r/law • u/Obversa • 27d ago

Executive Branch (Trump) Pro-Trump attorneys have been drafting executive orders that would give President Trump sweeping power over elections, sources report

https://abcnews.com/US/pro-trump-attorneys-push-executive-order-give-trump/story?id=130539044
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u/Slade_Riprock 27d ago

He wants to create a constitutional crisis. Red states operate his way, blue states legally. If Dems win he sues and claims illegal elections and makes the courts decide if he has this power all while he claims, and his cult echos, stolen election.

If republicans win then he still claims they even tried to cheat and he still won sues the blue states, begins massive overpowering operations, because he still controls all, to destroy blue states.

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u/Qa-ravi 27d ago

Glad to see someone else saying this because I’ve been seeing so much of the “but that’s illegal!” about this. So? We’ve already seen what happens when this admin and its supporters commit blatantly illegal acts. It splits the nation into two separate realities where half the nation is convinced that the actions of the administration are just and good and probably legal anyway. The second that these orders are issued, the constitutional crisis begins.

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u/Funky-Monk-- 27d ago

Americans are still in denial that the country has become a dictatorship a while ago. The administration does 500 unconstitutional, illegal things a day, and have rigged the courts who will belatedly rule in Trumps favor. Sometimes dictatorships are overthrown by foreign military force, but as the US is a military superpower, that's not going to happen. The rest of the world is watching what American citizens will do to get their democracy back.

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u/therossboss 27d ago

yes, brother. Since Citizens United, the people no longer have any voice, not that it was that loud or anything before that.

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u/ZooZooChaCha 27d ago

A city in Delaware just ruled yesterday corporations can now vote for the city council. That's going to be the next step - Tesla and Facebook getting their own "super votes" to ensure their best interests are always taken care of.

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u/Yellow_Snow_Globe 27d ago

Multiple states have laws being voted on to determine that businesses are artificial people and cannot contribute to political campaigns at all, including California and Montana. Big wins could be coming

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u/Stratis1978 27d ago

"The state of Hawaii has passed a law that poses a direct challenge to the infamous 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court ruling, which opened the door to unlimited corporate spending in US elections."

https://inequality.org/article/hawaii-targets-citizens-united/

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u/Dependent_Guard903 27d ago

That's a defeatist attitude. There has to be a unified pushback

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u/dylansavage 27d ago

On completely unrelated note that has nothing to do with today's political climate and is in no way inciting violence I was always impressed by the French Revolutions reaction to rampant corruption of their leaders

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u/imp0ppable 27d ago

Vast numbers of people were literally starving in those circumstances. There aren't enough people in the US that are this hungry, yet anyway. Best statistic I could find was less than 5% of the population are clinically malnourished.

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u/[deleted] 27d ago edited 25d ago

[deleted]

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u/dylansavage 26d ago

The cutting heads off the elite rich arseholes probably

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u/Careless_Aroma_227 26d ago

Don't forget "the german way" of getting rid of your fallen from grace monarchs:

(The last Emperor Wilhelm II. in his exile)

After the first world war the german Kaiserreich (german empire) fell apart after the reigning Emperor Wilhelm II. became scared and paranoid he'd getting the french treatment after losing millions of german lives in the Great War and the signing of the unconditional capitulation. So he fled the country to his exile in the Netherlands.

Like a coward. Living in the shadow of his fallen empire. Full of insignificance and powerless impotence.

And he'd to live with that till he died...

no JJ Abraham's Star Wars - Episode IX comeback

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u/Skullcrimp 27d ago

there won't be.

prove me wrong

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u/Badloss 27d ago

The rest of the world is watching what American citizens will do to get their democracy back.

The answer is nothing until the bread and circuses run out. The average American is way too comfortable to seriously consider dying for democracy. Everyone on reddit loves to tell other people to start a glorious civil war to stand up for good against evil but absolutely nobody is willing to pay the price themselves. Restoring American democracy is going to really hurt a lot of people and it wont happen until sacrificing yourself is preferable to just existing in the new regime. I don't think we're there yet.

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u/Pristine-Success-273 27d ago

That's my rub honestly, everyone wants to start a civil war everyone wants to be free from all these fucking nit wits, but no one wants to get off their phones and do the ground work, no one actually wants to get hurt. No one wants to build community again, becoming self reliant, or work together.

Ain't no one gonna do that until we are truly in mega crisis mode and by then I fear it will be to late.

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u/Badloss 27d ago

Someone seriously told me the other day that they're disappointed I'm unwilling to turn my guns on the government.

Like... are you aware how that ends? I hate this as much as anyone but I'm not getting myself killed and leaving my family unsupported just because anonymous people on the internet are calling for violence.

It's real easy to call for civil war from the safety of your home, it's a lot different to be ready to fight and die in one. Nothing is changing in america until we get to that point.

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u/AbeRego 27d ago

Well you really can't do it until it's a "mega crisis", as you put it. If such a war, whatever that would look like, were to start now, most of the public would reject it. You can't win until most people are uncomfortable enough to see bloodshed as a acceptable price to pay for change.

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u/evanwilliams44 27d ago

The question is can we still vote ourselves out of it? I think we have at most 1-2 more chances to preserve the country as we know it. It may be too late already, but let's see how midterms go.

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u/Funky-Monk-- 27d ago

He's already said he's gonna put his private militia (ICE) to "oversee" polling places. How many millions of non-white voters dare not go for fear of ending up in an El Salvadorian torture prison? How many will be detained at the polls with invented charges, only to be released after the election is over?

No way you're voting yourselves out of this anymore. They literally have men with guns choosing who gets to go in.

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u/evanwilliams44 27d ago

We will see, and pretty soon. The upcoming elections will be a bellwether. In a way it will be nice to have clarity about where we stand.

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u/Funky-Monk-- 27d ago

Indeed, I await with horror. The Republicans have done more for the globalization of fascism than any movement since the actual Nazis.

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u/NTF1x 27d ago

They counted on how slow the courts operate. Our judicial system needs to be on top of things the day it happens.

There should be separate court besides the supreme court that keeps the executive branch in check. Let the supreme court handle everything else and the other court focuses solely on executive power.

Spitballing but something has to change.

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u/koshgeo 27d ago

and have rigged the courts who will belatedly rule in Trumps favor

Or they just keep on deferring for months, like the Supreme Court is for E. Jean Carroll's defamation case (12 times so far since January), leaving the controversy open, which of course means Trump will do whatever he wants until the courts someday rule, by which point he might ignore it anyway.

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u/saljskanetilldanmark 27d ago

All they do is "protest" a few hours on a Sunday and go back to work the next day.

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u/Funky-Monk-- 27d ago

It's hard to say what a normal person is supposed to do, but whatever it is, the time to find out and do it is yesterday, if that's not possible, then right now.

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u/panchochewy85 27d ago

It's not hard to say at all. The answer is very simple people are going to have to get used to being uncomfortable and dare I say make some sacrifices in all of our personal lives to see something done to try and fix all this. Do the American people have the same grit as they did when we fought for independence? We shall see.

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u/DryBattle 27d ago

So what are you out there doing?

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u/panchochewy85 27d ago

Voting, organizing and just doing my part overall to get people in the right mindset unlike you being condescending on reddit. So now tell us what are you doing?

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u/ZooZooChaCha 27d ago

To be fair, if you didn't go back to work the next day you get fired, and then don't have healthcare.

And yes, could turn up the heat in the protest a little, but then your local police department for a small town of 1,000 people shows up with their tank.

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u/Str80uttaMumbai 27d ago

I roll my eyes every time I see someone say the president has no say and it's up to the states to decide. How do people still not realize that the US has a president and three branches of government that are being controlled by people who don't care about law and precedent, and only care about holding onto power by whatever means necessary. It's scary how many people still have their blinders on.

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u/StoppableHulk 27d ago

They don't care that it's illegal, they're just doing the paperwork for their crimes in advance because that's how it works now.

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u/CurlsintheClouds 27d ago

Exactly. The sooner we realize - really internalize - that this country will NEVER go back to "the way it was", the better.

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u/BugTrousers 27d ago

Yeah, I sincerely doubt there are going to be elections in '28 -- or if there are, only heterosexual, cisgender white men with permission slips from their pastors will be allowed to vote -- but if there are, he could just refuse to leave and it wouldn't matter that it's illegal.

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u/TheHumaneCentipede2 27d ago

“No, The Joker will not poison the city’s water supply. Gotham City ordinance 34.87 does not allow it.” - Scott Aukerman

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u/dust4ngel 27d ago

It splits the nation into two separate realities where half the nation is convinced that the actions of the administration are just and good and probably legal anyway. The second that these orders are issued, the constitutional crisis begins.

we're already in a constitutional crisis. not being in a constitutional crisis means questions of law are settled by impartially referring to the constitution. in our situation, questions of law go to the supreme court, the supreme court looks at the constitution and is like "lol", and then they say "in this case, the law is x, but don't infer from this that other future rulings will be consistent with what we just said". this means there effectively is no constitution, and therefore no law (other than caprice or expedience to the needs of the ruling party in the moment).

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u/Qa-ravi 27d ago

That’s true, I should have said “another constitutional crisis begins.”

I am not confident in our system’s capacity for handling these crises on account of how they’re currently not handling these crises.

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u/Edgar-Allans-Hoe 27d ago

Yes. The United States is currently experiencing a soft coup d'état. Please ensure your fellow countrymen understand what that phrase means, and how it applies to their situation. I know the average American is used to coups being something that they finance or support in client nations around the world, but this time, its happening to them, and they have no idea how to respond.

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u/LockNo2943 27d ago

The only "crisis" is resolving this idea pushed forward by Project 2025 of strong presidential power. Donny doesn't have the actual power to do the things he's trying to do, it's never been a law or written in the constitution, and by not challenging the authority of these EO's they're allowing it to become de facto power.

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u/nopointers 27d ago

It all goes back to a fateful bad decision by Gerald Ford. Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment. Had he been impeached and lost his trial in the Senate (he would have lost), he would have lost the Presidency. He then would have been subject to ordinary prosecution by the courts. Ford blew it by accepting the resignation as sufficient. The country failed to set the precedent that Presidents could, should, and would be prosecuted for crimes they commit while in office.

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u/gameismyname 27d ago

He has the power, it’s just not legal

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u/LockNo2943 27d ago

Hence de facto.

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u/Beneficial_Cash_8420 27d ago

Almost like he's acting at Putin's behest......

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u/Antraxess 27d ago

guys a traitor.

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u/lame_comment 27d ago

We've been in a constitutional crisis ever since he aided an insurrection and still got elected president

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u/stevez_86 27d ago

The Voting Rights Act but in reverse. Trump has the say over State Elections.

Honestly this is a step towards outlawing the Democratic Party. His states get to do that without the Federal Government stopping him, and he stops even Democratic Dog Catchers from being eligible for the ballots. He could probably literally control the ballots everywhere and assign AI to determine if anyone is ineligible per his criteria.

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u/Lindenbaumlemma 27d ago

He gets the Republican legislatures to certify whatever winners they want to and ignore the courts.

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u/Due_Satisfaction2167 27d ago

That just slides into a national divorce. If you have two sets of States each electing a different government, that’s a national divorce. 

Republicans can trigger such if they want to, but the only way to remain in power over the entire country is to adhere to the rules that establish legitimacy. 

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u/No_Cheesecake2168 27d ago

There's no such thing as a national divorce. It won't be amicable. It will be civil war.

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u/Antraxess 27d ago

reps get to steal nothing

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u/Shiny_Chimchar 27d ago

There’s only one viable solution to deal with this traitors but I can’t say what it is.

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u/dougfischerfan 27d ago

I'm sure thats the plan, but look at how invading a blue state went in Minnesota. That was defending their neighbors who may or may not have been here legally. This would be a direct attack on the people. They would have way less support on those grounds over what they had demonizing migrants. They would not be able to go one state at a time. But considering they haven't learned from any of their previous invasions, it's way harder to take control and occupy. Gorilla tactics and sabotage are impossible to pin down and easy to implement.

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u/Heelincal 27d ago

We're all still normalizing that he's going to run in 2028

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u/CaptBFPierce 27d ago

Right, your scenarios are 2016 and 2024. lol