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Gail Wynand posted:What do you think that CIA report leak is? Whoever put that out there is taking a major risk. Everyone involved in that report is going to be fired once Trump takes office and the leaker will face an Espionage Act prosecution if discovered. I wouldn't put it above Trump to charge the NYT as a corporate entity, and the editors/reporters personally, under the Espionage Act as well. The same thing is going to happen to the same people that sold us in 03 about weapons of mass destruction. Zip.
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Dec 12, 2016 23:03
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Main Paineframe posted:"Deep state" has a lot of meanings, all of which boil down to "the shadowy conspiracy that a) secretly controls the country from the shadows regardless of who the nominal leader is, or b) is secretly responsible for all dissent against our country's glorious leader and is constantly scheming to undermine or overthrow our great government". It's basically a genericized conspiracy theory. In places like Egypt or Turkey, it generally holds meaning B, while in the US it usually is used for meaning A. Pointing out that even liberal democracies contain undemocratic elements that are capable of independent action outside of the control of that nation's leaders is not a conspiracy theory.
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Dec 12, 2016 23:06
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Main Paineframe posted:"Deep state" has a lot of meanings, all of which boil down to "the shadowy conspiracy that a) secretly controls the country from the shadows regardless of who the nominal leader is, or b) is secretly responsible for all dissent against our country's glorious leader and is constantly scheming to undermine or overthrow our great government". It's basically a genericized conspiracy theory. In places like Egypt or Turkey, it generally holds meaning B, while in the US it usually is used for meaning A. That's a simplistic and moronic view. Mike Lofgren wrote an excellent book on this, here's an excerpt: http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/ quote:My analysis of this phenomenon is not an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day. Nor can this other government be accurately termed an “establishment.” All complex societies have an establishment, a social network committed to its own enrichment and perpetuation. In terms of its scope, financial resources and sheer global reach, the American hybrid state, the Deep State, is in a class by itself. That said, it is neither omniscient nor invincible. The institution is not so much sinister (although it has highly sinister aspects) as it is relentlessly well entrenched. Far from being invincible, its failures, such as those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, are routine enough that it is only the Deep State’s protectiveness towards its higher-ranking personnel that allows them to escape the consequences of their frequent ineptitude.
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Dec 12, 2016 23:07
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Rent-A-Cop posted:LOL. With what army? The Marine Corps would be running the state within 24 hours.
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Dec 12, 2016 23:19
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Thug Lessons posted:Pointing out that even liberal democracies contain undemocratic elements that are capable of independent action outside of the control of that nation's leaders is not a conspiracy theory. Of course they do. Claiming that those undemocratic elements are secretly colluding in a largely-unknown shadow government that controls everything in the country, on the other hand, is absolutely a conspiracy theory. tekz posted:That's a simplistic and moronic view. Mike Lofgren wrote an excellent book on this, here's an excerpt: http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/ For example, this link. This is Conspiracy Theory 101. He points to basically every entity with any political influence at all, both inside and outside the government...and mishmashes them together into a "secret and unaccountable Deep State", which has been in complete and utter control of government to the point where it basically is the government, except when a heroic Tea Partier talks about maybe perhaps considering rolling back a law, at which point the Deep State teeters on the edge of complete destruction at the hands of those brave radicals rebelling against the evils of political consensus (which he compares to Marxism). It's one thing to say that the military-industrial complex has too much influence; it's another thing entirely to assert that "terror" is actually a secret code word used by Congressional leadership to pass along voting orders from their shadowy masters.
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Dec 12, 2016 23:45
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Main Paineframe posted:Of course they do. Claiming that those undemocratic elements are secretly colluding in a largely-unknown shadow government that controls everything in the country, on the other hand, is absolutely a conspiracy theory. You're taking the things that quote is saying and rephrasing them to sound crazy, along with inserting various claims he's not actually making.
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Dec 12, 2016 23:47
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Main Paineframe posted:Of course they do. Claiming that those undemocratic elements are secretly colluding in a largely-unknown shadow government that controls everything in the country, on the other hand, is absolutely a conspiracy theory. Have you ever posted in good faith in your life?
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Dec 12, 2016 23:48
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Grognan posted:The same thing is going to happen to the same people that sold us in 03 about weapons of mass destruction. Zip.
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Dec 13, 2016 00:25
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Gail Wynand posted:You're assuming that the normal rules still apply. They don't. It would be folly to assume that everyone in the IC will stand idly by as Trump's Gleichschaltung happens. Sure the FBI is in Trump's pocket but I doubt the CIA, NSA, and State intelligence among others are on board. Let's also remember the CIA has a huge special forces arm. Why would this be any different from any of the other times Presidents have poo poo all over the Constitution?
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Dec 13, 2016 00:30
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Main Paineframe posted:Why would this be any different from any of the other times Presidents have poo poo all over the Constitution?
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Dec 13, 2016 00:43
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Your question is too abstract. You need to at least have some idea what kind of circumstances have arisen that could create even the slightest prospect of such a scenario. In the last century there are arguably two times when a coup was even remotely conceivable, and they were both such extreme scenarios that they should give you a good idea of how unlikely such an event is. The Cuban missile crisis and the end-game of Nixon's impeachment. So that's roughly the kind of situation you'd have to be looking for: Trump is engaged in a military standoff with another nuclear armed power and a significant part of the military beleives his actions are creating an existential threat. Or Trump is facing impeachment but refuses to resign and is possibly even exploring options to hold onto power through the military (there have been some claims that Nixon may have briefly considered this). Since this thread is already deep into tinfoil hat territory it's worth pointing out that some of Nixon's aids have argued, not without a certain plausibility, that Watergate was an invisible coup against Nixon. Given that the CIA and FBI were implicated in both the break-in and the leaks that destroyed Nixon it's not a bad model to look at. A direct coup against a President would generate a catastrophic blow-back, not just domestically but internationally as well. But debilitating an administration from within through leaks and investigations from the internal security forces might achieve similar results without the massive risk of destabilizing the country.
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Dec 13, 2016 01:02
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Your scenario of debilitating leaks is the most likely one assuming Trump doesn't attempt a purge. I could see an attempt at his own personal Night of the Long Knives (with fewer corpses and more arrests/firings) triggering a coup. Conway has already suggested a purge of the IC is planned. All Trump has to do is fire every civilian DoD/IC employee in a management pay grade who isn't 100% politically reliable, and arrest the ones he has even slightly incriminating material on to send a message. Yes, there are civil service protections, but they are looser the higher you go up the ladder and as the President he can override most of them. He'll want to do it fast, overnight on a Saturday on a winter holiday weekend is best. Or better yet, at 4am Inauguration morning.
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Dec 13, 2016 02:05
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Gail Wynand posted:Your scenario of debilitating leaks is the most likely one assuming Trump doesn't attempt a purge. I could see an attempt at his own personal Night of the Long Knives (with fewer corpses and more arrests/firings) triggering a coup. Conway has already suggested a purge of the IC is planned. you keep assuming trump is competent
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Dec 13, 2016 04:52
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Mycroft Holmes posted:you keep assuming trump is competent
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Dec 13, 2016 06:15
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Gail Wynand posted:Because what we're likely to see will go well beyond what we saw even in WW2. And there's no world war on. Have you considered chilling the gently caress out and perhaps not snorting the farts of liberal media that is frantically voiding their bowels because what they thought was inevitable was simply a misconception? Like I know Jenkem is a hell of a drug but you don't need to ignite it when you breath in.
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Dec 13, 2016 07:01
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Grognan posted:Have you considered chilling the gently caress out and perhaps not snorting the farts of liberal media that is frantically voiding their bowels because what they thought was inevitable was simply a misconception? So far he's played out the authoritarian seizure of power playbook to a T. He's stacked his cabinet with fascist ideologues (Sessions), right wing business elites (Tillerson et al), and prominent generals, exactly what you would want to do to buy off factions whose support will be critical for a successful seizure of power. Thinking "it can't happen here" is exactly how it ends up happening.
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Dec 13, 2016 07:13
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Gail Wynand posted:I'm afraid the time for chilling out has passed, hey if he's just incompetent and corrupt I'll be thrilled but there's enough evidence to the contrary that people are justified in freaking the gently caress out. I hope you can find some comfort in your delusion, and I hope you find a way out sometime. I mean have you even worked out how the death camps are going to work? poo poo is hard to actually do, yo.
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Dec 13, 2016 07:17
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Grognan posted:I hope you can find some comfort in your delusion, and I hope you find a way out sometime.
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Dec 13, 2016 07:25
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It's almost like there's a continuum between garden variety authoritarianism and death camps. I personally don't think death camps are on the table. Concentration camps for migrants though? Absolutely. Australia's already got them.
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Dec 13, 2016 07:25
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Gail Wynand posted:Your scenario of debilitating leaks is the most likely one assuming Trump doesn't attempt a purge. I could see an attempt at his own personal Night of the Long Knives (with fewer corpses and more arrests/firings) triggering a coup. Conway has already suggested a purge of the IC is planned. In order to fire people who aren't politically reliable, he has to be able to reliably identify people who aren't politically reliable, and the lower you go the more difficult this gets, especially when you're seen as hostile towards the agency or undermining the agency. And arrests? It's not like Trump has a folder full of blackmail material on intelligence officials, and he can't very well order them to investigate themselves. The problem with the "debilitating leaks" scenario is that it assumes there's anything they could leak that could damage his legitimacy any more than the stuff he already does openly with no attempt to hide it. Unless they catch him personally murdering someone on video, I don't think anything would really stick - and even then, he might get away with it depending on the skin color and socioeconomic status of the victim. Donald Trump isn't going to destroy our democracy. He doesn't need to. He's not going to undermine the military or the intel agencies, because they're not a serious threat to him - they might push back against specific policies, but they won't take overt action against his entire presidency.
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Dec 13, 2016 17:15
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Mycroft Holmes posted:you keep assuming trump is competent I'm sure Trump just bumbled backwards from his part-time reality show career into the Presidency 90s goofball comedy style A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Dec 13, 2016 |
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Dec 13, 2016 18:40
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:I'm sure Trump just bumbled backwards from his part-time reality show career into the Presidency 90s goofball comedy style
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Dec 13, 2016 18:45
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Rent-A-Cop posted:He must be simultaneously the dumbest man alive and a fascist hyper-genius or else it means Hilary was a poo poo candidate and democrats were wrong and neither of those things can possibly be true. he's goign to purge the military industrial complex like Hitler would, but the opposite way by assuming everyone's loyalty until they prove themselves guilty so that nobody actually winds up fired. Wildcard, bitches!
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Dec 13, 2016 19:07
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:I'm sure Trump just bumbled backwards from his part-time reality show career into the Presidency 90s goofball comedy style it's just....watching and listening to everything trump said and did this election doesn't speak to his competence. It speaks to how poo poo the democrats were.
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Dec 13, 2016 19:38
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I for one enjoy Clancy chat so that's my preface to this. There's varying degrees that Trump could be outed. If Trump seriously got so damaging, like shooting war with china damaging that even the republicans got cold feet, they would either use the 25th amendment or impeach depending on what kind of dirt they had on him. If the republican congress has gone full cool aid and wants a shooting war with China, yet the MIC isn't super keen on it things could go assassination ala your most paranoid Kennedy conspiracy theories, think praetorian guard curing the emperor of his madness or just blackmail of Trump or the administration (no loving way a hidden camera couldn't put him behind bars for decades). An actual tanks on Pennsylvania avenue coup is absolutely never going to happen because if the previously mentioned ideas aren't viable tanks sure as hell aren't either.
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Dec 13, 2016 19:57
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:he's goign to purge the military industrial complex like Hitler would, but the opposite way by assuming everyone's loyalty until they prove themselves guilty so that nobody actually winds up fired. Wildcard, bitches! If he hatchets that bloated feed lot that is DoD procurement he'll probably save more lives overseas than Barack "I trust the CIA to drone this wedding" Obama.
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Dec 13, 2016 19:59
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I think the real danger of a Trump presidency is not that he has entered government with a blueprint for establishing a fascist dictatorship, but rather the question of how he might react to a severe crisis. We're all trained by movies and comic books and other media to think that government takeovers happen when an evil genius takes power and enacts a brilliant master-plan they've been crafting for many years. The much more plausible and frightening scenario is that the goobers Trump surrounds himself with have a series of improvised reactions to some unanticipated crisis which have the side-effect of seriously damaging America's already frayed democratic institutions. The most sinister thing that the Republicans have probably entered office planning to do is to appoint justices, change finance laws, and enable voter suppression measures that will help their party hold onto power for longer without expanding beyond its shrinking base of white support. Again, chances are this is less of a master-plan and more a series of improvised or reactive responses to a deteriorating situation. This might become even more urgent if their policy agenda blows up in their face, as it's likely to do. The result wouldn't be a coup or takeover, it'd just be a severe weakening of already existing institutions and maybe the creation of some new anti-democratic institutions. This kind of death by a thousand cuts scenario seems far more likely than a violent seizure of power.
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Dec 13, 2016 20:01
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Main Paineframe posted:In order to fire people who aren't politically reliable, he has to be able to reliably identify people who aren't politically reliable, and the lower you go the more difficult this gets, especially when you're seen as hostile towards the agency or undermining the agency. And arrests? It's not like Trump has a folder full of blackmail material on intelligence officials, and he can't very well order them to investigate themselves. Yeah, this is about where I'm at. At most, I could see a series of Snowden-style whistle-blowers from individuals in the intelligence community that get promptly snatched and buried in the criminal justice system.
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Dec 13, 2016 20:02
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DeathSandwich posted:Yeah, this is about where I'm at. At most, I could see a series of Snowden-style whistle-blowers from individuals in the intelligence community that get promptly snatched and buried in the criminal justice system. I think public opinion will have a lot to say when it comes to whether or not democratic norms get smashed in the next 4 years in some kind of new flexing of power to stop Trump. If Trump is sitting at a 20% approval rating and an 80% intensely disapprove rating (unrealistic I know), the more likely a coup that stops an obviously terrible action by Trump seems. If Trump started tweeting out right now that he's going to bomb China day one in office, people would get real creative to stop him from getting there. If it's just the slow decline in civil liberties and expectations that government do something other than loot public infrastructure and resources , we'll probably just tolerate it. Now what gets real interesting and much more plausible is what happens if Trump loses and doesn't concede in 2020? He's already willing to claim millions of illegal votes without even being president. Can he appoint enough people in enough positions of high power to declare himself the winner, official election results be damned?
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Dec 13, 2016 20:08
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DeathSandwich posted:Yeah, this is about where I'm at. At most, I could see a series of Snowden-style whistle-blowers from individuals in the intelligence community that get promptly snatched and buried in the criminal justice system. I expect Trump will expand on his predecessors' policies at least slightly, albeit possibly still in a less authoritarian direction than a Clinton presidency or a hypothetical third Obama term might have
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Dec 13, 2016 20:20
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deathbysnusnu posted:I think public opinion will have a lot to say when it comes to whether or not democratic norms get smashed in the next 4 years in some kind of new flexing of power to stop Trump. If Trump is sitting at a 20% approval rating and an 80% intensely disapprove rating (unrealistic I know), the more likely a coup that stops an obviously terrible action by Trump seems. If Trump started tweeting out right now that he's going to bomb China day one in office, people would get real creative to stop him from getting there. If it's just the slow decline in civil liberties and expectations that government do something other than loot public infrastructure and resources , we'll probably just tolerate it. 20% approval isn't unrealistic at all - Truman, Nixon, Carter, and both Bushes all got within a few points of that. Notice that coups typically did not happen as a result. If he loses and alleges voter fraud, no one - not even his own appointees - will buy it. No one's going to stick their necks out for the sake of a candidate who can't even rig the polls properly. Look at the NC governor's race for an example of how that goes.
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Dec 13, 2016 20:28
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Main Paineframe posted:20% approval isn't unrealistic at all - Truman, Nixon, Carter, and both Bushes all got within a few points of that. Notice that coups typically did not happen as a result. The approval rate won't be what causes a coup. It's what might make it possible under the right set of circumstances. If 80% of the country hates Trump, and he's being unambiguous about self inflicting some massive wound to the country like a shooting war with China, it may be way more plausible for enough people in non partisan power to say gently caress the constitution I'm saving the country. If 40% of the country is still riding on the Trump train, even if Trump goes full bomb China mode there simply won't be enough cover to stop him. Trump's got 4 years to stack the government with toadies. I'm not saying this absolutely will happen, but every month he gets away with moving political norms to ever greater and more extreme levels is a month where post truth reality can set in. I never in my life time thought we would have a president who would openly float the idea of putting his own children in high levels of power, yet here we are with zero pushback. It's hard to suddenly take a principled stand when you sold your soul by bits and pieces over and over again sunk cost fallacy style.
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Dec 13, 2016 20:59
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I'm 100% thrilled at the idea of the US armed forces gunning down secessionist Californians. Seriously wet dream stuff. Please do it CA. I give them 2 weeks tops, less if the 4G signal goes out in the first few days. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 13, 2016 21:16
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mobby_6kl posted:What's more likely is a group of pissed off republicans (and democrats) working behind the scenes to get Trump impeached. There really shouldn't be a problem digging up some worthwhile charges what with his broad conflict of interest which is explicitly forbidden in the constitution. This still wouldn't be that great because Pence and his insane cabinet picks would be still there. And I'm not aware of any process that would remove the whole administration and trigger new elections. I would actually prefer Pence, because he's a predictable politician and isn't constantly working to normalize insanity.
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Dec 13, 2016 21:23
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Actually the US intelligence community leads do not seem to like Trump. From what I hear, he does not take debriefings as seriously as they'd like and went on a rant once about "how could [they] really know anything?". Not that US intelligence is the deep state or could even be capable of being such at the moment, the NSA and CIA aren't what they used to be
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Dec 14, 2016 04:49
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The CIA is not what it used to be in terms of subtle covert action but it is waaaay more than it used to be in terms of actual kinetic warfare. Anyway, here's another point. If people in the CIA and military really believe that Putin has installed Trump in power aren't they honor bound to try to coup him? And no we will never have tanks in Pennsylvania Avenue. Even in third world coups the tanks are pure symbolism, they almost never get actually used. If you need to seriously use 'em, your coup failed, go to jail, do not collect $200.
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Dec 14, 2016 05:17
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Gail Wynand posted:Anyway, here's another point. If people in the CIA and military really believe that Putin has installed Trump in power aren't they honor bound to try to coup him? No, of course not. Whatever meddling may have happened, Trump is the legally-elected president, and everybody knew about his poorly-concealed Russian ties when they voted for him. If he wants to change US foreign policy and cozy up to our rivals and enemies, it's his right as president, just like how Obama didn't get couped by the CIA for signing the Iran deal or normalizing relations with Cuba.
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Dec 14, 2016 16:36
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MattD1zzl3 posted:I'm 100% thrilled at the idea of the US armed forces gunning down secessionist Californians. Seriously wet dream stuff. Please do it CA. loving seriously. Do any of you have any idea how much "flyover country" that composes most of the military would love to dunk all over those snooty know-it-all deep blue staters? Oh my god the Marine Corps is coming to San Francisco to stop us from leaving! Someone call out the 1st Poetry Slam Division! Get the Mobile App Command on the horn!
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Dec 14, 2016 17:54
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This poster loves police brutality, but only when its against minorities!
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DeusExMachinima posted:loving seriously. Do any of you have any idea how much "flyover country" that composes most of the military would love to dunk all over those snooty know-it-all deep blue staters? Oh my god the Marine Corps is coming to San Francisco to stop us from leaving! Someone call out the 1st Poetry Slam Division! Get the Mobile App Command on the horn! tbh San Francisco would probably make them miss Mosul, the beaches were worse but way fewer street shitters there
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Dec 14, 2016 18:15
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I think it's cool there are a bunch of people here who would murder Californians if given the opportunity because their state is rich and successful and disagrees with them politically.
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Dec 14, 2016 19:46
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