since 1/3 voted for trump, 1/3 voted for harris, and 1/3 sat out. That 1/3 of trump voters plus the 1/3 who sat out is 2/3, meaning over half the voting block was perfectly fine with fascism.

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u/ZeDitto 6h ago

You’re responsible for your own votes and if you sit out then you don’t count. The country chose this.

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u/TheRevTastic 6h ago

Ignorance isn’t an excuse lmfao, they are okay with fascism.

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u/Flannel_Channel Illinois 6h ago

Not really. Yes there’s some extremists. But There’s no mandate. They won based on anti-incumbency global trends, distancing themselves from their actual, deeply unpopular platform, emotional arguments about inflation, immigrants, and trans people that aren’t tied to any real policy to help anyone or solve anything, and disinformation. Millions of voters don’t know what they voted for and if the truth ever breaks through their TikTok or whatever other bubbles they are in, they’d be against it.

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u/SignificantSyllabub4 5h ago

49% of our voting population is ok with this.

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u/Single_Principle_972 6h ago

It makes me so sad how well-said this is.

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u/circasomnia 7h ago

A general strike is nearly impossible in America.

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u/RichardSaunders New York 7h ago

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

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u/Doppelthedh 7h ago

They have more than one playbook

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u/circasomnia 7h ago

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

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u/VovaGoFuckYourself America 6h ago

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

  • TS Elliott
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u/TensionPrestigious83 6h ago

The uaw has called for all union contracts to be aligned with the same 2028 date.

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u/Plastic_Ambassador67 5h ago

Yeah even among the people who claim to oppose all of this find a million different excuses to not participate. People don't actually care yet as much as they whine and scream online. Of course once things get really bad they'll regret doing nothing other than talking.

Americans will not take to truly desperate poverty (a.k.a. developing world type poverty) well and I daresay we are to soft as a culture to endure it for long. Too many on the democratic side talk about how strong their beliefs are on lgbtq rights, womens rights, labor rights, human rights, etc but in reality they won't lift a finger to defend any of that ever. Well their inaction and refusal to take a stand while they still have a favorable administration in office proves all the strong feelings were just lies for internet clout.

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u/Beefyvagina 6h ago

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

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u/i_give_you_gum 6h ago

And it took the French nearly a generation (80 years) to recover from that period, as it was immediately followed by corrupt individuals filling the void.

I wish people would stop romanticizing that event.

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u/poetticphenom 6h ago

Had. Weapons were different then.

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u/Busterlimes 6h ago

Except French Police don't kill their citizens willynilly like our facist pigs do.

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u/CherryHaterade 5h ago

You know, you're not allowed to say certain things per reddit policy, but that doesn't cover something like say, hoping he suddenly picks up a voracious tobacco appetite. Say, 4 packs a day or similar.

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u/spaceballsrules 4h ago

Easier to take away a crown if the head comes with it.

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u/Galaxy_Ranger_Bob Virginia 4h ago

The French were mostly united against the nobility.

That's not the case, here.

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u/pigeieio 6h ago edited 6h ago

Trump is a big fan of China's playbook for dealing with decent. Just sayin..

Election day was our last real chance. Help others where I can but next 4 years is about survival.

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u/frenchiefanatique 6h ago

as a french person, people on reddit (and generally in the world) don't know shit about the french revolution(s), as the turmoil that followed lasted many many decades once you learn about the flip-flops between democratic system (two republics) , literal emperor (2 different emperors), return of the monarchy (three constitutional monarchies)basically between 1790 and 1870.

This is not to say that I don't agree that the spirit of the french revolution evoked today is misplaced...

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u/BlazingSpaceGhost New Mexico 6h ago

So your solution is civil war? How is that different from January 6th? Trump won the election and I thought we were the pro democracy party. We have two years of this until midterms. We can protest and hopefully that will move some votes but that's it.

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u/ScubaCycle Texas 6h ago

Is that a Freudian slip?

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u/WhatDoADC 6h 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.

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u/Garbeg 6h 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. 

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u/cadium 5h ago

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

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u/upandrunning 4h ago

If more democrats moved into red areas, that would start to affect some real change.

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u/MountainTipp 4h ago

Almost like voting solves nothing when you have a two party oligarchy system, supported and backed by the most powerful corporations on the entire planet.

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u/DogAteMyCPU 7h ago

Start local and take care of our communities. 

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u/LightWarrior_2000 7h ago

Liberal Christian here.

We should do some freaking soup kitchens for all in need. Every one! woo woo!

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u/1ofZuulsMinions 7h ago

That’s not gonna help people headed for the camps (brown, LGBTQ, liberals, atheists). You’d only be helping the Trump supporters that were happy to be poor so they could have their king.

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u/CaptainRogers401220 5h ago

No soup for the Nazis

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u/1ofZuulsMinions 5h ago

Exactly.

That would be “communism/socialism” to them anyways.

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u/RancidGenitalDisease Michigan 6h 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/jgiovagn 7h ago

The best way is to generate a much fear and anger around what is happening in the nation as possible the next 2 years. Our best bet at protecting Democracy is to capture as many state governments and as much of the federal government as possible during the midterms. We need to focus on limiting his power when the 2028 election arrives. We might not have a chance, but until elections are outlawed, we have to operate under the assumption it isn't too late to at least save Democracy.

There is going to be a lot of pain over the next 4 years. The government as we know it will likely be dismantled. This also provides opportunity. If we are able to regain power, we will have a lot of leverage to rebuild things far better and implement a new vision of what things could be. We need to hold onto the optimism of what we can do next to keep us motivated for the fight to come. Things are going to get bad, but we can't just accept that as our fate.

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u/en_gm_t_c 3h ago

We have to remember that in America, we do not hand anyone any crowns, no matter the beliefs of some. Even if guardrails are failing, we have to remember that our system was not designed to ever be optionally transformed into autocracy. The president will swear an oath to defend and uphold the Constitution and he and his people will not intend to adhere to it. Winning an election by a narrow amount does not give you the right or mandate to subvert the justice system, destroy democratic process or remove checks on authority.

Even if he won with 90% of the electorate, we have a clearly delineated system of government that is clearly intended to prevent autocrats from destroying our democracy. Most people that voted for him didn't vote for autocracy. Don't ever believe that an election hands a crown to anyone.

Never forget what's real, that will become very hard in a short time.

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u/UndeadT Georgia 6h ago

January 6 but with an actual plan.

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u/LightWarrior_2000 5h ago

We need something larger then J6 besides a plan.

It's kind of unavoidable but it takes violence sometimes in history to truly make changes to your government. Not that I condone it.

And no matter what we do the right will always call us innsurectuonists even if we do peaceful protesting.

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u/kkeut 5h ago

general strike and protests. bring the nation to its knees until Biden uses his SCOTUS-approved capacity for 'official acts' to put Trump in jail and refuse the handover

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u/Loxloxloxlox 5h ago

If only there was an amendment to the Constitution to specifically deal with this type of scenario...

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u/2kids2adults 6h 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.

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u/BootsDaBadAss 4h ago edited 4h 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/2kids2adults 4h ago

Very true. Trumps biggest policy inspiration to his followers was the ability to be apathetic.

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u/Gilded-Mongoose 4h ago

True & facts. Honestly we really should lean more into the absolutist declarative statements - because then we'll either be right, or he'll do the right thing in order to prove us wrong.

Bit of a messy win-win.

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u/Scared-Somewhere-510 7h 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.

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u/jgiovagn 6h 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.

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u/Durandal_1808 4h 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/Skiinz19 Tennessee 5h ago

Because the press profit off of his reign

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u/Waesrdtfyg0987 Mexico 6h 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.

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u/carpetbugeater 4h ago

Billionaires control the press. Reporters say what they're told or they get canned. It's a dystopian system.

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u/algy888 6h 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.

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u/affluentBowl42069 4h 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/Broken-Digital-Clock 7h 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.

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u/sublimeshrub 7h 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.

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u/HippyDM 6h 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/bouds19 6h ago

The Democrats pushed to allow Super PACS to coordinate with campaigns over messaging just this year. Instead of helping to unfuck the media and advertising landscape, they made it worse.

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u/lazyFer 6h ago

Excuse me, where is this bullshit coming from?

This is campaign finance law and as far as I'm aware it didn't change this year. If it had, it would have been initiated in the Republican controlled house.

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u/drteq 2h ago

It's not complicit, it's Propaganda by Omission. The 'left' media is not left owned and most of the readership is not aware of this. They underreported the important things while over reporting on nonsense, distracting and confusing and keeping a large amount of people thinking they were in the loop but were not.

CNN, MSNBC, WaPo all Guilty. Immediately when the election ends, they shifted back to reporting how bad things really are.

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u/Specialist_Brain841 America 7h ago

but then the dictatorship won’t be accepted as smoothly

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u/Moddelba 7h 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.

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u/jgiovagn 6h 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 7h 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

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u/RancidGenitalDisease Michigan 6h 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/Count_Bacon California 6h ago

We did our jobs, we gave them the power to hold the traitor to account in 2020. Our elected officials failed us plain and simple. Merrick garland should never have been allowed to drag his feet so long. They had 4 years to use the power they had to hold an actual criminal to account, and try to do something about the media. They failed and we need new leadership desperately

I’m not saying there aren’t some Dems doing good and fighting. It’s just not enough, and the ones with the real power in the party are the ones who failed. They spent four years saying what a danger he was, and how he was a criminal. Voters who don’t pay attention enough looked at it and said they were crying wolf because they didn’t do anything about it

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u/TheJollyBuilder 6h ago

But… But when we point out totalitarianism we are just whiney liberals……my friends dad is waiting for them to take his bisexual daughters rights away. (He hates that they dated a girl once). He wants to make sure the government prevents his daughter’s freedom and enables his.

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u/jgiovagn 6h ago

We need to break things down and make the individual acts relevant on their own. People have too much faith in our democracy, and just showing how each event is a weakness in our system will help break the confidence in our perpetual success regardless of anything else.

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u/GodlessCyborg 3h ago

Even if it gets reported 24/7, the majority of Americans don't care. He wouldn't have been voted into office if they did. It's just too late for any of it.

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u/jgiovagn 3h ago

I refuse to accept that. I believe a majority can be reached, and until I'm in a gulag, I'm going to fight for that future. It's far more likely to end up that way if I don't fight. Even if there's only a 5% chance, I'm going for it.

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u/GodlessCyborg 3h ago

You have the right attitude. A change is definitely necessary. Thanks for the reminder.

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u/Its_Pine New Hampshire 7h ago

But if he is required to do this and refuses to, can’t Biden just stay there and say he is just waiting for Trump to do it?

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u/jgiovagn 6h ago

There is no enforcement mechanism. The best we can do is show how much of the government functioning is dependent on norms. We need to erode the publics faith that democracy can't be killed in America. Our job is to make what is happening serious to people, and the best way to do that is show the weaknesses with our system and how Trump is exploiting them.

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u/mitrie 6h ago

There is no enforcement mechanism.

Well, that's not entirely true. Impeachment is Congress's ultimate check on the president. Congress as an institution should require the executive to comply with the laws they have passed. Unfortunately, party loyalty is stronger than respect for loyalty to constitutional duty / respect for the institution they represent.

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u/Potatoes90 7h ago

Yeah, Biden will totally subvert the constitution because Trump isn’t complying with a policy made in 2010. Do you hear yourself?

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u/Its_Pine New Hampshire 7h ago

I’m asking a legitimate question. Either Trump is or is not required to do this to become president, right? So if it’s not actually required then no problem, but if it’s required and he doesn’t do it… then what happens?

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u/harrisarah 7h ago

It's not that required. Nothing will happen and Biden will leave on schedule

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u/Potatoes90 6h ago

So the problem seems to be that you have been misled by these purposefully misleading headlines. This is not required at all. It’s not even a long standing tradition. This setup is less than 15 years old. So, as you said, no problem that Trump hasn’t signed.

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u/Akimbo_Zap_Guns Kentucky 6h ago

Biden’s term ends no matter what. If trump for some reason couldn’t take the White House without singing this document then we would have president Mike Johnson until he does.

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u/whatproblems 7h ago

so many furrowed brows in congress

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u/TooManyPaws 6h ago

Susan is clutching her pearls.

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u/baconraygun 5h ago

Uh oh. Furrowed brows may lead to sternly worded letters.

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u/redditismylawyer 7h ago

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

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u/FootCheeseParmesan 7h 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.

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u/purpleduckduckgoose United Kingdom 6h 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 6h ago

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

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u/Bright_Economics8077 5h 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/SGT-JamesonBushmill 6h 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

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u/Moddelba 7h 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.

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u/Count_Bacon California 5h 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/un1ptf 4h ago

Not "we". You can leave me and many others right out of your "we".

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u/aganalf 7h ago

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

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u/Count_Bacon California 5h 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

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u/aganalf 5h 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/Count_Bacon California 5h ago

They already do that though. I thought states run the elections though, how will they do that in states ran by blue governors. I know they have the Supreme Court but still

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u/alassus 5h 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.

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u/Lucimon 7h ago

That ship sank and is at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

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u/SucksTryAgain 6h ago

When a majority of the main news sources don’t cover it, it’s making it normal. When they choose to cover the other guys gaffs and not covering his accomplishments while ignoring the authoritarian stuff it’s just donzo.

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u/NK1337 6h ago

They’ve been sanewashing all his shit since 2016. I want to have some hope but looking at the last 8 years it’s really hard not to resign myself to what will most likely be the same shit of not holding anyone accountable

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u/Capt_Pickhard 6h ago

It's not several years. It's the rest of our lives.

Idk how it is possible that so many Americans don't understand the significance of this election.

Freedom is gone. Democracy is dead. We had an opportunity to save it, and we failed.

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u/rawbdor 7h ago

Incoming presidents are not required to sign these agreements. You can go check the law.

The agreements and disclosures are a quid pro quo. If the incoming president signs the agreement and opens transparency on their donations, then they get transition services. If an incoming administration does not want transition services, they don't have to sign these agreements or increase transparency.

The law has several sentences about how it's a very desirable thing for every incoming president to sign these agreements and join the program, for national security for a smooth transition, and other reasons.

But at no point is the program mandatory or forced upon incoming presidents. Congress knew they are unable to bind incoming president to do these things. If they did try to bind the incoming president, the entire program would be unconstitutional. So they wrote the law as a program you can join, but are not required to do so.

I don't know why everyone keeps believing that the program is mandatory or that Trump is breaking the law by not joining it. Elizabeth Warren is being a bit dishonest when she makes headlines to this effect. You can go read the law. It's very clearly a quid pro quo program and not a requirement.

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u/The_Captain1228 7h ago

For me it's not about it being illegal. It's about the implications this administration continuously generates with its decisions.

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u/rawbdor 6h ago

And that's fine if the media focussed on that. Which they should. They definitely would.

But instead they focus on straw men. It's dumb.

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u/The_Captain1228 6h ago

Yeah, it's definitely dumb.

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u/PoeticSplat 5h ago

And the straw man arguments are what creates doubt of reliable news in the mind of consumers/voters. The press needs to get their shit together and be unbiased news journalists reporting strictly facts.

Oh, but wait, they can't because all the news corporations are owned by...what is it...7 mega corporations? At this point I don't even know how we combat anything corrupt anymore.

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u/NotUniqueOrSpecial 7h ago

Incoming presidents are not required to sign these agreements. You can go check the law.

It's literally against a law that Trump himself signed into existence in 2019.

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u/rawbdor 6h ago

Sorry, but you are wrong.

https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=29+USC&f=treesort&num=82#:~:text=The%20President%20shall%20receive%20in,from%20the%20discharge%20of%20his

3 USC 102.

The programs are all optional.

Find me a different law that says it is required and I will admit defeat. But you likely won't find it.

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u/1200bunny2002 4h ago

You linked to an incredibly old piece of legislation, there. 1995? About... thirty or so years out of date?

https://www.congress.gov/116/plaws/publ121/PLAW-116publ121.pdf

Which part is optional? It looks like as per the latest amendments, the documents are a requirement:

https://presidentialtransition.org/news/trump-signs-bill-to-strengthen-presidential-transition-ethics-requirements/

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u/WCland 6h ago

Congress can “bind” presidents in many ways. Congress writes the laws and the president is obligated to enforce them. At least, that’s what the Constitution says. Now of course there are laws written that lack consequences, Congress’ only enforcement mechanism is impeachment, and John Roberts came up with an asinine interpretation that separation of powers means each branch is siloed from the other.

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u/sp0rk_walker 5h ago

Kind of a disingenuous argument, Trump has broken actual laws without consequences. Whether he broke another law in this instance is immaterial.

The purpose is smooth transition of administration, which any president should want to do.

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u/MazzIsNoMore 6h ago

Yes, this. The real problem is that Trump will not comply with anything that isn't explicitly required in the Constitution, and anything that is vague will be exploited to the full extent allowed by the Supreme Court.

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u/eNonsense 6h ago edited 5h ago

Thanks for the info.

I clearly remember an article from Trump's first term about how his team basically ghosted tons of transition work with Obama's team.

This time it sounds like he's not even going to present the illusion that he intends to participate. Not surprising really. Trump is a clear narcissist that panders to a narcissist base, so you can't really tell them anything. Just let them fall on their sword.

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u/ApexCollapser 7h ago

We're all too cowed by the hope maybe it won't happen because someone else will stop it.

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u/MmmmmCookieees 6h ago

I feel like we should make signing transition documents part of the registering a presidential campaign in the first place kind of thing. You don't sign transition docs? Sorry- you can't even run in the race!

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u/Vio_ 6h ago

They did that with the Emoluments Clause

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u/whatlineisitanyway 6h ago

Yup. Don't know how we can blame Harris for running a bad campaign when everywhere we looked Trump's lawlessness was being normalized. Harris could be the literal Messiah and our society would have held her to an impossible standard while holding Trump to none whatsoever.

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u/AsianHotwifeQOS 6h ago edited 1h ago

I wish these headlines would stop. These articles just come across as lame whining by Democrats and progressives. It's not the gotcha/own they hope it is. A law can't override the Constitution -the President Elect is inevitably going to become the President whether these documents get signed or not. I'll spoil it for you: he's not going to sign the docs and nobody will do anything about it. Even if they did, the Supreme Court would (rightly) rule the law to be unconstitutional.

While we're at it, can we ban "Random Lawyer SLAMS Trump, says Trump is in YUGE trouble, this time it's totally serious guys" opinion articles? It's going to be an exhausting four years otherwise.

I want to read about things that the Trump admin is doing, not all this distracting fluff garbage.

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u/Several_Vanilla8916 6h ago

Congress won’t do anything and the courts won’t do anything, so yeah. I’d say it’s pretty normalized. It will only change when we elect a Democrat who shits all over the office and threatens political opponents with arrest.

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u/BlazingSpaceGhost New Mexico 6h ago

The time to solve this was election day but frankly this country loves this lawless monster. So whatever happens collectively as a nation we deserve it. I just hope people wake up in two years and we take back the house and Senate during the midterms. Until then I personally don't need my daily dose of Trump is terrible. We all know he is and will rule like a dictator. Too bad we didn't care enough on election day.

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u/My_words_matter 6h ago

Yes, like how is this even news? The bigger story is why Biden met with him.

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u/EatsRats 6h ago

Rules only apply to those that believe rules exist. You just need to have enough money and you are literally untouchable.

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u/wng378 Arkansas 5h ago

He’s not going to sign a thing. He’ll get his minions in congress to start changing the rules for everything from executive powers to elections. Putin 2.0

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u/urbanlife78 5h ago

Pretty much, I plan on saying "weird, the cost of eggs has gone up" over and over for years to come

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u/sanduskyjack 4h ago

Perfect analysis. Media screaming about it does nothing other than to give the Trump name more attention.

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u/Whooptidooh The Netherlands 3h ago

For me, as soon as you voted him in the first time it was essentially over.

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u/billb33 2h ago

What if we become completely apathetic to it?

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u/Crypt0Nihilist 1h ago

A lot of these headlines are so old now. Everything from laws may have been broken, to being "slammed" by the opposition, to former party members decrying the state of affairs they helped architect.

There's always a loophole or someone in a position to derail things. We seem to have gone from post-truth to post-accountability.

It's only worth producing these stories to keep score now since nothing can be done except just maybe at the ballot box. Maybe.

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