[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Law professor Rosalind Dixon, "a leading global expert on comparative constitutional law, design, and democracy":

Quote

The Supreme Court's ruling in the tariffs case has been hailed as a devastating blow for President Trump and a triumph for the rule of law. Even though Trump had warned that a loss in this case "would literally destroy the United States of America," the Court broke from its pattern of siding with him. [...]

In constitutional democracies across the globe, researchers have found that confidence in the judiciary is linked to its perceived independence. [...]

To safeguard its institutional legitimacy, the Court thus needs to rein in Trump once in a while, and not just through relatively "invisible" maneuvers. The tariffs case presented a perfect opportunity to do so on account of its large symbolic value and limited legal stakes.

[...] Such a dynamic has played out in a number of declining democracies. Courts shore up popular support by vindicating a small set of high-profile claims, even as they allow the executive to undermine core democratic norms.

[...] Compared with more overt methods of authoritarian takeover, tactics of this kind [...] are less likely to spook markets and lead to adverse economic effects.

The Tariffs Loss Is Paradoxically a Win for Trump - The Atlantic

... and in particular less likely to spook the bond market.

What are bonds and why have they spooked Donald Trump? The reason the US president had to back down on tariffs once investors started dumping treasury bonds | The Guardian (from April 2025)

But that sort of "stealth authoritarian" creep is almost certainly not going to be enough for Trump to prevent Democrats from winning the midterms and jeopardizing his ability to ("legally") spend (government) money for the remainder of his (ultimately reinless?) reign.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 26 February 2026 - 06:05 PM

[Grief]

The thing about not spooking markets is that the longer you avoid a correction the worse the correction gets.

[Cause]

Trump awarded the Medal of Honor at the state of the union for an operation that occurred less than 2 months ago. That has to be one exceptionally fast tracked MoH. Politicized the medal, the award ceremony and couldn’t be more transparent.

[Macros]

And all he could do was lament how he wasnt getting one

[Tsundoku]

Macros, on 27 February 2026 - 07:10 AM, said:

And all he could do was lament how he wasnt getting one

Who knows how many medals he would have had by now if it wasn't for those cursed bone spurs holding him back.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

Trump plans to pull trigger soon on nationalizing elections

"Pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting," reported The Washington Post on Thursday.

The plan would allegedly mandate voter ID and ban mail-in ballots during the November midterm elections. Trump also promised earlier this month that he will "search the depths of legal arguments not yet articulated or vetted" so he can find "an irrefutable one" to present "in the form of an Executive Order."

https://www.alternet...ump-2675343224/

It's difficult to imagine the same Supreme Court justices who refused to overturn the 2020 election agreeing with that argument. The constitution is very clear about the power to administrate elections being vested in the states, not the executive branch.

Unless he threatens to kill them or their families, perhaps. Or has managed to bribe enough of them.

Another avenue Trump is likely to take:

Quote

the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, [...] led an investigation into Puerto Rico's voting machines – taking some machines to examine – last May to identify what her office said were potential vulnerabilities in the island's electronic voting systems. Taken together, Trump's comments and actions are pointing toward a possibility Democratic voters have until now only contemplated: the federal government seizing voting machines across the country in a way that disrupts voting in the 2026 midterms.

If the federal government declared some digital voting machines off-limits at the last minute, it would set off a chain of emergency court hearings, leaving elections directors scrambling to find another way to print and count ballots before those cases resolved. Early voting could crater. Election Day voting could be curtailed. And results might not be ready for weeks.

Will Trump try to seize voting machines to disrupt the midterm elections? | US midterm elections 2026 | The Guardian

Again they'd almost certainly lose in court---at least in the Supreme Court. There are probably some Trump judges out there who would facilitate it.

Does Trump understand that both these schemes would almost certainly lose in court? Probably... though he really may be delusional. Or think he can threaten or entice the Supreme Court to do his bidding this time.

The ultimate aim may be to provide a political justification for the "necessity" of illegally seizing control of the elections. Because the courts have been "captured" by the Deep State and/or China (or whoever---maybe Iran and the Jews? depending on which hate groups he's appealing to in any given targeted message). Then once the Trump administration has control over the elections they can "fix" them... auto-coup here we go.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 27 February 2026 - 02:25 PM

[Macros]

He doesn't care about what the courts say.

I thought this was fairly evident

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Macros, on 27 February 2026 - 02:20 PM, said:

He doesn't care about what the courts say.

I thought this was fairly evident

As indicated by The Atlantic article I quoted from yesterday, he seems to be complying with the tariff ruling. He replaced the IEEPA tariffs with the section 122 temporary 15% global tariff and his administration does not seem to be instituting trade deal tariffs higher than 15% (for example, the 19% tariff that was part of his trade deal with Indonesia) because they would have relied on IEEPA for their legal justification.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 27 February 2026 - 02:38 PM

[Macros]

He will just keep flinging shit, his followers will eat it up that it was rigged damn what the court says and throw more monkey shit to distract from the epstein files.

US Congress is full of gutless worms

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Macros, on 27 February 2026 - 04:45 PM, said:

He will just keep flinging shit, his followers will eat it up that it was rigged damn what the court says and throw more monkey shit to distract from the epstein files.

US Congress is full of gutless worms

One big question is---will he actually send in "law enforcement" or the military or "extra-legal" thugs to forcibly seize voting machines or try to shut down polling places or seize ballots (mail-in or otherwise)?

If so, how will states resist? Would we have civil war? Would they try to hide ballots or voting machines?

If the Supreme Court ruled in his favor then the military would probably go along with it. Assuming the Supreme Court doesn't, it's not clear what the military will do---how successful have his purges been? Can he bribe the generals with more power, money, and influence?

Meanwhile... while much of our air and naval power is concentrated near Iran... Trump's threatening to "take over" Cuba:

Quote

Trump has suggested the US could carry out a "friendly takeover" of Cuba as tensions between Washington and Havana reach a new high following the capture of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro.

[...] In advance of the attack on Caracas, US officials won a promise of cooperation from Maduro's deputy, Delcy Rodríguez, now Venezuela's acting president, who has promised to open up the country's sizeable oil reserves to foreign companies.

Trump suggests US could carry out ‘friendly takeover’ of Cuba | Donald Trump | The Guardian

Of course the obvious implication is that they do as they did in Venezuela---they could try to use a targeted strike to kidnap the current leader and replace them with someone else currently high up in the administration, in exchange for concessions to Trump and his malevolent benefactors. But the wealthy Cuban-Americans who drive much of the US animus against Cuba's government almost certainly wouldn't find that satisfactory---unless they also made some sort of deal with the new administration, which seems unlikely.

Cuba's leader might be getting very paranoid now about his most powerful underlings... then again perhaps Trump's aiming for psychological warfare that way. If he actually intended to attempt another kidnapping then warning them in advance seems extremely counterproductive. Though if the military managed to accomplish it even after warning them it was going to happen... that would be even more intimidating. Sending the message that "they could do it to anyone" (anyone not reigning from a bunker, at least---and maybe even to them...).

[Maark Abbott]

Oh look, the orange fascist child-raper is bombing Iran.

I didn't see this coming at all.

[Tsundoku]

Weapons sales must be slow.

[Tiste Simeon]

 Tsundoku, on 28 February 2026 - 09:50 AM, said:

Weapons sales must be slow.

I read yesterday that 100TB of Epstein files material was mysteriously deleted by "hackers" from the FBI databases yesterday so this attack is presumably to distract from that.