QuickTidal, on 16 June 2017 - 05:47 PM, said:
amphibian, on 16 June 2017 - 04:47 PM, said:
Look at Kansas after total Republican capture. It's nearly failing as a state and that's after a couple years under the Obama administration.
I do not think Trump will ever use nukes or do something like start a war over a handshake. He's volatile and incompetent, but he won't go that far because he can't actually do that.
Wow. Okay man. I think you're wrong from a global POV, but that's your prerogative to that opinion.
Also, he can do that. You might need to research the Football, and the accompanying biscuit? But he literally can do that and the only thing that stops the order from going through is a mutiny of the armed forces. There is no one who can veto him on it if he chooses to do it.
The Football case follows him around everywhere, and sleeps in a room below him so he has access to it 24/7. He carries a key card (biscuit) with the his personal codes.
This was all established in Kennedy's era.
I don't think 'phib is saying that he *can't* do that. Just that he "can't" do that. As in, the consequences would be catastrophic, Russia would likely retaliate (regardless of where Trump's nukes were aimed, as there is too short of a window once launch is verified to risk waiting to return fire), and it's also entirely possible that someone in the room at the time would tackle him.
The thing is, I don't entirely disagree with 'phib, RE: the danger of Pence and Ryan. Trump is a man-child, sure - but his incompetence actively limits the damage he can do, barring perhaps tarnishing the US in the eyes of the world, and setting back diplomatic relations by decades. Yes, he is trying to do some stuff that is bad - both for America and the world - but he is getting opposed at every turn, to varying degrees.
Ryan and Pence both have the political experience, connections, and lack of petulance to get some much, much worse legislation done - simply because they know how to choose their words and keep the noise on Twitter to zero (see the defeat of the immigration restrictions due to Trump's Tweets, for an example of the kind of mistake they wouldn't make).
And while they have essentially zero chance of causing nuclear armageddon, compared to Trump's non-zero chance, they can fuck the world over without that. Ryan and Pence hold some pretty extreme views, and the economic and social consequences of either of them ruling the country could easily beat whatever damage Trump can do. What's worse, because they wouldn't *look* like idiots, or be bad at hiding their intentions, they also wouldn't serve nearly as well as a warning sign to the people of the world - arguably Trump's best quality: a deterrent to other nations from electing the same kind of person. And that's not because he does bad or stupid things, it's because he gets *seen* to be doing them, and suffers appropriate criticism. Pence or Ryan could be doing worse, with much less drama. And that's bad in its own way for the world.
Fundamentally, Ryan or Pence may seem like safer choices. But in reality, it's being stuck between a rock and a hard place. The rock may be dense and have a low chance of ROYALLY fucking the world, but the hard place is methodical and will almost certainly do more long-term damage to the US, with likely significant consequences for the rest of the world as well, all while everyone else fails to notice because it looks innocuous enough.
Long story short: despite how some Trump supporters act, his removal from office isn't going to somehow result in Hillary becoming President. Ever. Nor any Democrat. Unless the entire Republican party implodes somehow over a very short space of time. And the backup options on the Republican side are both just different kinds of bad.