You’re wrong. I suspect that’s not an uncommon occurrence for you and that your reaction will be the typical factless rant you people are really known for.

Fascism is all about demonising the ‘other’. It doesn’t care about truth and facts as long as there are enemies, external and internal, to scapegoat. Khelif is just a good boxer. Do you really think Algeria of all places would cover for a transgender female throughout her entire life, from childhood to when she got her Algerian passport that lists her as female through the ‘revelation’ that she was somehow male after beating down a Russian Oligarch’s undefeated prize fighter? No, but since the BS is out there, Reich-Wing authoritarian shitheads are harping on it to further their stupid fears that there are Transgenders EVERYWHERE.

And I agree with the others. This goes beyond opinion to slander. It’s Fascism because in this case, the slander is furthering the idea that transgendered people are somehow evil and wrong and must be opposed by all means … by attacking an Algerian who was assigned female at birth. Fuck off with that bullshit.

This is my worry too. We’ve survived Trump for this long because he’s not half as smart as he thinks he is, nor is he as charismatic, either. But he’s not alone in this. Republicans are chomping at the bit for “Permanent Republican Rule”, and if they have to outlaw Democrats and Democracy to do it, they will. They’re happy in a Banana Republic…as long as they are the ones in control. Which means merely getting rid of Trump isn’t enough. We need a constant campaign to keep Republicans out of office, which the Left isn’t keen on doing because the Left isn’t one unified group, but instead a loose coalition of Scientists, Academicians, Artists, Environmentalists, Civil Rights advocates, and countless other small factions, that are easily played against each other.

Go back and watch Star Wars Episode 3. That’s actually a good description of how a democracy falls to autocracy. The Republicans have been openly dreaming of a “Permanant Republican Majority” since AT LEAST Bush 43’s terms in office. And they’ve been laying the framework since Nixon – a newsentertainment channel that caters to Right-Winger fantasies, judges who put ideology over legality, partisan gerrymandering that concentrates Republican voters for power and dilutes Dem votes into meaninglessness, and political theories that basically advocate for the dismantling of our political systems if that will keep Democrats out of power even if they have a majority.

To answer your questions directly:

Can he do that? Yes. He can. Anyone can.

What would need to happen to convert our system to lifetime terms? There are a variety of ways, but they all boil down to the President doing outright illegal things under cover of a friendly Supreme Court. After all, they granted immunity to ‘official acts’, which we believe is cover for an autocratic takeover of the country.

What would need to happen to convert our system into a dictatorship/monarchy/whatevs? This is just a hypothetical situation. It’s July 2028. Mass incarcerations of Leftists, Immigrants, Muslims, and Minorities have begun and the country is in the throes of a civil war. Polling is reporting that Trump could lose the election, despite disenfranchising the Left’s voting base through various means. Trump announces he’s postponing the 2028 elections 'until things calm down, they have to get much better first before we can have a fair election." People sue. It doesn’t matter what happens in the lower courts, because they’ll appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court. The same 6 Conservative ideologues that said he has immunity for ‘official acts’ will rule that he has the right to suspend the election. And that, my friends, is how Democracy ends, with massive applause from the Alt-Right assholes that Clinton quite rightly fucking called “Deplorable”.

Can Trump actually make either of those happen? Yes. Yes, he can. The framework is already laid out. HK-65 laid it out elsewhere. Essentially, you start by shutting the Other Side out of government. You then take over all the levers of government. Then you set them so you can’t lose. You might need to just waive away the safetyguards that get in your way, and some you might use your lock on government to remove ‘legitimately’. If the 22nd Amendment gets in the way of a Republican dynasty, they’ll have it removed.

TL;DR? Never rely on checks and balances to stop authoritarianism. In the end, the Constitution IS just a piece of paper, and will be run over by authoritarian jerks if that means power.

Don’t forget getting Student Loans to be somewhat affordable. 5% of not just your total income, but your disposable income, accounting for basic cost of living. That actually convinced me to step away from my ongoing education and enter loan repayment. A huge deal considering how much loan debt I have…

Thanks for saying this.

In the late 70s, the Shah of Iran was a posterchild for authoritarianist shitheads. Everyone wanted him gone, from the religious Right to the academic Left and everything in between. A crowd of liberals, professors, businessmen, reactionaries, and mullahs all united to send the Shah packing. When it was all said and done, Iran had an opportunity to form a Muslim Democracy and join the world as a rising star.

Then the Left started arguing with itself. There were the Communists who wanted Glorious Revolution, and the Academics who just wanted a sane system of government, and the moderates who wanted only a LITTLE bit more socialist support for the underserved, and each of those factions split into sub-factions over some little petty policy difference or another. And while they were fighting, the Religious Right came together, unified in the belief that Gawd Himself was on their side, and promptly took over government.

Iran went from a secular dictatorship to a religious dictatorship while the Left argued.

France has shown us that that doesn’t have to happen, by unifying in voting against the Right and settling on one candidate for each district and not letting little distractions get in the way. Unfortunately, despite this win, it shows us that the more things change, the more they stay the same and the various factions of the Left that are unwilling to compromise a single tiny bit and are willing to burn down the house if they don’t get exactly what they want, which might just cause the fall of the coalition that defeated the Hard Right in France and another risk of the rise of a Fascist government. Let’s be like France before the election, and not like France after, if we possibly can?!

Exactly this. I knew all along that if Biden dropped out, it would be going from “I’m in this 100%” to “I’m out for the good of the nation” without anything in between. You can’t do anything but that in politics, because a wishy-washy ‘we’re evaluating what’s best for the country’ would be the death of his campaign, and he’d have no choice besides “I’m out” at that point. Might as well just rip the bandaid off and go straight to “I’m out” without any intermediary steps. Be fully invested until you make the decision you can’t be anymore.

You new to politics?

1000 people vote in 10 districts. Their choices are a Hard-Right party, a Centrist Party, and a Left coalition, representing the Left-Centre, Left, and Hard Left. PS: This is what the French had going on.

Let’s say 373 people wanted the Hard Right party, 269 people wanted the Left-Wing Coalition, 223 wanted the centre, 51 picked a minor libertarian party, 50 picked from a slew of minor parties not on the Right, and 35 picked from other Right-Wing parties.

In a proportional representation system, you’d expect 37.3% of the representatives be from the Hard-Right party, 26.9% from the Left-Wing Coalition, 22.3% from the Centrist party, plus about 14% being from minor parties. But France uses a First Past the Post system and so does our hypothetical nation. So here we go:

Riding 1: 95 people voted Hard Right. 3 vote Centre, and one each vote other Right and Libertarian. Hard Right wins this riding. Riding 2: 90 vote Hard Right, 5 vote Centre, 2 vote Other Right, 1 votes other Non-Right, and two vote Libertarian. Right wins this riding. Riding 3: 85 vote Hard Right, 10 vote Centre, 1 votes Left, 3 vote Other Right, and one votes Libertarian. Winner is Hard Right. Riding 4: 15 vote Hard Right, 65 vote Centre, 10 vote Left, while 2 vote Other Right, 5 vote Other Non-Right, and 3 vote Libertarian. Centre wins. Riding 5: 12 vote Hard Right, 60 vote Centre, 12 vote Left, while 4, 8, and 4 vote for minor parties. Centre wins. Riding 6: 20 each vote Hard Right and Centre, while 3, 4, and 2 vote third parties. Left gets 51 votes and wins the riding. Riding 7: 22 vote Hard Right and 11 vote Centre. 2, 9, and 4 vote Third Party, and Left wins the riding with 52 votes. Riding 8: 15 vote Hard Right and 21 vote Centre. 3, 5, and 5 vote Third Party, and Left wins again, this time with 51 votes. Riding 9: 10 vote Hard Right and 14 vote Centre, while an amazing 8, 10, and 8 votes being sent to the Third Parties. However, Left once again takes the riding with 50 votes. Riding 10: 9 people vote Hard Right, while 14 vote Centre. Another 21 vote Libertarian, with 7 voting minor right-wing third parties, and 7 voting for non-right-wing minor parties. Despite these 50 people likely having more in common with each other than with the Hard Right or the Left, because they couldn’t agree on one candidate to vote for, their votes get split, allowing the Left to win the riding with 42 votes.

End result: 3 Right, 2 Moderate, and a whopping 5 Left. It didn’t go this badly for the non-Left parties in France, but it illustrates how a party with a lower vote share can get more representation in a First Past the Post system. It illustrates why Gerrymandering is bad. If those voters in the first three districts are packed there because some partisan power broker got into the redistricting process, they’ve basically been defanged by political shenanigans. Doubly so if the left-wing coalition managed to spread all their voters out so that they had a solid lock on 5 of the districts.

This is a fundamental problem with FPTP, so that’s why many of us advocate for RCV or Proportional systems.