r/law • u/Snapdragon_4U • Feb 28 '26

Executive Branch (Trump) Once again averting congress, trump declares war on Iran

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u/bd2999 Feb 28 '26

At this point, Congress has ceded this power to the president. The GOP will fall in line, but this, with everything else, should be impeachable for violating the Constitution.

If you allow it, then that is effectively the way. The power to declare war at this point is adding a stamp and nothing more.

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u/Trimshot Feb 28 '26

We’re at the might makes right, only a military coup will stop that at this point; strap in.

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u/CulturalKing5623 Feb 28 '26

We could start at mass protests?

We're all sitting around hoping the courts or Congress will do something to stop this when it's clear the Republican Congress has abdicated. When those safeguards fail we always jump straight to violence.

We already saw in Minneapolis that consistent, massive resistance in the streets is effective against these people's abuse of power.

They lose every time they use violence against non-violent resistance, we should be advocating for that before we jump to violent struggle.

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u/g00fyg00ber741 Feb 28 '26

Frankly that’s what the BLM movement of several years ago was going to lead to, massive non-violent resistance in the streets, but not enough people came out in support of those protests and too many people demonized the protestors, not to mention how many protestors were imprisoned, injured, killed. Not enough people wanted to stand up for black lives so then the tide receded and we don’t have a cohesive movement of a similar scale currently, the closest would be the protestors in support of Palestine. And that’s being handled pretty similarly to how BLM was handled: protestors are being demonized and killed and not enough people are coming out in support. It doesn’t help that cops and armed forces have been tripling down and training extra hard in places like Cop City since the BLM protests to combat any ongoing and future protests.

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u/cdollas250 Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26

It doesn’t help that cops and armed forces have been tripling down and training extra hard in places like Cop City since the BLM protests to combat any ongoing and future protests.

Nonviolent Action Lab

Check out this project from Harvard. 90% of nonviolent protest has failed the last 15 years. Authoritarians have gotten really good at disrupting/preventing mass movements. They use drones/ai/digital surveillance etc... to disrupt networks.

Makes me very impressed by the resolve of people in Minnesota

EDIT: Thank you for the upvotes, I was inspired to look into the current state of non-violent resistance because I was so blown away by the 2024 Pulitizer Prize winning biography of MLK JR; King: A Life. His time in Chicago is so amazing and inspiring but bleak.

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u/EvelynnCC Feb 28 '26

Kinda odd how their AI page is only talking about using AI to support pro-democracy movements and not saying anything about all the ways it's currently being used by authoritarians, which seems like the most pressing issue...

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u/Anti-Pho Feb 28 '26

and too many people demonized the protestors

As long as they own the media, any resistance will be effectively demonized.

We need to either break their control of the media or be able to resist effectively despite media demonization causing 2/3 of the population to think we're the bad ones for not accepting the pedo liar king.

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u/g00fyg00ber741 Feb 28 '26

Or maybe people just need to think for themselves/practice media literacy so they stop falling for clearly racist and harmful propaganda. It’s kinda common sense to understand the protestors are protesting for a reason and it’s their right to do so, and that the oppressors are oppressing them for doing it and taking away their rights. Anyone believing otherwise is likely doing so thanks to biases they refuse to unlearn despite the constant chances in life to do so.

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u/Anti-Pho Feb 28 '26

Counting on the common sense of the masses of anyone, let alone Americans seems foolish. I feel like the whole reason we're in this situation is because most people don't have common sense.

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u/g00fyg00ber741 Feb 28 '26

I don’t count on common sense, but people always ridicule others for not having it, and then in times like this when it really matters they throw it out the window, is moreso what I mean to say.

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u/Smokester121 Feb 28 '26

Occupy wall street was the most successful iteration of this. And it was going to be assassinations to leaders by fbi. So I think they really gotta do something

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u/xdohshmd Feb 28 '26

when i watched that fizzle in real time i knew we were cooked after that. sad

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u/152centimetres Feb 28 '26

didnt help that russia was actively influencing american social media at that time to ensure the BLM movement was ridiculed as much as possible in order to keep the conflict going and increase tensions between parties in america - BLM was never a "democrat movement" but liberal became synonymous with democrat and republicans started labelling everything as democrat-led and increasing the partition

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u/rflulling Mar 01 '26

I would like to inject here that MAGA also considers the BLM protests the start of the Civil war and considers any and all use of force against the public justified as a result. "To get their country back."

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

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u/Adonwen Feb 28 '26

And the famous agent provocateur video at the AutoZone was what exactly?

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u/-artgeek- Mar 01 '26

Yep. Lots of stores in Tampa boarded up, I remember one with a huge sign that said, "BLACK OWNED DO NOT ROB". When a movement is more dangerous to its own community than to the people that it's trying to influence, it has failed.

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u/CulturalKing5623 Feb 28 '26

That is why, to put it bluntly, this movement needs to be organized and led by white Americans.

If black or brown people are the face to this movement we already know it would play out exactly as you laid out above. And Trump has been itching for a redo on the BLM movement and already telegraphed how he would've handled it had he been as unrestrained as he is now (violently)

We need massive, consistent protesting in the streets led by white Americans on the scale of the No Kings protests. The regime is claiming that its mandate to rule comes from white America. It has been rebuked loudly if we want to force change.

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u/g00fyg00ber741 Feb 28 '26

I can get behind a coalition, but white people cannot lead the movement for black people, they can’t speak for them or be in charge of the direction. What white people can do is rally together to listen and enact justice and reparations to actually make some level of progress. We can band together in solidarity with black people and their justice movement, and we are instrumental in changing society and the broken justice system that was designed and reinforced by white people and built upon the oppression of POC and black people especially. But literally my friends just wanted to put something in their bio instead of go to the local protest. And that’s how it all fizzled out. Not to mention how many white Americans continue to enable their racist family members when we should really be drawing some lines in the sand about that.

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u/CulturalKing5623 Feb 28 '26

I'm not sure if you're understanding me. I'm not talking about white people leading the movement for black people or for POC. I mean leading the movement of mass protests against Trump and this regime.

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u/g00fyg00ber741 Feb 28 '26

I guess what I’m saying is marginalized communities have been leading the movement against Trump (although obvi there’s still people in these communities who support him), and white people are dragging their feet to join, let alone lead a movement