McMullin's NYT Op-Ed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No idea what he might do. Total wild card. The only plus is that he *might* be ruled by some form if common sense. Common sense that both establishment parties have lacked.

And I hope our existing institutions, good people on the left and right, and the constitution will protect us from any encroachment on freedom. I'm trusting in those things more than ever. I think that's what McMullin was getting at. Remember the basis and foundation. Remember to call him out, politicians, even if it's personally damages you.

I can't tell if you voted for him or not, but if you did hoping people and institutions can keep him in check that's really naive. The first line of defense against having the US government take away our liberties is the voting process itself. If we don't elect people with authoritarian tendencies, we don't have to hope we won't fall victim to them. It reminds me of the parable about the guy in the flood arriving in heaven to a confused deity after turning down a raft, a boat, and a helicopter claiming "God will save me".

They voted for Trump thinking the alternative was worse. They hope the system can take care of the excesses of Trump; they knew it would not take care of the flaws of Hillary...and I can *sort* of see the rationale there.

I was the op of this mini-thread. To me, HRC represented a scary possibility of those constitutional measures being overridden. Look, DT has A LOT of people gunning for his failure (not that the people fail, but that he himself isn't going to get far, say, past 2020). HRC and staff proved to be do-whatever-necessary to gain and retain power. And with the media not acting as the 4th branch, when it comes to her and Pres. Obama, it was scary to see what unconstitutional stuff she could get away with.

Trump has SO much powerful opposition, and an even more narcissistic need for popularity, I trust he can't take it too far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I was the op of this mini-thread. To me, HRC represented a scary possibility of those constitutional measures being overridden. Look, DT has A LOT of people gunning for his failure (not that the people fail, but that he himself isn't going to get far, say, past 2020). HRC and staff proved to be do-whatever-necessary to gain and retain power. And with the media not acting as the 4th branch, when it comes to her and Pres. Obama, it was scary to see what unconstitutional stuff she could get away with.

Trump has SO much powerful opposition, and an even more narcissistic need for popularity, I trust he can't take it too far.

This is an interesting argument that I'll have to think over. But my gut reaction is to have far less faith in humanity and Americans than you do. But I do agree that Trump is not the beginning of Executive over-reach. Democrats and Republicans alike rolled over during the GWB and Obama Presidency over some pretty scary and possibly unconstitutional stuff. I have a huge concern, though, that Trump's SCOTUS appointments might effectively incapacitate the judicial branch by packing the court with "originalists" who might be dismayed with a Big Brother-style digital state but can find no support for regulating those things in the Constitution. I think balance on the court is good, which is why I'm glad Obama didn't nominate a more liberal judge to replace Scalia. If RBG and others are replaced with Scalia-style justices, then I don't have much faith in the SCOTUS being able to handle modern Constitutional questions by balancing between staying true to the original words in our Founding documents and staying true to the spirit of those words that has been clarified through 2+ centuries of jurisprudence.