America After MAGA

[Lexicus]

This may be an odd thread to start in light of the bleakness of the current moment, but the Allies began planning to occupy Germany in 1942. So, assuming that MAGA is defeated and is not in control of the American state on January 20th, 2029, what changes should be made to the Constitutional order to prevent a repeat of the second Trump term?

In broad outline, I propose:

-abolishing the Department of Homeland Security. Prosecutions of officers employed by DHS who violated the constitutional rights of persons under US jurisdiction under any previous administration. DHS functions deemed essential to be split up between other relevant departments and agencies.

-Constitutional amendment specifying that the President is liable for any criminal acts committed in office, regardless of whether the acts were "official" or not

-some means of checking the Supreme Court's power. Term limits, increased # of justices, perhaps allowing a supermajority in Congress to override a SCOTUS decision if it strikes down Congressional legislation

-The CECOT prison to be broken open and prisoners to be transferred to normal prisons or other kinds of rehabilitation facilities (or released) according to the facts of their specific case

- strengthening of anti-corruption laws, to include constititional amendments if necessary.

-constitutional amendment specifying that incorporation is a privilege designed to advance the public interest, not an unconditional right of individuals, and exempting corporate property from Bill of Rights protections that were only intended to protect personal property

Moderator Action: Do not speculate about the violent deaths of political leaders, American or otherwise. ~ Arakhor

 

[Gori the Grey]

Hate to be a Debbie Downer, but here's the problem with all of your suggestions:

Spoiler :

-Constitutional amendment

constititional amendments

constitutional amendment

 

[Lexicus]

Hate to be a Debbie Downer, but here's the problem with all of your suggestions:

Spoiler :

There is necessarily an element of fantasy to this whole exercise

 

[Valka D'Ur]

What happens in the next few months will have a large effect on whether or not Canada is going to be there by that point, trade-wise, etc.

Of course that also depends on the outcome of our own election, 12 days from now.

 

[Lexicus]

What happens in the next few months will have a large effect on whether or not Canada is going to be there by that point, trade-wise, etc.

Of course that also depends on the outcome of our own election, 12 days from now.

You Canadians will have to help us overthrow and defeat MAGA, we're all floating in the same barrel and these freaks are piloting it straight toward Niagara Falls

 

[Ajidica]

Fundamentally, there has to be a catastrophic self-created event that shatters the MAGA delusions. The tariffs looked like they were going to be that, but the Great Orange One chickened out and along with his courtiers seems to be trying to move them toward a level of "annoying deadweight but manageable".
Otherwise, I think we are screwed. The results of 2024 showed less than half of the voting adults believe in preserving a liberal democracy. An Austrian painter with a funny moustache seized power with only 33%.
For whatever reason "the US government is trying to figure out how to deport US citizens who have not committed a crime to a Salvadoran gulag" or "White Kanye and BigBallz are trying to strip the government for parts to sell to private equity" is viewed as less of a concern by over half the voting public than some trans women in college sports or whether someone was racist against white people at a university.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

You Canadians will have to help us overthrow and defeat MAGA, we're all floating in the same barrel and these freaks are piloting it straight toward Niagara Falls

I have a Maple MAGA for a premier. She's a sociopath who is so vile that if she fell into a black hole, the black hole would throw her up and seek a remedy for food poisoning. The latest way she's kicking my demographic when we're down is to require us to apply for a tax benefit she knows most of us don't qualify for, and it costs $$$ to get the medical paperwork done for the application. Assuming we do somehow qualify for it, she's going to claw the amount back, dollar for dollar anyway, so we won't have gained a cent and we'll be out the money for the application.

I used to love this province. Now I absolutely hate it.


The Conservative jerk who thinks he's capable of being the Prime Minister is somehow obsessed with "women's biological clocks" and if that doesn't give off Handmaid's Tale/Gilead vibes, I don't know what does. There's a Canadian version of Project 2025, and I live in the province most in favor of it.

So I'm sorry, but while we have a good Liberal candidate for PM and he seems to have a knack for handling Trump's childishness, he has to be elected first, and his party has to win enough seats. And in the meantime I'm trying to figure out how to manage this situation with a premier who has a pathological hatred of disabled people.

 

[innonimatu]

Defeated by whom, @Lexicus? That is the first question you must pose when crafting a scenario.

The "alternative" is another disaster, so much so that they got voted out of power. The is therefore currently no alternative. That is the essence of your problem. If you want to craft a future scenario where MAGA is replaced with something, first you must figure out what that sometung will be. What can it be, given current conditions? Your congress is a cesspit of corruption with members more concerned in trading stock on insider information for a profit than in actually exercising the governing powers they wought to exercise. Politics is a game where no one believes in any common good, but on peronal profit. Thers are no mass political movements left, no ideologies that are actually believed on besides personal profit. This seems a society-wide problem, not justa political one, looking at the news esported form there.

The one credible scenario I can see for change in the near future is "Trump is assassinated". Sorry if this means speculating about a violent death, but it's not advocacy for it, wuite the opposite: everything I can think of goes downhill fast from there. It would lead to your contry possibly breaking apart in the immediate fight over sucession. That is how empires and big countries break: better be king in a pice of it that make a grab for the whole thing and fail. But that usually leads to civil wars unless there is agreement amont the regional powers, or inability to fight it out.
Civil wars are something I do not wish on anyone.

If you want some kind of happy ending, ideology, believing in something beyond selfish self-interest, must become common first. Ironically it's the remants (and they are remnants) of religious grups who may perhaps still have some of that. And MAGA hasn't maga coopted them, and Vance been setting himself up to ride on that?

 

[Arwon]

Once power is wrested away from the current regime and its ideology, hopefully the new rulers don't just lose the peace the way the US did when it lost the civil war in the face of guerilla insurgents during Reconstruction.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Wresting power away from the current regime means wresting it away from dozens, if not hundreds of people. Granted, maybe a couple of dozen are at the very top (I have no idea how big the group of people is that passes for a cabinet there but aren't they all somewhere in the line of succession?). But when there's a vacuum, something will fill it.

 

[Perfection]

You put Trump and his cronies in jail. That's what you do.

 

[EnglishEdward]

I think people should walk away from pursuing the money God and start looking for a moral and ethical common ground.

 

[Evie]

You Canadians will have to help us overthrow and defeat MAGA, we're all floating in the same barrel and these freaks are piloting it straight toward Niagara Falls

We Canadians will mind our own battles. If they happen to be the same as yours, we'll work with you, but anyone who try to mistake Canada for an extension of America, whether because they want new resources to annex or new allies for their intenral struggle, is no friend of ours.

Even if we happen to think your position is morally correct.

Because at the end of the day, the MAGA threat to Canada is just one manifestation of the greater threat to Canada, which is Americans' single-minded inability to respect our not being American or an extension of America (and not wanting to be).

 

[Lexicus]

We Canadians will mind our own battles. If they happen to be the same as yours, we'll work with you, but anyone who try to mistake Canada for an extension of America, whether because they want new resources to annex or new allies for their intenral struggle, is no friend of ours.

Well so much for the United Nations of the world marching to victory against fascism I guess. The whole point is that MAGA wanting to annex Canada means it's no longer purely an "internal struggle".

 

[Lexicus]

Defeated by whom, @Lexicus? That is the first question you must pose when crafting a scenario.

It would have to be by some sort of uprising of Americans.

 

[Evie]

Well so much for the United Nations of the world marching to victory against fascism I guess.

Unity without equality is just a polite way of saying imperial subjects. When Americans sees us as an equal partner nation, not as a hat that's just an extension of their country, then we can talk unity.

(And you should check your history. Last time around, we deliberately waited a week after the UK before declaring war, in good part to make the point that London did not, in fact, dictate our actions. And London was actually in the process of recognizing us as an equal partner at the time, unlike others I could name now. Yes, we will absolutely use these conflicts to assert and enforce our independence, especially from the country that's actually threatening it.)

 

[bartdanr]

It wasn't just Trump that started this--he simply took advantage of the path paved before him.

The fact that Obama didn't prosecute Bush et al for their crimes in regards to lying about Iraqi WMDs, torture, targeting civilians in military strikes, and not repealling the PATRIOT ACT--then even going further with more civilian drone strikes, bombing Libya, even extrajudicial targeting of teenage American citizens--well, that established a precendent. And Trump didn't even prosecute Bush nor Obama in his first term.

Biden and the Democrats pursued foolish prosecutions of Trump (like the whole making lying about sex with Stormy Daniel's thing and Russiagate what they focused on, when Trump had already done much, MUCH worse...but since they themselves were guilty of the same crimes (or worse--see Biden on Gaza), they could hardly go after him for those things.

Both major parties are hopelessly corrupt. Witness how the new DNC Chair was quick to say how they'd continue to take money from "GOOD billionaires" (as if that was a real thing).

Until and unless the American people stop supporting the corrupt duopoly of Republicans and Democrats, it's not going to get better.

 

[Evie]

And people wonder why we don't want to stand in unity with a country where this kind of both-side-ism passes for a reasonable political position.

 

[Lexicus]

Unity without equality is just a polite way of saying imperial subjects. When Americans sees us as an equal partner nation, not as a hat that's just an extension of their country, then we can talk unity.

(And you should check your history. Last time around, we deliberately waited a week after the UK before declaring war, in good part to make the point that London did not, in fact, dictate our actions. And London was actually in the process of recognizing us as an equal partner at the time, unlike others I could name now. Yes, we will absolutely use these conflicts to assert and enforce our independence, especially from the country that's actually threatening it.)

I'm not talking about history, I'm talking about now. If you're suggesting that I view Canada as an extension of the US, you're quite mistaken. As I see it, the fight against fascism is a global struggle. I figured that Canadians opposed to being annexed by MAGA would be the natural allies of anti-MAGA elements in the US, but with this apparent level of distrust, I guess not. It's unfortunate, because the enemies of fascism need to pull together now or be defeated one by one.

 

[Evie]

Plural you, not singular. I don't particularly care how you perceive Canada, but I am painfully aware of how much of the country you ask us to fight for sees us.

And the problem is not just one of pride : it's a practical one where the words (and some actions) of MAGA *opponents* make it quite plain they would live with us being annexed to the United States if it meant more people to vote against MAGA. They would absolutely sacrifice our independence to defeat MAGA, because at the end of the day, they cannot process the idea that people outside the United States would not want (or at least be okay) becoming part of it, so to them sacrificing our independence is barely asking us to sacrifice anything. We...do not concur. You might not think like that ; but you alone won't make much of an alliance.

And if the last United Nations against Fascism could handle having the Communists and the British Empire side by side, any future United Nations can handle a little justified distrust.