US Elections: Children of the Revolution

[The Marquis de Leech]

9 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Just a question.. what happens in the event of a Military Coup in the US? Could that ever happen if Trump gets elected??

"Are you dealing with a military coup? We're here to help.

If you're in Chile, Turkey, or Greece, please press 1.

If you're in the Soviet Union, please press 2.

If you're in the United States of America, please press 3.

Please hold while we transfer you.

[Insert Ride of the Valkyries theme music]

Sorry. All our operators are busy right now. Please hold.

[Continue with Ride of the Valkyries]

Hello, military coup advice hotline. Those guys in tanks and dark glasses make the rules.

Goodbye."

[TheKitttenGuard]

13 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Just a question.. what happens in the event of a Military Coup in the US? Could that ever happen if Trump gets elected??

 Trump will not antagonize the military since he is not a dumb man.

The whole matter a few weeks ago with Trump, torture, and the unlawful orders was some theater.  Though, the military as Savior I found to be another sign of our decaying democracy.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

A military coup in the US would be extremely difficult to pull off.  We are too big and too decentralized for a top down coup to be successful.  At best it would be put down pretty quickly and normal law restored in short order.  At worst it ends up in a civil war with coup supporters fighting coup opponents from among the US military and various states falling to one side or the other.

[Fez]

2 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

"Are you dealing with a military coup? We're here to help.

If you're in Chile, Turkey, or Greece, please press 1.

If you're in the Soviet Union, please press 2.

If you're in the United States of America, please press 3.

Please hold while we transfer you.

[Insert Ride of the Valkyries theme music]

Sorry. All our operators are busy right now. Please hold.

[Continue with Ride of the Valkyries]

Hello, military coup advice hotline. Those guys in tanks and dark glasses make the rules.

Goodbye."

When I was in grad school I got to read a book from a retired general about how one would go about implementing a military coup in the United States. It was interesting reading. The problem was, it was written in the 1960s, so all the strategies for cutting off communications are completely outdated. And without the ability to cut off political leadership and the various military commands from the rest of the military, a coup just isn't feasible. You'd need far too many soldiers in on the conspiracy and you'd get caught long before anything happened.

Whereas back in the '60s all you needed was a few well-placed battalions, some technical expertise, a bit of luck, and a well-respected retired political leader to be the face of your new government. And of course, you'd need an impetus for the population to accept the coup, which means there needs to be an ongoing disaster of some sort that the civilian government is not properly addressing.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

1 minute ago, TheKitttenGuard said:

 Trump will not antagonize the military since he is not a dumb man.

The whole matter a few weeks ago with Trump, torture, and the unlawful orders was some theater.  Though, the military as Savior I found to be another sign of our decaying democracy.

I was joking really, there is zero chance of it happening. But if you look at any number of countries right now, there are leaders in power who have to deal with mass protests against their power. Poland for instance has managed to elect a bunch of nutcases and are deeply unpopular among younger voters, hence the huge protests. 

If someone gets into the power but is deeply unsuitable, what do you do. Ride it out for 4-5 years? Theres little chance of an Egypt or Ukraine happening because most of those movements are powered up by foreign money. 

[The Marquis de Leech]

I think the closest analogy is probably the August 1991 Soviet Coup.

The issue there was the sheer incompetence of the organisers in failing to capture Yeltsin beforehand. You really need to round up every last person who could provide a focal point of resistance - which is damn hard in a US setting.

[TrackerNeil]

49 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

In all seriousness though, Cruz scares me more, even though I think he has a smaller chance of being elected, because of that True Believer vibe. If he were elected, it would most likely be with a Republican Congress, which would proceed to enact a severely conservative agenda and which has the chance of getting us embroiled in yet another overseas war.

Agreed. For all his "down with Washington" bluster, Cruz is a party guy, and in the end he will enact the party's agenda.

[Ormond]

45 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I think that the best case scenario of a Trump candidacy is better (for the country) than the best case scenario for a Cruz Presidency.  Because a Cruz presidency + Republican congress is going to do all manner of horrible things, whereas a Trump presidency + Republican congress could quite possibly just be a disorganized mess, where Trump is ineffective, but relatively ineffectual.

However, the worst case scenario for a Trump Presidency is worse than a worst case scenario for a Cruz Presidency.  Because while Cruz hates Congress, he is still bound somewhat by party norms and thus more predictable.  Whereas who the hell knows what Trump would do in the face of crisis. 

The above is about how I think about it. 

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

I think Cruz is just a shittier version of a normal Republican. Trump is something new*, and scarier. He promotes and threatens violence at political rallies. He supports Putin's authoritarianism and the Chinese Communist Party's actions at Tiananmen. He has a fragile ego, and is unwilling to ever let minor slights go or to ever appear to be losing.

 

*well, not really

[ThePrunesThatWasPromised]

28 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I was joking really, there is zero chance of it happening. But if you look at any number of countries right now, there are leaders in power who have to deal with mass protests against their power. Poland for instance has managed to elect a bunch of nutcases and are deeply unpopular among younger voters, hence the huge protests. 

If someone gets into the power but is deeply unsuitable, what do you do. Ride it out for 4-5 years? Theres little chance of an Egypt or Ukraine happening because most of those movements are powered up by foreign money. 

Poland's leadership is far more rational than Germany's.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

Just now, ThePrunesThatWasPromised said:

Poland's leadership is far more rational than Germany's.

In what way?

[ThePrunesThatWasPromised]

Just now, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

In what way?

In the way of not settling millions of undocumented immigrants from a war zone, most of whom are males who don't like the west in their country and paying them not to work.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

8 minutes ago, ThePrunesThatWasPromised said:

In the way of not settling millions of undocumented immigrants from a war zone, most of whom are males who don't like the west in their country and paying them not to work.

Ok, well if you want to talk about that, create a new thread. I wholly disagree with you but whatever.

[Maithanet]

42 minutes ago, Fez said:

Of course, all the California talk is very probably moot anyway. The state awards a massive 475 pledged delegates. However, Clinton currently has a 300+ delegate lead. That'll likely get chipped away by Sanders down to maybe 240 over the next few votes. But then it will ballon out to well over 400+, probably over 450+, after New York on April 19 and the April 26 closed primaries.

Unless Sanders gets to a near draw or better on April 26, I really hope he drops out that night. He almost certainly won't, and he's got more than enough money to keep going if he wants. But if Clinton wins that night, he may literally mathematically not have a path to victory; rather than just being extremely, extremely unlikely to have a path.

I agree with this.  Last night was three favorable states for Sanders, and according to fivethirtyeight, Sanders and Clinton both matched theirs goal for winning the nomination - Sanders won 74, Clinton 57.  That sounds good except that chipping away at Clinton's lead just isn't going to cut it - there aren't enough favorable Sanders states to pull that off.  If he had won Arizona by 10 instead of losing by 15, then you'd have a real case that maybe he is getting real momentum to take over the race.  But minor victories aren't what he needs right now - Clinton got closer to the nomination last night, in spite of losing 17 delegates of her lead. 

As of right now, using fivethirtyeight's totals, Clinton is ahead by 304 pledged delgates, with 53% of delegates voting.  In order to overcome that lead, Sanders would need to win ~ 60% of the remaining delegates.  That is a big big task, but you cannot say it is impossible.  However, if Clinton is still ahead by 300+ delegates after April 26 voting, then at that point 75% of the delegates have been apportioned.  At that point he would need to win 80% of the remaining delegates, assuming a 300 delegate lead.  At that point he should definitely give up the ghost and suspend the campaign.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

59 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

A military coup in the US would be extremely difficult to pull off.  We are too big and too decentralized for a top down coup to be successful.  At best it would be put down pretty quickly and normal law restored in short order.  At worst it ends up in a civil war with coup supporters fighting coup opponents from among the US military and various states falling to one side or the other.

In this unlikely scenario, I think it's far more likely that the military would simply remove the sitting president and install the VP as the new president rather than actually trying to take over the country.

[ThePrunesThatWasPromised]

37 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Ok, well if you want to talk about that, create a new thread. I wholly disagree with you but whatever.

You're the one started talking about coups and Poland, m8.

[Guess who's back]

21 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

In this unlikely scenario, I think it's far more likely that the military would simply remove the sitting president and install the VP as the new president rather than actually trying to take over the country.

You cant do such things and then just go back to democracy. It's not democracy anymore. 

[IheartIheartTesla]

1 hour ago, Fez said:

Unless Sanders gets to a near draw or better on April 26, I really hope he drops out that night. He almost certainly won't, and he's got more than enough money to keep going if he wants. But if Clinton wins that night, he may literally mathematically not have a path to victory; rather than just being extremely, extremely unlikely to have a path. And the tail end of the primary season just stretches out so long, past the time when the party needs to start unifying again. Also, the sooner Clinton can legally convert her various campaign organizations from primary organizations to general election organizations, and start fundraising and spending for the general election, the better.

Actually , due to the wisdom of the Democratic Party, the presence of superdelegates implies there is always a path to victory. Or, put another way, you need 59% of the pledged delegates to go past the post without the need for superdelegates. So far Clinton is on target for that mark, but might end up a little bit short of a majority with just pledged delegates towards the tail end of the primary season.

If there weren't any superdelegates, she might have clinched it much sooner just through mathematics, and there would be literally no reason for Sanders to continue running.

The Republicans may very well end up with a contested convention, so I am not too worried about the fallout from a prolonged primary race.

[Fez]

Nate Cohn's run an analysis (i've only seen it on twitter, so no link) of the remaining states, and estimates that Sanders will get... 47% of the remaining popular vote. Seriously. Its a bit hilarious how often that number pops up.

7 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Actually , due to the wisdom of the Democratic Party, the presence of superdelegates implies there is always a path to victory. Or, put another way, you need 59% of the pledged delegates to go past the post without the need for superdelegates. So far Clinton is on target for that mark, but might end up a little bit short of a majority with just pledged delegates towards the tail end of the primary season.

If there weren't any superdelegates, she might have clinched it much sooner just through mathematics, and there would be literally no reason for Sanders to continue running.

The Republicans may very well end up with a contested convention, so I am not too worried about the fallout from a prolonged primary race.

Okay, yes. I may have misused the term 'literally' since the superdelegates technically could switch. But it'd take some overwhelmingly unlikely for them to if Clinton has a majority of the pledged delegates and a majority of the popular vote. And he may literally not have a path to a majority of the pledged delegates after April 26; barring him getting above 85% of the vote in every state after that.

[Kalbear]

Like I said a while back, Clinton can clinch with the superdelegates she has pledged along with the assumed ones along the way right before the California election, with the Kentucky/Oregon primary. She's on target to hit that with the results she got last night.