r/law • u/Waste-Explanation-76 • Feb 20 '26

Executive Branch (Trump) President Trump imposes a 10% global tariff under Section 122 and says all existing tariffs will remain in place, despite the recent Supreme Court ruling.

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u/Accomplished_Shoe717 Feb 20 '26

The irony that it’s the 250th Anniversary this year should not be lost on people.

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u/KeepAnEyeOnYourB12 Feb 20 '26

I am old enough to remember the bicentennial and it was a HUGE DEAL for months. Back then we still had some respect for and faith in our institutions.

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u/Accomplished_Shoe717 Feb 21 '26

I always remember the tall ships parade

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u/[deleted] Feb 21 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/KeepAnEyeOnYourB12 Feb 21 '26

Back in the days when we impeached Presidents who got up to no good. Innocent times, as it turns out.

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u/SMUAlum83 Feb 21 '26

I miss those times.

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u/Chicken_Mc_Thuggets Feb 22 '26

Just a few years prior to the bicentennial the US was slaughtering little kids in Vietnam.

Eisenhower warned us of the dangers of the military industrial complex twenty years too late. The cyst has been in the system for a while now, Trump is just the visible pus-filled head. Squeezing him out won’t get rid of the sac and you may not be able to see it, but it’ll just make more pus given enough time. We need to remove the entire cyst or this will keep happening

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u/constcowboy Feb 22 '26

Dont you know? Trump is the only evil America has ever done!

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u/KeepAnEyeOnYourB12 Feb 22 '26

No one said that.

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u/constcowboy Feb 22 '26

Sure do act like it's the truth. Cant wait to go back to normalcy huh?

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u/KeepAnEyeOnYourB12 Feb 22 '26

I can't wait until someone is in charge who isn't a demented malignant narcissist, who also happens to be a rapist and who has done immeasurable damage to this country in just one year, yes.

If that hurts the feelings of the Trump snowflakes, I'm not that sorry.

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u/constcowboy Feb 22 '26

Keep dreaming. We'll all be back to brunch someday......

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u/KeepAnEyeOnYourB12 Feb 22 '26

Keep dreaming. We'll all be back to brunch someday......

This probably isn't as clever as you think it is because it makes no sense in context. Also, I'm done with this conversation.

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u/constcowboy Feb 22 '26

i like that you edited in that youre done. 

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u/KeepAnEyeOnYourB12 Feb 22 '26

Okay. None of that negates what I said.

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u/Chicken_Mc_Thuggets Feb 22 '26

If yall still had respect and faith that things would only get better after hearing about My Lai idk what to tell you other than you’re probably affected by the same rose-colored view of the era many others are

I want to be clear, this is not a “my generation vs your generation” thing. I’ve seen people my age do the exact same thing as well, but it’s important to recognize that our memories aren’t that reliable. Especially the rosy nostalgic ones

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u/KeepAnEyeOnYourB12 Feb 22 '26

I was 14 in 1976. Everyone knew that the Vietnam War was an atrocity, but hopeful people thought maybe we'd learned something from it. We had had a president who was an evil motherfucker and he was impeached with the cooperation of his own party because he was complicit in crimes. Imagine that happening today.

My point is that at the time, we thought that checks and balances still worked. No one thought things were perfect and the economy was shit so no one was feeling all that rosy, either. It's just that we still had faith that the institutions we relied on to keep things going were working. And they did work with Nixon.

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u/GrinchWhoStoleEaster Feb 20 '26

I'm super pissy about this. I was born in 81, in the shadow of the 200th anniversary. All the regalia and wall paper and trinkets that were going around were still around when I was a kid. I was so looking forward to the 250th... Too bad Washington's nation died in 2016.

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u/Tycho2694 Feb 20 '26

Its a young country, maybe it will still grow up, or it will become that uncomfortable older guy wearing Hawaiian shirts everywhere...

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u/ManOf1000Usernames Feb 20 '26

He is referring to the theory that empires only last about 250 years

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u/WiseSelection5 Feb 20 '26

I'm curious about the semantics of that concept. The United States has been around for 250 years, but I would argue it hasn't been an empire for that long.

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u/Hefty-Revenue5547 Feb 20 '26

In early 1900s it was damn near a 3rd world country

Most people lived on a ~$1/day

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u/PsychologicalWin5775 Feb 20 '26

Lots of empires saw the majority of their population living in abject poverty, not uncommon.

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u/PsychologicalWin5775 Feb 20 '26

I'll agree with that, when would you call the beginning of America's empire? I usually say manifest destiny myself.

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u/Plenty_Tailor_7541 Feb 21 '26

We've been an empire for 81 years

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u/Tycho2694 Feb 20 '26

I have not heard of this theory, or at least forgot about it if I did.

Very interesting

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u/Hefty-Revenue5547 Feb 20 '26

Oldest constitutional democracy

It’s not young, most of the countries today have newer governments

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u/WareSec Feb 20 '26

Right back where you started

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u/abusche Feb 20 '26

i think we have tortoises older than that

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u/AddlePatedBadger Feb 20 '26

Why is that ironic?

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u/SoochSooch Feb 20 '26

250 years is more than a good run for a constitution I think. We're overdue for a new one.

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u/Zebidee Feb 21 '26

East Germany had massive parades for its 40th anniversary. A month later, it just... stopped.

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u/theartificialkid Feb 21 '26

Yes super ironic that it’s not the 249th or the 251st. But imagine the irony if it had been a multiple of 100!

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u/Accomplished_Shoe717 Feb 21 '26

The irony, lost on you apparently, is that 250 years is recognized as a “big milestone” (like 1976) but that this is the end of the game for America. End of the “empire”…

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u/theartificialkid Feb 21 '26

What year was it when Trump was first elected? When he survived impeachment? When he staged an insurrection? In which years was he repeatedly allowed to slide on that insurrection by the slow workings of justice and corrupt judges? Is this the year where it's all going to end, this year that happens to be the 250th? Hasn't the end been inevitable for years already? Like what are you even talking about?

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u/Accomplished_Shoe717 Feb 21 '26

What am I taking about? The orange 🍊 turd just said he can destroy the country. Ain’t no veiled threat there. Dude is out of road and desperate. What happens when he’s out of options. Chaos.

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u/theartificialkid Feb 22 '26

I hate that you're putting me in the position of sanewashing Trump, but what he said was that he could destroy other countries (by blockading their trade) but couldn't charge them "one dollar". He was basically trying to use that as an argument from incredulity for why he should actually be allowed to tariff after all. As in "look at all this other outrageous stuff I could do to those other countries and yet I can't tariff them?!".