[Cause]

We would be in a dictatorship already if these people were not so incompetent. Pam Bondi wrote a lawsuit to force California to drop their emission standards on cars and she called it Trumps DOJ against California or something close enough to those lines.

Republicans are cooked. The economy is down, gdp was revised down, inflation is up and this is before the Iran costs are effecting the data. The Iran war on top… mid terms are going to be a blood bath.

Which worries me, if it’s not a tough fight but a guaranteed route how far will they go with their election denial/supression bullshit.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Cause, on 19 March 2026 - 11:41 PM, said:

We would be in a dictatorship already if these people were not so incompetent. Pam Bondi wrote a lawsuit to force California to drop their emission standards on cars and she called it Trumps DOJ against California or something close enough to those lines.

Republicans are cooked. The economy is down, gdp was revised down, inflation is up and this is before the Iran costs are effecting the data. The Iran war on top… mid terms are going to be a blood bath.

Which worries me, if it's not a tough fight but a guaranteed route how far will they go with their election denial/supression bullshit.

Quote

'Trump is aiming for dictatorship'. That's the verdict of the world's most credible democracy watchdog

The US is no longer a democracy. One of the most credible global sources on the health of democratic nations now says this outright. The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute at Gothenburg University reaches the alarming conclusion in its annual report, that the US is hurtling towards autocracy at a faster rate than Hungary and Turkey.

[...] Threats to bureaucrats and poll workers administering elections are already alarming, Lindberg says. "We've seen media reports that 40% of election/poll workers have quit since 2020. And Trump never accepted his defeat then. Why would he accept a defeat now? If we see a denial of the election results in 2026, then it's a complete democratic breakdown."

'Trump is aiming for dictatorship'. That's the verdict of the world's most credible democracy watchdog | Martin Gelin | The Guardian

However, the Trump administration's extreme incompetence in attacking Iran---particularly their failure to anticipate and prepare for the Iranian retaliation---is likely diminishing his support in the military. And resulting inflation seems to be reducing his support in red states. But he may still have enough hardcore supporters or others willing to commit to aiding his auto-coup (perhaps in hopes of personal gain) to pull it off...

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 20 March 2026 - 12:02 AM

[Grief]

We are in a very weird limbo state at the moment.

The mid-terms could put the US on a path back towards normality. Not back to normality itself, that's a long way off, but moving towards it instead of continuing to drive away from it.

The mid-terms could also be the final nail in the coffin.

There is a world of difference between an outgoing President crying foul about their election defeat - which was already bad enough and already saw a genuine attempt to overthrow the incoming government - and a sitting President trying to overturn election results while they are firmly within their term.

The latter feels practically inevitable unless Trump kicks the bucket beforehand. He does not seem capable of doing much else than deny negative election results. Not just from a political perspective but in terms of his own personality.

The question feels more like "what happens when..." than "what happens if...".

Large parts of his base could go along with him. The Republican party might or might not do the same depending how the wind looks like it is blowing on a given day. They have certainly not been inclined to oppose his anti-democratic tendencies before now, even where they have opposed him on other issues, and in many cases they seem in too deep at this stage. The time where they might find some excuse to turn away from Trump and not get tarred themselves seems long past.

Are the Democrats set up to mount a real opposition against an authoritarian power grab? It doesn't especially feel like it. At the same time, I'm not sure any kind of preparations would be publicly visible.

[Cause]

With the Cold War over is the US still bullying Cuba to satisfy the Cuban voter bloc in Florida? Is there more to it?

Apparently the island is basically under an energy siege.

This post has been edited by Cause: 20 March 2026 - 11:24 PM

[Primateus]

Robert Mueller is dead, and...

Of course the Orange Windbag is celebrating.

[Werthead]

There's a whistleblower case going on regarding Tulsi Gabbard sitting on a "very serious" complaint involving two foreign agents recorded discussing Jared Kushner and the CIA. The normal sequence of events for this would be a briefing of the Gang of 8 (the high-ranking bipartisan members of Congress with the national security brief), but Gabbard sat on the report for 4 months before finally that briefing was forced to happen a couple of days ago. The result of that briefing was members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence going apoplectic why this incident was not reported sooner and what action is being taken.

This sounds extremely serious, the Gang of 8 is normally given emergency briefings only on matters of the highest national security importance (like the attack on Iran, for example).