I pretend to have no comprehensive wisdom, but I think I can make some assertions that will find general accord.
When man emerged from the jungle, it was the law of the jungle that governed our actions: we tamed the animals of which we could make use, and defended ourselves against those that posed a danger. We learned from experience to tell the poisonous fruits from the wholesome ones. The law of the jungle was not a law, but a life lived pragmatically.
Then came kings, who, in order to establish the validity of their laws, claimed that their appointment stemmed from God. This, on the whole, was enough to guarantee obeyance.
By the time of the age of enlightenment, there came the realisation that divine appointment was nonsense, and we gradually entered the age of the constitutional monarchy and, voilà, in America, the republic. So, if God didn't decide who ruled, who did? Well, the law did. We entered the age of the rule of law (1748, Montesquieu: De l'esprit des lois). Laws were made by fixed processes and applied and enforced.
The calls now are for the rule of law to be reinforced. But that is not what is happening. Something else altogether is happening. Even in Belgium, where I live, there are noises about, which speak of "the primacy of politics" (https://endlesschain.substack.com/p/the-primacy-of-politics). That means that, if a politician gets elected on a manifesto that promises certain changes, then it is permissible to enact those changes notwithstanding the fact that the legal processes for doing so are not followed. The change can be made regardless of the existing law, on the basis of the politician's election in terms of the manifesto. Politics, as voted for at the ballot box, prevails over the rule of law.
The change that is being made in terms of whether it's allowed to federalise state troops or call in naval marines is therefore "irrelevant": these measures are aimed at implementing Mr Trump's policy, and stem not from some decision he made a week ago, but from the broad statements he was making back last year during the election campaign.
One lesson already emerging is that election bluster is now to be taken in deadly earnest. Unless it's already too late for that realisation.
Well stated. Resonates with the frequent Trumpian laments about “unelected judges” impeding the implementation of policies he campaigned on but which cross legal boundaries. I would like to read more about the debate in Belgium about the primacy of politics.
I'll give you three parallels, which sound anecdotal and off topic, but in fact have something to say about all of this.
1. The welcome extended to Mr Zelenskyy. Trump publicly mocked a foreign head of state in front of the man. He had no concerns about how this might be viewed in diplomatic circles. This leads directly to number ...
2. It serves nothing to point out that this emperor has no clothes on. He knows he has no clothes on, and he doesn't care. Appearances mean nothing to him, unless he uses them to attack other people.
3. In one Monty Python sketch, a British soldier is being tried in court for failing to use standard issue ordnance to attack the enemy and instead resorted to using wet towels. When the judge inquires into why the accused was in possession of silver-plated gaiters, counsel protests at the relevance of the question. The judge retorts "I'm in charge here, I decide what happens. Everyone stand up." They do. "Sit down." They do. "Say 'moo'." They say 'moo'. When satire becomes reality, law means nothing.
The referenced article, which I wrote, came hot on the heels of a dinner I had with my local mayor, who had mentioned comments made to him by the outgoing mayor, around the time of the switch in local council last year. Belgium is regarded as fairly middle of the road: committed to the European project, enamoured with the idea of unity that prevents it being invaded for a third time in just over a century, but very much divided down the middle by the language frontier between French and Dutch. What unified the country upon its creation (as a scission from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, in 1830) was religion: catholic Belgium, protestant Netherlands. Religion's influence is far less now, and so petty disputes threaten our unity, in which the main factor holding us together is in fact the king, the royal household.
I cannot therefore cite chapter and verse for my view, but it is a view that, once taken into perspective, explains the acts of many European actors, like Le Pen, Orbàn, Slovakia, Serbia, etc. Populism translates to votes. Votes translate to power. And power translates to the assumed right to implement policy as voted for, regardless of law as existing. In our recent spat with another of your contributors, the gage thrown down was to cite in what measure Trump had breached the Constitution. The answer was he hadn't. What he's doing is steamrollering the constitution. He's not expressly abrogating it. He just flattens it when it stands in the way, and he does that buoyed by the arguments he presented before he was elected. That's enough. Because no part of the legislative arm is challenging him on that ground, and where the judicial arm does so, he ignores them.
I'm back again, for something else that occurred to me. You asked to read more about the debate around the primacy of politics in Belgium. I really don't think there's any, unless it's my own article, which I referred you to. I'll ask the mayor - I'm curious myself.
What I do find is literature, not very good I'll add, which looks at two tacks. One is the question of whether politics imposes itself on society or society on politics. That's an interesting question, especially if you're a politician. I think in business they'd regard it as a "leadership" question: does the manager lead the company boldly, where no man has gone before? Or does he temper all and everything he does to the society of which the company is a member?
The second article I found simply confuses the issue, by equating law with politics. That ought to be a legitimate confabulation, for separating them is like separating a cooper from his barrel: he makes the barrel, the barrel's made by him. They are indelibly associated. At least, so we thought. Likewise, politics makes law; they're also indissociable.
Law is a tricky monster: it's supposed to be enacted without bias or prejudice in order to cater to something that needs doing, what we call a "mischief" in the law. It should, all being equal, be used as a defensive mechanism to put right something that needs putting right. I don't all know what's in this Big Bill Act that's before the Congress, but, as far as existing law is concerned, Trump has a tendency to use laws as active weapons, and whilst there is something active about a statute, its effect should be to instill a sense in lawmaker and subject alike, that something's been done about something.
Different legal horses for different legal course: clearly, if you need to raise revenue, you need a tax statute. Punish a crime, a criminal statute. So, the law of the United States provides that immigrants have to register their presence under a fixed procedure and, if they don't, or if they don't qualify to live there, they have to go home. Trump is using whatever law he can find to hand (I think his hand is guided, of course) to prosecute his "go home" policy. He's doing it with gusto. And with a fervour that invites the question: why? First, more fundamentally, are the statutes he has cited fit statutes for sending people home? Yes, but not in these circumstances. There needs to be a war, or an invasion or extenuating circumstances like that. But it's how Trump is using laws, Title 10, The Insurrection Act, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, that indicates he doesn't really recognise laws for what they are, but only for what he can make them be.
One thing he is very keen about, however, as are all his ministers: emphasising the need to abide by the law. No argument with him there. Except that he has quite a track record of not doing so himself. No matter, any time is a good time to turn over a new leaf. Just, one should try to avoid insider trading whilst turning the leaf.
In short, Mr Trump's love of legality is different from his love of the law. Legality is what entitles him to pursue miscreants. The law is what he pursues them with. The primacy of politics depends unquestionably on legality, but it does not depend on the law, which it expressly intends to circumvent.
The question is whether, should Mr Trump abut against something he would like to do but which he can't legally, he will simply ride a coach and horses through the situation. He's already done so a few times. But I do wonder whether, in such a scenario, he might not prefer, for as long he has the guaranteed cooperation of parliament, instead passing a law.
The Germans were known to do lots of terrible things in the 30s and 40s. But they were always keen to ensure that everything they did had a legal basis, even if it meant enacting perverse statutes. They kept meticulous records of their heinous crimes, and busied themselves with burning them when the end was nigh. Mr Trump must do likewise. He must be able to cite chapter and verse of the statute he relies on for whatever policy it is, because not to do that would be to invite everyone, including the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys (where are they these days?), to do likewise, and that certainly is not the intention.
So, when I say "primacy of politics", what that means is primacy of law, except that the "mischief" the law seeks to resolve is born of Trump's policies that he doesn't want to bog down in Congress.
This is old hat in a way: it's what extreme governments did back when. It's what even reasonable regimes do now, by undermining the inherent equality with which society is endowed in order to create preferences and inequalities. However, politics should always yield to law if it cannot find parliament's favour in a statute. When politics (more correctly, policy) gets applied notwithstanding parliament's rejection of it as a basis for a satute, then the primacy is complete.
So, the primacy of politics isn't really anything new. Except that it got your attention, and I can guess why. Because it flies in the face of the accepted norms of: constitution, government policy, statute law, society. Wherever politics comes in that list, the consensus has it that it cannot come before constitution. That is our mainstay, our backstop, our guarantee.
There is no mechanism by which primacy can be accorded to politics, it simply is so. It could be effected by sleight of hand in one country; in another by jack-booted secret policemen. Where an act gets passed dealing with mundane matters, it should ordinarily pass without notice. But when it is intended to use the same statute to enact Trump's tariffs, or change the birthright nationality, something that causes consternation, he will still go the statutory route, but this time, his justification for doing so is not that he wants it, and it's not even just because it was in his election programme, but because people voted for it. He is a populist, we mustn't forget.
The results were barely in before Mr Trump was boasting of his resounding mandate to govern. It seemed at the time like his usual boasting: a tad unnecessary, because winning is all he needed to do. In political theory, a party that dominates parliament can actually be a bad thing, precisely because there is no opposition. Now, looking back, I see why he boasted so loudly, even if his majority wasn't really all that great. He needs to instill the idea that his less-conventional policies are the will of the people. If they're that, then politics prevails. Question is, does it prevail over the constitution? Well, prevail ought to be prevail. But no one is going to set this down in policy terms as a usurpation of the rule of law. One does not usurp the rule of law lightly, so generally, one does not usurp it at all. What one does is make inroads into it, nibble at its margins, water it down. But replace it with politics? Noooo, certainly not. It's like the neoliberal revolution of the 1980s. It was different from what went before, but it was very beneficial. But if anyone had said then that, over our lifetimes, Michael, government would ensure that large amounts of cash got taken from the poor and given to the rich, we'd have rumbled them on the spot. So they didn't.
Whether as the leader of a foreign government or an American citizen with eyes wide open, this is a precise, historically researched and highly accurate assessment of the L.A. situation. Members of our own government should be reading this. It encapsulates a potentially explosive moment as keenly as any professional mainstream outlet would, one that threatens to be a harbinger of profound troubles to come. This president is digging us deeper into crisis day by day.
I know Trump doesn't typically think beyond his next golf game, but those with brains in his sphere (at least for now) are using all of these moves (starting in LA) as tests for the midterms. I'm guessing he'll try to prevent them from taking place by declaring Martial Law. He knows he'll accomplish NOTHING after Dems recapture both Houses.
Donnie is playing Calvinball with all his customary respect for precedent, law, authority and the rights and responsibilities of citizens in a working democracy. The problem here is that Marine training is pretty focused on killing people and breaking things, and they're very good at what they're trained for. Using them for whatever purpose that useless fuckwit has in mind by deploying them to LA is an insult to the Marine Corps and a deadly threat to anyone or anything in front of them.
What do you make of Newsom and Trump speaking late Friday night/Saturday morning, not discussing sending in the National Guard, but Trump so soon sending them in the next day (Sunday 6am PDT/9am EDT, but Trump tweeted a praise to the National Guard's service in LA at 2:41 am EDT some hours before that.)
Some background for those who are unfamiliar:
Fox News and MAGAnon have been making a big deal about Trump saying he talked to Newsom and Newsom denying it. Trump said on Tuesday he talked to Newsom "a day ago" (but his "receipts," the screenshot of his phone clearly shows that it happened Friday night/early Saturday, not Monday.)
But we have a weekend interview on Sunday with Newsom discussing that same call, saying they didn't discuss the necessity of sending in the Guard. That Sunday interview proves Newsom wasn't denying a call with Trump. What Newsom was denying on Tuesday, I think, is that he talked to Trump on Monday, or, more importantly, after the Guard was sent in.
Here's the NBCNews link with Newsom discussing the Friday night call:
Sending in the Guard behind Newsom's back, apparently, seems like part of a plan. Was there something important that happened on Saturday, in between, that would give Trump a better excuse for sending them in?
Here's another link to a PolitiFact article discussing the timeline of events:
Thank you for revealing this view. I knew this is the case because I have been reading about each step. It is just fuel for need to free ourselves from him!
Suppose you have a bathtub with a leaky plug. You need to put a plug in that works, instead of the one that leaks. But you'd be ill-advised to wrench the leaky one out before you knew exactly what plug you would put in the hole in its place.
"Mr Trump needs to go" is not an answer. He can easily be replaced by someone who'll do exactly the same. Your bathtub is leaky - it's not the plug that needs replacing, it's the whole bathtub.
I saw a comment made during the kabuki show with Musk, stating we should get Krasnov out and replace him with Vance. My reaction was “NO”. Vance is definitely not the plug. Neither is the Speaker of the House. I don’t know WHAT we’re going to do!
I really don't know what Mr Vance is. But he's turning the vice-presidency into something more than just waiting for the president to die, which is otherwise what his office entails. Let's say he's a bit more of an organ-grinder than the monkey the VP is generally meant to be.
I pretend to have no comprehensive wisdom, but I think I can make some assertions that will find general accord.
When man emerged from the jungle, it was the law of the jungle that governed our actions: we tamed the animals of which we could make use, and defended ourselves against those that posed a danger. We learned from experience to tell the poisonous fruits from the wholesome ones. The law of the jungle was not a law, but a life lived pragmatically.
Then came kings, who, in order to establish the validity of their laws, claimed that their appointment stemmed from God. This, on the whole, was enough to guarantee obeyance.
By the time of the age of enlightenment, there came the realisation that divine appointment was nonsense, and we gradually entered the age of the constitutional monarchy and, voilà, in America, the republic. So, if God didn't decide who ruled, who did? Well, the law did. We entered the age of the rule of law (1748, Montesquieu: De l'esprit des lois). Laws were made by fixed processes and applied and enforced.
The calls now are for the rule of law to be reinforced. But that is not what is happening. Something else altogether is happening. Even in Belgium, where I live, there are noises about, which speak of "the primacy of politics" (https://endlesschain.substack.com/p/the-primacy-of-politics). That means that, if a politician gets elected on a manifesto that promises certain changes, then it is permissible to enact those changes notwithstanding the fact that the legal processes for doing so are not followed. The change can be made regardless of the existing law, on the basis of the politician's election in terms of the manifesto. Politics, as voted for at the ballot box, prevails over the rule of law.
The change that is being made in terms of whether it's allowed to federalise state troops or call in naval marines is therefore "irrelevant": these measures are aimed at implementing Mr Trump's policy, and stem not from some decision he made a week ago, but from the broad statements he was making back last year during the election campaign.
One lesson already emerging is that election bluster is now to be taken in deadly earnest. Unless it's already too late for that realisation.
Well stated. Resonates with the frequent Trumpian laments about “unelected judges” impeding the implementation of policies he campaigned on but which cross legal boundaries. I would like to read more about the debate in Belgium about the primacy of politics.
I'll give you three parallels, which sound anecdotal and off topic, but in fact have something to say about all of this.
1. The welcome extended to Mr Zelenskyy. Trump publicly mocked a foreign head of state in front of the man. He had no concerns about how this might be viewed in diplomatic circles. This leads directly to number ...
2. It serves nothing to point out that this emperor has no clothes on. He knows he has no clothes on, and he doesn't care. Appearances mean nothing to him, unless he uses them to attack other people.
3. In one Monty Python sketch, a British soldier is being tried in court for failing to use standard issue ordnance to attack the enemy and instead resorted to using wet towels. When the judge inquires into why the accused was in possession of silver-plated gaiters, counsel protests at the relevance of the question. The judge retorts "I'm in charge here, I decide what happens. Everyone stand up." They do. "Sit down." They do. "Say 'moo'." They say 'moo'. When satire becomes reality, law means nothing.
The referenced article, which I wrote, came hot on the heels of a dinner I had with my local mayor, who had mentioned comments made to him by the outgoing mayor, around the time of the switch in local council last year. Belgium is regarded as fairly middle of the road: committed to the European project, enamoured with the idea of unity that prevents it being invaded for a third time in just over a century, but very much divided down the middle by the language frontier between French and Dutch. What unified the country upon its creation (as a scission from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, in 1830) was religion: catholic Belgium, protestant Netherlands. Religion's influence is far less now, and so petty disputes threaten our unity, in which the main factor holding us together is in fact the king, the royal household.
I cannot therefore cite chapter and verse for my view, but it is a view that, once taken into perspective, explains the acts of many European actors, like Le Pen, Orbàn, Slovakia, Serbia, etc. Populism translates to votes. Votes translate to power. And power translates to the assumed right to implement policy as voted for, regardless of law as existing. In our recent spat with another of your contributors, the gage thrown down was to cite in what measure Trump had breached the Constitution. The answer was he hadn't. What he's doing is steamrollering the constitution. He's not expressly abrogating it. He just flattens it when it stands in the way, and he does that buoyed by the arguments he presented before he was elected. That's enough. Because no part of the legislative arm is challenging him on that ground, and where the judicial arm does so, he ignores them.
I'm back again, for something else that occurred to me. You asked to read more about the debate around the primacy of politics in Belgium. I really don't think there's any, unless it's my own article, which I referred you to. I'll ask the mayor - I'm curious myself.
What I do find is literature, not very good I'll add, which looks at two tacks. One is the question of whether politics imposes itself on society or society on politics. That's an interesting question, especially if you're a politician. I think in business they'd regard it as a "leadership" question: does the manager lead the company boldly, where no man has gone before? Or does he temper all and everything he does to the society of which the company is a member?
The second article I found simply confuses the issue, by equating law with politics. That ought to be a legitimate confabulation, for separating them is like separating a cooper from his barrel: he makes the barrel, the barrel's made by him. They are indelibly associated. At least, so we thought. Likewise, politics makes law; they're also indissociable.
Law is a tricky monster: it's supposed to be enacted without bias or prejudice in order to cater to something that needs doing, what we call a "mischief" in the law. It should, all being equal, be used as a defensive mechanism to put right something that needs putting right. I don't all know what's in this Big Bill Act that's before the Congress, but, as far as existing law is concerned, Trump has a tendency to use laws as active weapons, and whilst there is something active about a statute, its effect should be to instill a sense in lawmaker and subject alike, that something's been done about something.
Different legal horses for different legal course: clearly, if you need to raise revenue, you need a tax statute. Punish a crime, a criminal statute. So, the law of the United States provides that immigrants have to register their presence under a fixed procedure and, if they don't, or if they don't qualify to live there, they have to go home. Trump is using whatever law he can find to hand (I think his hand is guided, of course) to prosecute his "go home" policy. He's doing it with gusto. And with a fervour that invites the question: why? First, more fundamentally, are the statutes he has cited fit statutes for sending people home? Yes, but not in these circumstances. There needs to be a war, or an invasion or extenuating circumstances like that. But it's how Trump is using laws, Title 10, The Insurrection Act, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, that indicates he doesn't really recognise laws for what they are, but only for what he can make them be.
One thing he is very keen about, however, as are all his ministers: emphasising the need to abide by the law. No argument with him there. Except that he has quite a track record of not doing so himself. No matter, any time is a good time to turn over a new leaf. Just, one should try to avoid insider trading whilst turning the leaf.
In short, Mr Trump's love of legality is different from his love of the law. Legality is what entitles him to pursue miscreants. The law is what he pursues them with. The primacy of politics depends unquestionably on legality, but it does not depend on the law, which it expressly intends to circumvent.
The question is whether, should Mr Trump abut against something he would like to do but which he can't legally, he will simply ride a coach and horses through the situation. He's already done so a few times. But I do wonder whether, in such a scenario, he might not prefer, for as long he has the guaranteed cooperation of parliament, instead passing a law.
The Germans were known to do lots of terrible things in the 30s and 40s. But they were always keen to ensure that everything they did had a legal basis, even if it meant enacting perverse statutes. They kept meticulous records of their heinous crimes, and busied themselves with burning them when the end was nigh. Mr Trump must do likewise. He must be able to cite chapter and verse of the statute he relies on for whatever policy it is, because not to do that would be to invite everyone, including the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys (where are they these days?), to do likewise, and that certainly is not the intention.
So, when I say "primacy of politics", what that means is primacy of law, except that the "mischief" the law seeks to resolve is born of Trump's policies that he doesn't want to bog down in Congress.
This is old hat in a way: it's what extreme governments did back when. It's what even reasonable regimes do now, by undermining the inherent equality with which society is endowed in order to create preferences and inequalities. However, politics should always yield to law if it cannot find parliament's favour in a statute. When politics (more correctly, policy) gets applied notwithstanding parliament's rejection of it as a basis for a satute, then the primacy is complete.
So, the primacy of politics isn't really anything new. Except that it got your attention, and I can guess why. Because it flies in the face of the accepted norms of: constitution, government policy, statute law, society. Wherever politics comes in that list, the consensus has it that it cannot come before constitution. That is our mainstay, our backstop, our guarantee.
There is no mechanism by which primacy can be accorded to politics, it simply is so. It could be effected by sleight of hand in one country; in another by jack-booted secret policemen. Where an act gets passed dealing with mundane matters, it should ordinarily pass without notice. But when it is intended to use the same statute to enact Trump's tariffs, or change the birthright nationality, something that causes consternation, he will still go the statutory route, but this time, his justification for doing so is not that he wants it, and it's not even just because it was in his election programme, but because people voted for it. He is a populist, we mustn't forget.
The results were barely in before Mr Trump was boasting of his resounding mandate to govern. It seemed at the time like his usual boasting: a tad unnecessary, because winning is all he needed to do. In political theory, a party that dominates parliament can actually be a bad thing, precisely because there is no opposition. Now, looking back, I see why he boasted so loudly, even if his majority wasn't really all that great. He needs to instill the idea that his less-conventional policies are the will of the people. If they're that, then politics prevails. Question is, does it prevail over the constitution? Well, prevail ought to be prevail. But no one is going to set this down in policy terms as a usurpation of the rule of law. One does not usurp the rule of law lightly, so generally, one does not usurp it at all. What one does is make inroads into it, nibble at its margins, water it down. But replace it with politics? Noooo, certainly not. It's like the neoliberal revolution of the 1980s. It was different from what went before, but it was very beneficial. But if anyone had said then that, over our lifetimes, Michael, government would ensure that large amounts of cash got taken from the poor and given to the rich, we'd have rumbled them on the spot. So they didn't.
Sorry, bit long.
Sir, thank you so much for this analysis. Too bad MSM has not printed your excellent map of the LA city/state area!!
Whether as the leader of a foreign government or an American citizen with eyes wide open, this is a precise, historically researched and highly accurate assessment of the L.A. situation. Members of our own government should be reading this. It encapsulates a potentially explosive moment as keenly as any professional mainstream outlet would, one that threatens to be a harbinger of profound troubles to come. This president is digging us deeper into crisis day by day.
Thank you Michael for this penetrating situation analysis report. I look forward to reading further chapters is this fast evolving story.
I know Trump doesn't typically think beyond his next golf game, but those with brains in his sphere (at least for now) are using all of these moves (starting in LA) as tests for the midterms. I'm guessing he'll try to prevent them from taking place by declaring Martial Law. He knows he'll accomplish NOTHING after Dems recapture both Houses.
Donnie is playing Calvinball with all his customary respect for precedent, law, authority and the rights and responsibilities of citizens in a working democracy. The problem here is that Marine training is pretty focused on killing people and breaking things, and they're very good at what they're trained for. Using them for whatever purpose that useless fuckwit has in mind by deploying them to LA is an insult to the Marine Corps and a deadly threat to anyone or anything in front of them.
Great analysis - both of the historical comparisons and the current logic of this administration. Everyone should read this!
Thank
You! Knowledge sharing is power!
What do you make of Newsom and Trump speaking late Friday night/Saturday morning, not discussing sending in the National Guard, but Trump so soon sending them in the next day (Sunday 6am PDT/9am EDT, but Trump tweeted a praise to the National Guard's service in LA at 2:41 am EDT some hours before that.)
Some background for those who are unfamiliar:
Fox News and MAGAnon have been making a big deal about Trump saying he talked to Newsom and Newsom denying it. Trump said on Tuesday he talked to Newsom "a day ago" (but his "receipts," the screenshot of his phone clearly shows that it happened Friday night/early Saturday, not Monday.)
But we have a weekend interview on Sunday with Newsom discussing that same call, saying they didn't discuss the necessity of sending in the Guard. That Sunday interview proves Newsom wasn't denying a call with Trump. What Newsom was denying on Tuesday, I think, is that he talked to Trump on Monday, or, more importantly, after the Guard was sent in.
Here's the NBCNews link with Newsom discussing the Friday night call:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/californias-governor-unfazed-threats-arrest-trump-administratio-rcna211752
Sending in the Guard behind Newsom's back, apparently, seems like part of a plan. Was there something important that happened on Saturday, in between, that would give Trump a better excuse for sending them in?
Here's another link to a PolitiFact article discussing the timeline of events:
https://www.politifact.com/article/2025/jun/09/national-guard-LA-protests-timeline-newsom-Trump/
EDIT: from the Politifact article above:
"Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a Newsom spokesperson, told PolitiFact the National Guard deployed June 8 between 2 and 4 a.m. PDT, which is 5 to 7 a.m. EDT. "
June 8 was Sunday.
What Trump did was unconstitutional and unlawful. Impeachment. Abuse of power
Thank you for revealing this view. I knew this is the case because I have been reading about each step. It is just fuel for need to free ourselves from him!
Suppose you have a bathtub with a leaky plug. You need to put a plug in that works, instead of the one that leaks. But you'd be ill-advised to wrench the leaky one out before you knew exactly what plug you would put in the hole in its place.
"Mr Trump needs to go" is not an answer. He can easily be replaced by someone who'll do exactly the same. Your bathtub is leaky - it's not the plug that needs replacing, it's the whole bathtub.
I saw a comment made during the kabuki show with Musk, stating we should get Krasnov out and replace him with Vance. My reaction was “NO”. Vance is definitely not the plug. Neither is the Speaker of the House. I don’t know WHAT we’re going to do!
I really don't know what Mr Vance is. But he's turning the vice-presidency into something more than just waiting for the president to die, which is otherwise what his office entails. Let's say he's a bit more of an organ-grinder than the monkey the VP is generally meant to be.
There is talk in some parts that Mr Vance may at some point wish to expedite his contingency function's deployment. There are even some who say there's a precedent for that (https://endlesschain.substack.com/p/on-the-american-vice-presidency).
Hmm. Wouldn’t put it past him. I often wondered what was going through his head during the height of the Krasnov-Musk bromance.
How long before he changes the name ‘National Guard’ to a force for ‘State Security’ = SS!